I have never been lucky enough to pass off preaching on Trinity Sunday to someone else. And I really don't like the expectation that the sermon needs to "explain" the Trinity with some wonderful metaphor. Most metaphors I've heard often lead to arguments over their inherit heresy. And, despite what was taught in my systematic theology class in seminary, I firmly believe the only way to know anything about the nature of the Trinity is to have an experience of it...and to understand that God can manifest as God a Father/Creator...or God the Son/Redeemer.....or God the Holy Spirit/Sustainer. One God can and is all that. What's been your experience?
Trinity Sunday: one of the most exasperating Sundays of
the church lectionary calendar.
It’s not that I don’t like the Trinty. I do.
It’s not that I don’t believe in the Trinity. I do.
But the Trinity…this concept of “God in Three Persons”…
is not actually in the Scriptures in so many words.
There’s no set passage assigned for this Sunday…an old
standard that one can rely upon.
No.
So what the heck do we mean by this God…who is Father…Son…and
Holy Spirit…(or God the Creator…Redeemer…and Sustainer…whichever way you prefer
to look at it)?
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is an understanding
that came out of the minds of early church theologians…
Primarily a man named Tertullian.
He lived during the 2nd Century at a time when
Christianity was facing many pressures from what is called Gnosticism.
There were two schools of Gnosticism: those who believed
Jesus was fully human but not really of God…and those who thought he was not
ever human but more of some sort of ethereal Godly presence who only looked
human.
It took Tertullian… a Latin theologian and Christian author
from Carthage… to declare that God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—were all
co-equal persons of one substance…firmly stating that Jesus was both human and divine.
The Holy Spirit…which… when we look at the book of
Genesis was the wind moving over the waters of chaos…was with God then…and has
always been with God…and was also infused in the body of Jesus.
That doctrine was later accepted by the Council of
Nicea in 325 CE.
And that’s where we have the language that we now know
as the Nicene Creed…and will be reciting as we do every Sunday.
So…there’s your two-minute history of the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity.
That is not end of this sermon.
This is the Sunday in the church year where priests and
deacons…and especially aspiring seminarians…have been called upon to preach a
sermon to “explain” the Holy Trinity.
But honestly, I think that expectation is a clever ego
trap.
I believe that “explaining” the Trinity will only lead
to more confusion as we drive ourselves over the cliff of multiple half-baked
metaphors…attempting to intellectualize it.
For me…the only way to truly understand this idea of One
God being a unified threesome is through our experiences of God showing up in
our lives in three co-equal persons.
God has a way of being a loving parent…and a big
brother…a loyal friend and advocate…and that inner voice or that jolt of energy
that helps us take a stand or hold ourselves together in a crisis.
How God’s multifaceted self is manifested for each of
us may depend upon the time…place and need.
But God is there…has been there…and will keep being
there into the future.
So what is an experience of this God like for us?
Everyone here probably has their own answer to that question.
Certainly one version can be found in the story we heard
this morning from the prophet Isaiah.
The awesomeness of Isaiah’s encounter feels so
overwhelming.
God has no face…none at least that we can see.
The hem of God’s robe is so great it fills the entire
room.
Even the seraphs…winged snake-like creatures…are covering
their eyes…in fear and amazement.
Isaiah…he’s so terrified…
God’s so huge.
He’s so small.
And…in the thinking of his days…humans can’t look at
God and live.
He’s stumbling and bumbling about his unworthiness… when
one of the seraphs…gaining enough composure…takes a hot coal to Isaiah’s lips.
A bit extreme? Yes.
But this is the image of preparing a prophet to quit
trembling.
There’s no more time for nonsense about being unworthy.
God needs Isaiah to go speak some hard truths to his people…truths
they won’t hear or see or understand.
God needs a human mouthpiece…one who can channel a
message of salvation to a nation engaged in what seemed like an insurmountable
war.
We hear God asking…” Whom shall I send and who will go
for us?”
And Isaiah…who only moments earlier was a puddle of
worry and doubt…pipes up:
“Here am I; send me.”
This story is talked about as the “Isaiah Call Story,”
the moment when Isaiah is brought into God’s commission.
It’s one of many call stories we’re familiar with from
the Bible: Moses is beckoned to take off his sandals and stand before a bush
that is burning but is not consumed.
David is simply taking care of sheep and not looking to
lead anything when he gets summoned inside and Samuel hears God say, “That’s
the one! This is the new King of Israel”
My personal favorite is Jonah—the one who does everything…including
getting swallowed by a giant fish…to avoid having to go speak hard truths to
the people of Nineveh. I always enjoy that when the Ninevehites take his
warnings seriously…Jonah’s response is to go off pouting and sulking because he
had wanted God to smite his enemies.
Tough to know that God actually does love the ones we
don’t like.
God seeking us out…calling to us to be the hands…feet…and
voices needed in our world doesn’t always come in such amazing and vivid signs
as what Isaiah experienced.
And our response may not even be as immediate and
confident as to say, “Here I am; send me.”
Sometimes…life is giving us so many challenges that we
cry out, “Abba, Father, help me!”
We turn to God…seeking that parent-like source of
support.
We may find that our relationship with God feels like
an impossible puzzle or a strange maze that we keep wandering and bumping into
walls. A little bit like Nicodemus trying to understand what Jesus was
revealing to him about the nature of God.
It takes some time…but by the end of John’s Gospel…Nicodemus
joined Joseph of Arimathea…revealing himself to be one who had come to
understand Jesus and was ready to take up his own cross and follow.
There’s no telling how the Trinity will show up to
shake us up.
But when it does come into our lives…it does change us…and
open us to see the work of God in the world more broadly.
Our task is to trust and be OK with those changes…giving
ourselves permission to feel some trepidation while knowing that this Holy
Trinity is ready to meet us in that fearful place with the love of a doting father…the
loyalty of a brother-son…and the inner voice of a spirit telling us it’s going
to be OK to say, “Here am I; send me.”
In the name of God…F/S/HS.
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