A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The Lectionary readings for Trinity Sunday are here.
Today is known as Trinity Sunday, it is every year the Sunday after Pentecost and our entry into ordinary time, the remaining 26 weeks in the annual church calendar until the season of Advent. By ordinary we mean ordered and deliberate: a life – our together life – of intentionality and awareness of God’s presence, our neighbors’ needs, and our impact on others and all of creation with our everyday moments and tasks. Pentecost is our inauguration as The Church, the people of God on earth as in heaven, and the Trinity is the foundation of our communion and community as Jesus Followers.
Attempting to explain the Trinity, how One God comprises Father, Son, and Spirit, has caused a lot of grief and conflict throughout the history of Jesus’ Church. Much ink and much blood has been spilled, missing entirely in our human attempts to “explain” God and our need to be right rather than live in God’s righteousness the true meaning of it all.
One of the more common metaphors for the Trinity is the egg: shell, yolk, and white. And while the egg is a good symbol for life, as a metaphor for the Trinity it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. An egg is destructible and you can separate the parts and as we learned from Humpty Dumpty, you can’t put it back together again. So, the egg is out. And so is the apple, water, clovers, and any other comparison you can find with Google.
Another comparison I’ve heard that I think has some merit is the various roles each of us has in our family units: I am a daughter, mother, and sister all at the same time yet I’m one person. This is close, but my roles aren’t distinct enough to truly reflect the Trinity. And it doesn’t at all take into account Trinity as our ultimate model for community. If I start talking about the daughter me, the mother me, and the sister me working together to accomplish things, I have a bigger issue than trying to understand the biggest mystery of all time and I would need a psychiatrist not a theologian to straighten things out.
When I was in seminary, during a late-night mid-semester study session, we came up with a Boston Cream Donut analogy: cream filling, tender pastry, and chocolate glaze. Yeah. By morning we had realized the error of our ways and said we’d never speak of it again; I’m trusting y’all to keep the secret.
The greatest lesson I’ve received about the Trinity came from a conversation I had with a Greek Orthodox priest. While in Toronto, I discovered this beautiful orthodox-church-which-had-once-been-a-synagogue and when I could find the time, I’d go and just sit in their worship space and pray. I could feel the blessing of years of prayer and worship in this space like a warm safety blanket wrapped around me.
One day the priest came over and asked if he could sit with me and we began to talk. I asked him about the many beautiful icons in the space and in reading one to me that represented the Trinity he said that he didn’t understand why the western church insisted on explaining the Trinity in finite detail. The Trinity is a mystery, he said, a gift that helps to keep us oriented in our relationship with God. Accepting the mystery of the Trinity reminds us that although we are created in the image of God, God is God and we are not.
We are all in this together; we all bring our gifts and skills and talents to the table to nourish the world with God’s love. This is living the mystery of the Trinity in the ordinary moments of our lives. When we convince ourselves that we can explain the Trinity what we are really doing, whether we realize it or not, is shrinking God down so that we can fit God into our human understanding and contain the very power that created us.
Like our friend Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, when we try to fit God into our human brain, we miss out on so many gifts. Nicodemus thought he had it all figured out. He tells Jesus that only God could do the mysterious things Jesus did so he knew that Jesus was from God.
“Well said, Nick!” says Jesus and then he tries to take Nick to the next level, which ironically isn’t more or better knowledge but letting go of the need to explain the holy happenings of God in human terms.
Accepting that Jesus is from God isn’t a piece of knowledge we put in a book and set on a shelf, it is the wisdom that reveals who we are and how we are to live. Jesus says, “Unless we are born from above, we can’t see God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.”
Nick is so sure of his own understanding that he misses what Jesus says. Instead of ‘born from above’ he only hears ‘born’. Instead of letting what Jesus says give him a bigger worldview, he tries to shrink Jesus down to his narrow view. Or as my grandmother used to say, “he’s so heavenly minded, he’s no earthly good.”
And so Jesus tries again, “Not physical birth but spiritual birth, by baptism, a new life in God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, the life I teach and show and live. Keep your eyes on me and you’ll discover this new life, the life you are created to live.”
This is the life given by God the Father, revealed by God the Son, and empowered by God the Spirit. The Trinity.
This mystery provides wisdom for who and whose we are and reveals our ultimate purpose: to be in communion with God and to live in community with each other. The Trinity shows us how we are to pattern our life together: united in love, distinct yet inseparable, all necessary, none greater or lesser, journeying together in The Way.
Our life together is to be grounded in God’s love for each of us and our differences are necessary. It takes each of our gifts and talents and treasures woven together to make the Kingdom complete like a beautiful tapestry.
Our current culture and society tell us that our differences are to be used to divide and separate us. Instead of letting your way of seeing the world expand my view, I must preserve my view and tell you yours is impossibly wrong. But if we aren’t even willing to try and understand each other, why on earth would we think we are able to understand God? As Jesus tells Nicodemus, if we can’t figure out earthly things, why even try with the heavenly stuff?
But when we let the Unity of the Trinity hold us together, our way of seeing widens to see everyone as beloved children of God. Like Nicodemus, we become able to hear the whole message, to really listen, and not just to what fits into our way.
The mystery of the Trinity teaches us that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Letting go of our need to fit God into our understanding doesn’t make us less significant but enables us to see our infinite value in God’s Kingdom. And the more we open ourselves up to each other, the more our understanding of this world grows and together with the Triune God we discover what it is to be a part of the prayer “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.
Mother Nancy's Coffee Thoughts 