Trinity Sunday is perhaps the least favorite of Sundays for most preachers. Certainly it does not top my list of “I can’t wait till that Sunday comes”. But oddly enough most of the churches to which I have belonged have been named Trinity (it is the most popular name for Episcopal churches) so I have run up against the question of what it means to be a Trinitarian a fair amount. Unless you have intentionally taken a course or spent much time reading and studying church history you most likely profess a belief in the Trinity, name the Trinity when making the sign of the cross, but have no clue about where it came from or how it has shaped our faith communities.
Trinitarian theology has its roots in a hot controversy sometime around the 3 century between two theologians from Alexandria Egypt, Arius and Athanasius were their names. They argued essentially whether or not Christ was of the same stuff as God or whether Christ had been created from the stuff of God. Subtle difference. Interestingly the Greek words for the relationship of Christ and God that were at the core of the controversy were different by a single letter. The letter is iota. Now I know why my mother used to tell me that she did not give one iota what the other teenagers were doing I was not going cruising in her car. Athanasius got the upper hand in the argument as he contended that Christ and God were one in the same substance and in the end Arius was declared a heretic. But it was not until 100 years later, after much controversy, several church councils, and a few more heretics that the Nicene Creed that we affirm each Sunday was accepted and the controversy settled. OK so that is a little history that you can thrill your friends with at a party sometime. But I think there is something else that we might consider on this Trinity Sunday besides church history trivia.
In Bible study a few weeks ago, Dale asked me why I sometimes offer different words for those who come to this altar for a blessing. On some occasions, instead of saying in the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I say in the name of God - Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. I told Dale that it had to do with how I am able to more fully understand what it means to pray in the name of the Trinity. The best way I can explain it is with biochemistry. There are two main academic disciplines who are involved in biochemistry, biologists and chemists. Now biologists love to name things. They spend lots of time looking into microscopes and stereoscopes isolating one compound or another. Then when they have something that they believe is unique, they name it. But just because you name something does not mean you understand how it works. Now enter the chemists. I am a chemist! We study those compounds that the biologists have named and we discover how they work and why. That is we look at the relationship of the molecules within the compound and the relationship that particular compound has with other compounds around it. By the same token, if all we do is name the three persons of the Trinity then we have not entered fully into the relationship among the three or discovered the truth of how we might enter into that relationship. But to pray in the name of God who creates us, in the name of God who has redeemed our sins, and in the name of God who moves about and in us as the wind and sustains us throughout our lives is to know more fully how we are in relationship with God, the Three in One. And it is this interrelatedness that I find most compelling about my belief, my faith in the Trinity. So I want to take some time this morning to talk about the implications of a Triune God in our everyday lives.
In our Gospel story Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark of night, the place of misunderstanding and blindness. He comes with questions just as we come to this altar with questions. He comes having seen all of the signs of who Jesus is and wants to – yearns to – know more. Jesus responds to him with a double entendre. He tells him that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above. But Nicodemus does not understand, returning to the womb is not reasonable he says. Nicodemus, like the biologists, seems stuck to the lenses of his microscope. He can only see what is right in front of his face, but Jesus is opening up a new understanding for him. He speaks of a radical new birth, a new creation, one that comes from God; but Nicodemus’ language and imagination cannot reach outside the box sufficiently to grasp the concept.
Jesus speaks to him of the mystery of God’s gift of new life in Christ. He compares it to the wind that blows wherever it wills so that we only fell its effects. The Kingdom, he says, is not some far off place to which we aspire by way of our achievement. It is a vision of what it is to be sought and to be known by God who seeks and desires to be in relationship with us. I am going to say that again because I think it may very well be the most important understanding that this gospel lesson offers. It is the very nature of God, the “how it works” of God to be in relationship. That is why the Trinity is so all important to our understanding of God. Trinity is relationship. Trinity is a relationship of difference that exists as unity, the Three in One. And because God’s nature is to be in relationship, God also seeks us to be in relationship. Each week I invite us to come to this Table – to God’s Table – I invite all who desire to be in relationship with God - all those who seek and all those who yearn to be found. The Good News for Nicodemus and for us is that to be born from above means to receive the reconciling gifts of Grace and Love that are freely offered by God.
For Nicodemus it may just be more than he can comprehend. Jesus is somewhat testy with him. He chastises him for seeing the signs and for hearing the words of the disciples testimony, but for doing so without coming to a place of faith and belief Jesus asks Nicodemus how can he know about the things of God when he cannot see past the nose on his face. We, as the 21st century readers of this gospel, already know the story of how we can know these things of God. We know them through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus himself. But Nicodemus does not have this advantage, and so Jesus tells him of God’s unlimited love, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life”. It is also through God’s gift of redemption that we come to be in relationship with God.
But for me the most intimate knowing of Trinity is in the way God is known to us and in relationship with us through Spirit. The Rev’d Timothy Safford, of Christ Church Phildelphia, draws on a wonderful metaphor to expand on God as Spirit. He says that when St Paul writes, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” We might as well say, “When we resonate with God’s music, it is the very vibrations of the Spirit of God vibrating our spirit, showing us how we are birthed by God, making us children of God.” His metaphor of being in relationship with God as being in harmony, as resonating with God, is the inspiration for a children’s sermon that I am going to offer later to illustrate how we enter into relationship with God by listening for the frequency of God’s vibrations and matching ours to God’s. A single note struck on a tuning fork will cause a second tuning fork to begin to vibrate and to sound if that fork is on the same frequency as the first. That is the principle of tuning a radio also. When we listen carefully and prayerfully for God’s call to us, God’s desire for us, then we move into a place where our desires and our visions are in harmony with God. Yesterday Nancy and I went to an ordination in Boston. Bishop Tom spoke to the new deacons about listening for God’s movement as Spirit in their lives and he told them that when they became despondent or frustrated or just simply lost on the way – that turning back to listen more intentionally to that movement, to listen for the frequency, their ministry would be more effective because it would resonate with the power of God.
God’s intention for us is never to condemn or to alienate. God’s intention for us is pure unadulterated Love. God so loved the world that God gave God’s self so that we all might resonate with that Love. But like Nicodemus, unless we first reach into the darkness of our souls and ask the question of Jesus, what is it that draws me into the presence of God then we will not be about to fully grasp the nature of our relationisip with God. Jesus’ answer to us is the same as it was to Nicodemus, we must open ourselves to the transforming Spirit of God that comes from above. We must be born again, not of flesh and not of our doing, but through Grace. Amen
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