Readings
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29 or Canticle 13
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
On Sundays like this one I often like to start my sermon with humor, but you know what? There really aren’t a lot of jokes about the Trinity. And the ones that I found weren’t very funny. Maybe that’s because the topic of the Trinity is so serious. More likely, though, it’s just because we don’t get it.
And who could blame anyone for being a bit confused about the Trinity. I know that for most of my life it’s been more than a bit of a mystery. In fact, for much of my spiritual life I thought of the Father as being in heaven, Jesus as being the one on earth, and the Spirit as some kind of other worldly power. It wasn’t uncommon for me to think of them as separate realities. Now when quizzed I would appropriately acknowledge each of them as God. Also, when asked I would affirm that there is only one God. But what I was doing was a kind of double think that didn’t reconcile all my differing and conflicting ideas.
No, for many years the Trinity was a mystery. Something I affirmed, but in no way understood. Then late in my seminary career I was exposed to an idea that has forever changed my understanding of God and, by extension, my understanding of what it means to be a human being.
The radical idea that changed everything is how we understand the basic nature of God. Is God an individual? Does God exist as we do, individually and apart? Or is there something else going on in the nature of God?
You see, if God exists as an individual then we are forced to take one of two stances. Either we affirm that God is one and we are left with Jesus and the Spirit as something less than or other than God. Or we affirm Jesus and the Spirit as God and we are left with three Gods.
Now that’s if we accept the idea of God as an individual. But what if we instead understood the nature of God as being communal? What if the idea of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is about a community of persons who exist as a single reality? This would allow us to affirm that there is only one God, while at the same time affirming Jesus as God, and the Spirit as God.
If that seems a bit confusing, there is a simple but imperfect way of getting at what I’m saying. The current population of the United States is about 328 million people. Now we would never claim that there are 328 million United States, would we? No, but each of us is an American. Each of us is a citizen of the United States. The question is whether we will focus exclusively on our individual identity or our communal one. There is only one United States, but each of us as Americans are an expression of our nation. We are many and yet we are one.
As I said, while this is not a perfect analogy, it gets us to the idea of God existing as community. Each of the persons of the Trinity fully expresses the truth of God, but God cannot be understood apart from all three persons. God is not an individual but a community. The nature of God is to be in relationship – relationship with one another, and ultimately relationship with all of creation.
While we did not hear it this morning, take a moment to recall the story of creation. How God moved over the formless and void and then spoke all of creation into existence. In that story we can find the reality of the Trinity at work. God exists as creator, the creative word spoken, and the Spirit that hovers over the face of the deep. St. Augustine of Hippo expressed this idea in a different way when he said that if we want to understand the Trinity we need only think about a relationship of love. That there is a lover, a beloved, and the love exchanged between them.
So what?!? What difference does this make in our lives? How is this more than just a bit of brain candy? Well, the implications are huge if we stop to think about it.
First off, we are made in the image of God. This means that we are called to be more than individuals. We are made to be part of a community. In fact, we cannot be fully human if we are not actively involved in community with our fellow human beings.
But we are being called to be community in the same way that God is community within God’s self and with us. We are called to be a people of steadfast love and faithfulness. We are called to love in a way that transforms the world into a place of justice, mercy, and genuine care for all.
This means that all of the stuff that Jesus taught about how we are to treat one another wasn’t just him giving us a way of being good. It isn’t just a set of expectations that God is placing on us. It is a call to live fully into the image of God.
We are being called to be agents of peace, justice, and reconciliation in the world today. We are being called to meet the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. We are being called to welcome the stranger and bring in the estranged. We are being called to be a voice for the oppressed and a people who speak truth to power in the face of injustice.
This is more important than ever in light of the world in which we find ourselves. Whether we are talking about racism, economic inequality and greed, or violence in our society, we are daily being reminded that we live in a broken and sinful world in need of God’s redeeming love.
Every time we experience this brokenness people rise up and express their discontent with the status quo. When they do, they are expressing their desire for a different kind of community—one in which everyone will be treated with equity and justice. One in which no one need live in fear for their safety. Such protests express a vision that is congruent with the one we have just discussed of what it is like to live into the community expressed by God.
When we look at such expressions, we can see myriad examples of a different vision of community emerging. Whether it is through donations of food and money to those harmed or medical care and sanctuary for those who are injured, we can see glimpses of the love that is expressed in God.
But, even with such positive signs, the truth is that we are a nation that has become ever increasingly polarized. This is most obvious in terms of politics and prejudice, but also in terms of the economy and even the news we get. In many ways, we have lost sense of our common humanity and are quick to, at best, isolate ourselves from one another. And, at worst, to demonize one another.
But as those who worship God as Trinity, God as a community of persons, we are called to be different, to both embody and proclaim a different way of being with one another. In the face of prejudice and the general polarization of our communities we are called to join in with those who resist the status quo and find our own ways of expressing truth to power. We are being called to break down the systems and patterns of behavior that perpetuate prejudice and the other ways in which we violate the sacred nature of the human family. We are being called to find a common voice, even in the midst of injustice and disagreement. We are being called to love everyone in the same way, and that means that we are also being called to turn the hearts of those who do not love as God loves. We are called to transform both our local and our national community into something different than what it is.
Even if we feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the issues we are facing, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. We can call on one another to keep our relationships alive. We can reach out to the homebound. We can volunteer to help meet the needs of those impoverished or to participate in acts that give voice to the victims of injustice. We can write and call our public leaders and hold them accountable to both the injustice of our system and the needs of all the members of our community. And these behaviors do not have to be huge heroic acts. They can be small and simple as long as they are authentic. Such small actions have huge ripples in the community.
By doing these things we live into the image of God … we live into the Trinity. We come to experience God as community and we have the opportunity to come face to face with God as our Father, God as our Brother, and God as the Love that exists between us.
On this Trinity Sunday, let us take comfort in the God who lives with us in the midst of our relationships. Let us be encouraged to actively be the spirit of community in our world. And let us always be the embodiment of the God whom we love, who loves us, and who is love itself.