"Life
in 3D (no glasses needed)"
John
14:15-21
First
Presbyterian Church
The
Reverend Donald E. Ray
May
30, 2010
Trinity
Sunday
I guess it’s a sign of age when you begin
measuring time past by decades rather than years. It
was actually decades ago that I was in Seminary. I
reminisce because it was during my seminary years that a well known preacher of
that time came to inspire the class of nubees. I
don’t recall his name—I guess that’s a sign of age too, though as we
learned in Saging this past week, not remembering names begins in your 30’s. I
don’t recall much of his sermon either.
What I do remember, including his intonation and
emphasis, was his opening line. “Brothers,
(there weren’t any sisters then, it was that long ago) you have to P’RREACH
the GRRREAT DOCTRINE of the TRINITY.” That
is not an attempted characterization of a television evangelist. That
is what he said and the way he said it.
A couple of years earlier when I was in college,
one of my professors would become more animated and emphatic at points in his
lecture. I assumed at first that
these were really important parts, but then realized, what he was saying
didn’t make a lot of sense to me. After
a couple of times asking questions for clarification, I realized they were
points where he was weak in his own understanding and he was trying to blow it
by the class. That’s the reason I
don’t recall much of that sermon. I
had been conditioned that such emphasis automatically raised question marks. That
sermon, nor a semester long course on the Trinity did much to resolve my
confusion about a doctrine of the trinity.
Religion has a way of formulating the
incomprehensible, the unbelievable, the foreign to our experience and then
expecting acceptance of all that if we are to be counted among the faithful. While
I can agree that person is probably a better image of God than a golden calf, I am
not helped by the church’s creedal era debate about the substance and nature
of God and how the persons of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit can be one.
But more than enough of my biases. When
Tom asked me to take this Sunday, I checked my calendar and put in the date. It
was a few weeks later that I looked at the church calendar and realized I had
agreed to Trinity Sunday. That
Thursday evening, Cindy introduced Brian Wren’s Trinity
Blessings to the choir. Confirming
it to be the anthem for today, I said to Cindy, “You just saved me.”
Sending,
Seeking, Greeting—Gifted, Given, Giving—Binding, Beloved, Loving. Three groupings of
three possibly but not necessarily correlating with Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
simply expanding our vision, our expression of faith experience. I
am not sure there is particular sacredness to three. That
the three dimensions give reality to objects, art, life otherwise flat,
certainly lends the number credibility. Counting
my age in decades, I’m not likely at this point to abandon altogether Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, just any longer the attempt to reconcile one plus one plus
one equaling one.
The language of our faith always lacks the
capability of defining or definitively describing God. Language
merely provides signposts pointing a way among ways. Father, Mother, Creator,
Son, Holy Ghost, Spirit—it’s all straining within the limitations of
language and the faltering of our human models in pursuit of that sense of the
presence of God in life. Trinity is
not as much about words to define meaning as to deepen mystery and invite us
into the expanse of love.
The Old Testament called God I AM. Religious sects
that named God chose Yahweh or Elohe. Father
is the imagery of the Psalmist. The
poet, telling his lies on the way to truth writes:
Sing
to God, sing praises to his name;
Lift
up song to him who rides upon the clouds—
His
name is the Lord—
Be
exultant before him.
Father
of orphans and protector of widows
Is
God in his holy habitation.
God
gives the desolate a home to live in;
He
leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
(Psalm 68:4-6)
I can picture the Psalmist, his own father a man of
integrity, fairness, charity, and love whom he highly respected. So
he brings God, the pillar of fire and smoke, the mountain dweller handing down
commandments carved in stone, the mysterious behind the curtain in the temple
one, down from the clouds, to where God dwells with humanity and all creation in
love and care.
It is the Gospels in the words of Jesus, at least
as translated by a patriarchal power culture, that brings the term Father
into the language of our faith. In
the New Testament, the Father—Son connection as Jesus’ choice of designation
for God is seeded throughout the Gospels. Citing
the father at his best, giving good things, bread not a stone, fish not snake,
to his children, Jesus says, how much more
will the Heavenly Father give. . . (Luke 11:11-13)
In probably the best known of parables, at least in
this congregation, Jesus tells of a father who gave his sons their needed room
to grow. When they both faltered,
one called prodigal, in his disconnect, wasting his livelihood and his life in
the far off; the elder in his failure to disconnect, preferring to think of
himself as a slave than to grow up as a son; the father reached out to both in
grace.
My older son was more wounded by the break-up of
our family than I had realized at the time. In
his anger, he just dropped out of my life. I
had no contact from him for several years. After
much prayer for God to restore that connection, to show me the way to find him
and give me the courage to take the risk of possible rejection by reaching out
to contact him, I was moved as I identify it by Spirit to just trust love. It
was about three months later that Joel called. He
begged for my forgiveness, his shame and regret agonizing for both of us. I
just affirmed my love for him.
I received a birthday card that year on which he
had written this note:
Thank
you for displaying strength and a reverent heart as you waited on God to soften
my heart towards our broken relationship. You
were waiting with open arms and even met me on my way home, just like the father
in Luke 15:20. I see so much how the
earthy father-son relationship is so important in understanding our relationship
with our heavenly Father. Thank you
for trusting Him.
Love,
Joel
May
the binding one unite you. May the
one beloved invite you. May the
loving one delight you.
I had in my mind as I began writing this sermon
that I would redefine Father, Son and Holy Spirit and settle the issue of the
trinity once and for all. But the
one Tom has identified as our unseen partner took it to another turn. Likely
with years of conditioning I will continue Trinitarian expression of my faith. But
I will not be P’RREACHING the GRRREAT DOCTRINE of the TRINITY to define God,
to claim it divinely logical, or insist on belief in the illogical.
Pervading the history and stories of Scripture, the
primary reference to God, is Spirit. I
think that is what John in his Gospel is telling us. As
Jesus talked with his disciples about the One he called Father, Phillip
requested, Show us the Father, and we will
be satisfied. (John 14:8) Jesus
reiterates that the Father is the core of his life. So
long as they focus only on his life, they will only see. The
one he calls Spirit will bring it all to life in them.
Sufficiently beyond the limitations of our
human-like names for God, the parent child, creator-creature imagery, there is
that we call God, the Christ, Spirit that takes us into the realm of that which
brings depth to our experience and fills us with what is true and good and
loving. Not in the comprehension,
the understanding, the glasses with
which we can see happening about us, but the venture of living our life in that
Spirit.
Thank you, Brian Wren, for the dramatic reminder
that when we face the difficult challenges, one sending us does it with a song;
when we flounder, the seeking one locks step with us where we have strayed; when
we drag our selves toward home again we are greeted in gladness and in our
grieving.
You heard the music with its trinity of trinities. It
is in something of the spirit of Jesus’ response to Peter when the disciple
asked if he should forgive seven times. If
we attend to a trinity it is by way of opening to the myriad dimensions in which
we live and move and have our being in God. Be
it the breath of life that gives us our life; be it the love that uplifts us
through each day; be it the hope that enlists us in giving of our best for good;
be it the comfort that eases our fall when our world collapses; be it the love
that takes relationships to whole new levels; be it the mystery that fills us
with excitement and wonder; life is taken beyond the geometric boundaries, the
flat plains we view from a distance, to the vitality and fullness where love and
peace and hope and joy overflow in
our life.
This
is the Spirit of truth . . .You know, because the Spirit abides with you and
will be in you. (John 14:17)
Amen.
Copyright
© 2010 First Presbyterian Church