Trinity
Sunday
John
3:1-17
What has a
tongue, cannot walk, but gets around a lot?
A shoe. What has rivers with no
water, forests but no trees, and cities with no buildings? A map.
What goes all the way around the world but stays in the corner? A stamp.
Ok, last one, what does 1+1+1=?
One. At least that’s the answer
when you’re talking about God in church on Trinity Sunday. The only Sunday in the Church Year which
celebrates a doctrine rather than an event - which, to be honest, sounds about
as exciting as being invited eat cardboard.
But hang on, it’s really not as bad as that. The doctrine of the Trinity, as you may know,
proclaims that our God is one, yet known to us in three persons: Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. And that sounds so much
like a riddle that brilliant minds throughout the centuries have racked their
brains to come up with an answer with only varying degrees of success.
In our gospel
reading this morning the Pharisee, Nicodemus, is puzzling over his own
religious riddle so he comes to Jesus under the cover of night looking for
answers. “Rabbi,” he says, “we know that
you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you
do apart from the presence of God.…” And
that’s where he leaves it hanging.
Nicodemus really doesn’t pose a question here but what’s implied here is
that this doesn’t make sense. How can
Jesus be from God when he clearly isn’t behaving the way that Nicodemus thinks
God should? Nicodemus wants answers.
And here’s where
if it were possible I’d cue the music from the classic Rolling Stone’s song
that goes, “You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.” And that’s exactly what Nicodemus gets from
Jesus that night. Definitely not what he
wants which is a dry answer to settle a theological question, but instead he
gets what he actually needs, a life-giving offer that has the power to
transform his world. “Very truly, I
tell you,” Jesus says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born
from above." Jesus is casting a
vision of new life through the experience of God as Trinity.
But Nicodemus
resists. He’s looking for answers not
some religious experience. And who can
blame him? Answers settle things. They provide clarity and comfort. And the added bonus is, is when you limit God
solely to the realm of one’s head then that keeps God from meddling in your
life - from blowing like the wind and things can get out of control. That’s the temptation when we speak of the
Trinity. If the Trinity is just some
kind of riddle then all then it’s asking of us is to think long and hard, come
up with some kind of an answer and be done with it. But to the contrary the doctrine of the
Trinity has nothing to do with riddles of the head but everything to do with
relationships of life.
For our one God
is three persons in relationship. Now
know about relationships. We all have
them. Some are full of love and joy and
life. While others are fraught with
struggle and discord and brokenness.
Relationship that is the Trinity is the kind of relationship we were all
intended to have. Relationship that is
marked by love, equality, and openness.
And what’s so great for us is that the Trinity is not a closed
relationship. It’s not something that we
look at from the outside once a year and think wouldn’t that be nice. No, just the opposite. The great love of our Trinity God cannot be
contained. It always spilling out and
flowing beyond the three persons. “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The love that is the Trinity is always
inviting us to join in - always reaching out, connecting us, enfolding us.
And one tangible
way that we share in that overflowing life of Trinity love is through the bread
and the wine we receive here in church.
Talk about something that stirs up a lot of questions with little
concrete answers. But that doesn’t stop
us, does it? We come forward in
community with our hands outstretched not to receive answers but to be a part
of the mystery, to share in relationship with God even when we don’t have words
to explain it.
But the living in
relationship with the Trinity isn’t just for moments in church. It’s for all of life. And here’s one way to open up your life in a
more intentional way to the great love and relationship you have in the
Trinity. Perhaps you recall that I began
this sermon with the words, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.” For me that invocation
does double-duty, serving as both a prayer to God to be at work in what I am
about to say and a reminder to me that God will work and that I can trust in
that. Now what if in our regular lives,
before both weighty and routine things, we invoked the Trinity? What would life look like if we paused and
prayed either silently or aloud, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit,” before starting a project at work, or tucking a child into
bed, or going to the grocery store, or seeing a doctor? All those experiences and more would likely
have a depth of quality about them flowing from the awareness that the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is actually present. Perhaps even God’s strength or wisdom or
peace or patience might be unleashed just by knowing that you are sharing in
the life of the Trinity.
Now it is true
that you don’t always get what you want - things happen or don’t happen in life
and plenty of our questions go unanswered.
But it’s also true that you get what you need. And that’s not just some catchy song lyric
but a promise from God. That’s what
today is all about - knowing, not in our head, but in our lives that through
and with and in the Trinity we always get what we need. Calling this day Trinity Sunday doesn’t do
this good news justice. I prefer another
name the Church has. Today is the Feast
of the Holy Trinity. That’s more like
it. For today we are invited to join in
a feast of life. A feast of love. A feast of belonging and connecting. Of getting what we really need. So come and let us feast this day and every day,
in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment