A Sermon for Trinity Sunday, Year C

 

In the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

Tucked away in the back of  The Book of Common Prayer among the historical documents of the Church is a text dating from the 5^th or 6^th century known as The Athanasian Creed. [1]  I suspect few of you have ever read it.  In its day, it was meant to define a proper understanding of the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, and it does so in paradoxical and uncompromising language.  Here’s a sample:  

 

 [W]e worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,

neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing  the Substance.

For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one,

the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.

And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.

As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated,

but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. [2]

 

I suspect that what most of us took from hearing this is the old seminarians’ joke about the Athanasian Creed:  The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible –  the whole darn thing incomprehensible!

 

Sadly, that’s often what the Trinity itself has come to mean to Christians  --  an abstract, obscure, incomprehensible way of talking about God that we adhere to because it is enshrined in our Creeds, but which doesn’t seem to connect with our actual experience of God.  

 

That is sad – and a little odd – because the Christian understanding of God as Trinity grew out of the lived experience of God the first Christians had in the wake of  Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost which we celebrated last week.  The Creeds that speak of God as Trinity came later, as Christians tried to find words to describe the Triune God they had experienced – but experience of  God came first.  

 

The first followers of Jesus were, of course, Jews, for whom the Oneness of their God was central  The Shema, Israel’s most foundational prayer, begins like this:  “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” [3]  Surrounded as they had been for millennia by pagans whose many gods were often identified with the forces of Nature, the people of Israel affirmed again and again that the  One God was not part of creation, but the Creator of all, transcendent and majestic.  Not only was their God the Creator of all that is, but their Liberator as well – the Holy One who had freed them from slavery, brought them to the promised land, given them a holy way to live in the Torah, and sent them prophets to call them back to faithfulness when they strayed.  They knew God as the Holy Source of all that is, the One who had made them a people, the One who spoke to them in the midst of history; the One above and beyond any human images.

 

 

Then something very strange happened.  A few Jews in 1^st century Palestine were called from their daily lives by a man in whom, it seemed, God was present right here on this earth.  They followed him and listened as he spoke with an authority beyond that of any priest, prophet or scribe they’d ever heard.  They saw him heal the sick and raise the dead; and the shared his meals with forgiven sinners.  He sent his young followers out to preach and teach as he had – and empowered them to work as he did.  But in the end it all seemed for naught.  In Jerusalem, everything came crashing down with his shameful death on a Roman Cross: a disaster that crushed any of the wild hopes they had had – until he stood before them alive, once again calling them and sending them to take his message of God’s reign to the ends of the earth.  Certainly God was there, right there, in Jesus.

 

And that was not all.  For after Jesus’ death and resurrection, those first Christians experienced God in a third way --  a way so mysterious that they found it hard to talk about.  They spoke of doves and flames and water welling up from within – images of energy, life and power.  They spoke of wind and breath – in Hebrew and in Greek, the word which also means spirit.  They experienced God’s Sprit blowing wherever it willed, a power that would act and move on before it could be caught hold of.  But they experienced this same Spirit also living within their very bodies, sustaining and enlivening them like the breath that goes in and out every moment of life, awake or asleep.  

 

The God of their ancestors they had always known.  They’d met this same God in Jesus – their companion and teacher in the flesh who had shown and taught them much that was new. 

 And now this self-same God was living within them as wind, as breath, as Spirit.

 

Moreover, this Spirit within was a living connection to the other Two.  Through the Spirit living in them they found a new closeness to the creating, liberating God of their ancestors.  The Spirit also helped them hear Jesus continuing to teach, lead and guide them.  As John put it in today’s Gospel:  Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you…When the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide you into all the truth; … taking what is mine and declaring it to you.” [4]

 

And remarkably, mysteriously, maybe even incomprehensibly, the Three were not just Three, but also One.  The Christian understanding of God as Trinity began to take shape in the lived experience of these first disciples.

 

That lived experience of the Trinity continues to this day.  Indeed, that experience is there in each of our lives, whether we’re aware of it or not --  and we can begin to discover it if we pay attention to how God is present in and among us.  To give an example, I will tell you a bit about my experienced sense of God as Trinity.  I do so not because it is special or worthy of imitation – its not -- but simply because it is what I know best.  I am confident that with reflection, you, also, can identify the presence of the Triune God in your life – and that is what matters, especially since each of us will experience the Triune God in different ways.  

 

Here’s some of how that happens for me.  I know the Creator God, the Source of all that is, less as One above in heaven and more as an ocean beneath.  In prayer, I sometimes find myself imaging this incomprehensible God as a vast, silent, mysterious depth of life and love, the Source of my life and the One in whom I can rest and find re-creation and freedom.  

 

Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, is the One who speaks to me – nudging, urging, calling loving, forgiving.  I hear the Word through words of  Scripture that take sudden relevance to my life; through poetry, novels and even sermons that illumine, challenge or comfort; through people who tell me things I need to know – and sometimes don’t want to hear. 

I know the Spirit in those moments when something that was mysterious  mysteriously becomes clear; when intuition and insight emerge from within and I recognize connection and meaning I hadn’t previously known; when I realize what it is I should say or do – sometimes, at first, without even knowing why.  And mysteriously, incomprehensibly, these three forms in which I encounter God are one and the same God, loving, calling, guiding me in a coherent way – if I make myself available, pay attention, ask for help and respond.  

 

As I said a few minutes ago, I am confident that with reflection, you, too, can identify the presence of the Triune God in your own life --  in ways that probably will be quite different from mine.  So in closing, here are a few questions for your reflection that I hope will help you recognize the ways of the Triune God in your life.

 

When have you sensed that Something or Someone vastly bigger than you loomed near, overshadowed, undergirded or thundered over you?  Has the vastness of the sky or the depth of the ocean or the majesty of mountains or silence or childbirth or lovemaking or music or worship moved you to some awareness of the Source of life and Fountain of mercy?  How has the God from whom all blessings flow blessed you, healed you, loved you, set you free, filled you with wonder?  Questions such as these will help you find your experiences of the Holy One, the transcendent First Person of the Trinity.  

 

To recognize the presence of the Word made Flesh in your life, consider questions like these that follow:  Who has been the human face of God to you, revealing a love, a compassion, a beauty you’d not known before? When and through what means have you found yourself addressed by a Word who speaks with authority; a Voice that declares love, calls you to account, offers you forgiveness, gives direction, teaches or guides you?  Where and through whom have you found a companion on life’s journey, a support in need, a sharer of sufferings, a healer of wounds  -- a source of strength and giver of new life without whom the dark places of life would have been intolerable?  

 

Last, but not least – for the Three are all equal! – are questions of the Spirit.  In some act of creativity, large or small, have you ever felt in your body a sense of being alive; a physical delight, a column of energy within you? When have you been surprised by a sudden insight or new vision or been given  unexpected words to speak?  When have you found strength or energy within that you didn’t know you had in you?  When have you been filled with joy or inspired to serve?  These are the places that the Spirit has been breathing in you.

 

These questions, of course, are not all that could be asked.  The ways of the Trinity with each of us are rich beyond my capacity to know or name. But I hope they will be for you a place to start reflecting on how you experience the Holy Trinity in your own life.  And if, as you reflect, you encounter something mysterious, maybe even incomprehensible, that may be a blessing.  For you will be dealing with nothing less than the holy mystery of  your own life and the Holy Trinity’s life with you.

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni, May 30, 2010