How Can We Name A Love?
John 16: 12-15 Rev. Marianne Niesen May 30, 2010
The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, that great 5th century philosopher and theologian who wanted so much to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine went up to her and asked, "Little child, what are doing?" and she replied, "I am trying to empty the sea into this hole." "How do you think," Augustine asked her, "that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?" To which she replied, " And you, how do you suppose that you, with this your small head, can comprehend the immensity of God?" And, with that, the story goes, the child disappeared.
Today we observe what is called ‘Trinity Sunday.’ Quite frankly, most years, I don’t even mention it - and that story about Augustine summarizes at least part of the reason. Though it is a peculiarly Christian way of understanding God, the doctrine of the Trinity is also one of the most difficult to understand and difficult to explain. Still, though the meaning of the Trinity is a mystery, the process Christians used to develop this understanding of God is not all that mysterious. In the short excerpt we heard from John’s gospel, Jesus spoke of sending the ‘Holy Spirit’ who would guide them into all truth. He spoke of being glorified by the Father, and that all the Father has is his. Earlier in chapter 14, he spoke of the Father being in him and he in the Father. Though the term ‘trinity’ is never used in the Bible, it came to be an important way of understanding the identity of this God who created the world, loved it, lived in it, and who forever continues to love the world and humankind always leading and inspiring us toward an ever expanding future. When pressed to explain exactly how that was possible, intellectual and spiritual conversations probably danced delicately around the issue. Well, God created the world, right? And Jesus called this God Abba - Dad, Father. They were connected, one. And then Jesus - even as he faced death - promised eternal presence - a ‘Spirit’ that is separate and yet one with him. So there is God who is ‘Abba’ and Jesus who is a ‘Son’ and the Spirit who is part of it all. Sounds like three ‘gods’ but it isn’t because there is only one God. A Three-in-One. A ‘Trinity.’
I realize that I’m taking great liberties here. We don’t really know those conversations but we do know how humans are. And we know that when things matter to us, we ponder them and talk about them. Those early believers were no different. They had no body of church law and doctrine ready made and passed on. Jesus said nothing about such things. The Christian movement began as a relationship. That was fundamental. And so, as they began to ponder what it all meant and who they were in relationship to Jesus and to God the Creator and to the empowering spirit that they had experienced, new insights about God emerged. They were drawn through what I believe was the inspiration of the spirit to come to a new understanding that God’s very nature was relational. Eventually, that insight came to be called the "Doctrine of the Trinity.’ This doctrine developed early - we find its concepts in writings as early as the 2nd century. Still, it was not something Jesus or Paul ever taught. It was an attempt by Christians to understand the expansiveness and the intimacy of God as they had come to know God through Jesus.
So, why does this matter? You and I have big worries in our lives. There are national crises like the ever unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or immigration reform. There are local worries like homelessness and drug abuse and poverty. There are church worries like meeting our obligations for our building mortgage in a difficult economy and expanding our ministry in responsible ways. We each have personal worries like job security and health issues. Why not just keep ‘The Trinity’ safely on the proverbial Christian shelf as a doctrine - one we need to know about and believe in as much as we can?
Let me answer that with a story. This really happened last November when Lyle and I were in Cabo San Lucas. It was over the Thanksgiving week. Friends had invited us to join them at their Thanksgiving gathering and, since we had planned for that to be my working-on-sermons-and-worship-planning week, we figured as long as we were able to spend half days working, we could swing it. So we went. The weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful room that had wireless internet access and that allowed me space to spread out and work. I got up early each morning and, in the end, planned worship through the end of July. We would typically join the others for activities together in the late afternoon through the evening. On Tuesday, when we came back from dinner, one of our group - perusing the area near the pool - proclaimed - look’s like the cow and horse are out . . . they must be getting ready for Thanksgiving. The comment brought us up short. I don’t usually think of cows and horses when I get ready for Thanksgiving. Still, sure enough we noticed two life-sized (probably plaster) animals - a cow and horse - standing near the pool, still a bit dusty from storage, but looking very cow-ly and horse-ly nevertheless!
Our friends have been going to this particular timeshare resort for many years now. They told us that initially, the resort did nothing special on Thanksgiving Day. But, gradually, that began to change, probably as their guests - who were mostly folks from the United States - talked about or told them about Thanksgiving. Now, they have a big special Thanksgiving Day buffet, complete with turkey and sweet potatoes and dressing and various salads and even pumpkin and apple pie - as well as many other desserts. And the food was good overall but what really caught me was the decorating - and the cow and the horse were just the beginning. As Thanksgiving Day approached, more things came out . . . big hay bales, a barn, a chicken coop of sorts with fake hens and fake eggs. And then there were the windmills scattered about. Looking one way you could conjure images of the plains of Kansas or Nebraska and, looking another way, there was a decidedly Dutch flavor to things. The windmills just didn’t look at all like something from a wind farm in Montana. When you went down for dinner you entered the table area through the barn like structure that was piled with hay bales on which you found the chickens and fake eggs. You were greeted by servers and hosts and hostesses dressed in shorts and western shirts and cowboy hats. And, of course, all of this is set up on a veranda overlooking the beach, with warm sea breezes blowing in. The evening ends, after all the eating, as all Thanksgivings end . . . with a firework display over the ocean.
Let me review the picture for you . . . Thanksgiving dinner at an open air dining room on the beach, surrounded by a cow, a horse, hay bales, chickens, eggs, windmills, cowboy-hatted servers - and fireworks. Though it was meant to capture a ‘typical US Thanksgiving,’ it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Remember, this is not a holiday in Mexico so this was their best effort to capture what they probably heard their North American visitors talk about. It was incredibly strange - and, at the same time, it was delightfully familiar! It was clear that our hosts wanted this to be special and homelike - and that’s what come through loud and clear. It was a wonderful, celebrative evening and it invited the giving of thanks. The next morning it was all gone. The horse, cow, windmills, chicken coop, cowboy hats - all put away for another year. It had taken them days to set up and then it was over - and yet, it wasn’t. I still remember how delightful it all was and how thanksgiving, will never be quite the same for me again.
At the risk of being too trite or shocking let me suggest that the Christian concept of Trinity is like that. After meeting Jesus, early Christians asked what is God like and the response was we can’t really say but it’s something like this. The Trinity is like the reality of Thanksgiving transformed and made flesh, made real in a whole new way. We have a God who is Creator - the great God of all the Universe, powerful, all knowing, all seeing. But this God is also relational, involved, inspiring, spirited. And this God of ours has a face. The best image we have of who God is and how God is - is found in Jesus. We have a God who gets dirty, gets involved with us, who dares understand our life from the inside. In the end, that’s why the Trinity matters - not as a doctrine - but because it proclaims something amazing about God. God is involved with us and calls us to be involved with one another. God’s nature is to care, to be inside us and to be among us, transforming life as we know it. And that becomes our job as children of God. Since we are made in the image of God, we are ‘trinity-like.’ Made to be as concerned about transforming life on earth for all God’s people as we are about getting to heaven.
As I was working on this sermon, I came across a "Trinity joke" which the person observed could be shared but only if one’s congregation was ‘mature enough’ to understand it. You’ll have to decide if I made the right choice. Here it is.
Jesus said, Who to people say that I am?
And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, or one of the prophets.
And Jesus answered - But who do you say that I am?
Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.
And Jesus, answering, said
what?
The doctrine of the Trinity encompasses whole libraries of words not unlike those you just heard. And certainly theologians need things like that to keep them busy. You and I, however, need to know that this God of ours who is above us is also within us and works through us and knows our life from the inside. Rooted in God’s love, following Jesus and empowered by the spirit, Trinity is how our lives and our limited understandings are transformed into a Thanksgiving feast that can nourish and transform the world - bringing about the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
