Trinity Sunday A June
11, 2017
Gen. 1:1-2:3 Ps.33
2 Cor. 13:5-10,11-14 Matt. 28:16-20
What is your relationship to the Trinity today? Do you give equal attention in your thoughts and prayers to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? How much prayer time do you give to God the Father? To Jesus? To the Holy Spirit?
Or how many of you are that concerned about the distinctions? How many of you relate mainly to a benign Higher Power who has touched you enough to make you believe in a higher personality who is disposed toward you in a friendly way?
Do you think that there is a prayer meter in heavenly places which charts the amount of time you personally give to each member of the Trinity?
If we find ourselves thinking and crying, "O God," do we mean a generic monotheistic God or do we imply the Holy Trinity?
If each one of us has a uniquely different relationship to the Holy Trinity, just imagine the different kinds of relationship to the Trinity that people have had for the 2000 years since Jesus?
We encounter the Trinity in the prayers and the liturgies of the church. We confess our belief in the Trinity in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.
In Sunday School and in Confirmation classes we are taught about God as Trinity. We are taught to pray to God the Father, in the name of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We might ponder an historical understanding of the Trinity; how it really didn't become defined as church doctrine until after several centuries. We might talk about the disagreement about the equality and difference of the three members of the Trinity that has been in continual discussion since the time of the early church.
When we study other religions, we note that Christianity is considered with Judaism and Islam to be a monotheistic religion, but the mathematics of one plus one plus one equals one, is not fully appreciated by those who think that the Trinity implies a belief in more than one God.
And because we are worried about losing our monotheistic status, we get very defensive about how God can be One God in Trinity of Persons. And to explain our divine mathematics we usually pull out the ultimate wild card. We say, it's a Mystery. Ignorance is not encouraged except when it comes to Mystery. The most profound thing that can be said about a mystery is, "I don't know or I don't know how to explain it." Ignorance is acceptable when it is a response to Mystery. But can Mystery be an intellectual cop out when we use it too much?
The Mystery of God may be appealing to us because with sheer observation we can appreciate how small we are in the cosmic order. We can appreciate our limited intellects to be able to know or focus upon all causal connections.
Amongst the most important things that have come to human language is the use of language to designate the highest and most superlative value for humanity.
What is the best thing that human language can confess? The reality and the meaning of God. And in the history of all of the words that have been used to speak about the reality and meaning of God, we in the Christianity of the church councils and creeds have come to confess God to be One God in Trinity of persons.
People who limit the use of language to the requirements of science do not see the relevance of a confession about God to a scientific law based upon a method of observation.
I do not think that most scientists discount the significance of the unobservable mood inducing spiritual and ethical effects of art, music, poetry and the language of faith. Scientists only get defensive when people of faith try to reduce language of faith to the scientific language of empirical verification.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit: of the three which one was empirically verified? No one has ever seen the Father, so the Father is not empirically verified. No one has ever seen the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit has never been directly verified.
Jesus, the Son, if we believe the written accounts, is a person who actually lived in human history. Jesus has a distinct and observable human existence.
The beginning of understanding the Trinity is found in the record that we have about the life of Jesus. Jesus is presented as one who called God his Father. Jesus is presented as one who taught his followers to address God as Father. God as being our Father, was not a new metaphor which came to record because of Jesus; God as our Father was known in the Hebrew Scriptures. Obviously the first people who were made in God's image were God's children, the first being Adam and Eve.
The biblical writings are about how men and women, for the most part became alienated from their basic nature of being children of God. God chose a group of people, the people of Israel to teach the law and the recommended behaviors of a restored relationship with God. When God's favor seems to be limited to but a small number of people, then God does not get represented as being available to all.
We have the record of the life of Jesus Christ as a new witness to the accessibility of God. Jesus Christ left such an impressive witness that his followers confessed him to be God's special Son. Jesus left with his followers the tradition of praying to God as his and their Father. Earthly fathers are important in our lives and good fathers can be important mentors, friends and advocates for our lives. Jesus Christ taught us that we should learn to accept God as our Father, the one who originates our spiritual identity. Just as we look to our earthly fathers and mothers for our genetic and family identity, we look to God the Father for the divine image in humanity. It is finding our divine identity which enables us to achieve identity and behaviors worthy of being children of God.
Why then is Jesus as God's Son important? The confession of Jesus as God's Son is an acceptance that God makes a bi-lingual presentation to humanity. In Jesus, God puts the language and nature of God into full human experience, so we have the life of God in human presentation made known to us. If God has taken human identity, then human identity is accepted as a valid way to come to know God. If we can come to know and accept Jesus as God's special son, you and I can come to know ourselves as sons and daughters of God who accept our human experience as a valid way to come to know God. We can come to accept that God is intersecting our lives by placing God-infused purpose in our lives to be discovered and developed into the work and ministry of our lives.
Through the witness of Jesus we have been taught to relate to God as our caring, loving parent. Through the witness of Jesus as God's special Son, we have come to accept ourselves as God's children. But we find ourselves living in a whirlwind of the seeming free play of differences in space and time. Our experience in this world is the freedom for differences to occur in space and time. What is it that can encompass all differences in space and time and allow us to confess a Oneness among the experience of endless diversity?
We have come to confess God's Holy Spirit as the holy omnipresent ground on which we live and move and have our being. In God's Holy Spirit we have the ability to mutually recognize our living and being with other people, the creatures and the world inside of us and outside of us.
We call the Trinity, God in three persons, because we believe that the highest human attribute is personality. Personality is formed through relationship. The secret of human formation is to be a person and a personality within a community of relationships. We believe that the experience of personhood is a gift that comes because God is the inspiring force for personhood. If community among equal persons began in God, we find the origin for discovering and exploring personhood in our lives.
Today, let us accept the fact that we live life toward God as Trinity. We accept that we were generated and came from an Absolute past life. We did not make ourselves; we came from the fullness of a heavenly parent. We accept our heavenly heritage because in knowing Jesus as God's Special Son, we have come to know ourselves as children of God. And even though we are always growing up and changing as children of God, we know our divine family heritage and our identity. And finally, we accept a personal force of life that holds everything together even as everything is always changing. And the creative force of life, in whom we are able to have mutual recognition and the ability to experience as persons having personal continual identity, we confess the invisible and personal Holy Spirit who holds unity in the midst of change.
Today on Trinity Sunday, let us not just look at God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit as official church doctrine, rather, let us be on alert to how the Trinity is impacting our own lives because we have discovered that as personhood means that we belong together with each other, in exploring our own personhood, we can discover that our personhood is inspired by the higher Personhood of God as Heavenly Parent, God as Son and God as Holy Spirit. Amen.
Gen. 1:1-2:3 Ps.33
2 Cor. 13:5-10,11-14 Matt. 28:16-20
What is your relationship to the Trinity today? Do you give equal attention in your thoughts and prayers to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? How much prayer time do you give to God the Father? To Jesus? To the Holy Spirit?
Or how many of you are that concerned about the distinctions? How many of you relate mainly to a benign Higher Power who has touched you enough to make you believe in a higher personality who is disposed toward you in a friendly way?
Do you think that there is a prayer meter in heavenly places which charts the amount of time you personally give to each member of the Trinity?
If we find ourselves thinking and crying, "O God," do we mean a generic monotheistic God or do we imply the Holy Trinity?
If each one of us has a uniquely different relationship to the Holy Trinity, just imagine the different kinds of relationship to the Trinity that people have had for the 2000 years since Jesus?
We encounter the Trinity in the prayers and the liturgies of the church. We confess our belief in the Trinity in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.
In Sunday School and in Confirmation classes we are taught about God as Trinity. We are taught to pray to God the Father, in the name of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We might ponder an historical understanding of the Trinity; how it really didn't become defined as church doctrine until after several centuries. We might talk about the disagreement about the equality and difference of the three members of the Trinity that has been in continual discussion since the time of the early church.
When we study other religions, we note that Christianity is considered with Judaism and Islam to be a monotheistic religion, but the mathematics of one plus one plus one equals one, is not fully appreciated by those who think that the Trinity implies a belief in more than one God.
And because we are worried about losing our monotheistic status, we get very defensive about how God can be One God in Trinity of Persons. And to explain our divine mathematics we usually pull out the ultimate wild card. We say, it's a Mystery. Ignorance is not encouraged except when it comes to Mystery. The most profound thing that can be said about a mystery is, "I don't know or I don't know how to explain it." Ignorance is acceptable when it is a response to Mystery. But can Mystery be an intellectual cop out when we use it too much?
The Mystery of God may be appealing to us because with sheer observation we can appreciate how small we are in the cosmic order. We can appreciate our limited intellects to be able to know or focus upon all causal connections.
Amongst the most important things that have come to human language is the use of language to designate the highest and most superlative value for humanity.
What is the best thing that human language can confess? The reality and the meaning of God. And in the history of all of the words that have been used to speak about the reality and meaning of God, we in the Christianity of the church councils and creeds have come to confess God to be One God in Trinity of persons.
People who limit the use of language to the requirements of science do not see the relevance of a confession about God to a scientific law based upon a method of observation.
I do not think that most scientists discount the significance of the unobservable mood inducing spiritual and ethical effects of art, music, poetry and the language of faith. Scientists only get defensive when people of faith try to reduce language of faith to the scientific language of empirical verification.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit: of the three which one was empirically verified? No one has ever seen the Father, so the Father is not empirically verified. No one has ever seen the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit has never been directly verified.
Jesus, the Son, if we believe the written accounts, is a person who actually lived in human history. Jesus has a distinct and observable human existence.
The beginning of understanding the Trinity is found in the record that we have about the life of Jesus. Jesus is presented as one who called God his Father. Jesus is presented as one who taught his followers to address God as Father. God as being our Father, was not a new metaphor which came to record because of Jesus; God as our Father was known in the Hebrew Scriptures. Obviously the first people who were made in God's image were God's children, the first being Adam and Eve.
The biblical writings are about how men and women, for the most part became alienated from their basic nature of being children of God. God chose a group of people, the people of Israel to teach the law and the recommended behaviors of a restored relationship with God. When God's favor seems to be limited to but a small number of people, then God does not get represented as being available to all.
We have the record of the life of Jesus Christ as a new witness to the accessibility of God. Jesus Christ left such an impressive witness that his followers confessed him to be God's special Son. Jesus left with his followers the tradition of praying to God as his and their Father. Earthly fathers are important in our lives and good fathers can be important mentors, friends and advocates for our lives. Jesus Christ taught us that we should learn to accept God as our Father, the one who originates our spiritual identity. Just as we look to our earthly fathers and mothers for our genetic and family identity, we look to God the Father for the divine image in humanity. It is finding our divine identity which enables us to achieve identity and behaviors worthy of being children of God.
Why then is Jesus as God's Son important? The confession of Jesus as God's Son is an acceptance that God makes a bi-lingual presentation to humanity. In Jesus, God puts the language and nature of God into full human experience, so we have the life of God in human presentation made known to us. If God has taken human identity, then human identity is accepted as a valid way to come to know God. If we can come to know and accept Jesus as God's special son, you and I can come to know ourselves as sons and daughters of God who accept our human experience as a valid way to come to know God. We can come to accept that God is intersecting our lives by placing God-infused purpose in our lives to be discovered and developed into the work and ministry of our lives.
Through the witness of Jesus we have been taught to relate to God as our caring, loving parent. Through the witness of Jesus as God's special Son, we have come to accept ourselves as God's children. But we find ourselves living in a whirlwind of the seeming free play of differences in space and time. Our experience in this world is the freedom for differences to occur in space and time. What is it that can encompass all differences in space and time and allow us to confess a Oneness among the experience of endless diversity?
We have come to confess God's Holy Spirit as the holy omnipresent ground on which we live and move and have our being. In God's Holy Spirit we have the ability to mutually recognize our living and being with other people, the creatures and the world inside of us and outside of us.
We call the Trinity, God in three persons, because we believe that the highest human attribute is personality. Personality is formed through relationship. The secret of human formation is to be a person and a personality within a community of relationships. We believe that the experience of personhood is a gift that comes because God is the inspiring force for personhood. If community among equal persons began in God, we find the origin for discovering and exploring personhood in our lives.
Today, let us accept the fact that we live life toward God as Trinity. We accept that we were generated and came from an Absolute past life. We did not make ourselves; we came from the fullness of a heavenly parent. We accept our heavenly heritage because in knowing Jesus as God's Special Son, we have come to know ourselves as children of God. And even though we are always growing up and changing as children of God, we know our divine family heritage and our identity. And finally, we accept a personal force of life that holds everything together even as everything is always changing. And the creative force of life, in whom we are able to have mutual recognition and the ability to experience as persons having personal continual identity, we confess the invisible and personal Holy Spirit who holds unity in the midst of change.
Today on Trinity Sunday, let us not just look at God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit as official church doctrine, rather, let us be on alert to how the Trinity is impacting our own lives because we have discovered that as personhood means that we belong together with each other, in exploring our own personhood, we can discover that our personhood is inspired by the higher Personhood of God as Heavenly Parent, God as Son and God as Holy Spirit. Amen.
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