TRINITY SUNDAY - Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20 -

18 May 2008 - A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

How I Experience God As Trinity

 

INTRODUCTION - Oh, great...

 

I come back after missing last week and it is Trinity Sunday, that Sunday they warned us about in seminary. “There are probably more heresies preached on Trinity Sunday than at any other time of the church year...” I remember some words to that effect. How can God be three, and also one? Shall we just say right off the bat that there is some mystery involved here? But then again, anything we say about God is just an approximation. When we finite beings try to say something about the Infinite One, well... we’re bound to come up short. But speak we must, because these encounters we have had are real, even if they are mysterious.

 

After the week - or, more accurately - the six roller-coaster weeks that Julia and I have had, I poured over the readings and thought to myself, “Am I going to dive into the Creation Story from Genesis 1? Shall I do a sermon on how our nation needs to get back to observing the sabbath, which I believe would change us and change our world? If God rested and enjoyed creation and all the creatures he had made, why can’t we rest and enjoy God and his creation and each other?” As much as I want to give that sermon, what came to me was that God was calling me to talk about how I experience God as One, yet also as Trinity. So here comes my heresy...

 

GOD THE FATHER

“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” (From the Nicene Creed, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 358)

 

I believe in and experience God as Father. Sometimes I experience God as Mother. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. God is not about gender to me. God is a force, a spirit, a being, an essence - The Essence, if you will. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in that wonderful encounter at Jacob’s well, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24) When we get bogged down in the gender of God, we miss the point. We are hindered by the limits of our language, not to mention our tendency to make God in our own image.

 

It works better for me when we talk about the first person of the Trinity as Creator - “maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” When I step out into my backyard at night, or stand outside my tent at night during a summer backpacking trip, and look up at the stars... when I hike up into the mountains and reach a high valley, and huge mountains practically surround me, and I see the reflection of the sky in an alpine tarn... when I see one of those images from space of our earth... then I am apt to say with the Psalmist, “What is man that you should be mindful of him? The son of man that you should seek him out?” (Psalm 8:4)

 

This is the transcendent God, the God who was before all and is above all, who is different from all the created order. This God reminds me that I am quite small and vulnerable, that life is fragile, and yet, quite holy. For God looks on all that He has created and says, “This is good. This is very good.”

 

It is also true, though, that I experience the first person of the Trinity as the imminent God, the one who is not just “out there”, but also the one who is “right here”. This is the God who makes covenants, who keeps His promises, who invites whole groups of people to be in relationship with Him, who invites me to be in relationship with Him. This God, this Spirit, this Force - is a personal God. He is not just transcendent and remote. He seeks to be known by those He has created. He cares about his creation.

 

I think this is where the parental images for God begin to work for me, the images of God as Father and Mother. This God is the One who loves me in ways that my parents never could. He/She affirms me in ways that my parents never could. He/She holds me, and upholds me, in ways that my parents never could. And just as my parents challenged me and wanted the best for me, this God does that, too. This God listens... and speaks. I hear this God saying to me, “Good, Pete. But keep going. Keep being open. There is more to be learned - always more - especially about love.”

 

What else can I tell you about my experience of the first person of the Trinity? Maybe this sums it up. I’m “not right” when I push God out of my life. I’m not alive. I’m empty, I’m restless, I’m alone; I’m lost without God. And then I come to my senses all over again, and say, “Oh, yeah. What was I thinking, God? I’m lost without you. I’m restless without you. I’m really nothing without you. I need you. I must stay connected to you, or I perish. You are my lifeline.”

 

GOD THE SON

 

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God...” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 358)

 

The second person of the Trinity does have gender for me, because He took on human flesh, and lived among us, and gave up his life for us, that we all might have life, and have it in a totally new, abundant, and everlasting way. He was born and named Jesus. Christ is not his last name. Christ is his earned title - Messiah - the one who bridges the gap between us and God. The unique one, for He is the only one who we see as fully God and fully human. Another mystery.

 

I experience this One as Lord, meaning that He has the ultimate call on my life. He, and He alone, has my allegiance in a way that no person and no entity does. Not my parents, not my spouse, not my children, not my bishop, not my country or its President, not my spiritual mentors or best friends - these are all important to me. But I will never call any of them Lord.

 

Only Jesus is my Lord. Why? I think it comes down to the life he lived, the life he gave up, and the life that God the Father gave him back. At one point, after looking at what he said and how he lived, I threw my lot in with him and said, “This is my ultimate role model. This is what it means to love. This is what it looks like when someone is fully open to God and the power of God to bring new life and ongoing transformation. I see that in the life of Jesus, and I hear his call to his first disciples to “follow me” as a call upon my own life. And, perhaps most importantly, whenever I have been responsive to that call, and truly followed Him, I have not been disappointed. I have found life. Not only that, I have found community among others, like you, who have responded to that same call.

 

After Julia and I got over the initial round of shock of her cancer diagnosis (and I’m not sure we’re fully out from under the “shock cloud” yet), we began to pray together. Truth be told, we began to pray more frequently together than we had been. We invited others to pray with us. Many of you, in faith, were already praying before we ever asked you to pray. Part of what Julia and I prayed was that God would reveal to us what we are to be learning through all of this. Some of that learning has already begun. Not underestimating the power of committed Christians who are praying is one of those learnings. There are others, and more still to come.

 

What does it mean when you hear the word “cancer” and you believe in One who says, “Follow me”? I think partly what it means is that - once again - you throw in your lot with the One who has always been there for you before, and who promises to be with us “to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20). How much does the risen Jesus know about cancer? I don’t know. (Probably a lot.) But this much I think I know. He knows everything there is to know about being faithful and trusting God during the worst of times. I know that - we know that - because we know his story.

 

One of the things that Julia was given right by her friend, Sue, right before her surgery was a small brass cross. On it, there is a picture of a hand - the hand of God - holding a child. This is a small but powerful example of the way the Lord works. Four of Julia’s friends got together with her prior to her surgery - to give her gifts, to share words of faith, to pray with her. Gifts like this cross to meditate upon. “Hold this image in your mind and heart, Julia. You are in God’s hands. He is watching over you, loving you, holding you, keeping you safe.”

 

The one you and I call Lord holds and upholds us in this way. He is with his Father in heaven now, interceding for us. He touches us with healing hands, often using the hands of the people who have been in our lives for a long time, as well as new people that we hadn’t met until recently - surgeons and nurses and aides and anesthesiologists.

 

We are healed, we are saved, we are given new life, we are safely led through new territory - even through the valley of the shadow of death - by this Lord. In the midst of crisis, we experience a cup that is filled to the brim, and then runs over with love.

 

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

 

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son...” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 359)

 

Finally, I experience God as the Holy Spirit, God among us now, in you and in me - in this community, and in all who pursue God. This is God within - the Spirit of God guiding us as we pray and work and live into our relationships, the Spirit guiding us even when it seems we can do nothing more than breathe. Different people say to us, “Remember to breathe! Remember to breathe.” What we sometimes forget, you and I, is that when we breathe, we are breathing in the very breath, the very Spirit of God. The Spirit gives us breath to keep living, to keep moving, to keep serving, to keep doing for others what we want them to do for us, even when we’re tired and exhausted, and it feels like a major ordeal to just put one foot in front of the other.

 

And when we don’t know what words to pray, or we feel too tired to pray, Paul reminds us - in one of my favorite passages from Romans - that the Spirit comes through for us. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought... - [Even with so great a resource as The Book of Common Prayer, sometimes we do not know how to pray as we ought.] - ... but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

 

And we know when the Spirit is working among us, and when we are responsive to it, for what we see - even in the midst of troubled or anxious times - is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) Do I need to connect the dots for you? I experience God also as Holy Spirit, because in you, over these last days, I have seen love, joy, peace.... patience, kindness, generosity.... faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

 

CONCLUSION

These words in the Nicene Creed are not just words I say every Sunday that were handed on to me by the most brilliant minds of the fourth century, and which I say without thinking, because someone tells me to say them. No. When I say them, I try to say them from my heart, because I experience God as Creator of all that is, who is transcendent and yet quite imminent, and the most loving and affirming Parent - to me. I experience Jesus as my Lord, my teacher, my friend, my ultimate example, the One who keeps saying to me, “Follow me, and keep following,” and the only One who can really teach me about what it means to love someone. I am grateful for the Holy Spirit - who has been given to us just as Jesus promised - to all of you and to me, for our good. This Spirit has been given to lead us into all truth, to guide and direct us, to intercede for us, especially when we don’t have the words or the energy or the will to pray, to keep us moving, so that we can be about the work of establishing God’s kingdom, right here on earth.

 

I experience God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is one God, experienced in three “persons”, in three manifestations. Truth be told, sometimes it’s “just God” that I am encountering. I’m not stopping in that moment and thinking to myself, “Now is this God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit?” It’s just God. But of course, God can never be “just God”. For there is only one God. And this day, and every Sunday, and every day of our lives, is an opportunity to give him thanks and praise, an opportunity to express our gratitude for all He is, and all He has done, and all He will continue to do.

 

“Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers; praised and exalted above all for ever... Blessed art thou on the glorious throne of thy kingdom; praised and exalted above all for ever. . Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven; praised and exalted above all for ever. Blessed art thou, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; praised and exalted above all for ever.” (From Canticle 2, “A Song of Praise”, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 49)