May 30, 2021 – Trinity Sunday
Don’t worry about trying to explain the Trinity, focus on living in the Trinity – everyday!
Let us pray. Holy Trinity, Source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for your presence in this time and place and within each one of us in our many locations. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day; and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Well I mentioned at the beginning of the service that this is Trinity Sunday; and there are certain Anglican traditions that are very important to traditional Anglicans on Trinity Sunday. One of them is that we must sing the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.”, and from a hymnbook that lists it as Hymn #1. The infamous “red hymn book” strayed from that and listed it, I think, as #50. Another is that the tradition that the preacher needs to give a novel explanation of the Trinity of three persons in one God – each with its different characteristics and yet really all being the same. There is the rudimentary science explanation that’s popular in Sunday Schools and Confirmation classes; and that is the comparison of water and the three phases of water – solid, as ice, liquid water, and gas as water vapour. Or more recently, one that I discovered – a much more philosophically-oriented explanation of the three Persons - is this: “One is so much the other that each, itself, is the whole.” Let me say that again: “One is so much the other that each itself is the whole.” Well, fortunately, being able to define the Trinity is not of those things “necessary to salvation”, as we say. I think it might be better to simply embrace this Sunday as a celebration of the fullness of God’s self-revelation to us, and how we experience God – in the universe and in our own lives.
Each of today’s Scripture readings has something to teach us about this revelation of God. The First Reading, from the book of the prophet Isaiah, in the sixth chapter, is God’s call to Isaiah to a prophetic ministry. In history it comes at the beginning of a threatening time in Israel’s and Judah’s story. And Isaiah is only too aware of this. In the middle of the vision he exclaims, “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” He’s only too aware of how he and the people of God have strayed from their faithfulness to God. The vision impresses on us the immense holiness - otherness of God. The imagery that Isaiah chooses is really a kind of superlative expression of power and authority in the world of the late 8th century BCE. It begins with a description of the most powerful king, and throne, and throne room, that one can envisage. And it’s extrapolated to the edges of our imaginations. The description fills one with awe. It is to take your breath away. And notice how the worship in heaven is portrayed. The seraphs sing – all to one another – ‘holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ Those words sound familiar? I hope they do, because near the beginning of every one of our Eucharistic prayers, we sing or say the Sanctus: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord; God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory; hosanna in the highest.” Our praise and thanksgiving here in worship is to blend with the heavenly worship.
Now, I don’t know what a comparable vision would be for us of this scene from Isaiah because we live in a fairly egalitarian society (or at least it’s supposed to be) and so, therefore, it’s difficult to describe a vision of God in heaven in political and authoritarian language. A few things, though, are very clear from this portrayal of God. God is all-powerful, awe-inspiring, and causes us to be immediately aware of how much we are not like God! The encounter with God is terrifying. But at the same time, when everything that threatens us in the presence of God is dealt with, our guilt and our sin, God is close and intimate. In this vision God calls out to the heavenly court, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah does not hesitate. He speaks up with confidence and says, “Here am I. Send me.” A moment before he was shaking in this boots and now he’s putting up his hand and volunteering – an intimate encounter with God. This is a picture of the triune God that is so awesome that it is only by God’s grace, mercy, and love that we can approach God and be in relationship with God.
In the Second Reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read a passage from Chapter 8 where Paul is describing living in the Spirit. We are to understand that, because of the life and work of Jesus Christ, we have been adopted as God’s children – sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ – who is literally God in human form. And to make it real to us, God the Holy Spirit has been given to us. We have been immersed in that Spirit such that we can address God intimately as Father, or Mother, - our Creator – One who knows us and calls us by name.
Now, at this point, we realize that we are experiencing God in three ways – three manifestations. First, the awe-inspiring Creator of the universe. Secondly, as the human Saviour/Messiah, Jesus the Christ, who is now the ascended Lord and who remains with us and calls us to live with each other in love in Christ’s body, the Church. And thirdly, we experience the inner intimacy of God the Spirit, who has penetrated to the very depths of our being – knows us better than we know ourselves, and constantly calls us to living life as God’s beloved children. Three ways of knowing God and yet, clearly, all the same God. All three in complete harmony showing us God’s purpose for our relationships with God and with each other.
Today’s Gospel reading is from John’s Gospel, and it’s the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. I think this is a story for us in modern times. In the story, Nicodemus, of course, is a strict orthodox Jew - a Pharisee – inquiring about this new, radical religious expression that’s been spearheaded by Jesus of Nazareth. But in our day, we could envision Nicodemus as an inquisitive agnostic – trying to explore and understand this new spiritual movement. Nicodemus is sincerely interested in Jesus, who is clearly out of the ordinary. He says to him, “Rabbi, 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.” You see, Nicodemus is focussed on the visible evidence – the signs of Jesus’ powerful acts of healing and deliverance from evil. He takes a rational approach. But Jesus cuts across this approach and says to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” He’s saying in a sense, ‘Nicodemus you will not be able to understand or figure this out on your own. You need to be born from above (or born again). One needs an inner divine transformation in order to grasp this – to make sense of it. Nicodemus is trying to begin with a rational understanding – to fit this Kingdom of God that Jesus teaches about into his own mental frame of reference. But Jesus says to him ‘you can’t do it.’ He says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter into the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. And then he goes on to use the analogy of the wind as something you can’t see but you can only observe its effects.
John’s Gospel continues with an explanation of how God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, act in order to make the Kingdom of God real and accessible for humanity. This is not “understanding seeking to explain faith.” Rather it is “faith seeking understanding”, as the famous 11th century philosophical theologian, Anselm, would describe it. One first needs the encounter with the new life of God’s Kingdom; then we can use our brains that God has given us to understand and appreciate this life more fully. So it is faith first, then understanding.
Living this ‘born again’ – this ‘born from above’ life - requires a conscious decision every day. Saint Paul says, “For all who are led (or allow themselves to follow) the Spirit of God are children of God. Every day the fullness of the triune God invites us to open ourselves to living that day in constant relationship with the Holy Trinity, in everything we think, do, and say – everything we encounter. And it includes hardships and threatening challenges like pandemics, or the discovery of horrific abuses of indigenous children, as we heard this past week.
Today’s offertory hymn is one beautiful and powerful way to embrace the triune God in God’s fullness everyday. It’s called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”, and it is a prayer in the context of putting on protective armour – each verse highlighting a dimension of this life with the triune God. I want to invite you to turn to it on pages 8 and 9 in your pew bulletin. After the opening verse of praise to the Trinity, verse 2 focuses on Christ’s life. It touches on his birth, his baptism, his death, his freedom from the tomb, and his ascension, and finally his coming at the end of the world. Verse 3 celebrates the beauty and the power of God’s creation. Verse 4 talks about God’s power and grace at work, and then there’s this interesting slower and more melodic interlude in verse 5, where it concentrates on the presence of Christ to me in everything. And then it concludes with verse 6 – a celebration again of the Trinity as the source of all creation and the provider of salvation.
When we sing this today as our Offertory hymn, we tend to focus on the tricky melodic tune in the imagery, perhaps of a knight dawning armour. But in the original prayer on which the hymn is based, it is much clearer that it is a prayer to begin the day. The first verse of that prayer, or poem, begins, ‘I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of creation.’ So when we sing this today in a few moments, don’t picture a Celtic saint dawning armour. Picture yourself today, and every day, opening yourself and your life with all of its challenges, to receiving and being led by the fullness of the triune God – the strong name of the Trinity.
Amen.
