Christ Episcopal Church
May 31, 2015
Trinity Sunday
My cousin recently found a number of old family photos and posted them on Facebook for the family to see. One photo is a four generation photo which includes our great-grandmother, our grandmother, our mothers, my father, and the 6 cousins. My uncle, my father's brother, must have taken the photo. We are on the front porch of a house I don't recognize, likely in Fordyce, Arkansas. The photo is interesting not only because of the moment in time captured there, but for all the stories the photo brings to mind. The photo reminded me of family vacations, escapades with our cousins, parties as various people in the photo celebrated 80th or 90th birthdays, and family gatherings at funerals. There are stories about every individual in the photo, and stories about the whole family together. Many of the people in the photo have now entered eternal life, and all of them had some influence on me when I was a child. The simple family photo captures a much larger story, even if much of that story is lost now.
Today, the Sunday after Pentecost, is Trinity Sunday. We began the liturgical year in Advent, anticipating the birth of the Christ Child. Christmas brings us the Son of God wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Lent and Easter bring us the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and on Pentecost, we receive the Holy Spirit. So, by the Sunday after Pentecost have the complete Trinity: the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
However, to think that we don't have the Trinity until after Pentecost is a bit oversimplified. The story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis tells us that, in the beginning, the Spirit swept over the face of the waters. The first chapter of John's gospel tells us that "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." By wrestling with these passages and others like them that describe the different natures of God, theologians in the 3rd and 4th centuries began to understand God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-one God in three persons that has existed since before the beginning.
On Trinity Sunday, then, we would expect to hear something from Scripture that explains the Trinity. A helpful passage would explain how, exactly, God is one God in three persons and how the three are related to the one. The only problem is that there is no such passage in Scripture. There are a few clear references to the Trinity, such as the ending of Matthew's gospel where the disciples are sent out to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But no where does Scripture actually explain the one God in three persons.
What Scripture does do is tell us stories about people's experience of God and God's action in the world. So, we have two stories about creation, lots of stories about what happens when the people of God are unfaithful and stories that tell us about faithful people. There are stories about God's great love for us, stories about Jesus, and stories about the work of people who were filled with the Holy Spirit. On this particular Trinity Sunday, we hear the story of Isaiah's experience of God in the temple that sends him out into the world to do what is actually very difficult work. When Isaiah says "Here I am, send me" what God sends him out to do is tell the people about the destruction that is to come because of their unfaithfulness. Isaiah can do this hard task because of his powerful experience of God in the temple. Psalm 29 echoes the majesty and glory of God that Isaiah experienced. And we hear the story of Nicodemus approaching Jesus, trying to understand who Jesus is. This gives Jesus, the Son, the occasion to talk about being born of the Spirit, which echoes Paul's call in Romans to live by the Spirit. Jesus also tells us that God gave the Son so that all may have eternal life.
Scripture gives us a picture, in a sense, of the way people through out the ages have experienced God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that picture led to the understanding of the Trinity. The interesting question for me is this: Scripture tells us, in the first chapter of Genesis among other places, that we humans are made in the image of God. What do the stories of Scripture tell us about being made in the image of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer?
First, the story of the Trinity tells us that God, but nature, is relational. Before we humans ever came along, God not only was in relationship but God was relationship. So, we humans are called by our very nature to be in relationship with God, each other and all that God has made. We are called to live like people who are connected to each other, because we are connected. But the Trinity is not self-absorbed connection and love. The Trinity continually gives itself away. So, secondly, as the story of the Trinity tells us that God sent Jesus to live among us, and God sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, that story calls us to give ourselves away, and to live for others. We are called to be sent ones, as Isaiah was sent.
The story of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit calls us to live as people who are connected to each other here at Christ Church, not in a self- absorbed way, but in a way that connects us to our neighborhood and our city, and to people all over the world. That story calls us to be people who are sent and willing to give ourselves away so that others can know abundant life. The story of the Trinity calls us to be a living picture of the story of God's action in the world and in our lives.
. Amen.
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