Mysteries of our Faith
Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 6-7-09
Scripture: John 3:1-17
There was an early father of our Christian faith named St.Augustine. This great theologian was so obsessed with the mystery of the Holy Trinity that he wrote 15 volumes on it. I want to tell you a story that some of you may have heard before. Augustine was at his wits' end, trying to understand this concept. One day he was walking on the sandy beach by the ocean. He was talking to himself about the Trinity: "One God, but three Persons. Three Persons--not three Gods but one God. What does it mean? How can it be explained? How can my mind take it in?" And so he was torturing his mind when he saw a young boy on the beach. He approached the boy to see what he was doing. The child had dug a small hole in the sand. With his hands the boy was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it into the little hole. St. Augustine asked, "What are you doing, my child?" The child replied, "I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole." Once more St. Augustine asked, "But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in this little hole?" And the child asked him in return, "If the water of the ocean cannot be contained in this little hole, then how can the immensity of God be contained in your small head?" With that the child was gone.
If you were listening to the Children’s Story, you may be ahead of Augustine and have somewhat of an understanding of the Trinity. Let me say that the Trinity is not a concept that you will find in the Bible. It was in the 10th century that the church established this doctrine. The early Christians discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which God had been revealed to them. The most familiar phrase is Father Son, and Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit although here are some others: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Abba, Servant, Paraclete. An Indian, Raimundo Panikkar, keeping in mind the threefold experience at the heart of Hindu as well as Christian faith formulates it this way: Source, being, and return to being, which relates to God is above all, through all, and in all.i One that I like a lot is the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love. I do see God as a relational, dynamic, tri-personal mystery of love, a community of sorts. Those of you who have listened to my sermons for awhile know how important community is to me. So it’s not surprising that I would see in the Trinity this one God in a relationship mode with a Mother/Father, Creator, Christ our Savior and teacher, and the Holy Spirit our guide, relating to each other in holy community—a dynamic, three way love.
I like to use the metaphor of a dance, borrowed from Barbara Brown Zikmund. This dance is not rock and roll or hip-hop, where each person does his or her own moves, or ballroom dancing where two partners dance together. The dance I’m thinking of is more like the circle dance with each person of the Trinity joining hands together in a dance that has no beginning and no end, a dance where both the dance itself and each of the partners is eternal. No partner is greater than the other. Just like the metaphor of the human body for the Church, each partner has it’s own specific role as it moves in rhythm showing joy and love. This community of the Trinity is not static but ever moving, and it is moving right here today in this church and in each of our own beings.
Now what does any of this have to do with the Gospel reading of being born again? First of all, both the Trinity and being born again are great mysteries in our faith. In this passage we have Nicodemus going to pay a visit to Jesus. Nicodemus was a religious man of some note; in fact the scripture called him “the teacher”, not “a teacher”, pointing to his religious pre-eminence. Yet for all his pre-eminence, Nicodemus was missing something. There was an emptiness there, something was not quite right with him. He went by night to visit Jesus as it would not have been proper for such a man to be seen as interested in Jesus. Nicodemus expresses confusion, not unlike our own when we come upon something that does not fit with our preconceived notions of who God is. Who among us would not have questioned Jesus saying we had to be born again—at our age? The word Jesus speaks is that Nicodemus must be born "anothen"—a Greek word that can mean either "from above" or "anew." Maybe we should consider both words-- both a time of birth ("anew") and the place from which the new birth will come ("from above").ii Here we have a birth, generated by the Spirit, a transformation initiated by God and being proclaimed by Jesus. How’s that for an example of the Trinity? I wonder if some of us, whether baptized or not, could be waiting in these days after Pentecost for the coming of Spirit who will recreate us from above? Is it possible that we all may need to be born again in order to have our minds open to the newness of the Still Speaking God that never stops creating and surprising us. In these past five years have you been open to new things happening in this church—maybe a new way to consider race, refugees, women in prison, gay relationships, people from other countries and other faiths? Both individually and as a congregation, I believe the Spirit has been moving among us, giving us new birth.
Barbara Brown Zikmund says “When we worship a triune God we celebrate the love which flows in God’s eternal dance of togetherness, and which we know through Jesus Christ as Lord of the dance.”iii She further points out that in a Trinity where God is no longer seen as a solitary we can see a vision of a community where we are in mutual relationships, working together with shared responsibilities for justice and care.
As we prepare ourselves to celebrate Communion I invite all of you to come join in the dance. You and I, your families, your friends are all invited to come join the dance of unending joy. The Trinity circle breaks open and the Christ, the Spirit, and the heavenly Parent are still holding hands as they invite us to join in, to create an ever larger community as we become their partners in gathering up all of life to keep dancing the radical dance of justice and love. Please come and join in the dance. Amen.iv
i From Trinity and the Religious Experience of Mankind, used in Elizabeth A. Johnson’s She Who Is (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001) 210.
ii New Proclamation B 2009, referenced in SAMUEL at the UCC sermon site.
iii “Trinity and Women’s Experience”, The Christian Century, April 15, 1987, pp.354-356.
iv Parts of today’s sermon were taken from previous Trinity sermons I have preached.
Scripture: John 3:1-17
There was an early father of our Christian faith named St.Augustine. This great theologian was so obsessed with the mystery of the Holy Trinity that he wrote 15 volumes on it. I want to tell you a story that some of you may have heard before. Augustine was at his wits' end, trying to understand this concept. One day he was walking on the sandy beach by the ocean. He was talking to himself about the Trinity: "One God, but three Persons. Three Persons--not three Gods but one God. What does it mean? How can it be explained? How can my mind take it in?" And so he was torturing his mind when he saw a young boy on the beach. He approached the boy to see what he was doing. The child had dug a small hole in the sand. With his hands the boy was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it into the little hole. St. Augustine asked, "What are you doing, my child?" The child replied, "I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole." Once more St. Augustine asked, "But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in this little hole?" And the child asked him in return, "If the water of the ocean cannot be contained in this little hole, then how can the immensity of God be contained in your small head?" With that the child was gone.
If you were listening to the Children’s Story, you may be ahead of Augustine and have somewhat of an understanding of the Trinity. Let me say that the Trinity is not a concept that you will find in the Bible. It was in the 10th century that the church established this doctrine. The early Christians discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which God had been revealed to them. The most familiar phrase is Father Son, and Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit although here are some others: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Abba, Servant, Paraclete. An Indian, Raimundo Panikkar, keeping in mind the threefold experience at the heart of Hindu as well as Christian faith formulates it this way: Source, being, and return to being, which relates to God is above all, through all, and in all.i One that I like a lot is the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love. I do see God as a relational, dynamic, tri-personal mystery of love, a community of sorts. Those of you who have listened to my sermons for awhile know how important community is to me. So it’s not surprising that I would see in the Trinity this one God in a relationship mode with a Mother/Father, Creator, Christ our Savior and teacher, and the Holy Spirit our guide, relating to each other in holy community—a dynamic, three way love.
I like to use the metaphor of a dance, borrowed from Barbara Brown Zikmund. This dance is not rock and roll or hip-hop, where each person does his or her own moves, or ballroom dancing where two partners dance together. The dance I’m thinking of is more like the circle dance with each person of the Trinity joining hands together in a dance that has no beginning and no end, a dance where both the dance itself and each of the partners is eternal. No partner is greater than the other. Just like the metaphor of the human body for the Church, each partner has it’s own specific role as it moves in rhythm showing joy and love. This community of the Trinity is not static but ever moving, and it is moving right here today in this church and in each of our own beings.
Now what does any of this have to do with the Gospel reading of being born again? First of all, both the Trinity and being born again are great mysteries in our faith. In this passage we have Nicodemus going to pay a visit to Jesus. Nicodemus was a religious man of some note; in fact the scripture called him “the teacher”, not “a teacher”, pointing to his religious pre-eminence. Yet for all his pre-eminence, Nicodemus was missing something. There was an emptiness there, something was not quite right with him. He went by night to visit Jesus as it would not have been proper for such a man to be seen as interested in Jesus. Nicodemus expresses confusion, not unlike our own when we come upon something that does not fit with our preconceived notions of who God is. Who among us would not have questioned Jesus saying we had to be born again—at our age? The word Jesus speaks is that Nicodemus must be born "anothen"—a Greek word that can mean either "from above" or "anew." Maybe we should consider both words-- both a time of birth ("anew") and the place from which the new birth will come ("from above").ii Here we have a birth, generated by the Spirit, a transformation initiated by God and being proclaimed by Jesus. How’s that for an example of the Trinity? I wonder if some of us, whether baptized or not, could be waiting in these days after Pentecost for the coming of Spirit who will recreate us from above? Is it possible that we all may need to be born again in order to have our minds open to the newness of the Still Speaking God that never stops creating and surprising us. In these past five years have you been open to new things happening in this church—maybe a new way to consider race, refugees, women in prison, gay relationships, people from other countries and other faiths? Both individually and as a congregation, I believe the Spirit has been moving among us, giving us new birth.
Barbara Brown Zikmund says “When we worship a triune God we celebrate the love which flows in God’s eternal dance of togetherness, and which we know through Jesus Christ as Lord of the dance.”iii She further points out that in a Trinity where God is no longer seen as a solitary we can see a vision of a community where we are in mutual relationships, working together with shared responsibilities for justice and care.
As we prepare ourselves to celebrate Communion I invite all of you to come join in the dance. You and I, your families, your friends are all invited to come join the dance of unending joy. The Trinity circle breaks open and the Christ, the Spirit, and the heavenly Parent are still holding hands as they invite us to join in, to create an ever larger community as we become their partners in gathering up all of life to keep dancing the radical dance of justice and love. Please come and join in the dance. Amen.iv
i From Trinity and the Religious Experience of Mankind, used in Elizabeth A. Johnson’s She Who Is (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001) 210.
ii New Proclamation B 2009, referenced in SAMUEL at the UCC sermon site.
iii “Trinity and Women’s Experience”, The Christian Century, April 15, 1987, pp.354-356.
iv Parts of today’s sermon were taken from previous Trinity sermons I have preached.
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 12:00 PM
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