EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and the deepening of my theological mind. This sermon originally took place on June 16, 2019.
Holy Trinity Sunday … the day in the Christian calendar that we set aside to celebrate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Creator, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Godhead. … Three in one. … The Triune God.
All of these are words people use to describe the Holy Trinity. … But, yet, regardless of the words we use, explanation of the Trinity seems to escape human comprehension.
When I taught fourth- and fifth-graders in confirmation class at Christ the King, I would use an experiment each year to try to help them grasp this concept of the Holy Trinity.
I would start with three cups of liquids, the first cup being honey to represent God, the second cup filled with red-dyed water to represent Jesus and the third was cooking oil to represent the Holy Spirit. After talking a little bit about each of the entities of the trinity, and what they do, I’d pour some of God’s honey into a fourth class that was empty.
Then I would pour some of Jesus’s red-dyed water on top of the honey, and the water being less dense would sit in a layer, there on top.
Then I’d finish with the oil, and of course, the difference in density between the water and the oil meant that the oil would form a third layer on top of it all.
There in one cup, you’d have the symbolization of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the three liquids sitting atop each other but forming one entity.
I considered repeating the experiment here today, but I suspected that you all have matured past the point of gimmicky cup demonstrations. … Or then again, maybe you would have preferred that over a sermon!
So in an effort to try to help me find an apt explanation of the Holy Trinity, I turned to my seminary friends and other resources to get a description.
One source I looked up said “the doctrine of the trinity holds that God is one God, but three coeternal consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit—as "one God in three Divine Persons."
According to an article on Christianity.com: “We believe that the one God eternally exists in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that these three are one God, co-equal and co-eternal, having precisely the same nature and attributes, and worthy of precisely the same worship, confidence, and obedience.”
Finally, a seminarian friend described the Trinity as: “We understand God as the trinity because God’s defining characteristic is loving relationship.So the separate ideas of Father, Son, Holy Spirit are less important than the eternal interwoven-ness of relationship.”
And those were three of the most accessible explanations of the Trinity that I could find.
Now, if any of those descriptions have helped you better understand what the Holy Trinity is, then please come up here and take my place, and I’ll let you finish out this sermon!
No? No takers? … I hope you don’t feel bad? I’m supposed to be able to grasp this doctrine, and yet it is a concept so far beyond my mental grasp, that it often leaves me speechless.
So, let’s make a deal: Let’s just leave those descriptions to the professional theologians, and what I hope you walk out of here today and talk about is this: Our Creator is just one big puzzle wrapped in a mystery and tied up with a bow by an enigma. … And, you know what, I am completely OK with that.
We all know the three persons of the Trinity … God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. … And we also know they each have their specific roles in caring for us.
For instance, one simple way to explain those roles is: The Creator created the plan, Jesus Christ implemented the plan, and the Holy Spirit administers the plan. … As in God made creation, the earth and all of us living and nonliving things. … Then, Jesus came to set the plan in motion after God decided we weren't doing so well on our own and we needed a little nudge … And finally, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to help us keep the plan in motion.
Ok, enough catechism for the day.
But what I truly hope that you take away from today is that our Creator is filled with mystery.
So much mystery, in fact, that he or she can exist as one or all three entities to help fulfill all of the roles we need in our lives. All of the roles we need to fill our spiritual cups, take care of our physical needs and to demonstrate how to love in this world.
And the way to live and love is found in the Trinity’s oneness. … Its unity. … Yes, there are very important things the Trinity does, but in my mind, its fundamental importance is to show us the way to live in faith, and that is to live in each other’s lives, just as God, Jesus and the Spirit do with each other.
One of my favorite descriptions of the trinity that I’ve heard is from a seminary professor of mine. She describes the Trinity as the three entities indwelling in each other … not taking over each other, not dominating the other, not displacing the other ... but lovingly coexisting, cooperating and living among each other in life-giving ways. … Indwelling.
So just how do we dwell in each other. … Well, I see it happening in a myriad of ways, but the common thread that I see running through them all is that indwelling is life-giving.
And so every time you act in favor of creating life, sustaining life or protecting life here on this earth, you are dwelling in the other. … And more importantly, you also are dwelling the Creator, Jesus and the Spirit, as well. Because if you are being life-giving with another of God’s children, you are also bringing God’s Kingdom to life here on earth. … And I see that as indwelling.
But let’s get more practical than that: On Thursday night, my family and I had the opportunity to participate in the City of Wolverton’s first summer kickball night of the season. I saw neighbors breaking bread with each other, sharing fellowship and lifting up the town’s children in play. And you could very palpably feel the Spirit present there at the ball field that night. … I see that as the indwelling of the Trinity. … We in them; they in us.
Today, when you all go forth from here to celebrate Father’s Day, either with your own father or with your children, I see that as the indwelling of the Trinity as well. … I see it as appropriate and life-giving to celebrate these familiar familial roles … father and child ... with each other. Just as we celebrate God being our Creator. … I also see that as the indwelling of the Trinity.
After service, when we head to the basement to drink a cup of coffee and partake in fellowship with each other, I see that as life-giving. … Sure, it’s also simply fun to spend a little time catching up with our neighbors each week, but when we gather downstairs we are doing so much more than that. We are looking each other in the eye and telling our neighbor that we care about them, that spending time with them helps fill up our own spiritual cup. … And I see that as the indwelling of the Trinity as well.
I could spend a long time up here going on and on about who and what the Holy Trinity is, but more importantly, I think, is to just remind you that we celebrate and honor that Trinity every time we do something for another, every time we gather together for fellowship, every time we honor the family relationships we have with each other.
While it’s a lofty goal to try to understand the Holy Trinity as a Christian doctrine, I think it’s entirely OK for God to remain a mystery to us. … As a matter of fact, we don’t need $5 theological words to figure it out. We can explain the Holy Trinity far better by just creating life, sustaining life and protecting life, as God would have us do. That is the Trinity, and that also leaves the mystery of our Creator safely intact. … And that is OK by me.
And that is the Good News on this Sunday. … Holy Trinity Sunday. Amen.
Comments