HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY – 11 June 2006
St. Paul Lutheran Church, ABQ NM – the Rev. P. L. Holman
Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17
“AWESOME God”
I know it’s happened to you sometime, someplace, in some moment when you were simply overwhelmed with awe. Care to share? Perhaps it was the first time you saw the Grand Canyon, or the Grand Tetons, or Gran Quari in the Salinas Monument. Perhaps on a trip overseas, the Sistine Chapel, the Sahara Desert, or a Stave Kirke in Norway. Maybe you experienced AWE when you glimpsed the face of your first love, newborn nephew, or newest grandchild. Or perhaps it was a simpler moment, like when the first rose of spring blossomed, or someone you love received his diploma.
Today is the day in our church year instituted to honor the Holy Trinity, the awesome community of God expressed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; as Source of Life, Word of Truth, and Spirit of Love. The word “trinity” is never used in the scriptures to describe God. God in three persons is. In Matthew’s closing verses Jesus sends the followers out to baptize in the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father, Christ and Spirit are woven together in Paul’s letter to the Romans in today’s reading, and in many other New Testament passages. And in the Old Testament – like the prophet Isaiah’s vision today, alluding to the triune character of the LORD of hosts, proclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy.”
In the early church there was no special day assigned for the Holy Trinity. After the threat of Gnosticism died down, the Arian heresy arose in the church, a teaching that held that Christ the Son is not of one essence, nature, or substance with God the Father; it taught that Christ was not divine but rather created as an agent for creating the world. In response to the spread of the Arian heresy, church leaders prepared a collection of prayers, hymns and canticles to be read on Sundays to reinforce the church’s teaching that the three expressions of God were not subordinate to one another in any way but rather co-ordinate – equal in majesty and awe. Over the centuries with changes in papal leadership, the place of a special day to honor the Holy Trinity was moved to various locations on the church calendar, eventually settling on this first day after the Pentecost under the leadership of John Paul XXII in the early 14th century. The rationale was that, since it was after the first great Pentecost that the doctrine of the Trinity was proclaimed to the world, it is fitting that the day follows that of Pentecost.
What is the Trinity, this “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” of which believers have sung for decades and generations? Principally, it’s a mystery. Awe. Wonder. Revelation. Puzzlement. Mystery. An invitation to experience in the midst of this life, surrounded by all sorts of clouds of unknowing, the power and presence of God in creation, in neighbor and stranger, and in the beauty of relationships.
St. Patrick used a three-leaf shamrock -- three in one, also one in three.
The church has used equilateral triangles (for those whose geometry is a distant memory – three equal sides) to signify the Trinity.
Ancient church theologian Tertullian used the image of a plant to speak of God the three in one: the deep root tapping source of life Father, strong shoot visible to the world around it Son, and beauty and fragrance “fructifying the earth with flower and fruit” Spirit. A community of persons eternally bound together in perfect understanding and love.
No matter the image it will always fall short – there is no human way to explain the mysteries of faith. We all experience faith – and the awesomeness of God – in different ways. We can’t contain it with words. We can only share our experience, our images, our examples, and learn from one another more about the awesomeness of God.
The Triune God is like a carefully, prayerfully rehearsed church choir, fifty voices from differing backgrounds and different understandings of faith, singing the same piece each voice offering its tone and timbre, weaving together in melodious song that invites and carries and uplifts the hearts of performers and hearers alike, the sound fructifying the space it fills.
The Community of God is like the circle dance I led with my niece and three of her new friends from my new son-in-law’s family. It was a sort of polka-hora dance the Celtic band was playing. And while the children had been dancing to an earlier jig they were stymied – we don’t know how to polka. Aha! Enter mother-of the bride. We started slowly, hands linked in a circle step/step/step-step/step/step moving side to side at first, then slowly moving the circle. Within just a few minutes we were in full tilt around the circle twisting with the steps, throwing our heads back in raucous laughter. By the time the music stopped I was exhausted! It was great fun – teacher, students, music moving together in a glorious circle of friendship and fun. God is like the circle dance, a movement with room for all.
God – Source of Life, Word of Truth, Spirit of Love -- is like a Lutheran brother in the midst of Afghanistan somewhere, living out his baptismal calling as a military chaplain, exactly as he’s called to serve (his words), by being present for Christians and Muslims, stranger and coworker alike, in a way only the mysterious power of God can explain. Eric says, It’s a spirit thing: “Often I feel guided by the Holy Spirit and find myself in the right place at the right time.” I say it’s nothing less than a holy thing -- a holy, holy, holy thing that he is present there as light of hope reflecting back to the people the hope he sees in the midst of danger, chaos and death, “fructifying” that place, bringing peace.
Our awesome Triune God is like the parents and child and the love that binds them, and like siblings and their conflicts and the trust the enables them to wrestle like Jacob for a blessing. God is like churches and denominational fights and the reconciling Spirit that can heal them all. God is like the nation and the government and the will of the people to be a people committed to pursuing what is right and just, pursuing the things that make for peace.
The tradition in the old Augustana Lutheran Church was that worship always began with the quote from Isaiah: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God of hosts.” The transcendence of our God is immanent in this time of worship, in the mass, those words proclaimed. Holy place, holy people, holy time that, and this, a Sabbath time set apart for you and me and all people of unclean lips to rest in the embrace of the mystery of our awesome God. The word, offerings and meal follow. Through word and silence, prayer and meal, we hear and receive the amazing forgiveness of God. And as our mass ends this day, just like the mass of old, we hear a blessing and a call, like Isaiah’s vision of his call: