Trinity
Sunday A RCL
Rev.
Adam T. Trambley
June 11,
2017, St. John’s Sharon
This morning is Trinity Sunday, when we remember and give thanks
that God is one, but is also three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Saint Patrick famously compared the Trinity
to a Shamrock, with three petals yet still one shamrock. This would be a good morning to hand out
Shamrock shakes, but apparently, they only have them in March. Sorry.
I was texting Lily while preparing the sermon asked her what she
thought about the Trinity. She said that
I should compare the Trinity to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She said that, “God can be the bread because
‘he’ holds everything together. Jesus
can be the peanut butter because he seems to get himself into some pretty
sticky situations and gets thirsty and asks people to bring him water” (like on
the cross or with the Samaritan woman at the well), “which is what happens when
you eat peanut butter. The Holy Spirit
is the jelly because it’s a little extra sweetness and can do some amazing
things with an otherwise possibly boring sandwich. Everyone typically likes each individually
but together it’s a classic.” Now there
are probably some heresies in there somewhere, but if it helps you think about
the Trinity, go for it. And say an extra
prayer of thanks next time you have a PB&J.
For me, one of the most elegant scriptural descriptions of the Trinity
comes in this morning’s reading from Genesis.
The makers of the lectionary probably included this passage because of
the beginning of the reading where we hear about God creating the heavens and
the earth, the Spirit brooding over the water, and God’s Word bringing forth
light and all creation. Christians have
interpreted this as a key Trinitarian passage for a long time. The part that speaks to me about the Trinity,
however, is toward the end of what we read today: So God created humankind
in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created
them.
Humanity was created in the image of God, male and female. Now this line doesn’t mean, like some pagan
myths hold, that God separated an original woman-man being with four arms and
four legs into a man and a woman, and if you put them back together, you’d get
what God looks like. No, the fact that
Genesis says God created humanity in his image and that in the image of God he
created them means somehow God is not a unity, because his image is more
than one person.
There are a lot of important implications to creating male and
female in God’s image and calling them good, but in terms of the reflection of
God’s image as Trinity, I want to focus on the way this means that God is in
relationship. From the beginning, God
created us to love each other, just like we know that God is love. God created us to be in a loving community
with each other, and that loving community is the image of God. God is a family of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. The nature of what it
means to be God is not being a unified monolith, but having different persons
loving each other.
This community of divine love it is so important to us because we are
invited into it. If God were just like
some philosophical concept of the All-powerful, or if God were just an old man
in a white beard, or if God were some divine ocean that we all just melted
into, we could not enter into the divine life as the individuals that we
are. We would either be always outside
looking in or we would stop being the person whom God made us to be in favor of
something else. But as Trinity, God
gives us a way into his life. Since
there are three persons in God, those persons can love us just like they love
each other. As we are loved by God, we
can love God back with God’s love. And
we can love each other with God’s love, too.
We can think about God the Father pouring out his love to God the
Son through God the Holy Spirit, and then God the Son pouring his love back to
God the Father through God the Holy Spirit. They keep loving each other for all
eternity. But their love isn’t limited
to just the life of God. Through God the
Holy Spirit, God the Father and God the Son also pour out their love to
us. On one level, this outpouring of
love brings God into our lives, but on another level, this outpouring of the
Holy Spirit brings us into the life of God.
If there is room for three, there is room for four, and while we don’t become
the fourth part of a new divine, uh, Quadrility, God’s goal for us is to enter
his life.
As we enter God’s life through the outpouring of God the Holy
Spirit who is also love, we can bring others into the divine life by loving
them with God’s love. Part of the way
that God the Holy Spirit loves us is by bestowing spiritual gifts on us. We can touch others with divine love by using
the spiritual gifts we have received.
When we use our spiritual gifts, whether healing, teaching,
administration, music, encouragement, generosity, prophecy, evangelism or any
other gifts, to minister to others, we are expanding the circle of the divine
life of the Trinity to other people. The
result our loving each other is the formation of a community of people who exhibit
the fruits of the Holy Spirit, such as love, joy, and peace, which are also the
characteristics we would expect to find in the midst of the divine life of the
Trinity.
The Christian emphasis on the Holy Trinity was discerned over a
couple of hundred years with much prayer, lots of scripture study, a few
councils, and some big church fights that include St. Nicholas, among others,
getting a little heated. Knowing God as
three persons is important to our faith and to our everyday life. God as Trinity means that we can be a part of
the divine life of love, joy, and peace, and we can help others enter into that
life, as well. So remember that the
loving relationships you have with others, and the human community formed by
them, are in the image of God. And if
you are tempted to forget, go have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wash it down with a
shamrock shake.
