June 7, 2009 - Trinity Sunday, Year B (RCL)
It was the year that the king died
when it happened,
and the scene would forever stick
in his memory,
through sometimes he wondered
if it had all been a dream.
It was the temple — he knew it immediately, the place
where he had been
many times to pray,
stone walls and silk and gold hangings familiar to his touch —
but this time, this time
it was different.
This time
there was a throne
right in the middle, way up high
and on it
sat . . .
well, sat someone
who he couldn’t even begin to describe. It was beyond words, beyond the power of speech to catch hold of. All he knew
was that it seemed like the clothes of the one in the throne
stretched out until he couldn’t tell where they ended
and the temple hangings began.
And all around, flying creatures, wings shining, calling to each other so that the stone walls rumbled and the air filled with smoke.
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Later on, Isaiah reported
that he had seen God.
But the problem was
that he couldn’t quite answer the question
that everyone he told
asked him.
“What is God like?”
Because as much as Isaiah was sure that he had seen God
he simply couldn’t describe what he’d seen.
It was beyond words.
What is God like
is one of the perennial questions
that humans ask.
Because of course, the problem is
that we can’t prove God.
God can’t be encapsulated
by a scientific experiment;
God isn’t reducible
to a testable entity.
And so, what we are left with
is experiences
like Isaiah’s
the stories of people
who have experienced God
and lived to tell the story.
And part of the job of the church
is to put all those stories together
and come up with something more or less coherent
that we as a community
can believe in,
something that we recognize
as the same God
whom we ourselves have met.
And today we celebrate
the best effort that we can come up in answer to the question
“what is God like?”
We call it the Trinity, God as one,
and at the same time, God as three.
And to be honest
it can be kind of confusing.
Because we have nothing else to compare it with,
nothing else that’s kind of equivalent.
But we do the best we can,
and that best is,
that we believe in one God,
but we know that God
in three persons.
And traditionally those three persons
are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Father, the Creator,
the source of life,
the one who loves us and cares for us like a parent
but at the same time
is responsible for the whole world
and offers justice and mercy and grace.
And the Son, Jesus Christ,
God incarnate,Word made flesh, who was in the world
before creation
yet somehow came who lived in our world as one of us,
fully human
and at the same time not any less God,
and healed and preached
and invited people into a new relationship with God.
And died on the cross
and rose again,
so that our new relationship with God
isn’t just limited to now
but extends into eternity
with resurrected life
for all of us.
And the Spirit, hard to pin down,
dove, wind, fire,
comforter, advocate,
the one that makes us alive
and makes it possible for us to have faith, makes it possible
for us to live in the way that God calls us to,
who continually works in us, transforming us
so that we become more and more like Christ.
Three persons,
but one God.
It’s how we know God, how we experience God, but still hard
to get our minds around.
Recently I’ve been reading the bestseller, "The Shack."
I don’t agree with everything in it,
but there’s a lot that I like and find helpful.
And one of those things
is the way that God is described.
Without giving the plot away entirely,
the main character, Mack,
meets God.
And it’s a God
that’s unlike anything he had ever
expected. God as Father and Creator
is an African American woman called Papa. Papa
bakes a pie and makes pancakes and fried
potatoes and collard greens; Papa wipes away tears; Papa sings along with the radio in the kitchen; Papa is wise and gentle and caring, a kind if idealized mother figure.
But Papa also appears to Mack as an outdoorsy kind of guy, taking him hiking, prepared for every eventuality, and Papa appears as
Sophia, a wise Hispanic female judge.
And then there’s Jesus, a Middle Eastern man with a tool belt,
the ordinary everyday carpenter
who can be your best buddy
and get you to risk doing things
you’ve never dared do
before.
And the Holy Spirit, a woman called Sarayu, who can never quite be seen face on, but only glimpsed our of the corner of your eye,
but brings healing wherever she goes, and plants gardens
and is the very epitome of life.
And while they are three, they are inherently, fundamentally
connected. The Trinity is viewed first and foremost as a
complex relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. They share each other’s pain; Papa has scars on her wrists, like Jesus does;
they share each other’s joy;
they share
when they choose to, each other’s knowledge.
They are closer to one another
than we can imagine,
I want to say partners, but even closer than that,
distinct, and at the same time one.
It’s uncomfortable reading at first.
Especially getting used to Papa.
But it doesn’t take long
before the strangeness disappears.
And what you become aware of
is not the details of the three God-people,
but the love that is between them
and that seeps out into everything around them
so that Mack
and you as the reader
just want to be with them
and stay in the circle
of that love.
That’s what God is like, that’s what the Trinity is. Not an African American woman and Middle Eastern man and elusive spirit, as such,
but God that we recognize from scripture,
God who is like a nursing mother
and a welcoming father,
God who builds things,
and offers friendship,
and knows exactly
what human life is like.
God who takes on our pain and heals us and makes us whole.
And God who makes things grow and flourish, not only plants and flowers and all living things,
but lives and character and the very essence of who we are,
continually being transformed into something more and more beautiful.
God that we can only attempt to describe,
building the best pictures we can
from the stories we have heard
and our own experiences as well,
God who is absolutely and totally bound up in love
and invites us
into that
circle of love.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009