May 22, 2015 (The Holy Trinity) John 16:12-15
John 16:12-15
When I say “God” You say “Trinity”
The Holy Trinity – May 22, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Okay: it is the end of a long week of meetings and now
I have to write a sermon late on Friday afternoon – which is not my preferred time
at all for writing sermons!
I love writing sermons and I love the day when we celebrate the Holy Trinity,
But this is not easy.
Oh well! Here goes.
When I say “God” you say . . . ????? What?
Right! Trinity!!!!!
We had a little discussion in confirmation class last week about God.
And we needed to say that for Christians, God is the Trinity.
That is, God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God is not the Father. God is not the Son. God is not the Holy Spirit.
God is, rather, Triune.
God is three-personed.
God is a community of persons.
God is in fact most like a loving community of three persons.
When you think of God, you think of the Trinity – the Trinity is what Christians think God is.
Now that is a pretty weird idea.
Is the Trinity one God or three gods? Well, one. But it is composed of three persons.
What you have to remember is that Christians didn’t just make that up –
you couldn’t make that up, right?
Christians developed this idea because they experienced God in three ways.
Like the Jews, they experienced God profoundly as creator and provider.
But they also experienced God profoundly
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who died and rose again.
And finally they experienced God profoundly as the Spirit or energy at work
among them who will bring all creation to fulfillment.
Three persons – or three masks – one God.
Moreover, they experienced these three to live a life in perfect love and perfect
mutuality and perfect equality.
They experienced these three living a life of perfect community,
of generously giving gifts to one another and generously receiving gifts from one another.
Within the very life of God they discerned relationship. Loving relationship.
At the heart of reality is relationship.
So since the Triune God created the universe, it is no accident that the universe is
inherently relational.
And since we affirm human beings are made in the image of God,
human beings are inherently relational.
We cannot become who we were meant to become without parents and friends
and mentors and teachers and all those good relationships.
We are made in the image of the Triune God, and so we were made for
mutuality, relationship, community, giving and receiving gifts in love.
That is what our lives are all about in Christian community.
Indeed, our congregation is meant, at its best, to simply mirror or reflect the
life of the Triune God, so when people look at us and how we live and work together,
they will say, “Oh, that is what God looks like.”
This morning, Jesus give us a little glimpse into the kind of life he shares with
the Father and the Holy Spirit.
He describes a life of intimacy, and of giving and receiving,
of respectful listening and thoughtful sharing. He says:
Whenever the Spirit comes, the Spirit speaks what he hears from me.
I will give to the Spirit what I have received from the Father and the Spirit will give it to you.
For what the Father has, the Father gives to me, and I will give it to the Spirit,
And the Spirit will give it to you.
You can see why we might say that God is most like a loving community of three persons.
A perfect community where there is mutuality, listening, giving and receiving.
This is the life that Jesus was sent to invite us into.
God’s mission is to invite and include us and all creation into the divine life of perfect love.
And the Triune God does that by opening a door into that life through the
life death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus invites us into a life sharing the gifts of healing, and feeding, and including,
and sharing and forgiving.
And the Triune God empowers us for living into such a life by sending us the Holy Spirit,
the same energizing Holy Spirit that was at work in Jesus.
It’s a beautiful thing to be invited into this life and into the Triune God’s mission to
include every single person and all of creation into the divine life of perfect love,
the Triune God’s mission to love bless heal and set from this whole creation and
every person in it.
The invitation to baptism is an invitation into that life.
So that when we are baptized, the mission of the Triune God becomes our mission.
We’re involved in all kinds of relationships, right?
Some are good and life-giving, and some are not.
Some of our relationships are with people and some are good and life-giving and some are not.
Some of our relationships are with nature and some are good and life-giving and some are not.
Some of our relationships are with technology and
some are good and life-giving and some are not.
Some of our relationships are grounded in love and many are not.
What we celebrate on Trinity Sunday is that there is something eternal and
good and life-giving about the loving relationship at the heart and foundation of
reality we call God.
That is very good news.
There is something very comforting in knowing that no loving action is ever wasted,
because there is something God-like and eternal about it.
There is something very comforting in knowing that God is continually reaching out to us
In Jesus of Nazareth through the Holy Spirit of love
no matter what else we are experiencing.
There is something very comforting in knowing that loving relationship is our ultimate destiny.
The Triune God will never tire of inviting us into it.
And everything else we will experience ultimately cannot harm us;
abusive relationships of any kind are simply not eternal and have nothing eternal about them.
But all the love you’ve ever received and all the love you’ve ever given has its source in God,
and cannot be wasted and cannot be destroyed.
Every loving act you’ve participated in has somehow involved you in the love of God.
When you’ve received a meal from someone in a time of need,
you’ve been invited into God’s very life.
When you have visited someone in the hospital and given words of encouragement
and hopefulness, you’ve shared God’s very life with someone.
When you have offered forgiveness to someone who has harmed you
you have invited someone into the very heart of God –
and you have played a role in the Triune God’s mission to bind
everything in the universe together in the great love
the Three Persons of the Trinity have for everything and everyone.
When you receive love and when you in turn give love you are participating in
the life of the Triune God.
You are being Christian.
You are reflecting the life of the Trinity.
This is all good news and this is why from earliest times the celebration of the Holy Trinity
is not so much a day to think or get a theology lesson as it is a day to praise.
Today is a day to celebrate that the God we believe in is a God most like a
loving community of three persons!
That is good news! That is great news!
This God never tires of inviting you into the divine life of mutual giving and receiving of gifts.
This God never tires of inviting you into a life of participating in the mission to love bless
include and set free all creation and every person in it.
This God loves it when we at First Lutheran Church reflect the divine loving life by
being a community that honours the gifts we receive from one another and
the gifts we give to each other.
This God loves it when your loving actions play their part in the restoration and
reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth.
For the love you give and the love you receive are never wasted for they have their
source and they have their end in the Triune God of love.
So when I say “God” you say – “Trinity”!
And together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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