May 30, 2021 – John 3:1-17
John 3:1-17
Prioritizing Relationship
The Holy Trinity – May 30, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
For many of us, the past year and a half has been a time to re-evaluate our lives,
and re-evaluate what is important.
Some of us feel like we have been cut off from relationships that have been
life-giving and sustaining for us.
At the same time, some of us feel like we have connected with people in new or
re-newed ways through other-than-usual means, like the internet.
Either way, we have in some ways re-discovered the important of relationship in our lives.
When God looked at the very first earth-creature/human being God made in Genesis 2,
God declared in no uncertain terms: “It is not good for the earth creature to be alone.”
Truer words were never spoken.
The earth-creature was created in the exact likeness of God.
God, apparently, exists to be in relationship.
And since earth-creatures – that’s you and me – are created in the very likeness of God,
we too exist to be in relationship.
On Trinity Sunday we think about the nature of the God we are created in the likeness of.
Above all, we reflect on the relational nature of God.
More to the point:
we reflect on what it means for us that God doesn’t just exist to be in relationship,
but that in some way, God in God’s self is relationship.
At the very heart, at the very core, at the very foundation of all that is – is relationship.
That is kind of mind-blowing.
This might just be the core Christian insight – that God is Triune,
that God is most like a loving community of three persons.
The insight came about not because of philosophers idly mulling the nature of reality.
The insight came about not even because “scripture says it is so,”
which it actually doesn’t say very clearly.
The insight came about simply because of the way Christians experienced God.
For one thing, they experienced God in creation, in nature.
They experienced a beautiful, powerful creator behind what they experienced to be
a very beautiful, very powerful creation.
Like us, they wondered: why, after all, is there something rather than nothing?
Where did all this wondrous beauty and variety come from?
When I sent out the photo of the tulip this week, many of you responded with awe and
wondered at its beauty and perfection.
You experienced a little of God the creator in that photo.
Some of us had the same experience of God the creator in
that wondrous moon on Wednesday evening.
Or in the first green of spring we are currently experiencing.
These things evoke awe in us, awe that such wondrousness exists –
and often an unspoken thanksgiving arises from deep within us.
This is to experience God as creator.
Creator – the one who fashioned the world in the beginning and continues to
fashion each day anew.
The early Christians experienced this and named the creator Father.
But the early Christians also experienced the divine in a couple of other profound ways.
One, of course, was Jesus.
Jesus was sooooo strange – you can hear the wonder in Nicodemus’ voice today
when he asks Jesus: “Where are you from?”
Jesus seemed so strange, so extraordinary, so seemingly out of this world, so loving,
so inclusive, so engaging with every sort of person, so . . . forgiving –
that they could only say that God was at work in him in an extraordinary,
full, complete way.
So much so that they said he was the exact image of the invisible God.
This person who ate with sinners, challenged the empire, and cared for the vulnerable.
This person who above all healed.
This person was fully human, for sure – but also fully divine.
This person seemed to reveal the very heart of the creator God,
a heart that was found to be full of mercy, full of compassion, full of a desire for justice,
full of healing, and full of forgiveness.
The early Christians experienced this and gave him the title Son –
for in the ancient world sons apprenticed their father’s trade,
just as Jesus apprenticed to the creator’s trade of bringing new life.
Finally, the early Christians experienced the divine in a third way.
They experienced that the Spirit that was at work in Jesus was still at work among them!
And they experienced that it was at work in them when they carried on Jesus’ work of
healing, feeding, and forgiving.
This Spirit also bound them together in love as a community for the carrying on of this work and
it energized them together.
They experienced this loving Life or Energy flowing from Jesus
through them into a world in need.
They delighted in each other and cared for each other so that together they could
love the world that the creator God still loved.
So: the early Christians experienced God in three profound ways.
The ways were obviously very distinctive –
and yet there was a profound unity and purpose at work.
And so they came up with the doctrine of the Trinity – the idea that
God is most like a loving community of three persons.
Three persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who work seamlessly together,
who love one another, who give gifts to each other, who receive gifts from each other.
They came to the conclusion that God doesn’t just value community.
In some way God actually is community.
God is relationship in God’s very self.
It is why we so emphasize the importance of community-building at First Lutheran Church.
Our community life somehow reflects the very life of God.
And it is why we prioritize relationship at First Lutheran Church.
Loving relationship is the purpose of all that is, loving relationship at the foundation of all that is.
Sometimes rules get in the way of loving relationship.
Sometimes our categories for people get in the way of loving relationship.
Racism, poverty, and injustice get in the way of loving relationship.
But at First Lutheran Church, we strive to struggle against those things and
do away with things that get in the way of loving relationship.
It’s why our welcome statement says what it says:
We WELCOME all seeking God’s love and grace. We welcome all because God welcomes all, regardless of age, ability, health, ethnicity, gender identity, language, sexual orientation, life circumstances, marital status, race, or anything else which sometimes divides us. We welcome diversity and uniqueness. Our unity is in Christ, whose grace is freely given to all.
Holy Trinity Sunday is a day think about how well our community life reflects the life of God,
God who is most like a loving community of three persons.
It is a day to give thanks, for the Creator and the most wondrous, beautiful creation imaginable.
It is day to give thanks for Jesus who reveals to us the loving merciful heart of the Creator.
And it is a day to give thanks for the Spirit, who energizes us with love for loving the world that
the Triune God so loves.
That God is triune is great good news, for us and our world.
For it helps us discern a way forward in any given situation because it helps us ask the questions:
what is best for this relationship? And what is best for our community?
Let us continue to move forward as the triune God’s people who, filled with love,
prioritize relationship and community – the heart of life.
Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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