Trinity Sunday 15 June 2014 This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which is aptly observed after the feast of Pentecost; the occasion when we celebrate the

Transcription

1 Trinity Sunday 15 June 2014 This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which is aptly observed after the feast of Pentecost; the occasion when we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church. The Trinity IS the Christian doctrine of God. Typically when Christians say "God" they mean, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Jews do not believe this doctrine, nor do Muslims although Jews and Muslims will often have a high opinion of Jesus Christ. Yet they cannot, will not, take the crucial step of calling him the Son of God. The Jehovah s Witnesses do not believe it, nor do the Mormons or the Unitarians. New Agers deny this doctrine as do the Christian Scientists and the spiritualists. The belief in the Trinity sets Christianity apart from other religions. For the first Christians, for the first disciples of Jesus, the Trinity was not a theological doctrine 1

2 which had been taught to them by others it was a description of their experience of God at work in their lives. Because the earliest Christians were actually Jews (just like Jesus) they knew above all, that God must be one. The Jewish scriptures were clear about it, and Jesus had reminded them of it on many occasions. They worshipped the God who had created the Universe and who was the source of all that was good and life-giving, and they knew that however hard they tried to understand that God that in the end he was entirely unknowable, beyond the time and space that he had created. Even calling God he was a way of ascribing human words to a being that was beyond human understanding. They worshipped the one God who created all that is. But this created for them a serious problem. Their belief in one God seemed to deny their experience 2

3 of Jesus; they had encountered God in the actions and words of the human Jesus and they found God revealed and active in this Son, who welcomed outcasts into the Kingdom of God and spoke the word of forgiveness on God s behalf. So the question for them became, if God was one, then who was Jesus, and why did they experience through him such an incredible and tangible sign of God s presence? If God was one, and beyond time and space as the creator of the world, then who was Jesus? Then there was the experience which followed Jesus rising from the dead, and his ascension to heaven: after Pentecost which we celebrated last Sunday - the experience of those first Christians who found God in a new explosion of energy which sustained and guided them; they called this experience the Holy Spirit of God, and likened it in some way to the presence or spirit of 3

4 Jesus in their midst. It was as if (although Jesus were no longer with them) he was still there every time they gathered together, doing all the same things which he had done before. If God was one, then who was Jesus, and what was the sense of Jesus which they still felt even after his ascension? The early followers of Jesus, reflecting after his death, and resurrection and ascension, had to re-think their understanding of the being of God, because of their experience of God s acts among them. They could no longer hold to the same strict idea of monotheism of one God which they had inherited, because they knew that there was more to their experience of living in the presence of God, than could be adequately described in the ancient formulary of there being just one God. They knew too, and were adamant about the fact, that there 4

5 could not be many gods. The alternatives which they saw in the many religions of the culture around them neither rang true for them, nor seemed in any way to correspond to the experience which they had known in Christ. So as they expressed their three different experiences of God, they found them to be linked in a way that had not been described before. They experienced the God who created them and the whole world, and who loved them and sent God s son, they experienced the Son who loved them and sent his Spirit, and they experienced this Spirit, this presence of Jesus even when he was no longer physically with them, still driving them forward and outwards in mission. They came to understand these three experiences, these three persons, as in some way one, and yet also three: Creator, 5

6 Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life. Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is three, and God is one. The history of the first few centuries of the Christian church is the story of a great struggle to define this doctrine. Three issues were central: * the unity of God; * the divinity of Christ, * the personality of the Holy Spirit. By stressing the unity of God the early Christians struggled to answer the charge that they worshiped three Gods (a claim often laid against them by the Jews). At the same time they argued among themselves about the precise relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father. Numerous theories were advanced, including the idea that Jesus was a mere man (the Ebionite view) or divine but still inferior to the Father 6

7 (Monarchianism) or that Jesus became the Christ when he was baptized (Adoptionism). A man named Arius proposed that Jesus was the greatest of all created beings. His theology (Arianism) threatened for a time to destroy the Christian movement. Finally, the church had to decide whether to consider the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force (an it") or a Person (a he"). And if the Holy Spirit was a Person, how was he related to the other two Persons in the Godhead? To read the story of those ancient conflicts is to learn of men like Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, the Three Cappadocians, Nestorius, Sabellius and Paul of Samosata. Some were condemned as heretics while others helped formulate the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. To those who regard the doctrine of the Trinity with a yawn, it may come as 7

8 a surprise to know it took the Christian church nearly 500 years to settle the issue. Those who regard the doctrine with a yawn follow it with the statement that the Trinity isn t biblical! You won t find the actual word Trinity in the scriptures, but you do find inferences and explicit statements from Genesis to Revelation. In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.. Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness 1 There are several crucial passages where all three Persons of the Trinity are brought together in 1 Genesis 1: 1,2, 26 8

9 complete equality, e.g. as in our gospel reading this morning from Matthew (28:19) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Note that all three Persons are mentioned together. Note also that the unity of God is strongly suggested by the singular name (and not names"). Note also that there is no hint of inferiority or subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father. One name Three Persons. The second letter to the Corinthians (13:13) ends with the words which we often use as a greeting in our worship service: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. The first letter of Peter (1:2, NRSV) is addressed to: the exiles who have been chosen and destined by God the 9

10 Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance. Note that although different terminology is used and a different order of mention is made, there is a basic equality among the three Persons of the Trinity. The writers of the New Testament clearly felt free to mention all three together in the same verse without any further explanation. From the beginning of time until the end of the age, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have existed as a holy community of love and grace. So, as we reflect on the Trinity, don t let it be just a vague, dry doctrine for us. Don t write it off as something that s just too complicated for us to 10

11 understand. Don t leave it to the theologians to debate about. Let s think about the community of love that has been within God since the beginning of time. Let s accept God s invitation to join in that community. As we see real, concrete examples of how God has created us, redeemed us, and sustained us, let us respond with love and gratitude. Let us add our love to the Trinity s communion of love. What s more, let God be revealed in our community. The Trinity teaches us that no one ever stands alone. As soon as we accept God s love and salvation, we are members of a community. We cannot be Christians without being connected to one another. Sorry. If we re going to embrace God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, then 11

12 we re going to have to embrace each other. Not just the people who are inside the church s four walls this morning, but everyone who calls upon the Triune God. If that weren t hard enough, God calls us to do more. Not only do we have to love other believers, but we have to go out and share God s love with the world. Jesus commanded his followers: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20). The love we find in the Trinity, the communion we find with one another, is not just for our own sakes. It s for the sake of the world. It s meant to be shared. 12

13 The world needs love. The world needs grace. The world needs community. May the Triune God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit help us to share the message of the Trinity with all of creation. 13