St. Margaret's Sermon Archive
Trinity - Rev. Robert W. Carlson 06/11/06
Trinity Sunday is a special Sunday, special because it celebrates the most distinct characteristic of Christian doctrine, our belief that God is one, and that the one God acts and reveals God’s self in three distinct ways as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier.
I have heard (and unfortunately preached) some of the most ununderstandable sermons ever delivered on Trinity Sundays. The reason why I and others have done so badly on Trinity Sunday is that we yielded to the temptation to try to explain what is not explainable. We use long words and complicated ideas when we might do better with stories, pictures or poetry. The primary truth of the Trinity is not about substances and essences and persons. It has mostly to do with imagination and poetry and realities beyond our means to express. The composer Gustav Mahler had it right when he was asked about the meaning of a particular piece of his music. He said, “If I could tell you what it means I would not have had to compose it.” God, even more so, is beyond our words and explanations.
And so this morning I simply wish to hold before you three images from the Bible, images which point us to the reality of God. The first image is that of the burning bush which Moses discovered in the wilderness. The bush burned and burned but was not consumed. Moses reacted to the bush as any reasonable, scientific human being would react. He moved up closer to see how this could happen, to make a scientific observation. But the burning bush did not have anything to do with scientific observation or the laws of combustion. It is amazing that Moses, some 4,000 years ago, was nevertheless enough of a modern man that his first reaction to the unexplainable event - a bush that burned without being consumed - was to go look at it and see how it worked. But this was not only an inadequate responses, it was a downright dangerous response to a holy event, a breaking in on his consciousness of the one holy God! God warns Moses that the least he could do would be to take off his street shoes and show some respect or the whole Judeo-Christian tradition could end right there! I have no analogies to this event, nothing to which I can compare it except other Biblical stories such as Isaiah’s vision of the six winged seraphim, or Jacob’s experience of the ladder reaching up into heaven, or possibly St. Paul’s falling down blind before the Resurrected Christ. One of the prayers of consecration in the Book of Common Prayer talks about “the vast expanse of Interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses.” When I see programs on television about the expanding universe or new discoveries in space, they expand my consciousness of reality the nth degree, but the reality of the burning bush and the symbol of the Trinity go beyond these measurable and conceivable realities to the immeasurable and the inconceivable.
The second image from the Bible which struck me is that of rebirth discussed by Jesus and Nicodemus. John, in the gospel for today, tells us about Nicodemus complementing Jesus on his achievements and Jesus responding, somewhat out of the blue, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus, who was well trained in straight line, logical thinking, took the hook and asked how in the world anyone could get back in the womb and be born a second time. Nicodemus’ problem was not that he wasn’t religious or intelligent. It was just that he could not see beyond obvious visible reality. The new birth Jesus talked about had nothing to do with biology. It had to do with the mysterious possibility of men and women getting beyond their biology or psychology to a new reality. It had to do with rebirth, renewal, remembering - of becoming against like children, like infants, of emerging afresh into the world without our old scaled-over eyes, our deafened ears, our dulled senses. Castanada, in one of his books, told of the Indian wise man Don Juan saying something like this, “I am going to tell you an astonishing truth with great power. It is this, that all about you, you are surrounded by eternity.” Being born again, whether it is for the first or the hundredth time, is to discover something more of the truth of that reality which we have traditionally referred to as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The third image f rom the Bible which struck me as a pondered the mystery of the Trinity is in our second lesson, from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul tells us that our indebtedness is not to flesh and blood reality, the stuff of existence that has to do with slavery and fear and death, but to a new reality which he calls Spirit. He writes, “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ...” The mystery he talks about is the mystery of something within us meeting something within the very being of God himself. One of my favorite theologians and writers of children’s stories is the late Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss wrote a book called On Beyond Zebra which I read to my three sons until we almost knew it by heart. It begins with a young child learning the alphabet by associating each letter with a thing, for example, “A is for apple, B is for bear...” All the way to “Z is for Zebra.” But suddenly the young man is challenged by another boy who says that though his alphabet stops at Z, there are other letters which stand for all kinds of wonderful and fanciful creatures. The book concludes:
It is as our spirits are freed to move beyond the limits of the alphabet and human categories that we discover ourselves in touch with God’s Spirit, and that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” “Most people still stop at the Z... but not we!”
The mystery of the burning bush, the mystery of rebirth, the mystery of spirit meeting Spirit - these are part of what we point to when we talk of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One of the joys of worshiping as Episcopalians is that we are caught up in this mystery and that some of us who grew up in simpler traditions where vestments and carved reredoses and liturgies were like a foreign language, have discovered that all of these things serve to point us beyond a limited God we can describe and understand, to the great and wonderful God who fills the universe, but who calls us into communion: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I have heard (and unfortunately preached) some of the most ununderstandable sermons ever delivered on Trinity Sundays. The reason why I and others have done so badly on Trinity Sunday is that we yielded to the temptation to try to explain what is not explainable. We use long words and complicated ideas when we might do better with stories, pictures or poetry. The primary truth of the Trinity is not about substances and essences and persons. It has mostly to do with imagination and poetry and realities beyond our means to express. The composer Gustav Mahler had it right when he was asked about the meaning of a particular piece of his music. He said, “If I could tell you what it means I would not have had to compose it.” God, even more so, is beyond our words and explanations.
And so this morning I simply wish to hold before you three images from the Bible, images which point us to the reality of God. The first image is that of the burning bush which Moses discovered in the wilderness. The bush burned and burned but was not consumed. Moses reacted to the bush as any reasonable, scientific human being would react. He moved up closer to see how this could happen, to make a scientific observation. But the burning bush did not have anything to do with scientific observation or the laws of combustion. It is amazing that Moses, some 4,000 years ago, was nevertheless enough of a modern man that his first reaction to the unexplainable event - a bush that burned without being consumed - was to go look at it and see how it worked. But this was not only an inadequate responses, it was a downright dangerous response to a holy event, a breaking in on his consciousness of the one holy God! God warns Moses that the least he could do would be to take off his street shoes and show some respect or the whole Judeo-Christian tradition could end right there! I have no analogies to this event, nothing to which I can compare it except other Biblical stories such as Isaiah’s vision of the six winged seraphim, or Jacob’s experience of the ladder reaching up into heaven, or possibly St. Paul’s falling down blind before the Resurrected Christ. One of the prayers of consecration in the Book of Common Prayer talks about “the vast expanse of Interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses.” When I see programs on television about the expanding universe or new discoveries in space, they expand my consciousness of reality the nth degree, but the reality of the burning bush and the symbol of the Trinity go beyond these measurable and conceivable realities to the immeasurable and the inconceivable.
The second image from the Bible which struck me is that of rebirth discussed by Jesus and Nicodemus. John, in the gospel for today, tells us about Nicodemus complementing Jesus on his achievements and Jesus responding, somewhat out of the blue, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus, who was well trained in straight line, logical thinking, took the hook and asked how in the world anyone could get back in the womb and be born a second time. Nicodemus’ problem was not that he wasn’t religious or intelligent. It was just that he could not see beyond obvious visible reality. The new birth Jesus talked about had nothing to do with biology. It had to do with the mysterious possibility of men and women getting beyond their biology or psychology to a new reality. It had to do with rebirth, renewal, remembering - of becoming against like children, like infants, of emerging afresh into the world without our old scaled-over eyes, our deafened ears, our dulled senses. Castanada, in one of his books, told of the Indian wise man Don Juan saying something like this, “I am going to tell you an astonishing truth with great power. It is this, that all about you, you are surrounded by eternity.” Being born again, whether it is for the first or the hundredth time, is to discover something more of the truth of that reality which we have traditionally referred to as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The third image f rom the Bible which struck me as a pondered the mystery of the Trinity is in our second lesson, from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul tells us that our indebtedness is not to flesh and blood reality, the stuff of existence that has to do with slavery and fear and death, but to a new reality which he calls Spirit. He writes, “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ...” The mystery he talks about is the mystery of something within us meeting something within the very being of God himself. One of my favorite theologians and writers of children’s stories is the late Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss wrote a book called On Beyond Zebra which I read to my three sons until we almost knew it by heart. It begins with a young child learning the alphabet by associating each letter with a thing, for example, “A is for apple, B is for bear...” All the way to “Z is for Zebra.” But suddenly the young man is challenged by another boy who says that though his alphabet stops at Z, there are other letters which stand for all kinds of wonderful and fanciful creatures. The book concludes:
The places I took him!
I tried hard to tell
Young Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell
A few brand-new wonderful words he might spell
I led him around and I tried hard to show
There are things beyond Z that most people don’t know.
I took him past Zebra, as far as I could
And I think perhaps, maybe I did him some good...
Because, finally, he said:
“This is really great stuff!
And I guess the old alphabet
Isn’t enough!”
Now the letters he uses are something to see!
Most people still stop at the Z...
But not HE!
It is as our spirits are freed to move beyond the limits of the alphabet and human categories that we discover ourselves in touch with God’s Spirit, and that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” “Most people still stop at the Z... but not we!”
The mystery of the burning bush, the mystery of rebirth, the mystery of spirit meeting Spirit - these are part of what we point to when we talk of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One of the joys of worshiping as Episcopalians is that we are caught up in this mystery and that some of us who grew up in simpler traditions where vestments and carved reredoses and liturgies were like a foreign language, have discovered that all of these things serve to point us beyond a limited God we can describe and understand, to the great and wonderful God who fills the universe, but who calls us into communion: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.