|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Proverbs 8:1–4, 22–31 |
Psalm 8 |
Romans 5:1–5 |
John 16:12–15 |
In the tradition of many Jewish rabbis and sages, Jesus taught his first disciples mainly through stories. Most of us know that stories engage us far better than mere recitation and memorization of precepts and formulas. For example, in teaching about God’s loving grace, Jesus told about a lost sheep, a lost son, and a good Samaritan. By in large these stories were not meant to be rigid allegories, even though many later Christians tended to interpret them as such. That is to say, the stories had more than one level of meaning and the characters in the story did not necessarily have an exact one to one correspondence to someone else outside the story. It is true Jesus wanted us to understand that God does not hesitate to search, just like a persistent shepherd who looks for a lost sheep that has strayed from the flock, or is as thorough as a poor widow who cleans the house looking for her lost coin. Jesus wanted us to know that God is as generous and kind as a Samaritan who went out of his way to help a traveler in extreme distress, and that God never gives up hope as a father for a wayward child. However, Jesus didn’t want our minds to stop there. The story of the prodigal son is also about the older son, who never seemed to have understood what made his father tick and seemed to have wasted his years of physical closeness with his father. In the story of the good Samaritan, often God seems to be like the one beaten and at the side of the road, whom an outcast and outsider helps rather than the type of person one would expect to help. On occasion we are like the lost sheep who becomes isolated that God seeks. All of which to say is that Jesus used stories to stretch our imaginations not to limit or confine them.
That is precisely why so called doctrines, while often very helpful in responding to specific problems in one historical context, can obscure or inhibit later understandings in a different and future age. The Gospel passage for today Jesus is warning us “You still have much to learn, I have many more things to teach you, but you can not comprehend them now. However the gift of the Holy Spirit will be your continuing tutor.” Jesus wanted us to understand that discipleship is not a destination, but a journey.
A regular celebration of a Sunday Feast of the Trinity, began in the 10th century. The concept of the Trinity is like a gyroscope spinning on more than one axis to provide equilibrium and to help people of faith balance and pull together the storehouse of stories in the Bible and the experiences of people of faith. Orthodox Christianity holds that there is one God. Yet God is described in terms of human language and analogies that have their definite limitations. In the conventions of our English language we traditionally call the one God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. For many in today's society, these specific terms are problematic, and unfortunately there does not seem to be as yet any common agreement on a satisfactory substitute. These three terms describe aspects of a relationship, not a description of God's sexuality or inner psyche. God is neither male, nor female, nor androgynous. Maleness, femaleness, gender, sexuality are all part of the earthly order that God creates. In a similar way when Jesus told his stories, he did not mean that God was an actual shepherd, or landowner, or traveling salesman between Jericho and the hinterland.
In one sense the concept of the Trinity is like a comprehensive insurance policy that reminds us of the depth, breadth, and inexhaustible strength of the Biblical witness to the acts of God. It reminds us that while people of faith may make distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these distinct realities are related to each other, for they are also one. The Gospel does not introduce additional gods. We are protected against a jealousy of the Son over the Father, or the Son over the Holy Spirit. We know that Jesus loved God the Father, prayed to God the father, and that the Father loved the son. We know that Jesus promised us the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The relationship between/among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not one of competition or exclusiveness, but of mutuality and love. We are protected against a divine role-playing which would have a capricious god acting one moment in one role, another moment in another role, and who knows what in the next. The Trinity affirms that Jesus never implied that there was a so-called judgmental god of the Old Testament that has now been replaced by a so-called merciful god of the New Testament.
The provisions of the Trinity are not easily stated, for their umbrella of protection and balance is substantial. Like the Biblical storehouse of stories that have been told and passed on from generation to generation, one or two examples or interpretations won't cover or delineate everything in full. Stories deal with relationships and give us perspective, focus, and horizons that are never exhausted in a single telling. That is why stories can be as meaningful to grandchildren as they can to grandparents. That in itself is Good News. There are no gaps of coverage in God’s plan: The church and people of faith are not in the same place as they were fifty years ago, and won’t be where they are now fifty years hence, but the Biblical stories will endure and continue to bear rich witness. As Jesus promised, “I have much to tell you but you cannot bear it now. But I will send the comforter, the Holy Sprit to guide and support you.” That is the Good News for this feast we call Trinity Sunday.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
