Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015

Trinity Sunday

       

  I have been reflecting on how we know another person. I write a lot of little homilies for funerals. Sometimes I know something about the person, and sometimes I know nothing. I listen to people tell me stories about the person they have lost. Sometimes they have treasured memories. Sometimes they just relate how the person lived – they had a sense of humor, or they liked to meet new people. Sometimes I have the privilege of visiting someone over time. They tell me their story. I get to hear from them who was important and what was important. Almost no one talks about his or her possessions. They talk about whom they loved and what they did together.

         Today we talk about God. It is difficult for us. How do we describe God? The best we can do is share in our own words what we have been taught or what we have seen. Each of our individual perspectives seems too small. Even if we have had a powerful experience of God, it is peculiar to us and we have trouble expressing it to others in a way that they can understand.

         Today we celebrate an idea more than an event. We celebrate the Trinity, that is, God is one and God is revealed to us in the three persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We know that we worship God. We know that we refer to God as Father. We know how important Jesus is to us. We might have a feeling the Spirit is important (especially right after Pentecost.) We have no easy way to explain how these three persons fit together. Not only are we a little uncertain about just what the trinity is, we are uncertain why it’s important or why we would bother to celebrate it.

         I think the problem is that we are trying to create an objective description of God when we don’t experience God that way. We can talk about God without ever knowing God. So what does any of this have to do with us?

         The trinity is never explained in scripture. It has been developed through time by trying to understand what has been revealed to us. Putting the pieces together we find a God revealed to us in three persons. The identity of God is never revealed in a way that we are to understand God or be able to define God. The bible has no interest in our ability to confine God in a set of ideas. Instead, scripture is given to us to show us how to have life, how to have a living relationship with God.

         What we see is God as a being in relationship. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit is that bond or that love between them. This is an ancient understanding of the Trinity from the early church fathers. The Trinity is described to us not so much that we can understand about God. The trinity is shown to us so that we can understand our way to God.

         Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He is seeking truth and he expects to find answers with Jesus. Jesus won’t let him remain in his old ways of understanding. Maybe when we are challenged by the trinity we can consider that God wants us to leave behind our old expectations about whom God should be or what God should do. We are so western and logical in our thinking. We want to know in order to control. We want to be come masters of our subject material.

         God wants to simply love. To love, as God wants to love, maybe we have to give up all our illusions about control. Maybe we have to give up our need to understand. God is seeking for us to love without knowing the outcome. Maybe God wants us to love without knowing what’s in it for us. Maybe God wants us to love with detachment, without caring if we accomplish anything. It’s a little like stepping out into the unknown.

         While we do not ever come to a place where we can comprehend God. We do know some things about God. God is love. God is trustworthy. God keeps promises. God has promised to walk with us. We have yet to come to any certainty. In this life of ours there will still be loss and pain. There will be sickness and failure. We will be confronted with doubt and mystery.

         It would be much more simple for us if we could have one singular God much like our Abrahamic partners, as in Judaism or Islam. One God is easier to believe in, and certainly easier to explain. What we believe is what we have been given. What we have been given is the way of our salvation. The work of faith is not so much to understand but to listen. It is not so much to keep score about our blessings, but to trust in what may happen next. God has been revealed this way to us to show us that we are loved – so that we can welcome others in to that love.