First Reading:
12I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth
comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on
his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you
the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, because
he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that
the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what
is mine and declare it to you.
Second Reading:
8O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Our Psalm today comes to us because a few thousand years ago, someone looked up to the sky and noticed that this world is amazing… They didn't know it, but our seasons happen because the Earth is tilted at an angle of 23 degrees. I read somewhere that if the earth had not been tilted exactly as it is, vapors from the oceans would move toward the poles and vast continents of ice would pile up. They tell us if the moon was only 50,000 miles away from the earth instead of 200,000 the tides might be so enormous that the continents would all be submerged in water —even the mountains would be eroded away. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, and without it no animals. If the oceans had been only a few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed by the water and vegetable life wouldn't be able to exist. The earth's weight has been estimated at six sextillion tons (that's a six with 21 zeros after it). And yet it is perfectly balanced by the invisible forces of gravity. We revolve around the Earth's axis at the rate of approximately 25,000 miles each day. That's nine million miles a year just spinning around. And if you think that's a lot, in one year, the journey around the sun is about six hundred million miles… which means that even right now we're moving 19 miles per second… And as we look with a bigger perspective, our Sun is just one of countless stars. It's estimated that if you hold out a dime at arms length the coin would block fifteen million stars if our eyes could see with that kind of power. (a paraphrase of Brennan Manning from his book: The Ragamuffin Gospel). And as far out in size and grandeur as we are able to perceive, from the Earth to the Solar system to the galaxy to the universe, we can also turn the camera in the other direction… and find a similar sense of wonder as we go smaller and smaller… because on this rock that's spinning and flying through the nothingness of space there are ecosystems that have given rise to various nations and cultures made up of plants and animals and people, and those plants and animals and people are made up of organs and tissues which are made up of cells and cells are made up of a whole variety of processes and proteins that are made up of molecules that are made up of atoms that are made up of particles and that's where the real action happens as electrons bounce back and forth and interact with one another… And I'm sure that some of the scientifically minded folks in the congregation can tell you in much more detail what goes on at either end of the spectrum, but as I even begin to think about the little bit I know, Creation is absolutely amazing. In fact, I think part of why this particular psalm is chosen for this Sunday is because looking at creation draws us to the fact that we can't possibly understand the whole of who God is.
Much of God will be hidden from us no matter how long we live in this life… and that's exactly the kind of sentiment you might expect to see on the day we celebrate as Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is one of the few days on the church calendar that's set aside specifically to focus on a particular teaching of the church. The idea of the trinity is easy to speak: one God made known in three persons, but it's hard to understand… in fact it's probably impossible to wrap our heads around it. There are a significant number of scripture texts that point to the reality of one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but the actual teaching really emerged out of the experience of the church… From the beginning, the assertion that God is one has been a hallmark of the Judeo-Christian worldview… that alone led people in the ancient world to accuse Jews and Christians as being Atheists because we were the only people around who refused to worship the many gods that were available in the dominant culture at that point… But as the early church grew and spread throughout the Roman world, first as an underground, sometimes persecuted movement and then later as the religion of the empire, there were lots of different experiences of God that began to emerge… and the explanation of the Trinity came about to ensure that even though there were multiple manifestations we were indeed talking about the same God. As Fredrick Buechner said, the doctrine of the trinity exists as an assertion that despite appearances to the contrary, there is only one God. The unity of God was the issue, along with the multiplicity of people's experience of how God relates to us as people. And so I want to be perfectly clear the important thing for Trinity Sunday is not that we walk out of here understanding the triune nature of God. It's that we pay attention in our lives to how God relates with us and we do everything in our power to respond faithfully.
When the Psalmist ponders creation and sees the majesty of
God…There's no way that he could have known nearly as much
about the natural phenomena that make up the world and its environment
in the universe as we do now, but even without that knowledge and
understanding, he was still able to experience the majesty of God
through nature and so he wrote When I look at your heavens, the
work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have
established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
what are mortals that you care for them?
I love this Psalm because the Psalmist recognizes the fine line we as
humans walk… we are not God… we cannot be God… we
cannot understand all of who God is… taking a good look at any
number of things in creation makes that abundantly clear. And yet at
the same time, we are important to God… For some reason, God
has chosen to interact with us… and it's more than the cursory
interaction of setting the earth in motion… God also interacted
face to face by living among us in the person of Jesus Christ who
lived and died to show the strength of God's desire to be in
relationship with us. And God still interacts in multiple ways,
including the continual guidance offered by the Holy Spirit so that we
might be able to respond faithfully to the level of responsibility and
opportunity that we've been given, and indeed we've been given much.
The Psalmist continues, You have made them [that's humans, that's
us] a little lower than God, and yet crowned them with glory and
honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you
have put all things under their feet
And so as it turns out, we
are a sort of what I like to call middlegrounder
… we are
each only one person in the midst of a large and complex system of
social relationships and yet in our circles we have influence. When
you consider the whole of creation, we are a minuscule and powerless
part and yet we are also called to act on its behalf… we are
people who are not God and yet we were created in God's image to be in
relationship with God.
The psalmist asks why. When there's so much in creation that reveals power and glory and wisdom and greatness, why would God go and make us in God's image? It's only a partly answerable question… and the answer really depends on a second question which is the question the teaching on the trinity seeks to answer… what is the image of God in which we're created? There were some who understood God to be the infinite projection of human power… perhaps the only way they were able to conceive of God was something like a tribal ruler who became king and is beyond compare in military might or coercive power or autonomous authority… project that into the heavenly realm and you get an image of God that many people held in the ancient world… and to be honest, there are plenty of people who still hold that image now.
When we consider everything we know about our place in creation, that kind of image is an easy place to go. But the doctrine of the Trinity says even if that's true, it's certainly not all that is… When the teaching on the trinity came about, people knew God to be the creator of everything that is and so they knew that God was incredibly powerful… but at the same time they knew God to be intimately connected to us and concerned for us… that was made evident by Jesus Christ who is God and who revealed God character and at the same time was human in every way. He was passionate and involved in the lives of people… and he eventually suffered greatly on a cross for us and on our behalf… and they also understood that at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to lead and guide the church in the world… and that Holy Spirit was also God… It was the same spirit that was over the waters of chaos at creation, the same spirit who breathed life into the face of the earth. And in our Gospel text, Jesus assures the disciples that the Spirit of Truth will remain active in the lives of the believers, making things known to them in due time.
When we work from this picture of God, which is a broader picture, a more comprehensive picture and a fuller picture, it becomes easier to understand our place… God is not just an infinite projection of power. The triune nature of God says that at the core of who God is, God is eternally in relationship. And accordingly, as people created in God's image, we were not intended to be isolated individuals who seek to be self sufficient… that may be a cultural norm and ideal, but it isn't God's plan for us. Everything that is, from the tilt of the earth to the way electrons interact between atoms, everything that is, is connected. And as we envision an interconnected web of creation… and we grow in awareness of our place as middle grounders in relationship with God and creation and other people, we become sensitive to what it means to live into our call of dominion… God has given us incredible gifts… the gift of creation, the gift of relationships, the gift of guidance by the Spirit, to name a few. And I would suggest that a faithful response looks something like this:
First, acknowledge the effect that you can have… you and I are more powerful than we often give ourselves credit for… the choices we make matter and the influence we exert has the potential to make a difference and so we honor God's gifts by developing the habit of consciously choosing to take care of them and to share them…
Second, recognize that God has entrusted us with great responsibility and great opportunity not so that we can get ahead or because we've done something to deserve the gifts but because that's who God is and God longs to be in relationship with us. The gifts always point toward the giver, and the way we interact with them is how we live our relationship with God. And when all is said and done, the only thing that we can give back is our very lives, lived in praise of and service to and relationship with the God who's made known as Father, Son and Spirit. May it be so. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
