Grace and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our souls be pleasing unto you, O Lord our Rock and Redeemer. Amen.
Today is the day the church takes time to focus on the Trinity. I don’t know about you, but this confusing and complex doctrine normally gives me a headache as I try to understand. Let’s think about this. Three-in-one. One plus one plus one equaling one. (SLIDE - math) And the one is the same yet not the same. Because they can’t be different since if the three were different, then they couldn’t be one. Yet they are not just one because there are three.
For all you mathematicians out there, this Trinity business probably doesn’t add up.
But for all who believe and profess that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, the math doesn’t matter.
The church has a tradition of using various examples to explain how on earth the three are one, how the one God is three.
My personal favorite example is the clover. (SLIDE - clover) Attributed to have been the brainchild of St Patrick as he attempted to explain the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to the Irish, the clover is an example of how there are three parts and yet one clover.
But the fact remains that any attempt to understand the Trinity leave so much out of the equation.
Because the clover or a three-legged stool or a triangle are inanimate. They do not show the relationship and change as the three work together, taking on different roles and yet working together.
The Trinity is all about relationship.
There are different parts or entities in the Trinity, yet they are united and completely one. Because there is only one God.
The relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one of my favorite doctrines. I love the image that God is not alone. That God is not just the only child playing with playdough or dolls, creating imaginary worlds that come to life as words are spoken aloud. God is with others who are playing and journeying with God.
Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was with God at the beginning of it all. Wisdom was there when God was creating the world and everything in it. God had some company.
God was relationship at the beginning. But that relationship doesn’t end with God.
Because God created human beings. Humanity was invited into that relationship with God. This is a long-standing invitation. The book of Proverbs was written and compiled about 2500 years ago. That is a long time.
Currently the Wednesday Bible study is reading through the book of Proverbs. And in Proverbs, wisdom has been depicted as a street preacher of sorts, standing on the corner trying to get the attention of God’s children who keep walking by. God’s wisdom is personified as a woman who is out and about among human beings.
Woman wisdom is not the only part of the Trinity to walk among human beings.
We read the gospel of John remembering the words of chapter 1: “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word, better known to us as Jesus, was with God at the beginning. But Jesus was and is God.
And shortly after that, we read that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. Jesus is the Incarnation of God. Literally, the God who became flesh. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
Today’s text in John is part of a speech Jesus is giving to prepare his disciples before Emmanuel leaves. The Son of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will be departing. But he will not abandon us. We are promised a Spirit, an Advocate will be bringing us truth and teaching us more. Last week we celebrated the arrival of that Spirit as it marked a big change in the life of the church.
Today we remember and rejoice that the coming of the Spirit acts as a reminder of how God is with us. The Holy Spirit is among us, keeping us in relationship with God, the triune God who is three-in-one.
All of this theology can be hard to understand. God knows that that we will struggle to understand, just like the generations that came before us.
But today is not the right time to focus on what we don’t understand. Today I want to focus more on the relationship between the triune God and humanity.
God is not a deity who made the world then stepped back to let it do its own thing. God is the God who wanted to be in relationship with creation. And God is in relationship through Woman Wisdom, through Jesus, through the Word, through the Spirit. All of which are God.
And I want to remind us all that each aspect of the Trinity is in direct relationship with humanity. Because God did not just forget about us, but instead keeps coming in contact with us to guide and teach.
Our God loves us so much that God walked among us, that God continues to walk with us as we journey.
So today let us celebrate the God who was and is and is to come. Let us remember that our God is the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Let us rejoice that God the Father created us, God the Son died for our sake and was resurrected, that the Holy Spirit is still here to sustain us.
We can be grateful that God has invited us into relationship through the words spoken by Wisdom and the Word of God.
We can be humbled by the fact that God created such a magnificent world and wants to share it with us, that this God wants to be in relationship with us.
The Trinity is all about relationship. Each part of the three-in-one is unique and yet the same.
Just as we are a church united in our faith and yet special in our own way.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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