Sermon: Above, Beside, and Within (2019)

Delivered at McBee Chapel United Methodist Church in Conestee, South Carolina and at St. John United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on June 16, 2019, Trinity Sunday

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Above, Beside, and Within

Audio Version

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When 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.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine.  For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 16:12-15 (NRSV)

We believe in the one true God

We believe in Father, Spirit, Son

We believe that good has won

From “Manifesto” by The City Harmonic

The first recorded use of the word trinity to describe God is in the writings of the second-century theologian Theophilus of Antioch.¹  The doctrine of the Trinity was formalized as a creed at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and this creed was revised at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.²  The Nicene Creed states, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.”  The creed continues, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.”  The creed states, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”³

According to the Church calendar, today, the first Sunday after Pentecost, is Trinity Sunday.  Today we remember that God has been revealed to us in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the Trinity was not formalized until the fourth century, but we read hints of a Triune God in Scripture.  For example, in the Gospel of Matthew, the earthly ministry of Jesus is bookended with references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, the heavens open as He emerges from the water.  The Holy Spirit takes the form of a dove and descends upon Him, and the voice of the Father is heard, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”⁴  After Jesus is resurrected from the dead, the Disciples meet Him in Galilee, and there He commissions them to continue the work He started, saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...”⁵

Another part of Scripture that offers us hints of a Triune God is the section of the Gospel of John known to some as the Farewell Discourse, which includes the Gospel reading we heard earlier.  Spanning five chapters, the Farewell Discourse is the last conversation Jesus shares with the Disciples before He is arrested and put on trial.⁶  Jesus, after instructing the Disciples to love one another as He has loved them, reveals that He will soon leave them and go to where they cannot yet follow.  Naturally, the Disciples find this news unsettling, so Jesus assures them that they will join Him someday, that He is going to prepare a place for them in the meantime, that they already know the way to where He is going, and that He will not leave them to carry on His work all alone.⁷  Throughout the conversation, Jesus refers to the God to whom He is returning as the Father, calls himself the Son, and begins to speak of the Spirit of Truth who will be with the Disciples in His absence.

What makes the doctrine of the Trinity particularly difficult to explain is that it is so easy to say something heretical, something contrary to the established teachings of the Church.  For example, one might think that, if the Father is God, and if the Son is God, and if the Spirit is God, then perhaps God takes different forms at different times.  This idea, known as modalism, is generally regarded as a heresy because it denies that the Trinity is three distinct persons.⁸  With that in mind, one might think that, if the Father is not the Son, and if the Son is not the Spirit, and if the Spirit is not the Father, then maybe we actually worship three distinct Gods.  This idea, called tritheism, is also considered a heresy⁹ because Christianity is a monotheistic religion.  Though we speak of a Triune God, we agree with our Jewish brothers and sisters, who daily proclaim, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”¹⁰

It seems to me that explaining what the Trinity is not is a lot easier than explaining what the Trinity actually is.  The doctrine of the Trinity is both a mystery and a paradox.  God is one, yet somehow, at the same time, God is three.  Perhaps it would be simpler to consider the Triune God's relationship with humanity and to consider the ways humanity has experienced the Triune God.


God Above Us

The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that God is above us.  The parental title of the first person of the Trinity, the Father, reminds us that God is our divine, loving parent and that we are all children under God's authority.  God is our creator and our provider: God gave us life and every blessing we enjoy in life.  In the words of one beloved hymn, “All I have needed thy hand hath provided.”¹¹  God is also our sovereign Lord and the ruler over all creation.

When I say that God is above us, I mean not only that God reigns above us but also that God is above our intellect.  God says through one prophet, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways...  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”¹²  When Job wants to argue with God, God says to him, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements – surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it?”¹³  The psalmist David reflects on God's complete knowledge of him and on God's continuous presence with him and says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.”  He reflects on how carefully and thoughtfully God knit him together and proclaims, “How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  I try to count them – they are more than the sand.”¹⁴  Indeed, our knowledge of the divine is but a drop in an ocean.

One of the Ten Commandments forbids the creation of idols or images of gods to worship.¹⁵  Some would go so far as to say that it also forbids images of the one true God, since such images cannot adequately represent God.  In the Book of Exodus, it could be inferred that the golden calf the Israelites wrongly worshiped in the wilderness was created to represent the God “who brought [them] up out of the land of Egypt.”¹⁶  I wonder if the same commandment might also apply to our mental images of God.  If we finite humans cannot fully comprehend an infinite God, then we would do well to hold our own conceptions of God with humility and with an open hand, lest we too be guilty of creating idols in our minds.  The French philosopher Voltaire once observed, “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”¹⁷

Ultimately, God is a mystery.  I think that maybe the mystery and otherness of God can be frightening to us.  C.S. Lewis writes that the fear of God is less like the fear of a tiger and more like the fear of a ghost.  If a tiger was in the room, we would be afraid because of what we know about it, but, if a ghost was in the room, we would be afraid because of what we don't know about it.¹⁸  The latter kind of fear is not a totally inappropriate response to God, for we must never let ourselves think that we've figured God out.  On the other hand, I think the conflicting messages we hear about God can be a source of anxiety.  Some people speak only of God's grace, mercy, and love, while others speak primarily of God's anger and judgment, and the two groups often seem to be at odds with each other.  Whom shall we believe?

The Disciples apparently had as many questions about God as we have.  That evening, as Jesus and the Disciples discuss the future, the disciple Philip bluntly says, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”¹⁹  If there were as many competing messages about God in the Disciples' day as there are in ours, we cannot blame Philip for making his request.


God Beside Us

What if the infinite God decided to describe Godself in a way that we finite humans can understand – or perhaps I should say, in a Word we can understand.  What if God somehow left behind the glory of Heaven and took on human flesh and blood to walk beside us?²⁰  What if, in the words of Eugene Peterson, God “moved into the neighborhood” with us?²¹  This is essentially what we learn from an ancient Christian hymn found at the beginning of John's Gospel.  We read,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth...  No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known.²²
The Greek term translated into English as word is logos.²³  It is this word logos that John uses to describe second person of the Trinity, the Son, who is made known to us in Jesus Christ.

When Philip asks Jesus to show him and the other Disciples the Father, Jesus replies, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?  Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”²⁴  Earlier in the conversation, Jesus says, “If you know me, you will know my Father also.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.”²⁵  Jesus Christ is God Incarnate – God in the flesh.  When we are confused and frightened by the conflicting messages we hear about God, we are invited to look to Jesus and see what God is truly like.  Brian Zahnd, one of my favorite preachers, likes to say, “God is like Jesus.  God has always been like Jesus.  There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.  We have not always known what God is like – but now we do.”²⁶

The Church teaches us that Christ is fully God and, at the same time, fully human.  In the Gospels, He is called both Son of God and Son of Man.  In Christ, we see that God is fully capable of empathizing with us, for we know that God has actually walked a mile in our shoes.  In Christ, we know that God has experienced the beauty, the messiness, and even the pain of being human.²⁷  To say that Christ is fully human is to say that He entered fully into the human experience, but it is not to say that He is just like us.  Christ is fully human, but we are not fully human.²⁸  We have been broken by sin, and, as a result, we often do not live as God created human beings to live.  Christ came to Earth as part of a divine plan to save a broken creation, and I believe that part of His mission was to show us how to be fully human.  Interestingly, in the Common English Bible, wherever Jesus would refer to Himself as the Son of Man in other translations of the Bible, He calls Himself the Human One, reminding us that He is the one who is truly human.


God Within Us

Jesus tells the Disciples that the works He has done are works the Father has done through Him to show that He and the Father are one.  He then says, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”²⁹  If you are familiar with the story of Jesus up to this point, then you know that this is no small order for the Disciples, who are already nervous about carrying on without Him.  Jesus has no intention to leave the Disciples to carry out such works all by themselves.  “I will not leave you orphaned,” He says.³⁰

Jesus says to the Disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”³¹  Different translations of the Bible use different words to describe the Presence the Father will send on the Son's behalf.  The New Revised Standard Version uses the word advocate; the older King James Version uses the word comforter; and the more recent Common English Bible uses the word companion.  The original Greek word used to describe this Presence is paraclete, which describes someone “called to one's side.”  Alternately, it could mean “counselor,” “intercessor,” or simply “helper.”³²  Christ tells the Disciples that this Paraclete will dwell within them.³³  He is referring, of course, to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells the Disciples that the Holy Spirit will remind them of everything He has already taught them and that the Holy Spirit will continue to teach them after He has gone.³⁴  Later in the conversation, He says,
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When 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.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
Jesus, by His own admission, has not taught the Disciples everything they need to know, but He has promised that the Spirit will continue to teach them after He has returned to the Father.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that one day, after Jesus has ascended into Heaven, the Disciples are gathered together in their meeting place when they hear the sound of a mighty wind.  Suddenly tongues of fire appear in the room and land upon each of them.  The Disciples run into the street, speaking languages they did not previously know, and a crowd of people from many different nations gathers around them to hear their message.³⁵  That day of Pentecost, which we celebrated last Sunday, is sometimes called the “birthday of the Church,” and the same Holy Fire that appeared that day has mobilized the Church ever since.


The Image of God

The creation poem at the very beginning of the Bible teaches us that God created human beings in God's own image.³⁶  If we do indeed bear the image of God, then perhaps the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us not only who God is, but also who we are.  When Jesus taught the Disciples to pray, He taught them to address God as “our Father in heaven.”³⁷  We are all beloved children of the Father; the Son provides us the definitive example of what it means to live into our identities as children of God; and the Holy Spirit enables us to do so.

Perhaps the doctrine of the Trinity also reveals something about who we are collectively.  Before Jesus heads with the Disciples to the garden where He will be arrested, He prays that those who follow Him may be one with each other as He and the Father are one.³⁸  Our Triune God is three yet one, and the Church is similarly many yet one.

St. Paul uses some fascinating metaphors in his letters to describe the Church.  He writes that the Church is the Body of Christ, meaning that individual followers of Christ work together like parts of a body, of which Christ Himself is the head.³⁹  In the words attributed to St. Teresa of Avila,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world.  Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.
Paul also writes that the Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit of God dwells within us and among us.⁴⁰  These two metaphors remind us that, as the Church, we are called by God to carry on the work of Christ and that we are empowered to do so by the Holy Spirit.


There is much I do not understand about the doctrine of the Trinity.  What I can say about this challenging doctrine is that it teaches us that, though God is ultimately beyond human comprehension, God is, by no means, distant from humanity.  God reigns above us as our Creator, Lord, and Parent in ways we cannot even begin to understand.  God came to walk beside us, stepping into our experience while showing us how to live.  God dwells within us, guiding us, empowering us, and sustaining us day by day.  The doctrine of the Trinity also teaches us who we are.  We are children of the Father who are empowered by the Spirit to become more like the Son and to carry on His work in the world.

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: “Trinity”
2. Wikipedia: “Nicene Creed”
3. Quotes were taken from the Nicene Creed as printed in The United Methodist Hymnal.  no. 880
4. Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)
6. John 13-17
7. John 13:31-14:7
8. Wikipedia: “Sabellianism”
9. Wikipedia: “Tritheism”
10. Deuteronomy 6:4 (NKJV)
11. From “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas Chisholm
12. Isaiah 55:8-9 (NRSV)
13. Job 38:4-5 (NRSV)
14. Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (NRSV)
15. Exodus 20:4-6
16. Exodus 32:1-5
17. Wikiquote: “Voltaire”
18. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 1
19. John 14:8 (NRSV)
20. Philippians 2:5-7
21. John 1:14 (The Message)
22. John 1:1, 14, 18 (NRSV)
23. Blue Letter Bible: “Logos”
24. John 14:9-10a (NRSV)
25. John 14:7 (NRSV)
26. Brian Zahnd.  “God Is Like Jesus.”  BrianZahnd.com, 08/11/2011.
27. Hebrews 4:15
28. Peter Rollins.  “Salvation for Zombies.”
29. John 14:10b-12 (NRSV)
30. John 14:18a (NRSV)
31. John 14:15-16 (NRSV)
32. Blue Letter Bible: “paraklētos”
33. John 14:17
34. John 14:25-26
35. Acts 2:1-11
36. Genesis 1:27
37. Matthew 6:9 (NRSV)
38. John 17:20-23
39. 1 Corinthians 12:27-28, Colossians 1:18
40. 1 Corinthians 3:16

The image featured in this sermon is public domain.