Pondering the Mystery of the Trinity

A homily for the people of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Mercer Island Washington.
The text for the sermon is John 3:1-17 and the occasion is the Celebration of the Holy Trinity.

I’ll still be here next week, but this is my last Sunday in the pulpit here at Holy Trinity as your seminary student. I find it highly fitting that it is also the Celebration of the Holy Trinity.

Photo by tschitscherin/iStock / Getty Images

I love the Holy Trinity. I love the idea that God is more than any one way of describing God. I love the idea that God is constantly in conversation with Godself. I love the paradox. I love the mystery.

I love the Holy Trinity.

But trying to talk about it makes me feel a bit like I imagine Nicodemus felt in our gospel lesson.

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Nicodemus is a leader, a teacher, an important person. People look to him for understanding and interpretation.

And here comes this teacher named Jesus who is doing “signs.” I bet people were coming to Nicodemus and asking him to explain Jesus’ signs and hoping for some understanding. And he didn’t know what to tell them.

So he goes and finds Jesus. He tells him that they, the whole community, know Jesus comes from God, for all those “signs” he has been doing can only be done through the power of God.

At this point it seems like he has some understanding, he is saying that he knows Jesus “comes from God.” But does he really get it? After all, he did come alone in the night, like he was ashamed and afraid of being seen bringing it up.

In response, we get a classic Jesus statement,

“Very truly I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anothen.”

Huh? anothen?

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Anothen is translated in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which I read earlier and is in your bulletin, as “from above.”

However, many of you probably grew up hearing this as “born again.”

The reality is anothen means both “from above” and “again” at the same time. We don’t really have a way to capture this in English. We tend to like words to have one clear meaning. The Greek anothen here carries both meanings all the time. So our translators grab one meaning for the simplicity of reading, relegating the other to the footnotes and we miss something.

Just as Nicodemus does. Nicodemus grabs on to the “do it again” meaning. Not only that, he goes for the most literal meaning possible. He starts thinking about literally being born again and talking about reentering the mother’s womb for a second birth.

He is not getting it.

Jesus tries to help him out. I think of Jesus’ response as,

“no, no, I meant the other meaning of anothen.”

He says,

“Very Truly I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

And Nicodemus still does not get it.

Did you notice that the previous two replies both start with “Very Truly I say to you”?

This third time Jesus interrupts this pattern and says

“Are you a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things?”

Jesus at this point is pretty annoyed with the state of religious education in Israel.

And Nicodemus still does not get it.

He is trying to be too literal. He is too stuck in what he thinks he knows already. He thinks he knows something because he is a learned man and knows something about signs and has seen the signs.

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The signs Jesus was doing were not your run of the mill first century signs, which every teacher and prophet would do.

They were miraculous, marvelous signs. They were signs with meaning, which pointed to something greater than anything that had ever been seen or known.

And Nicodemus could not get it.

Do you ever feel like that?

I do.

When I think about trying to explain the Holy Trinity, I feel flustered and stymied.

I feel perplexed.

And I ponder.

I think that it is good to ponder.

This pondering reminds me that I do not know it all. It reminds me that I cannot know it all. It reminds me that I cannot put God in a box.

Maybe pondering can help us glimpse God, just a little bit.

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Yesterday I was at a forum at Seattle University discussing interreligious dialogue. One of our presenters is a teacher at a Jesuit high school. He started out his time by doing something that I’m going to ask you to do with me now.

Sit comfortably.

Close your eyes.

Breathe deeply

And slowly.

As you breathe in, think “Spirit”

As you breathe out, think “Love”

In Spirit

Out Love

We feel the spirit moving through us. We feel the love of God moving through us.

We have a glimpse of God.

When we stand in this room, with these people, and gather around this bowl of water, we have a glimpse of God who claims us as beloved children and calls all things into being.

When we come to this table and eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we have a glimpse of God who comes into the world to die for the world.

Through the signs that are more than signs and words that are more than words, through the mystery of the Holy Trinity, we have a glimpse of God.

May we allow ourselves to sit in this mystery, to revel in it, to marvel at it, and to let it wash over us. May we allow ourselves the grace to not understand and to be okay with not understanding and to strive for not understanding. Perhaps in the not understanding we may find the true meaning.

Amen

Proclaiming the Foolishness of God

A homily for the people of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Mercer Island, WA.

The texts for the week are Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

Photo by strixcode/iStock / Getty Images

I don’t know about y’all, but when I think of a hero, John McClane, the character portrayed by Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies, often pops into my head. He was usually reluctant to get involved, but he always rose to the occasion, challenged the ineffective bureaucracy–because it’s always ineffective in the movies–and saved the day, and the lives of the people in the building, or the airport, or the whole city of New York.

What comes to your mind when you think of a hero?

Perhaps Superman, Captain America, or Wonder Woman come to mind, championing truth, justice, and the American Way. Perhaps Spartacus comes to mind, leading a revolt of slaves in Rome. Maybe King David, rising up from obscurity to defeat the badest of the bad enemies and then unite the people into one kingdom.

Imagine for a moment that you had been waiting for a hero like these to rescue you. You had been waiting a really long time, your whole life even. No, not just your whole life; for generations you have been waiting. Your parents, and their parents, and their parents’ parents, and so on. All waiting and telling the story of the one who would come.

Now imagine that your friends started telling you about a person who was this hero. He was even related to that most awesome hero David. And instead of leading people in open revolt, bringing the oppressors to their knees, he goes around talking about peace and love and forgiveness and faith. And then he dies. On a cross.

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The hero not only died on a cross, but the hero predicted and even allowed his death on a cross.

Is this what the great hero does?

Is this what the savior does?

To those of us steeped in two thousand years of Christian tradition it may not seem that bizarre. After all, we currently live in an era of the reluctant hero and the antihero dominating popular culture.

But to the ancient people? To the ancient Jews awaiting the coming of Messiah, could the Messiah be someone who would die on the cross? Would you call it foolishness? I probably would.

And yet this is the foolishness of God that Paul is talking about in his letter to the church in Corinth that we heard this morning.

Come into the world to save it, only to die? Foolishness!

Give yourself over to the enemies of the people to be killed? Foolishness!

Allow the temple to be destroyed? Foolishness!

Rebuild it in three days? Foolishness?

And yet this is the foolishness of God which is wiser than our greatest wisdom.

When, Jesus told the leaders of the faith that the temple would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days, it was clearly foolishness.

The temple took FORTY-SIX years to build!!!

FORTY-SIX YEARS

How can it be rebuilt in three days?

Sheer foolishness.

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Photo by Charissa Ragsdale/iStock / Getty Images

However, the temple that Jesus spoke of is not the half-millennium old building in Jerusalem.

The temple is where the world and God are most connected. This is what Jesus is talking about. This connection occurs in Jesus' own body.

In the person of Jesus, God comes into the world and walks in the world. God connects directly to the world and makes a human body into a temple.

In the foolishness of God, we are most closely connected to God through a body.

In the foolishness of God, that body was killed at the hands of the world.

In the foolishness of God, that body is the temple that was rebuilt in three days.

In the foolishness of God, that temple remains active in the world through the eternal members of the Body of Christ, the Community of Saints that form Christ’s Church.

In this mystery, in this foolishness, in this wonder that is Christ Crucified, Christ lives on.

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When we come to the font and gather around the waters of baptism, we are joined to all the Church that ever was, is now, and ever will be in the mystery of Christ Crucified.

When we come to this table together, we join with all the Church that ever was, is now, and ever will be in proclaiming the mystery of faith, in proclaiming Christ Crucified.

When we go out into the world, as the body of Christ, we proclaim Christ Crucified in the world.

We do not go out into the world to be clever and through our cleverness convince people. We do not go out into the world with appeals to reason, science, and philosophy to prove our belief. We do not go out into the world to chastise, shame, cajole, intimidate, or otherwise harm any member of God’s Creation in the name of Christ.

We go out into the world to proclaim Christ Crucified.

When we smile at a stranger on the street, we proclaim Christ Crucified. When we gather with friends and celebrate one another, we proclaim Christ Crucified. When we work to make the world a more just place, we proclaim Christ Crucified. When we stand with our neighbor, we proclaim Christ Crucified.

When we reflect the love of God that goes beyond all understanding in our daily life, we proclaim Christ Crucified.

Proclaiming Christ Crucified is how we live each and every day.

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As we continue through our Lenten journey of reflection and contemplation; our walk through the wilderness that prepares us for living into the mystery of the Cross, I invite us all to consider how we proclaim Christ Crucified in everyday life.

How do we, as the arms and legs, hands and feet, of the body of Christ proclaim Christ Crucified in our life?

How do we live out the primary commandments of loving one another and loving our neighbors as ourselves?

If we live each day proclaiming Christ Crucified, spreading the love of God to all creation, we assist God in making the Kingdom of God real.

Now and always.

May the grace of God show us the way of life that proclaims Christ Crucified and the courage to walk in the way proclaiming Christ Crucified each and every day.

Amen