Trinity Sunday - May 22, 2016

This past Sunday (May 22nd) was Trinity Sunday.  There was a problem with the video this week and so I've just attached the manuscript from the sermon below.

I'm going to just leave this blog post at that for the time being as it's a terribly busy time right now and I need to be getting along to other projects.

I hope you enjoy the sermon.

Be a blessing to someone today!

In His Care and Grace,
Roy

Sermon given by Pastor Roy Karlen on May 22, 2016

Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday and we talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit.  I referred briefly to the Trinity during that sermon, but today we're going to talk more about the Holy Trinity because today is 'Trinity Sunday'.

As I mentioned then there isn't anywhere in the Bible where it directly states that there is a Trinity, rather it is inferred from a number of places in Scripture.  One of these is of course the scripture we shared last week in the 14th Chapter of the Gospel of John.  Today's scripture verses are found in the 15th & 16th Chapters of the Gospel of John and they go on to discuss the Spirit or Advocate again.

We'll look at the 15th & 16th Chapters of John in a moment, but first let's take a look at some of the other verses where we find references to elements that evolved into the understanding of the Trinity.

Some of these verses are:
Matthew 12:32 
Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Luke 24:49  
And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

Romans 8:2-6   
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

Romans 8:26-34 
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us

Acts 2:4  
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Here in this verse in the Gospel of John, Christ dispenses the Holy Spirit onto his disciples.

John 20:22 
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

In the First Chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit is mentioned prior to the birth of Christ.

Luke 1:13-15  
13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 

Luke 1:39-42  
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 

And where is the first place in the Bible where we have mention of 2/3rds of the Trinity, well it's fairly early on:

Genesis 1:1-2 
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

And of course we have the verses that the Lectionary has guided us to for this Trinity Sunday:

John chapter 15:26 to chapter 16:15  (NRSV) 
Page 878 in the Pew Bibles:
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
16 “I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. 3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. 4 But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; 11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.13 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. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

It's worth noting that in this passage Jesus twice refers to the Holy Spirit coming from the Father.  He is sending the Spirit but the Spirit proceeds from the Father and not from Jesus.  This is interesting to note because this quality of the Spirit was a part of the Great Schism, which was the division between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church all the way back in 1054 AD.  The Western Church or the Catholic Church as we know it today adopted the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son.  The Eastern Church or Orthodox felt that this diminished the role of the Father in the Trinity and again it was a part of the reason the two regions of the Church split apart; it was however not the only point of contention.

It’s also interesting to note that while the characters in the book of the Acts of the Apostles continually attribute their authority and power to Jesus, the author of the book never ceases to remind us that they do what they do in the name of Jesus because they are “filled with the Spirit” the Spirit is their constant guide:

In these verses in Acts we read about Peter: 
Acts 4:8-10  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.

Acts 10:19  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you.

There is also this verse concerning Stephen:
Acts 7:55  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And then Philip:
Acts 8:29  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.”

And here we have Barnabas:
Acts 11:24  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord.

And finally we have Paul:
Acts 13:9  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him.

So there you go... that's a whole lot of Scripture, but there really probably isn't too much in Christianity that is more difficult to wrap ones brain around than the concept of the Trinity.  It's generally explained as that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persona’s — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in persona, and further that : (1) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, (2) each is fully God,  and (3) there is only one God.

One of the problems with the Doctrine of the Trinity is that it is Doctrine.  We as Disciples of Christ are weary of getting carried away with Doctrine.  Another problem is that it's terribly difficult to wrap our minds around.

We have to remember that the Doctrine of the Trinity was created in a time when there was no understanding at all of Quantum Mechanics, no thinking that there might be additional dimensions to the 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension that we all experience daily.  Today we are struggling to understand the ideas that there well may be anywhere from 11 dimensions to 26 dimensions of space-time.  We also tend to think of time as being only one dimension when it's actually the past, the present, and the future.  And to top that off not a one of us ever experiences the present.  By the time each of our brains processes the stimulus from outside our bodies, it's already the past.  We are living in the recent past our whole lives long.

God exists outside of time and space, quite simply He is everywhere at once and in all time at once.  Einstein's theories have shown us that the passage of time is an illusion.  Time lines and space time are not at all what we perceive them to be.  In order to not derail my own sermon I will simply leave it at this, all time according to the current understanding of the nature of time co-exists.

How do we as 3 dimensional beings process and envision a being that exists in every dimension and in all time simultaneously?  Well, we can't... 

How many of you are familiar with a Mobius Strip?  A Mobius Strip is a strip of material in this case paper, that I take and I twist like such and then I reattach it.  Now my strip that used to have two surfaces actually only has one surface.  For if I were to shrink myself down and take a walk along that strip, I'd discover that as I traveled I would walk in an endless loop along only one surface of paper.

Now if I take a piece of paper and I make it have three surfaces and I twist it I can create out of these three only one surface.  Again if I was shrunken down in size, I could start at any point on this strip and if I walked long enough I would travel along the entirety of what had once been three surfaces and which is now only one.  Such is the nature of God, what we have perceived as three is actually only one ... but, this is where my analogy breaks down.

For you see my 3 sided Mobius strip really is six sided and has become two sided, for I could also travel along the inside of this strip and walk in an endless loop which again would have me traveling on the entire inside surface of the paper.

But here's the kicker... God exists in all dimensions so unlike us where we cannot envision how to further unite the outside and the inside of this modified Mobius Strip... God can and does.  He is on the inside and the outside, he is on all of the sides at once and in all time at once as well, He is back when I folded this paper, He is here now, and He is already in the future when I discard my most excellent sermon illustration props into the recycling bin.

In my humble opinion for us to get overly engaged in the details of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and certainly to become such as the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have done and divided their numbers over a fairly minor difference in the understanding of the Trinity, does not serve our God as He wishes for us to serve him.  But for the record, I think what we can infer from scripture gives greater weight to the Orthodox understanding.

Is our understanding of the Trinity perfect, certainly not... it's a tool to try and grasp the nature of God.  We with our finite minds are simply incapable of understanding God entirely.  

The understanding of the nature of God has changed throughout the history of the Church.  As I've said before, ancient Hebrew Theology evolved greatly with the esteemed Old Testament Scholar Walter Brueggeman's theories that this early culture practiced polytheism and came to believe in one God, it changed further during the Exile where it absorbed and adapted Zoroastrian teachings.  Finally, we as Christians have adopted the revelations of God through the coming of Jesus as the Messiah.  I personally think our understanding of the concept of the Trinity can be greatly enhanced by considering what has been learned about the very essence of God's creation itself, mainly through the advances in Quantum Physics.  Please understand that this change in understanding in no way changes the nature of God Himself.  God is God, God has always been God, God does not change, but our understanding and our relationships with Him can and has changed.

We as humans all too often don't like change... but God wasn't afraid to change the way He interacted with us by sending Christ to walk among us, or by sending the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts and souls of His followers.  There are times when we have to embrace change, we grow old, we have to move to a new home or the nursing home, we as a church need to find new ways of reaching out to our community.  We need to look for new projects and new experiences.  Just as God reached out to the world in a new way when He sent His Son to walk among us... that was new... but what a wonderful difference it made in this world.  Let us strive to be Christ like and make a difference in this world of our Father's, let us be filled with the Spirit and testify to that filling all the days of our lives.

Let us Pray!