Trinity C - "Talking Trinity"

Psalm 8
John 16:12-15

The year was 325 and my guess is that as many people cared about what was going on in the small city of Nicea in the center of Turkey as do now which is to say, not very many.  Over the years the city’s name has been changed to Iznik but what was done there effects what we do in this place and places like it almost every Sunday.  

That year the city hosted a religious conclave bourn out of a religious and political necessity. 

Emperor Constantine had converted to Christianity right before his conquest of Rome in October of 312 and quickly went about making the empire a Christian nation.  His goal was that the nation be united politically and theologically.

Standing in his way was a bishop named Arius of Alexander who held that God was a static God.  The creator of all things but then not involved in creation.  For him Jesus was human but not divine having no direct knowledge of God the creator.
 

He was opposed by Athanasius of Alexandrea who held that God was a dynamic self-giving God who in Jesus held nothing back.
 

Constantine saw this division as having the potential to split Christianity and the emperor called a council to “talk Trinity” and settle the matter.1  The primary document produced at the Council of Nicea is a creed that many churches recite every Sunday - the Nicene Creed.
 

We say it but we don’t talk about what we are saying much because “talking trinity” is not only hard but a little boring.
 

It may be something that is better experienced.

Dr.  Scott Walker, not the governor of Wisconsin but the professor of Christian Growth at Mercer University, gave us one experience when he “talked Trinity” in his book Where the River Flows.\
 

He grew up in rural Georgia and remembered that, as a teenager, he and his buddies used to cruise the town not on the internet but in their cars looking for some sort of excitement.  Finding none he would often return home disappointed and go out in back of his house and just look at the sky.
 

It has been my cathedral, my high vaulted place of worship; my dark blanket which has brought me the warmth of God.  Conversely it has also been the place where I had been brought into the stark fear of the holy.2

I hope you have had experiences like that in your life because, if you have your “talking Trinity.” 

When we look up into the night sky and see, in the mystery of stars and space, a far greater mystery, we’re “talking Trinity.” It is not something we can easily put into words because it is the magical wonderment of the greatness of God and the reassurance of God’s presence. 
 

It is also something that might cause us to exclaim half in question, half in confession, “what are human beings that you spare a thought for them?”3
 

There have been times in all of our lives when events and circumstances have led to awe at the greatness of God and to wonder if God, who is so vast and so marvelous, does indeed have time to spare a thought for us. 
 

God as creator can only bring us so far which why we need God as redeemer.
 

There are those who claim that they can discover all there is to know about God in their gardens, or on a golf course, or quietly reading the Scriptures to themselves and then praying alone in their own room.  But sometimes these individualized paths to faith do not hold up in troubled times.  It is then we need to talk Trinity.

 Retired pastor, Dr.  Fred R. Anderson wondered once in a sermon:

What makes you think the divine arms are wide open?  Are you a Rotarian, a Wall Street Banker, a father, a mother, a physician, a retired person, a singer, writer, teacher, scientist, or educator?  Of all the choices out there [only] the church tells you that you are first and foremost a child of God.4

The church is where I learned how to “talk Trinity” even if I didn’t even know what I was talking about.  I was there to sing the songs in Sunday School but  around me were people who not only told me about Jesus but showed me in real ways the power of God’s love and the acceptance of the Holy Spirit in such a way that I saw God working in them and through them.  This made a  made a powerful impression of me.

There have to be people like that for you!  Some person at home, or at work, or at school, or on the baseball field came into your life and “talked Trinity” in such a way that you knew that you belonged to God.
 

That’s the way most of us have experienced the faith.  Not in the grand gesture but in the simple act of one who has reached out to us and by that very act reminded us that we are children of God. 
 

Sometimes those moments are hard for us to remember so we need the Spirit to come and remind us. 
 

The Holy Spirit is probably the most elusive actor in the Trinity.  It’s hard to define, hard to pin down.  Most often we see it in our brothers and sisters who are Spirit filled. 
 

Pentecostals seem to have cornered the market on the Holy Spirit and in their worship and lives its presence is quite evident.  There is speaking in tougues which, unlike inthe original Pentecost event where everybody could understand, these utterances nobody can understand.  There can be dancing in the aisle and waving of hands.  On occasion there ever are people who are “slain in the Spirit” who seem to faint dead away.
 

It can all be a little overwhelming for the rest of us who like our worship orderly and we may think we are missing out on something. 
 

We are not. The Spirit does have to overwhelm only to remind.  And that reminder can come anywhere in myriads of ways.
 

Sometimes we may be surprised that we played a part in the Spirit’s reminder.
 

Long ages ago I asked Dr.  Elam Davies, a retired pastor who once was named one of Time Magazine’s Ten Great Preachers in America to come and preach at an anniversary service of a church I was then serving.
 

You cannot imagine my surprise when I opened a collection of sermons he was featured in and read these words.

I was preaching at a Anniversary Lutheran service ... a special reunion of past and present members and friends.

There was a communion service ... in which the Pastor gave the elements to those of us kneeling in the chancel.  I shall never forget the experience!  Quietly he gave me the bread and wine, each time addressing me personally, “Elam, Receive the body of Christ broken for you!  Receive the blood of Christ shed for you!”

Do you wonder why I was so deeply moved?  Suddenly, the “heart of the universe” knew my name and declared that I was worth it!  I now, as never before, experienced what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

This is the most humbling and exalting of experiences.  The most searching and affirming of moments.  When God tells you that you count without measure ... you can get up again, forgiven, renewed, confident, “standing tall” inspite of what others (or we ourselves) have done to us.5

Actually this ancient doctrine is not just something we recite from rote in our worship it’s something we experience everyday.

Every time we are moved to wonder at the grandeur of God and in that experience feel God’s love we’re “talking Trinity.” 

Every time we have an experience of the Spirit of God moving us closer to Jesus and we feel “renewed, refreshed, restored”, whether we know it our not, we’re talking Trinity.
 

We may not “talk Trinity” but we experience Trinity everyday in many ways.  All of these experiences point us to God and make them well worth having.
 

Don’t you think?  

_____________

1.  http://www.classichistory.net/archives/constantine-christianity

2.  Scott Walker, Where the River Flows  (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helyn, 2002)

3   Psalm 8:5.  (JB)   [JB=The Jerusalem Bible]

4.  Fred R. Anderson, "Why the Church - Who Needs It" (Sermon, Sunday Worship, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York, May 2, 1999)  

5.  Elam Davies, “God’s Secret of Renewed Self-Esteem” in Best Sermons II, James W.  Cox, ed.   (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), p.  294