Sermon Archive
Readings for 3 June 2007
First Sunday after Pentecost:
Trinity Sunday
Year C
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"
Revelation 4:1-11
After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God; and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.
Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing,
"Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come."
And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,
"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."
John 16:5-15
Jesus said, ["Now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 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. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.]
"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."
Sermon
The Rev. Susan B. P. Norris
In nomine . . .
The tradition on Trinity Sunday is to explain how the three persons can be one. To go into “clear” (well, we try) explanations of the way the doctrine of the Trinity “works.”
Today, however what I want to do is to consider how/why it is That we being our creed with only one sentence, “I /We believe in One God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and Earth and of all that is seen and unseen.
For as Freddy Buechner famously says, “the doctrine of the Trinity means that, all experience to the contrary notwithstanding, THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.”
Why is this so important?
Why do all three of the desert religions insist on this at the beginning of their creeds?
“Hear Oh, Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord . . .
“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet . . .”
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty . . .”
This confession matters because it is the foundation of all ethical behavior. It also is the foundation of the equality of all human persons, the foundation of all concern for the planet and the solar systems, AND it is the foundation for any hope of achieving understanding and unity among greatly differing peoples.
Sam Harris and several other writers have spent several books worth of time lately, knocking down this idea. They argue that only when religious doctrine is erased from the Earth, will wars and terror, and just plain stupidity have a chance to disappear. And, give the present day arguments between fundamentalists - whether Jewish, Islamic or Christian - I can occasionally dig up a minute or two of sympathy for that position.
Yet, like most poison or untruth in religious faith, the beginning of our Confessions contain the seeds of correction to Human insistence that “My God is better than your God” Which we usually phrase as “my doctrine (about God) is better than your doctrine (about God). The important word there is DOCTRINE – What we are claiming is that our understanding of God, Our traditions about God – Are greater – better – truer – more accurate – Than YOUR understanding (traditions) about God. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
Suppose we tried to argue that, “my grandmother is better, than your grandmother” That would sound pretty silly to us – wouldn’t it? Each persons “grandma” is unique – they don’t compare easily because they aren’t the same persons Start an argument about whether your Grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies are better than my Grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies, and suddenly we might be able to call in an outside referee to decide the question. Why can we do that? Because we are comparing two different versions of the same thing. No Gamma is like any other Mom-Mom But two versions of the same recipe are in essence the same thing.
To insist that there is only one God Is to understand that God’s power and love are absolutely not comparable to anything else.
To look at it another way, think of the words of Paul to the Philippians, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, . . . and the God of peace will be with you.”
Why was Paul suddenly going there, Paul who talks endlessly about Jesus And his great sacrifice for us? Because Paul knew, had known long before the road to Emmaus, that there was only ONE God. And, Paul understood that means that there is only ONE source of goodness, truth
purity, love, honor, excellence, and so on. There is no place for any goodness to come from except from God There is no place for any creativity to come from except from God. Etc. If anything good is anywhere around it is from God – And it is from OUR GOD because there is ONLY ONE GOD.
You can see where this takes many ethical arguments out of the “rules” or the “Jesus said” –“ Moses said” - “Muhammad said” Paul – Apollos, Aristotle, F. Buechner, St. Thomas, etc. Said argument. What ever any one may think of any particular human way of understanding God, God’s actions or God’s people If goodness of any kind/love of any kind is there, So is God.
Our moral duty becomes not to argue for ‘right” and “wrong” but to discern where these good gifts are present, and then see how to understand them from our religious context. That is what we are doing at the moment with the question of homosexual couples. We see the love and the creativity – We don’t all have the words to connect what we experience to the familiar traditions of our scripture and previous ideas about God, So we’re stammering around looking for new words. The fight is over whether new words are ever allowed, and if so, which new words are allowed.
I submit that new words must be acceptable,
because we have to do this regularly.
More to the point, it is where we got the Christian name for God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the first place.
Faced with Three In-No-Way-The-Same experiences of the presence of God,
The church fought several wars, and 600-700 years later
determined that
The Father was God
The Son was God
The Holy Spirit was God
And that, as their ancestors had always known, THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.
Now does not mean that there are not shades of goodness Ideas which are closer and further from the truth.
Does mean that wherever we find goodness and truth, They are from God because they can be from no where else. There is no other God, no other being by whom Goodness, truth life, and beauty may be created. All paths may not lead equally directly to God, But all paths lead to God because there is no place else to lead. The Creed assures us that Christ “descended into hell. The Psalmist assures us that “if I seize the wings of the morning And fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, Thou art there also.
So when you are tempted to cut a whole group of people or ideas out of God’s favor to claim that they are totally wrong and unchristian repeat loudly to yourself, THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD And then keep talking, and reading and thinking, and listening for new words, So that you may Recognize where and how, God is shedding light, life, truth and faithfulness In the traditions and understanding of others in the ONE God’s ONE family.
In nominee…
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