Trinity Sunday, rcl yr c, 2022
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
I have a growing number of t-shirts that people think it would be funny for a priest to wear. One of them has Jesus as a goaltender, with the text “Jesus Saves.” Others, particularly the ones bought by my brother-in-law, are not fit for a sermon.
But there’s one of his gifts that fit especially for today. Now, if you haven’t seen The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Wars sequel, 1. Go watch it already, 2. You’re not going to get the meaning of what I’m going to say next, and 3. Sorry about the spoiler. On this t-shirt stand three figures, one is Darth Vader, another is Luke Skywalker, and a third is Obi-Wan Kenobi as a force ghost, under which it says Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Now if you didn’t laugh, that’s ok it’s not that funny; and, you’re in the good company of at least one overly-educated priest who said of the shirt while I wore it, “that’s not all that funny, besides it’s not even good theology.” T-shirts like these are only funny to brothers-in-law, apparently.
It does speak, though, in its own way, to the difficulty of finding good analogies to describe God as Holy Trinity. And there’s good reason for this; God is not part of the furniture of the universe, God is unlike anything that exists. So to compare or describe something that doesn’t exist in the way anything else exists is simply going to be hard to describe according to any existing categories.
If I’ve lost you, don’t worry. I’m not going to continue in this sort of homiletic vein. I’d rather speak today about two passages from Scripture that speak not of knowledge of God, whether abstract or otherwise, but of the experience of God as Paul writes about it in Romans, and where Paul writes about the experience of God in terms of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The first text is one I preach on as often as I can. In fact, I’m pretty sure I preached on it last week! It’s Romans 8:15-17, where Paul writes of the experience of prayer: “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is [the] Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
I return to this text so often because it’s such a very helpful description of prayer. Prayer is a cry. But this morning I’d like to underline the fact that it’s not just that prayer can be a cry, but that Paul writes of it as the Spirit crying out within us, “[the] Spirit bearing witness with our spirit.” This is what prayer is like, often, isn’t it. I mean, I don’t know what to say. The harder I try, the more difficult it is. But then, the words come.
And what Paul seems to be pointing out is that if that word of prayer is a cry of intimacy with God, if that word of prayer is a cry of trust in God, if that word of prayer is a cry out to God as Abba, Father, a cry to a loving parent, these may well not be simply our words, but the “[the] Spirit bearing witness with our spirit.”
But this prayer is not simply the Spirit crying out to the Father within us, either. It’s also expressing an experience in the Spirit of being a child of God, and if the child of God, then “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”So we can see that prayer like this isn’t just about one God, it’s about the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and the Son, too, Christ the heir of God. And it’s not just of some God “out there,” but a God who has made promises in Christ, promises that we too are given.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul has already said something earlier on about this gift and this promise. And again, he writes of it in terms of a promise involving three “persons.” Paul writes of God’s peace, a peace that comes when we are made well by faith; a “peace with God” that comes “through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace.” And then Paul writes of “God’s love,” a love that “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
That is, some of the foundational Christian experiences are understood here as very-near-to-Trinitarian in shape. First, that we are reconciled to God by Jesus; that is, in Jesus we know forgiveness and the acceptance of God. And that this reconciliation, this forgiveness, this bringing together of two things that were once far off from one another—you and God, me and God, us and God—that this coming-together, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, isn’t just a gift of God, it is a gift of God in Christ.
And second, that the love of God, the love expressed in Jesus the one who by grace reconciles us to God, this love is poured into our hearts not simply by God, but “through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Is what I’m talking about today comparable to what we are about to say in the Nicene Creed? Well no, but also yes. The Nicene Creed is the product of a lot of deliberation on the church’s understanding and experience of God’s salvation in Christ and the Spirit, in the context of some rather specific questions. And it remains true.
But that expression has its roots (if the Nicene Creed is a truly Trinitarian expression of Christian doctrine) in the sort of foundational Christian experiences that Paul describes not just in terms of God, or of some simply human Jesus, or of a God apart from a Spirit of God either. God as Trinity has its roots in the sorts of experience about which I’ve just spoken.
In the experience of prayer: of the Spirit praying in us, crying out to a loving divine parent in the same intimacy and trust shared between God and Jesus; and in the experience of a God who offers us peace, a peace given in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Jesus through whom we have obtained the grace of God: the grace of reconciliation and forgiveness, and on top of that yet! the grace and gift of love, the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.