05/30/21 - When Words Fail - Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church | Serving God and others with open mind, hands and heart - 05/30/21

05/30/21 – When Words Fail

WHEN WORDS FAIL

May 30, 2021
Trinity Sunday
Isa. 6:1-8; Ps. 29; Rom. 8:12-17; John 3: 12-17
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

Trinity Sunday is an unusual celebration day in the Christian Calendar. It is the only day we celebrate a Church Doctrine rather than an event. The Trinity is a concept created by fallible human minds to describe the indescribable = the relationship between God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Although the term, The Holy Trinity, gave Christians a distinct vocabulary to talk about God, the concept is still, as Winston Churchill described Russian politics, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

You will not find the word, trinity, anywhere in the bible. In the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to end the conflict between varying theologies that threatened the peace and unity of the Church. The Church Fathers (fathers because only men were allowed to hold positions of leadership in the church, unlike the first churches established by the Apostle Paul chronicled in the New Testament) tackled the question: “Was Jesus a human being or was he, God, merely appearing in human form?” Of course, if Jesus only appeared to be a human being, he could not have suffered physical pain nor sacrificed his human life on the cross. The answer to the debate had major theological implications.

After a long deliberation (and I use that word euphemistically – it was a knockdown, drag-out fight) the side that contended Jesus was both a divine and a human being, won. The victors, those who sided with Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, won defeating the followers of Arius. Out of this controversy, the Nicene Creed was written and adopted as Christian orthodoxy and became the first official creed of the Christian Church. Of course, the conflict was not really settled. As is usually the case, no one changed their minds, the victors outlawed the other side, branding them heretics and forced them out of the Church. Thus, the Christian Calendar celebrates this foundational doctrine of the Christian Church following Pentecost, when the gift of the Holy Spirit Jesus promised to bestow after his Ascension, was given. Although the doctrine of the Trinity officially settled a conflict within the Church, the source of the debate remains a divine mystery that can only be experienced but never quantified. As a former Sunday School teacher of mine, a Harvard and MIT-trained scientist, stated: “You cannot graph God.”

What the Trinity does give us is a human vocabulary to use in communicating what knowledge we have about and our experience with God. As a religion that is evangelical – I mean that in a theological, not political sense – we are called to talk about God, about Jesus, and about the Holy Spirit. The concept of the Holy Trinity gives us a vocabulary to use. It gives us words for that which is beyond words, beyond the confines of any label we can contain The Great Mystery, which Jesus describes to Nicodemus in this way: “8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah contains the words of the Sanctus, “Holy, holy, holy,” which we sing following the first communion prayer. This passage contains the basic format of worship which has been used since ancient times by our Jewish ancestors of faith, the family Paul announced as the one to which we had been adopted. This Isaiah passage starts with a hymn of praise (Is. 6:3), moves to a confession of sin (6:5) to an assurance of divine pardon (6:7), and ending with a call to service and an acceptance of that call (6:8). This is the basic format for our Christian worship today. We are drawn into the drama of interaction with God with the same tried and true formula employed by Jewish and Christian worshippers for three thousand years, at least. We affirm our faith in a triune God as did the congregations of the early Church even before John presented the story of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. And we still stand in awe and wonder of what God has done for us through Christ with the query: “How can this be?” For me, the old Appalachian hymn gets to the heart of the matter: “What Wondrous Love is This.”

For the author of John’s gospel, the Trinity exists in the holy space filled with love. The one Jesus called Father, Jesus who His Father called Son, and the Holy Spirit can be seen as concentric circles that intersect in love. If I were to try to make an analogy, I see the relationship as one of an improvisational acting troupe. Each actor of the Trinity plays a particular role in different contexts with the three actors continually adapting to their changing roles. Each takes a turn playing the lead role, while the other two serve to assist in their supporting roles.

On a cautionary note, ascribing words to what Jesus referred to as “things from above” can debase what is divine into the sphere of the profane. Whenever we attempt to box God into our human categories, we risk rebelling against God’s authority and power by creating a god in our own image. When we place derogatory labels on our sisters and brothers in God’s family, we reject God’s will to love our neighbors as ourselves. When we create laws, either civic or ecclesiastic, to enforce our own privilege or perceived superiority. Jesus’ linguistic repartee with Nicodemus is a case in point.

Several times in John’s gospel Jesus spars with an opponent using a play on words. The Greek word, “anothen,” can be used to mean either above or again. Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above, but Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus’ intent and assumes he means one must literally be born again to receive eternal life. Jesus is using a play on words here in that his intent is both meanings. To be born from above means to Jesus that our perceptions and priorities must be in line with God’s kingdom. For Nicodemus to be born again does not mean to re-enter his mother’s womb, but to let go of all his preconceived notions and open his heart and mind to a new way of perceiving the world and living in it.

In more recent history, fundamentalists who have read the bible literally rather exegetically, have created a doctrine that one must be a “born again Christian” to receive salvation and eternal life from God. This creates a “works righteousness” requirement on the part of the individual to merit the salvation only God can bestow, but we can never earn. This doctrinal mandate has led to destructive pride and un-Christian exclusivity. It has divided friends and families, which is oppositional to God who is relational and reconciling.

I observed another example of un-Christ-like church doctrine last Sunday when Tom and I took my 82-year-old aunt to her Roman Catholic Parish for Sunday Mass. The priest’s homily focused on our Christian duty to be inclusive, yet he refuses to allow non-Roman Catholics, who are brothers and sisters in Christ, to receive communion. Based on a Medieval Church doctrine, which was influenced by the reading of the pre-scientific writings of Aristotle newly discovered during the Crusades, a non-Roman Catholic is denied Christ’s commandment to share a holy meal in his honor and his promise to be present with us always. Because members of Reformed churches believe Christ is present at the table by the power of the Spirit, rather than the bread and wine becoming the physical body and blood of Christ, we cannot partake of the feast at Christ’s table in a Roman Catholic Church. Lest we focus only on Roman Catholics, there are a few Protestant denominations which go so far as to exclude anyone who is not a member of their particular denomination from Christ’s table.

Church Doctrine can serve to preserve the peace and unity of the Church, but it can also be used to usurp Christ’s authority and stray from Christ’s model of inclusivity and unconditional love. Far be it for us to deny anyone a place at Christ’s table. The bible makes it clear – God is going to be who God is going to be and God is going to do what God is going to do, regardless of whether we like it or understand it.

So today, we come humbly to Christ’s table to share this sacred feast where all are welcome and there is no hierarchy of seating. As a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, we join with all who come today, and all who have come before us, to honor the mystery of God’s wondrous love shared by all three persons of the Holy Trinity with us.

Amen. May it be so!

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