Genesis 2:15-17,25-3:1, Romans 5:12-18, Matthew 4:1-11

Genesis 2:15-17, 25-3:7

Romans 5:12-18

 Matthew 4:1-11

Jesus Means We Have Another Chance

Lent 1

February 10, 2008

            Today is the first Sunday in Lent – the six week season of the Church year before Easter when we spend time reflecting on the death of Christ for our sins – what that means for us – and how we can respond to it and live our lives differently because of what God has done for us through the life – death – and yes – resurrection of Christ.

            Lent is observed in many ways by Christians.

            Some use it as a time to give up things they are doing that they know is wrong or not good for them.

            Others like to use it as a time of increased attention to the spiritual disciplines of study of scripture, prayer, worship, service, and even fasting.

            The six weeks before Easter were traditionally used as a time for teaching those who would join the church on Easter Sunday. 

            All these things are good.

            We can always give up things that are wrong or not good for us – and we should do this.  God can even strengthen us to do this.  And – you know what? We don’t have to wait until Lent to do it!

            We can always pay more attention to our spiritual disciplines of study of scripture, prayer, worship, and service.  God can even give us strength to do this.  And again — we don’t have to wait until Lent to do it!

            The Season of Lent is a good time for what we in the Presbyterian tradition call Confirmation Classes for young people who are ready to join the Church.  We had 12 of our young people go through Confirmation Classes and join the Church last year – and next year it may be time to do that again.

            But – for this year – I want us to take a look at some things that I believe Jesus means for us as Christians.

            What are some things that Jesus means to you?

            What are some things that Jesus can mean to you?

            What are some things that Jesus can mean for how you live your life?

            These are some of the questions we are going to be considering as we go through this season of Lent.

            What are some things that Jesus means to you?

            What are some things that Jesus can mean to you?

            What are some things that Jesus can mean for how you live your life?

            Today I want us to look at one of the most fundamental things that Jesus means to us – one of the most life changing things that Jesus can mean for us – one of the most fundamental ways that Jesus can change how live our lives.

            We’re going to be looking today at 3 passages of scripture – Genesis 2: 15-17, 25-3:7, Romans 5:12-18, and  Matthew 4:1-11. As we look at these passages, we will see that Jesus means we have another chance.

            Read Scripture

At the convent of San Bernadino in Ivea, Italy there is a a startling fresco entitled “The Expulsion From The Garden” — a powerful portrayal of the event of Genesis 3 — what we have come to know as “The Fall.” It depicts Adam and Eve walking away from the gate to the garden that is being guarded by an angel with a sword. Behind the gate is a beautiful light and lush greenery – but Adam and Eve are now and walking towards an area of darkness – rocky soil – and sinister looking creatures.  They can no longer go back through the gate to Eden – the angel will not let them pass back through the gate.

Adam is covering his face with his hands — unable to bear the pain of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden — while Eve openly expresses her anguish — all the while trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. 

This fresco gives a powerful image of sin and it’s consequences. 

            Adam and Eve — created for relationships with God — each other — and all of God’s creation — have chosen to disobey God.

Instead of living in a loving relationship with God they have chosen to not live in relationship with God. 

Instead of living in God’s ways they have chosen to live in their own ways.

Instead of living in relationship to God they have chosen to try to live independently from God.

Instead of choosing to live in loving relationships with each other and all creation they have chosen to try to live independently from each other — and even from creation itself. 

And now — they must live with the consequences of their decision –

shame

anguish

covered nakedness

hiding

and all that goes along with what we call sin.

            The story in Genesis 2 and 3 is not so much concerned with how sin — death — evil — and all that comes with it came into the world — but the story is more about how our relationships with God — with ourselves — with each other — and for that matter with all creation got away from how God willed for them to be.

Genesis 2 tells — in beautiful and even mythic language — of the creation – and of Adam and Eve who were created to live in relationship with God — each other — and with all creation.  They are placed in the Garden and given all that they will ever need — and creation is in harmony with itself and with its creator.  There is no reason to hide — no reason for shame — only open and loving relationships exist between Adam and Eve — Adam and Eve and God – and Adam and Eve and all creation.

            Genesis 2:25 gives a powerful ending to this beautiful chapter:

 

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

 

            But — do Adam and Eve stay in these loving — open relationships with God — each other — and all of creation?

            No.

            What happens next?

            The Genesis 3 story is filled with doubt and rebellion. Adam and Eve — created for loving relationships with God — each other — and all creation — choose otherwise.

            They choose to doubt instead of trust God –

            They choose to rebel against God’s ways rather than live in God’s ways —

            They choose to go independent ways instead of the way of relationships —

even though they were created to live in relationships.

            And what happens?

            Well — the phrase “all hell breaks loose” pretty much describes the situation. 

            Things get completely out of sync. Adam and Eve no longer live in open, honest, loving relationships — with God — with each other — and with all creation.  They now cover themselves. They hide. They are ashamed.

            The beautiful relationship between Adam — Eve — God – each other — and all creation is completely shattered — and as the fresco so graphically depicts — they leave the Garden — the place of full relationship with God and others — in shame and anguish. 

            You can imagine the anguish of Adam.

            You can almost hear the pleadings of Eve as you look at the fesco:

“Please, Lord!

Give us another chance!

We are sorry.

It isn’t fair.

Give us another chance!

Give us another chance!”

You know — it’s not hard for us to identify with Adam and Eve. 

            We all can identify with them.

            We all know what it’s like.

            We all know what it’s like to live in broken relationships.

            We all know what it’s like to live with shattered dreams.

            We all know what it’s like to want to beg for another chance — and to beg for another chance.

            Another chance to set our lives straight.

            Another chance to make relationships better.

            Another chance to experience the loving — caring relationships we yearn for with God — each other — and all creation — and share that experience of God’s love with others. 

            How wonderful it would be if we truly had another chance.

            A chance to truly live as God originally intended for us to live — in loving relationships with God — each other — and all creation. 

            A chance to  make things right.

            Please — Lord – give us another chance!

            Give us another chance!

            Please, Lord!

            Give us another chance!

            The Apostle Paul understood this need to be given another chance just as much as any person.

            Like us — and all people — he understood this pleading.

            But — Paul also understood the glorious truth.

            Paul understood the glorious truth that God is gracious.

            Paul understood the glorious truth that God still yearns for relationships between Him and all creation — the relationships God created us for.

            Paul understood the glorious truth that God gives us another chance.

            The glorious truth that we are given another chance — through Christ.

            As Paul points out in our passage from Romans 5 — we all live in broken relationships with God — with each other — with all creation.  We all live in broken relationships and a distorted world of sin.

            We all know that.

            But — Paul also points out the glorious truth that God gives us another chance. 

            We are given another chance — through Christ.

            Christ is the only one who can bring us out of our state of sin — rebellion — and broken relationships — and bring us back into a state of God’s will — a state of relationships with God — with others — with ourselves — and with all creation.

            Jesus gives us another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            Jesus — who in our Gospel passage for today resisted temptation but chose to live in relationship with God — can give us the forgiveness we need to live our lives differently — and the spiritual strength we need to make the choices He made.

            Through the death of Jesus and His resurrection — we are all given another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            Another chance to make our relationships with God and others — our relationships with all creation — better. 

            Another chance to live in loving — caring — relationships —

            Another chance to truly live as God intended for us to live.

            Another chance to make things right.

            That’s what the season of Lent is all about.

            Lent is a time for us all to realize that we need another chance.  Another chance to make our lives — our relationships — better and more the way God created us for them to be.

            Lent is also a time to realize that — in Jesus Christ — we have that “other chance” we so desperately need — and the only “other chance” we can ever have.

Friends – we all need another chance for our lives. But — by the blood of Jesus on the cross we have that other chance we so desperately need. By the blood of Christ every sin can be forgiven — and every relationship — whether it be our relationship with God – or our relationships with others – or our relationship with creation — can be repaired.

            It’s all about being given another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            Jesus means we have another chance.

            This “other chance” that God gives us through Christ can be illustrated in an experience I had at a Spirituality conference I attended several years ago.

                        The speaker at the conference made the point that we can live every day of our lives under the forgiving grace of God. It’s not that we can live every day perfectly — but it is that we can live every day forgiven. We can live every day with another chance to be the people God created us to be and live in the ways God created us to live.

How can we do this?

            The secret is to realize our sins – and — as soon as we can after we commit them — give them to God and ask for forgiveness — then accept the forgiveness God gives us. 

            God knows that we are going to “blow it” — the speaker continued.

            I do it — you do it — everyone does.

            Every day.

            Numerous times every day.

            We all “blow it”.

            We all need to be given another chance.  

            The thing is –God continues to give us another chance by His forgiving love.

            The speaker at the conference I was attending asked each of us to write on a piece of paper every sin we can remember that we had not confessed to God.

I thought this would be easy — but the more I got into it — the longer the list got.  Finally I had a page — front and back — and could have added more. 

            The speaker then invited us to write over our list I John 1:9:

If we confess our sins,

he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins

and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

            The speaker then instructed us to tear up the list — and praise God for forgiving us.

            What a graphic illustration that — through Christ — we are given another chance.

            What a graphic illustration of the fact that:

Jesus means we have another chance.

Jesus means we have another chance.

            I am going to invite you to do this today – and give you a chance to do it right now.

            Maybe you wondered what the blank piece of paper in your bulletin is for.

            Well – it’s for you.

            It’s for you to use it – and to use it now — to write down your sins that you have not confessed to God — whatever they may be.  Write down what may be blocking your relationship with God and others. 

I’ll give you a few minutes for this.

Now — write I John 1:9

 

If we confess our sins,

he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins

and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

over your list — confess it to God — then tear it up and throw it away — knowing that in Jesus you are given another chance.

 Jesus means we have another chance.

Jesus means we have another chance.

            Make it a daily practice of yours to realize you sins –

confess your sins –

then celebrate the forgiveness –

the “other chance” we are always given — through Jesus Christ.

            God is indeed a God of grace.

            God is indeed a God of “another chance” — regardless of how many “other chances” we may need.

            Through Jesus – we are always given another chance. Amen.

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isaiah 6:1-8, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

Isaiah 6:1-8, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

“What’s The Difference?”

June 3, 2007 (Trinity Sunday)

Read Passages

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER

AND TO THE SON

AND TO THE HOLY GHOST

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

IS NOW AND EVER SHALL BE

WORLD WITHOUT END

AMEN. AMEN.

            The beautiful words of The Gloria Patri that we sing every Sunday are not only beautiful — they are filled with praise — and are filled with power. 

These words are filled with the power of God as we sing our praises to God –

one God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

            Today is Trinity Sunday – the day when the Church celebrates God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We actually celebrate this every Sunday as we sing The Doxology  – but today is a time to stop and think about what it is we profess as we sing these words — what it really means that we worship one God — who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

            What does the doctrine of the Trinity mean?

            The doctrine of the Trinity is vital -  - not because it is something to merely know and accept -  - even if we do not understand it — but the doctrine of the Trinity is vital for us because of what it can tell us about God.

              When we look at the doctrine of the Trinity, we begin to learn some things about God.

            But is it all that important?

            What’s the difference?

            What  difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make in how we think about God – or more importantly how we experience God?

What’s the difference between God the Father – God the Son – and God the Holy Spirit?

            Does the Trinity matter?

Does it matter that God is Father – Son – and Holy Spirit –

and if so – what does it mean that God is Father – Son – and Holy Spirit?

What’s the difference?

Well — figuring out the real difference between, say, the radio broadcasts of Amplitude Modulation (AM) and Frequency Modulation (FM) might requires a little research.

Defining the Trinity may require a whole new dictionary!

So – let’s consider 2 situations and see if we can tell the difference in the terms of each:

1. A mosquito lands on your arm and, feeling it alight, you slap it with your hand and kill it.   

Have you committed murder or manslaughter (or, I guess, in this case, bug-slaughter)?

2. You’re traveling in your car on a back road listening your radio.  There’s a lot of static – but you can tell the song playing prominently features stringed instruments played with a bow.

Are you listening to AM or FM radio – is the instrument called a fiddle or a violin — and is the music called bluegrass or country?
Subtle differences, you say?

Six in one –  half-dozen in the other?

No real difference?

Well — not so fast. Let’s see how well you did.
As far as the difference between murder or manslaughter –

If you premeditated your attack on the mosquito, grabbing a fly swatter as a weapon, sneaking up on it before you killed it — you committed murder.

If you just reactively slapped it out of momentary panic – you committed manslaughter.

You see –- there is a difference. And if you had done that to a person instead of an insect, the difference would be more pronounced and would be part of your defense in court. 

            And as far as the type of radio station you are listening to in the second situation, the name of the instrument playing the music, and the type of music being played:

If you hear static, it’s probably an AM radio station.

The instrument is the same instrument at a symphony or a hoedown, but if it’s playing “The Orange Blossom Special” — it’s called a fiddle  – and if it’s playing one of Mozart’s “Brandenburg Concertos”  it’s called a violin.

 And as far as if it’s country music or bluegrass you’re listening to — if you hear more mandolin, fiddle and banjo than guitar, bass, and drums, you can call it bluegrass.

Again – subtle differences – but important ones. 
Knowing these subtle-yet-important differences is important in some             cases.

Knowing the difference between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is important, also. 

Words like Trinity can evoke some serious head-scratching. 

Ask the question, “What is the difference between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit?” and you’re likely to get some blank stares.
             And why should it matter?

Well — we describe ourselves as monotheistic — which means that we believe in one God. But we also affirm the deity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit “God the Father.”
              It sounds like three Gods, not one God – doesn’t it?

But if it is one God, then it would seem that we have — truly — an awesome God at work in the world today who invites us to join Him in the proclamation of the good news: through Jesus, we have been reconciled to God.
            Many have tried over the centuries to explain this concept that the Bible itself doesn’t lay out with clear delineations and definitions (the word trinity doesn’t even appear in the Bible ).

Many children learn in Sunday school that the Trinity is like water — which can be a gas, a solid or a liquid but is still and always is water at a molecular level –  

or the egg with its yolk, white and shell –

or the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government –

St. Patrick’s cloverleaf metaphor is also one that is used.

You can probably think of a lot more of these “object lessons” — all trying to explain the concept of being one-in-three and three-in-one.
             The mathematical approach is also attractive, the equilateral triangle being the most popular math symbol for the Trinity.

And as one person noted, while 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 doesn’t work to explain the Trinity, 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 works much better.
           All these metaphors and explanations, though, fall short and we’re left with poor explanations. Despite our best efforts at explaining the Trinity, a full understanding seems to elude even those of us who’ve been lifelong churchgoers. Church history itself reveals an eclectic and often violent debate over the metaphysics of the whole thing.
           But here’s a thought:

           In our desire to define all the terms correctly, maybe we’ve missed the whole idea altogether.

          Trying to use definitive terms to describe God is a bit like nailing Jell-O to a tree — eventually the whole thing falls apart.

         Human language has limits in trying to define the divine. So rather than quarreling about the nature of Father, Son and Holy Spirit , maybe we should be focusing on the real essence of the Trinity —

The power of relationships.

In our Old Testament passage from Isaiah 6, the Prophet does not try to give a concrete description of God – but a vision of God’s majesty and power.

In John 3 Jesus talks about the Spirit of God in beautiful terms
that touch the heart – even if our heads, like Nicodemus’, might be left a bit confused.

In Romans 8, Paul doesn’t try to line out a systematic theology of how God works. He uses trinitarian terms interchangeably — the Spirit, Father, Christ — but doesn’t try to make it a treatise on theology. Rather, Paul sees God at work in a uniquely relational way.  After admonishing his Roman readers in verses 12-13 to discern the difference between living in the flesh (focusing on the self-oriented life) and the Spirit (focusing on the God-oriented life), Paul then shifts the language to relationships —

those who live by the Spirit are adopted by the Father as children of God and co-heirs with Christ, whose glory is realized through suffering (8:14-17).

Whatever the Trinity is in being, the purpose of God, the three-in-one/one-in-three, is to bring humans back into relationship with God, rescuing us from having to try to define ourselves through self-destructive pursuits.

You can approach this passage and others that seem to reference the Trinity in two ways:

1.      You can try to figure out which Person of God is coming and going and doing what and when, like trying to determine a train schedule.

2.      You can simply focus on the fact that God’s very nature, God’s being, God’s focus, is internally and externally relational.

Our connection with the Trinity is not to be a head trip where we simply meditate and think about the nature of God, but a heartfelt relationship that is made real through the Spirit of God/Spirit of Christ/Holy Spirit

“bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (8:16).
That’s a view of God that you can not get from a chart or a theological explanation. 

Do you remember the Robin Williams movie “Dead Pots Society”? You may remember the scene where Mr. Keating, an English instructor played by Robin Williams at an elite preparatory school, asks his students to rip out the “Introduction to Poetry” essay from their literature textbooks. The essayist had instructed students in a method of grading poems on a sliding scale, complete with the use of a grid, thus reducing art for the heart into arithmetic for the head. The students looked around at each other in confusion as their teacher dismissed the essay as rubbish and ordered them to rip these pages from their books. And at their teacher’s loud prodding, the students began to rip. Mr. Keating paces the aisle with a trash can and reminded the students that poetry is not algebra, not songs on American Bandstand that can be rated on a scale from 1 to 10, but rather pieces of art that plunge the depths of the heart to stir vigor in men and woo women.

You know — too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid — to understand instead of experience God – or to argue about this or that idea about God — and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe – and experience God. By reducing Christian spirituality to formulas, we deprive our hearts of wonder.

When I think about the complexity of the Trinity, the three-in-one God, my mind cannot understand it — but my heart feels wonder and awe  and praise. It is as though my heart, in the midst of its euphoria, is saying to my mind: “There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.”

 Perhaps we’ve made too much of the distinctive shape of the Trinity, which we see most often depicted as a triangle with three hard sides.   

The thing is that triangles are not that common in the natural order of God’s creation.

Think about it — where do you see such hard edges naturally occurring?

 Rocky mountains jutting upward — maybe some leaf shapes … but not too many other places.

You could make the case, then, that triangles are, more often than not, human constructs and that our triangular, pyramid-based diagrams and explanations about God’s nature are just that — human attempts to define the divine. 
            So — what about a different shape — an alternative description, a subtle shift of perception?

Well, John of Damascus, one of the early church fathers who lived during the late seventh and early eighth centuries, changed the normal definitions and calculated reasoning about the Trinity and came up with a wholly different term for the oneness and threeness of God —

He came up with the term perichoresis, which loosely translated from Greek means “circle dance.”
              In other words, the Trinity is not primarily defined by the distinctiveness or unity or “substance” of the persons involved, but rather as a circle — a dynamic community defined by love. To see one is to see all — to dance with one is to dance with all — being invited into the circle and into a love relationship where we see God face to face, as children holding hands and dancing with loving parents.
           Circles are natural, appearing everywhere in nature from the sun and moon to the earth itself. It makes sense then, that we should be thinking of a circle as the dominant shape to  our understanding of God’s creative and relational nature.

You can’t define a circle by its points.

You can only define it as a whole.

The truth is that we’ll probably never understand the Trinity by trying to define it. Even Paul, one of the most prolific writers and theologians of his day, runs around the idea. The only way we’ll really “get” the Trinity is to join the circle and live into that relationship – to drop the attempt to understand God and begin trying to experience God – to drop the attempts at differentiating between the parts of the Trinity and begin experiencing the parts of the Trinity – experiencing the love of God as God is revealed as – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – for ourselves.

Wow!

What a difference that would make!

Indeed –

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER

AND TO THE SON

AND TO THE HOLY GHOST

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

IS NOW AND EVER SHALL BE

WORLD WITHOUT END

AMEN. AMEN.

Amen.

Isaiah 6:1-8, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

Isaiah 6:1-8

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-17

“What’s The Difference”

June 11, 2006 (Trinity Sunday)

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER

AND TO THE SON

AND TO THE HOLY GHOST

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

IS NOW AND EVER SHALL BE

WORLD WITHOUT END

AMEN. AMEN.

 

            The beautiful words of The Doxology that we sing every Sunday are not only beautiful — they are filled with praise — and are filled with power.  They are filled with the power of God as we sing our praises to God — one God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

            Today is Trinity Sunday – the day when the Church celebrates God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We actually celebrate this every Sunday as we sing The Doxology  — but today is a time to actually think about what it is we profess as we sing these words — what it really means that we worship one God — who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

            What does the doctrine of the Trinity mean?

           

            The doctrine of the Trinity is vital -  – not because it is something to merely know and accept -  – even if we do not understand -  – but the doctrine of the Trinity is vital for us because of what it can tell us about God.

 

              When we look at the doctrine of the Trinity, we begin to learn some things about God.

 

            But – what’s the difference?

            What’s the difference that the doctrine of the Trinity seems to push for?

What’s the difference between God the Father – God the Son – and God the Holy Spirit – and why do we need to think about the difference?

 

            I mean — does the Trinity matter –

does it matter that God is Father – Son – and Holy Spirit –

and if so – what does it mean?

What’s the difference?

 

Well — figuring out the real difference between, say, the radio broadcasts of Amplitude Modulation (or AM)  and Frequency Modulation (FM) might requires a little research.

Defining the Trinity may require a whole new dictionary!

 

So – let’s consider the following situations and see if we can apply the proper term to each:

1. A mosquito lands on your arm and, feeling it alight, you slap it with your hand. Have you committed murder or manslaughter (or, I guess, in this case, bug-slaughter)?

2. You’re traveling in your car on a back road in a southern US state listening to a radio with crackling static in the background on which a song plays that prominently features stringed instruments played with a bow. Are you listening to AM or FM radio, a fiddle or a violin, and is the music bluegrass or country?

Subtle differences, you say? Six and a half-dozen are the same? Not so fast. Let’s see how well you did.

As far as the difference between murder or manslaughter –

If you premeditated your attack on the mosquito, grabbing a fly swatter as a weapon, sneaking up on it and such like, you committed murder.

Reactively slapping the little bugger out of momentary panic is manslaughter.

 And as far as the type of radio station you are listening, the name of the instrument playing it, and the type of music being played:

If you hear static, it’s probably AM radio. As for the instrument playing it –    it’s the same instrument at a symphony or a hoedown, but if it’s playing “The Orange Blossom Special” –  it’s a fiddle. And if you hear more mandolin, fiddle and banjo than guitar, bass and drums, you can call it bluegrass.

Knowing these subtle-yet-important differences is important in some cases. But knowing the difference between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is important, also. 

 

Words like Trinity can evoke some serious head-scratching.

Ask the question, “What is the difference between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?” and you’re likely to get some blank stares.

And why should it matter?

Well — we describe ourselves as monotheistic — we believe in one God.

But we also affirm the deity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and a person frequently identified as “God the Father.”

It sounds like three Gods, not one God – doesn’t it?

And if one God, then it would seem that we have — truly — an awesome God at work in the world today who invites us to join Him in the proclamation of the good news:

through Jesus, we have been reconciled to God.

Many have tried over the centuries to explain this concept that the Bible itself doesn’t lay out with clear delineations and definitions (the word trinity doesn’t even appear in the Bible ). Many children learn in Sunday school that the Trinity is like water — H2O — which can be a gas, a solid or a liquid but is still and always H2O at a molecular level — or the egg with its yolk, white and shell — or the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government — St. Patrick’s cloverleaf metaphor. You can probably think of a lot more of these, all trying to explain the concept of being one-in-three and three-in-one.

The mathematical approach is also attractive, the equilateral triangle being the most popular math symbol for the Trinity.

And as one person noted, while 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 doesn’t work to explain the Trinity, 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 works much better.

All these metaphors and explanations, though, fall short and we’re left with little satisfaction by way of explanation. Despite our best efforts at explaining the Trinity, a full understanding seems to elude even those of us who’ve been lifelong churchgoers. Church history itself reveals an eclectic and often violent debate over the metaphysics of the whole thing.

But here’s a thought:

In our desire to define all the terms correctly, maybe we’ve missed the whole idea altogether.

Trying to use definitive terms to describe God is a bit like nailing Jell-o to a tree — eventually the thing falls apart. You might as well try to milk a gnat or sneak sunrise past a rooster.
Human language has distinctive limits in trying to define the divine. So rather than carping about the nature of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, or whatever terms we’re using these days), maybe we should be focusing on the real essence of the Trinity — the power of relationships.

 

In Isaiah 6, the Prophet does not try to give a concrete description of God – but more a vision of God’s majesty and power.

 

In John 3 Jesus talks about the Spirit of God in beautiful terms
that touch the heart – if not the head.

 

In Romans 8, Paul doesn’t try to line out a systematic theology of how God works. He uses trinitarian terms interchangeably — the Spirit, Father, Christ — but doesn’t try to make it a treatise on metaphysics. Rather, Paul sees God at work in a uniquely relational way. 

              After admonishing his Roman readers in verses 12-13 to discern the difference between living in the flesh (focusing on the self-oriented life) and the Spirit (focusing on the God-oriented life), Paul then shifts the language to relationships —

those who live by the Spirit are adopted by the Father as children of God and co-heirs with Christ, whose glory is realized through suffering (8:14-17).

 

Whatever the Trinity is in being, the purpose of God, the three-in-one/one-in-three, is to bring humans back into relationship with God, rescuing us from having to try to define ourselves through self-destructive pursuits.

             You can approach this passage and others that seem to reference the Trinity in two ways:

either you can try to figure out which Person of God is coming and going and doing what and when, like trying to determine a train schedule.

Or, you can simply focus on the fact that God’s very nature, God’s being, God’s focus, is internally and externally relational.

Our connection with the Trinity is not to be a head trip where we simply meditate and think about the nature of God, but a heartfelt relationship that is made real through the Spirit of God/Spirit of Christ/Holy Spirit “bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (8:16).

That’s a different view of God than you can get from a chart.

I like that scene in the movie Dead Poets Society in which Mr. Keating, an English instructor at an elite preparatory school, asks his students to rip out the "Introduction to Poetry" essay from their literature textbooks. The essayist had instructed students in a method of grading poems on a sliding scale, complete with the use of a grid, thus reducing art for the heart into arithmetic for the head. The students looked around at each other in confusion as their teacher dismissed the essay as rubbish and ordered them to rip these pages from their books. And at their teacher's loud prodding, the students began to rip. Dr. Keating paced the aisle with a trash can and reminded the students that poetry is not algebra, not songs on American Bandstand that can be rated on a scale from 1 to 10, but rather pieces of art that plunge the depths of the heart to stir vigor in men and woo women.

Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, to understand instead of experience God — and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe – and experience God. By reducing Christian spirituality to formulas, we deprive our hearts of wonder.

When I think about the complexity of the Trinity, the three-in-one God, my mind cannot understand it — but my heart feels wonder and praise. It is as though my hear, in the midst of its euphoria, is saying to my mind:

“There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.”

Perhaps we’ve made too much of the distinctive shape of the Trinity, which we see most often depicted as a triangle with three hard sides as mentioned above.

The thing is that triangles are not that common in the natural order of God’s creation.

Think about it — where do you see such hard edges naturally occurring? Rocky mountains jutting upward, maybe some leaf shapes … but not too many other places. You could make the case, then, that triangles are, more often than not, human constructs and that our triangular, pyramid-based diagrams and explanations about God’s nature are just that — human attempts at divine definition.

            So — what about a different shape — an alternative description, a subtle shift of perception?

 

John of Damascus, one of the early church fathers who lived during the late seventh and early eighth centuries, eschewed the normal definitions and calculated reasoning about the Trinity and came up with a wholly different term for the oneness and threeness of God — perichoresis, which loosely translated from Greek means “circle dance.”
              In other words, the Trinity is not primarily defined by the distinctiveness or unity or “substance” of the persons involved, but rather as a circle — a dynamic community defined by love. To see one is to see all — to dance with one is to dance with all, being invited into the circle and into a love relationship where we see God face to face, as children hold hands and dance with loving parents.

           Circles are natural, appearing everywhere from the sun and moon to the earth itself. Makes sense then, that we should be thinking of a circle as the dominant shape to  our understanding of God’s creative and relational nature.

You can’t define a circle by its points.

You can only define it as a whole.

And it’s pretty easy to differentiate a circle from a triangle — easier, say, than trying to figure out the difference between murder and manslaughter.

 

The truth is that we’ll probably never understand the Trinity by trying to define it. Even Paul, one of the most prolific writers and theologians of his day, runs round the idea. The only way we’ll really “get” the Trinity is to join the circle and live into that relationship – to drop the attempt to understand God and begin trying to experience God – to drop the attempts at differentiating between the parts of the Trinity and begin experiencing God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – for ourselves.

 
What a difference that would make!

 

Amen.