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St. Charles Episcopal Church - Saint Charles, IL

The First Sunday after Pentecost - Trinity Sunday - Trinity RCL – Year C

Sunday, May 30, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                   

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 – Psalm 8 – Romans 5:1-5 – John 16:12-15

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

“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.”

Jesus spoke these words to his beloved disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. In the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit that Jesus speaks of has many names, Paraclete, Advocate, and Spirit of Truth. Last week we celebrated the gift of that Spirit in the feast of Pentecost. We had red flames of cloth brooding over us and biblical imagery of wind and fire and smoke. As much as we try to explain and describe the Holy Spirit, it remains mysterious. And the Holy Spirit is just one part of an even greater mystery, the holy Trinity.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day where we celebrate the mysterious experience of one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To talk about the doctrine of the holy Trinity is to step into very deep, and very dark waters. It is something we experience every day of our lives, and yet it is difficult to explain. The lines between orthodoxy and heresy get very close together. There is tension. It is probably best in this case to start with heresy. (I thought that would get your attention). Most heresies in the church are examples of incomplete thought, and so they are in some ways way points along the road to the truth. They become dangerous only if you stop there. If you get stuck there. “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.”

When you explore the past history of the church you find that many of the great heresies were at one point considered orthodox by some portion of the church, often for decades. The doctrine of the Trinity and how it developed is a wonderful case in point. The central tenant of the Trinity is one God in three persons. Can you see the mathematical tension there; 1=3. The heresies get into the picture when one emphasizes one side of the equation at the expense of the other. If we push the one God side, and say that the three persons aren’t really separate, but just the three different ways that God acts in our lives, notably as creator, redeemer, and sustainer, we wander into the great heresy of modalism. If we push the three persons side of the equation, and say that God is really three separate beings, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, separate entities all joined by their one divinity, we wander into the great heresy of tritheism. Notice that neither of the above positions is completely false, but each is incomplete without the other.

In the later part of the last century, as the church struggled to find a way to use gender neutral language for God, a blessing that came into favor named God as “God Almighty, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.” Is this modalism? In the first part of the blessing each of the three persons are addressed in separate petitions as individuals. Is this tritheism? As with much of the Christian life there is, or should be, a tension between the two. Each is incomplete without the other. One -- Three; Death -- Resurrection; Judgement -- Forgiveness; Sin -- Redemption; Mortal -- Everlasting life. We live in the kingdom of God, and yet await it’s perfection. The wonderful discontinuity of the Trinity is a constant reminder of this important tension.

Brian McLaren, a leader in the emergent church movement, says that the most important purpose of the doctrine of the Trinity is to remind us that God is mysterious.“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.” These words are both comforting and unsettling. They speak to both our reality as made in the image of God as well as our reality as creatures of God. It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that these words only apply to the apostles, but the reality is that they are probably far more important for us to hear today. What is it today that Christ cannot yet reveal to us because we cannot bear it? What pieces of the ultimate truth are beyond our understanding, or to put it a different way, What are the truths of tomorrow that the Spirit is guiding us toward? How will we know?

The Episcopal church continues to go through much change as we struggle with issues of sexuality. Many in the church feel that the church has left the true way, while many others feel that it is at last living into the true way. All may be right. All may be wrong. We must wait for the Spirit. Every day science teaches us new facts about our world. It was barely a decade ago that we saw the first picture of a planet in orbit around another star, and a whole bunch of theories turned into facts. Just a few weeks ago we heard that scientists in a lab have created a living cell out of lifeless matter. They didn’t do it the way Mary Shelley imagined it would be done in 1818, but they raised the same questions; and this time, the questions were no longer academic.

In the church, part of our job is to find the meaning in new facts like these, to discovery in those facts the under lying truths. Though the facts may be irrefutable, the truths may be more than we can yet bear. And so we must wait for the Spirit of truth. But it must be an active waiting. We are creatures of God, but we are made in the image of God, and so we too are involved in the holy work of creating, redeeming and sustaining. As the psalmist says, “What is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out? You have made him but little lower than the angels; you adorn him with glory and honor; You give him mastery over the works of your hands” We have been given a special place in God’s creation. It is a holy place, a place set apart.It is both a place of honor and a place of responsibility. The responsibility comes with the need to discern God’s will out of the milieu of voices and demands that come at us every day. How are we to know what is from God? Where is the Spirit of truth leading us today? Where are we being sent? What is it that Christ is trying to tell us, that we cannot yet bear? Where do we, as a church and as individuals need to grow up more fully into the stature of Christ?

We speak in our prayers of children growing into the full stature of Christ. In reality, growing into the full stature of Christ is a lifetime endeavor.That is why I put it into the prayer for the mission of St. Charles. Christ was so in touch with both the Father and the Spirit that he could honestly say that they were one. That is the goal we seek, the ideal we strive for.The week before last we renewed our baptismal vows as part of the confirmation service. In this action we rededicated ourselves as followers of Christ, and asked the Father to increase in us the grace of the Holy Spirit; to bring us closer together. Regular attendance in church is only a small part of that rededication, one very small part of what it means to be a Christian.

Look around you. Remember that together, we are the embodiment of God in the world.We are the body of Christ. It is we who, by the grace of God, will make the kingdom manifest in the world. Or will not. Look around again. If you can’t see the kingdom around you, you’d better be prepared, for the still small voice. You’d better be listening for the deep urges of the Spirit. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth... and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” If you can separate those words from the distractions of the world, you might hear things that will take you into a new reality, a new truth. A more complete revelation of the full truth we all wait for. They may be words that only yesterday you couldn’t bear, but today they fire your heart; compel you to action.

Do not be afraid. Though the road ahead may be difficult and long, we are not alone. The long journey of faith is crowded with saints before and behind. Our job is to take the little wisdom we have been given, grow it in faith, and pass it on to those who will follow. In this way the kingdom is revealed. It may be that there are parts of the truth we will never find in this life. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” It must be enough for us to know that the full truth will come in God’s time if we remain faithful. As we live more and more into the mystery of the Trinity, becoming more close to the strange enigma of the three in one and one in three, we find the grace of God empowering our own feeble gifts of creation, redemption, and sanctification. That is our goal. That is our prayer. That is our hope. Amen.