Where's the Trinity?
This is the message I shared with God's people at St. Mark Lutheran Church and St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sun., 5/31. The scripture text was Romans 8:12-17.
How many of you are familiar with the series of books and
pictures called, Where's Waldo? For those of you unfamiliar with this
series, the pictures consist of a sea of people and you have to locate the
character, Waldo in the midst of the busy pictures.
It is quite a challenge to do so.
Today is Holy Trinity Sunday. When looking at today's
readings, we may wonder, "Where is the Trinity?" Although the word trinity
is not used in the Bible, our God in three persons is woven into the very
fabric of our reading from Romans. Did you notice the names for God in the
Romans reading? Just shout them out when you see them.
This passage starts out in an odd way, "So
then..." This tells us that Paul is drawing conclusions from the
previous verses in which he made it clear that the Christian life is life in
the Spirit, not life in the flesh. Today's passage gives us the because
for the first part of this chapter.
Paul is writing all about relationships in this passage.
Within the godhead, we have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The
essence of the Holy Trinity is the love relationship of the members of the
Trinity with each other.
Historically, the relationship of the members of the Trinity
has been described in this way:
The
Father is God
The
Son is God
The
Holy Spirit is God
The
Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit.
The
Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit.
and
the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.
Each person of the Trinity is God, but they are not each
other.
We are bothers and sisters in Christ because God has invited
us into the love relationship
that is shared within members of the Trinity. We become part of the family of
God through Holy Baptism and God claims us as his own.
Paul is speaking about our Christian identity or
self-understanding and he goes on to speak about the implications of such a
life. Just as we are accepted by God
through no goodness or merit of our own, our daily Christian life is not
the result of our own efforts, but is empowered by the work of the Holy Spirit
in the Christian community.The Holy Spirit is not the personal property of a
few super spiritual people in the body of Christ. Rather, the Holy Spirit is
the life-giving breath that enlivens the body of Christ to which all followers of
Jesus belong.
The language used by Paul about our relationship with God
escalates throughout the passage. We move from slavery to adoption as God's
children. In New Testament times, being adopted meant that the adopted one
gains all rights, responsibilities and privileges of being in the family. No
difference was made between adopted and birth children.
As good as that is, it gets even better when we move from
adoption to intimacy with God. "...we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (v.
15) When I lived in the Holy Land,
my family would frequently go into the a part of Jerusalem, where a block had
been made into a plaza, which did not allow cars, but only foot traffic.
Families would be out strolling together, enjoying a warm evening. Small
children would become tired and sleepy from walking in the fresh air, then what
we would see is little arms extending toward their father and we would hear,
"Abba." "Abba"
is a word of intimacy between child and father. It's like saying,
"Daddy!"
To cry out to God in such a way is both to confess our need
of God and to claim our
relationship with God. Because we are God's own children, we can be as intimate
with God the Father as Jesus the Son is. "Abba" was used by Jesus in
the Lord's Prayer and at his crucifixion in Mark's gospel.
You think that level of relationship is good... there's even
more! We are heirs of God! We have received the most unbelievable inheritance!
Sometimes don't we wish we just had a rich uncle who left us a big inheritance?
We have someone better than a rich uncle, we have a rich and
generous Father!
And...we are not only heirs of God, but joint heirs with
Jesus. We have access to the same riches as the Lord Jesus has!
Paul says we are heirs to all this great stuff from God on
one condition, "if...we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified
with him" (v. 17). All normal expectations of being an heir are tuned
upside down in true kingdom of God fashion with this condition.
Being a child of God does not mean that life will always be
wonderful for us and that all our worries are gone. The thing about being
family is that that like Jesus, as joint heirs, that which was our Savior's
lot, is also ours. Suffering is as much a part of our inheritance as is real
and abundant life.
We live our lives in the present under the shadow of the
cross. In baptism, we are
"marked with the cross of Christ forever." This cross-shaped life we
share with our Savior is that of self-giving love in service to others. In the
future, it means we will share in the resurrection life of the glory of God at
the fulfillment of God's plan for history (Boring and Craddock).
Eleventh century saint and mystic, Hildegard of Bingen
described the Trinity as "sound and life...wondrous splendor...which is
life in all things" (Sundays and Seasons). How does this "sound and
life" infuse our church?
How do we feel when we leave this church and we go back home
to our lives, our jobs, being in school. How should we feel? If we are children
of God, and we have this amazing inheritance, isn't there a part of us that
wants to tell that to everyone we meet? Isn't there a part of us that is so
excited about our church family, that we want to bring other people into the family?
If not, why not? Amen!
Resources
Dr. Gerald Christiansen, The Early
Church and its Creeds class, 2008.
M. Eugene Boring and Fred B.
Craddock, The People's New Testament Commentary
Beverly Gaventa, Texts for
Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year B
Sundays and Seasons
Comments