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Sunday May 22, 2005 - Trinity Sunday, Year A

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when we celebrate our identity and history as Trinity Church, and even more importantly, the day that we celebrate the one after whom our church is named, that is, God. Today we celebrate the God who gives us life, who became incarnate in Jesus Christ, who continues to inspire us through the Holy Spirit.

There's a temptation for preachers on Trinity Sunday
to get hooked up into explaining this concept of God as Trinity. The way the Early Church described it, is that God is three persons, and one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Athanasian Creed, which you can find in the back of your prayer books, goes on at length about how this is possible, that God is both three and one at the same time, equal in glory and majesty, eternal and undivided. Preachers often get tied up in trying to explain it all by comparing God with the three states of H2O, water ice and steam, or the three leaves of a shamrock, but the reality is that most of us end up after these sort of explanations
more confused
than when we began.

And an even more important reality
is that what Trinity Sunday is for
is not really to explain the logistics
of how God can be both three and one at the same time,
what Trinity Sunday is for
is to turn our minds
to God.

Most of the time in church
we focus on Jesus. God made flesh, who came and lived among us, full of grace and truth, who died on a cross for our sake, who was raised and invites us all to join him in new life.

Sometimes
we remember the Holy Spirit, the holy breath of God who blows into our lives
to bring us the gifts and strength we need
to live our lives as Christians, followers of Christ.

But this Sunday
we focus
on God. The God who creates, redeems and sustains us, the God who we know through the whole of Scripture, the God who was and is and is to come, holy eternal Majesty, holy incarnate Word, holy abiding Spirit.

Trinity Sunday
is a time to celebrate the God we worship, and the almost incomprehensible reality
that we can know and have a relationship with this God.

And how better to focus on our God
than by turning to the very beginning of the story of our faith
the first chapter
of the book
of Genesis.

B-r-shiyt barah elohiym . . .
In beginning, God created . . .
That's how it all began.

For most people, the only time they turn
to the first chapter of Genesis,
it's when they're hunting for something to support their arguments
about creation and evolution.
If the Bible says
that in the beginning God created the world,
then that must be proof
that evolution and the big bang
are wrong; that must be proof
of the dangers of science to Christian faith.
In one town in York County, Pennsylvania, the school board recently voted
to include the theory of intelligent design
in its ninth grade science curriculum,
an attempt to challenge the dominant scientific theories
with something that they think
allows more room
for God.

But of course the mistake in all of this
is to take Genesis chapter 1
as if it were a scientific report,
something written to answer the question
"By what scientific process
was the universe created?"

But if that's not the question
that Genesis was written to answer,
then we have to consider that it's not intended to be a scientific explanation,
that it's not something we can use
in the creation/evolution debate,
that what it says
is something entirely different.

And if you read the book of Genesis carefully,
and you compare its story with the rest of the stories in the Bible,
and if you compare it with other stories that were around at the time it was written, stories from other religions about the creation of the world,
then what you find
that is the first chapters of Genesis
are not concerned with scientific reports at all. They are concerned with addressing questions
that lurk deep in our minds,
questions that float to the surface when life is particularly difficult
and hopeless,
questions about
the meaning of life.

Why on earth are we here, we human beings? What is the meaning and purpose of life?

B-r-shiyt barah elohiym . . .
In beginning, God created . . .

The story of our faith
begins with God. That's the very heart of existence,
the reality
that all other realities rely on.

It's like going on a hike, following a map. You have to choose a point of reference, a mountain or hill, or even a star,
one place that you can keep coming back to
to keep your bearings.
God is the point of reference, the place where we get our bearings.

In the beginning
there was God.

And God created, God created heaven and earth, sun and stars and planets, land and sea, plants and animals, birds and fish, everything that has life on earth, God created.

It's so easy to forget
how wonderful creation is.
Last month and the first couple of weeks of this month, our children
spent their Sunday School time
focusing on creation.
One of the things we did
was to go for a walk, and look for something from every day of creation.
We walked out of the Parish House and saw light, we looked up
and saw the sky.
We walked down to Racoon Creek, and dropped sticks in the water
so they could float down to the Delaware River and eventually out to the sea.
We found three different kinds of mosses and some ferns growing in the cracks of the wall beside the cemetery, and found cactus and flowers scattered in the grass, and trees with buds and blossom and bright new leaves. Over it all the sun shone,
and there were birds flying over us and spiders and ants crawling between stones,
all of it, you know what?
It was great. As one of the kids said, "This is really cool, I'll remember this."
He'll remember
that in beginning
God created,
and it was good.
It wasn't an accident, this world of ours. It is the work of God, and it is good.

But when heaven and earth, sun and stars and planets, land and sea,
when plants and animals, birds and fish, when all these living things
were created
it wasn't the end.
It wasn't the end, because God had still more
creating to do.
God created
human beings. Male and female
in God's own image, the only ones out of all creation
to bear that image, the only ones
given a command at creation
to be fruitful and multiply, to administer this world and to care for this newborn world,
unique
among all creation.
And unique, because in the next chapter of Genesis,
we find
that God
takes incredible joy in these human beings
walking and talking with them
like the very best of friends.

And it was all
very good.

B-r-shiyt barah elohiym . . .
In beginning, God created . . .

The story of Genesis, the story of creation
tells us
that we have a God
who is in the business of creating.
And it tells us
that what God creates
is good, very good.

And so we're back where we began
with a God
who is worth celebrating,
a God
whose very fingerprints
can be seen all around us
in the wonder and beauty
of creation.
And a God
who created us
unique among all creation,
and chooses to be with us
like the best of friends.
It's an incredible gift.

And so today, Trinity Sunday, is a day
when we celebrate God, celebrate the one who made us,
who loves us,
who walks beside us like the best of friends.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
eternal Majesty, incarnate Word, abiding Spirit,
who was and is an always will be,
creator, lover, life giver.

Thanks be to God.

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005