Kristin White Sermon - Trinity Sunday
A Sermon Preached
Kristin White
Trinity Sunday – June 15, 2014
St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church – Wilmette, Illinois
Hear again the words of Psalm 8:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
Who are we, that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we, that you should seek us out?
You have made us just a little lower than the angels
You adorn us with glory and honor;
You give us mastery over the works of your hands,
You put all things under our feet.
Dr. David Lose says this about Trinity Sunday: “Trying to explain the Trinity in a sermon is a really bad idea.[1]” I have to agree with the professor.
If I were to make such an attempt, I could toss around some $5 vocabulary words, like homo ousia (which is Greek for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three distinct persons of the same substance), or perichoresis (also Greek, describing the perpetual relationship between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit). If I really wanted to get flashy I could try to impress you by sharing the fact that the word circumincession means the same thing as the word perichoresis.
We could explore the history of the early church, wandering through stories of bishops duking it out at the Council of Nicea in the year 325 over the heretic priest Arius’ claim that “there was a time when (Christ) was not,” or the subsequent council at Constantinople in the year 381 with its confirmation of the Nicene Creed. Or later, the addition of the Filioque Clause, that place in the traditional interpretation of the Creed, when we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son…those 6 words are one of the few things separating us from full communion with Eastern Orthodox traditions.
So I could talk about all that for the next 7-10 minutes, make a defensible claim that sums it all up for you…and you could do your best not to fidget in your pews and discover how very much more interesting are the announcements at the back of today’s bulletin, as your patience ebbs…as boredom sets in…
My friend Elizabeth Molitors says, “not everything that might be explained should be explained.[2]” There is a time for highly technical vocabulary and elaborate recitations of early church history. And, dear ones, there is a time for wonder, and awe. Hear the words of the psalmist:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars you have set in their courses…
Trinity Sunday is a big deal in the life of the Episcopal Church, the one Sunday of the year that celebrates doctrine. The one Sunday of the year that celebrates…doctrine?
Other celebrations in the church year give us something to attach ourselves to. Christmas gives us God, right here with us, in the person of a baby to be held and loved. Easter gives us a tomb that is empty of everything but the shroud and a promise, fulfilled. Pentecost offers wind and fire and words and understanding…and Church. And now? This day?
Who are we, that you should be mindful of us? The psalmist asks.
Who are we, that you should seek us out?
This day gives us a moment to pause, and celebrate awe, defined as “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear…produced by that which is grand, sublime, or extremely powerful.[3]”
During seminary I was assigned as part of a team that included two other classmates to argue the heretical side of a debate, called a disputatio, about the persons of the Trinity. We wore our black cassocks, we trotted out words like homo ousia and perichoresis and circumincession. We named the major players at the councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381), we argued for and against use of the Filioque Clause. As I look back on that very valid classroom exercise (valid except for the fact that my team of heretics lost…I’m doing my best to live with that disappointment)…when I look back on it, I hear the Bishop, saying: “If you can explain it, it’s not God.” When I consider how God could be three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and still one Person at the same time, distinct members of the same substance, perpetually connected, I hear my friend wonder if, by “practicing awe, we can come closer to appreciating – if not entirely understanding – the timelessness, vastness, and complexity (of God).[4]”
Who are we, that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we, that you should seek us out?
So what is it for you that offers such an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration…even fear? Can you name those moments in your life when they have happened, when your breath caught, at the magnitude and majesty?
Have you stood on a mountain, seen the range of mountains disappearing into the horizon, above and below the clouds? Have you looked up at night in the wilderness, far away from any city lights, into a sky filled with more stars than your imagination could count?
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars you have set in their courses;
Who are we that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we that you should seek us out?
Have you been blessed by the weight of either of those extraordinary twin privileges, to sit with someone who is growing very near to death, or to sit with someone who will very soon give birth?
You have made us just a little lower than the angels;
You adorn us with glory and honor
In the face of all that, what I know of homo ousia and perichoresis and circumincession and councils and disputatios…all of that suddenly falls short. And what I know of awe comes closer. Because sometimes, the best witness we can offer is to stand in the midst of those overwhelming moments…and be overwhelmed…be overwhelmed by reverence and admiration, even fear. Sometimes, the best we can do is restrain ourselves from suggesting explanations with highly technical vocabulary and appropriate historical reference.
Sometimes, instead, the best we can do is to stand still, to allow our breath to catch in our throats, and to give thanks for the God who created us, for the God who came to be right here among us, for the God who sustains us.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
Who are we that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we that you should seek us out?
You have made us just a little lower than the angels
You adorn us with glory and honor;
You give us mastery over the works of your hands,
You put all things under our feet.
[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&cat_id=36
[2] Rev. Elizabeth Molitors, Trinity Sunday sermon 2014.
[3] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/awe?s=t
[4] Molitors