When you hear the word “God”, what images come up in your
mind? For many inside and outside of
the church, a popular image of God is that of an old white man with a long
beard, perhaps sitting on a fluffy cloud.
In fact, a satirical Twitter account under the name of God has exactly
that image – an old white man in a white robe with a long beard sitting at a
computer. (I should caution that if you are a twitter
user and if you look for this twitter handle, the tweets are often humorous,
but the humor is sometimes PG if not R rated…whoever has this Twitter account
has a bit of a potty mouth.) For some, the
image of the old dude with a beard brings comfort – sort of an image of a
heavenly grandpa smiling down on us - while for others, it is alienating,
oppressive, an angry god hurling lightning bolts, or at the very least a
self-absorbed god who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t understand us, doesn’t care
about us. There may be variations: In many
cultures, the skin of the divine image would
not be white, and the image may be female instead of male – indeed, the name El
Shaddai, an ancient name of God found in Genesis, can be translated “God of
many breasts”. Scripture has many images
of God, not all male, not even all human.
For example, Jesus compares himself at one point to a mother hen trying
to gather a brood of chicks that are running away from their mother in all
directions. St Paul points to the story
of the rock in the wilderness that poured out water for the Israelites as an
image of Christ. And, of course, pagan
cultures often had their own images of their gods, often having to do with
strength, such as that of a bull, or that of fertility, symbolized by a female
figure. Of course, God is beyond our
ability to understand, let alone portray, which is why any one image only
captures a small portion of God’s greatness, and why the commandments include a
prohibition on the worship of graven images.
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we consider another
image, or perhaps more accurately another lens for understanding God: the
Christian doctrine of God existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as one God
in three persons. The word "Trinity" is itself not in the Bible. The doctrine is derived by looking at the
actions of God in conjunction with references in Scripture to "Father,
Son, Holy Spirit" as in our reading from Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians
13:13. This doctrine differentiates
Christianity from the other Abrahamic religions – Judaism and Islam, which
insist that God is one being with no differentiation or division.
One way of understanding the persons of the Trinity is by
function – God as creator, Jesus as Redeemer, the Holy Spirit as
Sustainer. That is to say, God creates
us, Jesus saves us, and the Holy Spirit sustains us. Or we might think of God above us or around
us, Jesus beside us, and the Holy Spirit within us.
But the classical definition of the Trinity is
not that of one God with three functions, but one God in three persons: the
Father or Creator generates, the Son or Redeemer is begotten, and from the
Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit.
These three persons of the one God are said to exist in a state called perichoresis – the Greek word “peri” means “around” and the Greek word
“choresis” is the root word for
English words such as “choreography”, referring to a dance. And so, according to this theology, the three
persons of the Trinity exist in a kind of circle dance of mutual self-giving
love, the Father to the Son, from both Father and Son to the Spirit, and from
the Spirit returning to the Father. Some
of this comes from John’s Gospel, in which Jesus says, “I am in the Father and
the Father is in me”. Later Jesus says
that he will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, who will be with them and
in them. And still later, Jesus says, “because I live, you also will live. And
on that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in
you.” And so Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are said to exist in a continual dance of self-giving love, into which
Jesus invites us.
This all seems pretty abstract, and of course no words can
ever describe God in God’s fullness. So
why bother about the Trinity? Why not
just leave it behind as some leftover from the Dark Ages, some arcane piece of
speculation by medieval church fathers who clearly had entirely too much time
on their hands? What’s at stake? One
thing at stake is that this doctrine shows us that relatedness and relationship,
connection to others, is at the very heart of God’s being and character. That
is to say, if we worship and serve a God who is, in the popular image, the old
white dude with a beard floating out in space somewhere, we can perhaps be
content with a one-on-one relationship with this being. How we treat others may be a separate issue. But if we worship a God whose very nature is
an ongoing relationship of mutual, self-giving love, existing from the
beginning of time and continuing to this day, and extending to include us, serving
such a God will entail mutual, self-giving love on our parts. Put another way, Scripture tells us that God
is love – and the doctrine of the Trinity tells us that this love is constantly
in motion, constantly in action, constantly growing, constantly expanding – and
since we are made in the image of the God who is love, serving the Triune God
will involve being conformed more and more into a life of self-giving love for
God and neighbor alike, for the two are inseparable. As God is love for us, we are called to be
love to one another. Or, put yet another
way, since God is never alone but always exists in relationship, and since God
created us in God’s image, we are not created to be alone – remember in
Genesis, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” – but instead God
created us to be in relationship not only with God but with one another. And not just any kind of relationship, but a
relationship of self-giving love. As
disciples following in the way of Jesus, for us, life is giving, and giving is
life. Life is love, and love is life. To cut ourselves off from others and turn in
on ourselves, to shut out our neighbor and be absorbed in ourselves, is to
begin to die. Sin is said to be curved
in on itself – if the concept of sin were depicted in human form, it might look
like a person gazing at his or her own belly-button and ignoring the rest of
the world - and Scripture, and life, amply demonstrate that the wages of sin
are death. Again, to be in relationship
is life-giving; to turn in ourselves – as individuals, as a congregation, dare
I say as a society – is to begin to die. To turn in on ourselves is to sign our
own spiritual death warrant.
The creation account from Genesis that we read earlier tells
us much about this Triune God. It
follows a pattern – we’re told that in the beginning was a formless void, and
the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. At each stage, God created something,
proclaimed it good, there was evening and morning, and a new days, in which God
created again. We’re told that humans,
male and female, were created in God’s image, created in some sense to resemble
God. And on the seventh day, God rested.
Genesis is
likely the only creation story with which we’re familiar – and actually Genesis
has two creation stories set side by side, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 - but many
ancient cultures also had creation stories.
These stories of other cultures existed to tell those cultures who they
were and what life was like. The Babylonian creation story is very different,
and I’d like to take a few minutes to summarize it, remembering that the
Babylonians were rivals of Israel and eventually would conquer Israel for a
time and sends its people into exile. It
was called the Enuma Elish, and was recited
annually in April of each year. While
both the Genesis account and the Babylonian creation story begin with the
universe as a formless void, they go from there in very different
directions. The Enuma Elish begins with
a male god, Apsu, and a female god, Tiamat, who give birth to numerous younger
gods. The younger gods play too loudly
and keep Apsu from sleeping…and you know how cranky us guys can get when our
naps are interrupted. Apsu decides to
destroy these noisy children so he can once again have some peace and quiet,
but as a good mother, Tiamat protects her children. One of the Tiamat’s children, Ea, kills Apsu,
his father. Ea later marries another god
and gives birth to Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonians. The widowed Tiamat remarries, taking Kingu as
her consort. Marduk eventually kills
Tiamat (his grandmother) and from her body creates the heavens and the
earth. Later Marduk kills Tiamat’s
second husband, Kingu, and from his corpse create humankind. (For those who may be curious, more details
are at this link: http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Enuma_Elish.html)
Consider the differences between the Babylonian creation
story and our own. From their creation
story, the Babylonians were told that betrayal and violent conflict and
bloodshed were a natural part of life, baked into creation from the very beginning,
and they lived accordingly. They saw life as violent and the world as a place
where they had to watch their backs every moment, lest their own family members
kill them in their sleep. If their own gods were like that, why should they strive
to be any better? By contrast, Genesis describes creation as ordered, peaceful,
with blessings at every step (“And God saw that it was good”) and humankind
created in God’s likeness, with a mandate to “be fruitful and multiply, fill
the earth and subdue it.” And after all
of God’s labors, God rested on the seventh day – so life has a daily rhythm of
evening and morning and a seven-day rhythm of work and rest baked in from the
beginning as well. By contrast with the
Babylonian account, Genesis tells us that peace, order, blessing and rest are
baked into creation from the very beginning.
Genesis also tells us that, as humans are created in God’s image and
likeness, we are of infinite worth, precious to God.
Whose script are we following? If we – as individuals, as a church, as a
society - say that we worship God and love Jesus, but accept betrayal and
violence as a natural part of life, as “just how life works”, we’re following
in the way of Marduk, the monster-god of ancient Babylon, and not in the way of
Jesus. If we – as individuals, as a
church, as a society – say we are Christians, but turn away from our neighbor –
our poor neighbor, our hungry neighbor, our homeless neighbor, our sick
neighbor – we’re turning away from the embrace of the Triune God, who lives not
only in us but in that very neighbor.
As I said, this applies not only to us as individuals, but
as a congregation. If we at Emanuel
Church try to live in our own bubble, we’re instead digging our own grave. But the more we connect with others, and the
more opportunities we give others to connect with us, the more life will be in
this place. Small as we are, of course
we can’t do everything, but we can do something. Given our size we may not be able to do great
things, but we can do small things with great love. And the things that seem small to us may be huge,
enormous, even life-giving to others.
I’ve said it occasionally in sermons past that my home church, First
United Church of Christ, Hamburg, Pennsylvania, saved my sanity, maybe my life,
and the members almost certainly had no idea.
Before I was a pastor, I was a kid, and when I was a kid, from about age
10 on, alcohol and violence were a constant threat; my parents drank and
they…had anger management issues. School
had its own issues – I was shy, awkward, asthmatic, with thick glasses…may as
well have had a target on my back. But
when I was 12, my parents made me go to
confirmation class – I went kicking and screaming at first – but when I got
there, I found a place where I could go and I didn’t get hit. For the scared-half-out-of-my-wits 12-year
old I was at the time, it was all I could do not to kiss the carpet. No fists!
Safe space! Who knew such places
existed? And having found safe space,
why would I want to go home?....though of course I had to eventually. But as
I got to trust the folks at church…it took a while, I had major trust issues,
but trust grew over time…I spent as much time at church as I could…and I lived
in a small enough town that I could easily walk to church anytime I wanted. Occasionally
people at church would ask me how I was doing.
And I didn’t say much….given the situation at home, and given how the
rumor mill in that small town worked, I knew that keeping my mouth shut was the
safest course…..so of course, I pasted on a smile and said I was fine….but they
cared, cared enough to ask, and their caring saved me. And likely almost none of the members had the
slightest idea how much they were doing just by being there…..just by being
there. Just by being.
Relationship, connectedness, self-giving love are at the
heart of God, and at the heart of who we are.
May the love we get from God be the love we give to others. May we share that love not only with those
who love us, but with those we find difficult to love. May our neighbors, our neighborhood, our
city, our world be better for our having passed their way. Amen.
