I speak to you in the name of the Holy Trinity, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Please be seated. Christin and I bring you greetings from the Diocese of Texas, and also from Virginia Theological Seminary where I just completed my first year–straight As! We’re so joyful to spend summer with you. Since we found Redeemer, it’s always felt like home–thank you for your warm welcome.
I stand before you with some fear and trembling–this is Trinity Sunday, and it’s a daunting task to try to make some sense out of the Holy Trinity. Now, few people feel more certain they know EVERYTHING than first-year seminarians. I’m going to resist the urge to offer a dozen metaphors easily explaining the Trinity. But the Gospel gives us the baptismal formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so we have to try to understand.
Today I want to address precisely that, the difficulty people have understanding the Holy Trinity. This doctrine has produced disagreements and confusion for centuries, before and after we agreed to proclaim God in three Persons, of one substance. But everyone who has ever tried to understand this nature of God has struggled. And this I find curiously consoling.
Because the last thing I need is a God Who is exactly as I would expect or predict. Aslan is not a tame Lion, and that offers us great comfort. God is immortal, invisible, and spiritual; so why should we who are temporal, visible, and material, expect fully to understand our Creator? God’s nature must be a mystery far higher than our thoughts could ever reach. God, who we cannot grasp, bends so low as to grasp us. We need a God Who is higher than we are. And we also need that Great God to stoop alllll the way down to save us. This is very, VERY Good News, Amen?
Now while we may never understand the theological intricacies, we can understand at least one aspect about God’s nature, that aspect we especially need this week. Because the very nature of the Holy Trinity is love. The Father loves the Son, calls Jesus “my Beloved.” And in loving obedience the Son says to the Father “not my will but Thine be done,” even though it means death on the cross. And the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, both declares God’s love to us, and prays for us to His loving Father.
Each of the three Persons of the Trinity expresses love. In Genesis, the Hebrew describes the Holy Spirit moving, or hovering over the water like a bird brooding over her young. The Spirit hovers over chaos and, in love, creates life. And, later, St. Paul reminds us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. . .that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Groans too deep for utterance. The Holy Spirit responds to our great need with His even greater love.
God the Father too expresses His love. Some theologians suggest that God created the whole world simply to lavish love upon it. The great Jesuit poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins says that God “fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.” In the Genesis passage account we just read, God says “Let us make man in our own image.” What is that beauty that fathers forth, that image in which we are made? It is the image of the God of steadfast love.
And ultimately, God the Father demonstrated his love for the whole world in the second Person of the Trinity, His Son, Jesus. Christ, the image of the invisible God, came to show the height and depth of Divine love by dying on the Cross for our sins, and by rising for our redemption. The defining aspect of each member of the Trinity is Love.
In addressing the deep troubles of our times this week, the Presiding Bishop asked, “What does love look like?” A good question in these troubled times. Above all, love looks like Jesus, God the Son, who in love became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made Man. Jesus is the way of love. And so if we would embrace the mystery of the Holy Trinity, we must follow Christ’s example.
Let me suggest two ways to follow Jesus today, especially as we head out into a week of uncertainty, unrest, illness, and voices long lifted in anger and pain. Let me suggest one thing we must not do, and close by offering one thing to do in its place.
My brothers and sisters, in this week of racial tension and unrest, and the lingering, pervasive pandemic, we MUST not give in to hate. We have to resist with all our might the urge to let a root of bitterness grow up in us. In those little seeds we allow to be planted in us of anger, of cynicism, of selfishness, and superiority, a dark flower of hatred can spring up.
This week, if we are to allow ourselves to continue to be formed in the image of the God of Love, we must say NO to every tiny trace of adult-onset hatred. Let go of those grudges. Show mercy to those who don’t deserve it–because. Tend to the garden of your hearts this week, and mercilessly rip out the tiniest weed of bitterness and resentment against ANYone, no matter how strongly you may disagree with them. Tear out the little bitter seeds of hatred–because now is a fertile hour for them to bloom and destroy us.
And in their place, sow the seeds of love. Forgive extravagantly, respect the dignity of every person. Keep welcoming everyone. Clothe yourselves in the kindness of Christ, and let your gentleness be known to all. Carry your enemy’s burden, turn the other cheek, and let the love of God rule in your hearts richly. Make no mistake–we will reap for years to come the seeds we plant in coming days. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I urge you, sow seeds of love. Amen.
Sermon preached by Andrew Lazo, Seminarian Intern
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
Trinity Sunday
7 June 2020