Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Trinity Sunday, June 12, 2022. Based on Romans 5:1-5 and John 16:12-15.
On this Trinity Sunday, I am going to thoroughly explain the complete theological principle of the Trinity in a way that everyone understands. Oh, sorry, I left out a word in that sentence. I am NOT going to explain the complete theological principle of the Trinity. I don’t think anyone truly understands the doctrine, and I don’t think anyone can really understand it until they meet God face to face.
But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the implications of our belief in a triune God. In our scriptures today, we hear some hints of understanding. Over the centuries leading up to the writing of the New Testament, God revealed their triune nature. We rehearse this revelation in the church liturgical year. Our year starts with Advent: a proclamation that God the Father is sending his son. On Christmas, Jesus is born. Now we have two persons of the Godhead. We learn about Jesus’s early life and ministry, then encounter Lent. Here is where we learn that Jesus came to reconcile the world. Lent builds to the climax of Easter, when we celebrate God’s victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ, his Son.
Wait—what is the nature of God’s son? As in Greek and Roman mythology, is he a demigod? Or fully human, or fully God? The answer that Jesus reveals, throughout the Gospels and especially in his Farewell Discourse just before he is killed, is that God the Father and God the Son are distinct persons, but the same. Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him. We’re starting to see the mystery of the Godhead. Two persons, but one God.
On Pentecost, we meet the third person: the Holy Spirit. Now God has been fully revealed. The Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father and God the Son, and so is a distinct person, but speaks on behalf of the other two. The Holy Spirit has been with us all along—she is Sophia, divine Wisdom calling to us; she is ruach, divine breath giving life to all creatures great and small—but like breath, we didn’t notice her until she appeared like tongues of fire.
Today, we celebrate the full revelation of the mystery of the Godhead: three persons, one God. We will spend the next few months discussing the implications of God’s presence in the world. So today, let’s reflect on what we learn from the fact that the Holy Spirit has been sent to us.
The Overton window is a principle in political theory that describes the spectrum of political discourse. At the center of the window is today’s policy. To make it concrete, let’s use tax policy. On either side of nominal, there are popular policies. Many people would agree on adjusting tax rates up or down a little, especially on other people. On either side of those popular policies, there are sensible policies; in our tax example, these are the kinds of things you would read about in mainstream outlets like the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. Moving further out from center, you get acceptable policies—ones that can be discussed but probably will never happen—then radical, then unthinkable. Nobody in America would seriously discuss a 0% flat tax; hardly anyone in America would propose confiscating all income over a certain level, at least not if they wanted to be taken seriously. Actual change happens at the popular level—slight modifications to present policy—and then the Overton window shifts. That’s why modern American tax codes look so different from, say, taxes in 1800. Along the way, we even had a Constitutional amendment. If a time traveler went back and proposed the modern tax code in 1800, they might be tarred and feathered. We also see the Overton window in action in the current gun policy discussion. There are things that are worthy of discussion; wholesale confiscation is off the table and would just be a distraction. The Senate acts to keep the window from shifting too far or too fast.
Society is like a huge ship that only turns slowly. Institutions are like that, too. Consider the PC(USA) Book of Order versus what John Knox believed and organized. Or consider our Book of Confessions. If you read the Scots Confession and compare it to the Confession of 1967, you’ll see some common threads, but a lot of differences. We no longer find it acceptable to denounce Romanists, for example.
The Overton window is at work in each person’s life, too. I would venture to say that nobody here believes the same things or acts the same way as when they were teenagers. In fact, some would argue that a problem in certain sectors of Christianity is that people have stunted understandings of God that were totally appropriate in their youth but haven’t changed as they matured. Young people latch onto all sorts of strange things. This might surprise you all, but I was a big Ayn Rand fan in my youth. Some life experiences have changed the way I look at the world. I’ve grown in my faith and in my approach to serving my community.
I’ve been volunteering at The Rolla Mission for four years now. Well, before that, I occasionally took overnight shifts, but after Easter in 2018, I started serving lunch on Fridays. Prior to my joining, there were no services at all on Fridays, so we started out just being open for four hours, 10-2. In those early days, I was constantly learning how to plan and how to cook. Some days, I only served seven or eight plates. We used paper plates and plastic silverware. Many days, I was the only volunteer, and at the time, Ashley was the only staff member.
Now, I think there are six full-time staff and two or three people supported by Goodwill. We use real plates because we have enough helpers to wash dishes. I will often serve close to 50 plates at Friday lunch, which is actually kind of a low spot in the week. If I walked in today to volunteer, I don’t know if I could handle it. But because I started when I only had to cook for about twice as many people as my own family, and when there weren’t many crises to deal with, I’ve been able to grow with the Mission and feel comfortable serving there.
The same principle also applies to our interpersonal relationships. I am naturally an introvert. In the old days, Rhonda was the social butterfly and I just tagged along. But over the last decade or so, basically since I moved to Rolla, I’ve gradually emerged from my shell and chat with clerks at the store, or with people passing by my house, or people across campus, etc. I’ve grown in my ability to see God’s spark in the people I meet, and to love them through the Holy Spirit.
A big part of my growth has come from some unfortunate circumstances in our family. As Rhonda’s health and abilities have declined, we have all had to adjust to a new reality. We’re not unique in that way—everyone here has suffered in some way. Paul reminds us, though, that suffering leads to endurance, which leads to character, which leads to hope.
When I first read that, I thought, wait: don’t you need endurance before you encounter suffering? But then I reflected on what I’ve gone through. It was the suffering in my life that strengthened me to endure. It’s like working a muscle, or like any of the other changes I mentioned. As our lives have changed, I’ve grown more endurance, and that endurance has given me the ability to see others as people who also have suffered in other ways. That’s the character that Paul promised, an openness to being in relationship with people who have suffered from the brokenness of this world.
Suffering leads to hope. Wait, what? How can suffering make you hopeful? We typically think of hope as a cognitive thing, a goal-oriented approach to life. I’m going to apply for a job, or plant a garden, or try whatever else, and I hope it works out. That sort of thing. The hope Paul is talking about, though, is hope that flows from God and God’s gifts. When we endure suffering, we realize that God is there with us. God walks beside us, dwells within us, and carries us when we cannot continue. God gives us hope, a hope based on knowing that no matter what happens to us, God will carry us through. We may walk through dark valleys, but God’s promise is that we will make it out the other side.
Just as we have all suffered, we have all been richly blessed. Not blessed with riches—this isn’t the Prosperity Gospel. But richly blessed with relationships to God’s people. If nothing else, we have each other, right? We experience the gift of God’s presence in and through each other as we worship together and join in fellowship together.
God’s presence in our relationships gives us hope because it reminds us that our triune God is still active in the world. God is still creating, still redeeming, still sustaining us all. God was revealed most clearly in the person of Jesus, but continues to reveal their nature by the Holy Spirit that dwells among us.
In the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus say, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” This is again the Overton window at work. Jesus knew that there was no way to explain to that group of first-century Jewish disciples all the glory of God. Even today, two thousand years later, we cannot comprehend the fullness of God’s mysterious glory. So Jesus promised that the Spirit would keep working through God’s people to help them learn more of the truth. Eventually, we will see God face to face and truly comprehend the extent of God’s love. In the meantime, the Spirit flows through us all to guide us.
I had a conversation with my brother recently about a lot of things, one of which was the nature of scripture. There are people who believe that the Bible was essentially written by people taking dictation from God. If you know anything about the history of how the document made its way into the pews here, you know how ridiculous that is. We don’t even know if the letters attributed to Paul are authentic and we have no original copies. We don’t really know who wrote the four Gospels or many of the epistles. The Old Testament is even more murky, in part because of the lateness of its written form after centuries of oral tradition. Plus there’s the issue of language and culture that shaped the Bible.
Instead of being the literal words issued by God, I regard the Bible as an authentic expression of ancient peoples’ encounters with God. Maybe they understood what God was trying to reveal, maybe not; maybe their understanding was correct at the time but doesn’t translate to our current reality. So how do we know what to believe? Well, Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit, whom he called the Paraclete: an Advocate, or a Helper. The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the capital-T Truth. God is still speaking by the Holy Spirit, sometimes directly to individuals, sometimes through committees or other gatherings, sometimes through scripture.
We have hope because we know that God is still speaking. God is still active. God is the great do-er of existence. God is the creative force within us all, the voice of truth, the spirit that binds us together.
God’s primary activity is to pour forth love. How do we determine the Truth revealed in scripture? How do we determine our path in the world? Love. Always love. If there is one word that describes the Trinity, it’s love. When you are considering how to interpret what you read or hear, or considering what church policy should be, or considering what decision to take in a tricky situation, ask yourself: Where is love in this? The Great Commandment is to love God and love neighbor; the New Commandment in John’s Gospel is to love each other as Jesus loved. God is revealed in the way we love each other.
Sometimes you’re confronted by a person you don’t understand, who has different lived experiences and a different perspective. In my work on campus, my volunteer work at the Mission, and my interactions with people in the community, I see lots of people who have led very different lives than I have. I could judge the decisions they make, or the attitudes they have, or the beliefs they hold dear. To the extent that they are hurting themselves or others, judgment is necessary. But if they’re just different, my goal, not always achieved, is to see them as God sees them: with love. How can I be more loving towards them? OK, I don’t understand why they think or act the way they do, but I don’t have to. God doesn’t ask me to judge them, just to love them.
Judge not, lest ye be judged. Jesus was cautioning us that God’s will is that everyone be in loving relationships with each other, just as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in loving relationships with each other, so tightly that they are one God. But Jesus knew how hard that is, this side of heaven, so he sent us the Holy Spirit as a Helper. God is still speaking, still working, pouring forth love, revealing Godself in each person we meet. Let us all seek to be channels for God’s love, to see the divine spark in people who are different from us, and to live into the unity in diversity that our triune God exemplifies. Amen.
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