Holy Trinity June 7, 2009

What do you imagine God looks like?

I know when I was a child, I imagined a big (and old) man in the sky. The kids today suggested God looks like a mirror reflection of ourselves, or like all of us. Then, Ethan suggested that God looks like light. 

What we celebrate today from the Church isn’t exactly a picture of God. Maybe I should say, it’s more than a picture of God. But it does give us a starting place. What we can say absolutely is this: God as the Trinity is a mystery beyond our understanding. It is also a reality which we experience. Finally, it is a truth which hold us.

This week, we will begin a series of conversations about The Shack. In the book, the three persons of the Trinity are pictured in unique and surprising ways.

I really like the way it helps break us out of our certainties. God is very clear with Mack that this is exactly what is intended.

God (Papa) says, “For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me ‘Papa’ is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.

To reveal myself to you as a very large, white grandfather figure with flowing beard, like Gandalf, would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes, and this weekend is not about reinforcing your religious stereotypes.” (p. 95)

So maybe you’re thinking that the idea of presenting God in surprising ways is blasphemous. The thing is – Jesus was doing the same thing in the Gospel in his conversation with Nicodemus. Nicodemus had come to talk to Jesus at night – and when he left, he was more in the dark than if he were walking into the night with no moon. Nicodemus had preconceived ideas about God – who God was, how God worked. Jesus challenged them.

God is completely other than us. We can try to imagine God – what He is like, what She looks like, where the divine home might be, how God works in the world... but just like Isaiah who found himself in the divine presence – the Holy One is beyond anything we may have imagined, and even beyond description.

We have the witness of Hebrew Scriptures to give us an idea of God. We have Jesus. (These are two pretty effective sources). But we have something more --- we have the church. The church certainly does not perfectly communicate God, but it is guided by the Holy Spirit to help us hear God’s word and live in God’s ways.

In fact, I say we are shaped by the Trinity.

God, the Three in One

 Creates and calls us,

 Is fully enfleshed in Jesus, and frees us to be real human beings

 Is Holy Spirit. God’s very breath fills our bodies and our church. God’s grace is like a well that never stops.

God is Trinity, but does not simply stand apart, alone. Jesus brings us into the Trinity. He brings us into the relationship he shares with the Father. He is present in the Holy Spirit right now.

Some people describe the activity of the Trinity as a dance. We’re invited to join it. There’s a tv show, So You Think You Can Dance? My title for this sermon should have been, “So You Think You Can’t Dance”? We are invited to be part of this Dance of the Trinity. It’s always hard to take that first step.... but even if you’re sure you can’t, God says you can.

Amen