Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC)

The Trinity Family Expands

Rev. Vickie Miller

June 7, 2009

I. Intro

A. Last weekend was an exciting weekend as you embraced and affirmed Rev. Jim Merritt. It is a personal relief to me to know that upon my leaving at the end of the month, Rev. Jim will be starting the very next Sunday and pick right up with you to continue on this path together.   I look forward to the rest of our time together. Though it will be difficult to say goodbye, my heart is full that we are accomplishing what is needed to be done and will continue to do so over the next few weeks.

Prayer

II. Have you ever thought what it would be like to be a clam on the bottom of the ocean trying to describe what a ballerina is?

I imagine it is not much different than being a small human being on this planet earth and trying to describe our Triune God.

It is difficult to get our minds around the concept of Trinity, of God.

Like little Annie who went to church with some friends for the first time and after church they asked her how she liked it and she said good, but why didn’t church include the West Coast. Confused, they asked her what she meant and she said, “They said God bless everyone in the name of the Father and the Son and the whole East coast.”

Trinity is something I am sure we have all struggled with understanding.

Trinity - Not three different Gods,

But one God, in three different forms.

If we try to put our heads around this, several concepts have been used to help us. For example,

1. The substance H20, which can come in the form of water, ice or

steam.

2. Person – who can be a father, an uncle and a brother.

3. Others say God is likened to the human soul with three properties

          of memory, understanding and will.

4. The Irish use the clover with its three leaves to represent Trinity.

5. In our Christian heritage, the Trinity has traditionally been presented to us as a Divine family: a Father, a son and the Holy Ghost

or Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit.

But all families are complicated. One contemporary man said that his father married his mother-in-law. “Now,” he says, “I can’t make up my mind whether my father is my dad or my father-in-law or if my mother-in-law is now my stepmother, or whether my spouse is now my wife or step sister and whether my child is my daughter or my niece.”

It is the same with God as the Trinity family.

We often don’t know if the Divine is our parent, or is our brother as in Jesus, or is our sister as in the Holy Spirit.

We aren’t the only ones who have wrestled with the Trinity. The early church fought over the concept of Trinity, so much so that they held the council of Nicea in 325 to sort it out and to provide us with the Nicene Creed.

It used to be simple. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter responded, “The Messiah of God.”

That seemed good enough for a few hundred years.

If Peter were asked the same question now after the council of Nicea, I imagine that Peter’s answer might be:

Jesus,

Thou are the Logos, existing in God as God’s rationality, but the fact that scripture speaks of three divine beings, forming a Trinity, Jesus of which you are a member, being coequal with every other member and each acting inseparably to and with every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division therein that would make the substance no longer simple. Whew!

That’s like saying how many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?

Three – but they’re really one.

IV. We try so hard. We try so hard to get our intellect around Trinity. When we do so, we often put God in a box or more appropriately, neatly packaged in a three-sided triangle to represent our Triune God.

Those triangle images of Trinity remind me of the game I used to find on restaurant tables when I was young. Most of them were hand made. You know, the wooden triangle with peg holes and golf tees and the object was to jump the tees and end up with one tee at the end.

It is helpful to neatly package our God in images and symbols, but you know what? God is not a self-contained Being. The lines to the triangle are invisible and permeable.

So, maybe this morning instead of trying to “see” God intellectually, maybe Trinity communicates to us that we should try to “see” God with our hearts. If we can get our heart around the concept of Trinity, maybe we can realize that God as Trinity is trying to communicate something much deeper to us that we often miss. It is not the substance of God that is important but the breadth of God’s vast nature.

Some of the great Jewish mystical writers had the same dilemma as we do with understanding God. Their secret name for God was “wide space.” They said that God is so encompassing. God’s presence so pervades the universe that when the Divine created the universe, God had to self-withdraw just to make room for creation. Wide Space. Our creation is literally within the Being of God, they said.

Maybe our concept of Trinity is the Divine is trying to communicate to us just how wide of a space God is. Author, Jan Richardson, says that Trinity Sunday is a day for us to praise and adore the infinitely complex and unfathomable mystery of God’s being.

God, you are wide space. God is almighty – above us. God is all understanding – Jesus walking with us. God is all-abiding – Holy Spirit living in us. Is there anyplace we can go to escape Trinity?

The very last sentence in the Gospel of Matthew that we read today is Jesus’ farewell to the disciples. Jesus says, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” I am with you always.

Trinity communicates this relational nature of God, in whatever way we need – as Creator, as Redeemer, as Sustainer. When we get our heart around Trinity, we know that Trinity is God’s way of saying, “Remember, I am with you, always.” - in the wide spaces, in the narrow spaces and in between spaces.

In the Celtic tradition of Christianity, Trinity is represented by three spirals that come together at the center (like on the front of the bulletin). But each also spirals out to touch the outside world. I like that image. It communicates that the Trinity family reaches outside of it self. Yet, the Trinity family also expands to include humanity, touching us and drawing us inward to the very center of God. In Trinity, we have become part of the equation of God.

God is not always just three.

H20 is sometimes saltwater or fresh water.

A person can be a father, son and an uncle, but also can be a cousin.

The Irish symbol of Trinity is sometimes a four-leaf clover.

When we open our hearts to Trinity, we become more and more acquainted with our God we call Trinity and we are aware of just how mysterious and unfathomable our God is. We realize that Trinity always expands. Trinity always includes. Trinity always enfolds us.

Since this is the nature of Trinity, then maybe this also says something about the nature of us. Maybe Trinity is also communicating to us a model of how we are by nature and how we should be. For we are children of the Trinity, made in God’s image. Should not we also look and act like God?

A new born baby was taken to the pediatrician for a first checkup. Upon examining the child, the doctor, told the new parents, “You have a really cute baby.” Smiling, the father said, “I bet you say that to all new parents.” “No,” replied the doctor, “just to those whose babies are really good looking.” “So, what do you say to others,” asked the mother” “I tell them, he looks just like you.”

Can people say that of us? We look just like you, God? If so, that would be a really good compliment!

Trinity, then, is a paradigm for our way of being with each other, joined together. Yes, we are our own spiral. But just as God exists, not as a self-contained entity, but spirals out to enfold, touch, and include others so we, as individuals are called to always find ways to expand our family. We are called not to hide who we are, not to live as self-contained beings, but to spiral out to live in the wide spaces. Our individual natures are pretty complicated too. But, we are called to open ourselves up to being in the world, connected, drawing others in to our selves.

This church has adopted the name Trinity. As a church, too, we are called to live as Trinity.

We are like Trinity when we volunteer to cook and feed people through the GAAP program. Then, the Trinity family expands.

We are Trinity when we simply take in a stranger off the street and love, welcome and accept them as they are. Then the Trinity family expands.

We are like Trinity when one of our own passes from this earth, and we love and nurture their sibling like one of our own and help her say goodbye to her brother. Then the Trinity family expands.

We are Trinity when we have disagreements with each other or differences of opinion, but we open ourselves up to understand and listen and forgive each other. Then the Trinity family expands.

And, we are Trinity, when in the midst of our own church’s transition, we step out in faith and grow as we have these last few months.

We act like Trinity, when we prepare ourselves to love and accept the new leaders whom God sends our way, and, like God, the Trinity family expands and will continue to expand.

May we always encounter the God of Trinity who has joined in the journey with us.   May we always spiral out to enfold, encircle, to include.

And may we, Trinity MCC, always strive to live up to our name-sake. Amen.

Contact: gmail.com@trinitymcc
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