"The Divine Dance," A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Trinity Sunday.

"The Divine Dance"

2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

Trinity Sunday 2017

 

Sometimes after choir rehearsal on Sundays I pick up lunch at the Subway on Wyoming on my way home. I’ve been there often enough that they know I’m a local pastor. They’re usually pretty busy, but one time I was the only customer.  The server asked, “So, about the Trinity: one God or three?”  As he made my turkey sub, this young Muslim man and I had a theological conversation about the nature of God.

            Over the years, I’ve had a number of front porch theological conversations with Muslim neighbors, in which they’ve asked about the Trinity. I remember one woman was really concerned for my soul, because she was afraid I worshiped more than one God. I did my best to reassure her and to clear up the confusion.

            In the Christian calendar, this is Trinity Sunday—the only Sunday in the church year dedicated to a doctrine of the church.  

            For centuries, Christians have sung, confessed our faith, prayed, baptized, and received new members into our community in the name of a Trinitarian God who is traditionally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But for many Christians in our time (and for some in earlier times) the doctrine of the Trinity has been a problem.

            How many of us have heard a conversation in a church school class or study group that goes something like this: “Do we really have to believe in the Trinity-- that God is three-in-one and one-in three--to be a Christian?” “What does it mean? How can you put three persons together and get one, or divide one into three and still have one?”

            If you think about it, you can understand why our Muslim and Jewish friends have a problem with the Trinity and wonder if we really do worship one God.

            The defenders of the faith--the traditional faith--might blunder through a fuzzy explanation and then conclude: “There’s a reason we call it a mystery that no one can fully understand.” Maybe they say, “We just have to accept it by faith.”

            I agree that the Trinity is a mystery no one can fully understand.  The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that there is always more to God than we can conceive… always more of God than we can explain… always more than we can sing or preach or prove.   

            So—what do we do with the Trinity? 

            I think theology is important.  I think bad theology can hurt people…and hurts the church.  The language we use when we speak and sing of God is important.

            Apparently, some ordinary Christians in ancient times knew this.  Theologian Elizabeth Johnson observes how fascinated people of the late fourth century were with speaking rightly about God.

            She quotes a famous remark by Gregory of Nyssa that describes the situation: “Even the baker,” he said, “does not cease from discussing this.  If you ask the price of bread, he will tell you that the Father is greater and the Son is subject to him.”[1]

            It’s difficult for many people today to grasp how bitterly this conflict divided the Christian world for several centuries.  The Nicene Creed was hammered out to defend the faith tradition against the Arian claim that Christ was not eternal, but created. 

            The burning, big question in the ancient church was “Who is Jesus Christ, in relation to God the Father and Creator?” The Nicene Creed was the ancient church’s answer to the questions of its time, using the best philosophical constructs and language available to it at that time. 

            As Dr. Shirley Guthrie wrote, the doctrine of the Trinity is “the church’s admittedly inadequate way of trying to understand the biblical and Christian understanding of who God is, what God is like, how and where God is at work in the world, what God thinks about us human beings, does for us, requires of us, promises us.”[2]

            We need to be clear with ourselves and in talking with others that we don’t “believe in” the Trinity. We believe in and trust in God, and the Trinity is a way Christians think about and speak of God.

            During times of crisis or controversy, the church has found it necessary to re-interpret the gospel for new times, in response to new situations and questions.  If you look through our Book of Confessions,[3] you’ll see that the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the 2^nd Helvetic Confession, and the Westminster Confession were worked out during the Reformation period, in response to concerns particular to that time.

            In 1934, the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church met in Barmen, Germany.  They “sought a common message for the need and temptation of the Church” in their day. The threat was the way the Christian church was cooperating with the Nazi regime.  The resulting confession of faith was what we know as the Declaration of Barmen.

            The 1960’s were turbulent times, and the Confession of 1967 was adopted by the Presbyterian Church “to call the church to that unity in confession and mission which is required of disciples…”[4]     The theme of the Confession of 1967 was the church’s ministry of reconciliation, which has been a strong theme in the mission of this congregation for decades.

           

            The Presbyterian Church split at the time of the Civil War, over the issue of slavery, and it took over a hundred years for the northern and southern Presbyterian churches to be reunited.  At the time of the reunion, the General Assembly voted to re-state the faith as a way of affirming what we believe together.  The result was “A Brief Statement of Faith of 1991,”[5]  which we often say together in worship.  The “Brief Statement of Faith” is a Trinitarian statement, which begins by stating that we trust in the one triune God, whom alone we worship and serve.

            The 2016 General Assembly made history by voting to add the “Belhar Confession” to our Book of Confessions.[6]  Belhar is a moving call for reconciliation and a condemnation of racial injustice written in South Africa during the struggle against Apartheid. We adopted Belhar to be a resource to the church during a time when racial tension, injustice and violence in the United States make headlines nearly every day.

            We are part of a living, growing tradition, and we continue to address new situations and questions by re-stating our faith.  One of the great themes of our Reformed Tradition affirms “the church reformed, always being reformed, according the Word of God, as led by the Holy Spirit.” 

            I believe that the controversies of our time over sexuality are being worked out, and I hope this frees us to work through other important questions for living faithfully in our time. For instance, how do we confess and live our faith in Jesus Christ in a pluralistic world?  How do we speak of God in conversations with our neighbors who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, or “spiritual but not religious”? What does our faith require of us in the face of injustice?

            When we struggle over theology, important things often get worked out.  We often learn something—sometimes in spite of ourselves. It’s hard for a lot of people to re-think things they’ve always believed or change their mind. Even though we might want to dig in and defend what we have always believed to be true, we have the Holy Spirit nudging us, reminding us of what Jesus did and what he taught.  We learn and grow, as the Holy Spirit leads us further into the truth—just as Jesus promised

            Jesus told his disciples that he still had many things to say to them, but that they weren’t ready to hear them yet.  He promised that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, would guide his followers into all the truth.[7]

             

            From the earliest centuries of the church, discerning theologians have stressed that all our language about God, including the Trinitarian symbols, are inadequate and relative. The Bible uses many other images or metaphors for God, and other theologians have offered a number of possibilities for speaking of God.[8]

            I believe God continues to speak a new word to us in new times--things we weren’t ready to hear before.  We still have many things to learn, so we need to be learners--theologians. We need to listen for what God’s teaching Spirit has to say to us.

            In my study this week, I was reminded that the Western Church’s model of the Trinity has typically looked like a triangle, while the typical model in Eastern Orthodoxy is a circle.

            John of Damascus, a Greek theologian who lived in the seventh century, developed the understanding of the Trinity with a concept called perichoresis.  I don’t bring a lot of Greek words into sermons, but this one gives us such a beautiful picture of God. “Peri”-- as in permimeter--means “around.”  “Choresis literally means “dancing”-- as in choreography.

            This isn’t an approach to the Trinity that most of us in the Western part of the church are as familiar with, but some contemporary theologians, like Jurgen Moltmann[9] and Mirosalav Volf[10], have written about it.

            Recently, Father Richard Rohr has written a very accessible book: “The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation,” that invites us to take a closer look at the mystery of the Trinity.  

            Father Rohr says we need a larger God, because God is not what most people think.  God is not an angry, distant moral scorekeeper or a supernatural Santa Claus, keeping track of who’s been naughty or nice or handing out cosmic lottery tickets to those who attend the right church or say the right prayer dominate our culture. God isn’t a stern old man with a long white-beard, ready and eager to assign condemnation and punishment.[11]

            Increasingly, I find the metaphor of a dancing God more compelling and beautiful and life-giving than some of the traditional constructs, and I think it is more faithful to the story of God’s self-giving love we hear in the scriptures.

            Imagine it: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- or Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer-- the three persons of the Trinity are like three dancers holding hands, dancing around together in harmonious, joyful freedom.

            The two New Testament texts the lectionary gives us for today are last words of love.  

            In the gospel lesson we heard the command we know as the GREAT COMMISSION.  Jesus tells his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” It ends with a PROMISE:  “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

            How do we proclaim the good news of God’s love in our time? To those who have been baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we need to proclaim the new, open, love-filled space of our Triune God, the space where we are to love God with all we’ve got and our neighbors--all our neighbors-- like ourselves.  

            I’ve been thinking that maybe this isn’t a time for us to hold an adult education class to focus on the classical doctrine of the Trinity or to insist that we have to “believe in” traditional understandings of the Trinity.

            Maybe in this time we need to push back the furniture a bit and make space to dance with the divine. Maybe that’s a better way to teach us all about God’s self-giving love and how we can be part of the dance.

            As we join in the dance, we can practice trusting in Christ’s promise that he is with us, always, to the end of the age.  We can practice trusting that the God of love and peace will be with us.

            And so, my friends, I leave you with these ending words of love: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!”

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

June 11, 2017

        

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[1] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (Crossroad, 1992), p. 3. 

[2] Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 71.

[3] https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/oga/pdf/boc2014.pdf

[4] The Confession of 1967, article 9.05 in Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

[5] https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/brief-statement-of-faith/

[6] https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/theologyandworship/pdfs/belhar.pdf

[7]John 16:12

[8]If you’re interested in exploring this, you might want to see William C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pages 53-83 or Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Eerdman’s, 1991), pages 56-79..

[9] Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (Harper & Row, 1981).

[10] Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response (HarperOne, 2012).    

[11] Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (SPCK Publishing, 2016).

 

"Beloved." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian on Trinity Sunday, May 22, 2016.

"Beloved"

John 16:12-1512-15

A Baptism on Trinity Sunday

We sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” this morning,  because  today is Trinity Sunday—the only Sunday in the Christian year devoted to a doctrine of the church.  The Trinity is one of two doctrines we share with the church catholic—with a small “c”—the church universal, along with the Incarnation. 

            So…  how do we speak of the Trinity?  What does it mean?

            The Trinity is not in the Bible—though the images and ideas on which it was based is there to develop what we sang about as  “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”

            Jesus didn’t talk about the Trinity.  Neither did Paul.  It wasn't until the fourth century-- “ 300 years after Jesus”--  that Christian leaders formalized the idea of the Trinity at the Council of Nicaea in 325, in what we know as the Nicene Creed.  

            The Apostles' Creed, in its original form, is even older, and has been associated closely with the Sacrament of Baptism in many parts of the Christian faith—which is why we’ll say it today-- in continuity with the historic church and in community with the church universal.

            I like what David Lose says about the Trinity.  He says he thinks the church has gotten a little off track with our thinking about the Trinity.  He thinks “the Trinity was the early church’s way of trying to grapple with a monotheistic belief in one God,  in light of their actual, lived experience of God’s activity…in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and after an encounter with the power of the Holy Spirit.  And the Trinity provided an answer…of sorts.  An answer often couched in the language of fourth-century metaphysics….But somewhere along the way the Trinity because less about describing an experience of the living God and more about accepting metaphysical doctrines and definitions of God.”^[1]   I think that’s where we got off track.

            It’s a new day, and it’s time for us to be the church for a new time.  I think Karoline Lewis is right when she suggests that nobody cares about doctrine if it’s left behind in the 4th or any other century.  Nobody cares about doctrine when it is preached from the pulpit as if it is law….”^[2] 

            In the gospel lesson we heard today, we heard Jesus telling his first disciples,  "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  For all that the Father has is mine." 

            The Nicene Creed was the ancient church’s answer to the questions of its time, using the best philosophical constructs and language available to it at that time.  Who is Jesus Christ?  How do we speak of God? 

            The Creed and the doctrine of the Trinity were worked out at a time when the church was being transformed from a movement—a network of house churches in which people gathered for prayer and table fellowship—into something much more institutional and connected with the power of the empire.

            During times of controversy, the church has found it necessary to re-interpret the gospel for new times, in response to new situations and questions.   We Presbyterians have a whole Book of Confessions!  

            The “Brief Statement of Faith” of 1991 is the most recent confession in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions and one we use often in our worship at Littlefield.   It’s a Trinitarian statement, which begins by stating that we trust in the one triune God, whom alone we worship and serve. 

            The Presbyterian Church is in the process of adding the Confession of Belhar—from South Africa— to our Book of Confessions, out of the church’s desire to affirm our commitment to unity, reconciliation, and justice.  General Assembly approved in 2014 in Detroit, and the majority of presbyteries have affirmed it.  The final step is for it to go back to the 2016 General Assembly when it meets this June in Portland.  If the General Assembly approves it, there will be a new edition of our Book of Confessions that includes the Belhar Confession.

            I don’t believe that the “Belhar” is the last confession of faith the Presbyterian Church will ever adopt, because I trust that the Spirit will lead us into new truths that we haven’t even imagined yet. 

            I don’t claim to fully understand the mystery of the Trinity, and I don’t trust those who say they do.   Basically, the Trinity is our best but inadequate attempt to describe the mysterious nature of God in the language of metaphor. 

            The traditional formula of the Trinity is:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there are times when we use the traditional language as an expression of our unity with the universal church.    For example:  We always baptize “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” because we are commanded to do so by Jesus in the Great Commission, and also because it’s an expression of our unity with the universal church. 

            But in our own time, some have been exploring a variety of alternative, more inclusive ways of describing the Trinity, like “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.”

            All of the metaphors are inadequate to define or explain the mystery of God.   The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that there is always more to God than we can comprehend… always more of God than we can explain… always more than we can sing or preach or prove.   

            Whenever we find ourselves digging in to defend what we’ve always thought about who’s in and who’s outside of the circle of God’s love, whenever we think we have God all figured out,  we need to remember in humility and openness what Jesus said:  "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 the truth.

             I think the language of the Trinity points us to relationship and mutual devotion.  A twelfth-century scholar, Richard of St. Vincent, reflected on this    and spoke of God in terms of shared love, and a community in which that love is expansive and generous.  

            The good news is that God is love.   God loves the world and chooses to create and redeem you and me and each and every person.   God chose to come in the person of Jesus, to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us and teach us what it means to be beloved children of God.

            In the Gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus, we hear the words spoken from heaven to Jesus:  "You are my beloved.   With you I am well pleased."    In our baptism,  these words are meant for us as well: "You are my beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”

Beloved.  Child of God. 

What difference does it make in our lives when we come to believe we are beloved children of God?  What difference does it make in how we treat each person we meet, when we believe that they are also God’s children?  

In a culture of individualism and competition, it’s a counter-cultural idea to stake our lives on the amazing, gracious love of God, freely given to us—unconditionally.

The early church marveled at this gift when they wrote in First John:  ^“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God--  and that is what we are!”[3]

We believe that.  If you hang out with us at Littlefield, you’ll be issued a name tag that says you are a “Child of God.” 

As followers of Jesus, we believe we are called to love God and our neighbors, to work for peace and reconciliation and justice for all, to embody the love of Jesus Christ in all our relationships. As we grow in faith together, we trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us, to lead us further into the truth, and to empower us to live into God’s Kingdom.   Through the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, we teach and encourage each other to live in the way of God’s love, the way of God’s wisdom.

One of the great joys of the Christian life is when parents present their children for baptism.  This is their public declaration that they want their child to be a part of the church and to have a ministry in it.

            Baptism is central to our identity as Christians.    As we live into our baptism, we learn who we are and whose we are.  We are nurtured to see ourselves as beloved children of God, and that can make all the difference!

            The baptismal font stands at the front of sanctuary to remind us that we’ve been initiated into this congregation, as well as into the universal church of Jesus Christ.

            In our Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, our understanding of baptism emphasizes God’s initiative.  God reaches out graciously to us, and offers us the gift of life in the kingdom as a free gift.  We respond by dedicating our lives to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and committing ourselves to follow him.  Baptism is the beginning of our life in the church…a first step in a journey that takes a lifetime.

            When we baptize children, we promise to teach them who they are in the light of God’s truth.  We promise to teach them what makes them different as part of a holy people…a royal priesthood…consecrated to God’s service. 

            When parents present their child for baptism, they promise to live the Christian faith themselves, and to teach that faith to their children, by word and example.  To grow up in the faith, we and our children need to worship and learn together—in our families, and in the faith community which is the church. 

            Today, we’re inviting Dominic to be part of the great adventure we call church. What God will make of Dominic’s life, or where God will lead him, we don’t know. But what we do know-- what we can say with certainty, because we have God’s promise—is that God is with us every step of the way.

            May God bless Dominic and his family and all of us on our adventure in faith, as we live into God’s Kingdom together!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

May 22, 2016

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^[1] David Lose, “Trinity C: Don't Mention the Trinity!”.  http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/   

^[2] Karoline Lewis, “Trinity Talk.”  https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=4648

[3] 1 John 3:1