11 June 2017 ~ Trinity Sunday Sermon ~ The Rev. Peter M. Carey

The Rev. Peter M. Carey

St. Mary’s, Cathedral Road, Philadelphia

Sermon

Trinity Sunday

11 June 2017

Almighty and Loving God, you live and move and have your being with us and among us and within us always.  Shower your grace upon us, and let us feel your healing presence in our lives always.  You gave us a vision of perfect love and community in the Trinity, allow us to find an entry into the way of Jesus so that we might too live in such a way that your love is communicated through us to the suffering and hurting world.  Be with us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today we embrace the sense that God is Trinity, three persons, and yet One God.  God as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit.  God as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier.  Today we embrace the reality that God not only was present to his people in the past, but is present to us today, and will be ever present with us in the future.

The mystery of the Trinity is one that may confound us.  How can something be One, and yet Three.  How can we claim to believe in one God, when it seems we are leaning towards polytheism?  The theological questions are deep, centuries old, and have confounded even the greatest theological minds of the church.  

However, even these confounded qualities of the Trinity are a gift.  While we rely on our logical and rational brains in our day to day world, there are deeper truths  beyond our own thinking.  In our day to day world, we live and move in a dualistic world.  We look at things as either, or, as up and down, as good and evil, as life or death.  However, much of life is not merely either/or, but is both/and.  Our faith moves us deeper.  Jesus leads us into this strange and wonderful existence where we are called to “Love our enemies,” to “pray for those who persecute us” and where even the “poor are blessed” and where “our burdens are light.”  In a few moments at the altar, we will again affirm that even death will not have the final word.  We will affirm that there is even resurrection and life after death.  And so, today, on Trinity Sunday, God confounds us once again by showing us that One is Three and Three is One.

In the earliest centuries of the church, the “movement” of the Trinity was described in Greek by the word: perichoresis.  Peri, meaning “around” - where we get the word perimeter for the distance around a geometrical object.  And then”choresis” - where we get the word choreography, dance, movement.  And so, this movement of the church is an interconnected three-person dance.  As Richard Rohr names his book on the Trinity, “The Divine Dance.”  A loving dance of three persons of the Trinity - three “persons” and yet One God.

And so, what can we glean from this image, how might this mystical and theological image have any relevance to the likes of us?  How might this Trinity Sunday give us something to reflect upon, how might it challenge us, how might is get us to see God, and our lives in a new way, how might it inspire us to get to work in building God’s kingdom?

A model of movement.  Love overflowing.  Other images of the trinity.  Shamrock.  Pouring buckets.   Just as the Trinity has three persons who are interconnected in a holy and loving dance, so to, are we empowered to build loving and interdependent relationships.  God calls us and empowers us to go beyond a static pattern of our lives to a dynamic and robust one.  The interconnected and interdependent Trinity offers us a model of relationship that is also essentially interrelated with others.

One of the clearest and most passionate descriptions of this kind of relationship was described to me by Archbishop Desmond Tutu through his writing and speaking.  I was blessed to have a few occasions where I was able to spend time with him and learn about Ubuntu.

Ubuntu - a relational life - not merely us alone

A person is a person through other persons.

I am, because of you.

Tutu:  “One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

When we reflect deeply, we know that our life is fundamentally relational.  Our life is fundamentally dependent upon others.  We are shaped by our family and friends, by our schools, and our workplaces, and by our worshipping communities.  We are each  dependent on others, but also others depend on us.  We need others, and others need us.  

Interdependent.  “I am because of you.”  “A person is a person through other persons.”  This is the joy of God, the grace of God that confounds us, but is a deep truth and a deep gift for us.

Nelson Mandela: “A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

This  image of the Trinity can inspire us to also live and move with the deep knowledge that we are deeply connected to one another.   This Trinity Sunday gives us an image of three persons, but one God, of perichoresis or the “divine dance” of God, which may help us to also reach out and deepen our own connections one to another.  The love of God flows between and among the three persons of the Trinity.  This love is poured out for us, and we are empowered to pass it along, to pay it forward to others. God offers us a confounding and wonderful love.  Healing in the midst of pain, Life in the midst of death, Joy in the midst of sorrow, relationship in the midst of loneliness.  

Holy Trinity, One God, you live and move and have your being with us always.  Shower your love upon us, and let us feel your healing presence so that we may be known by our love for others.  Help us to remember your love always, and the ways that we are connected deeply with one another.  Amen.

Trinity Sunday Sermon - The Rev. Peter M. Carey - 3 June 2012

Trinity Sunday Sermon

The Rev. Peter M. Carey

3 June 2012

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Greenwood, VA

For with your co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit, you are one
God, one Lord, in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being;
and we celebrate the one and equal glory of you, O Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Awe can cause us to experience God in tangible ways. 

Have you ever camped out while a thunderstorm roared?  Have you ever climbed a snowy mountain when a blizzard kicks up?  Have you ever hunkered down during a hurricane?  Have you ever battened down the hatches when a storm arises and you are at sea?

Perhaps you have not had these experiences, but I remember all too well one time when my brother and I were out with my dad on our wooden 12 foot sailboat and a storm came up.  I was about 8 and Paul was about 6.  My dad had us go forward under the small covered area in the bow of the boat and he covered us with raincoats and ponchos.  The storm roared, the boat was pushed this way and that, and we were terrified, but my dad had a calming presence nonetheless.  He probably was nervous as well, but he was highly functional and quite “matter-of-fact” about the storm and the rain and the fact that we were out on the water during it all. 

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters

The God of glory thunders

the Lord is upon the mighty waters

The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice

The voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor.

While I don’t think that it was in God’s interest to make the storm upon the waters for us in our little yellow wooden boat, I can imagine something of the power of God through my memory of the power of that storm.  I can also remember something of the care and compassion of God through the care and ability of my Dad through that stormy and worrisome time. 

The Lord sits enthroned above the flood

The Lord sits enthroned as King for evermore.

The Lord shall give strength to his people;

The Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Encountering the awe of a tremendous storm is perhaps just a bit of what it must be like to encounter God in all His majesty.  Whenever I read the passage today of the calling of Isaiah from the 6^th chapter of Isaiah, I can only begin to imagine this tremendous scene.  The Lord sitting on a throne, the hem of his robe filled the temple, Seraphs in attendance with 6 wings and smoke and all the rest.  It is tremendously hard for me to imagine this scene, but the glory of God is surely, probably, something as incredible as this.  When I was huddled in the bow of the yellow wooden sailboat, I was hoping that my father would steer us to the solid shore, and that the storm would abate.  When encountering the living God, awe is the only appropriate response.  This is an awe however that evokes fear, but also the sense that God is steering the boat, that the same God who appears in the storm appears compassionately as we are steered to safe shore.  The God who judges us is the God who loves us, afterall.  The God who created us also became one of us through Jesus the Christ, and we are His forever. 

And so, on this Trinity Sunday, we can affirm the way that God is one in three and three in one, though we don’t totally understand this assertion.  We know that the glory of God fills us with awe, but also that the love and compassion of God wraps us up in his arms like a mother hen cares for her children.  The God who created us, and who sent His son to redeem us is also the God who lives and breathes among us as the Holy Spirit.

In Revelation, we read the words, “hear what the Spirit is saying to the people,” and we are privileged to receive the many gifts of the Spirit even in this place and this time.  Just as we know that God is ever-present with us as Father & Creator, and just as we know that we are ever being redeemed and saved through the Son, the Christ, we are also constantly being revived and strengthened through the gifts of the fire and breath of the Holy Spirit.

Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth:

Set up your kingdom in our midst.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God:

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Holy Spirit, breath of the living God:

Renew me and all the world.

~N.T. Wright