THE GOD-LIFE EXPERIENCE

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15]

The parish priest I once worked for mentioned that a venerable grand dame of his acquaintance had established a fund that was to be given annually to the rector upon his preaching faithfully on the issue of the Trinity on “Trinity Sunday”.  It is not clear that she was aware of the observation that if the Doctrine of the Trinity were eliminated, very few lives would evidently be affected, even though the Trinity is the most central teaching of the Christian tradition.  It would seem on the one hand that this lady either was pushing for more attention to the Trinity doctrine; or on the other hand that with a passive aggressive edge she wanted to see her priest squirm to preach on such a mystifying theological topic.

Let me immediately dispel any and all rumors about me receiving funding for my comments today on the Trinity.  In fact, there is a risk that my comments may lead you to remember the old adage: You get what you pay for!

Nonetheless, let me begin my day’s reflections by pointing to the Christian liturgical calendar and asking this question.  Since the Day of Pentecost is the halfway point in the liturgical year, to what extent might there be any significance to the fact that as followers of Jesus our very first stop on our spiritual experience passes through the Sunday on which we encounter the Church’s teaching about the Trinity?  You won’t be surprised that I think there is significance to this, one that helps set the trajectory of following Jesus thereafter.

I say this because the “Doctrine of the Trinity” conveys a “teaching”.  (That’s what “doctrine” means.)  It is a teaching that is based upon the experience of God and the nature of God by followers of Jesus from the beginning until now.  This is to say that this liturgical occasion marks not what God does (as crucial as that is) but what God is and how we can recognize, appreciate, and participate in relationship with God because the nature of God is to be in Communion with all life, most especially with all the children of God.

So, I am not going to attempt to prove the truth of the Doctrine of the Trinity.  “It is not a mystery” to be solved; nor is it some form of arcane mathematical logarithm that passes all our understanding.  Nor am I going to hide behind the half-truth excuse that because the Holy Trinity is a mystery, no one can actually understand its reality.  (In our lack of full understanding, we can, nonetheless, still “stand under” its teaching and let it soak in.)  As an excuse, the half-truth fails to mention neither do we understand why we love and are loved – yet, this is our trust (faith), our experience, and our hope.1

So, here’s as much theology as I will inflict upon you about the Trinity.  I purloin the thoughts that I, in fact, used in my classroom teaching experience.  They are teaching jewels from the late Frederick Buechner.

With regard to the topic of the “Trinity”, Buechner writes this: “The much-maligned doctrine of the Trinity is an assertion that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, there is only one God.”  He continues: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery.  Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we experience God.  The Trinity is also a way of saying something about God…[namely,] that the love God is is love, not as a noun, but as a verb.”

In this same vein, others have described the nature and experience of God as “not as the dancer [the noun] but the dance” [the verb].  Or God as eternal and unconditional love has been termed as the “flow”, the coursing life-blood in which we “move and live and have our being”.

With respect to the doctrine’s apparent obscurity, Buechner suggests a more personal reference point.  “Look in the mirror…” he advises.  “There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you choose to communicate [that reality] to: [hence] the Father.  There is (b) the visible face which in some measure reflects that inner life: [hence,] the Son.  And there is (c) the invisible power you have to communicate that interior life in such a way that others do not merely know about it, but to know your life in the sense of its becoming part of who they are: [hence,] the Holy Spirit.  Yet, [Buechner concludes] what you are looking at in the mirror is clearly and indivisibly the one and only you.”

The Doctrine of the Trinity is all about experience.  At the heart of this daring teaching lies experience -- the experience of God, the living and holy Creator, who in perfect love redeems us when we make ourselves unlovable; who infuses the divine life into our own life so that we may grow into what we have seen in Jesus – capable and willing to live in unbroken love and life.  Relationship.

So it is that this is clearly a great mystery: not a mystery in terms of a “Who done it? that needs a solution; but rather a truth so large and so profound that all we can do is live within it.  In his gospel, St. John indicates as much as he reports Jesus’ pastoral statement to his disciples that there are many things that we need to hear and know about God and the God-life, but right now we do not have the experience (read, the “maturity”) to be able to take them to heart and live them.2  After all, living what is taught is the reason to learn in the first place.

That some reject the reality that the Trinity possesses because the specific word is not contained in scripture or that no specific revelation from God is mentioned in the Bible – they miss the point of scripture’s culminating and transcendent experience of life on God’s terms.  Viewing reality through such rigid assurances of verse and chapter, we all can miss the living and ongoing manifestation of God’s will in our midst.   And that will, without over-simplification, is always a matter of the experience of Communion – of union with God and God’s life.  Yes, at the altar rail we get a sliver of that experience; but one of the things that the Doctrine of the Trinity teaches and reminds us of is that God’s Communion is not limited to the altar rail or to what is easily familiar to us.  Rather, Communion as the will of God is a truth that is so large that all we can do with it under our current spiritual incompleteness is to trust it with our own lives and grow into it to increase our own awareness.

A small but very visible example of the Trinity’s holy and revealed wisdom can be seen in the preparation of the Eucharistic Cup.  Filling the chalice with the wine that will be momentarily consecrated, we add a splash of water to it.  I have always sensed that this is an outward and visible sign – an honest confession that folks like us are not ready for God’s life full-strength.  Nonetheless, we are given the gift, but in a manner, in an experience that does not overwhelm or frighten us but rather invites and welcomes us.

But make no mistake about it, on the cross “the Blood of Christ” was not diluted in the least.  It was most truly and fully shed, given freely, which is God’s wont to do when it comes to the life and love of desiring Communion with us.

We find similar expressions in St. Paul’s “Letter to the Romans”, specifically in the portion for today’s “Trinity Sunday” epistle.  I will close by pointing to his implicit Trinitarian experience and the apostolic teaching it helped to develop into the tradition of the Trinity as an entrance into the very life of God.

This insight comes in the very first verse of the Epistle’s reading.  Paul’s teaching words reflect his Godly, life-lived experience, which propels him into his bold teaching and world-changing missional work.  Here again are the words: Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…

“Justified by faith”; having “peace with God”; “through our Lord Jesus Christ”; through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which “we stand…”: This is Paul teaching and description of the “gift of God for the people of God”.  Personally, I frequently need to have another understanding of what Paul is saying.  As a brief study guide, I offer this version of Paul's thought.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us – set us right with him, make us fit for him – we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.  And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that [God] has already thrown open his door to us.  We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand,--out in the wide-open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.3

If St. Paul or Frederick Buechner or any of you would ask me about my experience of what the “Doctrine of the Trinity” means and indicates, I would offer (and have offered) my own experience, which is: God-in-Christ has given us what we need and cannot provide for ourselves; As our mothers (and on this Father’s Day those aware fathers) have taught us: namely, in recognizing a gift, say “thank you” for it; And finally, gifts are not to be hoarded but shared -- gladly and with joy.  And as a concluding summary, I would humbly say that everything else is detail.

Thanks be to God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.  Amen.

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1.  Frederick Buechner.  Wishful Thinking: “Trinity”, p. 93

2.  John 16:12

3.  Eugene Peterson. The Message. The Bible in Contemporary Language, Romans 5:1-2