May 26, 2024. Trinity Sunday "Living the Trinity"

Readings: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, May 26, 2024

Today in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday. And we know what the Trinity is… right? It’s that doctrine that tells us that God is One yet at the same time is three… or is it that God is three and at the same time One. It’s that thing about God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how that’s not three separate things… but all the same thing … but actually different things… but all at the same time.

We are all crystal clear about that aren’t we? It’s something our minds can deal with, right? Now why is it, I’m standing here and some of you are shaking your heads and looking a little confused? It’s Trinity Sunday! We are here to proclaim that we believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit… One God.

The Trinity. Did you know that the word “Trinity” never once appears in Scripture? Not once, in anything that Jesus says or that Paul or any other of the biblical writers teach us are we told to believe in something called the Trinity.

Now before any of you are about to report me to the “Presbyterian Heresy Committee” I can tell you that the bible does speak about God as our Father, about Jesus as being uniquely the Son of God and the Holy Spirit being both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. The Bible also uses other images of God, such as Creator, or as one who has a motherly concern for us, or as our Sustainer, but I’m focusing on the traditional orthodox view that the church has lifted high over the centuries, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I can remind you of what we read this morning, some of the things that Jesus said. In verse 15 He says, “Everything that the Father has is mine”. In verse 14 He says of the Holy Spirit  “He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” Back in Chapter 14 Jesus has told the disciples; “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” In John 17:21 Jesus prays for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me.”

Whilst the word “Trinity” isn’t used, throughout the New Testament the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pictured as being a unity. Each person of that unity has distinct attributes and functions, but they are never separate from the other persons. That’s the idea the word “Trinity” attempts to communicate to us. It’s a shorthand word to explain that the nature of God’s revelation has come to us in three distinct, yet united ways, and seeks to speak of a great mystery; God is a Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is a great mystery. Things that are a mystery tend to be difficult to understand. My favorite way of trying to get my head around the idea of God as Trinity is to think about the sun. (That’s sun… S.U.N.).

We know that the sun, up there in the sky, is essential to life. In fact our solar system revolves around the sun. It is the center of our little bit of the universe. We also know when we look up to the sky that there is only one sun. Yet we experience that sun in three distinct ways.

We know that the sun is a vast ball of molten rock, gases and heat that is out there, way beyond us and impossible for us to penetrate. If we sent a spaceship it would burn up before it even got near. Nobodies ever actually been to the sun but without the sun nothing else could be.

But how does the sun get to us? Well, you’ve heard about light speed. The light of the sun travels to us at the speed of light. Sunshine illuminates our lives. In a literal sense the suns rays come down from the heavens to light our way here on earth.

How do those rays affect us when they reach us? As they light our way, they also give us warmth. That warmth spreads throughout our whole being. When people say they enjoy sunbathing they don’t mean that they have flown for countless centuries through the solar system and dived headlong into a molten pool of rock, they mean that the light of the suns rays is warming them through.

Although we understand the sun in three distinct ways; as the physical mass around which we revolve, as rays which bring light to the earth and as heat that warms the earth; the body, the rays and the heat are not separate from each other but all part of one sun.

So how does that help us understand God as a Triune God?

Sometimes the Old Testament pictures God as a consuming fire, way beyond us. We cannot travel to God in a spaceship nor completely immerse ourselves in all that God is. God is out there whilst we are down here. We know we couldn’t exist without God, but neither can we fully contain God or enclose God.

God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through sending a bright ray of light to us, Jesus Christ, “Who came from the Father and returned to the Father.”  The way Jesus lived and the things He did reveal to us the nature of God’s love.  “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son so that whomsoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

We experience the love of God in Christ through the warmth of the Holy Spirit acting in and around our lives. The Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, like heat and light, are closely related. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish them. In fact we may even just choose, as at times do the biblical writers to say that “God is at work in us.”

The physical sun, the sun’s rays, the warmth of the sun. Three things yet one thing. God our Father, Jesus our Savior, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three things yet one thing! Such is the way the Scriptures speak to us of the God we are called to trust our lives too. But… that being said, how do we live the Trinity? After all Christian doctrine isn’t just meant to tickle our imaginations but help us live as faithful disciples. How can the idea of the Trinity help us do that?

With it being Trinity Sunday, let me suggest three ways.

Firstly, understanding God as beyond us can help us accept that to be a disciple we don’t have to know everything or do everything for ourselves.

For myself the idea of God as my Father communicates to me both the distance of God from myself and the nurturing love that seeks to mold the way I live. The idea of Father reminds me that I am a child who has a lot to learn. And whilst, as Jesus bids me, I can sometimes use the familiar words of childish babble, ‘ABBA’, my ‘Father,’ I also need to respect that the Fathers ways are higher than my ways, my father’s thoughts higher than my thoughts.

If you are fortunate enough to have had a loving and stable perfect two parent family, then you can identify with the experience of a small child who looks upon their father in complete awe. That childlike heart that looks up and thinks, “Dad, if I can grow up to be half the person you are, then I’ll be somebody”.

Even if such a father figure is absent from our lives, I believe God opens the doorway to other ‘Father-like’ figures around our lives, people, female or male, parent or mentor, teacher, or friend, to whom we look up and think, “I want to be like them.”  I know that when Jesus speaks of God as Father, He doesn’t mean for us to bring God down to the level of any earthly parent but directs us towards a heavenly Father whose perfect love is beyond anything we can conceive. Understanding God as that perfect Father, nurturing us, yet beyond us, helps me to aspire to greater things.

Secondly, understanding Jesus Christ as One who “Came from the Father and returns to the Father” helps me understand that I constantly need the light of Christ to guide my steps.

The Bible speaks to me of that light in a way that nothing else can do. Trinitarian faith is biblical faith. The scriptures tell us how the prophets of old foreshadowed Jesus coming, what He did when He came and how the church sought to carry on His mission.  

This idea of coming and going reminds me that being a disciple is a process. We see something, we understand a little more, and it leads us to the next step. We can’t say, “Well that’s it. I’ve arrived. I’ve met Jesus and that’s the end of the story.” Yesterday’s light is not much use for us today. We  need the suns light to light up where we’ll be traveling today.

Thirdly, understanding the Holy Spirit as the present influence of Jesus Christ, as the presence of God within me and around me, reminds me that faith is something that I live, not an intellectual exercise that somehow validates my life before God. 

Presbyterians have been described as “God’s Frozen Chosen.” If that be so, then its time we got out of the freezer and sat by the fire. The Holy Spirit is the flame that ignites my love and my passion for God and the mission that God is calling us to. I don’t just need to understand that I am to love God with all my heart, mind and soul and to love my neighbor as myself, I need to experience that love in tangible, practical ways. I need to feel the heat!

Now putting all that back into our scripture reading of John, and I hear it in a different way. When I hear Jesus saying, “Everything that the Father has is mine” then because I have a Trinitarian understanding of God, I look at that and think, “Wow!”

When I hear Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit who “Will take from what is mine and declare it to you” then again it’s a “Wow!” Through Jesus Christ we get a glimpse of what the heart of God desires for this world in which we live out our days. We are not left alone and abandoned.

When I read of Jesus praying for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me,” then again I am caught up in awe, that our lives, we who seek to be the church of Jesus Christ empowered and inflamed by the Holy Spirit, that the ordinary lives of everyday people like you and me are in some mysterious way participating in something so much greater than ourselves.

And yes, all that is a great mystery! It’s all about as easy to explain and decipher as the doctrine of the Trinity itself. The best way to explain it is to live it!

•    To live in a way that brings glory to a Holy God, ‘Our Father’, Our Creator and the Righteous Judge of every human heart.

•    To live in a way that is molded by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, redeemed through His death upon the Cross and bathed in hope by the resurrection light that shines out of an empty tomb.

•    To live in a way that is guided, comforted, enlivened, renewed and re-energized by the Holy Spirit, within us, around us, binding us together, communicating the love of God in Christ through our lives.

May God help us to be people who are living the Trinity! Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

June 4, Trinity Sunday "Matthew's Vision For The church"

Readings: Psalm 8, Genesis 1:1-2:4a, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, June 4, 2023

The Gospel of Matthew is an amazing piece of work. The best thing I can think of comparing it to is a movie. It starts of like a movie, giving us a list of opening credits that invite us to consider that the central figure of the story that is about to take place is somebody of great historical significance.

Then it moves to the mystery of Christ’s birth, to the preaching of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus by John in the Rivers of Jordan. Matthew then takes through a whole series of scenes. Sometimes it’s action, sometimes it’s a story that’s told, sometimes a sermon. It all reaches a climax in the crucifixion of Jesus and then the frantic muddled excitement of the empty tomb.   

Our reading for this morning was from the very last verses of Matthew’s epic. “The Commissioning of the Disciples.” Staying with the film analogy, it’s the perfect ending that cries out for a sequel.  Matthew seems to say, as his movie draws to an end… ‘and all this was just the start.’

Matthew never got to make the sequel. That was left to Luke (who gives us the Book of Acts) and comes to us through the letters that circulated among the early church that we know as the Epistles.

Part of the genius of the Gospel of Matthew is its ability to give us a story that functions on so many different levels. The last few verses are no exception.

Today is Trinity Sunday and it is in these closing words of Matthew that we are invited to “Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Those words, across the centuries, have inspired numerous mission enterprises. These are words that teach us about the authority of Jesus. They are followed by words of great comfort and the promise “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Taking these verses together, we are given an insight into Matthew’s vision of what the church should be. It is that picture of the functions and duties of the Church that I want to think about on this Trinity Sunday. It does us good to pause  and ask, “Well, what are we supposed to be about as the people of God? What’s the Church for? Why do we need it?”

First and foremost, Church is a place to meet Jesus.

(Mat 28:16) “… the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.” God has designated for us a place and time where we can be together in God’s presence and meet with Jesus. At Bridgehampton Presbyterian that time is at ten thirty on a Sunday morning, unless it is summer time when we move to 9:30. That is not to say that are not other times and places when we will experience the presence of God in our lives, but Sunday Worship is a special time, one sacred hour in the week in which we can give ourselves to meeting with God in each other’s presence.

Sometimes people give their reasons for attending a church as “I like the music” or “I enjoy the liturgy” or “I enjoy the sermons” or  even “I like the pastor.” This verse reminds us that church is not primarily about discovering an experience that tickles our senses.

Church is designated as a meeting place with Jesus Christ. He alone, the salvation He offers to us, the grace and love that flow from the heart of God to our life… that’s the reason for coming to church. If we take away our focus away from Jesus, and place it elsewhere, be it on the music, the liturgy, the preacher or the message, then we are indulging in a very subtle form of idolatry.

Idolatry is allowing something other than God to become the focus. There is nothing wrong with great music, great preachers or great liturgy. But we should never allow them to become our reason for church attendance. Church is a place to meet with Jesus.

A church I once served  used to sing a chorus... “Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch Him, to say that I love Him.” Which moves us on to consider...

Secondly, Church is a place of Worship.

(Mat 28:17) “And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him”
It is a plain command of Scripture that we are to worship only the Lord Our God. On Trinity Sunday we remind ourselves that we worship God, through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In this designated time and place our worship takes several different forms. We offer our lives to God and pray “Our Father.” We thank God for the grace and love that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.  We seek to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve God.

Yet most of all worship is an act of enjoying the presence of the One God. As the catechism puts it, “The Chief end of man is to worship God and enjoy Him forever!”

When we take the worship experience out of our life, life loses one of its most precious dimensions. We are called to approach worship like the Psalmist who said, “I was glad when they said let us go to the house of the Lord!”

If only we realized the awesome possibilities of what can take place as we worship, then we would never miss an opportunity to be with our sisters and brothers in Christ before the throne of God. Profound changes can come upon people in the presence of God! Worship is meant to be a happening, something that renews us and fires us up to go out and tell the Good News that God is on the move.

Can Worship be like that? Well… maybe we’re not so sure. In fact, there’s probably a whole lot of things that we are not sure about when it comes to God, to the Bible, to our relationship with the Church… to spiritual things in general. Maybe you have your doubts. That’s O.K. Why?

Thirdly, Church is a place to come with our doubts

Verse 7 continues; “they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.”
Think of that! This is the disciples we are talking about. These are the ones who saw all the miracles, heard all the teaching firsthand, witnessed the death and resurrection with their own eyes and were now standing, visibly, in the presence of their Lord and Savior. And how are they handling it? “Some were doubtful”

Never stop coming to church just because you don’t agree with everything or understand everything. Fact is we are never going to be without our doubts. You may get some preachers who come along and give the impression they know it all and have fathomed out exactly what God is about and what you need to believe and will not hesitate to let you know God’s thoughts on everything under the sun. They remind me of the advert that used to be on T.V, where the guy sits at the computer, and he gets up from his chair and claims that he’s reached the end of the internet!

If God is God, then no human mind can ever fathom the depths of God’s mystery. Sometimes we can’t even remember where we’ve left our car keys, which makes me realize, that we were never designed to know everything about God and makes me highly suspicious of those who make dogmatic claims to truth that seem denied to the rest of humanity. Church is a place to come with our doubts.

This idea of Trinity is one of those you can kind of explain, but not really. The early church Fathers were content to talk of the Trinity as a sacred mystery. As a something to be experienced.

The mystery is that sometimes, as we worship, whilst our knowledge remains the same, something Trinitarian happens. We leave this place knowing that our lives are in the hands of a God who created a wonderful world for us to live in, a God who in Jesus Christ has provided all we need to get us through and a God who in the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be there for us every step of the way.

A fourth thing.
Church is a place to listen for God’s Word.

Matthew 20;18 ; “Jesus came up and spoke to them”
Jesus speaks to us today in our worship services. How? Through each other. Through the words and music. Through the conversations and teaching. Through the prayers in which we share and the Creeds to which we give assent. Through the Bible readings and sermons. All of it, the place, the time, the actions, the environment, the words, and the silence… the whole experience can be a Word of God to us.

We come to church to meet with Jesus, to worship God, to find guidance for our doubts and to listen for God's word for our lives. And one Word that we will hear is that this is an experience that’s too good to keep to ourselves. God wants us to go out and spread the Word. He  promises to go with us as we do so!

Church is a place of Commissioning

Matthew19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”
 We are offered here a threefold commission.
•    To make disciples
•    To baptize
•    To teach

For disciples to be made, the Word we have received has to be proclaimed. Proclamation takes place for us in the same way as it did for Jesus. Sometimes it is through deeds where very few words are spoken. Sometimes it is through spoken words that bring the realization of God’s presence to people’s lives. In the same way  we are to reach out to others.

Our baptism is not only a sign that we belong to God, but also an indication that we belong to the church. We are a community of people united by the love of God. Others need to know they can be a part of it!

And when we are a part of it we realize we have a lot to learn. So, the church has not just a role in preaching and serving but also an educational task… teaching the ways of the Kingdom.

Finally, Church is a place of promise

Matthew 28:20 : “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. "
A beautiful promise of Jesus forms the very last words of Matthew’s gospel. Were Matthew's gospel really a movie this is the verse that would be written over the closing scene as they ride off into the sunset.

I close with that thought this morning. What a wonderful thing it is to know that whatever we are traveling through in our lives right now, Jesus wants to stick with us and carry us through.  

Our world, our lives, everything around us, constant change. We don’t know what lies ahead. Good fortune or the winds of change blowing against us. We just don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But we can know that God promises to travel with us through whatever life may bring our way.

Jesus promises that if we entrust our lives into His hands, He’s going to stick by us, no matter what. If church means nothing more to us than it being a place where we discover God’s promise, then that alone should be sufficient to get us through the day.

Matthew concludes his gospel by giving us a vision for the church. He invites us to meet with Jesus, to come as we are, with all our doubts and fears, just come and worship. As we do so we hear God’s Word, a Word that both challenges and comforts. 

The challenge is to go and let others know how great the love of God can be.

The comfort is that the love of God is greater than we dare imagine and can hold us through all our days! Recall again those words of Jesus... “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.