Repository of Sermons / Calendar of Events / Activities

Trinity Sunday
                              May 30, 2010  The Rev. Bill Van Oss                               
              Readings                  

Trinity Sunday. A day that strikes fear in the heart of preachers everywhere. The Trinity, that mystery of mysteries; three persons in One God. How does one preach on that?

I believe preachers face two temptations when it comes to talking about the Trinity. The first is to over explain it. To go through the creed line-by-line and attempt to explain what it means that Jesus Christ is “true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” The other temptation is to oversimplify the Trinity. To take the route of St. Patrick and hold up a shamrock and point out how it has three separate leaves but makes up one shamrock. Three-in-one, the Trinity.

So the question is whether to over explain or to oversimplify when it comes to the Trinity. But neither works very well, I believe, because the Trinity is a mystery, because God is a mystery, and mysteries cannot be explained, nor can they be simplified. Mysteries can only be discovered and embraced. Mysteries unfold gradually, over the course of a lifetime and instead of leading to neat, tidy conclusions, mysteries lead to more questions and more discovery, and growth in understanding, if only inch by inch.

We like things neat and tidy, we like absolutes and black and white thinking, and the Trinity does not lend itself to that, God does not lend Godself to that. Revelation is slow and often incomplete. That is why it’s wonderful that we’re given a passage from the Book of Proverbs as our first reading today because Proverbs features Lady Wisdom.

Eugene Peterson has written a translation of the Bible called, The Message. It’s a rough translation, a paraphrase if you will, but it’s very thought provoking. The Message translates today’s passage from Proverbs which he entitles “Lady Wisdom Calls Out” this way:

“Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling?
Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice?
She’s taken her stand at First and Main,
at the busiest intersection.
Right in the city square
where the traffic is thickest, she shouts,
‘You – I’m talking to all of you,
everyone out here on the streets!
Listen, you idiots – learn good sense!
You blockheads – shape up!
Don’t miss a word of this – I’m telling you how to live well,
I’m telling you how to live at your best.
I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity;
Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.
Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics;
I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out.’”

Lady Wisdom goes on to explain that she was created by God before God made anything else. “Before Mountains were sculpted and Hills took shape, I was already there, newborn.” Lady Wisdom was with God at creation. As Peterson says: “I was right there with him, making sure everything fit. Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company, Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.” Lady Wisdom and Creator God standing side-by-side to bring the universe into existence. This is an image of God that expands the mind and touches the heart.

So on this Trinity Sunday, rather than trying to over explain God by pointing out nuances of the Creed or over simplifying God with some clear if not completely satisfying image. Our scripture text gives us Proverbs and Lady Wisdom, as a reminder that our believing in God, a Triune God, as God in three persons, has to do not so much with theological correctness or perfect clarity, rather it has to do with how we live on this earth. Lady Wisdom wants us to live well, in “robust sanity” as Peterson puts it. “Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves. It has virtually nothing to do with information as such, with knowledge as such,” Peterson says. He goes on “Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace. Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical things we do. In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God.” (The Message, p.829)

So whatever we believe about God, whether it is ancient creedal formulas or simple shamrocks, what matters is how what we believe translated into our lives and how what we believe affects out behavior toward our neighbor and toward the stranger. What matters is if what we believe makes us more compassionate, generous, loving and merciful. Our believing in God must inform our living, it must teach us how to live well, how to live our best. Call it Divine Guidance, Intuition, or Inspiration, Lady Wisdom teaches us how to live and how to love.