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Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi Trinity Sunday June 3, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Canticle 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 75 th General Convention of the ECUSA

Jesus said to the disciples, “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 all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:12-15)

Remote Control Access to God
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     Have you got a TV, a clock radio, a VCR or a DVD player in your home right now that is flashing “ 12:00 a.m. ”?[1] Don’t be embarrassed; you may be the victim of “button creep.” Button creep is the term applied to the proliferation of buttons on electronic devices.

     A few decades ago when you brought home electronic gadgets, they had just a few buttons, and they were simpler to use; they were more intuitive. But with each new generation, they have become more complicated, the number of buttons has increased, and each button has more than one function. The days of intuition are over – you have to either read the instruction manual or have a teenager show you how you use it. And because all of them require different procedures to reset them which we have forgotten (or our teenagers are gone), when the occasional power failure happens, they just sit there blinking the default “12:00 a.m.” time on and off like rogue traffic lights reminding us that we are failures for not letting them be all that they can be.

     But the complexity doesn’t stop us from buying them. I remember an episode of Home Improvement when Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor played by Tim Allen needed to get a new TV, and the model he chose was selected because it came with a belt and holster for the manly pistol grip remote that was festooned with more buttons than the control panel of the Starship Enterprise . I confess I am just like him. To watch a DVD movie on the TV in our house often requires three remotes that combined have a total of 126 buttons; the Comcast remote alone has 53 buttons! And wouldn’t it be great to have three holsters for those remotes!

     But in reality, only about 6 buttons are needed to view a movie on our system. This illustrates a key point of device usability; a gadget should first present users with a limited number of features – those that are the most useful – and only then allow access to more advanced features if they are needed. A few companies have finally understood this, and recognize button creep and remote proliferation have gotten out of hand. During the design phase of the original Apple iPod, Steve Jobs insisted that the device be kept simple. And today, the iPod still only has five buttons and a scroll wheel.

     I think that the Gospel writers and the early church had an inkling about the importance of usability in helping us to come to an understanding of the complexity of God, and trhe relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Take for instance the Gospel reading from John today.

     In an effort to comfort the disciples before his horrific torture and dearth, Jesus emphasized the coming of the Comforter, the Advocate, and the continuity between the Father, Jesus, and that comforter. Jesus did not try to stuff a lot of final instructions into that conversation. That might seem a little odd, because these were the very people he was going to rely on to carry on his work. But Jesus calmly tells them that he has many more things to tell them, but that they cannot bear to hear them now. The disciples are not stupid people. But Jesus understands that they have not yet had sufficient experience to even perceive what knowledge they will need. He understands that they do not yet have the spiritual maturity or depth of experience to comprehend what Jesus could tell them. And so he gave them the fewest buttons they needed on their remote to access God, and promised that as they grew, more buttons would be given to them by the Advocate.

     Today is Trinity Sunday, that day in the Christian calendar when we look eyeball to eyeball at the idea that defines creedal Christianity: The Holy Trinity. There is no real scriptural basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, yet the Trinity defines us as a people. And it is a hard doctrine for Christians to articulate; it is a logic buster. How can one God, be three? Does one God inhabit three forms? What is the difference between one triune God and three separate gods? And the Gospel of John really compounds the confusion – it is the Gospel with at least 53 buttons – yet it is this very Gospel that strongly supports the idea of the Trinity. In the fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus says to his disciples, “if you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him (Jn 16:7). Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? (Jn 16:10a). Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. (Jn 16:11a). I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate … the Spirit of Truth (Jn 16:16 -17). You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (Jn 16:17b).

     Who are these people? If Jesus is the Son, how can the Father be in him? If Jesus is God, who is Jesus talking to? Where does the Spirit come from, and what is its relationship to God?

     The early church struggled mightily with these problems, and the early church fathers sought orthodox answers to them. Church councils were called to deal with these issues, and from those councils arose the definition of the trinity that we recite today in the Nicene Creed. But to be completely honest, the concept of the Trinity is barely comprehensible to most of us. Despite being church people, many of us are like the disciples and like generations of Christians before us, struggling to some to an understanding of the divine in all of its manifestations.

     But trying to describe and understand God is something that we humans are genetically programmed to do. We cannot look at the night sky and not wonder what is out there, or what drives the forces of the cosmos. But because we are limited by our very humanness, we will never be able to describe the indescribable. Robert Farrar Capon once wrote that human beings describing God are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. We don’t have the equipment to understand God, but we keep on trying anyway.

     The Trinitarian Doctrine is one way Christians intellectually describe the divine. But, another way might be through the lenses of our own experience as we mature.

     Very young babies see themselves at the center of their cosmos. Everything they experience lies outside themselves. Food comes from Mom, clean diapers come from Dad (sometimes). They are dependent totally on outside help for everything, and that experience defines their universe. The good – and perhaps the bad – come from “out there” some place. The big people are the big forces in the universe that provide the good – and sometimes the bad – things, especially as toddlers begin to understand the rules of family life. This is not unlike the earliest and most fundamental concepts of God. God was viewed as a transcendent figure, responsible for everything that happens to us: The Being who was, and is, and will be forever more. God was outside our existence. This might be likened to the creator God, the first person of the Trinity.

     As children grow, they learn of their own finitude, and slowly begin to see themselves as individuals within a community of other individuals. They also see that they, and their parents, are vulnerable. Parents become less transcendent and god-like, and far more human. Likewise, young adults see themselves less as objects in the world and more in control of their own destiny. If you doubt this, just ask any teenager you know! Analogously, Jesus gave us an image of God here on earth; God became immanent in the person of Jesus. The stories of his teaching and healing all point toward the acts of a transcendent god, yet they were manifest in this person named Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. Like the Deity of Genesis, God walked among us, and gave us by example and teaching several different views of God: God the shepherd; God the brooding hen, hiding us in the shelter of her wings; God the teacher; God the healer; God the servant; God the victim.

     As children mature into adults, they enter into deep and profound relationships with other people. And as an adult, we give our self to another person, and if we are blessed, that person gives likewise to us. In so doing, we learn to love, and through love, we create a third entity in the relationship: the “We.” The language we use in conversation about ourselves even changes to reflect this new creation.

     When Jesus left the disciples for the last time and ascended into heaven, the disciples were decidedly on their own. They struggled to grasp meaning from the life of Jesus, and to understand the necessity of his death. But finally, they achieved a sense of understanding, and that gave them power to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples. That is what we celebrated last Sunday at Pentecost – the empowerment of the disciples to spread the ‘good news.’

     I believe that when the disciples finally understood that Jesus and his teachings continued to live in them, they matured into Christian adulthood, and essentially created the “We” between themselves and Jesus, and thus between themselves and God. Once this “We” had been realized, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, empowered them to act. It is not surprising that with this realization also arose the notion of Jesus having been present with God always and forever, as we see reflected in the reading from Proverbs.

     Three characterizations of the divine, each one as vital to our understanding as the other two; inseparable yet distinct. Three characterizations of the divine based on how we experience the divine at different times in our lives.

     The concept of the Trinity gives us permission to admit that how we experience God is not always the same. The Trinity allows us to say that God can come to us in all sorts of ways, and perhaps in different ways to different people at the same time. It gives us permission to say that God is not changeless, but an evolving Being, intimately involved with, and experiencing God’s own creation. But at the same time, the mystery of the Trinity is that in the diversity that is God, God is also One. There is not a fierce, punishing God of the Old Testament, and another loving God of the New. The contradictions we experience are an artifact of our own limited view of the big mystery that is God.

     Ultimately, I think the only thing we can say for sure is that God is an experience; not something easily explained.

     Love is like that: something we experience, but cannot explain very well.

     And maybe that says it all.

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Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth – when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Canticle 13, Benedictus es, Domine

Glory to you, Lord God of our fathers; *
you are worthy of praise; glory to you.

Glory to you for the radiance of your holy Name; *
we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Glory to you in the splendor of your temple; *
on the throne of your majesty, glory to you.

Glory to you, seated between the Cherubim; *
we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Glory to you, beholding the depths; *
in the high vault of heaven, glory to you.

Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; *
we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Romans 5:1-5

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; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

John 16:12-15

Jesus said to the disciples, “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 all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Collect of the Day

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

[1] The discussion on “button creep” is adapted from Timothy Merrill (Exec. Ed.) “Button Creep.” Homiletics19(3):42-51, 2007.

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Copyright © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
31 May 2007

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