The Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Sermon Preached Trinity Sunday Evensong- Year 2 June 11, 2006
Year 2, Trinity Sunday, Evening Prayer: Ecclesiasticus 43:1-12, 27-33, Revelation 19:4-16,
Ephesians 3:14-21

It’s a trend in parts of the church to avoid the actual names of the Trinity. If you visit 10 churches across the city, there’s a good chance you’ll hear about somebody called the “source” and you will get blessed in the name of a bunch of descriptive nouns. Are descriptions an accurate way to talk about God?

A popular and Biblically accurate way of talking about God is as creator. The author of our first reading from Ecclesiasticus marvels how the wonders of the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the rainbow all show the glory of God, yet his greatest praises of God are in noting that these things fall hopelessly short of actually describing God.

God is the creator. I like large cuts of prime steak. These things are both true. But, if you referred to me as that priest who likes steak you wouldn’t be saying much about me, so too if I refer to God only by a handful of attributes I wouldn’t be saying much about God.

There is this great show hosted by Carl Sagan called Nova that explores the marvels of the universe. Almost every episode Carl Sagan notes that there billions and billions of something in the universe: stars, planets, solar systems. These things are attributes of the universe, but they hardly describe it.

There are billions and billions of ways to speak about God, and to be perfectly honest, God only knows which of those is accurate and none of these descriptions actually attain God. Through the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we know God as both infinitely personal and infinitely incomprehendable.

Saint Augustine concluded his book aptly titled “On the Trinity”, with a prayer to God: A wise man, in that book we name Ecclesiasticus spoke thus concerning thee: “We speak many things, and yet attain not: and the sum of our words is: ‘He is the all.’” When therefore we shall have attained to thee, all those many things which we speak, and attain not, shall cease: one shalt thou abide, all things in all; one shall we name thee without end, praising thee with one single voice, we ourselves made also one in thee. O Lord, one God, God the Trinity, whatsoever I have said in these books that comes of thy prompting, may thy people acknowledge it: for what I have said that comes only of myself, I ask of thee and of thy people pardon. Amen.

There is nothing wrong with descriptions of God, but my starting point when I name God is as he was revealed by Jesus to his followers: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – I don’t start with obvious and often unhelpful descriptions but begin with a God with whom I have a personal relationship.

When I name God as my Father I name myself as one of his children. When we name God as our Father we name ourselves as children of God.

Just as Jesus was baptized and named Son of God, so too we are baptized, named a son or daughter of God, and name ourselves and each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Just as Jesus died and rose from the dead, so we as children of God can have faith that we will rise to eternal life as well. Just as Jesus ascended to his Father’s house, so too we can have faith that we will all have room prepared for us in our Father’s house.

By naming God as Spirit, we name the Spirit who descended on Jesus at his Baptism and filled the apostles and gave them power to preach the Gospel to all nations, as the same Spirit who descended upon us at our Baptism and works in us to spread the love of God to the world.

This personal relationship comes from the fact that God is Father, Son and Spirit and it is dramatically different from the world where people often don’t treat each other like fellow human beings, let alone like loved ones. This relationship with God and each other can’t be gleaned from marveling at the sun, moon, and stars or even the rainbow. It can only be revealed by God himself: Jesus Christ.

We praise God as Father, Son, and Spirit every day. But it is today that we stop for a moment to truly appreciate the gift that Jesus has given us by revealing God as more than our creator, more than our redeemer, more than any descriptive word can possibly say about God. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.