Holy Community

May 26^th, 2013         “Holy Community”     Rev. Heather Jepsen

Genesis 1:26-28 and John 16:12-15

          What is God?  If I asked you to define God what would you say?  I bet that among this congregation I would find a variety of answers.  Many of you would probably give me a list of adjectives: God is all knowing, all powerful, all present.  God is justice and righteousness.  God is great and mighty.  God is all encompassing.  God is love.

          Your list would probably be based on ideas – things people have written and thought about God in theology and scripture.  God is the omnipotent creator of the universe.  God is the only God.  Some adjectives on your list would probably be based on your personal experience and feelings of God.  God is good.  God is warm.  Again, God is love.

          When we talk about God – we can never say exactly what God is.  We are human and part of that means that we are limited in the ways that we can talk about and know God.  We could stay here and talk all day about God and we wouldn’t be able to say all that God is.  We wouldn’t even be able to say all that God is in a year – or even in a lifetime.  God is more than our words.  But words are helpful to us.  We can use words to name ways that God has been known and experienced throughout history.  One way we use words to describe God is to talk about the Trinity.

          Today is Trinity Sunday in the liturgical year so I want to talk about the Trinity this morning.  The theology of the Trinity can be obscure, and I hope that you find something in this morning’s sermon that isn’t obscure.  I hope you find something that is a little closer to home.

          Now, I am sure nearly everyone here has some idea about the Trinity.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost right?  It’s the stuff classic Sunday school lessons are made of.  We have all heard of the “Three in One” the mystery of three persons – one God.  I bet everyone here knows this, but how far does your thinking about the Trinity go.  It’s not something we ever really discuss, even from the pulpit.

          First of all, I want to discuss what the Trinity is not.  The Trinity is not a hierarchy.  When we talk about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we don’t mean that the Father is in charge and then the Son and Spirit do the Father’s bidding.  It’s a common misconception.  The Father does not boss around the Son who in turn gets to boss around his little sister the Spirit.

          Instead, the Trinity is God in a community of equals, all giving and all sharing with each other.  Through the parts of the Trinity, God is giving to God.  God is loving God.  God is dancing with God.  The parts of the Trinity are known together.  It is their relationship to each other that defines them – and it is a relationship of self-giving love.  God is not a static solitary being; rather God is a personal being in movement and in relationship.

          God is defined by God’s relationship with God’s self.  The Trinity is defined by how the three parts relate to each other in a dance of self-giving love.  When you think about it, we are defined by our relationships as well.   Imagine if someone lived every day of their life alone in a cave with no friends and no family, no acquaintances, nothing.  This imaginary person would have never seen anybody else.  It would be hard to define that person’s life.  But, if that person has friends and family and even just acquaintances that person becomes defined.  They are a wife, they are mother, they are a father, they are a son, a niece, or a cousin.  They are a friend, a confidant, a person that comes to your church, or someone you saw in the coffee shop.  They have become somebody.  They are defined.  We are defined by our relationships with other people.

          God is Father relating to Christ.  God is Christ relating to the Spirit.  God is the Spirit relating to the Father, and so on.  God is defined by God’s relationship with God’s self.  In our New Testament reading today we hear Christ discuss how the different parts of the Trinity work together to bring us a message of hope and salvation.  Christ has knowledge from the Father which he has shared with us in person.  When Christ leaves the community of John, he will send the Holy Spirit which will continue to guide them in the ways of truth.  It is the Spirit who guides us today, helping us to have a deeper understanding of both the Father and the Son.

          Language like this helps us to understand that God is not alone.  God is not satisfied to sit alone up in heaven.  God is not some old man with a beard, sitting on a cloud, watching us for all eternity.  God is not a solitary being; God is a personal being in relationship.  Similar to the way that God is in relationship with God’s self; through the Trinity God is in relationship with us.  God is active in our world.  Our God is a God that makes covenants with us.  We read this in the Old Testament stories of Noah and Abraham.  In the New Testament we find God in relationship with us in the figure of Jesus Christ.  God is in relationship with us and like God’s relationship with God’s self, that relationship is hospitable.  God welcomes us, God loves us, God is with us.  God does not desire to be alone; God desires to be in relationship with each of us and that is why we were created.

          Just as God’s relationship with God’s self is one of self-giving love, so is God’s relationship with us.  God loves us.  And God empties out God’s self to love us.  God suffers for us in love.  We find this in the miracle of Christ, who would suffer and die an unjust death on earth with us, for us, like us.  Because of Christ, God also suffers with us in love.  When we suffer God can be a present help, because God has known suffering.  We feel the presence of God with us through the Holy Spirit.  God enters into vulnerability in love.

          Now I know I just hit you with a lot of information.  The Trinity is a really hard subject to discuss at all, let alone in a Sunday sermon.  What I really want you to hear this morning is that when we talk about the Trinity, we talk about God being in community, holy community.

          In Genesis we read that we are made in the image of God.  God desired to make humankind in God’s own image, the image of community.  God did not make one man to sit alone on this earth.  God created two people, (at the same time in this version of the story) and then God encouraged them to make more.  And not only that, but God encouraged the people to be in relationship with the world around them, from the beasts of the field to the birds of the air.  In the very beginning God created relationship and God created community. 

          Like God, we are made to be in community.  We are made to be in relationship with each other and with God.  Now I know this is something everyone here can connect with.  Everyone here is in community, simply by being here this morning.

          We reflect God in our close knit communities.  When we are in loving relationships between husbands and wives we reflect God, loving relationships between parents and children reflect God; loving and hospitable relationships between friends, between co-workers, between church members are all a reflection of the community we find in the Trinity.  When we are in self-giving relationships, we are in the image of God.

          When we talk about sin, we are talking about broken relationships.  When we talk about sin we are talking about unhealthy relationships that do not reflect the image of God.  Sin is selfishness in relationships; its pain, its violence, its using other people to get what you want.  Sin is hierarchy, racism, classism, and sexism.  Sin is every way that we can think up to distort the image of God we are created to reflect.  Sin, is bad community, no community, and broken relationships.

          When we talk about the Trinity we talk about grace.  We talk about God who shows us what it is to live in God’s image.  It is to live in relationships of equality, relationships of hospitality, relationships of love.  It is to dance with each other in joy, and to see the image of God reflected in us, when we are together, when we are in community.

          What is God?  God is community.  God is loving relationships.  God is reflected in us.  God is here.  Thanks be to God for creating us to be together in holy community.  Amen.