"The Connector"

Based on John 16:12-15

    Today on the Christian calendar is Trinity Sunday. It has been a long-standing practice in the church to dedicate the first Sunday after Pentecost to the doctrine of the Trinity. This says something about how important this doctrine is, as it is the only doctrine that has a Sunday dedicated to it. A lot can be said about the Trinity. Indeed, thousands and thousands of books have been written about the Trinity. It is a doctrine that pushes logic to the extreme. How does 1+1+1=1? How can we say we worship one God instead of three gods? Trying to explain this conundrum has been attempted in several ways. St. Patrick famously pointed to a three-leaf clover. Another old image is that of fire: the fire itself is the Father, the light of the fire is the Son and the heat that emits from the fire is the Holy Spirit. The sun has also been used in the same way: the sun itself is the Father, the light is the Son and the warmth of the sun we feel on our skin is the Spirit. There was a Christian comedian I used to listen to as a kid named Mike Warnke who illustrated the Trinity as like a cherry pie. You can cut a cherry pie into three slices, but the cherry filling still flows together. In the same way, the Trinity is three Persons but one Substance.

We can talk about the Trinity in a lot of different ways. Today, I want to focus our attention on how our understanding of God as Three in One captures a key aspect of who God is, which is that God is relational. Whatever it means to say that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three separate Persons, these Persons are so totally interrelated that all three work together. None of them work independently of the other. They are totally interdependent, a harmonious community of three. This total interdependence reflects the relational nature of God. God is a relational God. That’s our focus.

First, let’s look at what Jesus says about the Spirit. Jesus identifies this as the Spirit of truth. Jesus says that the Spirit declares what he hears from the Father. He does not speak on his own. In the same way, Jesus told his disciples that he does not speak on his own but only what he hears from the Father. What Jesus is saying is that the Spirit who will come after he returns to the Father will continue doing what Jesus has been doing with them, which is teaching them what the Father wants taught. Jesus also says that the Spirit will lead the disciples into all truth. What does this mean? Does this mean that there is more revelation from God than what Jesus was able to tell the disciples? Perhaps it does mean that. But it could also mean that what the Spirit will do is to help the disciples more fully understand who Jesus is and what Jesus taught. When the disciples faced new situations, the Spirit would reveal to them new insights into Jesus’ teachings. The stories he taught would take on deeper meanings. The Spirit would help the disciples answer the clichéd question that was very popular several years ago: “What would Jesus do?” This is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit, to continue the teaching ministry of Jesus after he left the disciples and returned to the Father. It is the Spirit that keeps the disciples connected with the Father and the Son. The Spirit makes relationship with God possible.

Let me try to bring all this back down to earth, past the theological musings, and ground all this in our life together as a community. What can the Trinity reveal to us about God and our relationship with God?

If the Trinity means anything, it means that God is inherently relational. God is not a single entity in a far distant heaven. No, God is three Persons working together in a perfect, interdependent relationship. The essence of God is an interdependent relationship. None of them go rogue. All three work together in every situation. They are a team to the maximum level.

We, who have been made in the image of God, are made to be in relationship. We are relational creatures. We all need to belong somewhere. We need a family, whether blood relation or not. We need a group to run around with. We need friends. This is why solitary confinement is so punishing and, in fact, can cause deep mental and emotional trauma. Studies have shown how babies who are isolated from human touch have profound effects on their emotional development. To thrive as human beings, we need community.

When it comes to understanding the things of God and the way of Jesus, the Spirit teaches us these things in community. It is true that you can read the Bible for yourself and interpret it on your own. But let’s face it. There is a lot of the Bible that is really hard to understand. Most of us need some help from others who have dedicated their lives to interpreting the Bible to share their insights. Trust me, I don’t come up with these sermons all by myself. I read a number of Bible interpreters, letting their insights guide my own thinking as I craft these sermons. I have found it much more fruitful to study the Bible with others. The Wednesday Bible study is one of the highlights of my week. We read together the scripture and then discuss it. We have great conversations and gain new insights that we probably would not have gotten if we studied alone. The Bible has always been meant to be read and studied in community.

Also, understanding where God is working in our lives is discovered in conversation. My family when I was growing up lived about twelve miles away from the church. When it was time for youth group on Sunday evening, the youth pastor would drive a van out to Edmond where I and a few other kids in the youth group lived. When we got in the van, Howard would ask each of us, “Where have you seen Jesus this week?” That was our conversation for the 15-20 minute drive to church. Sure, I could have sat there in silence of my own space and contemplated where I had recently seen Jesus. But in the conversation, as people told their stories, it prompted my own observations. Or maybe I had something to share first which got others talking. It was easier to name where we saw God working in our lives when we had a conversation about it. And certainly when it comes to discerning what your purpose in life is, what your vocation is, that takes a lot of conversation with a lot of people. I know some people have a dream or have some powerful spiritual experience that makes them believe they have been called into the ministry. I had one of those powerful experiences myself. But just claiming that experience isn’t going to get you a preacher’s license. There is a long discernment process done in community to confirm that call. And that’s true for any vocation, not just being a preacher. Whatever God has called you to do with your life, you discover it and are affirmed in that call by others. It is in community that we get clear how God is working in our lives.

The last thing I want to say about the Trinity is to express gratitude for the Spirit. As you know, last week we celebrated Pentecost, when the Spirit fell down on the disciples, propelling them outside the four walls of their safe house and on to the streets to proclaim the mighty acts of God. That same Spirit continues to be poured on us day by day. It is the Holy Spirit that connects us with God, so that God is not remote and distant but as near as our breath. Being the temples of the Holy Spirit we are, in some mysterious way God is present within each of us, which is one reason why every single one of us is precious. It is the Spirit that makes that connection real. But the Spirit doesn’t only connect us with God. The Spirit connects us with each other. Each of us share in the same Spirit. If the Spirit was the internet, we would all be online, linked to each other. The Spirit is like Wi-Fi that connects us all together. And just as you can Facetime with someone right now who is in Japan, geography does not matter in our Spirit connection with each other. No matter where you and I are at any given moment we are connected as many parts of one body, the body of Christ. And not only is geography not a limit to our connection but neither is time. When our loved ones die, we are still connected to them. And we have the promise that one day we will be with them again. It is the Spirit that connects us with our ancestors. And it is the Spirit that will connect us with those who will come after us, even to the thousandth generation, if you can even imagine that. The Spirit of God connects us beyond space and time. The community that you and I belong to, made possible by the Spirit, truly is incomprehensibly huge. We all belong in a way that none of us fully comprehend or appreciate. The web of relationships made possible by the Spirit is unfathomable. At the bare minimum I can tell you that although in a few weeks I will no longer be your pastor we will remain connected in a spiritual sense, even as you will still see me around the Hilltop. This cord will not be broken. So, I give gratitude to the Spirit who makes possible our relationship with God our with each other as the body of Christ, relationships that by God’s grace will never be broken.