Trinity Sunday - C May 30, 2010

Probers 8: 22-31 Romans 5: 1-5 John 16: 12-15

Why is it that things can become so complex, so mixed up? What do I mean? Why is it that something we think is simple, becomes so involved? I often think about this when undertaking a project around the grounds, the property here at the parish. The decision is made to update or modernize, to make attractive or more functional some part or area of the parish - much like at one’s house. The project begins and, before long, discoveries are made in going beyond the surface of whatever is being worked on. What appeared to be there, is not, or is present in some unexpected form. What seemed relatively simple at, becomes more and more involved - a minor project becomes a major undertaking.

In a way, at least in my thinking, is a way of look at the purpose, the life, the ministry of Jesus Christ. He is the one who both is and provides the basis for our Christian faith and practice. He is the one who is the reason behind, the foundation for our gathering here today. In his name we are here in worship, in mutual support, as a way of growing in our journey in life. Jesus Christ, God-man, came into our world, came into our history, to tell us the “truth,” to tell us about God. Ultimately, he came to tell us about ourselves; to tell us why and what we are; to tell us why and what we do; to tell us how best we can live our gift of life.

What does he reveal to us, reduced to its simplest form? He tells us that God is a Trinity of person - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - but still one God. This God is the ultimate source, the ultimate force, behind all that is in creation, in the universe, in life. God is so beyond the simplistic images we have or can imagine. It is God for whom we ultimately explore, yet so often fall short. This is the God whom Christ reveals to us, telling us to call God, as Creator, “Father.” This God, he also reveals, seeks an on-going relationship with us. In simple, but also complex terms, God love us. It is a very basic revelation to us, but we qualify it, we complicate it in our efforts to understand it and to live out its meaning. So, like so often in the case of a project undertaken at home that gets complicated, it is beneficial to go back and examine it all, and develop - once again, the approach we take.

If we think through and consider well what Jesus Christ reveals, we can speak of it in the following ways. The first revelation to us is that God is love. The ability or power that we possess as humans, to reach out and to love - this power we so often mix up or distort - this ability that is undefinable, unmeasurable, seemingly unexplainable - is God. This ability exists because the source of all existence, God, is love.

The second revelation is that God loves us. Love needs an object, a person to love. Love cannot exist in a vacuum. Love reaches out to another, as we all do from the moment that we are born when we first reached out to our mothers, and from there to parents, family, others. In the perfection of love that is God, this reaching out to love us, is a person of God, a total reality of God, whom we call the Word of God, the Word of love, the Son, made man in the person of Jesus Christ. God came among us so that we could understand and appreciate all the more that, indeed, God loves us. Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father, who tells us that everything the Father has is mine, tells us of this love.

The third revelation is that this love is not temporary or passing. It is for all times and in all ways. The love that remains with us is a total reality of God, a person of God described in words as the Spirit. God, God’s love, remains with us so that we can respond to the love God shows us, to aid or assist us, in loving in return.

This is the simple message, the simple revelation of the Trinity of God in whom we believe. We know if it because it is reflected in us, it can be seen and observed in us. If we look at ourselves honestly, we seek in life two things that reflect the source of life - God: to love and to be loved. What and what we are, how and what we do in order to love and to be loved reflects this powerful ability that finds its source in God, the very essence of love.

We distort this simple description of God, this relationship with God, that defines what we are and what we can be. We distort our ability to love by directing it to objects, to things, rather than to persons, loving what we want a person to be for us, rather than the who of that person. We distort our desire to love by abusing various means that can assist us to love. We distort our need to be loved, by seeing it only in terms of selfish benefit rather than mutual growth.

The message of Faith revealed to us by Christ, is simple and direct. We do not need to dissect and analyze this message. Rather, we need to look at ourselves and the abilities that we possess and realize that the best expression of what we are, the source of genuine happiness for us is found in how we live and reflect love, how we seek to love, and how we desire to be loved. The best expression of what we are, the source of genuine happiness for us is found in how we live and reflect the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity of Persons who are our one good and gracious God.