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THE HOLY TRINITY, 06/11/2017
Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20, by David Zersen
Some say that preparing a sermon for Trinity Sunday should strike fear in any preacher. The prospect of explaining to a parish assembly any words dealing with the interrelationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be unsettling. Most preachers know the controversial ecclesial debates that involved the use of these names and that some who attempted to defend their own version of the truth about them ran into serious difficulties. I think of Michael Servetus (1509-1553), one of the early proponents of Unitarianism, who was burned at the stake by John Calvin’s followers in Geneva, Switzerland. The story about the development of the great Creed that confessed the Church’s understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit is indeed fascinating, but I will tell only a personal aspect of it here.
Three years ago my wife and I visited Istanbul and experienced in the old city some of the remaining treasures of the ancient world. Constantine had built a church dedicated in the third century to Hagia Eirene or Holy Peace. It was the first Christian church built in Constantinople, even before the now more famous Hagia Sophia, and in it the Second Ecumenical Council took place in 381. I secretly hoped to be able to see this building because it is the only extant building in which the great Creed of Christianity was finalized. The church building in Nicaea (a suburb of Constantinople) where the great Creed was partially formulated no longer exists.
As I stood before the altar area of the Church of Holy Peace, I heard a woman say, “I wonder what took place here.” Rising to the full stature of a fake tour guide, I responded, “Would you really like to know what took place here? This is where 150 leaders of the Christian communities in the known world gathered in 381 to reiterate that the teachings of Arius, an Egyptian priest, were unacceptable. Among them was Cyril of Alexandria and the two Gregories of Nazianzus and Nyssa. Arius had believed that God, the Father created the Son, and everything else was created by the Son. And then, right here in this place, those gathered added to the Nicene formulation of 325 “And in the Holy Spirit,” the words, “the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.”
Overwhelmed by the details, the woman asked, “You mean the very words that we say on Sunday morning in our church in London were first confessed here?” “The very ones,” I happily responded. “Wow,” she said. “I didn’t expect to discover that here.” I knew that she was also happy that something momentous had happened there even if all that really mattered was not the full meaning of the Council’s proceedings, but that quite simply it took place right where she was standing.
Overhead in the dome of the over 1600 year-old building pigeons flew, reminding those gathered of the role of the Spirit of God in that setting. Knowing what I know about some of the learned men at that Council, I don’t feel a need to rethink the language of their debates on the interrelationship between Father, Son and Spirit They did that for us. There are volumes for those who want to pursue the matter. With the woman in the Church of Holy Peace, I would, however, like to celebrate on this day the oneness of the God who reveals himself to us as creator, redeemer and life-giving presence. Without the intellectual, valiant, and faith-filled work of the Church’s early leaders, we wouldn’t have the insight to be the confessing monotheists who confidently believe that it is God’s own Spirit who inspires us to claim the redemption that Jesus makes possible for us. On Trinity Sunday, therefore, with you, I am seeking a simple application of the truth that there is one God in three persons. Theologians and historians sometimes take us far from simple truth, and artists and musicians often help us enter into it.
Yesterday, knowing that this sermon for Trinity Sunday still needed to be written, my wife and I happened to be worshipping in a church that made a great deal of Trinitarian teaching in its art, architecture and worship. The visual forms shouted out the implications of “I believe in God the Father Almighty… and in Jesus Christ his only Son… and in the Holy Spirit…” There were three steps leading to the chancel, three windows in the Eastern wall, three panels in the reredos, three glorious windows in the West wall, and three supporting beams in the pitched ceiling. Architects and artists understood their task—to proclaim visually truths that need not be cumbersome. And we who then sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” were also reminded of the simplicity involved in affirming a God who is for us and is perfect in “power, love and purity.” Following through on that three-fold simplicity, I propose to explore with you today three aspects of our faith that call out to us from the text.
First, although Jesus was no longer present to instruct the disciples, he had promised to meet them in Galilee. That was about a week’s journey. Some may have thought it was all over now and the trip wouldn’t be worth it. Apparently, however, they all encouraged one another and went to Galilee. When they saw Jesus again, some fell down and worshipped him, but some thought his reappearance was impossible. There are a variety of words on a spectrum that describe our own attitude toward Jesus and it’s good to know that even some of those who saw him face-to-face-- doubted. We can live with confidence, boldness and certainty when it comes to matters of faith-- and we can also be skeptical, unconvinced and agnostic. It depends a lot on the degree to which we immerse ourselves in the Spirit-filled words of the Scripture, on our prayer life or on our communication with committed Christian friends. If we don’t participate in settings in which the Spirit can nurture us or if our friendships are mostly with those who have no Christian conviction it is easy to release our hold on our Christian convictions. The good news is that the disciples encouraged one another and they all came to trust that their futures were rooted in God’s love as witnessed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. According to tradition, they all went out into the world to proclaim the faith in God’s love and even to die for it. The first message in our text, then, is that both faith and doubt were present in the earliest disciples and it’s all right for it to be present among us as well.
Secondly, according to Matthew’s text, Jesus asked the disciples to meet him on a mountain top in Galilee. The phrase “mountain-top-experience” has deep biblical roots. The Transfiguration took place on a mountain top, as did the Sermon on the Mount. Already in the Old Testament, access to God’s commandments was provided on a mountaintop. The geography is less important than the theology, because the writer is attempting to describe a higher than human presence for those seeking God. The writer also wants to make clear that those who have been given access to God’s presence now need to take their understanding to their neighbors, their classmates and their friends. Martin Luther King used the mountaintop analogy in his famous 1968 address, claiming that although he had been to the mountaintop and had seen the Promised Land (as had Moses), he might not get there. (He was assassinated the next day.) However, those listening that day, he promised, would surely get to the Promised Land. It is also our conviction, with the disciples who had been on the mountain top, that we will be enabled to share the good news that Jesus lived and died for throughout the Promised Land. We have seen and heard the goodness of God in Jesus our Savior and the Spirit wants to empower us to live it out daily with all with whom we come into contact.
Thirdly, Jesus tells his disciples above all the principalities and powers in the world, the authority given to him is the most important. It is the authority to gather people into community by forgiving sins, baptizing and teaching. Often called the Great Commission, the authority behind it comes from the God who did not intend that we live separated from one another, but that we, by destroying the barriers that separate us, become members of a common humanity. In a new book by Senator Ben Sasse, The Vanishing American Adult, the author explores the modern problem of alienated people, who live independently and in isolation from one another. Sasse , a former president of Midland Lutheran College, believes that this tendency to withdraw from community is reinforced by graded school classes, senior villages and isolating residential complexes. He quotes a poll in which Americans over 60 state that only 25% of the people with whom they discussed important issues are under 36. And discounting relatives, that percentage drops from 25% to 6%. The failure to live inter-generationally and in isolation from one another can lead the American adult to negative judgements about others, to prejudices, hate and fear.
Although this is now not Sasse’s point, I have often been touched by the fact that in churches I attend there are broad spectrums of age groups. Attending a given church for a number of years, I have been touched by those who were once infants and now are teens, and those who were middle aged and now are senior citizens. These people are all individuals, but Jesus has called them together into community. We gather at the communion table, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,” as the liturgy says, and we are made one. We know we are baptized, we are forgiven, and are present for one another. In the separation, disunity and estrangement that characterizes our society today, the church provides a surprising setting in which alienated people can discover a new potential.
It is this potential for community into which Jesus calls us. We are summoned with the disciples to a mountain top experience, to see together the glory and the mercy of God. We understand that in Jesus’ love a new beginning allows us to descend to the Plain, to the setting where in forgiveness and generosity we offer a new potential to the world. Personally, I want to celebrate with you the fact that the church is here regularly, not only on Trinity Sunday, to break down our human attempts at isolation and to rediscover the blessings that an intergenerational community can make possible.
I invite you to long for this blessing as well.