You have Entered... The Trinity Zone.

6-16-19

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our lord and savior Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Imagine if you will a world that contains is a dimension of the imagination, beyond which is known to us, a place where light and shadow meet, where faith and truth coexist, where bread and wine and water are not always what they seem. It is a place where time and space go wibbly wobbly, jumping backward into the past and also catapulting us into the future… while at the same time joining people together around the world faster than any other type of travel. In this place, God is both known AND unknowable, all- powerful AND all-approachable, ephemeral AND embodied, both giving us everything and demanding from us everything, whose loves is both free and costly… with a people who belong to this God, both saint and sinner, gathered in and sent out. You have just arrived to special place. You have entered The Trinity Zone.  (Sound Effects from The Twilight Zone)

…The bad news is, Rod Sterling NEVER said the words “imagine if you will” in any of the introductions to the Twilight Zone. But that line has been quoted and used so many times, that I took thought FOR SURE that’s where I heard it before. But I was wrong. The real quote, which I also borrowed heavily from, is both longer, and actually kind of boring.  

But that tends to be the case with these things, right? You go along in your life, thinking and knowing one thing to be true but without any idea from where it really came from or where you got that notion…  and at some random point in your life, you will be flabbergasted to find out the truth. And, if you’re like me, you’ll be a little annoyed.

Captain Kirk never said “Beam me up, Scotty”

The original Sherlock Holms never uttered, “Elementary my dear Watson.”

Neither Marilyn Monroe NOR Eleanor Roosevelt ever originally said, “Well behaved women seldom make history.” These are all misquotes and mis-attributions that, over the years, have been repeated so often they become true and we never are the wiser. We print them on T-shirts posters and never ask where they came from. Well, now you know the truth.

And the truth is, the Bible NEVER uses the word Trinity. Not. Even. Once. Our three part, trinitarian Apostles Creed isn’t even in there, much less the longer Nicene one. Or the one we never get around to, the Athanasian Creed, which is EVEN LONGER than the Nicene one.

So, that leaves us with: we have a day dedicated every year to an idea that is not actually present in the Bible. Or is it?

The Bible may not ever say the word “Trinity.” But if we look hard enough, we might find evidence that something we could call Trinitarian is going on here. On the night of this last supper, when Jesus was eating with his disciples – who, at least the male ones would in just a few hours deny, abandon, and betray him – on that night in John, Jesus, the son of God, talks about his Father, and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, who he calls the Spirit of Truth.

Paul in his letter to the Romans talks about the different actions of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs speaks from the perspective of a woman named Wisdom, calling to the people of God to forsake their foolish ways, and to remind them of the Lord who created heaven, and earth, and all of them too.

The beginning of Genesis speaks of a God who hovers over the waters of creation as divine spirit, who speaks creation into being with the divine word, and makes space for creation as a divine parent. At Christmas and Easter, we hear from the Bible of God born in flesh to live among us, to preach, teach, heal, die, and rise again. And on Pentecost, last week, we heard the reading from Act 2 which also heralds the arrival God in the form of wind and flame and a diversity of languages.

The idea of the Trinity may not be literally Biblical… but we honor the theologians and writers and preachers and teachers who have gone before us, and who have attempted to make sense of a mysterious God who is beyond our senses by using ideas like the Trinity.

After all, there are many things that are NOT in the Bible that we Lutheran Christians DO affirm to be important and valuable to our faith – infant baptism, many part of our Liturgical Church Year like Advent and Lent, Sunday morning as the time we should have worship, first communion or confirmation, and coffee hour.

But then again, there are lots of things IN the Bible that we DON’T affirm as important to our faith (or are downright antithetical to it) such as: polygamy, slavery, child marriage, genocide, xenophobia, racism… and wearing clothes that are any kind of cotton/poly blend.

As we ate last Lent at Buckingham Pizza talking about the Bible, we learned the Bible is inspired by God and put together by flawed people. For his Confirmation, I have Kyle a newish book by writer and theologian Rob Bell… who in this book wrote: “The Bible was written by real people living in real places at real times… We dive into THEIR story, discovering OUR story in the process.” (78, 80)

Rob Bell recommends that we not read the Bible literally, but instead to read it literarily. “There are lots of right ways to read it,” (81) he says. You read it, then you wrestle with it, you ask questions, and sometimes you dance with it.

Wedding dance circle in action
(Yes, that's me as a bridesmaid!)

One of the ways that I have heard the Trinity “explained” is that it’s a dance. Dynamic, ever-changing, moving, rhythmic, frenetic…a dance between three, but also a dance that includes us too. We are invited. I imagine one of those “dance circles” at wedding receptions, where everyone is grooving in their own way, and sometimes someone goes in the middle and shows off a rad dance move… and always, always, the circle gets bigger for whoever wants to join it. There is always room on the dance floor... There is always a place for you in the Trinity Zone.

I find that it’s a real shame that we are pressured to find the perfect metaphor to explain the Trinity on Trinity Sunday, when really, the idea of the Trinity was created to help us try to understand God. Because the point of the Trinity is not that it’s like an apple or a raindrop or a three-leaf clover. The point of the trinity is that God is never complete, final, or static.

Bible is also not complete, final, or static, either, because the people who were in it and wrote it were still figuring things out. And we are still figuring things out… in fact, we are never done.  Just like our learning and growing is never over, and fixed, and complete, God is not fixed and finished with us ever either.

The Trinity is not static. And neither are we. God is still very much active in the world, and we are too. We’re not done, and God is not done with us. We are always active and growing and learning and being challenged and meeting those challenges. Because there is always something new to learn about God and one another, and the only time we are allowed to stop is when we at last find rest in our Lord and Creator.

Life in the Trinity Zone might begin here in the building, but it doesn’t stay here. Just like God is not a Trinity on one day only, but always. We can’t explain it. But we can, and do LIVE IT. Thanks be to God. Amen.