B060611

TRINITY: JUNE 11, 2006

John 3:1-17...

Romans 8:12-17... ( Sermon 2: “The Trinity Reef”)

Isaiah 6:1-8...

Psalm 29

No text: (Sermon 1: The Trinity Dance”)

GETTING FOCUSSED

Trinity:

The transcendent glory, yet dearest Parent,

the awesome Holiness, yet gracious Brother,

the fearsome Light, yet closest Friend. .

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

we come to celebrate One bountiful God.

Give to God, all you children of the stars,

give to God all glory and power.

Give glory to God’s sacred name

in a stunning array of thankful love.

BEGINNING TO WORSHIP

From our separate paths we come, Holy Friend,

and gather as one people before you in gratitude and praise.

Provider of all good things,

we worship your Fatherly goodness throughout creation.

Redeemer of all sick and lost souls,

we worship your saving grace in Christ Jesus.

Regenerator of all dead hopes,

we worship your Spirit who fills all things.

God of amazing love and infinite glory, please receive this chorus of praise which rises from this one congregation.

We offer it with all our best love, and pray that it may be united with the millions who worship you on earth and with the shining hosts that adore you in heaven.

Through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen!

REPENTING AND TRUSTING

God is always more ready to forgive than we are to confess. Let us pray.

Loving God, we confess that we never praise you enough, nor serve you well enough, nor love you deeply enough.

We try. Yet we falter. Always we fall short. Sometimes we realise our limitations, sometimes we don’t. Yet you, holy Friend, go on loving and nurturing us, not counting our sins but multiplying your grace and mercy.

With your steadfast love, Father of Jesus, have mercy on us again today.

With your saving love, Son of the Father, have mercy on us today.

With all your enlivening love, Spirit of God, have mercy on us today.

We place in your hands all that we have been and what we are at the moment,

so that what we may yet become shall exceed our expectations.

To your eternal praise and glory.

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

People of God, be certain of this: Forgiveness is real. Starting afresh is real. The regeneration of our thoughts, feelings and motivations is real. Sisters and brothers in the family of God, you are a most fortunate people.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the friendship of the Holy Spirit, will save you from all evil and give you the final victory!

Thanks be to God!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

you are the greatest!

Thanks for being like a parent

and giving us a beautiful world

in which to live and grow.

Thanks for giving us

your true Son, Jesus,

who shows us true love.

Thanks for giving us

your own Spirit

to be with us every minute

of every day and night.

God,

you sure are the greatest!

Amen!

PSALM 29

See “Australian Psalms” page 45.

Ó Open Book Publishers...email: enquiries@openbook. com.au

A TRINITY LIMERICK

There was a saint up in Bright*

who loved God with all her might,

when asked to explain

and make Trinity plain,

she said “I get lost in the light.”

* Bright: A small, scenic town in foothills, NE Victoria.

COLLECT

Three person’d God, you are greater than curiosity can explore, deeper than mind can plumb, and more beautiful than dreams can create. Yet you are closer than breathing and more intimate than our secret thoughts. May we who worship you, never loose sight of your light, and never lose touch with your grace. May the mysterious name of Trinity, keep us ever discontented with shallow religion, and lure us towards that glory which you have prepared for those who love you. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen!

SERMON 1 : THE TRINITY DANCE

Some see the Trinity as a church dogma to be swallowed whole without question if one wishes to be proper Christians.

Some see the Trinity as Greek-influenced metaphysical speculation, full of subtleties but quite sterile and irrelevant today.

Some, who are outside the faith, see the Trinity as religious superstition dressed up in ecclesiastical pomposity.

Some see the Trinity as the true definition of God, leading us to the core Mystery that will always defy our human reason..

Some see the Trinity as a celebration of the activity of God, as witnessed in the Scriptures but displayed pre-eminently in the life, death and resurrection Jesus the Christ.

I guess I fall in the last category. I will call it “The Trinity Dance.” This is my way of emphasising the energetic, purposeful, beautiful activity of God among us. Action, rather than a doctrine to be recited, revered, or made the object of lofty intellectual debate.

The Trinity dance is God among us and within us, creating and redeeming us. Jesus is the defining figure for Christians. He lives with real style! He does the Trinity Dance. (By the way, salutations to Sydney Carter who, in what now seems another age, made popular this idea of a sacred dance for followers of Jesus)

----HERESY?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pause. Warning. Anything I say on this subject will annoy some other Christian somewhere. Sorry. I do not wish to annoy. I get no kick of doing that. But whenever one speaks on the theme of Trinity, one is sure to stray into some area that the historical church has marked off as grave error; heresy.

[On one extreme is the heresy of tri-theism. three-god-ism. On the other extreme is unitarianism, denying the divinity of Christ.]

I will leave you, if you are of a mind to classify heretics, to decide what brand of heretic I am. But this much I can ask you to understand: I don’t think I’m a heretic. I reckon I am a thorough Trinitarian Christian.

-----THE SON-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to the Trinity Dance. The activity of God is what it is all about. And Jesus of Nazareth is the key teacher.

I want you to look for a moment at the three “persons” of the Trinity. I am going to take a different order to the usual Father-Son-Holy Spirit progression, by starting with Christ. He who in theological talk is called the “Second Person” of the Trinity.

Those first Christians had met a person who lived a remarkable, though short, life. This person who bore the common Jewish name of Jesus (Joshua) was energetic in showing a practical love unlike anything before experienced. He was always on the move, meeting with people, healing, teaching, breaking down social and ethnic barriers, caring for those who were least and last in the community, challenging the arrogant and the exclusive and those corrupted with power. Jesus had a unique flair. His life-dance was a thing of rare courage and unmatched beauty .

However, soon the privileged and the powerful had more than they were prepared to stomach. They plotted and carried out his execution, all in the name of law and order and the honour of God. He died an awful death, but actively continued being himself to the last. From the cross he forgave enemies and comforted both loved ones and a thug on a cross beside him. His love-dance was a thing of extraordinary grace, and of redeeming power.

Christ risen, put the seal of God’s approval on everything leading up to, and including, the cross. The dance became sheer exultation.

The people who saw him, knew him, and loved him found it hard to find adequate words to describe Jesus.

They first called him Messiah, God’s anointed liberator of his people.

Some called him the image of the invisible God.

Some named him the very radiance of God.

Like Thomas, some took the words from the formal Roman oath of allegiance

to the Emperor and applied it to Christ: “My Lord and my God.”

Some used the phrase “Son of God”, which had a usage both in the Jewish

and the Roman world.

What all these were trying to say was that in this energetic, gracious, extraordinary Christ, God was uniquely and crucially active. The dance of Christ was the dance of God. In the activity of Jesus, Divinity was revealed as the Saviour of humanity. This was reflected in the early Christian sign of the fish (ICQUS) which they scrawled around like a creed in code: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.”

“Hey!” some of you may want to protest, “I thought you were going to talk about the Trinity. You are spending all your time talking about Jesus.”

Fair comment. I am. And I choose to do that deliberately. Jesus is the ultimate key to our understanding of the Father and the Holy Spirit. The more time we spent with Jesus, and participate in his activity within this world, the more we will learn the fluid steps of the Trinity Dance.

-----THE FATHER-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The kind of God that God is, for me is utterly shaped by Jesus. The kind of father we may have had, or the kind of father some of us have been, has little (nothing?) to do with it.

Sometimes in credal statements, I replace “Father” with the word “Creator”. That is okay as far as it goes. God is the genesis of our life, our provider, our protector and nurturer. But it is not sufficient by itself.. Because the kind of Creator we Christians worship, the distinctive initiator, provider, protector, and nurturer, is revealed only by Jesus.

The Father mentioned in the Trinity is the Father of Christ Jesus. Father of the good humoured teller of parables. Father of the man who eats with tax contractors and sinners. The Father of the angry young man who tongue-lashes religious hypocrites. The Father of the distressed person in the Garden of Gethsemene. The father of the Crucified. The Father of the Risen One.

For a Christian, the activity of Jesus reveals the nature of the Fatherhood of God. The dance of the Father is seen in the dance of the Son.

Use the word Creator if you prefer it. (as I often do) but it must the Creator that Jesus reveals, not some distant “First Cause” of philosophers, nor some sentimentalised nature god. Use the word Mother for God if you like, but the motherhood must be defined by the life of Christ, not by our mothers or the kind of mothers some of you have been.. Use the word Parent, or Source, or Lover, or Jahweh if you will for the first Person of the Trinity,. but always let your understanding of that first Person be shaped by the life of Jesus. Jesus is the dancer who perfectly reflects the dance of the Father. ‘No one has seen God, but he who is nearest the Father’s heart has made him known.”

-----THE SPIRIT----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Likewise, the activities of Jesus gives us the sure clue to the nature of the Spirit of God; the God who is personally, intimately among us.

The Spirit dances most surely in the Man of Nazareth who told us the story of the Good Samaritan; and lived it. Who gave us the parable of the prodigal son; and lived it. Who spoke about an employer’s bonus love for the grape pickers in his vineyard; and lived it.

Before Christianity, the people of Israel believed in the Spirit of God; that holy “Other” who personally touched their lives. The Jews knew it was not some junior ‘spook’ but truly God. The descendants of Abraham and Sarah believed in this dynamic Spirit.

Nor was it confined to Jews. American Indians also believed in the Great Spirit. Some groups of indigenous Australians believe in a similar kind of “mother spirit.” So do some of the old African religions. But are these the same spirit? But what things does this Spirit do? What is the Spirit up to? What kind of a person is this Spirit?

For the Christian it is the carpenter from Nazareth, who gives content to the meaning of the Spirit. Jesus reveals the Spirit. In many places in the New Testament, the risen and overliving Christ and the Holy Spirit are seen as one. To ‘be in Christ Jesus” and to “be in the Spirit” are the same thing.

If we reckon we “have the Spirit” then let us test it by Christ. Is this Spirit one that leads us to engage in the characteristic activities of Christ? Please, my friends, trust nothing that is out of alignment with that Jesus we see reflected in the Gospels. Unless the dance of the spirit follows the chorography of Jesus, be very wary.

All that the loving Jesus was - meeting strangers, embracing outcastes, forgiving sinners, calling disciples, empowering the meek- the Spirit is for us here and now. The man on the cross, dying for those whom he loved, characterises the Spirit who shares our lives day by day, and persists in leading us into the activities of true love and mercy. The life of Jesus is the Spirit in full celebration.

-------SO WHAT?---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what?

Hey! It’s time to do the Trinity dance!

For me Trinitarian faith means the celebration and practice of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Not a sacred formulae, not a definition of the Mysterious Being of God, but an alignment of what God has done for us, and is doing for us, and will do for us. The Trinitarian themes in the New Testament are in no way about the “essence” of God’s being, but about God’s decisive action in creation and redemption. We are caught up in that action.

There is only one God. That far we have common ground with Jew and Moslem. But from there we go on to our distinctive faith: Through Christ Jesus the Son, we meet the God whom he called Father, and experience God’s intimate Spirit who, like the very breath of Christ breathed into us, empowers us to be a people of grace.

I am privileged, enormously privileged, to have been caught up in this Trinity Dance. I may not perform it very well, but I am learning and rejoicing with every new step mastered. I hope, no more like yearn, for you all to experience the same sense of privilege and joy.

P.S.

For any of you who may have been made most uneasy by this inadequate sermon (a mere stammering in the Presence of the Unspeakable) I humbly ask that you treat me kindly. I conclude with a quotation from the remarkable African Christian, St Augustine, who was one of the early instrumental minds in shaping opinion about the Trinity. He wrote in his preface to his book on the De Trinitate:

I ask my readers, should they share my convictions

to travel along with me,

and if like me they are hesitant over some matters,

then let them keep searching with me.

Should they recognise themselves in error

let them turn back and try my way,

and if they find me in such error

then let them call me back from it.

Then we shall travel together the path of love

and advance towards the One who says,

“Seek my face”

SERMON 2: THE TRINITY REEF

IT DOES NOT GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS

Romans 8: 14-17

How would you feel if you found Lasseter’s reef? Most of you know older Aussies will know the story of the fabled gold, somewhere in the wilderness south west of Alice Springs in the red centre of our ancient land.

For any who do not know it, I will summarise.

The prospector Harold Bell Lasseter was found unconscious on day in 1897. He was rescued by an Afghan camel driver who carried him to safely. When he recovered he told of having found a fabulously rich reef of gold. He backed up his story by showing some promising rock specimens. Lasseter refused to disclose the location. Various expeditions were organised to search for it, without success. The man himself had difficulty in locating it again. He tried a number of times. In one last try in 1930, Lasseter disappeared. His remains were later found in a cave by an indigenous tracker. But there was no gold in his possession.

Some think Harold Bell Lasseter was insane. Some reckon he was a fake. Others conjecture he was sane, that he had indeed found gold, but that he was an extremely inept reader of a compass. An ineptitude that cost him his life when he took his final ride into the desert lands of the red centre.

However, the legend lives on. Poems have been written, documentaries made for TV, and new searches proposed. One poem written in the last century by Edward Harrington concludes:

Oh, some may jest at his fruitless quest,

Or murmur his name in grief.

But, somewhere out in the great north-west

Lies Lasseter’s golden reef.

And men will track to the great Out Back,

And die, as Lasseter died,

For only God and the stars looked down

On Lasseter’s long last ride.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE TRINITY REEF

So, my friends, how would you feel if you happened upon Lasseter’s reef ? I reckon you would marvel and your good luck and might well say: “Well, it does not get much better than this!”

That is how the Christians of the first few centuries felt about the Trinity Reef. Their reef had been revealed to them through that extraordinary Jew, Jesus of Nazareth. They had struck gold, big-time. They knew God as the eternally loving parent, as the crucified saving brother, as a nurturing sisterly friend. They were loved by, and in response they loved, a God in three persons, blessed Trinity. It did not get much better than this.

There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity spelt out in the New Testament. But the reality behind the doctrine it is joyfully present. Take Paul, for example:

All who are led by God’s Spirit are the children of God. You did not receive a slavish

spirit, dragging you back into religious fear/ You received the Spirit of family, enabling

you to cry, “Abba! Father! It is the Spirit who bears witness within your hearts telling

us that we are children of God. If we are children, we are truly God’s heirs, in fact, we

are joint heirs with Christ. Romans 8: 14-17a

It does not get much better than that!

They would not have traded this Gospel for a thousand Lasseter’s reefs! The self revelation of God, which lies behind the doctrine of the Trinity, was priceless. The doctrine arose to safeguard their ‘find’. I just spoke as if they by their own efforts had found this Trinity Reef; More accurately, the FIND that had found them. Then, having experienced it, those men and women tenaciously fought for their treasure. Those early believers were convinced it could never get much better than this.

Therefore they fought off any attempt, either from within the ranks of the church, or from outside, to minimise this special in-sight given by God . No matter how difficult their doctrine of the Trinity might at first appear to genuine seekers, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to those sophisticated critics who scoffed at the faith, those Christians would not budge. A loving Trinity? Why should they budge? They had it all!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERSON AND PERSONA

And so we have continued on through the centuries, and arrived at this third millennium. We have continued to place our trust in this same beautiful ‘three person’d God’.

How do people view our Trinity Reef today? Of course the noise from the scoffers has not grown any less. It had grown worse in fact. Much of this may be due to the fact that the word “person” had drastically changed over the centuries.

Today “person” means a separate individual, with all of her/his individual traits. To quote from my dictionary: “person: the actual self or individual personality of a human being.”

The understanding we have today has been forged through the individualism of the last 4 or 5 hundred years of modernity, and was more lately heavily influenced by the notions of modern psychology spun by Freud and those followers and opponents who came after him. For us “person’ has to do with the distinct, solo, psyche of an individual.

Not so back in the past. Not so for the Jesus people of those early centuries.

Person comes form the Latin word “persona.” A persona was a mask commonly worn by actors. That was the common practice first in the Greek theatres and then in Roman stage productions. The same actor, wearing differing masks, would sometimes play a number of different parts in a drama.

Applied to God, it does not mean that God temporally “acts” a part. God is never an actor, who after the play finishes, casts off the masks. God remains permanently true to what he/she has done; done not so much on the stage of this world but right in the pack of the audience.

The three persona that Christians saw and worshipped were not temporary “parts,” but Personal attributes which are eternally at the very heart of the nature of God. Never masks. God did not play providential “Parent.” God IS always our Loving Parent. God did not play “Saviour Jesus;” God IS our perpetual Saviour. God did not play “Holy Spirit” God IS always with us as Spirit-Friend. The Trinity Reef is eternal, the rock of ages..

It does not get much better than this!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please enjoy your inheritance. Fellow believers, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!

Like Paul, the people of that adolescent church of those first few centuries revelled in this God.

All who are led by God’s Spirit are the children of God. You did not receive a slavish

spirit, dragging you back into religious fear/ You received the Spirit of family, enabling

you to cry, “Abba! Father! It is the Spirit who bears witness within your hearts telling

us that we are children of God. If we are children, we are truly God’s heirs, in fact, we

are joint heirs with Christ. Romans 8: 14-17a

This was the fabulous reef of gold that captured the mind, and heart and soul of those Christian pioneers who slowly formulated the doctrine of the Trinity. They were determined not to compromise this revelation, not even by taking even a 1 millimetre back-step. Let the half-hearted dissemble, let the critics carp and the scoffers make merry! But they knew what a treasure they had received. Their “find” would not be surrendered to accommodate either persuasive philosophers or puzzled common people.

That is why we still cherish the Trinity Reef. It is why we long to share its wealth with others. The light it provides for our journey through this world is beyond price. It makes one mighty difference to the way we confront life and live it day by day.

Blessed be our three person’d God! For ever the Creator-Parent is at work for our benefit, for ever the Saviour Christ is healing our dis-eases, for ever the Holy Spirit is our Counsellor and dearest Friend as we journey on towards an even larger glory that is to come.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MORE YOU GIVE THE MORE YOU HAVE

If you had found Lasseter’s reef, you might well have exclaimed: “Wow! It does not get much better than this!”

But you would be wrong. It does get much better than such a mere mineral find, or a major win in some lotto. Finding fabulous wealth might perhaps (in theory) be able assist your life. But more likely it would severely complicate things and corrupt you and those around you. Striking it rich has (after the early euphoria!) frequently given grief not happiness.

Finding the Trinity Reef is the opposite. Knowing the loving God at the heart of the Trinity, is a joy that keeps enlarging. The wealth which flows from the love of our ‘three person’d God’ will never corrupt you. Nor will it ever shrink. It is one of those most rare things: the more you both use it and the more you give it away to others, the more you will have.

Poor old Harold Bell Lasseter.

Oh, some may jest at his fruitless quest,

Or murmur his name in grief.

But, somewhere out in the great north-west

Lies Lasseter’s golden reef.

And men will track to the great Out Back,

And die, as Lasseter died,

For only God and the stars looked down

On Lasseter’s long last ride.

His story has become legendry in our nation. Was he mad or a fake or genuine? We will never know. But one thing we do know. Whatever it was that possessed him, he spent many years, and finally his life, in trying to access it.

I would like to think we are giving as much dedication to our treasure. And in the sharing of it.

AFFIRMATION AND PRAISE

God, our loving God,

you are the Surprise from whom all discoveries grow,

the Delight of whom each victory sings,

the Joy to whom all lasting pleasures flow,

the Search out of whom all science springs,

the Truth who surfaces when all seems lost,

the Love who will not count the cost.

Creating God, high beyond our understanding,

we worship your mystery!

Redeeming God, deep beyond our deserving,

we worship your mystery!

Inspiring God, near beyond our perceiving,

we worship your mystery!

Amen!

And again we say Amen!

“Jesus Our Future” page 75 Ó B Prewer & Open Book Publishers...

email: enquiries@openbook. com.au

PRAYERS OF COMPASSION

Loving God, you are the complete parent, you understand how tightly knit our affections are to family and dear friends. When we pray, their faces most naturally flood into our minds, and we ask your blessing on them.

Please bless from the infinite resources of your wisdom and grace,

the ones who are feeling happy, successful, strong and decisive, for whom every day seems a new adventure in a delightful life;

but also the others who are feeling discontented, a failure, weak and indecisive, and for whom each new day seems like another burden to be endured.

Please bless those among our friends and loved ones

who have a strong faith, a sense of Divine providence, and who each day avail themselves of the grace of Christ and the inspiration of your Spirit;

but also those whose faith is weak or non-existent, who carry half-buried guilt in their souls or bitterness in their hearts, and who either can’t or won’t turn to you for help.

Please bless those dear to us

who never have a days illness, who have neither suffered a broken heart nor endured a grief, who are valued at work and are popular among their friends;

but also those live constantly with handicap or pain, or have been bewildered by soured relationships, or experienced deep sorrow, loneliness and desolation.

Now, most gracious God, we ask for a similar blessing on the wider world:

please bless, other lands and nations, other races and religions, friendly countries and enemies, people who are likeable and people whose deeds disgust us;

And bless the people who live in our street, work with or near us, who serve us in shops, banks and restaurants, or sit near us on train, bus, or plane;

please bless all around us in this congregation, also the worshippers in different churches, and the leaders of all denominations.

Out the infinite resources of your wisdom and love, bless them all, and hasten the day when we shall truly love others with the same respect and compassion we display towards those who love us.

Through Christ Jesus, Lord.

Amen!

OUR RESOURCES FOR MISSION

In the name of the Father I send you on your way: that Father of Jesus who sends rain and sunshine to bless both the just and the unjust, and who known our names and numbers the hair on our heads.

Amen!

In the name of the Spirit I assure you of good company: that Spirit who inspired Jesus; a friend in joy or pain, a counsellor in anxious times, a comforter in sorrow, and a discomforter whenever we become indifferent.

Amen!

In the name of the Son I bless you: that Christ who loved you and gave himself for you, whose peace is your healing, whose rule is love, and whose grace will one day bring your truly home with exceeding joy!.

Amen!

Go faithfully, my sisters and brothers, for all is well and all manner of things will be well.