Connecting

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon today is entitled Connecting, and my focus is all three readings.[1] Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

A number of years ago, I was sitting in my brother’s kitchen reading the Sunnyvale Sun, a local weekly for everything happening in that Silicon Valley city. What caught my attention was an announcement for a new church group called Connect With Your Neighbor. I would have forgotten all about it if the paper had not printed its acronym: CWYN. That prompted me to think, “I could add two letters to that and spell my last name: CWYNAR.”

I mention that brief flash of genius to tell you that at times, when I am asked to spell my surname, I do, and follow up with this. “You will remember the spelling of my name if you keep in mind that I am a pastor and you should ‘Connect With Your Neighbor And Religion.’” That said, let’s look at how we connect not only with today’s Feast, Trinity Sunday and the Trinity, but also one another.

What is Trinity Sunday and why do we celebrate it annually? Trinity Sunday is a day we take to reflect upon our most basic belief – the Trinity of Persons in One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each is an equal Person to the Others and they cannot be divided.

The reason for our observance of this Feast has its roots in the Arian heresy of the 4^th century. Arius believed that Jesus Christ was a created being rather than God. In denying the divinity of Christ, he denied that there are three Persons in God. St. Athanasius upheld the orthodox doctrine that there are three Persons in one God, and the orthodox view prevailed at the Council of Nicaea, from which we get the Nicene Creed, which we recite on a regular basis.

A side note about how Santa Claus dealt with Arius. Confronted with his heretical, blasphemous views, Saint Nicholas of Myra, whom we know today as Santa Claus, marched across the council floor and slapped Arius across the face. Now, there’s the Santa Claus we all know and love.

Back to our Feast. For centuries the Feast of the Holy Trinity was celebrated with no fixed date. Almost 1,000 years after the Council of Nicaea, a date was finally set for this Sunday. It follows Pentecost because as we heard in our first reading (Acts 2:22-36), Peter and the Church proclaimed the doctrine of the Trinity to the world.

Our Lutheran Augsburg Confession clearly states our belief in what was presented at the Council of Nicaea, as well as the Athanasian Creed. Yet, the doctrine of the Trinity is beyond our comprehension. It is not that we cannot count to three or understand how three persons can be related, although there may be moments when my brother cannot believe that we both came from the same parents. The difficulty is in the relation of the Three Persons to each other and the way they are united in one Godhead without being only parts of it.[2]

While some have used similes, comparisons, images or illustrations to represent the doctrine of the Trinity, these all fail to illustrate its beauty or explain its meaning for us. The Trinity has been compared to fire, which is said to possess the three attributes of flame, light and heat. This division is highly artificial, and the comparison is faulty, because Father, Son and Spirit are not attributes of God, but each is God Himself. The Trinity has also been compared to the division of a human being into body, soul and mind. Again, each of these taken separately is not a human being, whereas each of the divine Persons, separately considered, is truly God.[3] So, until each of us experiences the fullness of the Beatific Vision of our Triune God, we will have to keep pondering how these Three Persons are involved in my life.

Perhaps you are thinking that it would be easier if I did not try to wrap my mind and heart around the Trinity, but as one prominent Protestant theologian said, “The Trinity. Try to understand it and you’ll lose your mind; try to deny it and you’ll lose your soul.”[4] Accepting our teaching of the Trinity is not spiritual or intellectual bullying. It’s just how God reveals God.

Today, more evangelical churches are beginning to celebrate today as Trinity Sunday. They are no longer paralyzed to talk about the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather, they have joined the conversation with Eastern (Orthodox and Byzantine) and Western (Catholic and Protestant) Churches because they realize that the core of our teaching is Biblical.

They have also come to see that the views of Arius still influence Christian thinking even today. Battling heresy is like weeding my garden. When I run the tiller over the ground everything looks smooth and fertile, but within a short time, the remnants of those upended weeds re-emerge. What re-emerged from Arianism was subordination. A number of preachers presented Jesus Christ as subordinate to the Father. By dividing the two, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross counts for less because he was not the entirety of God when he gave his life.

So, a number of Evangelicals have come to accept that the Trinity as three co-equal persons in one God, and more clearly understand their savior and the supernatural existence he lived beyond earthly understanding. But they have also come to see another problem with subordination that I will get to later.[5]

Our texts for today clearly show the distinct activities of each Person of the Trinity. Simply put, the Father creates; the Son redeems; and the Holy Spirit sanctifies. As you read Genesis (1:1-2:4), do not gloss over the creation of mankind. After God created the elements, the animals and plants, he saw that they were good. When it comes to the creation of mankind, we read that God saw that this was very good – elevating humans above all other creatures and creation. We were created in the image of God (imago Dei). The text reads, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” God created you in the likeness of the Divine Persons. Your newborn child, grandchild or great-grandchild was conceived or created in that same divine image. Each person conceived is distinctly and divinely created in God own image … for the entire human lifespan. Our Psalm (8) reminds us how God values babies and infants, as well as fully grown men and women. The next time you look at a baby, and hear, “He looks like his father. She looks like her mother,” nod and agree, and then add, “She (or he) looks like God.” We are all made in that image.

In our reading from Acts (2:22-36), Peter profoundly proclaims to his hearers how God’s plan of redemption was revealed in the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus the Christ, whom they crucified and killed, and whom God raised to everlasting life. Jesus’ human life was not lived randomly, but purposefully for you and me. He descended from heaven to earth as well as to hell to redeem all that was lost previously. Think of finding and claiming a lost treasure and redeeming it for its true worth. Think of meeting again a cousin or friend you had not seen in decades. Not to reduce the work of Christ to that, but it gives us a starting point to see how valuable you are even in your sinful state. In God’s eyes, you are worth redeeming, and Jesus Christ did that because his Father willed it.

Our Gospel tells us that Jesus possessed all authority in heaven and on earth. We think of authority as someone with power, like any president or governor, whether we like their use of it or not. Authority is power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior. Think of all the people who have influenced you: parents and teachers, coaches and commanding officers, bosses and business associates. People with ideas like Andrew Carnegie or Andrew Mellon, Susan B. Anthony or Mother Teresa, Alexander Graham Bell or Steve Jobs affect our lives daily. Long after they are gone, their ideas impact how we live.

Yet, the word authority comes from the word author, and its root is the Latin word auctor meaning one who causes to grow or to increase. Jesus gave that authority to the Twelve Apostles so that you may grow in faith. Our redemption came through the Paschal Mystery, and our sanctification through the Church who received that original authority from God the Son, and remains with the Church through God the Holy Spirit.

We have been commanded to baptize according to Christ’s words, and to teach what Jesus taught – no more, no less. The Church or the Twelve did not leave there and say, “Let’s not teach everything Jesus taught about marriage or punishment or forgiveness or everlasting life.” The call of the Church is not to teach anything that leads away from God, but to God. That is the purpose of being guided by the Holy Spirit – to lead all people to our Triune God. Our main charge as Church is the salvation of souls. If we accomplished only that, it would be enough.

Now, let me return to an earlier point I made about subordination. First of all, we recognize that all religious denominations are not Christian. Fundamentally, if you claim to be Christian, you have to believe in the Trinity. You must believe in Three co-equal Persons in the Godhead. Subordination of any one of the Persons would and does affect the way we see each other. How?

If I believe that the Son or Holy Spirit are not co-equal to God the Father, wouldn’t that affect the way I view people? By accepting subordinationism, I can accept a ranking system of man created in God's image because it would mean that certain people are ranked above or below one another depending on their relationship to the Trinity. Subordinationism has been used to justify the dominance of one category of people over others, and we can think of many cases in history where this has occurred.[6] It also leads to separating people from one another.

Friends, God the Father did not create us in His image to separate ourselves from one another. God the Son did not descend from the Father to take on our flesh, live with us and teach us the way to the Father and then show us that way through the Paschal Mystery so that we can choose another way. God the Holy Spirit is not with us in Word and Sacrament, in personal and communal prayer, in love and charity, dispensing fruits so that we can live together as Church, only to forsake us when tempted by Satan, sin and self. Our Triune God has created us as distinct and unique individuals to be the One Body of Christ. We are Church.

So, when someone asks you what I talked about today, tell them this. “He talked about himself. He talked about Connecting With Your Neighbor And Religion, and then went on to tell us why we celebrate the Trinity.” And then ask, “What do you think about that?” As you go from here, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your minds and hearts in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Genesis 1:1–2:4a; Psalm 8; Acts 2:14a, 22–36; Matthew 28:16–20.

[2] Trinity, https://cyclopedia.lcms.org.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Cody Barnhart, “Five Ways to Celebrate Trinity Sunday,” TheGospelCoalition.org, June 6, 2022.

[5] Mark Hensch, “Evangelicals Take Stand on Trinity,” ChristianPost.com, November 30, 2011.

[6] Hensch.