Pastor's
Weekly Sermon
Trinity Sunday, June 13, 2021
Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-8
Belonging-Our Home in the Trinity
Well today we come to the Sunday that celebrates the Finale in the drama of our Salvation history. It feels like a peak Sunday for Today we celebrate the 3 leading players in our Divine Drama--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All 3 have all been acting in concert since the beginning of creation. Our storytelling began last December when God the Father sent an angel to Mary, who was chosen to be the mother of God’s Son. She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, just like the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of creation in THE beginning. By the action of the Holy Spirit, she conceived Jesus Christ—the second person of the Holy Trinity. Even at the conception of Jesus, the Holy Trinity was present.
We followed the salvation story from the birth of Jesus, thru his life and work in the season of Lent, into his betrayal, crucifixion and death in Holy Week, to his glorious resurrection, on to his Ascension, and then we finished in a big way with the entrance of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost wind and fire. And today we reach the epilogue, the Finale. You might say the credits are rolling at the end of our salvation movie and the major cast members take their bows—The Holy Trinity of Divine actors—Father, Son and Spirit.
Today is the day we reflect on the awesome story of our salvation by reflecting on the awesome mystery of our Trinity God—the 3 that brought creation into being—the 3 that make everything happen, the Triune God, 3 in 1, in which we live and move and have our being.
The Doctrine of the Trinity isn’t explicitly spelled out in the scriptures. You won’t find the word “Trinity” anywhere in the Bible. But Father, Son and Spirit are peppered throughout the Gospels. Jesus often speaks about the Father and the close relationship he has with him. And Jesus is always making references to the Holy Spirit who is coming to teach us all things.
Looking for the Trinity is like looking at constellations of stars in the night sky. There are some double stars or small constellations that you can’t see clearly when you try to look directly at them. But if you look a little to the side of them or use your peripheral vision, you can make out the individual stars in the clump. The 3 persons of the Trinity are like that. We can’t always see them clearly but there are clues to them thru-out scriptures.
You see the Holy Trio in our 2 passages today. In the story of Nicodemus who came at night to speak to Jesus, Jesus tells him he must be born of water and The Spirit, and compares the Spirit to the “wind that blows where it will.” Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man who has descended to the world from heaven. He says he has been sent by God that the world might be saved thru him. Father, Son and Spirit are woven all thru this passage, acting in concert to bring about the salvation of the world.
The early church fathers took note of all these references to Father, Son and Spirit thru-out the Gospel stories and realized there was a much bigger picture here—a much bigger mystery than we can possibly fathom. So they worked to explain how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all caught up in the life of each other in an eternal loving relationship.
The Trinity is beyond our comprehension and yet glimpses of Trinity are seen everywhere. What the church fathers crafted for us is what we call the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed to try to sum up in a nutshell the work and action of Father, Son and Spirit as Creator, Redeemer and Comforter. It’s the best we can do to sum up what we will never be able to fully wrap our minds around.
Paul too, gives us a beautiful lesson of how the Three-in-One work together—and not just how they work together but how we too are caught up in the very life of the Trinity! Paul writes of the role of the First person of the Trinity—God the Father, as our Divine Parent. And All who believe in Christ Jesus the Divine Son are sons and daughter of God. He says it’s the working of the Spirit that lives in us and testifies thru us that we belong to God’s family! We have been made children of God by the workings of the Holy Spirit. We have been adopted into God’s family! And we have become siblings to Christ Jesus and heirs with him inheriting the Kingdom of God. We inherit a share of his glory and a share in his suffering. But Paul says whatever we suffer for Christ pales in comparison to the ultimate glory we stand to gain!
Paul wants us to know what it means for us to live life in the Spirit. For Paul that life means that we have been drawn into the family of God! We belong! We belong—to God’s family. We belong to the Trinity! We are part of the Trinity! Caught up in this cosmic dance of Father, Son and Spirit. What an awesome concept!
Everyone has a need to belong to something. Psychologists tell us that the security of belonging is one of our most basic needs as human beings. Children need to know who they can trust. They need to know who to call Mommy and Daddy and where they can feel safe. We’ve all heard about the studies that show orphan babies fail to thrive and have even died from lack of human contact. Even if they are given good food and care they will still suffer withouts the most basic of needs—to belong to a family. They need someone to hold them and to know the presence of a loving parent.
All people have the same basic need for belonging. We all need people we can call friends and family. We all need relationships that are safe and rewarding. We all need a place we can call home. Poet Robert Frost said that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
Everyone needs to know where they belong. Even Jesus, who didn’t have a permanent home, surrounded himself with people he felt at home with. And he drew them into his most intimate relationship—the one he had with his Abba, Father.
Paul is also drawing on this relationship, saying it belongs to everyone who follows Christ. Paul says that by the Spirit of adoption, we are family and we too cry Abba, Father. We become heirs with Christ of all God has to offer. We have a home within the Three-in-one. We belong. This is such good news to all of us. And it’s good news to people searching for identity, purpose and belonging. That’s really the definition of being saved—It’s what the church is all about—it’s belonging to the family of God.
Since we have the security of knowing we belong to God’s family, this is a gift we can offer to others who are seeking purpose and a safe spiritual place of belonging. In fact this is a gift we as a small church have to offer to guests and visitors and seekers. We can offer them a family to belong to. This is a gift that can’t always be found in large mega-churches.
A friend of mine used to attend Ginghamsburg Church but she left it and came back to our small country church because she felt too anonymous. She said she didn’t feel like she knew anyone and she didn’t feel like she was part of a faith family. She came back to the small church where she could get to know people and they could get to know her. She wanted that place to belong where “everybody knows your name” She wanted a place where she could contribute her gifts too. This is a gift we as a small church can offer.
One of our UCC pastors had been serving a local Presbyterian church for a few years. But after a while, his heart was longing to come back into the fold of the UCC. When he shared this with our Association minister he said, Pastor, it’s time for you to come home. The pastor started to weep. He had wandered from that place he called home.
My sister is a realtor in Phoenix, Arizona. She works hard to find her clients just the right house to fits their needs. When she gives them the keys, she doesn’t say here’s your new house, she tells them “welcome home” What wonderful words to hear!
We hope to welcome people to share the rich life of faith that we enjoy. We hope to welcome them home—to a place where no matter what challenges life throws at us we have the assurance of God’s parental Love, the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of our brother Jesus. We belong to the Holy Trinity as brothers and sisters of Jesus—children of God thru the action of the Holy Spirit. Let us seek to offer that same belonging to all God’s people. Amen.
Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-8
Belonging-Our Home in the Trinity
Well today we come to the Sunday that celebrates the Finale in the drama of our Salvation history. It feels like a peak Sunday for Today we celebrate the 3 leading players in our Divine Drama--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All 3 have all been acting in concert since the beginning of creation. Our storytelling began last December when God the Father sent an angel to Mary, who was chosen to be the mother of God’s Son. She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, just like the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of creation in THE beginning. By the action of the Holy Spirit, she conceived Jesus Christ—the second person of the Holy Trinity. Even at the conception of Jesus, the Holy Trinity was present.
We followed the salvation story from the birth of Jesus, thru his life and work in the season of Lent, into his betrayal, crucifixion and death in Holy Week, to his glorious resurrection, on to his Ascension, and then we finished in a big way with the entrance of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost wind and fire. And today we reach the epilogue, the Finale. You might say the credits are rolling at the end of our salvation movie and the major cast members take their bows—The Holy Trinity of Divine actors—Father, Son and Spirit.
Today is the day we reflect on the awesome story of our salvation by reflecting on the awesome mystery of our Trinity God—the 3 that brought creation into being—the 3 that make everything happen, the Triune God, 3 in 1, in which we live and move and have our being.
The Doctrine of the Trinity isn’t explicitly spelled out in the scriptures. You won’t find the word “Trinity” anywhere in the Bible. But Father, Son and Spirit are peppered throughout the Gospels. Jesus often speaks about the Father and the close relationship he has with him. And Jesus is always making references to the Holy Spirit who is coming to teach us all things.
Looking for the Trinity is like looking at constellations of stars in the night sky. There are some double stars or small constellations that you can’t see clearly when you try to look directly at them. But if you look a little to the side of them or use your peripheral vision, you can make out the individual stars in the clump. The 3 persons of the Trinity are like that. We can’t always see them clearly but there are clues to them thru-out scriptures.
You see the Holy Trio in our 2 passages today. In the story of Nicodemus who came at night to speak to Jesus, Jesus tells him he must be born of water and The Spirit, and compares the Spirit to the “wind that blows where it will.” Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man who has descended to the world from heaven. He says he has been sent by God that the world might be saved thru him. Father, Son and Spirit are woven all thru this passage, acting in concert to bring about the salvation of the world.
The early church fathers took note of all these references to Father, Son and Spirit thru-out the Gospel stories and realized there was a much bigger picture here—a much bigger mystery than we can possibly fathom. So they worked to explain how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all caught up in the life of each other in an eternal loving relationship.
The Trinity is beyond our comprehension and yet glimpses of Trinity are seen everywhere. What the church fathers crafted for us is what we call the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed to try to sum up in a nutshell the work and action of Father, Son and Spirit as Creator, Redeemer and Comforter. It’s the best we can do to sum up what we will never be able to fully wrap our minds around.
Paul too, gives us a beautiful lesson of how the Three-in-One work together—and not just how they work together but how we too are caught up in the very life of the Trinity! Paul writes of the role of the First person of the Trinity—God the Father, as our Divine Parent. And All who believe in Christ Jesus the Divine Son are sons and daughter of God. He says it’s the working of the Spirit that lives in us and testifies thru us that we belong to God’s family! We have been made children of God by the workings of the Holy Spirit. We have been adopted into God’s family! And we have become siblings to Christ Jesus and heirs with him inheriting the Kingdom of God. We inherit a share of his glory and a share in his suffering. But Paul says whatever we suffer for Christ pales in comparison to the ultimate glory we stand to gain!
Paul wants us to know what it means for us to live life in the Spirit. For Paul that life means that we have been drawn into the family of God! We belong! We belong—to God’s family. We belong to the Trinity! We are part of the Trinity! Caught up in this cosmic dance of Father, Son and Spirit. What an awesome concept!
Everyone has a need to belong to something. Psychologists tell us that the security of belonging is one of our most basic needs as human beings. Children need to know who they can trust. They need to know who to call Mommy and Daddy and where they can feel safe. We’ve all heard about the studies that show orphan babies fail to thrive and have even died from lack of human contact. Even if they are given good food and care they will still suffer withouts the most basic of needs—to belong to a family. They need someone to hold them and to know the presence of a loving parent.
All people have the same basic need for belonging. We all need people we can call friends and family. We all need relationships that are safe and rewarding. We all need a place we can call home. Poet Robert Frost said that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
Everyone needs to know where they belong. Even Jesus, who didn’t have a permanent home, surrounded himself with people he felt at home with. And he drew them into his most intimate relationship—the one he had with his Abba, Father.
Paul is also drawing on this relationship, saying it belongs to everyone who follows Christ. Paul says that by the Spirit of adoption, we are family and we too cry Abba, Father. We become heirs with Christ of all God has to offer. We have a home within the Three-in-one. We belong. This is such good news to all of us. And it’s good news to people searching for identity, purpose and belonging. That’s really the definition of being saved—It’s what the church is all about—it’s belonging to the family of God.
Since we have the security of knowing we belong to God’s family, this is a gift we can offer to others who are seeking purpose and a safe spiritual place of belonging. In fact this is a gift we as a small church have to offer to guests and visitors and seekers. We can offer them a family to belong to. This is a gift that can’t always be found in large mega-churches.
A friend of mine used to attend Ginghamsburg Church but she left it and came back to our small country church because she felt too anonymous. She said she didn’t feel like she knew anyone and she didn’t feel like she was part of a faith family. She came back to the small church where she could get to know people and they could get to know her. She wanted that place to belong where “everybody knows your name” She wanted a place where she could contribute her gifts too. This is a gift we as a small church can offer.
One of our UCC pastors had been serving a local Presbyterian church for a few years. But after a while, his heart was longing to come back into the fold of the UCC. When he shared this with our Association minister he said, Pastor, it’s time for you to come home. The pastor started to weep. He had wandered from that place he called home.
My sister is a realtor in Phoenix, Arizona. She works hard to find her clients just the right house to fits their needs. When she gives them the keys, she doesn’t say here’s your new house, she tells them “welcome home” What wonderful words to hear!
We hope to welcome people to share the rich life of faith that we enjoy. We hope to welcome them home—to a place where no matter what challenges life throws at us we have the assurance of God’s parental Love, the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of our brother Jesus. We belong to the Holy Trinity as brothers and sisters of Jesus—children of God thru the action of the Holy Spirit. Let us seek to offer that same belonging to all God’s people. Amen.
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