Experience and Understanding - A Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday on the 1700th Anniversary of the Council of Nicea
GOSPEL: John 16:12-15
The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 16th chapter.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus’ ongoing presence with the disciples will be made known through the coming Spirit who will guide them and communicate to them Jesus’ will and glory.
[Jesus said,] 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
My dear sisters, brothers, and siblings in Christ,
the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the Communion of the Holy Spirit
is with you always.
(And also with you!)
We speak this apostolic greeting every Sunday in worship.
We do this early in our service,
and it serves multiple functions.
By using this greeting,
we state what it is that we’re doing here.
We are not here to worship Martin Luther,
nor the lesser trinity of me, myself and I.
We are here to worship our Triune God,
whom we traditionally understand
as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We use other names too -
Creator, Creator who sets free,
Lord, King, Saviour, Rabbi
Redeemer, Sanctifier.
We respond with “and also with you”
as a way of saying that we’re all in this together.
We don’t worship alone;
we are called and gathered together by God’s Spirit
in Christ’s Church.
We are also saying
“this is what we believe our God to be about.”
We are saying “God is graceful, forgiving,
loving, and communal,
interested in friendship and fellowship”
Sometimes we seem to move quickly in worship,
like the words become rote.
We can easily miss the significance of our words
in the moment.
Let’s be honest,
do we prayerfully ponder each word in the Lord’s Prayer,
or the creed, every Sunday?
Sometimes we speak the words
and miss the significance.
At times, we’ve all gone through the motions.
The same thing can happen
when we share the peace,
or sharing in Holy Communion or baptism.
we can miss the significance in the moment.
We engage in these deep, meaningful acts of worship,
rooted in tradition,
rooted in God’s Mission - God’s work,
and they boldly declare who God is,
and who we are as God’s beloved people.
We engage in them because they are meaningful for us,
but also meaningful for all God’s beloved people.
We do what we do in worship
because these are the things God does for us;
God welcome us,
cleanses us,
speaks to us,
gives us peace,
hears us as we pray,
feeds us,
send us.
We respond with praise.
When I hear these gifts of God
grace, welcome, washing, guidance,
forgiveness, love, community,
friendship, fellowship,
it’s no wonder we welcome new members!
Who wouldn’t want this from God?
On this Trinity Sunday,
our texts encourage us into a deeper understanding
of the Trinity,
but explaining the Trinity can be difficult.
We believe in one God in three persons:
Creator, redeemer, sanctifier,
Father, Son, Spirit.
One in Three, Three in One.
The 3 persons of the Trinity are unique yet united.
Jesus is not the Father,
Jesus is not the Spirit.
But Jesus is God,
the Father is God,
the Spirit is God.
We may try to find images in creation
that help us understand what the Triune God is like,
like water’s 3 forms, ice, liquid and vapour,
or the person who is a daughter, mom, and aunt,
but each image we can find falls short
of the beauty and majesty of our Triune God.
And some of the strong theological words
that we use are hard to understand.
For example, in the old Athanasian creed,
that used to be spoken this day,
the Trinity is uncreated, co-infinite, co-eternal,
co-almighty, co-equal.
It sounds co-mplicated.
The Triune God was not created,
Jesus the Son, begotten, not made
The Holy Spirit, proceeds from the Father (and the Son)
The Spirit was not created,
all 3 in 1 - infinite and eternal,
almighty, and equal.
Frankly, it is hard to understand,
As much as it is important to study
the scriptures and theology and to develop
strong understanding of the Trinity,
I suggest that our Triune God is best understood in faith.
Just like what happens at baptism,
and what happens in communion.
God is mystery.
Communion is mystery,
Baptism is mystery,
The things of God are best understood in faith.
After all - this is the gift God gives us,
God doesn’t give us certainty - God gives faith.
Faith is to be experienced.
God is to be experienced.
We can experience God
without a complete intellectual understanding
of who God is.
But, it also matters what we say about God.
Experience and understanding.
experience and understanding.
On this 1700th anniversary
of the Council of Nicea
we can glean some wisdom
as we live in its legacy.
Here’s the Cole’s notes of the Council of Nicea:
Emperor Constantine called this ecumenical council
in the year 325.
The primary reason for the council was to deal with
theological controversy.
There was a church father, now considered heretic,
Arius from Alexandria was saying
that Jesus was a created being,
That he was human - and not God.
God’s Spirit used Bishops, like St. Nicholas
to help steer the Church in council.
One result of the Council of Nicea
is the emergence of the Nicene Creed,
and the declaration that Jesus is of one substance
with God the Father.
True God, from True God.
one being with the Father.
This means there is no hierarchy in the Trinity.
Faithful tangent,
it is good to make the sign of the cross on yourself,
to remember your baptism in to Christ.
We normally say Father at the top,
Son at the bottom,
Holy Spirit, left to right
(or right to left, depending on tradition),
but it does not mean the Son is at the bottom.
Within the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit,
there is cooperation,
there is common mission and vision.
Jesus obeys God the Father,
God the Creator’s work is all about Jesus.
The Spirit moves Jesus to the Cross,
but the Spirit also raises Jesus from the dead.
Each person of the Trinity is unique,
yet God is One, united.
Perhaps a good word for understanding
and experiencing the Trinity,
is dance.
Come join the dance of Trinity we will soon sing.
Imagine what the church could look like,
if we were to take a page out of the Trinity’s book,
and treat one another as equals,
without hierarchy,
creative, cooperating,
engaging in a common mission and vision,
using our unique God given gifts,
sharing our stories of how we experience God;
A community that treats each other
and our wider community
with grace, forgiveness, love, and communion.
fellowship, community.
God in Three Persons is calling us into Trinitarian Community.
Being a Trinitarian community
means trusting in God’s Spirit to help us, ourselves,
believe the good news of Jesus Christ,
to believe that we live in Christ’s presence always,
who loves us and urges us to love our community
and all of creation which God made.
I emphasize the communion of the Holy Spirit here,
because, like the Triune God’s work in the world,
we too are invited to be about community,
diverse people in unity, and common purpose:
loving the world that God so loves.
Our community of faith here is not much different
than that community of disciples
that Jesus spoke words of comfort to,
and not much different than the gathering at Nicea:
For we worship together.
We journey in faith together.
And we have our doubts together.
All are welcome and treasured,
no matter where we are at in our faith or in our doubt
We are the ones who are following Jesus,
yet have at times let Jesus down,
and have failed to understand.
Yet we share hope in this same Jesus
who promises to neither leave us nor forsake us.
And we have hope in this same Jesus
who sends us out from this place
to take part in God’s mission.
When we talk about God’s mission,
God’s mission is not filling certain pews in Scenic Acres.
God’s mission is not about filling the pews
at the St. Peter’s Catholic Church,
nor the big box church
nor any particular church.
God’s mission is about reaching people,
people in every nation, the hurt,
the struggling, the sick,
anyone and everyone
with the Good News that Jesus Christ is risen,
that God loves them incredibly,
that all creation is of immeasurable worth
in God’s eyes.
and this is not some far off reality,
in some heaven light years away.
It is not just 2025 years ago in Holy Land,
not just in the life to come,
but now - and always.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit IS with you all!
And also with you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
