Common Good: June 12, 10 AM

Sermon Text

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day in the church calendar where we acknowledge the Trinity, the threefold nature of God, commonly proclaimed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How do we proclaim God is one, while also proclaiming God is three as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Most days I’m okay living with the mystery because I remember this quote from Augustine: “If you comprehend something, it is not God”.

In other words, the mysteries of our faith should, to some degree, remain mysteries. Yes, we keep seeking to understand, but we also recognize that it is in the seeking that we see God.

And so, to begin, in our quest to seek God, I offer you two short poems.

First, from Mary Oliver, “The World I Live In”:

I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one. ^[1]

Then, from Kaylin Haught, “God Says Yes to Me”:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes^[2]

The doctrine of the Trinity—one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is not spelled out clearly in Scripture. But there are many passages that make reference to the relationships of God. Our Scripture passages this morning are just two of many passages that suggested the Doctrine of Trinity to our early church mothers and fathers.

In our passage from Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman who stands on the street corners and, in the marketplace, sharing her knowledge with anyone and everyone who will listen.

Wisdom, which is closely connected to God’s identity, is not limited to the temple or to the religious realm. God’s Wisdom calls to us from places that are accessible to all of God’s children. So, while we do believe that God is in this place here today, we shouldn’t believe that God is only in this place. God is also standing out there at the corner of Fillmore and Jackson, calling out as Wisdom.

And we’re told that her cry is to all that live. Clearly, not everyone chooses to listen to Wisdom as she cries out, but it is not for us to determine whom God may be calling. Perhaps my favorite verse from this passage is at the end, “and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

Wisdom delights in humanity. Wisdom rejoices in God’s world. Wisdom and God really enjoy each other’s presence, Wisdom is, daily, God’s delight. Whenever you think that church, or faith, or God, is all about rules or judgment or seriousness, remember this passage. In God’s own relationship there is delight and joy and enjoyment.

If that is how God exists, then shouldn’t we consider that it is how God wants us to exist as well?

How often do we take the time to delight in each other’s presence? After 2 years of Covid, I think delight has been pushed to the back burner a little bit. And I think the things that maybe used to bring us delight have now been tinged with anxiety. I used to love big crowds at concerts, races, wherever. Now? Not as much.

We will continue to livestream worship services in perpetuity and I’m grateful for technology that allows connection in these times. But it is harder to find delight through a screen than it is when people are together. Delight often happens in the unscripted moments when you least expect it.

When my friends and I were walking on the Camino de Santiago, I wouldn’t say “delight” was the word I thought of every minute of the long days of walking. But every so often, in the midst of the aches and pains, you’d turn a corner, and discover an amazing vista, or a beautiful and ancient tree lined path, or a shrine left by previous pilgrims, or musicians set up on the side of the trail, performing to entertain the pilgrims. The beauty of God’s created world that I encountered on the Camino was a delight. And then each night, after we’d shower, we’d enjoy a leisurely dinner and play cards or dice. We had nothing to do but to be present with each other. It was a delight. And they reminded me of this passage from Proverbs: “I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

Are we looking for moments of delight in our lives? Are we giving ourselves time and space for delight to happen? Delight doesn’t require vacation to appear, but it does require us to slow down in the midst of our daily routines and notice, and be present. One of my email signatures has a quote from EB White, the author of Charlotte’s Web, who said, “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder”. Proverbs reminds us to do the same for wisdom’s delight.

This is how Hildegard of Bingen, a wise woman, nun, mystic, and street preacher in 12th century Germany described Wisdom: “I am Wisdom. Mine is the blast of the resounding Word through which all creation came to be, and I quickened all things with my breath so that not one of them is mortal in its kind; for I am Life. Indeed, I am Life, whole and undivided—not hewn from any stone, or budded from branches, or rooted in human strength; but all that lives has its root in Me. For Wisdom is the root whose blossom is the resounding Word.”

Let’s hear it for 12th century mystics. That woman could turn a phrase!

Some people think Wisdom in this Proverbs text is a stand in for the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps they think Old Testament Wisdom stands for Jesus. I am okay with letting Wisdom just describe herself, without her having to be a code for something else. She was the first act of God’s creation. She is literally older than the hills and is not to be confused with any of God’s later works of creation because she was there first and saw some things that you and I can only imagine.

“When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker.”

So, this passage on Wisdom may not help clarify the doctrine of the Trinity—we don’t, after all, say “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and of the Wisdom”.

Maybe we should.

But this passage does call us to remember the importance, joy, and love of God’s creating acts. As we look at the world around us, we should remember that God created this world in love and with care. As we continue to watch the climate changing and the ozone layer disappearing, our carbon footprint increasing, and our oceans filling with plastic, perhaps Trinity Sunday should remind us to be more mindful of all of God’s creation entrusted to our care.

We aren’t just connected to each other, we are connected to this world in which we live, and which God created with joy. The personification of Wisdom in Proverbs also makes me think of the diversity of God. God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, the Word. Last week, on Pentecost, we considered the idea that unity in our diversity is God’s intention for humanity.

When we think about following a triune God, we need to consider that there is diversity within God’s very being. Think of the diversity of God’s expression to us—

as a peasant from Nazareth named Jesus,
as a voice from a burning bush,
as a pillar of fire for the Hebrew people to follow as they wandered in the desert,
as Wisdom calling out in the marketplace,
as the voice that spoke our world into being,
as the Spirit that blew through the gathering of disciples at Pentecost,
or
as God the Father of Jesus.

None of these expressions of God are complete alone, but each of them contributes to what we know of God and how we experience God.  God’s very nature is diverse. And God’s very nature is a relationship.

We see another piece of that relationship in the passage from John’s gospel. These few short verses are taken from a rather long section toward the end of John’s gospel where Jesus gives final instruction to his disciples and where he also talks to God: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 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. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

While John’s gospel is my favorite, I confess this section is somewhat long and rambly and makes my eyes glaze over in parts. And this particular conversation might fairly be called odd or strange by some people. John is very comfortable with this idea that God is a relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He sees no apparent problem to recording a conversation where Jesus is talking about two characters that none of us have ever seen. It isn’t the same as me telling you about what Alison and Michael said to me this week—because you know them. You can go up to them later and verify my story.

But we can’t do that as easily with God and the Holy Spirit. And John seems to be okay with that. Because for John, everything you want to know about God, you can learn from Jesus. And here we see that Jesus does not see himself as a solo act. “The Spirit will glorify me because she will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason, I said that the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The implications of following a triune God, one who sees God’s own self as a team effort and a relationship, is that we need to model our lives in Trinitarian terms. If God—who could certainly have flown solo had God chosen to do so—chooses to be in relationship, then we should reconsider how we relate to each other.

Victor is preaching next week about an idea called Ubuntu. ‘A person is a person through other persons.’

We only know what it is to be human through our relationships with others. I think this is a good reminder for us, on Trinity Sunday, of what it means to live in relationship with others. Yes, we as individuals seek to be good people and to succeed in our lives. But if our individual pursuits are in opposition to the common good, I don’t think we’re living triune lives.

There are voices in our culture telling us that our Christian faith should be only about what we do as individuals, and Trinity Sunday reminds us to question those voices.

Yes, our faith is personal—what we each do matters. But that doesn’t mean our faith is private—or only our individual concern. In other words, we shouldn’t be seeking a relationship with God just to benefit our individual selves. Our relationship with God should lead us to live lives that benefit those around us.

When my kids were looking at colleges, one of them really stuck with me, even though Maine was further away from mom than I wanted my kids to choose to be.

At the opening of Bowdoin College in 1802, President Joseph McKeen declared that: “…literary institutions are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education. It is not that they may be enabled to pass through life in an easy or reputable manner, but that their mental powers may be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society. If it be true, that no man should live to himself, we may safely assert, that every man who has been aided by a public institution to acquire an education, and to qualify himself for usefulness, is under peculiar obligations to exert his talents for the public good.”

I love this idea.

Listen to this quote again, but with church language substituted at the appropriate sections. “…churches are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for faith development. It is not that they may be enabled to pass through life in an easy or reputable manner, but that their spiritual gifts may be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society. If it be true, that no one should live to themselves, we may safely assert, that everyone who has been aided by a church to acquire faith, and to qualify themselves for usefulness, is under peculiar obligations to exert his or her talents for the public good.”

There are many ways we can exert our talents for the common good. Today, you’re invited to join the Living Sanctuary team for a conversation about World Refugee Day. This week the Seniors gather for food and fellowship. Next week, the Racial Equity team is preparing a Juneteenth celebration after worship, and we are hosting a blood drive. The week after that, you’re invited to join us after worship as we walk in the PRIDE parade. All of that supports triune living.

God calls us into community because God’s very nature is community. And God’s Wisdom is out there standing on the corners, calling us to live lives of connection with each other and the rest of God’s creation, in community, with delight in our brothers and sisters, and with joy that we follow a God so mysterious that our lives are filled with the journey of discovery. Be on the lookout for the presence of God’s wonder and delight.

^[1] from Felicity by Mary Oliver, 2016, p. 11
^[2] Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, Edited by Billy Collins, 2003, p 245

Scripture

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Wisdom’s Call

John 16:12-15

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”