Amongst the clergy, Trinity Sunday is traditionally the day
when they would rather not preach. And If
you were lucky enough to have a curate then you’d give them the task!
The reason is that on the face of it the idea that one can
be three and three can be one is so complicated and counter intuitive that it
is beyond rational explanation. Well I’m
paid to have a go in any case so here goes. God may be beyond all adequate
explanation......
........But then so is a human being! And as it says in
Genesis that we are made in the image of God then perhaps we can look at
ourselves to get some insight.
We all of us have consciousness. We are alive. We are
something rather than nothing. Where does that life force come from and what is
it? This first fact about our very existance is beyond scientific study.
Consciousness is still a mystery.
The former professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge
university John Polkinghorne, now an Anglican priest wrote once that “about 11
billion years ago all creation, us included, was nothing but a chemical soup.
The greatest miracle in the universe is that billions of years later a part of
that soup came alive, became conscious, and gained an intelligence so great
that we could examine the universe in which we find ourselves and know that we
were all once chemical soup!” This is the miracle of miracles.
This consciousness of ours is not disembodied. We have a
physical presence in the world. Our consciousness is embodied. We have hands
and feet and eyes and ears.
And what links those two things together is our will, our
intelligence – that which guides and directs these bodies of ours as to how to
act. We are one but we have three
aspects to our existance
So with God.
The Father is the sourceless source of all things, the
creator, the first cause, the source of all life and consciousness. It is to
this source that all our prayers are directed, as Jesus taught us....”Our
Father, who art in heaven”
Physical creation is the result, the outworking of that
primal consciousness
And the Spirit was the creative wisdom, the word, that was
there with the Father in the beginning that caused this physical universe to
come into being.
Christians believe that Jesus was the “word made flesh.” The Greek word Logos which which we translate “Word”
can mean simply “word” or it can mean “wisdom” or it can also encompass “meaning”
We can say Jesus was the “word made flesh” because we believe that in Jesus we
have the perfect human response to the
Father’s Spirit. His body, his will and his actions were in perfect accord with
God so he attracted the title “Son of God”.
Our job as Christians is to do likewise, to seek the Spirit
of God and so grow into a Christ-like response to his spirit as modelled for us
by Jesus Christ.
This is what we are doing here. Opening our hearts to the
guiding Spirit of God who speaks to us in many and various ways. He speaks as a
still small voice within, he can speak to us through scripture, He can speak to
us through music, beauty, science, He can speak to us through sacraments and
prayer. He can speak to us through other
people and he can speak through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
In order to hear, we need to be listening. Let’s resolve to
open our ears and our hearts to God’s prompting. Let us try to see and hear God
in nature, in each other this morning, in scripture, in communion, and in the
life of Jesus.
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
