Trinity Sunday 2012 Is. 6, Ps. 29, John 3:1-17

Really, every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. At the same time, I think we could classify churches by their frequent reference to the Creator God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Our liturgical prayers teach us about the Trinitarian God, but I find myself usually gravitating to God the Creator in an disproportionate degree. Our reading from Isaiah is one of being awestruck in a vision of the divine. It is a good reminder for preachers and those in religious teaching that we can never, as mortals, attempt to put God in a box of our own construction. Seraphim could be fearsome creatures, not the attractive angels of romantic artists. This vision of God is a temple vision after all. We dwell within the hem of God’s robe. god gives us space, gives us room to live. The words about the freedom of the spirit is a sterling reminder for us not to get too hung up on doctrinal niceties for all human attempts to describe the divine are approximations at best. The divine bursts all categories and boundaries, including our attempts at describing Trinity. Isaiah sees God’s glory in a temple vision, but a vision nonetheless. At the same time, Isaiah’s religious imagination is enriched by temple worship and a full engagement with Scripture. This day points us to our continuing quest to love god in our hearts, but with our minds and imaginations as well. Ps.29 is a hymn to creation and seems to be a mixture of other faiths and other cultures. It appropriates the words of other faiths with all of its riches and dangers since they are confident in their faith. The presence of God, the gravitas, the weightiness of the Holy One is kabod. Our worship, our formal worship, is an attempt to honor that kabod., to take real care for word and music to develop a theme each sunday.That accommodating God suffuses the world of nature as nature’s God-The previous generation of biblical scholars saw Israel’s faith in God. With our environmental awareness, we have recovered much of the biblical material of God’s continuing care for the creation of all nature, not just human beings. Again, the world is God’s not ours. Again, we live within the folds of God’s robes filling the earth. Jim Sinclair has spoken of his view that emphasis on the Spirit is our task for 21st Century. We learn who God is by God’s actions. For Christians, we see God decisively in Jesus Christ. The work of god that binds together past, present, and future is the work of the Spirit of Christ. The loving bonds that propel us into a new future is the work of the Spirit. Instead of falling head over heels in abstract speculation, we look to the life of Jesus. Once again the story of Nicodemus shows up in our readings. We see that creation and new creation is the work of the God of the three, the god of the One. When it moves into the commentary or narration we get a great glimpse of the eternal divine vision.The Trinity is no detached god, but one intimately connected and involved with us. It is a picture of a restless God, always on the lookout for sparking new life, new growth, in ways that fit the needs of those whom God so loves. Without struggling with unfamiliar philosophical language, we do well to approach the Trinity this way: aspect of divine love in action. Those acts of love are always connected, born of the same impulse. A number of us here are offspring, parents, and spouses, three dimensions of human love.God is a god of interconnections, of relationships, all aspects of love.