Trinity Sunday Sermon Notes

Some time ago, our lovely youngest daughter told me that at my advanced age, i needed to start checking things off the bucket list. I took it seriously and noticed that national parks dominated my bucket list. I went Yosemite. I merely wanted to see the original 4 mile trail, one that has now been adjusted to five miles,. The ranger asked, you’re not planning to try that trail are you?Facing trinity sunday, to even inquire into the depth of god brings that old question to the surface.

In the two basic creeds we use do not try to explain the Trinity as much as report on activity within     God toward us.On Pentecost we acknowledge the continuing presence and labor of the spirit. In the deep recesses of our faith, we try to come to grips with the God of all time and space and God’s relationship to us. We try to get a peek at the inner life of god on Trinity sunday.When I was young we started speaking of an environmental movement. In church we speak of creation. Gen. 1-this is in most of our memory banks. We have other creation accounts and allusions in the bible, but this stately evocation of creation is the introduction to scripture.see William brown- orderly progression-linear leaps god involved in creation still-culminates in Sabbath-, Shack movie-all inhabit different dimensions of the same god-(By the way the Wisdom figure in Scripture is female)Most of us have little   trouble with God the creator and Sustainer, and with Jesus Christ of course, but the Holy Spirit  is more elusive.I think it is always a mistake to take the ancient bile and try to shoehorn it into contemporary science. It does give us a perspective on our scientific pursuits and observations. It may be helpful to be reminded that this account may well have been a direct counter to the reigning religion of babylon in the exile. Babylon’s story of creation was a bloody battle between the gods. The religious figures of the exile would not hold to that. They saw God working through non-violent movements in succession.

A name and more than a name.The same god is the creator and redeemer.

Gen. 1 is a hymn to orderly movement. The issue of randomness in nature comes into play then.this is a god who makes space for others. (Alvin Plantinga award)Wild is in the midst of the order and interlocking progression-sea monsters-

God of time

What god is not through jesus Christ-not vindictive-not violent-not controlling-healing-

Ps 8, cassini spacecraft-Rudolph Otto on the holy religious ecstasy captured by a special moment overwhelming-powerful-awe-inspiring-dreadful-eerie, uncanny, god as wholly other,but Incarnation

dominion/caretaking image? Not exploit, but farm if you will. A caretaker of a property

William C. Placher's book, "The Triune God," and every year it offers a new nugget pointing to the importance of the triune nature of our God. This time around I came across this, "In the incarnation, the three show that there is always within God a space large enough for the whole world, and even all its sin: the Word's distance from the one he calls Father is so great that no one falls outside it, and the Spirit fills that space with love. The Spirit maintains ... the space that Christ opens up 'at our disposal, as a new, open space.'" We can use that new, open,free,  love-filled space. The Trinity tells us that god is wide and limitless, in other words, god. That same god makes room for all of creation.that same god not only makes room for us but calls us ever more fully into the divine life.