Sermon Tone Analysis

Title

God Does Not Tweet or Post

Outline

What is the relevance of the Trinity in today’s world?

Certainly it was debated in the first Christian centuries, but we have the Creeds so why do we try to grasp the ungraspable?

Besides, aren’t heresies repeated in every age?

The fact is that the Trinity has everything to do with the “world” we actually live in and it affects both our worldview and our lives.

First, God is not part of this creation - he is

The reading in Proverbs talks about Wisdom, but in Scripture there is both a Wisdom Christology and a Wisdom pneumatology, for the one God is both Son and Spirit as well as Father.

They are outside of creation and are the ground of creation, but they are plural because they are love and one cannot have love without a seeker who seeks the good of the other.

So in Genesis God breathes his Spirit over the chaotic waters and creation ensues and yet the Son is the Word and the Word is spoken in each category of creation.

In the completed creation the Father has a temple in Eden from which he comes in the evening to commune with humanity in the Temple garden.

And yet, God always just is and always is one

Now in Romans we find we have access to God through Jesus Christ

But who is Jesus Christ?

We had broken away from God, setting ourselves up as our own standards and that broke us from one another and from the creation

God did send messages to us, calling us back, but always through a person who knew him.

His culmination was in the joining of the Son to humanity so he could look us in the eye, speak to us with the right voice tone and body language, and ultimately share his own flesh and blood with us.

God did not send a Tweet; he sent Jesus.

And the Jesus we know is the Jesus who leads us even now.

Finally, in John, as well as Romans, we hear about the Spirit

The Spirit was active in creation and active in communication in the Old Testament but is now active in us.

He is, to use J B Philips term, “the go-between God”

But he is more than that, for with Jesus taking his transformed humanity into the transcendent realm, the Spirit draws us into God and is God within us.

“When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”

But there is more to this than information, for God is truth, so to know truth in its fullest sense is to know God.

Indeed, Jesus said in the wider context in John, “We will come to you” indicating that the Father and Son would live is us through the Spirit.

And, at the same time, the Spirit is drawing us into union with the divine nature.

The future when God is all in all can be experienced now, as many saints down the ages have experienced.

[Brothers and] Sisters, I remind you of what you have heard: the Trinity is essential to our life, from creation to redemption to ongoing glorification.

The Trinity is our life.

Distortions in the Church or in our Christian life are distortions of our grasp or living out of the Trinity.

When we focus too much on a book rather than on the one whom the book is trying to communicate to us, it is a distortion of the Trinity.

When we forget that the life we live is drawn from God for the purpose of our love-union with God, it is a distortion of the Trinity and affects our lives in this creation as in some way or another we try to live as little gods.

When we ignore the earnestness of the Trinitarian discussions of the past, we are bound to repeat the errors of the past.

I do not ask you to understand the Trinity, for to fully understand it is to understand something outside this creation.

I do call on you to live into the Trinity, to draw your life from those three-in-one and to allow yourself to be drawn by them into their life and love, for that is truth, that is life, and that is love itself.

Readings

FIRST READING

Proverbs 8:22–31

22 “The LORD begot me, the beginning of his works,

the forerunner of his deeds of long ago;

23 From of old I was formed,

at the first, before the earth.

24 When there were no deeps I was brought forth,

when there were no fountains or springs of water;

25 Before the mountains were settled into place,

before the hills, I was brought forth;

26 When the earth and the fields were not yet made,

nor the first clods of the world.

27 When he established the heavens, there was I,

when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;

28 When he made firm the skies above,

when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;

29 When he set for the sea its limit,

so that the waters should not transgress his command;

When he fixed the foundations of earth,

30 then was I beside him as artisan;

I was his delight day by day,

playing before him all the while,

31 Playing over the whole of his earth,

having my delight with human beings.

RESPONSE

Psalm 8:2a

2 O LORD, our Lord,

how awesome is your name through all the earth!

I will sing of your majesty above the heavens

PSALM

Psalm 8:4–9

4 When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and stars that you set in place—

5 What is man that you are mindful of him,

and a son of man that you care for him?

6 Yet you have made him little less than a god,

crowned him with glory and honor.

7 You have given him rule over the works of your hands,

put all things at his feet:

8 All sheep and oxen,

even the beasts of the field,

9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,

and whatever swims the paths of the seas.

SECOND READING

Romans 5:1–5

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Revelation 1:8

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”

GOSPEL

John 16:12–15

12 “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

13 But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.

14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

15 Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Notes

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2022 | ORDINARY TIME

TRINITY SUNDAY

Sunday after Pentecost

YEAR C | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY