We ARE Monotheists

Trinity Sunday Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 15 June 2014

Year A RCL: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

Jesus says ...I am with you always, to the end of the age.

May we always remember this blessing.

Jesus gives us this blessing after he gives us our marching orders in today's Gospel: Go & make disciples of all nations, baptizing people & teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us.

Jesus says to baptize “in the name of the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Spirit.” What he states clearly we commemorate today on Trinity Sunday. We worship the Holy Trinity – the Three in One, One God in Three.

To go & make disciples, baptizing & teaching them, we must know what we are teaching. We must be clear that the Holy Trinity we worship is ONE God.

 We are monotheists.

The One God we follow has “3 distinct personal expressions of the one, eternally rich God who is love...”¹ 

Simple analogies may help. Think of water:

We experience as it as flowing liquid, solid ice, hot steam.² 

Think of bread: 

Its ingredients are from the fruit of the earth God creates in the beginning. We experience its taste, texture,

nourishment.

We don't have to know all about how it nourishes us for it to nourish us.

The bread we eat at this Holy Table, we eat to remember Jesus, who comes to live among, to show us how to live, dies to save us, rises again & ascends, & by his departure increases his presence with us³.

He says: “I am with you always.”

Through the gift of the Holy Spirit,

Jesus increases his presence with us –

not decreases his presence.⁴

We ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify the bread we share at this Holy Table. Like the bread we eat at home, the bread we eat here transforms inside us to nourish our bodies. This holy bread also feeds our spirits. 

How?

How is part of the profound Mystery of God for which simple analogies are inadequate.

The Triune God who creates all, shows us how to live, & comes to dwell within us, wants to be with us. God’s love creates us to be “in a relationship”⁵ (with God & all God’s creation).
God makes us for relationship in community & draws us into God’s Holy Community.

We know God as Creator, Redeemer & Sustainer.  

Theologian & author David Cunningham offers this fluid analogy of God: Source, Wellspring & Living Water.⁶ He says:

 “...imagine a spring of water coming up out of the ground &...flowing out to nourish the surrounding landscape...

The wellspring that comes forth from the ground is different from the water that flows out away from the spring,

 yet we would be hard pressed to say

where one stopped & the other started.”⁷

Scriptures in Jeremiah & John refer to God & the Holy Spirit as Living Water (see Jer. 2:13, 17:13 & John 4:10-14; 7:38-39).⁸ 
The holy scriptures use analogies to help us know something about God.

The Holy Trinity is One. This Mystery hard to comprehend IS ONE. You & I proclaim faith in this Mystery. We declare our faith when we say the Apostles Creed & the Nicene Creed, the result of centuries of work by wise Christian thinkers to clarify that we are monotheists.⁹ 

We worship ONE God, not 3.

“The doctrine of the Trinity is to explain the range & variety of divine action,”¹⁰ says priest, author & scholar Ian Markham, who serves as Dean & President of Virginia Theological Seminary & has led a Clergy Conference for us.

The Creeds help us express the Mystery of the One God, whom we know through different aspects of our relationship with God: creation, following Jesus as our redeemer, & through the guidance of the Holy Spirit that we experience personally & through our unity in the Body of Christ.

Notice: Our Creeds & Scriptures speak of God “concretely & specifically”

rather than generally & indefinitely.¹¹

We “Christians affirm (our) faith in God as sovereign Lord of all creation who has done a new & gracious work in Jesus Christ & who continues to be active in the world through the power of the Spirit.”¹²

We declare “God to be the source, the mediator, & the power of new life. God is the majestic creator of the heavens & the earth (as our lesson in Genesis says), the servant redeemer of a world gone astray, & the transforming Spirit who empowers new beginnings of human life & (an expected)...new heaven &...a new earth.”¹³

You & I proclaim faith in One God,

“...the one, eternally rich God

who is love...”¹⁴

As we ponder this Mystery, we can take heart that some 
on that mountain with Jesus doubted.
 It is OK to question, to wonder. As Albert Einstein says:

"The important thing is not to stop 

questioning. Curiosity has its own 

reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe when 

(one) contemplates the mysteries of 

eternity, of life, of the marvelous 

structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely to 

comprehend a little of this mystery 

every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity."¹⁵

Bibliography

Cunningham, David S. “What Do We Mean By God?” Essentials of Christian Theology. ED: William Placher. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2003.

Dios Habla Hoy: La Biblia. New York: American Bible Society. 1983.

Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Hughes, Robert Davis III. Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life. New York: Continuum. 2008.

Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.

Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 6 June 2014.

Markham, Ian S. Understanding Christian Doctrine. Malden, ME: Blackwell Publishing. 2008.

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.

Placher, William. Editor. Essentials of Christian Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2003.

Van de Weyer, Robert. Celtic Praise: A Book of Celtic Devotion, Daily Prayers and Blessings. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1998.

Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.

1 Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. P. 69.

2 Note: Water imagery suggested by my husband, who remembers from his youth a priest using that analogy.

3 Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. P. 1070.

4 Ibid.

5 Hughes, Robert Davis III. Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life. P. 59.

6 Markham, Ian. Understanding Christian Doctrine. P. 84.

7 Cunningham, David S. “What Do We Mean By God?” Essentials of Christian Theology. ED: William Placher. P. 83-84.

8 Ibid. Cunningham. P. 84.

9 Note: This point Ian Markham emphasizes in Understanding Christian Doctrine. P. 83.

10 Ibid. Markham. P. 84.

11 Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. P. 66.

12 Ibid. P. 66.

13 Ibid. P. 67.

14 Ibid. P. 69.

15 Quoted P. 59 of “The Three Faces of Compassion.” based on Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.