Trinity Sunday, Prosper
On this the only day of the Church year dedicated to a doctrine and not a saint or an event, my assignment is to explain the deep and ultimately unknowable nature of the God creator of the Universe. No wonder clergy dread it! So here’s what I have in mind- detective work! I want to take one small clue and see where it goes, in the hope that one thing will lead to another. The thing I have in mind is how we in the Church introduce the Lord’s Prayer. We say ‘and now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say.’ Why is that bold? I suppose you could say that living in the world under the assumption of the reality of God is more bold than the alternative- true. But still, saying a prayer you were taught to say, if Jesus said so, doesn’t seem bold to me. No, there is something more afoot here, but what is it?
Jesus didn’t teach any old prayer but his own special one, which defined who he, what praying, was, especially in relation to the one he prayed to, his father. The first thing to notice is that he calls him ‘Abba,’ dear father, a name of intimacy, closer to 'Daddy’ - this was a discovery by new Testament scholars in the last century. There is no parallel in the ancient world, nor in the record of the rabbis. In fact, it was more usual to pray in a way that emphasized God’s grandeur, perhaps in the hope of flattering, since often in prayer we go on to ask Him for something! No, Jesus had a unique and intimate relation to His Father. They were, he said, one. Though his Father inhabits the highest heaven, from before time, to Jesus he is Papa. His prayer grows from a confidence that his plea, and his joy, will reach him directly. He is in heaven, set apart, ruling everything, the one who commands history- yet he and this God have the closest conversation, a shared life. This becomes all the more remarkable when you recall how the story goes on. He would arrive in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the end, and realize that he must drink the terrible cup of suffering and abandonment- but when he cries out that the cup might pass, there too he is called ‘Abba.’ He prays that the Father’s will be done, in the moment of the great trial, also called ‘the temptation,’ so that the agony of the Garden and the prayer of the Abba are one. In other words, the sacrifice of the cross, where Jesus identified in the deepest way with us (Paul says he became our sin that we might be the righteousness of God!) is also packed into that name, Abba, and the relation to him, which stretched to the max but did not break.
We believe that in Jesus the one God of heaven has come here. This is not just an abstract idea, but it defines how Jesus prays, because it defines who he is, and so how he lives and dies, and so also, who we are and how we live and die. That claim is what requires boldness because it is an audacious claim. Let’s follow this out, with the help of our passage from Romans, chapter five. The place to start is that God is trustworthy. He is who he says he is. He acts in a way that is consistent with who He is. His Being and acting are one. To be sure, there is so much we cannot see yet, God indeed mysterious. But the better we come to know of Him, the more and deeper we will know him to be the same one who he says he is! We will be taken higher up and further in, said C.S.Lewis, to see more detail of the land we have already been shown.
The words from Romans 5 are about what God has done for us, since in God who he is and what he does are one. First he has given us access to him through fellowship with His Son. This was of great importance to those first Christians, who lived in a world in which they felt oppressed by the fates, by what he called ‘the powers.’ Now, by trusting in Jesus, they have peace in the present and hope for the future. They are assured of what lies ahead, in what he calls ‘the glory.’ And all of this is through the love that is poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Yes, we can experience this love, of a kind real even when we are feeling unloving or unloved, for what matters in this passage of Romans is what God is doing- opening access, making peace, pouring in love. Again, the actions are consistent with who He is. And they show us what he will be like, even more, up ahead, in the glory. And what the one God of heaven and earth is like is this: access, freedom, in the Son, the God of overflowing, and extravagant love, in the Spirit.
So here is the cash-out- God is consistent because he is trustworthy. He is Father, Son, Spirit, and so His action is access, through the Son, in the Spirit. Who He has been from eternity, and what he does toward you and me, is one. Father, reaching down in the Son, reaching out in love in the Spirit. Follow me one more step- this consistency of God’s being and doing, is true in us, in prayer, in Christian living. Don’t get me wrong- we can indeed deceive ourselves, about a lot of things, including where to find God. But from His side he is trustworthy, and so the shape of Christian life conforms to who God really, and eternally is. Because he is trustworthy the shape of the Christian life conforms to God’s nature, broken vessels though we be. And that, brothers and sisters, is what the doctrine of the Trinity, is saying to us.
We’ve come full circle back to where we started, though now we can see more in those little words ‘bold to say.’ We are not talking about religion as self-help with ancient words. We claim that we are invited into fellowship with God revealing Himself as He is, so that our praying follows the tracings of His nature. We are praying with the grain of ultimate reality! Three chapters later, in Romans 8, Paul goes on to say that even when we are at a loss, when the most we can do in prayer is to groan, the Spirit prays through us, because the Spirit is working through the Son actually conjoined with us, taking us reliably to the Father. And finally, there in chapter 8’s conclusion, as we heard last Sunday, nothing in heaven or earth has the power to stop this connection from happening. That too is a very bold thing to say, about what is going on even in my most incapacitated and struggling moments, a bold thing too to say about how far down the Father will stoop for this Son, who, when he looks at His face, by grace sees you and me, as well. For God’s boldness, most of all, on this Trinity Sunday we give thanks. Amen.
