Trinity Sunday

It all begins with an elephant

Once there was a village where all the inhabitants were blind.

One day a man passed through riding an elephant.

A group of the villagers cried out asking the rider to let them touch the great beast.

They had heard about elephants, but had never been close to one.

Six of them were allowed to approach the animal.

Each was led to touch a different part of the body.

After a while the rider left, and the blind men hurried back to the village to share the experience.

"What's an elephant like?" the crowd asked.

"I know all about elephants," cried the first person who had touched the animal's side.

"He's long and narrow, and built like a thick wall."

"Nonsense," shouted the next who had touched the elephant's tusk.

"He's rather short, round, and smooth, but very sharp. An elephant is like a spear."

A third person had touched the ear.

and joined in - "It's nothing like a wall or a spear.

An elephant is like a gigantic leaf, made of thick wool carpet.

It moves when you touch it."

"I disagree," said the person who had handled the trunk.

"An elephant is rather like a large snake."

The fifth person shouted their disapproval.

they had touched a leg of the great beast.

"None of you has described the animal accurately.

It's round and reaches toward the heavens like a tree."

The sixth person had been placed on the elephant's back.

And cried out, "Can none of you accurately describe an elephant?

He is like a gigantic moving mountain."

To this day the argument hasn't been resolved, and the people of that village have no idea what an elephant looks like.

You may have suspected that today's sermon isn't about elephants.

Our basic question is, "How can we /do we know God?"

From time to time I have had someone say to me, "I'm not religious" –

which usually that means that they don't go to church, don't pray on a regular basis, don't read the Bible…

It comes as a shock for such people to learn that "God isn't religious either."

The fact is that most of the people that tell me they are not religious may hold high moral principles, have a high respect and care for others… -

in fact, hold a whole set of values which shout that there is a great deal more to life than self, and more meaning to existence than physical reality.

So weather you are religious or not; the only conclusion is that : There is a God.

Within every single human there is the capacity to respond to the reality and presence of God.

And we all have a deep need to know God and to worship, love and obey him.

I get that religion can be off putting, I find it helpful most of the time but let’s not confuse religion with God.

There are other reasons why so people may fear God or choose to live without reference to him even though they have an inkling as to something being ‘there’.

The thought of God can be rather intimidating.

After all, he knows all about us and has the final say on right and wrong in the world. Ultimate judge. Not us or the people we place on a pedastol in this earthly life of us.

And us not having the final say, does not sit well with our 21st century world view, that argues that life is all about our happiness and our self fulfilment.

The blind men, we might argue, were describing their different experiences of the same elephant.

Their different explanations not only seem contradictory, however, but all of them represent a misunderstanding of what an elephant is.

If they could be persuaded to sit down amicably and discuss it all together, there's still no way they would come up with a true description of an elephant, although they might get closer.

Luckily for us God is not only there - he has revealed himself in different ways to help us understand him better. And one of the main ways was through Jesus.

It is not simply a question of our varying experiences of the spiritual, of the divine.

In our days of openness and dialogue, some are offended that Jesus said,

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" ().

That he could say, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (v. 9).

That he was here to reveal the nature and reality of God –

"The words I say to you," Jesus said to his disciples, "are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work" (v. 10).

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday.

The belief in the Three-in-One God arose in response to how God has revealed himself to us.

The Old Testament clearly teaches that there is only one God.

Yet the New Testament has shown us that Jesus Christ is God and that the Holy Spirit is God.

In seeking to teach clearly what God has revealed of himself the church has formulated the doctrine of the Trinity one God in three Persons.

The doctrine of the Trinity is beautiful, but for some it creates problems.

Many find it inconceivable.

It basically says that 3 = 1; the three persons of the Godhead equal one God.

The philosophers and logical people of the world say, "You Christians can't have it both ways, either you believe in one God or in three god's."

Both Jews and Muslims accuse us of compromising the unity of God by saying God has three persons.

The doctrine of the Trinity also creates other logical difficulties and questions.

How can the God of the universe be born in flesh and live a human life?

If God was in Jesus of Nazareth who was in heaven running the universe?

And if Jesus was God and died on a cross then God died?

If God died who was there to raise him again on the third day?

Was Jesus talking to himself in the garden of Gethsemane?

These are all good questions, but we don't have complete answers to any of them.

You see the doctrine of the Trinity is an attempt to explain something that is too great for our human minds to comprehend.

All we can do is try to describe what we do know, our own experiences.

We know that God is the source of all that is and was and shall ever be.

God is the creator and mastermind of all that is.

We also know that at the same time God came to earth in the form of a human being.

God was born of a woman as we were born.

God lived an earthly life as we live.

And he died a human death as we will die.

And finally we know that God dwells with each of us and loves each of us as though we were the only person who ever lived.

That is so great a mystery that words fail in describing it.

It is no wonder that the finest minds that God ever gave to the church have trouble expressing it.

How does 3=1 and 1=3?

I don't know.

Augustine, while puzzling over the doctrine of the Trinity, was walking along the beach one day when he observed a young boy with a bucket, running back and forth to pour water into a little hole.

Augustine asked, "What are you doing?"

The boy replied, "I'm trying to put the ocean into this hole."

Then Augustine realized that he had been trying to put an infinite God into his finite mind.

C. S. Lewis once said that the most frequently spoken word in heaven would be, "OH."

As in, "Oh, now I understand."

Or, "Oh, now I see what God's plan was."

Or, "Oh, now I see the reason for the trial I went through."

We do not have that luxury in this world.

We walk by faith, not by knowledge.

But one day it will be revealed to us.

We will be in the presence of the Father and the Son and the Spirit.

Tertullian, one of the theologians of the early church, explained the Trinity as a metaphor.

God the Father he described as "a deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit as that which spreads beauty and fragrance."

God has revealed himself in these different ways for a reason.

We know about him so that we can come to know him.

The Father has loved us with an everlasting love, revealing his nature in creation and history.

The Son came into our human history show us what God was really like and open the door of forgiveness for us.

The Spirit comes to dwell in us - to apply the words and work of the Son to our lives and to empower and direct us as his Body.

As John says, "God is love" ().

Love is very nature of God in this Three-in-Oneness.

He has made us in his image - with a capacity and need to love and to be loved.

As we know him, his character will be revealed in our lives. We have been learning about this in small groups ‘fruits of the spirit’,

So then, let us love God, love one another and reach out with caring and redemptive love to others.