Trinity Sunday A 2008
Theme: The Holy Trinity as creator
Let us pray.
Most holy, Lord God, on this day we celebrate the way we perceive your single divinity as three persons; let us remember what we see, hear, and feel, and let our brains get out of the way of the mystery of your being, through the divine person who came and lived among us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
James C. Leach offers the following. “Garrison Keillor, modern American prophet from the radio show ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’ said of love, ‘We should not think that we have figured this out, because it is not a problem, it’s a mystery and always will be.’
“’It is not a problem, it’s a mystery, and always will be.’ Doesn't that offend you just a little - the suggestion that there are those things in life we have not, and furthermore, will not ever, figure out? Now that we’ve become so advanced that we can put fax machines in cars and can send ourselves messages back from Venus, we are not really open to the suggestion that there are those things that always have been and always will be mysteries to us. We assume that our only limitations are time and energy, and, given enough of the two, there is really nothing we can’t ultimately know.
“So when we come to a doctrinal matter like the Trinity, the temptation is to want one neat analogy that will make it all clear, one concise statement on the Trinity that will settle it for us and allow us to move on to the next problem. Well, I hate to disappoint you so early in my sermon today, but if that is what you are expecting I suggest that you join those of your friends who are already daydreaming this time away. You see, it’s just not all that easy. It’s not so simple to describe the Trinity in any meaningful way. The Trinity just isn’t one of [those] things we can settle in short order.
“Maybe if we can’t figure out the Trinity in these few brief minutes (and, given that the church in two thousand years hasn’t been able to get it straight, it’s a fairly safe bet we won’t have the last word on it today). [I]f we can’t settle the issue today, maybe we can at least try to point to what the doctrine of the Trinity is attempting to say about God and how we experience God.”[1]
Martin Luther said, “To try to deny the Trinity endangers your salvation, to try to comprehend the Trinity endangers your sanity.”
So given the impossibility of the task, I will plow through the first chapter of the Bible, where we see how the Holy Trinity works in creation.
Genesis opens by saying something simply that is anything but simple. The heavens and the earth were created when all things began, by God. One thing we know is that ancient peoples did not know is that there was a singularity that exploded, creating our universe. Even though the earth was not immediately created (and for that matter nothing we know existed then either) the stuff that made the earth and every single one of us was created in that one cosmic explosion.
Astronomers like to say that we are made up of stardust. Everything we know about ourselves and what’s around us, began in that instant. Our building blocks began in that single second. But can we really call it a second when time did not exist before that instant? And technically, time is a human invention. (Just don’t tell Einstein.) Of course, the more Einstein discovered about our universe, the more convinced he was that God began everything.
When there is an earthquake or a tornado or a cyclone, we wonder why God would have created such destructive forces. The film from China is heart wrenching. But without those destructive forces, we would not have a habitable planet to live on. When those catastrophic events happen, we need not be helpless. If we cannot directly help victims of natural disasters, we can at least pray for them.
The opening phrase, “In the beginning, God . . .” came to mind as I was reading Bill Bryson’s, A Short History of Nearly Everything. He’s writing about the instant that creation happened. “There is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no ‘around’ around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long it has been there – whether it just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn’t exist. There is no past for it to emerge from.
“And so from nothing, our universe begins. In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. Or, as the words in Genesis put it, “In the beginning, God created …”
The next verses in Genesis describe how God created the heavens and the earth. There is an order to that order. For our purposes on this day, what is important is not what was created and when, but how the world came into being. Beginning with the second verse of the Bible, concern about creation is focused on our tiny planet. The rest of the universe is not as important.
The ancients believed that before anything existed, the universe was nothing but water. The Greeks called it chaos. When we read the psalms we get a sense of the connection between chaos and uncertainty with water. That is, when water is not seen as the source of life. When the earth was a nothingness, the Holy Spirit hovered, calming, the waters of chaos. Then the Word of God, whom we know as the Son, spoke and light came into being – the Big Bang. God named the light and the darkness and the first day of creation was over. Notice that the day begins at the evening. The biblical day begins at night.
The next day, the Word of God continued to create. A dome was made to separate the waters. The dome is our sky – waters below and waters above. After all, the sky is blue! The next day the waters below receded to make land. Plants appeared on the earth. Scientists believe that the early earth was covered in water. On the fourth day the lights in the heavens appeared. It was like day and night.
On the fifth day, sea life and birds were created. Scientists believe that plant life began on earth before animal life appeared. God blessed these animals. It is now believed that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.
On the sixth day, the rest of the animals were created, including us. We are different than the rest of the animals, because we were created in the image of God. Male and female, we were created in the image of God. We reflect God’s nature. Our creation transcends race, gender, or nationalities. The creator made us capable of creating. God shares creative ability in partnership with us. We were then given stewardship over what God created. We are responsible for what goes right and what goes wrong with God’s earth. Notice that all the animals, including us are vegetarians.
On the seventh day, God rested by creating sabbath. Even God needs rest and so the seventh day is holy.
What is important here is the way we understand God: as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – are all active participants in the creation of the universe. One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit made the universe. This is the Holy Trinity.
We now pray: Gracious God and giver of all good gifts, we thank you for the gift of being created in your image and in so doing creating a special relationship with you; let us never let go of you to pursue our own egos, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Text: Genesis 1:1-2:4a (NRSV)
1 In the beginning when God createda the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from Godb swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankindc in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,d and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humankinde in his image,
in the image of God he created them;f
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
[2]
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[1] James C. Leach, Naming God, Pulpit Digest, January / February 1991, p. 55
a Or when God began to create or In the beginning God created
b Or while the spirit of God or while a mighty wind
c Heb adam
d Syr: Heb and over all the earth
e Heb adam
f Heb him
[2] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.