June 7th (Trinity Sunday) Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Genesis 1: 10–2:4a
Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on us. Fall fresh on these words and help us to find You in a time of vulnerability and turmoil in our nation. Amen.

On Trinity Sunday we oh–so–ordinary preachers are called on to explain something extraordinary. We are asked to explain the mystery of the three–fold nature of God. It’s one thing, after we have recited a Psalm during Morning Prayer to proclaim –

        Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
        as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
        world without end. Amen.

If we say these words week after week the words begin to roll off our tongues, and we no longer even think about them. We simply accept them. But it’s quite another thing to try to explain that three-–in–one nature of God. Because the truth of the matter is that you can’t explain it.
There is an ancient creed called the Athanasian Creed that takes a stab at explaining the Trinity, and you can read it this morning if you’d like. It’s on page 864 of your Book of Common Prayer. But it doesn’t really help our minds to grasp the mystery when we read,

        The Father incomprehensible,
        the Son incomprehensible,
        and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.

That’s actually what that creed says, so it hardly helps our understanding.
What does help, though, is seeing the three parts of the Godhead working together in a kind of ongoing harmony as we see them this morning in the opening lines of the Book of Genesis.

        In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
        the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,
        while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
        Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
        And God saw that the light was good;
        and God separated the light from the darkness.
        God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
        And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Now, I do understand that you just heard those very same words a few moments ago. But they bear repeating, because they are among the few images we have in the Biblical canon of what happens when God decides to create something, when he decides to make something new.
And you notice, he doesn’t do it all by himself. First, there is nothing but chaos and dark disorder, nothing there to see at all. But suddenly, by the impulse of God the Father, the Holy Spirit blows across that void . . . a certain word is spoken . . . and suddenly something good is created. That’s what God does, over and over . . . until the Creation has light and darkness, heavens and earth, land and water and live creatures all over that Creation – swimming in the seas, flying in the heavens and swarming or growing all over the earth.
Later, of course, much later, Jesus the Son of God will be called the Incarnate Word. That Word of God will have a name. But here in the opening verses of Genesis the Word of God is not named. The Word simply comes from the Father –– and in cooperation with the Spirit creates something good.
In fact, the only hint we have that the Word of God is active in the whole process comes when God says, “Let us make man in our likeness, after our image . . . ” In other words, God the Father is not speaking, here, simply of himself making something new. He is saying, “Let us – together now – create humankind.” So what is being demonstrated here at the beginning of things is something like cooperation, something like a harmonious relationship between God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. All together they are working to create something, something that can be called good.
Now, there’s just one other thing about those opening words of the first chapter of Genesis that I’d like us to look at this morning. And that is that a literal translation of these words is, “In the beginning, God began creating the heavens and the earth.” Creation, you see, is an ongoing process. It’s not something that God did once upon a time –– and then abruptly stopped. It is something God did at the beginning of time and continues to do today. And what that means is that even today, day in and day out, God is still actively involved with Creation, intervening, interfering, doing battle with the primordial chaos that is threatening to undo his Creation. ¹
I think we all saw that primordial chaos – that disorder – rise up in our midst two weeks ago and threaten to undo the order, the beauty and harmony of the world God created for us to live in. We saw it when a police officer in Minneapolis placed his knee on another man’s neck, crushing the God–given life out of him. And when videos of the unarmed victim, pleading for mercy, went viral –– that chaos threatened to overcome us. In city after city people poured into the streets by the hundreds and thousands –– to march, to protest, to vent their anger at the racial disparities in our land. And I don’t think I was the only one who thought every city in our nation might burn.
But then something I never expected to see, something no one expected to see happened in Minneapolis a few days after the tragic event. The police chief of Minneapolis, Medaria Arradondo, came to visit the spot where George Floyd died. He came by himself and he didn’t say a word. He made no statement to the network cameras. But seeing the mural of George Floyd painted on the brick wall and the array of flowers and notes left there for the family, he simply knelt . . .  in the street. He took off his gold brocade cap, and bowed his head. And the whole crowd went silent.
In the Gospel of John, when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, he said that no one could see the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, he said, is like the wind. We simply see its effect in the trees, blowing. That day in Minneapolis, I think we saw the Holy Spirit of God sweeping across the face of our nation, beginning to blow away anger and rancor and fear. For the next day and the next police chiefs in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Toledo, Ohio, Newark NJ and Denver, Colorado – all over the nation – began to march with the protesters and talk with them. Police forces in Atlanta and Philadelphia and Queens, NY knelt in the streets and – again, began to talk with the protesters.
I can’t tell you what – exactly – God was doing in those encounters. I didn’t hear every conciliatory word spoken between the police and the protesters in all those different cities. And I still can’t –– exactly –– define the Trinity for you. But I’m pretty sure I saw God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in action this week in our nation. Creating something beautiful. Making something new.
To God be the glory.
Amen
¹Will Willimon’s Lectionary Sermon Resource; Year A, Part 2 (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2019) p. 29.
 
 
 
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