| June 10, 2001 |
| Proverbs 8:22-31 + Romans 5: 1-5 + John 16:12-15 |
| Four of Five centuries before Christ’s birth, the people of Israel had returned to their homeland from the exile. A great poem was composed from which our first reading comes today. It reveals a most significant transition in the expectations of the Israelites.Their hope for an earthly messiah is gone with their earthly king. Returning from exile, they no longer look to a descendant of David to fulfill their hopes. They now tum to God, and the poem reflects their hopes and expectations. But there is a problem with this change, even though it ultimately proves to be the right one. The problem is. this God, their God has no name. What those Israelites seemed to do is name their God after the place where they have encountered the divine presence. The ancient poem which provides the verses of our first reading today is all part of the great search for the name of God. The poet believes that Wisdom is the highest of all virtues, that Wisdom is the source of peace and harmony, of justice and goodness, and so in the poem, Wisdom is the attribute of the Divine, and so poetically the virtue is personified and spoken of as the name of God. |
| Father, Son, Spirit, are, in a sense like “Wisdom” human efforts to hold onto, express in words, and cherish in memory experiences of God and our greatest hopes for God. When those ancient “Fathers” of the church met in Council to wrestle with and resolve the controversies surrounding the experiences, names, and implications of those names, their efforts focused upon relationships in a more inclusive way than simply virtues. For them, now caught up in the divine self-revelation in the Christian experience, the names have something to do with persons like apparent and child. Even the idea of “Spirit” is directly associated with the companionship of fellow believers, for that experience is always spoken of within the context of the “church” or the assembled believers. |
| This early summer feast falling year after year on the Sunday after Pentecost is no observance of an event’s anniversary Unlike Pentecost or Easter or Christmas, Trinity is not something that happened. It is something that continues to happen as long as God continues to be revealed among us, and as long as God’s people continue to search for way to express that experience and call that God by name. |
| The parents of this baby, and every parent who has ever stood here before us are caught up in an experience of God they could only barely imagine a year ago. Their experience of their love expressed for one another in a relationship that is pure gift from gift now has a name, and they have spoken it among us. They will never be ableto speak that name again without invoking the presence of God who is now, more than ever before, the source of life and love. |
| Father, Son, Spirit, Wisdom and any other words we use are all our feeble human attempts can manage to express and to hold on to the presence of our God living and moving among us. We may know this God by other experiences we call forgiveness, healing, hope, laughter, peace, or freedom. Whatever it is and however we name it, it will not be enough, and the effort will not stop there. |
| This early summer feast called “Trinity” is a wake-up call to all who have become complacent in their relationship to God. It is an invitation to continue the search for a new name, a better name, an other name by more deeply reflecting upon what God continues to do for us. These parents will never celebrate Trinity Sunday the same way again, because of what God has done in their lives. God has a new name, God’s presence in their lives is more obvious than ever before; and it must be the same for us all. Perhaps not nearly as public and as dramatic as it has been in the birth of this child, but none the less real. |
| It’s about God’s names. It’s about the experience of God day in and day out. It’s about our relationship to God and to one another, and our effort to capture that experience and express it in a word.It’s the Feast of the Holy Trinity |