Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 6:20 Series: 2023
A Trinity Sunday sermon on Matthew 28:16-20 that uses a chain of analogies (mountain spring, fire, lover-beloved-love) to teach the Trinity as Father-source, Son-creek/flame, Spirit-flow/light. Wilson argues the Trinity is not marginal: without it Jesus has no power to save and is reduced to a nice moral teacher, and we are left in control of our own lives. A Triune God instead offers his whole self for, in, and with us, drawing us into the love between Father and Son. Turning to the Great Commission (commission as verb, ‘sent with’), he shows the disciples are sent with two partners: each other and the Holy Spirit. Because God is Triune, we must surrender our mechanisms of sorting people into worthy/unworthy, liked/unliked; the body of Christ has no qualifiers. Letting go of control frees us to walk together into God’s future.
Illustrations: mountain-spring-source-flow-creek, barton-springs-source, fire-spark-flame-light, warm-room-fireplace, lover-beloved-love, pesky-in-law, military-commissioning, cafeteria-sorting
June 4
Trinity Sunday
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Jesus came near and spoke to them, “I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.” Matthew 28:16-20
There are not a lot of mountain springs in Texas. They exist, but they are hard to locate. It is especially hard to locate the source. It’s hard to locate the source of Barton Springs where that water comes up. We got the pool, we got the creek, but what is the precise location of the source of the water? One of my true joys of hiking in mountains is when you come across a mountain stream and you can follow it to its source. You have the source of the water, you have the flow the water, and you have the creek. These three things; they’re all the same thing. If you take one away, the other two cease to exist. If you take away the flow, there isn’t a source and the water disappears. If you take away the creek, the water dissipates and there is no flow. If you take away the source, there is no flow, no creek. This is one of the ways the early church talked about the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father is the source, God the Son is the creek, and God the Spirit is the flow, the connection between the Father and the Son, between the source and the creek. The Son being the visible expression of the Father and the flow of water being what comes from the Father and the Son, or the procession. You may be more or less familiar with the concept of the Trinity. Yet it is not a marginal thing. Without the Trinity, the Christian faith has nothing left. Without the Trinity, Christ has no power to save us. The Holy Spirit has no presence with us. The deeper we look into the Trinity, the deeper our faith can be, As well, the Trinity can be a stumbling block for some. This three in one God, some Jews and Muslims called Christians Tritheists, saying that we believe in three gods.
I don’t think this is the time to go into an intellectual deep dive into the metaphysics of the Trinity, but the message for today from the words of Jesus is that God is for us in Jesus Christ and with us, in the Holy Spirit. God the Father, the Creator, is for us, in Jesus Christ, and with us, in the Holy Spirit. All three are one God, not three parts. All three have power and unity.
We can come close to understanding through analogy. I already mentioned the analogy of water. Source, flow, and creek. All these analogies eventually break down, but they help us to align ourselves and to reflect in the direction of the truth about God. There is also an analogy of fire.
The analogy of fire is that there is the spark, the flame, and the light. Take away the light. There is no fire. Take away the spark. There is no fire. Take away the flames. There is no fire. The spark is not the flame. The flame is not the light. The light is not the spark, and yet they are all three fire. God the Father is the spark. God the Son is the flame God. The Spirit is the light by which we receive the Son and the Father. You can also make an analogy with fire and light and heat. God the Father is the fire. God the Son is the light. God the Holy Spirit is the heat. Many times, we feel the Holy Spirit as much as see it. We feel the heat of God’s presence. We can feel the warmth because this is the nature of who God is.
Have you ever been cold to your bones and you step into a warm room. You move close to a fire place. You feel the warmth. Your fears dissipate. You relax. You are safe. This is the presence of God when the eyes of our mind become open to spiritual realities.
Another analogy for today has to do with love. The lover, the beloved and the love between the lover and the beloved. The lover is God the Father. The beloved is God the Son and the love between them is the Holy Spirit. The life of faith is being drawn up and included into the love between Father and the Son. This is what is offered in the Christian life.
We have all these analogies, but what does it have to do with me, pastor Wilson? It has everything to do with you. If Jesus is not God, Jesus has no power to save us. Without Trinity, Jesus has no power, he has no authority. Without Trinity, Jesus is a nice teacher. He gave some good morals. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for in faith. Maybe you wanna raise your family in the right way, looking for some good morals, and there’s nothing more to it. You live in the right community, you think the right things, you vote for the right people, and it will all turn out alright.
We still keep God at a distance, like a pesky in-law. Maybe they come to town and buy dinner and are nice for a few days, but you need your space. A Unitarian God gives you space to be whomever you want to be. A Triune God desires to release you from sin and free you to love. Love means change. It is a change for your good, but we don’t always see change as good. If God is not Triune, sure Jesus can’t save us, but at least we are in control.
The Holy Spirit is the presence of God with us. We are included in God. The Father’s love for God, the Son. You are included in the love of the creator of the universe. You don’t need to stand on the sidelines of God’s love. You don’t need to stay in the shadows of God’s love. You don’t need to ignore God’s love until Sunday comes along or fill out your checklist of all the things you need to do before you can feel loved and accomplished in this world.
On this day, God offers himself to you. Totally, not partially. The Holy Spirit is all God. It’s not just a mode of God, it’s not a part of God. It’s not an agent of God. It’s not an attaché of God or an ambassador of God. The Holy Spirit is all God and it’s all offered for us, given to us. The deeper we look into the Trinity, the deeper we find God’s love for us. The more we avoid the Trinity, the more we’re stuck with ourselves and what we like and what we want and how we wish the world would be.
All of our desires are a pale shadow next to the glory of God. We can choose to live in the shadows of self-satisfaction or humbly step forward under the light of God’s love.
The last part of the Gospel of Matthew is known as the Great Commission. We have a modern misconception of what the word commission means. We mostly hear it today with a voting commission or a transportation commission. Jesus doesn’t say, I’ve got a great commission for you. The phrase was added later. We usually use commission as a noun, but here it is a verb. The military has it a lot closer to the Gospels than most of us. When they commission officers they use it as a verb. an officer is not appointed or passively placed. They are commissioned, they’re sent with, that’s what it means at its heart. Missio, to send, Com, with, send with. In Matthew 28, Jesus doesn’t just send, Jesus sends the disciples with a purpose and with a partner. The purpose is to go to all the people, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The partners are multiple. Partners are, first of all, each other. The Great Commission is a public pronouncement, not a private word to each of the disciples. You can’t be a Christian alone or in isolation. You need others. Where do the others come from? This is the Trinitarian key. We humans like to sort ourselves based on preferences, convenience, amiability, relative likes and dislikes. We sort ourselves constantly. Kids are more open than grownups. They play with anybody, but kids still sort themselves. And as they get older, the sorting gets trickier. People sit at different tables in the cafeteria. Grownups are constantly sorting, “who are the people that are worthy of my time?” Well, that’s a super selfish way to frame it, but I think that’s a really honest one. And at its worst, that is what church becomes. It becomes a place where we have sorted the people we like away from the people we don’t like. But there’s no space for Trinity there. There’s no space for the great Commission. Jesus does not say baptize the people you like.”When in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus says, blessed are the poor. Jesus doesn’t say blessed are the righteous poor or the undeserving poor, but the poor. There are no qualifiers. There are no qualifiers on the body of Christ. That second partner, after other people, is the Holy Spirit that draws the people together. And if we’re going to listen to the Holy Spirit, that means we need to shut down our own mechanisms of sorting. If we think God is Triune, we’ve gotta let go of that control. If we think God is not Triune, if the Holy Spirit is not God, if Jesus is not God, then sure, keep control, keep ownership over your life because Jesus doesn’t even save you in that world. But the amazing thing is that when we stop sorting, we are free. We don’t need to live a life filled with the worry that we’re seeing the right people at the right times. And we’re not spending any time with the wrong kind of people, with the dirty people, with the impure people, with the unclean people. We can let that go because God is Triune. That is what Trinity is about. God and God’s self is offering all of God’s self for you and to you and with you. Receive that presence. Let go of the desire for control and let us walk together into the future God has for you.
Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, we thank you for revealing the amazing mystery of Trinity, that you are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are for us, not against us. Help us in moments of confusion and doubt to lean more on you and less on ourselves. In the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.