Other Trinity Sermons I've Collected

 The Holy Trinity Bottechelli 1491-93

The Adventures of Tiny Church: The Clever, Crafty Giggle of God

Forgotten  complete with footnotes!

The Dance of the Trinity - the Ultimate Dancing with the Stars

Art for Life

Trinity Sunday

If you gave it a shot and have it online and and want to add to this list - send it to me!

A needed laugh as I come close to finishing my sermon

My friend Meredith Gould tweeted me this

Unholy Trinity « Clergy Family Confidential

Augustine & the Boy on the Beach

The Sea Shell,  Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497) Church of St. Augustine San Gimignano

There is a story told about St. Augustine as he was writing about the Holy Trinity.  

He saw a boy playing on the beach who had dug a hole in the sand and was going out to the sea again and again and bringing some water in a little sea shell to pour into the hole. St. Augustine asked him, “What are you doing?” “I’m going to pour the entire ocean into this hole.” “That is impossible, the whole ocean will not fit in the hole you have made,” said St. Augustine. The boy replied, “And you cannot fit the Trinity in your tiny little brain.”  The boy then disappeared and Augustine believed he had seen an angel.

If you are still struggling with your sermon on the Trinity

A Trinity-Shaped Life Faith Forward

Trinity Sunday year C: Thoughts and exegesis - A Garden Path

I got these from the Facebook text study group The Text This Week.  Some good stuff...but oh Lord some of the suggestions.  One person comments that we shouldn't be tied to 4th century theological explanations.  Okay but really when I read suggestions like 3 way light bulbs and M&Ms (they are different colors but put them in your mouth and they all taste like chocolate!)  I'm sorry I have to go back to Augustine's  God is the Lover, Jesus is the Beloved and the Holy Spirit is the Love - I just know if I get us into that  perichoresias  - I will have my sermon.  And hopefully Father over at Madeline's Egg won't shoot himself.

Just What IS the purpose of a Creed?

I hope PS doesn't think I'm picking on her but her response to my blog on the Athanasian Creed was so modern but so NOT what the original purpose of the creeds were it got me thinking...

PS says she is not familiar with this creed and she doesn't like to confess something she hasn't read before because she doesn't know if she believes it or not.  It reminds me of a former parish that only used the Apostles Creed and became peeved with me when I would drag out the Nicene creed.  Their complaint?  The "we"  "Pastor, how can I say 'we believe' when I don't know for sure what others believe?"

First of all I'm very sympathetic to PS's complaint when it comes to all these new fangled made up creeds ("I believe in the pink goddess who dances across creation showering us with love and chocolate sprinkles" ~you know what I mean).  I don't know who said it but I agree with whoever it was that said "If someone didn't die for this creed, I'm not confessing it" or something like that.

But historically creeds are about not what we or the fellow next to us personally and individually believes or doesn't believe.   The three ecumenical creeds - The Apostles, Nicene and Athansian Creed are what define a Christian church.  They are the teaching of the church.  The idea of professing the creeds is not so much for you to proclaim what you personally believe but for you to learn and accept what the church teaches.  I know how that sounds to modern individualistic ears - Who decided THAT?  Why don't I get a vote?

Maybe the creeds could use some updating.  And there are Christian churches who eschew creeds because they think it is about YOUR personal profession of faith.  Lutherans are still catholic in that it is about what the church professes and we believe there is something about the liturgy that shapes our faith, so that even if I don't personally agree with every  sentence in the creed, I am part of the of the great communion of saints who have professed this faith throughout the centuries who may or may not have personally agreed with every line.  And saying the creed changes and shapes me and my faith. 


I wish we could update the creeds but without an ecumenical council to agree we'd just end up with that pink chocolate fairy....

Athanasian Creed

Now this is the catholic faith:

We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither
confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.

For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is
still another.

But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in
glory, coeternal in majesty.

What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.

~Athanasian Creed

I remember when we used to recite the Athanasian Creed every Trinity Sunday.  I remember it being very long and full of threats of burning in hell if you don't agree with it.

In preparation for this Sunday's sermon I took another perusal of it.  Parts of it are really quite beautiful.  Most of it in fact.  But what did I remember?  Lines like this "whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless persih eternally...those who have done evil will enter eternal fire"  That's actually the only two lines about hell in a beautiful treatise about the Trinity.  But those two lines are ALL I remembered.

And that's the problem.   I know there are some all upset that it's not in the new Evangelical Lutheran Worship book.  And yes,  there would be a real advantage to people reciting the bulk of this creed a few times a year.   Maybe they'd stop thinking the Trinity was like an apple.  But what would catch their attention and what they would remember is the part about those who do evil will go to hell.   And it's not worth it.  People who want people who do evil to go to hell would feel all smug and satisfied.  People who know they have done evil would be terrified and unbelievers would say "See - those Christians just want to send everyone to hell"  And the Gospel would be lost.

And that's really a damned shame.

It's Not so much about a Name but a Relationship and a Purpose

The Holy Trinity, Trinity Cathedral, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

I'm still on the Trinity.  Did a little brushing up and really it's not all that hard. 

 It's the will. 

 I thought this was Augustine's idea but it goes back to the Nicene fathers.  Three persons.  One will.  One purpose.  One love.  One desire.  One action.  What the father does, thinks, wants, wills and desires  --the Son and the Spirit think, want, will, desire and even do.  

So even though the dear sainted Martin Luther himself called the godhead Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, that really won't do.  They all create, redeem and sanctify.   

What differentiates the persons of the trinity is not what they do but how they relate to one another.  The Son is not the Father.  The Spirit is not the Son.  The Father is not the Spirit.

Well, they do have some different purposes.  The Father is the incomprehensible God - the Son - the Word, makes the Father comprehensible.  And Augustine said the Holy Spirit was the love between the Father and the Son, the glue that holds them together.  I like the idea of the Holy Spirit being the love we have for God and for each other.  

Does it have to be a Father?

  It has to be a Father or a Mother and Father is what we are stuck with biblically.  The Father cannot be the Creator - the Father creates through the Son and the Spirit.  And more importantly, as many monks fought and beat each other up to defend...the Father begets the Son, the Father does not create the Son.  

It could just as easily be the Mother who gives birth to the Son...but that gets very confusing when you throw Mary into the mix.  And Father is what we have in the scripture.  Nope--I'm sorry it has to be the Father.

And that's really unfortunate.  I think it's only a Father because well Mother would just never go over in those days.  

It's not because of Jenson's crazy convoluted and downright gnostic (not to mention bizarre to my mind) argument about mothers being more connected to their babies than fathers are.  

And it has nothing to do with God having male parts but unfortunately because of all this father language, people really do still in this day and age believe God is a male.

To me that is the problem with all Father all the time.  Not because some human fathers are abusive because God knows there are abusive and absent mothers ...plus you ask anyone abused by a father how much respect she has for her mother for either allowing it or being too weak to prevent it.  

 The problem is that people can't seem to get that to say the Father is making a theological statement about the Son's equality with God - the Son is not a creature so he is not created but begotten by the Father.  Instead, they just think male parts!


I kind of gave up on the inclusive language battle years ago because Lord knows there were other battles.  But again in Sunday school last week I got this blank stare when I said "Well you know God is neither male nor female right?  Right?  RIGHT?"  "But Pastor, it's the FATHER"  

It took all the self-discipline I could muster not blurt out "Really - you think God has a penis?  You think God has testosterone?"  

It's such a shame because when we get all caught up in language and what is God's proper name we miss this idea of what makes the Father, Son and Spirit ONE is that they all will the same thing - which is the redemption and salvation of the world.  

And when Jesus prays that we will be one as well --it's not that we will all stop being Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists (though it would be nice if we would stop FIGHTING) - it's that we be united in one will - to love and redeem the whole world. 

So that's probably what my sermon is going to be about.  I'll probably have to leave out the part about God not having a penis but really it does need to be said.

The Holy Trinity -- I know what it is NOT

So this Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Oh Goody. A day to celebrate a doctrine.

The Trinity came up in our Adult Sunday school last Sunday and a young woman very confidently told me that the best way to explain the Trinity was to say it was like an apple --peeling, flesh and seeds. Everyone seemed quite shocked when I had to tell them that really was not a good explanation and was probably heritical, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate persons not part of one God.

So of course then comes the next question...."Well then how would YOU explain it, Pastor?"

Good question.  And I realized I'd really kind of side stepped the question for many years in sermons talking about "the mystery".  

I know what the Trinity is not.  It is not an apple or an egg.   It's not steam, liquid and ice - the persons of the Trinity are God, not forms of God.

I know what else the Trinity is not.  It is NOT God's formal name like my name is Joelle.  Sorry, Robert Jensen and the folks at CORE who like to use that as a way to throw out any feminine language for God.

Honestly Jensen and his ilk have done with the Trinity exactly what God has refused to let us do - back when Jacob wrestled with him and demanded a name (and instead got a new name for himself) , and Moses asked "Well what shall I tell them your name is.?"

I am who I am.  The Holy Trinity is not God's answer to "Tell me your name so I can have the right name unlike the others (like those nasty feminists).

The Trinity is not some dead boring doctrine cooked up by theologians who had nothing to do with real people, real life or real faith.   The teaching about the Trinity is the result of some hard thinking, dicussing (and knock down hard fighting) of real life people who were struggling to express who God is and how he reveals himself to and acts in our lives.

I know what the Trinity is not.   This Sunday I am going to find a way to help people think about what the Trinity is, that also proclaims the Gospel.   So help me God.

Stay tuned.