Trinity Sunday - Sympathizing with Nicodemus?

Do you think about the Trinity very often—I mean sometime other than when you are singing the Gloria or reciting one of the historic creeds used in worship—either the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed?  I don’t very often. But I imagine you and I sometimes offer a prayer to God, the Father. . . and sometimes you and I ask Jesus for help. . .and sometimes you and I believe the Holy Spirit is giving you strength for whatever you are facing.  Unifying them into Trinity seems a bit abstract—not an everyday, practical task!

We have to sympathize with Nicodemus.  He has been attracted to Jesus, despite the fact that most of his peers, the religious leaders of Judaism, saw Jesus' teaching as a threat to their authority.  He “asks” Jesus one of those statement-type questions—something we do when we're not sure what to think.  “We know that you . . .”  “Everyone says that you . . .”  “No one can do what you are doing unless . . .”  Then we wait for a response, hoping that the person will reveal more about who he or she really is, so then we can make up our minds about the person. 

I fairly sure Nicodemus wasn't looking for a challenge from Jesus.  But Jesus' response was a challenge—something has to change in you Nicodemus, before you can have any idea who I really am.  We really do have to sympathize with Nicodemus.  Jesus confronts him by saying he can never understand what God is doing without being transformed first.

This past Lent we had an adult education series with two other churches.  The topic concerned how our Bible came together. Those of you who attended may remember one evening when the three clergy present had three different opinions about something.  One of the folks offered the thought that it was fun hearing clergy disagree!  Now take this up a notch—in your imagination:  I'm preaching on a Sunday morning and in walks Jesus (of course, he would choose to come to St. Nicholas').  Trying to keep my cool and trying to determine if it really is Jesus, I say one of those statement kind of questions: “All of us believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who loves us and came to save us from sin.”  He looks patiently at me and replies, “Elizabeth, you really must change in certain ways if you are to fully understand what you are saying and be part of the new thing I am about to do .”  I answer, “How can this be, for I have studied at the General Seminary?”  I hope at that moment you might have a bit of sympathy for me.

As the leaders of the Christian movement in second, third and early fourth centuries tried to decide who Jesus really was by defining his relationship with God—and really defining their understanding of who God is as well—they had the testimony of the scriptural writing accepted in the canon of New Testament and the testimony of those who had taught and preached about Jesus' beginning with St. Paul and St. Peter.  What sort of Messiah was he—was he co-eternal with God whom he had called “Father” or was there a time, however brief, when Jesus was not?

Although this issue has been settled for over 1500 years, early Christian leaders seriously fought about it.  A bishop might be overturned by one group in his diocese, who disagreed with him on this issue and who would then send him into exile.  The winning party declared those who opposed them heretics.  I have a bit of sympathy for those who struggled trying to understand who God really is and who Jesus really is—winner-take-all church politics notwithstanding.

We can look for evidence of the Trinity in our scriptures—Jesus' spoke eloquently about his relationship with God and called him Father.  But another passage he said, “I and the Father are one . . .”  But, no, we really won't find the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. Jesus did speak about  God, about the Spirit of God, and about himself in ways that link all three—but how are they linked?  And what difference does it make for us, today, here at St. Nicholas?

They are linked in divine relationship—being all made of the same stuff or substance, yet in three persons—The Trinity describes the “communal inner life of God,” according to Professor Judith McDaniel.  She states that the “essence of God is to be in relationship.” We Christians are unique among monotheistic religions, such as Judaism and Islam, to believe that God is one in an unusual way. God is one as a unity that contains diversity.

Is there any way to know whether this way of looking at God is the correct way? Of course not—in this life!  But looking at God in this way gives us two sources of hope.  First, if God's nature is to be in relationship and Jesus came from God to live as one of us, then God strongly desires to draw us into a relationship as well.  In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul calls this the “spirit of adoption.”  Paul said, “When we cry, 'Abba, Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  Through Jesus, God has sought us out in a way we can understand.  So now we can—in faith and trust—receive God into our hearts.

Then we may also use the doctrine of the Trinity as a model for human relationships. We can celebrate each other’s special characteristics, while honoring our need to seek and maintain relationships—living in unity, if you will, while celebrating our diversity.  We can connect with others; we can include others; we can practice radical hospitality—staying in relationship even when a brother or sister in Christ tests the limits of our tolerance or our patience or even our values.

Modeling our common life after the Trinity is not easy. We can sympathize with how difficult this will be to accomplish.  Nicodemus hasn't been the last person asking God, “How can these things be?” We can sympathize with his astonishment at Jesus' telling him he needed to be transformed in a way he did not easily comprehend: “Very truly I tell you, I tell you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Yet we can take comfort in Jesus' words that follow his challenge of Nicodemus, as Nicodemus himself may have done: “For God so loved the world . . .”  Our hope cannot spring from completely understanding God.  It cannot spring from our own worthiness in living as God in Jesus taught us. Rather it must spring from our trust in God's love for us.  “For God so loved the world . . .”  For me that is enough!