Trinity
Shelagh Balfour

The Eternal Mystery of the Trinity

Psalm 29; John 3:1-17

About 60 years ago, an Anglican priest by the name of J. B. Phillips wrote a book called Your God Is Too Small. It was a reflection on destructive or outgrown understandings of God that got in the way of a mature relationship with a constructive, adult God. Phillips highlighted a few of the many possible “small gods” people worship. For example:

The Resident Policeman – that is God as that internal “voice which makes one feel guilty and unhappy [about] a wrong-doing”. While a healthy conscience is an important thing, it can too easily be distorted into an “inner nagging voice” that causes anxiety and unhappiness and is a poor replacement for God.

Another small god is what Phillips called God-in-a-Box – which he described as a particular narrow brand of God owned by a particular denomination which insists they are the only ones who have it right.

A couple of small gods the author didn’t mention but are very popular in our time are God as vending machine - push the right button, say the right prayer, and God will give you what you want – and the smallest of all, the god of the individual self.

All these small, not very satisfactory gods reflect the desire of human beings for a world we can understand and control. We want God to make sense, to have clear limits. Or we want a clear set of rules to follow with pre-determined rewards for doing so. At our worst, human beings distort God into someone who commands, or at least approves, our darkest and most hostile behaviours.

This distortion has been evident in the past year in a small number of churches across North America who have insisted they have a God-given right to gather for in-person worship despite the serious harm it may cause others. Equally disturbing has been the co-opting of God by some to justify armed insurrection in the United States.

But, thankfully, given our human limitations, God is truly much more than we can comprehend, certainly far, far more than we can manage or shape in our own image. In his children’s story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis has given us a glimpse of this in the figure of Aslan, the great lion, true ruler of Narnia.

The story is about four children from wartime England who find themselves in the world of Narnia, also called Aslan’s country, by way of a large wardrobe. In this world there are fauns and centaurs, talking animals, and an evil witch. And, of course, the great lion Aslan, who is the figure of Christ in that world.

Early in the story, when the children first learn of Aslan from Mr. & Mrs. Beaver, one of them asks, “Is he – quite safe?” “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

For me, this image of Aslan sums up our psalm for today which reads in part:

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders;
The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees;
The voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire; the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare.
And in the temple of the Lord all are crying, "Glory!"

This psalm does not describe a “safe” God, and it certainly does not describe a god we can control - Just the voice of God makes the earth shake and breaks trees - but it does describe a good God, a God who will give the people blessing and peace.

It is good for us to bring this image of God into our reading of the gospel today. The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus is better understood when we remember that God is powerful mystery, both beyond our comprehension, and out of our control. Although Nicodemus seems to think he has understood who Jesus is, Jesus tells him that neither Nicodemus nor anyone else can even begin to understand who he is or what he’s about unless they are reborn into God’s kingdom through God’s Spirit. It is not physical demonstrations of power or logical arguments, or really anything else we can do, that explain Jesus. It is God who will make him known to those who have been born of the Spirit.

Jesus said: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” It helps to keep in mind that the word for wind is the same as the word for spirit. So, what I hear in this is that, through Jesus Christ, we are drawn into God’s kingdom by the Holy Spirit. Everyone who is born of that Spirit participates in the freedom and mystery of God to go where God chooses and do what God will do. We are invited into the eternal dance of the Holy Trinity. And at the centre of that dance we find the greatest blessing of all, the one that has opened the way for us:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

God is not safe, but God is very good. The gift of eternal life in union with the Triune God is love beyond our comprehension. And, while it is a wholly free gift from a wholly free God, it does call out a response from us, because the gift is not meant to be grasped onto. It is meant to be given away.

It’s a reasonable guess that everyone here is beyond tired of hearing about the pandemic or anything pandemic related. While the end seems to be coming into view, it is still difficult to imagine and the fact that we still hear of people doing selfish, thoughtless things is not helping. But however we may feel personally, united in the Holy Spirit, we still have a role to play.

We’ve talked many times in the past year about the ways in which St. Peter’s has responded with love and care to fellow members of the parish and to the needs of the world. These are all good things that will, of course, continue. But as our city and country look toward the end of the pandemic, people are recognizing that, in many ways it will not be over and God’s church will have new tasks in helping to heal God’s world. I will offer three examples:

First, As I mentioned before, there are churches and other groups who have defied life-saving regulations from the beginning of the pandemic. This has created divisions and personal hurts that will not easily be healed.

Second, an extraordinary number of people have spent significant amounts of time in intensive care units. Doctors and nurses have worked under high pressure conditions and seen many deaths in a short period of time. It is expected that both groups will have high rates of PTSD, leading to a different kind of epidemic.

Third, there is evidence that connects the pandemic to environmental changes. That evidence suggests that, if we do not begin to make serious steps toward healing the environment, this will be neither the last nor the worst pandemic we will see.

The powerful voice of God, the wind of God, blows where it will. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. So it is with us as we carry God’s Spirit into the world. We may not know exactly what our role will be, but in the wake of the pandemic much healing will be needed, and we are called, in unity with God’s son, Jesus, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, to respond in love.

Let me conclude with a quote from African American mystic and scholar Howard Thurman. Beginning with a quote from Plotinus, a 3rd century mystic who wrote, “If we are in unity with the Spirit, we are in unity with each other, and so we are all one” Thurman says that “whoever is aware of the Spirit of God in themselves enters the doors that lead into the life of their fellow people”. May we, born anew of water and the Spirit, enter those doors in the company of the Triune God, who may not always be safe, but is always Good. Amen.