“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
I don’t know about you, but I always find Holy Trinity to be a pain in
the gluteal tissue (metaphorically speaking, of course) for pastors. This feast
celebrates a doctrine, not an event, so there isn’t a good piece of
storytelling we can hang a sermon on. I can, however, remind you, dear reader,
that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was first set down around the year 325 by
a bunch of bishops who were summoned by the Roman emperor Constantine to the
town of Nicaea[i] in what is now Turkey for
the purpose of deciding just what the heck it means to BE a Christian.
Now, your average Joe Pewsitter might not know this, but the Christian
faith has been a potluck macaroni salad of ideas from the get-go. Our ancestors
in the faith might’ve all called themselves Christians, but it took about 300
years for lovers of Jesus to agree on precisely what Christianity was all
about—and then it was only because the Roman emperor (who didn’t really have an
opinion on the subject but wanted political unity) decreed that some kind of
statement of faith was in order. Don’t believe me? Just check out the Gospel
text for Holy Trinity Sunday (Matthew 28:16-20). Look at verse 17: “When they
saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”
Can’t you just picture that? Eleven dudes standing around, eight of them
saying, “Wow! It’s the Lord!” and three guys saying, “I don’t know. You think
we ought to be here? You guys sure this is Jesus..?”
God will always be a mystery to us, and whenever we think we have it all
figured out, we’re probably only fooling ourselves. Still, I believe (political
history aside) those bishops came up with a pretty good doctrine all those
centuries ago. They started with an old Jewish premise echoed in the Hebrew
prayer called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
one.” I like to think they discovered the unity, the interconnectedness of all
things, and declared that this unity is God. God in creation. God in the wisdom
of Jesus Christ. God in life, breath, knowledge, and all things—including us. As
Saint Paul is said to have proclaimed on the Areopagus, God is he in whom “we
live and move and have our being.[ii]”
God is all around, even if we’re no more aware of God than we are of the air we
breathe.
This understanding of God should widen our perspective, not narrow it.
The authority Jesus displayed (v.18) in his ministry was never an
authority to judge or punish or condemn. He had authority to cast out unclean
spirits—spirits of sickness and evil. It was a healing authority, a power and a
commission to bring people back to wholeness and fix what was wrong. And it was
the authority to forgive sins and restore human beings to a right relationship
with God, with each other, and with themselves.
Jesus’ authority was not like the authority of the emperor. Old Constantine
could tell the bishops, “You guys make up a doctrine for the Christian faith.
Then we’ll tell everyone to sign off on it—and I’ll have them put to death if
they don’t.” Jesus doesn’t work like that. When Jesus called us to teach and
obey, it wasn’t about assent to a doctrine. It was about living the life of
compassion, mercy, and faith he revealed.
I worry that we as American Christians have dumbed down our belief system
to “Believe in Jesus or go to Hell—and, if you’re NOT a Christian, too bad.
Sucks being you.” We may have turned our faith into one giant Billy Graham
Crusade, focusing only on our individual salvation and turning our
understanding of the sacred into a good work. But if the Triune expression of
God is really what we believe in our hearts, then we have a compassionate
responsibility to see the holiness of God all around us, to love all God’s
children, and to care lovingly for the world God spoke into being.
May the peace of God which is beyond our understanding keep your heart
and mind in Christ Jesus—now and unto the close of the age.
[i]
Fun facts: The ancient city of Nicaea is now part of the north-central Turkish
city of Iznik. Why the name change? You’d have to ask the Turks that. My
favorite piece of Nicene Creed trivia, however, is the fact that Nicholas of
Myra (aka Santa Claus) was present at the Council. History doesn’t record what
he did or said there, but it’s pretty cool to know he represented, don’t you
think?
[ii]
See Acts 17:28.
Thank you Pastor Owen 🙏
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