Trinity

Genesis 1:1 - 2:3
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.



Preachers often choose a different passage when they know they are going to be speaking about the Trinity. Actually, who am I kidding? We rarely talk openly about the Trinity, except to say that we believe it. We are clear that we believe that God is 3 in 1—the one God in three “persons.” We believe in the God who creates us, the Son who redeems us, and the Spirit who sustains us. But when you start asking questions like what it all means, people start to squirm. So I figured—why not look at this from a different perspective. While we often read the Matthew 28 passage in which Jesus gives the disciples the Great Commission to make disciples everywhere, teaching and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, this passage from Genesis could offer us a fresh look at the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, one of the central tenets of our faith. So, here goes…

What I love about this passage is the creative force that you can almost feel blowing around and past you as you read it. God has been very busy creating—a process I believe God continues even unto our time, right now. By just the words of God’s mouth, everything that we could ever imagine, that has ever lived, that will ever be came into being. And if you try to imagine that in terms of human mouths and speech, you may be pretty limited by what you can imagine. I know, for example, some people who’ve been named “big mouth” in the course of their lives, but it would just about have to be the biggest mouth you could imagine and then some to be able to house vocal the power to make all things come into being, to enclose that kind of life force. And speaking of speaking life as we know it into existence, who was there to hear the Word and respond, and what most those ears have been like?

It kind of reminds me of the old brain teezer about a tree falling in a forest and the question about whether or not any sound is made if there is no one there to hear it. So when God spoke everything into existence, who was there to hear about it?

The answer is in the sixth day of this first creation story in Genesis. This is when we hear God saying that human kind is to be created in “our” image. It is in some more-than-one form that God exists and yet one image from which we are created. How does that work?

It is in the image of God that we were created for each other. God, then, created us in God’s image with the intention that within that image we would find ways to complement each other and work and live together. So in the one-ness of God, there is a plurality of being that makes this world and those who inhabit it at the same time from the same substance and being and with the variety of gifts and traits that make life and the world in which we live challenging and wonderful. It really was a good plan of God’s—not only to make trees make noise when they fall but also to make our ears so that we could receive and interpret the sound!

What this tells us about God, what the central Christian doctrine of the Trinity tells us about God, is that God exists in relationship. It’s not really that God has 3 different personalities from which to choose at any given time; and it’s not that God operates in different modes—sometimes the creator, sometimes the sustainer, but never the 2 or 3 shall meet. It’s not that God changes hats depending on the needs of the world at any given time. It’s that God contains all that we need, when we need it, and is who we need God to be and more all the time!

Think about the different ways you know God: you know God as the creator of all living things—we see that when we look at the sun and the rain and the beauty of the flowers and the wonder of how we are made. So God made us and everything around us in the natural world. And, since God gave us brains to invent all the un-natural gadgets we have come to need in life, God kinda made those, too: sometimes whether God has liked it or not. You know God as savior in the times when you have need a friend or comforting presence and nothing else in life has really filled that gap; or when you have been in real trouble and have felt the love and peace and strength of Christ giving you a way out of distress or help in your time of need. That’s where we get the old church phrase, “a very present help in time of need.” God has shown us in Jesus that not only does God give us life but God also saves us from destroying that life or being destroyed by it—sometimes even when we can’t see or recognize that it is God’s hand at work. You know God as a Spirit, the presence of God with you along the whole journey of life, the good times and the bad. You know that when a child is born or a relationship is healed that the presence of God is there with you to encourage and calm your own spirit and to encourage you to fully engage the life you have been given. Or how about when something terrible happens in the world and you don’t know how to cope, like when we experienced the atrocities of September 11, 2001, and we weren’t sure how the world would continue to go on, at least our world. And here we are almost 7 years later, perhaps struggling, but still going on. And I believe that there are some days when we as a church, we as families, we as friends, we as individuals rely fully on the Spirit of God to sustain us through another day because we have no idea how we will do that on our own. The very life we have been given by God, the very life that is rescued and saved over and over by God, the very life that we live for and sometimes only because of God—that is the way we know God.

And so why do we need this doctrine of faith that the church has handed down for generations? I believe it is because we so desperately need to know God that it is a help to us when we try and figure out who on earth or in heaven God is. It is healthy for us as people of faith to have questions: why did God send Jesus? What is the Holy Spirit supposed to do in our lives? Did God create everything and then send it off into space or is it more personal than that? As we ponder these things in our hearts, we can begin to know God more, to love God more, and to seek God more deeply and sincerely. And what meaning does it all have for us today? We live in a time when a lot of things are known—like the molecular structure of a lot of things we never thought possible a generation ago, and the ways to fight diseases that in the past took the lives and livelihood of countless people. But there are still a lot of things we don’t know—like why some people survive cancer and others don’t, or why we continue to say with our minds that things like racism and classism are wrong but we still do things in our actions that may tell the world we think that the status quo of separate and who-cares-if-its-equal is still ok, or what we are supposed to be doing with our lives (can I get an “Amen!” from a recent or soon-to-be graduate in the house?)…or, if a tree falls in a forest an no one is there to hear it, will it make a sound…or who God was talking to in the creation story in Genesis when God said that humanity was to be made in “our” image.

A doctrine that says we believe where we have not seen, we know where we have not known, we try to understand where we can not fully understand—I believe that on most days, that truly is the Word of God. And for all the others when we are not so sure, we go back to God who made us, who saves us, and who goes with us always and realize that there is no area of life of which God is not a part. And that is some really good news.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.