Trinity Sunday

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Trinity Sunday
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: June 7, 1998

TEXT: John 16:5-15 - "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."

ISSUE: In the Mediterranean culture a person's honor was extremely important. To maintain honor often meant to lie, deceive, and keep secrets. To be guided into all truth by the Spirit of God had to be a great refreshment. The spirit reveals the truth and honor of Jesus. For a disenfranchised community, to find honor in the simplicity and the acceptance of Jesus had to create a sense of worth and restoration to his followers. Even today our sense of honor comes from an openess to feel at one with God inspite of ourselves. We do not have to try to be what we are not, but to live faithfully in the Spirit of Christ.
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Today's reading from John's account of the Gospel is a continuation of a rather cumbersome passage. The passage does become clearer when we understand and remember some of the important points of the culture and the community to which John was speaking. At the heart of this passage is the statement attributed to Jesus, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth."
One of the main and important things to understand about the Mediterranean culture of the first century was that the most important aspect of a person's life was their honor. Your honor or status in the community was more important, far more important, than how much money you had. That fact is unlike our own culture. We have power and status through possessions and money in our culture. But in Jesus' time honor accounted for everything. Honor came from keeping the law, and giving the appearance of religious respectability, and maintaining a high place of respectability in the community. There was a real pecking order. If you lost honor, someone else became more honorable. What this great concern over reputation, or honor, led to was a great deal of lying, deception, and secrecy. A person lied or was deceitful to protect their reputation. They were very secretive about their lives in order that no one would know their real humanness and shortcomings. It led to a society that was often pretentious and phoney.
Recall in Matthew's Gospel when Jesus talks about those who fast, pray, and give alms. Certain people prayed out loud on the street corners. They made a big racket at the Temple when they gave alms. They covered themselves in ashes and wore sack cloth when they fasted. All these things in search of reward or honor from fellow citizens. Jesus boldly condemned their phoneyness and needs of reward from men. (Matt. 6:1-18)
Remember too, when Jesus is about to be crucified, that when Peter is confronted for being a follower he boldly denies knowing Jesus at all. Crucifixion was the ultimate dishonoring thing that could happen to a person. Peter lies to maintain his own honor. It is dishonorable to be associated with a dishonorable crucified criminal. (John18:15-18)
When Jesus stands before Pilate in John's account of the gospel, Jesus says to Pilate: "I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me." And Pilate who lives in this lying deceitful culture says with what we might imagine was a statement of great frustration: "And what is truth?"
It is also peculiar to the Gospel of John that Jesus often begins saying something by using the words "Truly, truly, I say to you." It is an expression used some 25 times in the Gospel of John. In a culture of considerably lying and deception Jesus emphasizes that he is a truth teller. What he has to say is truly and really honorable.
Another important thing to understand is that by and large the Gospel of John, as were the others, were addressed to the disenfranchised people, the poor (and poor didn't mean people without money) but people without much honor or status, the outcasts. Widows, children, people who couldn't keep the law, people with disreptuable work, like tanners, butchers, shepherds. These were the so called sinners. But the growing understanding of the church was a new truth. First, sin is not about being bad or good, or keeping the law. Sin is not believing that Jesus is Lord for John's community. The early church was embraced largely by the poor and the disenfranchised who accepted that new truth that Jesus is Lord, and they are the children of God as much as any other believer. No phoneyness was required, simply trust and belief that Jesus is the revelation of God, and they were given the free gift and opportunity to participate. Believers have honor in the sight of God. All are equally the people of God, neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free.
So John's Gospel is saying that even though Jesus will go away, the Spirit of truth will prevail and befriend the believers. The spirit comes upon the believers and they will continue to grow in truth, the reality that God loves and honors them. They are love and accepted by that standard alone. So as they are loved they are to love one another. Jesus declares the truth of God's love and the Spirit of God, as a friend, a paraclete, a mediator, intercessor, or helper shall prevail in an untruthful and deceitful world of unbelievers.
In our culture, honor is not nearly so important as it was in Jesus' time. We believe that it doesn't matter what other people think, so we do pretty much what we please without much regard to honor and status. But there is still an ongoing search for truth, for meaning: what's essential, what's real and validates our lives. In a world of so many philosophies, varied cultures, religions, to which we are exposed by the technology of communication there is an incredible plurality of ideas and concepts that challenge us. How are we grounded, upon what do we stand? What is our truth? I suppose many young people would say that there isn't a truth, but many truths. Truth is relative in our time. Actually, in Jesus' time there were also varities of Greek and Roman pagan cults, philosophies, along with the Jewish beliefs. The flegling Christian church demanded a belief in Jesus as Lord, of God, of the ongoing Spirit of God, as it provided something that other beliefs did not. It gave them a foundation and unique identity in the world.
For the church then, as now there was a Creator, an energy that brought the world and universe into being. What's more there was the experience of Jesus who was a unique personal experience of love and forgiveness, of acceptance and the calling of people to the awareness of how they were honored in and of themselves with a living presence of God within them that made them also servant creatdures of God. What's more there was an ongoing Spirit that so possessed them that they were led through the ages in the midst of difficult times and persecutions to continue bearing witness to a truth that God prevailed in the midst of the world. They were a people of hope and the continued expression of the reality of God. They carried on a revelation of God, likened to a loving Father, a reconciling Son, and a prevailing Spiritual Presence. But whether you call this Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirituality, or liken the Trinity to heat, radiation, and fire - Lover, Beloved, and Spirit of Love between them are just words to express our profound understanding in the fullness of God. God is with us in a relationship of love that calls us into a partnership with God to stand in awe and wonder, to appreciate the creative love, and to prevail as the agents and spirited and spiritual extentions of God's grace.