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: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: May 30, 1999

TEXT: Matthew 28:16-20 - "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."

ISSUE: The scripture from Matthew is a continuation of the Pentecost Experience for the church of today. While the disciples in Luke's Acts of the Apostles and in John's Gospel account they receive the Holy Spirit, Matthew has the disciples being commissioned by Jesus to immerse the world into the fullness of God and to teach what God commands.
the church today still needs to be aware of its calling and commissioning to be an evangelistic and educational institution.
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This Sunday is the Sunday is an important day in the life of the church. We refer to it as Trinity Sunday, a day which we recall the trinitarian understanding of the One God of Christian belief. Just as importantly, this Sunday is as far as I am concerned a Sunday which really continues the Pentecost experience of the early church. Last week we recalled the breathing upon and Jesus commissioning his disiciple to forgive sins, to blow away evil spirits by the breath of God breathed upon them. We also recalled the experience of the Apostles at Jerusalem when the wind or breath of God was breathed upon them in Luke's Acts of the Apostles. Today. we have still another commissioning and commanding of the Apostles in Matthew' account of the Gospel.
In Matthew's account, the disciples went to a mountain in Galilee to which Jesus had directed them. Once again keep in mind important things always happen on mountain tops in the scripture. The disciples are greeted by the risen Jesus. Those who come to recognize him fall down in adoration and worship. Others still remain sceptical; obviously not everyone is always immediate in their acceptance of what has happened. Remember Thomas' skepticism. In any event the disciples are commanded or commisssioned to begin their ministry. It is a ministry of making more disciples. It is just not a matter of proclamation of Good News, but of incorporating new people into the fellowship of God. The disciples are to baptize, that is, immerse, or dip, people of all nations and races into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are to be baptized into the name of God: Father, Son, and Spirit. This part of the commissioning means that the disciples are to reveal to their new comrades the fullness of God.
At this point let me say something about the Trinitarian understanding of God. Many biblical scholars would say that Jesus himself did not go around telling people that he was the Son of God, or the second person of the trinity. The concept of the Trinitarian concept of God was the early development of the theology of the church. It does have biblical support. The doctrine of the Trinity is a theological concept that is intended to reveal a full understanding of the one God. It is like a person who writes a book. The author is the creator of the book. From the very beginning the outline of the book is in the author's mind. Eventually, what the author wishes to say is written out in words. The meaning and purpose becomes revealed by the author and the words. You get the spirit or meaning of what's being communicated when you read the book. This metaphor reveals the likeness of God, as it does in the Genesis reading today. God the Father is the creator and author of life. God speaks the word, and creation comes into being. Jesus was seen by the early church, especially in John's Gospel account, as the Word of God. Jesus is what God has to say given and revealed to us in human form, incarnate, in the flesh. Looking at the life and ministry of Jesus, looking at the mystery of creation, the Holy Spirit of God is revealed in a wonderful mysterious and bountiful creation. God's love, forgiveness, acceptance, inclusiveness, sacrificial outpouring is reveal in and through Jesus Christ. The Spirit, the mind, the meaning of God is revealed in each of these marvelous expressions that are for us the real and true revelation of and understanding of God.
So to baptize all nations is to immerse them and call them into a focused worship and adoration into the Spirit of God, as the fatherly God of bountiful, mysterious, and wonderful creation. It is to immerse and focus all people into the kind of devoted love of the Word of God, into a focus on the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ. To baptize and immerse the nations of the world into God is to have them breathe in the Spirit, the breath, the wind of God's meaning and realize the constant prevailing on going presence of God to sustain the world in love. To baptize the nations is to get their attention and to focus it on the one true and meaningful expression of God to the best of our ability.
This immersing the world into God is not especially easy. We think that the world is monotheistic. Everybody, or most, know there is one God. That is not really the way it is. Very very deeply rooted in human history is not monotheism, the belief in one God. The more common belief was and I think still is, is a kind of henotheism. The ancient Israelites believed there were many gods, but Yahweh of Israel was their own God. The commandment read, "You shall have no other gods." Yahweh was the God of the nation who traveled with them. Other nations had their own gods. When Moses and the people left Egypt that took with holy things and took a Tent of the Presence with them wherever they went, so Yahweh, God, would be with them. To leave the community or the nation was to be beyond the reach of God, God's protection. Yahweh was a moral God, unlike Baal and many other gods of the time who were largely fertility gods. When Jesus begins to call all nations to believe in only the One True God do you have a new sense of monotheism, only one God.
In our world today there still remains a kind of henotheism, or a pluralistic notion of god. God is what drives our life. God is what gives meaning and direction to our lives. God is what is the bottom line of our existence for us. For some people, and many of us Americans today the bottom line is being secure. Security comes first. The God of security is often expressed by not wanting to change anything. Keep every thing comfortably the same. It is a theology of wanting to hold on. It is often expressed in our lives of non-giving and sharing.
Another bottom line kind of god popular in American culture is the Consumerism god. We have to have and possess and buy so much. We like having it all, and sometimes seeing ourselves as failing if we do not. We turn our holidays into frenzied days of consumerism. Stores advertise that they are open all Sundays before Christmas. Memorial Day and Labor Day are occassion for gigantic and wonderful sales. Shopping malls become the seductive attractive cathedrals of our time.
For others there are lesser or more tragic bottom lines. The thing that gives life meaning or well being is success at all costs. For others it is alcohol and drugs. For still others it is the adoration of individualism. i.e. "I don't care what you say or think I'm right and that's all that matters." It's a kind of self-preservation adoration. And I'm sure you can think of others. Many of these people would all claim to believe in God, but the God of Jesus is not their only meaningful godly commitment.
For Jesus standing before his disciples in a world where Caesar was god, and was making the claim that Caesar should rule and conquer all the nations of the world, Jesus says, "No." The wonderful creator God, the God of Love, acceptance of all the expendable people of this time, inclusion, caring, nurturing, forgiveness. This God is the one true and only God that is the bottom line, the ultimate meaning for the world. You baptize and immerse the world into God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Even with Jesus there before his disciples there were some who adored and accepted him, and others who were skeptical. But the message continued keep focused on the true God that will still be there when all others fail and are diminished by time.
The second part of Jesus' commission to his disciples was the command to teach. This part of the commission is the part most neglected and forgotten. We are eager to and remember to baptize, but we often forget that disciples and the church were commissioned to teach the nations obedience to what God in Christ commanded. One of the great frustrations of my ministry has been how we fail to keep the children and people we baptize in the on going life and instruction of the church. The one commandment that is the wordiest and very explicit is the command to keep holy the sabbath. It was a day of contemplation, reflection, rest and attention to the wonder of God. Without the sabbath, without the time of reflection, adoration, contemplation of God, investment into the ways and teachings, we become so distracted by the world and influenced by all the other gods of people's lives.
Is the God of love and forgiveness, inclusion, and compassion, and caring too hard to worship and adore. Sometimes it is hard to be and keep focused on this God of Jesus Christ. It does require of us commitment, change, walking the extra mile and turning the other cheek. It does require change and conversion, and letting go of familiar old comforts and taking risks. Yet the prevailing Spirit and Presence of God still calls to us; Baptize all nations and people in the Name of God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teach them what is commanded: to love that God with all your being and to love one another.