Trinity Sunday/Octave of Pentecost

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

SEASON: Trinity Sunday/Octave of Pentecost
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 15, 2003


TEXT: John 3:1-16 – Nicodemus and Jesus
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

ISSUE: While the name of the Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the readings are addressed to the Octave of Pentecost. Nicodemus in the Gospel story must be born from the Spirit of God. What seems more like the issue of this reading and this Sunday is that we must not make God too small, too manageable, too easy to manipulate, but appreciate the fullness of God whose Holy Spirit permeates the universe. We live in the midst of wonder, ecstasy, and mystery, which gives awesomeness to life and the wonder of pondering the Glory of God.
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This Sunday after the major Feast of the Pentecost has been named for many years Trinity Sunday. It is a Sunday that was set aside as honoring a major theological doctrine of the church. However, the readings assigned for the Sunday barely address anything related to the actual doctrine of the Trinity. The proper lectionary readings are more appropriate to the Octave or continuing relation to the Pentecost, that is, the coming and prevalence of the Holy Spirit that we dramatized last week. The Gospel for this day tells of Nicodemus coming to Jesus for instruction about Jesus’ ministry. The doctrine of the Trinity would be more appropriately addressed from the last verses of the Gospel account of Matthew, where Jesus directs his disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, we can approach confusion in this way, using the story of Nicodemus and Jesus. Nicodemus, whose name means Champion of the People, and who is a Pharisee, and likely a community leader come to Jesus at night, in the darkness. Nicodemus is obviously very curious about what Jesus is about. Nicodemus eventually becomes very accepting of Jesus and his ministry. Nicodemus appears later in the Gospel account of John arguing against the actions of some of his brother Pharisees in their plans for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It is also Nicodemus who assists Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ burial. The first concern of Nicodemus with Jesus is miraculous aspects described in John’s Gospel. He says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs (miracles) that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus indicates that there is more to his ministry than the signs and the miracles. They may well speak of his being in the presence of God, but there is much more to his ministry than that. He tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or the other, if not better translation, is that Nicodemus must be born from above. The implication here is that Nicodemus sees in Jesus a godliness that is based in miracles and signs. Jesus relationship with God is one of performing miracles, God is basically a miracle worker. Notice that many of us from time to time think of the works of Jesus and the works of God as basically the performance of miracles. When we pray, we often pray that God will pull off some kind of miracle. Someone we love who is sick will be miraculously cured, or we’ll miraculously pass a test, or God will step in and end a war. And, of course, when we don’t get prompt responses, and answers that we prefer, there is either disenchantment with God, or a tendency to lose our faith in God, or to see ourselves as some how unworthy of approach to God to meet our needs. What happens here is that we make God too small, as a mere worker of miracles. Actually in Jesus’ time there were many folk healers; this was common. We like Nicodemus, sometimes have an understanding of God that is too small. We tend to want to make God cozy, comfortable, manageable, and the problem here is that we become disillusioned because the world we live in is not always cozy and comfortable; it has its share of pain, suffering, injustice and warfare.
What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is that he must not let his understanding of God be based on folklore of the world, but on the fullness of God’s Spirit. You must be born from above. In John’s Gospel, the world belongs to God, and the world usually means Israel in this gospel account. What Jesus is coming to do, his ministry is to break open the fullness of God. God is much bigger than a mere miracle worker. Nicodemus has trouble with this concept. He thinks very literally, raising the question how can a person be born again, returning to his mother’s womb, which is impossible. Jesus is saying that we don’t get born again, but that we need to be born from above. We allow the fullness of God’s Spirit to fill and direct us.
Notice that the Gospel of John is called the Book of Signs. In John’s Gospel Jesus is doing things that seem miraculous, but they are only signs of something greater. Jesus turn water into wine, for instance, the first miracle. Do you suppose that they only reason for this was to allow the celebrants of the feast to get rip roaring drunk? Certainly not. It was a sign of how God takes the common and makes it holy, the wine becomes a spirit of joy and wonder, when the world abides with God. Jesus gives sight to a blind man in this Gospel, and Pharisees argue that it is not possible. Notice that Jesus does not heal every blind man in town. The miracle is a sign a breaking open of God’s spiritual presence and God’s yearning to give new spiritual insight to the human condition
In John’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the 5,000 on the green hillside. Literally, they were supposed to be hungry, but the story has greater meaning when you approach it spiritually. “The Lord is my shepherd who leads me to green pastures, where my cup runneth over, and a table is spread in the presence of my enemies.” Jesus is giving spiritual revelation that The Good Shepherd, God is with them, and not apart from them. God is ready to spiritually feed the soul of humanity with living fresh waters of hope, and manna, spiritual feeding from above.
There is in the Gospel of John also the great miracles of Redemption for the lost. Remember the woman at the well, who’d been married seven times. Seems to be some indication that the lady had lived a rather racy life. She is given spiritual living refreshing water of redemption. “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” He is the forgiving refreshment of the world.
John’s Gospel it tells of Jesus washing his disciples feet. It isn’t just a nice thing that Jesus did, it teaches humility, devotion, love for one another; do it to one another. This action is the very spiritedness of God at work with his people. Even Peter who denies Jesus three times, is forgiven in the end and made into a spiritual shepherd to feed lambs, and love the sheep of God. Understanding the fullness of God is not simply about what can Jesus or God do for me, it’s also about what we do, how we respond, in the Name of God for one another.
The Gospel of John and the Jesus therein is attempting to raise Nicodemus’ sights just beyond the literal miracles and great things that Jesus does to the greater meaning of exploding the fullness of God’s love. God loved the world in such a way that he gave his only, he pours out a part of himself to utterly astound the world of the fullness and magnificence of His loving Presence.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Are you a baptized Christ, like myself, and how we lose sight of the real grandeur and wonder of, and the fullness of God.
Sometimes folks we have to look beyond the realm of the mundane and our own self-interests. Oh, that we could line up down town and look through the Hubble Space telescope and see the utter enormity and magnificence of the universe with its galaxies, planets, solar systems, black holes, and mysteries. Oh, that we could contemplate why it is that space is growing and expanding and moving faster and faster instead of slowing down. Mysteries abound. Once we thought the earth was flat. Then we learned it was round. Then, we learned we went around the sun and not the sun around us, and more and more learning and wisdom came to be that is just as bewildering and wonderful today as it was two thousand years ago. God is so big, we can’t really take it all in. God is awesome. “Take off your shoes,” God says to Moses through the crazy burning bush, “Don’t you know you are standing on Holy Ground.” God in all of his glory and awesomeness abounds, and the Scriptures, especially the Hebrew Scriptures and Psalm constantly speak of the glory of God, and Jesus dares his people to see the full glory of God.
God is beyond our imagination. God is a like a Father, and in Jesus’ time you have to understand that a Father demanded total respect. The Son was expected to be totally obedient and honor his Father, and that was the Spirit of the culture of the time. Jesus as Son of the Father gives full obedience, honor, and respect to the Father. The father tests the Son’s obedience, and the Spirit of love prevails in the crucifixion, and is honored in the Resurrection. We must be born of that Spirit from above, to honor the fullness of God, to be obedient, and to serve. Please don’t make God so small that we become too easily disenchanted when we cannot manipulate God or get our own way. God is indeed grand, and in the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ we are led to that God, and the understanding of his indwelling Holy Spirit of Love.
Indeed we all have problems, our time of pain and suffer, and so it is. But do keep in mind that miracles and the wonder of God that abounds in so many ways in human life. From the simplicity and wonder of a firefly, a watermelon, a steamed crab in the summer time, to the incredible gift of human life through the union of a sperm and an egg, to the wonder and comfort of people loving us and being with us at difficult times. It’s hard to figure sometimes: there is cancer; there is violence, earthquakes, fire, and flood. Yet what can we say but that we are still in hands of God, wondering what new healing and hope may come to wonder, as the earth and the universe continues to be the revelation and continuing creative processes of the Glory of God.
Maybe it is better for Jesus to say that we must be born from above and seek higher things, and trust in the spirit of God than to think of the Trinity as merely likened to a shamrock. God is indeed the mighty shepherd and creator. God is in the beauty, the revelation, and teaching of Jesus Christ. God is a prevailing spirit, the living breath of the universe that reveals grander things and hopes to come. Nothing can change that, nor separate us from his Love, and our presence in that spiritual Kingdom.