May 26, 2024 – Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 6.1-8
Psalm 29
Holiday Threefers
Trinity Sunday
On this Trinity Sunday, let’s try a little game with threes this morning, shall we? I’ll give you the first two parts of a trio, and you give me the third. Ready? Moe, Larry and Curly. Faith, Hope and Love. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Past, Present and Future. Morning, Noon and Night. Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. Strike one, strike two, strike three. Huey, Louie and Dewey. Red, White and Blue. Red, Yellow and Green. Rock, Paper, Scissors. Stop, Look and Listen. Blood, Sweat and Tears. Location, Location, Location. Jack, Queen and King. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato. Snap, Crackle and Pop. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Terrific! Now we are all warmed up to tackle the eternal mystery of the Trinity, no matter how you choose to express it: Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Creator, Christ and Comforter, God, Jesus and the Spirit, or as one of the ancient church writers put it, the Root, the Shoot and the Fruit.
A good friend of ours follows a band called “The Rule of Three.” The band is named after a literary device that holds it is easier for people to recall what they’ve read and heard if it has a three-tiered structure. One of the foundations of sermon-writing, at least back in the day I was learning the trade, is that the best sermons have three points. I have since come to wonder if this is really true, but a number of my colleagues still hold to it. I later encountered a related rule for public speaking that holds, Tell your audience what you are going to say, then say it, then tell them what you just said. But the rules are secondary to the fact that they are tripartite.
And so it is on this Trinity Sunday that we are talking in threes.
Bruce Epperly is a colleague who writes a column called The Adventurous Lectionary for the online journal Patheos, in which he offers new insights on the church’s weekly lectionary readings. This week he wondered how to put together the two holidays that mark this three day weekend: from the church’s perspective it is Trinity Sunday, and from the culture’s it is Memorial Day. And I thought to myself, What a pair of opposites! I mean, Memorial Day: picnics and parades and patriotism. When my older daughter Clare was probably no more than three, she just loved parades. The marching bands, the music, the multicolored flags, neat lines of firefighters and police officers and local luminaries and scouts, and the sheer exuberance of people coming together and looking around and seeing friends and neighbors and community. Now, let’s compare this to the Trinity, the church’s mystical idea that somehow God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, while three distinct persons, are yet also somehow one and the same. Back in the day when I taught Confirmation Class, there was no topic more guaranteed to glaze over eighth-grade eyes and make them fervently wish they were somewhere else, than the class on the Trinity. But don’t take my word for it: take the words of third century writer Tertullian of Carthage:
And at the same time the mystery of the oikonomia is safeguarded… the unity [of God] is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in being, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one being, however, and one condition and one power, because it is the one God of whom degrees and forms and kinds are taken into account in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (Against Praxis, 2)
The only parade this will ever inspire is the parade out the door if the preacher quotes Tertullian by even one more sentence.
Epperly’s Adventurous Lectionary uses all four of the recommended scriptures for Trinity Sunday today, but since we have picnics to get to, I chose only two, one of which I think is perfect for this morning. Deb read for us the call of the prophet Isaiah. It takes the form of a vision of God in the temple being attended by an angelic host, each of whom sported three pairs of wings: “With two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.” And then they sang the tripartite hymn that the church often sings on Trinity Sunday, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of God’s glory!” In response, Isaiah’s reply utilizes the writer’s rule of three: “I am lost – I am a man of unclean lips – I live among a people of unclean lips!” The passage concludes with a summons we have heard before: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me.’”
It is a powerful moment. When God asks the question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” in other words, Who is going to undertake all the good work I need to have done? the prophet steps forward even before knowing what that work is going to entail and responds, “Here I am, send me.” It is a call and response we often hear in church, because in our tradition, we say that God has no hands but our own to do God’s work, God has no feet but ours, God has no voice but ours. It is the call to ministry, it is the call to mission, it is the call to service. And even though Epperly declines to pick up on this thread, I would say it can be used in a similar way when we honor the men and women who gave their lives in service to their nation as we do this Memorial Day weekend. It is true that some joined the armed services because they were drafted, some joined because it was the only living they could make, some joined because service was part of family tradition, some joined to make a career of it, and some joined because they felt it was the right thing to do. There are many reasons, but at the end of the day, the response was not unlike Isaiah’s: “Here I am – send me.”
When I turned to today’s other reading from Psalm 29, I was taken somewhat by surprise: “Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of God’s name, worship the Lord in holy splendor.” When I read those words I asked myself why they sounded so familiar. And a split-second later, I remembered: these are the words I chose for the epigram on the invitation to my ordination service forty-four years ago. Psalm 29 has always seemed a powerful one to me – not only does it contemplate God’s glory throughout creation, but it ends with these words of assurance and comfort and hope: “May the Lord give strength to all the people! May the Lord bless us with peace.” On the day when I was ordained into the Christian ministry, on the day I took vows to proclaim the gospel in every season, to be zealous in sharing the truth of the gospel and the peace of the church, speaking the truth in love, and to regard all God’s children with equal love and concern, my reply too was not unlike Isaiah’s: “Here I am – send me.” Still, I can’t see a direct connection between the 29th psalm and Memorial Day, unless we take the glory of God thundering over the waters and flashing flames of fire to be whatever random fireworks we hear exploding over the weekend, but perhaps even this is enough.
Still, on this morning we are talking about threes, you may have noticed a couple dangling twos we still need to fill in for Trinity Sunday. If I were to choose a third scripture for today, it would probably be from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. By the way, before I read it, I need to let you know the idea of the Trinity is not a biblical one: it did not develop until early in the second century after Jesus and it is entirely a church-generated doctrine. But Paul I think had the right idea in II Corinthian chapter 5 verse 19 when he wrote: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Godself, not counting our trespasses against us, but entrusting the message of reconciliation to us all.” God was in Christ, reconciling the world, entrusting the message of reconciliation to us all. Here I am, God, send me.
Finally, my third point… we have only covered two of this weekend’s holidays, Trinity Sunday and Memorial Day. What third holiday this weekend will give us the trifecta? Well, you may have missed it – and you may be sorry you missed it, but it could well be you celebrated it yesterday without even knowing. While Debbie and I were on New Zealand’s South Island, a verdant land with glorious topography, and then a week later in the lush Hunter Valley north of Sydney, we took advantage of being in some of the world’s foremost regions for the production of sauvignon blanc and took a couple tours that brought us to six different wineries. Now it was good that I was basically the D.D. because nearly all the wines produced in the region are whites and I only drink reds. So I basically gave my glass to the others on our tour and took their word that the sauv blancs they tasted were delicious. I mention this because yesterday, May 25, was National Wine Day. As I said, you may well have celebrated yesterday without even knowing! But even though it would not be difficult to tie wine into the ministry of Jesus, and then the same into Memorial Day, it would probably require at least two more sermons, and Trinity Sunday or no Trinity Sunday, I think one is enough this morning, so I’ll simply leave you with three little words: hasta la vista? Not quite… See you tomorrow? Maybe. Let us pray: Yes.