Sermon - 5/30/21

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Religion

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I vividly remember one specific clergy meeting during my internship days in Richland Hills, Texas. Area clergy would regularly gather to discuss scripture readings for future Sundays. On the day of this memorable meeting, we were discussing scripture passages for the Sundays of Pentecost and Holy Trinity. Everyone was excited about preaching on Pentecost Sunday, but hardly anyone looked forward to preaching on Trinity Sunday. You see, the doctrine of the Trinity is one clergy would often rather avoid. Anyway, Pastor Phil, my supervisor, joked that the Intern is always given Trinity Sunday as a preaching Sunday. And, later that day, he jestingly told the Calvary Café crew that this is a test to see if the intern is heretical or not! Talking about the Trinity is not easy! Have you ever really tried to explain the Trinity? We say God is one, and yet we have these three, what? Persons? Spirits? Beings? What is God? Who is God? A triangle, a whole, but with three sides? We say we believe in One God, and then we sing, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” How do we make sense of this and what does it mean? Quite honestly, Jesus did not talk about the Trinity; neither did Paul. We find what appears to be an early form of developing theology on the Trinity in Paul’s writings as well as in the gospel of John, but it was not until the fourth century, 300 years after Jesus, that Christian leaders formalized the theological doctrine of the Trinity. They did it at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and the result was The Nicene Creed. Then, in the fifth century, Christian leaders wrote another creed trying once again to clarify the Trinity for folks, particularly the Jesus part. That Council resulted in the Apostles’ Creed. Over the years, there has been much adversarial, bitter fighting over the concept of the Trinity and throughout history, the church has split because of controversy surrounding this doctrine. Yes, the

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