Sermons
Sunday 15th June 2014, Trinity Sunday, evening
Isaiah 6.1-8; John 16.5-15
by Revd Kat Campion-Spall
It’s tempting, especially for someone like me, only a few years out of theological college, it’s tempting to approach the Trinity head-first.
What with the thousands and thousands of words I read and wrote about the Trinity, as I learnt about what I should and shouldn’t believe in, as well as several new words to explain it.
And this head stuff is really important – after all, you want your clergy to have a solid grounding in theology.
But actually, I wonder if it makes more sense to approach the Trinity heart-first. How can I know God – not know about God, but know God. Why it matters. What I should do because of it.
I can’t somehow condense a term’s worth of reading, lectures and essays into an easily digestible 5-minute sermon to keep you safe from heretical thoughts.
But that doesn’t really matter, because I can talk about how God is revealed in our lives, in our hearts, in the Bible; as a starting point for thinking about the Trinity.
Because you don’t need a degree in theology - and you certainly don’t need someone who has got a degree in theology getting her knickers in a twist trying to explain it - to know something about the Trinity.
Because God wants to be know by us. God is constantly revealing things about God to us. And that doesn’t normally come in neat theological packages with labels like ‘The Trinity’.
What strikes me, from our readings this evening, especially chosen for Trinity Sunday, is that there isn’t a huge amount that is obviously about the Trinity.
What there is, is a lot about really important places in our lives where we need, and meet, God: sin, forgiveness, and what happens next.
For me, those are heart things, not head things - about our experience, not our learning.
So, sin, and forgiveness, and what happens next.
Our first reading is for me one of the most beautiful passages of the Old Testament, and is one of the most majestic descriptions of the glory of God in the Bible.
Isaiah sees the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lofty. So high that even the temple is only big enough to hold the hem of the Lord’s robe.
The Lord is surrounded by flying angels, who sing his praise: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’
Their song is so loud that it nearly shakes the doors off their hinges, and the house is filled with smoke.
This vision of the Lord hits the prophet like an earthquake.
The scene is confusing – overwhelming – and throws him into panic: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’
To declare himself to be unclean is pretty serious - being unclean meant not participating in society, or in religious observances - he is utterly unworthy to be in the presence of almighty God.
I wonder how any of us might feel in the same situation - I certainly would have things to be ashamed of if I suddenly came face-to-face with God.
So what happens?
One of the seraphs comes to him and touches a burning coal on his lips, and says: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’
He is forgiven, he is healed. God, in all glory and might and power, sitting on the throne, sends an angel to give the message of forgiveness and healing.
And what happens next?
God asks, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And the prophet answers, ‘Here am I; send me!’
Without receiving healing and forgiveness, I wonder if he would have felt able to say that?
It seems unlikely, as when we think about God, and who is able to do God’s work,it often feels like we could never be good enough. But, just as with the prophet, God comes to us and loves us and calls us and sends us.
When we come to our Gospel reading, we get this real sense of dynamism – calling and sending and returning - between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And we hear that the Spirit – here referred to by Jesus as the Advocate - will prove the world wrong about sin, and righteousness and judgment.
Now that takes a lot of unpacking, and I can’t do it justice this evening, but the core, I think, of what he is saying, is about forgiveness.
Sin, righteousness, judgment are all quite legalistic words, which to a Jewish crowd would have been about keeping laws and getting the punishment you deserve when you break them.
But that’s not what Jesus is about. Because with God, none of us gets what we deserve.
It takes us right back to Isaiah, bewildered and humbled at the foot of the Lord’s throne, being forgiven.
And any of us who feel we have been touched by God’s grace at any point in our lives will recognise that. That sense of “God loves even me! Even me! Despite everything!”
That’s what’s at the heart of healing - remember how often in the Gospels Jesus heals people saying "Go in peace, your sins are forgiven.” And what is forgiveness but the assurance that God still loves us, despite everything.
So Jesus scraps following the rules, scraps punishment and deservingness and all that, because he what he shows us is God’s love and mercy, ready and waiting for anyone who turns round and asks for it, he shows us that loving God is the starting point, not being right.
And of course, God doesn’t heal us and forgive us so that we can sit around at home feeling smug about it. We are sent into the world to do God’s work, whatever that might mean for each of us.
So. That’s my heart-first plunge into our readings as we try and approach the Trinity.
What can that tell our heads?
We see a picture of God who reaches out in love, who calls, and sends. It’s a pattern of God’s love that exists within the very heart of God. God does not sit alone, stonily, on a throne in heaven. The Father sends the Son, and calls him back, they send the Spirit, in a dance of mutual love.
Together they created the world out of love, they reach out to us, in love, they forgive and heal and call and send us, in love.
Now, that won’t get you through any theology exams, and there is a lot more to be said and understood about the Trinity. But it only makes any sense at all, if we love God, if we come to God and allow God to come to us, if we receive mercy and forgiveness and grace and healing, and if we are prepared to follow God’s call.
