God has created us in the divine image, and that’s the truth about God we really want to focus on and know and live on this feast of the Holy Trinity.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Texts: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
What if the Triune God is not at all interested in our concept of the Trinity?
That is to say, when we celebrate the Holy Trinity we’d do better to focus on what the Triune God actually cares about: who and what we are, not who and what God is.
Our Hebrew forebears tell us that in the midst of creation, God said, “let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness.” And Scripture from there forward is the story of God calling humanity into that divine image. There’s very little about how God is put together. God’s personality and God’s love, desire, and concern for humanity and the creation are clear, but not God’s make-up.
And the Triune God’s concern throughout Scripture is how we live and love with each other. In short, how we live as that image of God.
Which brings us to Lady Wisdom.
We like to try and figure out who she is. Today she’s called Wisdom and Understanding, which reminds us of Isaiah’s declaration that the Spirit of God is, in part, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” So maybe Lady Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. Many have noticed here her participation in the creation and think of John chapter 1, and conclude Lady Wisdom is actually Christ. Both are beautiful possibilities.
But what Wisdom actually cares about and calls out is that we seek her, ask for divine wisdom in our lives, that we abandon foolishness and all the things that lead us to harm each other and the creation. Her voice speaks as God to us. But what she offers is what we want to seek.
And so Wisdom’s gift molds us into God’s image.
Which was God’s intent from the beginning. Instead of trying to figure out the divine math of a Triune God far beyond our comprehension, this day is better spent seeking divine wisdom. Asking that she shape us into a new way of understanding in the world. More than increased knowledge, we seek a way of God that grows in understanding the world and each other.
Today Jesus promises that as we’re ready, the Spirit will tell us more. The joy of that is that if we don’t understand some things now, one day we might. Humanity can grow more and more ready to hear more and more from Lady Wisdom.
Because the more we see her as God, the more we learn God’s patience and foresight, God’s ability to hold more than one thought or idea in tension, God’s grace in seeing good even where we can’t imagine finding any.
And today we hear other aspects of the image of God that are offered as gift to us.
Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. All the talk of love we hear from Jesus, all the focus on love of God and love of neighbor, all the attributes of divine love – self-giving, vulnerable, sacrificial – all this is the center of the image of God. So when someone purporting to have a Christian agenda does these horrifying things among us, we know they are not of Christ. These evil killings are not God’s will, are not God’s love.
The love that holds the Trinity together, the love that went to a cross and broke the power of evil and death, the love that still is willing to lose everything to draw you and all people into God’s heart, that’s the image of God God desperately needs you and me to live in the world.
And, like wisdom, love is a gift of God, poured into your heart and mine. You don’t have to strain to produce it. If you’re lacking in divine love, ask for it. Pray for it. And expect to have the Spirit fill you up and re-shape you into the love of God.
Today Paul says we have access to God’s grace through Christ, too.
So we can be grace people in the world, living as God’s image in our forgiveness, our willingness to look for good in others, our mercy for those who may not deserve it but get it because they, too, are beloved of God.
Paul also says we have peace with God through Christ’s love for us. When we become peacemakers, we embody God’s image in the world. As people who don’t return hate for hate or violence for violence. Sometimes offering a strong resistant peace that stands calmly, lovingly in the face of hatred, refusing to participate. Sometimes being a quiet peace with others that perhaps leads them to consider whether that’s a way they might want to walk.
In the wake of the devastating violence of the assassinations and attempted assassinations in our city this weekend, on top of this week’s escalation of war in the Middle East, and the abuse of military power in Los Angeles and the disgusting spectacle of a Soviet-style military parade in Washington, our living into this image of God’s peace is more important than ever. And it’s the only thing that can turn this world away from the hatred and violence that are now threatening to consume us.
Our worship today re-focuses us from thinking about God to doing as God.
So on this Holy Trinity Sunday, let’s spend our energy and time seeking God’s Wisdom, that she make us wise; asking for the Holy Spirit to re-shape our hearts into God’s love; seeking from Christ the peace and grace that will make us God’s agents of healing and change in this world.
Maybe we’ll understand the full truth about the Trinity in the life to come. Maybe we won’t. But right now, right here, we know the image of that Triune God and we can be shaped by God to live in it, God’s most fervent wish.
Let that be our focus and hope and prayer today. That as God’s image spreads through this world, God’s grace and healing and love go with it and it brings hope for a new day of peace and wholeness.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
