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26th
May 2013 - Morning - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon
for Trinty Sunday morning - 26th May 2013
Romans 5. 1-5
John 16. 12-15
Do you think God really understands God? Do you think God is
happy to be God?
On Trinity Sunday – above all other Sundays – we try
to talk about God... and we usually (by ‘we’ I mean
all those who have drawn the short straw of preaching today!);
we usually get ourselves into a complete mess when we do so.
Talking about God can be difficult and confusing. It is much
easier to talk about Jesus.... I vividly remember a former CW
(not in this parish) once telling me that I should preach more
about Jesus and less about God (!) But of course, if Christianity
is worth anything, then we are not changing the subject when
we talk about Jesus – for he is God too.
And all our language about God is picture language. That applies
just as much
to the esoteric and abstract language that philosophers and theologians
use to
talk about God, as it does to the naive and down-to-earth illustrations
that have
helped ordinary people – like you and me – to relate
to the God to whom we
pray, day by day and week by week.
The famous theologian who asserts that “the economic Trinity
is the immanent
Trinity, and vice versa”, has probably come no closer to
understanding the true
mystery of who God is than the child who looks at a cloverleaf
or considers
steam, water and ice, and finds in them something strange and
beautiful.
Because basically that is what we are trying to say – that
God cares for us as
individuals and as a community and therefore God himself is both
individual
and is a community. 1 in 3 and 3 in 1.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not spelt out in the New Testament
– far less in the Old. It was formulated by the Church.
No doubt Gregory of Nyssa and the other
Church fathers needed lots of asprin as they laboured over the
definitions of the
Trinity that baffle us to this day. But the doctrine was not
spun out of thin air. It
was the conclusion about God that Christians were driven to by
their experience
of mission and worship. It says something about the ways in which
we
encounter God in our everyday lives. For all the problems about
saying that one
and one and one make one, they could find no other adequate explanation
of Loading...their encounter with God in Christ by his Spirit.
And a Trinitarian
understanding of God, they held, is already implied by such passages
as we read
this Sunday.
Christians have long turned to John’s Gospel and especially
the parts known as
the ‘Farewell discourses’ of John’s Gospel as
a commentary on the doctrine of
the Trinity. John’s language is so fluid – and the
arguments convey something
of the ‘circulation of divine love’ that – so
the Church came to hold –
constitutes the triune relationship of Creator, Redeemer and
Inspirer. John 14.9
– whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father; John 14.10
– Jesus is in the
Father and the Father is in him. Jesus is coming – and the
Spirit is coming
(John 16). Ideas bubble up to the surface then sink again, before
rising once
more. The strange elusiveness of the language – “Soon
you won’t see me, soon
you will (John 16) suggests a mystery that can only be expressed
as a paradox.
So today we learn that when the promised Spirit speaks it is
the world of Jesus
that we hear and that all that the Father has, Jesus has made
his own.
But none of any of this can really bring us closer to understanding
the mystery
that lies at the heart of God. That is why we should never despise
the simplicity
of the clover leaf or other analogies called into service this
day above all others.
And we certainly do not despise what is the most hallowed and
revered image
of the Trinity in Christian iconography – that of Andrei
Rublev’s icon depicting
the three strangers seated around a table from the story of Abraham
and Sarah at
the oaks of Mamre. This has long been taken to depict something
about the
Trinity. The fact that there are three of them, although none
is named. The
subtle interplay of the three figures, their deference to each
other, the likeness of
the faces .... all are significant. As are the symbols of the
tree, the rock and the
wine.
But reading an icon is not an exercise in decoding – this
is not the subject for
the next Dan Brown potboiler.... (please God, no!) but if we
linger with the
icon, allowing it to lead us beyond itself and deeper into prayer
– well perhaps
then we might come a little closer to the mysterious Reality
to which it bears
witness.
It has been remarked that there is note of deep sadness to the
figures in the icon.
Why do you imagine that might be? Isn’t being God supposed
to be blissful? Well maybe there is a clue in this morning’s
gospel. Jesus says to his disciples,
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot
bear them now.” It It Loading...seems that if we are told
all the truth all at once it would be more than we could cope
with. This is a sombre remark – and because of that some
scholars say that it really does sound like something the historical
Jesus might have said.
The Gospel is good news. In the end the three in one will be
all in all. But – as
has been brought home to us in a most dreadful way by the events
on a London
street, the long, sorry story of all that humankind must suffer
isn’t over just yet.
That – We – must make everyone in the Holy Trinity
very unhappy indeed.
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26th
May 2013 - Evening - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon
for Trinity Sunday evening - 19th May 2013
Exodus 3. 1-15
John 3. 1-17
Here we are – my last full sermon for the next three months!
And here we are
again on Trinity Sunday, trying to make sense of what –
on the face of it –
seems to have no sense to it.
We have – it seems – a God who delights in riddles
and mystery. But that is just
to admit that there are aspects of God that are quite unknowable
for us – at least
this side of the grave.
God chooses to reveal himself to us – in his Word by the
Holy Scriptures. In
Sacrament – through the sharing of bread and wine, and forgiveness,
and love.
Through the Prophets – in what we call the Old Testament
and most of all in his
son, Jesus the Christ. And yet still we just don’t seem
to get it! All that
revealing going on and yet here we are again on Trinity Sunday
faced with the
reality of having to admit that there is much about God that
we just don’t know.
And yet maybe that has a purpose too. For human beings are nothing
if not
curious. We share that characteristic with other animals of course
– most
notably the other primates, our cousins the great apes, but also
with other
animals. My dogs and cat can become very curious if they think
I am hiding
something tasty just out of sight or reach.... And how many of
you enjoy a good
murder mystery on the TV or crime novel?
But human beings are perhaps a bit different in that we need
to keep our
curiosity stimulated if we are to keep interest in something.
We all of us – to
some extent – suffer with attention deficit disorder...
ADD. Once we think we
understand something completely we can so easily lose interest
and move onto
the next puzzle. So maybe God chooses to keep us guessing to
ensure that we
will never lose interest in him? If our purpose on this earth
is to draw every
closer to God, to discover more of his true nature and to model
ourselves on that
nature, then we need to keep our attention and our interest firmly
on him – and
that means never revealing himself completely to us – even
if we are given
some pretty big clues along the way.
And we love to use our imaginations. A few years ago the actor
and story-teller
David Kossof published some of his takes on the familiar bible
stories that we
know well and one of which we heard tonight. This is part of
his version of our
first reading.
“As the sheep climbed, Moses followed them. Soon he was
high above the plain
on the mountain called Horeb. Suddenly he saw an amazing sight.
Not a vision;
a real thing. But unbelievable. It was a bush, burning fiercely,
with a roaring
sound. (there’s the first mystery)
Nothing near to it was alight, but the fantastic thing was that
the bush itself
stood in the flames unharmed. Not a branch or a leaf changed
in any way.
Moses remembered suddenly that this mountain was called by people
the
mountain of God. As this thought came into his mind, so, equally
clearly, he
heard a voice. It spoke from the middle of the flames. It said
rather an odd
thing. It said, ‘take off your shoes.’ And then, when
Moses just stared, it said
‘Take off your shoes. This place is holy.’
Moses did so, and began to have a pretty good idea who was speaking.
He was right. ‘This is God,’ said the voice, ‘don’t
be afraid, and if you must
cover your head with your coat, leave it loose. We have to have
a talk and I
don’t want you to miss anything. You needn’t stand
so stiff: sit on that rock.
Moses sat down, trembling. The bush burned. ‘Comfortable?’
said God. ‘Good.
Now listen. I’ve decided to do something about bringing
the children of Israel
out of Egypt. They are having a bad time.’
‘I come from Egypt,’ said Moses.
‘I know that,’ said God, ‘and you’re going
back to Egypt. I want you to go and
talk to Pharoah for me.’
‘I don’t want to make excuses,’ said Moses (which
was of course exactly what
he wanted to do!) ‘but some years ago, as you probably know,
I killed a man in
Egypt. I’ll go back if you say, but Pharoah may remember
me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said God, ‘he’s
been dead for some years. There’s a new one.
Even worse. The worst yet! I tell you (said God) even with my
help you’re
going to have a hard time ....”
You get the idea.... this sort of banter goes on for some time
as God explains to
all the objections that Moses raises that he has an answer. Aaron
will come
along to act as his spokesperson – to get over the problem
with the stammer. Loading...And he will be granted miraculous
powers to perform so-called ‘magic tricks’ to rival
the court magicians and soothsayers.
Finally Moses asks what sounds like a very reasonable question,
‘ and who shall
I say sent me?’ In other words he wants to know the name
of God. But that
raises a difficult question. Because to know the name of someone
gives –
especially in ancient cultures – an element of power over
them. So real names
were closely guarded secrets and people hid behind titles or
assumed names.
We still do it today to some extent. Most of you will call me
by my real or
Christian Name – Maureen. But there remain some who are
uncomfortable with
that. Who prefer to call me Vicar, or insist on using my full
titles of Reverend or
Prebendary..... and there are some formal occasions when that
is quite correct.
Especially when I am being asked to represent this community
in some way.
Some may not feel they know me well enough to use my own name....
Some of us still feel a bit awkward in the presence of God. We
find it
uncomfortable to invoke his name. We revert to titles or to relationship.
We call
him Lord, or Father. Jesus’ disciples called him ‘Teacher’
– Rabbi or Rabbouni.
God it seems needs to keep the mystery going a bit longer. He
is not to be called
by name. He is not to be owned or tamed or even fully known.
We are kept in
suspense and asked to go on trying to puzzle it out. God keeps
us interested and
intrigued; wanting to know more, yet finding through our discoveries
about the
world he has created only more questions to ask. God will be
who he will be. I
am who I am.... but at least it is never boring!
So keep asking questions, keep trying to find out more; keep
worrying away at
the mystery and we will grow steadily closer to God – even
if we – just like
poor old Moses and Nicodemus - can never find out everything
there is to
know! Amen.
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