Preaching at Saint Mark's Episcopal Church
Berkeley, California
The Feast of the Holy Trinity
The First Sunday after Pentecost
22 May 2016
“Wonder”
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8 or Canticle 13
Romans 5:1-5
St. John 16:12-15
INI
It
is not without some sense of dread and soul searching that the preacher
approaches this day. Its sermons are more thank likely rife with heresy and
equivocation, and yet someone must say something on this day that honors the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Russian icon, depicting the Hospitality of
Abraham and Sarah, which serves as the representation of the Holy Trinity is
perhaps the most eloquent, and the most appropriate and useful for us as we
worship the Triune God. It is clear and succinct and yet it has a mystery to it
that invites us to explore.
There
is in contemporary Christian life a tendency to either seek complete
understanding of all that Christianity has to offer or to ignore that which we
cannot understand. The black and white nature of how so many Christians respond
to social issues speaks to this observance. Where the Scriptures are quite
obtuse or mixed others find definite answers and absolute truths. And some of
us, when confronted by mystery and controversy through our hands up into the
air, running away in state of denial and avoidance. Or, as Alan Jones says, “Mystery doesn’t sell
well – Certainty does!” There is a key to all of this in the readings for
today, especially in the Hebrew Scriptures, a reading from Proverbs. The other
readings contribute as well, but its heart is in what the author of Proverbs
attempted to show us by showing us the beauty of Wisdom and of the creation
that surrounds us and that indeed is we ourselves. It reminds me of a response
on the part of God in the face of Job’s advisor’s challenge: “The
Almighty! We cannot find him, preeminent in power and judgment, abundant in
justice, who never oppresses.” To this
effrontery and lèse majesté, God does not mince words.
“Where were you when I
founded the earth?
Tell me, if you have
understanding.
Who determined its size?
Surely you know?
Who stretched out the
measuring line for it?
Into what were its
pedestals sunk,
and who laid its
cornerstone,
While the morning stars
sang together
and all the sons of God* shouted for joy?
Who shut within doors the
sea,
when it burst forth from
the womb,b
When I made the clouds its
garment
and thick darkness its
swaddling bands?
When I set limits for it
and fastened the bar of its
door,
And said: Thus far shall
you come but no farther,
and here
shall your proud waves stop?
These words could be read with
anger and with a loud voice and timpani, but they can also be read with beauty
– for that is what God is attempting get Job and his companions to see – the
beauty of what God has done, and on the basis of that to worship, to adore, and
to believe.
There
are two parts to the Proverbs passage.
In the first four verses of the lectionary selection we meet Wisdom
standing in the midst of life. She stands at the cross roads, and in the places
where humankind gathers to meet out justice. She is the center of life, and she
is God’s constant companion. This is a very incarnational idea – that God
should be in our midst and one of us. That is where the latter verses take us –
to see where Wisdom stands beside God to witness his acts in creation. The
inventory that the author of Proverbs takes is one that takes our breath away,
as we survey the wonders of Creation. And that is the very thing that these
proverbs wish to convince us of.
Will
you learn something new this morning? Perhaps not – and that will be OK. You
may go home today without any new sense of what the Trinity is or will be in
your life – but if you go home with a
sense of wonder – then we shall have done something here. God calls Job away
from all his sufferings and troubles and to just wonder at it all. The
spiritual says it well, “Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble. Whether it
be the crucified Lord, the thoughts of Mary as she ponders her son, our own new
vision of Mt. Hood on a clear day – we need to tremble and wonder.
We
do things around here. Like God, with
Wisdom present, we create. We form and shape, we destroy and make new, we come
and we go – and we make mistakes. It is at that point that we need to retreat
to the wonder again, and leave behind the sorrow of error. I talked with a
young woman this week. Her life was a catalogue of mistakes with men, with her
family, with her daughter, and most of all with her self. She was lost and
confused and full of questions and anxiety. I asked her if she could forgive
herself all these things, and she could no longer answer. She was caught up in
a world of wonder that God would allow such a thing – to forgive myself and to
accept it. I’ve been there – have you?
The
Trinity is relationship and community. It is wonder. It is something to give us pause and prayer. It is a model
of living and creating life. The closing verses of the first reading say it
well.
“and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human
race."
SDG
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