Lucia Lloyd’s sermon: Looking and Relating to God
Trinity Sunday, Year C
June 16, 2019
John 16:12-15
I was looking for my hat. It was a cold, windy, gray day. I wanted my favorite soft warm hat, the one in fuchsia, my favorite color. I was looking all over the house for it, and I knew it was around somewhere. Had someone put something down on top of it? Had I tucked it in the sleeve of a coat? Had I left it in my car? Was it in the closet? Had one of the kids borrowed it? I asked the kids if they knew where my hat was, and my daughter said, “Mom. It’s on your head.” Oh, right.
We sometimes do the same thing when we are looking for God. We look for God as if God were out there somewhere, and we sometimes forget to look for God in the closest of all places, the presence of God in ourselves, our own souls. So I am grateful we have the doctrine of the Trinity, to remind us that the Holy Spirit is in each of us, and the Holy Spirit in us is God.
I have heard other people who’ve had experiences similar to my search for my hat. Looking everywhere for your car keys, only to find them in your hand. Rummaging around for your pencil when it’s tucked behind your ear. Even searching for your glasses when they’re literally right in front of your eyes. In some ways that’s the best analogy of all for looking for God, because the desire to find God is motivated by the Holy Spirit in us. And any clarity of sight we have in seeing God is also the action of the Holy Spirit in us. Being able to look for God is possible because God is already present in us as the Holy Spirit.
So I am grateful for the Holy Spirit, which makes it possible for God to be active in me, and in the Christian community. At the same time, I know that I have plenty of my own shortcomings, failures, weaknesses and sins, just like all the other mortals on the planet. So I am grateful to have the doctrine of the Trinity to tell me that the Holy Spirit in me is not all there is to God. I could easily become self-centered or just plain weird if I thought that there was nothing more to God than God in myself.
I am grateful to have the doctrine of the Trinity to tell me about God beyond me, the creator of all things, who existed long before my birth and will continue to exist long after my death. The doctrine of the Trinity tells me that this is the same God that is in me as the Holy Spirit, and that God is also much bigger than “my own little princess self,” to use Anne Lamott’s phrase. God is also the creator of the planets and the stars, the sunsets and the strawberries. I myself could not create a strawberry, much less a world, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to experience the awe and wonder toward a God who can.
Still, if I am asked to sit in silent contemplation of an abstraction, my mind starts to wander fairly quickly. My attention span for abstractions tends to be fairly short. A concept like Eternity or Infinity is beyond what I can wrap my head around. So I am grateful for the doctrine of the Trinity that says that the Eternal and the Infinite God is also not all there is to God. I am grateful that I can relate to God as a human being who talked about fish and gardening and money. I am grateful that I can relate to God in a way that involves not just my abstract thinking skills, but involves my emotional responses and my experience of the physical world. I am grateful that God becomes real as a human being in Jesus, who can love and cry and embrace and eat and sleep, and be hurt and be part of human life. Since my mind wanders when I try to contemplate abstractions, I am grateful that God can tell stories. I am grateful that in a world of suffering, God doesn’t just say, “you’re on your own,” but God goes through the suffering too, and shows us that even suffering isn’t separation from God. God becomes vulnerable with us. I am grateful that the doctrine of the Trinity tells me that the vulnerable and suffering God is still God. I am grateful that Jesus shows us that suffering and death do not have the last word. The worst that humanity can do cannot kill God. Since my own sins and weaknesses prevent me from being pure and holy, I am grateful that the love of God, which extends even to vulnerability and suffering, can make me pure and holy.
If Jesus were the only person of the Trinity, my faith would feel irrelevant, as if it were stuck in the past. So as we come full circle, I am grateful for the doctrine of the Trinity, in which the Holy Spirit is not only God in me, but the Holy Spirit also is active in the connection between me and Jesus, and the connection between me and God, and the connection between God and Jesus. Jesus explains that our faith does not have to be stuck in the past, and Jesus tells us why: “Jesus said to the disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth."
The Holy Spirit doesn’t stop speaking after Jesus’ lifetime. When the people who wrote the Bible set down their pens, the Holy Spirit was still speaking, and is still speaking. The Holy Spirit is still speaking now in the 21st century, with all the changes that are taking place in the 21st century. Our faith does not require us to try to go back to the distant past, or even to try to go back to the way things used to be in the 50’s. The doctrine of the Trinity, and scripture itself in today’s gospel reading, tell us that the Holy Spirit is still speaking now. The Holy Spirit is guiding us into truth in this generation, here and now.
The scriptures talk less about what the Trinity is, and more about what the Trinity does. Today’s verses from John 16 are a perfect example. They say, The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus, because the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’ and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Jesus’. It gives me the feeling of God’s energy whirling around in circles through Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, and as they whirl around the distinctions of which is which become blurred by the motion. And we’re not standing off somewhere separate from these whirling circles, we’re right there caught up in the whirling with them. For this reason Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’ and declare it to you."
So what is the Holy Spirit declaring to you? Among other things, it is declaring that if you’re looking for God, you can find God as close as the top of your head. You can find God in your head. You can find God in your heart. You can find God in Jesus. You can find God in awe and wonder at the Creator of all physical things, and the God who transcends all physical things and the time and space they exist in. Because of the activity of the Holy Spirit, even looking for God itself is a way of finding God.
We sometimes do the same thing when we are looking for God. We look for God as if God were out there somewhere, and we sometimes forget to look for God in the closest of all places, the presence of God in ourselves, our own souls. So I am grateful we have the doctrine of the Trinity, to remind us that the Holy Spirit is in each of us, and the Holy Spirit in us is God.
I have heard other people who’ve had experiences similar to my search for my hat. Looking everywhere for your car keys, only to find them in your hand. Rummaging around for your pencil when it’s tucked behind your ear. Even searching for your glasses when they’re literally right in front of your eyes. In some ways that’s the best analogy of all for looking for God, because the desire to find God is motivated by the Holy Spirit in us. And any clarity of sight we have in seeing God is also the action of the Holy Spirit in us. Being able to look for God is possible because God is already present in us as the Holy Spirit.
So I am grateful for the Holy Spirit, which makes it possible for God to be active in me, and in the Christian community. At the same time, I know that I have plenty of my own shortcomings, failures, weaknesses and sins, just like all the other mortals on the planet. So I am grateful to have the doctrine of the Trinity to tell me that the Holy Spirit in me is not all there is to God. I could easily become self-centered or just plain weird if I thought that there was nothing more to God than God in myself.
I am grateful to have the doctrine of the Trinity to tell me about God beyond me, the creator of all things, who existed long before my birth and will continue to exist long after my death. The doctrine of the Trinity tells me that this is the same God that is in me as the Holy Spirit, and that God is also much bigger than “my own little princess self,” to use Anne Lamott’s phrase. God is also the creator of the planets and the stars, the sunsets and the strawberries. I myself could not create a strawberry, much less a world, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to experience the awe and wonder toward a God who can.
Still, if I am asked to sit in silent contemplation of an abstraction, my mind starts to wander fairly quickly. My attention span for abstractions tends to be fairly short. A concept like Eternity or Infinity is beyond what I can wrap my head around. So I am grateful for the doctrine of the Trinity that says that the Eternal and the Infinite God is also not all there is to God. I am grateful that I can relate to God as a human being who talked about fish and gardening and money. I am grateful that I can relate to God in a way that involves not just my abstract thinking skills, but involves my emotional responses and my experience of the physical world. I am grateful that God becomes real as a human being in Jesus, who can love and cry and embrace and eat and sleep, and be hurt and be part of human life. Since my mind wanders when I try to contemplate abstractions, I am grateful that God can tell stories. I am grateful that in a world of suffering, God doesn’t just say, “you’re on your own,” but God goes through the suffering too, and shows us that even suffering isn’t separation from God. God becomes vulnerable with us. I am grateful that the doctrine of the Trinity tells me that the vulnerable and suffering God is still God. I am grateful that Jesus shows us that suffering and death do not have the last word. The worst that humanity can do cannot kill God. Since my own sins and weaknesses prevent me from being pure and holy, I am grateful that the love of God, which extends even to vulnerability and suffering, can make me pure and holy.
If Jesus were the only person of the Trinity, my faith would feel irrelevant, as if it were stuck in the past. So as we come full circle, I am grateful for the doctrine of the Trinity, in which the Holy Spirit is not only God in me, but the Holy Spirit also is active in the connection between me and Jesus, and the connection between me and God, and the connection between God and Jesus. Jesus explains that our faith does not have to be stuck in the past, and Jesus tells us why: “Jesus said to the disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth."
The Holy Spirit doesn’t stop speaking after Jesus’ lifetime. When the people who wrote the Bible set down their pens, the Holy Spirit was still speaking, and is still speaking. The Holy Spirit is still speaking now in the 21st century, with all the changes that are taking place in the 21st century. Our faith does not require us to try to go back to the distant past, or even to try to go back to the way things used to be in the 50’s. The doctrine of the Trinity, and scripture itself in today’s gospel reading, tell us that the Holy Spirit is still speaking now. The Holy Spirit is guiding us into truth in this generation, here and now.
The scriptures talk less about what the Trinity is, and more about what the Trinity does. Today’s verses from John 16 are a perfect example. They say, The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus, because the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’ and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Jesus’. It gives me the feeling of God’s energy whirling around in circles through Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, and as they whirl around the distinctions of which is which become blurred by the motion. And we’re not standing off somewhere separate from these whirling circles, we’re right there caught up in the whirling with them. For this reason Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will take what is Jesus’ and declare it to you."
So what is the Holy Spirit declaring to you? Among other things, it is declaring that if you’re looking for God, you can find God as close as the top of your head. You can find God in your head. You can find God in your heart. You can find God in Jesus. You can find God in awe and wonder at the Creator of all physical things, and the God who transcends all physical things and the time and space they exist in. Because of the activity of the Holy Spirit, even looking for God itself is a way of finding God.