Trinity Sunday

June 7, 2009

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Intimate Experiences of God’s Grace”

Text: Romans 8:16-17a – “… it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirits that we are children of God,… heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…”

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 6:1-8

Romans 8:12-17

Proposition: God comes to us in different ways, according to our differing natures and our diverse needs. As we open our lives to the mystery of God’s presence, we experience, not the theological intricacies of a precise doctrine, but the “Intimate Experiences of God’s Grace.”

Prayer for Illumination: Almighty God, in you are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of your Word; and give us grace that we may clearly understand and freely choose the way of your wisdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I love great quotes. Every once in a while, someone will say or write something that just captures exactly what needs to be said in exactly the right way. That’s one of the reasons I shared in the last newsletter some of the quotes I had come across from Andy Rooney. The only problem with my page in that issue of our newsletter, as someone pointed out to me last week, is that, had Andy Rooney read my page, he probably would have quoted Mark Twain: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I probably will not again refer to “the late Andy Rooney”… at least not until after he’s actually died! As the kids today say: “My bad!”

But quotes can be great, can’t they? There are some particularly good quotes about “experience.” Some of the ones I like the most:

· “Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” Oscar Wilde

· “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” Tom Bodett

· “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn; my God do you learn.” C.S. Lewis

· “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Albert Einstein

· “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.” Aldous Huxley.

· “Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high.” Norwegian proverb

Experience. There’s no substitute for it. You can be told what it’s like to lose someone significant in your life… but until you’ve experienced it, you can’t really understand. You can be told what it’s like to fall in love with someone… but until you experience it, you can’t really understand. It’s the same with God. You can be told all about God. You can study concepts about God. But until you have some experiential knowledge of God, you can’t really understand. One of my favorite verses from the Psalms is this beautiful one: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” To really experience God’s goodness, you’ve got to come to the Table, pull up a chair, and take a bite.

In what ways have you experienced God in your life before?

It may be that you encountered God in a special way on a retreat – when you were in high school, or on a retreat, or in a worship service. It may be that you experienced God’s presence in some way when walking through the quiet of the woods, or paddling a boat across a calm lake, or stopping on a stroll to marvel at the artistic touch of color that the sky has at dawn or at sunset, or standing in awe as a mighty summer storm thunders across the Plains, or watching a star-filled night.

It may be that you encountered God in a special way through the presence of Jesus in your life. It may have happened when you paused long enough to lay claim that the faith promised by your parents and a congregation in your baptism is now your faith. It may have occurred when you asked Jesus to come and live in your heart and be in your life in a way you never asked before. It may have occurred when, in the midst of prayer or music or a worship service, you suddenly became aware that Jesus was a more significant part of your life than he ever had been earlier. It may have occurred when you realized that your journey with Christ, which always has been a conscious part of your life, is growing and continuing as you grow up and grow older.

It may be that you encountered God in a special way through the mysterious movings of the Holy Spirit. You may have had an experience of healing: in your body, in your emotions, in your memories, in your relationships. You may have suddenly known, in the midst of a crisis, a place of calmness and peace welling up from a place unknown deep inside of you. You may have unexpectedly received an answer to a fervent prayer, a clear sense of direction at a time when you were floundering in a sea of indecision, or a focus and purpose for your life that you longed to see grow and blossom from within you.

There are different ways in which we experience God, and that is as it should be. With as different as we all are – we who stand in the image of God, who are called and claimed as God’s children, who are nothing less than brothers and sisters of Jesus our Lord – does it make sense that there would only be one way to experience God’s presence in our lives, in our world, in our worship, in our service, in our families, in our communities? There are different ways in which we experience God. However, more than just a commentary upon us, I believe that this variety is at the very heart of how we understand the nature of God . . . and, from a classic, Christian perspective, this is most clearly laid out in the doctrine of the Trinity, which the Church celebrates each year on this Sunday after Pentecost.

What does it say to us when we speak of God as our Father, Mother, Creator, Parent? It means that God is the Source of who we are, of what we have, of life itself. In 1991, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) added an eleventh document to our Book of Confessions, which is Part I of the Constitution of our Church. The very first line of this “Brief Statement of Faith” which we will affirm in a few minutes in our Declaration of Faith, says it best, says it all: “In life and in death we belong to God.” This does not mean that God owns us, any more than any of us who are parents could ever possibly think that we own our children. However, it does mean that it is God’s nature to be in a loving relationship with us, to long to provide for our needs, to surround us with the kind of love and acceptance and unconditional support that every child needs from a loving parent.

What does it say to us when we speak of Jesus Christ our Lord? It means that we see a God who loved humankind so much that it was no longer sufficient to deal with us on a second-hand basis, as if by hearsay alone. So God, the great Creator of the universe and maker of all that is, willingly and freely chose to accept the limits of human flesh and blood, to experience life as we know it, and to show us that there is another way to live, a different way to love, a better way to serve. Jesus came as our Lord and Savior, to free us from the sin which so consistently surrounds and entraps us like sticky flypaper. Jesus came as our Brother, to embody and explain the love of God for us in a way that prophets and words, signs and wonders, sunsets and rainbows could not adequately accomplish by themselves. We know God as our loving, forgiving Friend, when we look at Jesus Christ our Lord.

What does it say to us when we speak of the Holy Spirit? It is the Spirit that shows us God’s power and presence, as lives are transformed, priorities changed, risks accepted. It is the Spirit that prays for us and prays through us when we no longer can. It is the Spirit who reminds us of God’s desire – God’s demand – for justice, for compassion, for mission, for service, for witness. It is the Spirit who calls us into communities of faith, prompting us to remember that it is an oxymoron to speak of a “Christian hermit.” We are not in this life of ours alone, and the Spirit reminds us that God’s nature is, at its very core, communal in existence.

In that marvelous 8th chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, he writes these words from our lesson this morning: “… it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, … heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Paul here does not explain, logically and rationally and theologically, the mystery of God as Trinity. In good, rabbinic fashion, Paul chooses simply to speak of God… of Christ… of Spirit. He shows us how this diffuse nature of God, coming to us in different ways and different forms, all works together with us, around us, among us, within us, through us, on behalf of us. We are claimed by God, related to God, joined to God through Christ by the Spirit’s witness.

God comes to us in different ways, according to our differing natures and our diverse needs. Although this is beyond our logical comprehension, as we open our lives to the mystery of God’s presence, we experience, not the theological intricacies of a precise doctrine, but the “Intimate Experiences of God’s Grace.” That’s what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity really is trying to say, I believe; it speaks to us about ways in which we experience the marvels of God’s nature in relationship with us.

Thanks be to God. AMEN!