Year B, Trinity Sunday Romans 8:12-17
One
of the parts of my job I have always enjoyed is talking with parents and Godparents
before a baptism. It’s one of my few opportunities to talk to people in a small
group about the very basic tenets of our faith.
What I typically do is walk them through the liturgy itself as pretty
much everything we believe about baptism is in the words of the service itself. I
usually end by admitting that while there are many prayers and words in the
baptismal service, you could, if you really needed to, skip them all and simply
say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” I
always feel a bit sheepish admitting this, as if I have just pulled a fast one
over on the family. Yet as I reflected
on that particular line this week, in anticipation of Trinity Sunday, it had a
different effect on me.
I
rarely preach on the Trinity. Most preaching
professors warn their students not to try to preach the Trinity. It gets too complicated and almost any
explanation of the Trinity ends up being labeled as heretical. Trinity
Sunday is one of the few feast days that celebrates a doctrine rather than an
event, which means it’s kind of easy to ignore, because who wants to celebrate
doctrine? But it’s more than just
doctrine. And it’s more than an
elaborate cliff note to our baptismal liturgy.
Over
10 years ago, a book called “The Shack” was written. The Shack wasn’t a perfect
book, but there was one thing I really loved about that book. It brought the
Trinity alive in a way I had never experienced before. It made me want to hang
out with every member of the Trinity....live with the Trinity. Intellectually I knew what the Trinity was. I
am not saying I have ever claimed to understand it, but I had the working
definition. Yet this book made me want
to have a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And at
its very essence, that is what the Trinity is about—relationship—their
relationship with one another and our relationship with the triune God.
Paul
had a unique relationship with God, different than the disciples who had
actually met Jesus in the flesh. Jesus
spoke to Paul after his Ascension into heaven which is what led Paul to
transforming his life. He went from
persecuting Christians to becoming one of the greatest Christian theologians
and evangelists of all time. This is
amazing when you consider he never met Jesus. His experience with Jesus was
limited to a bright light and a voice from heaven. It was over in a few
minutes.
The
fact that Paul was able to address God as “Abba” (which is essentially Daddy)
is remarkable because it means he had an intimate relationship with God. In his Letter to the Romans he wrote, “When
we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit
that we are children of God…” Consider
that moment when a child (or maybe an adult) calls out to a parent after having
a nightmare. It’s a moment of desperation
and instinct, when you call on the person you know will always protect you,
always come to you. That was Paul’s relationship with God. His relationship wasn’t merely lovely prayers
and exquisite theological arguments. It
was made up of cries in the night to the one he knew was listening.
That
is the relationship we are all meant to have with God—the kind of relationship
we can’t always define but also can’t live without. I believe that at our very base level almost
all humans have personal relationship with God.
Even when self-proclaimed atheists are desperate, they call out to
God. Some might consider that insincere,
maybe even delusional, but I think it’s proof that we are (at our very core)
God’s children-- even those of us who don’t believe in him are still God’s
children.
I
have to admit that I have never dwelled on this part of this passage, because I
am always a little uncomfortable when people pray to God as Daddy or
Mommy. Perhaps it’s because I am
accustomed to the formality of the Episcopal Church, but it just seems
unnatural to me. Yet what struck me this
time was the astonishing fact that this was Paul calling God Daddy. Paul was not the warm and fuzzy type. He had
been a Pharisee, a keeper of the rules. He followed the letter of the law. I am
not saying his faith was insincere. It
was very sincere. But before he heard
the voice of Jesus, he definitely wasn’t calling God Daddy. In fact, before Jesus came to the earth and
embodied God, Jews were not even able to say the name of God. Even when writing the name of God, they would
leave the vowels out because to say or write the name of God was
forbidden. Yet here Paul is telling the
Romans that as children of God, we call God Abba.
This
wasn’t Paul merely repeating church doctrine.
His letter to the Romans was written before the Gospels were
written. Surely he had been taught about
Jesus, but it’s clear that he wasn’t merely repeating something someone told
him. He knew God intimately. And if a Pharisee who once persecuted
Christians can know God this well, then we all can. Paul wasn’t trying to explain the Trinity
here, but he was showing what it is to be in a relationship with God.
We
have a baptism at the later service…which is a very appropriate thing to do on
Trinity Sunday, not merely because we baptize the child in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but because we are blessing a
relationship. Our catechism says that in baptism we are adopted as God’s
children and made members of Christ’s body, the church.
We
are all born to a human family. Some of us are adopted into a human family. But
every single one of us has the opportunity to be adopted into God’s family. That family is far from perfect, but it is
enveloped in God’s perfect and unconditional love. My very favorite part of the baptismal
service is the end where the priest makes the sign of the cross on the forehead
of the baptismal candidate with oil and says, “You are sealed by the Holy
Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” The oil will wash off, but God’s promise will
be with that child of God for all time.
All
of you who are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are marked
as Christ’s own forever. And once you
are marked, you can never escape God’s tenacious love. He will find you
wherever you go. Even in your darkest
time when you are certain God is nowhere near, I encourage you to touch your
forehead, make the sign of the cross and remember what it is to be sealed by
the Holy Spirit. Remember what it is to know God and be known by him.
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