Reflections on “Listening for the Trinitarian God” Romans 5: 1-5; Psalm 8

 We had a jazz quintet helping lead worship on Sunday. They were very talented and played some great music.  The sermon was designed with musical interludes for people to imagine the Trinitarian God.  I'm not sure if worked very well for the gathered congregation.  It certainly did not work for me as well as I had intended.

“Listening for the Trinitarian God” 2025; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; Psalm 8  Romans 5: 1-5

Romans 5:  1-15 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access^[b] to this grace in which we stand, and we^[c] boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we^[d] also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Introduction: Trinity Sunday, a day we reflect on God in three persons.

Historically, lots of different images have been used to describe the Trinity, none of them get it exactly.

David Lose, Biblical Preaching Chair at Luther Seminary,  “Which is why we lean on metaphors and analogies, from the Desert Fathers (you remember, the two Gregorys and Basil) comparing the members of the Trinity to the source of light (Father), the light itself that illumines (Son), and the warmth when you feel the light (Spirit) to

But words and images can never quite capture God fully.

the Trinity does, however, give us the contours of how we discover  God in three persons, yet one God.

and the Trinity also reminds us that God is a relational God.

 

a.  Of course, there is the ongoing temptation to emphasize one of the three, which often  leads to a distortion of the image of God.

1.  For example, we sometimes think of the Holy Spirit as the spiritual part of God that is separate from Christ.  But, That separates the realm of the spiritual from the world of the flesh.  

2. and it limits our understanding of how God is at work. (Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition, 87-88).

b.  Did any of you read the Shack (it sold 20 million copies) or see the movie?  

  1.  We could spend time discussing it, but this morning, as we imagine the Trinity, I am reminded of the imaginative way the author depicted the Trinity in the book - the Father as an African-American woman called Papa; Jesus as a Middle Eastern man who wears a tool belt; and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman named Sarayu, who gardens and collects tears.  

When Mackenzie, the main character, first meets these unlikely members of the Trinity, he asks, “Which one of you is God.”  “I am,” said all three in unison.  Mack looked from one to the next, and even though he couldn’t begin to grasp what he was seeing and hearing, he somehow  believed them” (87, The Shack; here is an article about the book and movie https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/03/03/the-shack-once-sold-millions-of-books-but-the-film-doesnt-fit-the-trump-era/)

c.  This morning, we are invited to explore the Trinity by listening to jazz music and letting our minds wander and imagine who God is and how God finds us in our lives.

This is how it will work.  After a few brief comments about each person of the Trinity, the music will play,

and you can imagine,

the Trinitarian God you know.

Move 1:  First person - God the Father;

God the creator;

God the parent

God the mother

A biblical image - scooping up mud and breathing life into us.

The Psalmist reminds us both of the majesty of God, but also the mystery of why God chose to create and be in relationship with us.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;

4 

what are humans that you are mindful of them,
    mortals[a] that you care for them?

Imagine God who has the power to create the world as we know it, but still chooses to be in relationship with us, people who turn away and betray again and again. 

O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Jazz interlude

Move 2:  Second person of the Trinity

Son

Jesus

redeemer

light

Lots of powerful biblical images - the birth of the Christ child

Christ hanging in a cross

the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ appearing to his friends and followers.

Jesus the son of God, who comes to live among us.

Fully human, fully God.  another part of the Trinitarian mystery of who God is.

Jesus, the one who models for us what it means to be human.

the one who lives it perfectly, but instead of turning away from us because of our imperfections, chooses to redeem us nd the world.

as we hear Paul describe it:  “we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access^[b] to this grace in which we stand,”

Imagine Jesus, 

the crucified one,

the resurrected one,

the one who calls us to follow

the one who calls us be his friend.

Jazz interlude

move 3:  Holy Spirit

a.  From the Hebrew word for breath that describes God the creator breathing the breath of life into us (as you may remember ruach is the Hebrew word for breath.  It sounds like the blowing wind).

to the paraclete, or the Advocate. whom Jesus promises will come alongside us

to the blowing winds and tongues of fire from the Pentecost story that sweep into our lives giving us what we need to live into our call to discipleship,

the Holy spirit is perhaps the hardest to define, but maybe the easiest to imagine as something beyond our concrete images.

Jazz interlude

Conclusion:   The Trinity – we sing it; we say it; we teach it; we pray it.  

We listen for it.

We may not fully understand it, but we know the God who lives it fully.

Jazz finale

Psalm 8

O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are humans that you are mindful of them,
    mortals[a] that you care for them?

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God[b]
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Reflections on "You Left Us What?" JOhn 14: 15-22 Acts 2: 1-22a Pentecost

A low-key Pentecost sermon.  The Gospel of John has a very different image of the Holy Spirit than the tongues of fire and blowing wind we associate with the Acts story of Pentecost. 

“You left us what?” Pentecost, 2025; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; John 14 15-26; Acts 2 1-22

(John 14:15-26) ¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep^[g] my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,^[h] to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be^[i] in^[j] you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” ²³ Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.

²⁵ “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate,^[k] the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. 

Introduction:  At this point in their relationship with christ, I think the disciples would have had lots of questions:

if we go back a couple of months, the first question might have been “Jesus, Why did you have to be crucified?”

which quickly gave way to, “Jesus, What exactly is a resurrection?l

Which then led to “What does it mean that Christ has ascended?”

And now, after Jesus has ascended 

and the tongues of fire and blowing winds have arrived with Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, 

Their question, maybe our question also is:  “You left us what?”

Perhaps as they puzzled over this question, they remembered Jesus’ words that we just read from the gospel of John.

Move 1: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,^[h] to be with you forever.

a. If we are little bit intimidated by the Holy Spirit in the Pentecost story, we might find comfort in the image of the Paraclete, the Greek word translated as advocate in the gospel of John.   (if you misspell parclete, spell check will suggest parakeet – not quite the same image)

a. Greek word parakletos

1. Paraclete is combination of para ('beside/alongside') and kalein ('to call’), which put together literally means “one called to be alongside another”

2. the word carries a secondary notion concerning the purpose of the calling alongside: to counsel or support the one who needs it.

outside the Bible text in common Greek usage, the word Paraclete is often used to describe a family attorney.

3. This, the NRSV’s choice to translate Paraclete as advocate or comforter.

Eugene Peterson in The Message translates it as “friend.”

b. Jesus has promised his followers: ’I will not leave you orphaned” 

1. Orphaned – no parents; 

in the first-century world, being orphaned meant no status, 

no safety net, 

no security.

2.  The Paraclete, 

the who who walk alongside us,

the one who will advocate for us,

is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to not leave us orphaned.

3. The Gospel of John does not emphasize the power of holy Spirit found in blowing winds or tongues of fire,  but instead he power of joining with us.

coming alongside us

the paraclete, who will not leave us alone.

c. in some ways, the paraclete is an extension of the God of incarnation, who chooses to live among us.

1.  The God who breathed the breath of life into the mud returns in Christ to come alongside side us and make a home with us.

2. And now, as Jesus looks to his departure, he talks about “another paraclete.”

in other words, the Holy Spirit is coming to do what Jesus has already done - be with us.  (Frances Gench, Encounters wiht Jesus, 109)

Not the tongues of fire image of the Holy Spirit, but the ongoing companionship of God who will not leave us alone.

Move 2: one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to remind us what Jesus has taught us.

a. Scott Hozee a preaching professor at Calvin Seminary describes the Holy Spirit  as “a tutor or a prompter on the wings of a stage while a play is going on.

1. The Paraclete stands next to us or near us so that we can be reminded of Jesus’ words and teachings as the Spirit whispers those things into our hearts, prompting us to remember what we might otherwise forget. (Scott Hoezee, The Lectionary Gospel, http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/easter-6c/?type=the_lectionary_gospel).

1. Imagine a voice whispering in your ear as you go through life the things that Jesus has taught.

1. a constant call to bring Jesus' teachings into our decision-making; a constant reminder of Jesus' presence with us.

              4. this is the Holy Spirit as the Gospel of John describes the Spirit.

b.  The Holy Spirit teaching us and our growing in understanding

1. it is not enough for us to remember what Jesus has said, but we must grow in our understanding of it.

2. The Holy Spirit is among us,  teaching us how what Jesus has said applies to our current situation.

3.  In his essay The Present Age, Soren Kierkegaard describes a jewel being placed in the middle of a frozen lake on the thinnest ice. While retrieving the jewel is enticing, no one is courageous enough to skate on the thinnest ice. So they learn to skate in intricate ways on the thick ice. The skaters develop great skills, and those watching applaud the daring skaters who show their skills, but never venture onto the thin ice to retrieve the jewel. Eventually, everyone forgets the jewel. Kierkegaard wonders if the church is like that. So focused on its activities that it misses the jewel. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B458F3TQxB4qMmkzb3JFRTBvZ1k/edit)

4.  Holy Spirit reminds us and teaches us so that we do not forget the jewel, the good news that Jesus brings.

5. Maybe this is where the power of the Holy Spirit. Ones into play in the image of Paraclete.

the spirit uprooting us from our entrenched ways and blowing and pushing us into new understandings.

Move 3: the image of the Paraclete also shapes our understanding of community.

a. Pentecost as also known as the church's birthday.

1. A celebration of the body of Christ that Jesus calls into being.

2.  People like us walking a,Ingrid’s each other as we help each other grow in our faith and face our struggles.

b.  Which is also the role we are called to have in The world.

1.  Walking along side of those who suffer injustice,

or those who need food or shelter,

or those who need to find hope in the hopelessness of their lives.

like the Paraclete, we are sent to walk alongside of them.

c.  Again, this is where the other penetrants story informs our understanding of the Paraclete.

1. Just as the people that Pentecost day found they were given the gift of languages so they could share the good news of Jesus Christ to people no matter what language they spoke,

So to, the Holy Spirit will equip us with the gifts necessary to walk alongside those in need.

2. The power of the Holy Spirit at work enabling us to share the good news of  Jesus Christ with the world.

Conclusion: for many years, churches would celebrate Pentecost by releasing red helium balloons outside after worship.

The high-flying balloons would symbolize the blowing spurt that would take us to new heights.

Then, concerns about balloons killing birds and so on led to no helium balloon celebrations of Pentecost.

For the gospel of John, however, the helium balloon flying high is not quite the image of the Paraclete.  

No, for John the Paraclete is just an old-fashioned balloon, blown up, but still right there beside you.

The Holy Spirit that will not leave you alone!l