3- D Sunday

AUDIO OF SERMON - POSTED LATER 

           If I ever get the time, one of my favorite things to do is go to the movie theater.  In case you were wondering, I like sci-fi, adventure, mystery, fantasy type movies.  But these days it seems I am more into Disney Princess movies…not by my own choosing, of course. 

 In 2009, before Mary Katherine, I was particularly looking forward to the newest James Cameron film called Avatar.  The film takes place several centuries in the future where human beings begin to colonize a distant planet that contains a valuable and expensive resource.  The conflict in the movie centers on the fact that this valuable resource is located underneath the indigenous people’s most holy ground.

            In addition to the sci-fi/fantasy factor, the movie was also attractive to me because it was done in 3-D.  And this wasn’t your momma’s 3-D movie.  This was state of the art, best technology kind of stuff.  After sitting in the theater for almost three hours, I didn’t want to leave when the movie was over.  It was the best movie theater experience I had ever had.

            And like the human avatars who took on the genetically modified body suit of the indigenous people, the 3-D movie experience left me feeling like I was also an inhabitant of this distant planet.  I couldn’t wait to watch the movie again and re-live that experience.

            I did watch the movie again—at home and in 2-D on my DVD player.  This time I could barely stay awake for the two hour and forty-five minute movie.  It wasn’t the same.  I still enjoyed the film but watching it the second time in 2-D did not allow for the full experience that I got when I watched it in 3-D.

            Today, on the first Sunday following Pentecost, the Church recognizes Trinity Sunday—the day when preachers try and fail to explain how God is three persons in unity of being.  So for the sake of everyone, I am going to skip over the part where I give you heretical analogies that attempt describe the Trinity and talk about how experiencing the triune nature of God or experiencing God in 3-D matters to your faith. 

First of all, knowing God in a 2-D kind of way can only hold our attention for so long.  But when we know God in 3-D, in a way that recognizes God as a communal and eternal being, we get to be a part of the reality of God in our own flesh and blood.  God is not simply a concept to be understood; God is a reality to be experienced that is communicated best in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If there is one big take away that results from a 2-D understanding of God that results from reading endless papers and books about the Doctrine of the Trinity, it is that God is unable to be explained by the limits of human intellect and words. 

At the end of the day, we are, like St. Thomas Aquinas said, simply grasping at straw.  Our theological questions and answers can only take us so far.  Ultimately, the question of God’s nature is something to be experienced beyond words.

But please don’t think that I am suggesting you not read and talk about God in a 2-D way.  Rather, I hope that as you read and mediate and study scripture and theology, you discover that there is something more to a life with God than what is written on paper.  I hope your theological musings take you on a journey where you become less impressed by human definitions of God and more captivated by the experience of trying to articulate the nature of God. 

Frederick Buechner said it like this, “Theology is the study of God and his ways.  For all we know, dung beetles may study man and his ways and call it humanology.  If so, we would be more touched and amused than irritated.  One hopes that God feels likewise…”

 In other words, God knows we don’t have the words to get it right but God delights when try because when we try to know and articulate God, we are taken on a journey where we grow more and more secure in the truth that God claims us as beloved children, the truth that God makes us citizens of his heavenly kingdom in this life and in the life to come.

Jesus himself even suggests that the question of God’s nature cannot be answered in a three year course on Christianity.  As we read in his farewell discourse, Jesus tells 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 truth…” 

            As I have been saying quite a bit over the last few weeks, Christianity, Jesus, the Spirit, God desires to guide us into the experience of eternal truth as opposed to revealing all the answers on the right way to live or think.  God’s truth is revealed well beyond the topical index in the back of your Bible. 

Sure, this journey into eternal truth might very well lead us into a better way of living and thinking.  But even more, this journey toward eternal truth has the power to take us beyond easy answers to hard questions. 

If there is one thing that I am growing quite tired of in recent days, it is a moralistic Christian rhetoric (that exists on both sides of the aisle) that claims they have all the answers when it comes to complicated questions about human sexuality, gender identity, suicide, poverty, or any issue dealing with the complexities of the human experience. 

And if there is any church that should thrive in the middle of the ambiguity of these questions, it is the Episcopal Church.  The DNA of our church is poised to lead the world through these muddy waters with a faith that believes that God will help us find a way to the other side with a commitment to corporate prayer, the communal reading of scripture, and faith in the active presence of the Spirit. 

And like the Hebrew people who wandered for 40 years, we know that the sorting of eternal truth in the midst of humanity’s limits to understand will take time.  While these difficult questions get sorted out, I hope that Episcopalians, like you and me, stand convicted in a faith tradition that has a lot to offer during times of conflict and tension.

Put another way, I hope we don’t try to settle on the most convenient or most popular answer.  Instead, I hope we continue in a faith that believes a life immersed in God’s eternal truth will transform us and how we see and interact with a broken world, a world that is hungry to know love, a world that is hungry to know truth, a world that is tired of easy answers to complicated questions. 

At the end of the day, all Christians have the same faith.  Ours is a faith that claims the story of the One who took on the flesh of God.  Ours is a faith that claims the story of Jesus, a story that is marked by eternal truth being sorted out in the midst of the human limits of understanding.

And this is good news.  Because living toward eternal truth produces more fruit than does living toward getting it right because when we focus more on getting it right we limit how we interact with God and with others, we reduce others who don’t think like us to strawmen, we treat the other as a one-dimensional being. 

And I know I don’t have to remind you what happens when we treat others as one-dimensional beings.  We make assumptions that aren’t true.  We make judgments that prevent us from love and understanding.  We not only diminish the dignity of the other but we also diminish our own dignity as a people who have the capacity to think and show compassion.    

But when we focus on a search for enteral truth, our capacity to know God grows and as our capacity to know God grows so does our capacity to love, so does our capacity to show compassion and mercy.  As our capacity to know God grows, so does our capacity to know and understand the neighbor who doesn’t think and act like us.  And I certainly hope that our search for eternal truth will have us saying, “I might be wrong” more often than, “I know I’m right.”

As we celebrate Trinity Sunday, the Sunday that recognizes the Church’s highest of all theological and intellectual achievements with the Doctrine of the Trinity, I hope we don’t fall into the trap that believing our best articulation of the nature of God is the end of our search to know God. 

God is more than what is written on paper, more than a 2-D experience that can only hold our attention for so long.  Instead, I hope that the Church’s striving to articulate the true nature of God is the beginning of our experience to know God, the beginning of a 3-D experience of God, the beginning of an experience where we can’t get enough of God. 

I hope that our experience of God calls into question all the easy answers we give to difficult questions, especially answers that are cultivated out of fear and ignorance.  I hope that our striving to understand the true nature of God gives room for the Spirit to lead us and guide us deeper into eternal truth, a truth that is rooted in God’s perfect love for all creation. 

May you have the grace to let go of trying get it all figured out and let God pull you into a life where God’s truth will give you all you ever wanted and more.  May you have the grace to see that experiencing more fully the vast mystery of God opens you up to a life where you grow more certain that God’s love is the answer to every question.  Amen.