Trinity Sunday – evening
Sunday 16th June 2019
Trinity Sunday – evening
Exodus 3. 1-15
John 3. 1-17
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Arguing with God. It seems a pretty pointless exercise on one hand, after all, how can we possibly argue with the one being who knows everything, made everything, loves everything? But that has never stopped human beings trying to do so through the ages. Maybe because we are such argumentative beings? Look at all our main institutions – Parliament, the Church, even Football clubs! All riven with argument and disagreement.
When I was at school we tried to channel this natural tendency by having a Debating Society. Anyone else have experience of this? It was great! This wasn’t in a Public School by the way – we were very definitely a state grammar school that became a comprehensive while I was there. You weren’t allowed to join until you were in the fifth form – I suppose that would be year 12 or 13 now? And it was only as sixth formers that you really began to take part. And it was a forum where some of our teachers would come and engage with us as equals. We met each week in term time on a Friday after school… but I mustn’t get stuck in nostalgia for my schooldays! But taking part did give us confidence at public speaking and enabled us to engage in argument in a relatively civilised way… you had to listen as your opponents put forward their case for whatever motion we were debating that day.
In both our readings this evening we see human beings debating / arguing with God. Moses as he argues against the instructions coming to him from the burning bush. Trying desperately to get control back from this mysterious power which both fascinates and terrifies him in equal measure. Trying to discover the name of God – which will render God both more comprehensible and more domesticated than God seems to be… wildfire burning in the desert without apparently consuming the bush!
Back at the beginning of Creation in Genesis, names were important: God asked Adam to name all the creatures. Now God is about to reveal his own name. It is a significant moment. I AM WHO I AM. Or I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. Or even I AM BECOMING WHO I AM BECOMING.
It’s a Hebrew phrase that is both profoundly simple and deeply complicated at the same time. (Hebrew verbs do not use tenses in the same way as English or most other Western languages, which is why it can be understood as both present and future, and really anything in between too!) But above all, it is a name of Being.
The idea of God simply as ‘Being’ or ‘Existence’ or ‘Life itself’ is something of a puzzle – so a fitting concept to ponder on this Trinity Sunday when we think of God as both unity and united! But it does relate to God as Creator – the one who gave life. And it reveals God as Sustainer, the one who continues to give life, continues to re-create. This is a God who simply is, and always will be.
But it is also a God that will always seek us out to be in relationship with us. Even when we go off on a tangent and try to do things all by ourselves! He will always come back and rescue us, upholding that relationship through thick and thin. He will be our Redeemer as well as our Creator and Sustainer.
I suppose that one good thing you can say about argument, is that it means there is engagement, passion and some kind of relationship? Much better than apathy!
And at the heart of God is relationship; between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Our reading from John’s Gospel tells us through Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, about the Spirit as crucial to being in the kingdom of God. And that through the Father giving his Son, the kingdom of God is opened to all who receive the Spirit. That really is the most wonderful love – no argument about that!
The Trinity then is a sign of love: The Spirit of love between the three persons of God. Love in their actions: and love in their being. Love of course can be both simple and complicated; it can enrich us, inspire us, and make us whole. It doesn’t mean that we will never disagree with each other – we wouldn’t be human if that were the case! But it does mean that in our very being, and perhaps because we can call upon God by name, we can come through all our arguing to understand that nothing is bigger than that God who is love, within and through his very being. Amen.