Living in the Midst of the Trinity
A sermon by Revd Richard Carter
Readings for this service: Isa 6.1-8; John 3 1-17
Yesterday I returned to London after sharing the first two days of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. I am part of what is known as “the Steady Group.” It used to be called “the Slow Group” until we renamed ourselves, seeking a title less judgemental. We are the steady group- that bring up the rear- led by our intrepid guides Adam and Tony who have a gift of making sure we all believe that somehow we are going to make the 74 miles to Canterbury- however unlikely that often feels. Yesterday as I was walking up a particularly steep field with throbbing ankles and limbs which seemed ever –heavier, Carol, who has the ability to keep talking however exhausted or steep the hill, came out with the following piece of wisdom: “I never know when I am walking whether I should look down at my feet so I don’t fall over, or keep talking to the people I am with to take my mind of my feet, or look out at the view in case I miss it.” She paused waiting for me to answer which at that point was not forthcoming, because at that point I was not so much walking as staggering and conserving energy by switching off all mental functions. The only question that I was contemplating was “how much further?”
But later when I thought about it Carol’s question is a great one. Because there are these three different aspects of making a journey.
First is the looking down at your feet. That’s the practical aspect the context for your walk. Your feet are going to be incredibly important in this journey. And you will spend a lot of time thinking about the pain in your ankle, the blister that is developing on your toe, how to climb over a style without getting your trousers caught on the barbed wire of the fence, or how to avoid walking in the cow pat and failing, which I did, while working out in your head how many more miles it is to the next pieces of cake to fuel the next part of the journey.
Second there is talking to people- the interaction with those who you are with who become your community on the way. Or should I say discovering people. They are the conversations which keep you going, the companions who take your mind off the blisters and who actually offer the insights and the relationships which make sense of journey. And there are moments in those conversations when you are challenged to see new truths. Your companions on the road can make or break a journey and they made mine.
Thirdly there is looking out at the view in case you miss it. That’s the moment when you look up and see. And think wow- look at that hill I’ve just climbed, looking at that rain clouds coming, look at shape of those fields stretched out before us. Look at the spire of Canterbury Cathedral in the distance.
If I had had my wits about me I would have said to Carol- I think all three are important. Because finally there are moments of revelation when you get it right and all three of these things come together so you know you know your context, you know where you are putting your feet, and at the same time you are in communion and harmony with those you are with, and you look up and out and beyond- and think this is it- this is life, I want no other, this is what life is about. You see a new way of seeing the familiar and perhaps it is at those moments we taste what it means to live in the midst of the Trinity- in relation with God, with other, with the world and with self. This is what it means to let your life speak and find in all of life always something wider and broader and deeper than your own.
In our Nicodemus story we see each one of those elements. We see the context of the meeting. Our Nicodemus is a man of status- a leader of the Jews and yet here is the surprising detail. He comes to see Jesus by night. He comes in the dark. Why? Because Nicodemus is watching his feet, watching his step. He seems intrigued about this man Jesus but also hesitant and afraid. Where will this path lead? What will others say if he is seen? He has made a choice to come but he is anxious this choice may get him into trouble.
And now the dialogue begins and through that dialogue the challenge- Nicodemus begins by showing respect- trying to establish a relationship of trust- they are after all both teachers. Here is the drawing into dialogue. And of course in this Nicodemus is like many of us who are drawn to Jesus, fascinated but unsure, pulled and yet pulling back, wanting to enter an encounter and yet anxious of others opinions and what this journey entails. And it in this human interaction that Jesus confronts Nicodemus and us- “Very truly, I tell you.” “Amen, Amen I say to you”- the words that come after the Amen will have special importance and significance: “Amen, Amen, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.” Jesus cuts to the chase: he cuts through the respectful interaction with a massive challenge. There is confusion even in the very interpretation of the words- “born again” or is it “born from above.” What is it that Jesus requires of us? What is this transformation of which he speaks? Nicodemus is looking down at his feet. He, as so often happens in John’s Gospel, understands the words in purely human physical terms: “How can anyone,” he asks “be born after having grown old. Can anyone enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus’ is trapped by the literal, unable to imagine the divine.
But Nicodemus is being challenged to move beyond his context. “Look at the wind it blows where it chooses, you hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from or where it is taking you. Nicodemus is being challenged to look up and out. To see a world where the above has broken into the below, where God’s stage and our stage are impacting upon one another like the shift of cosmic plates- the birth of a new earth. It’s not a matter of just this time and place- this relationship is for all time and for every place: it’s a whole new way of being. Nicodemus is being challenged to see eternity now and so are we.
And now we have this “Amen, Amen” again. It’s as though the dialogue has now become a soliloquy and Jesus has become the one who speaks for all time the one who seems to straddle both heaven and earth.
And suddenly we are not looking down at our feet anymore, or being challenged by conversation, or even simply looking up and out. No suddenly we are glimpsing something timeless, something that conveys an eternal truth. And this is the truth this is the meaning of our lives and these are the words
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world may be saved through him.”
That’s it- that’s the Gospel in a sentence. The sentence we used to have to learn in Sunday school though it would take all our lives to understand- that’s what it means to live in the midst of the Trinity. You see the Trinity is not a formula it’s an action, the action of God in our lives, in our world, throughout all time-The action which leads us from the fear and the moan and the desperate looking down at our feet, through the dialogue and the conversation and the community we call church – to look up and out and to glimpse a beauty and a truth beyond- when our lives, our community, our vision become the expression of God. That’s the redemptive power of love- as Bishop Michael Curry said to overcome our differences. If humanity ever captures the energy of love – it will be the second time in history that we have discovered fire. And when we do that, we will make of this old world, a new world.
That actually is what pilgrimage is about. It’s actually not about getting to the end it’s about realising that the end is now. Walking to Canterbury yesterday I made this simple discovery that the more I thought about arriving the further the end seemed but the more I watched, I listened, I attended to the beauty of the now- the journey became the end. That is the mystery of the Trinity. A group of frightened disciples looking down at their feet and wondering how anything was possible- began conversing with the Spirit of Christ- they looked up and began to realise that this unity with Christ and God was not the end of their story but the beginning of it. And experienced that they too were taken up into the action and movement of God. Not a linear progression towards an end but a circle, a dance, a spiral of love forever deepening and growing- forever replenished by the chalice of God’s loving and caring and sharing.
Last Sunday for Pentecost you may have seen either here or on the BBC recording how a group of our diverse congregation tried to act out that journey. The journey from a frightened group looking down at their feet, to those who were born again from above, those who discovered the Spirit of God within them- a Spirit that gave them the courage and the words to tell their own story in their own native tongue. And we heard the Gospel in Greek and Indonesian and Farsi and Urhobo and Twi and Cantonese and Japanese and English. And I realised what happened at Pentecost is still happening now- because they were not in fact acting at all, they were telling God’s story now in their words and in their bodies. When you see it happening you can feel the hair standing on the back of your neck and the tears of joy filling your eyes- Living in the Trinity is a new confidence born of God. It is a birth from above. No longer victims but friends of God who will tell God’s story through the flesh and blood of their own lives. No longer bystanders but those living the Trinity of God’s love.
Later today I am returning to the Pilgrimage. It will still be tough. I will still wonder if I will make it. But I will return because once you have tasted the beauty of being part of that Trinity you long for that fire, the wind of that Spirit, the fullness of that love within and beyond. And of course we are all part of that pilgrimage. We are offered a place in that eternal circle. To glimpse that truth- is the point where commentary stops and life is no longer about why or how- it’s about living Jesus. And the response is that of thanksgiving- yes not explanation but a thanksgiving that longs to participate more fully Like the reading from Isiah in the temple, the voice of the of the Lord is saying ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Will you too embark upon that journey and say ‘Here am I; send me?’
