Rev. Dr. Rebecca
L. Kiser
HOW
DO I EXPERIENCE GOD ?
Trinity B, May 27,
2018 Isaiah 6:1-13
Last Sunday I showed you all this painting (SHOW) that
I made with my friend Nancy, where we put all these colors into a dixie cup -
not blended, just together, then upended it on the canvas here and watched what
happened. Okay, we tilted it and had
some fun that way, too. ANYWAY, the
point I made, and want to restate here for Trinity Sunday, is that all the
colors stayed distinct – and the fun of it is to see the motions, the flowing
together, the patterns. Its not static, and the colors aren’t blended –
although they move together. Its all one
painting, one pattern – and it has a lot of colors that flow together. Like I’ve said before, I probably come down
more on the side of God as One, than on the side of three separate &
distinct persons.
It seems to me that this is a good illustration to
try and understand the concept of that doctrine historically called The Trinity
– a word never seen in the Bible, by the way, just a word chosen to describe
how the faithful have tried to express their experiences of God. Early Christians used the words Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. Or, better, God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Or
functionally, God the Creator, God the Redeemer and God the Sustainer. Evidently, those folks in the first centuries
argued and argued over how this worked while still being a monotheistic faith….
People were condemned as heretics who insisted that the persons of the trinity
were one in essence instead of one in substance, for example, and whether the
Spirit flowed from the Father, the Son or both.
It finally was nailed down in the 4th century.
While not impugning the faith of our earliest
forbears, & the importance it obviously had for them, it does seem to me
that we can get all tied up in knots when we try to detail how God is, try to
parse all the words and nail down the mystery of God and how God works, acts,
thinks, whatever. Academics and
theologians like to argue those kinds of things. There were a lot of “heresies” we had learn
the names of in seminary.
From the vantage point of 21 centuries down the
road, it seems to me that: (a) trying to outline and define God is pretty much
an impossible task for our human brains; (b) the main point is that even in the
Bible people experienced the One God in various ways; and (c) we only have various
words and metaphors to try and capture the liminal and mysterious presence and
working of God in our lives and in our world.
That’s what I chose to title my sermon, “How Do I Experience God?”
Of course the personal language of how do I experience God is not to
say that we make our own version of God.
We always live under the Scriptures and within the community of
believers, so there are checks and balances.
HOWEVER, religious experience is personal, and is often beyond the
limits of language and thought – experiences of the Divine can overwhelm
us. Some mystics say that experiences of
God “ravish” us. Finding words for
these experiences is a step away from the real experience, and try as we might,
the words are never adequate.
Organizing experiences into doctrines many can concur with, is the NEXT
step away from the actual encounters. So
the idea of Trinity is at least the 3rd level away from actual experiences
of God.
Here’s my take on things: God is intricate enough to come to us in as
many ways as it takes to seek us out and restore us to relationship with
Godself and all that is. I mean,
look at God’s self-expression in creation – can we even name all the flowers in
creation? Its boundless!!! And that’s
not even getting into trees or mammals or reptiles or humans. And that’s not even getting into biology or
chemistry or quantum whatevers. The
intricacy of life is mid-boggling, as well as the magnitude of space. If we, as humans, are complex creatures, how
much more is God? Yet the impulse of
the Divine is always towards life, love, and right relationships, whether
in each of us personally, or in our communities, or nations, or the whole of
creation.
Three is a nice number, and we can look around the
Bible and see that people of faith talk about the spirit of God; and in our
Christian scriptures, Jesus uses the Father/ Son metaphor for his relationship
to God; and Jesus talks about sending the Spirit when he, Jesus, is gone. So its easy to see three. Yet Hebrew Scriptures also use the
Husband/Wife metaphor for God and Israel; and in our Christian Scriptures its
used again to try and explain Christ and the church. Also in the Hebrew Scriptures is the figure
of Wisdom, pictured and personified as a woman who calls the immature to her
ways. The apostle John uses images first
said about Wisdom when he describes Jesus in his first chapter. There’s also the Glory of God, the Shekinah,
which had its own devotees in history, its own personification. The Glory or Shekinah
abided in the Ark of the Covenant, which sat in the Holy of Holies in the
tabernacle and then in the Temple – it was the very presence of God with
Israel. Then there’s the imagery of the
pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud…. Then there are the 3 men who came to
Abrahm & Sarah to announce they’d have a baby; and that odd figure who
wrestles all night with Jacob as he’s finally going home, and changes his name
from Jacob to Israel. And THEN, look at
the names for God in the Hebrew Scriptures – Jehovah, Elohim, God of the high
places, and so on.
You see, words are all we have, and they all
fall short. Human relationships are all
we can compare with, and these are inadequate as well. We are always making
these comparisons, which is a good thing – because the more of them we have,
the fuller the picture of the Divine. But
its not like we can write a short and concise definition of God for all time.
So
what difference does it all make? That’s the question of sermons –
okay, given all this, so what?
Well, the concept of God as one and also three tends
to be confusing – its good if we can accept it as a way to express the various
experiences people have had with God, then maybe we won’t get all messed up
trying to understand it in detail. Lots
of folks come to me with questions, trying to understand the trinity. While some academics and theologians may
study its origins and meanings in detail, most of us can be happy with knowing
that God can come to us in many ways, and leave it there. Understanding and defining God will never
happen. Coming to God for forgiveness
and restoration is what’s important. We
experience the One God in many ways, end of sentence. (mic
drop)
Again, Judaism and Islam, among other world
religious traditions, find this doctrine so close to polytheism that they often
denied that Christianity is monotheistic.
The doctrine has been troublesome in dialog with other religious
traditions. We can get so caught up in
explaining it that we lose the part that says God is One. We can get so caught up in words that we
forget we’re talking about religious experience, not scientific facts.
Yet when we marvel that God is able to do what it
takes to bring us to life and love and right relationships, our praise and awe
expand, and brings us to our knees in worship.
I am blown away that God cares enough about human folks to do all
this! That God wants and longs to be
part of our lives! That God works with
us and in us; that God is born among us; that God speaks in our hearts; that
God comforts us when we need that, and challenges us when we need that; that
God speaks truth to us when our thinking is wrong; that God invites us to come
talk together in prayer about anything; that God broadens our perspectives on
who God loves. That God can find ways to
be with normal people as well as smart people; regular people as well as gifted
people; people with mental handicaps; people who suffer from mental illnesses;
children, adults and aged people; people in any and all human cultures; people
who have lived and will live in different centuries. God is amazing. And God is bigger than we ever imagine.
St. Patrick used the shamrock to try and explain how
God could be one and yet three in his day.
I’ve heard illustrations using an equilateral triangle; using the yolk,
white and shell of the egg; or using ice, water and vapor as forms of H2O. In the past, I’ve talked about all the
persons I am as Becky – I am daughter, sister, mother, wife, grammy, pastor,
friend, student, teacher….etc etc
See, we try and use what we know to explain what is actually experiential
of God. Early in my career, I used the
example of the diamond crystal with many facets or faces – the light hits those
facets and it burns in colors, its brilliance revealed. I like the work of some Christian feminist theologians,
who speak of God as eternally in relationship; as modeling a non-hierarchical community
of equals.
The focus of God, all the parts or persons or facets
or aspects – is always on people, on restoring Life and Love and
right-relationships (justice), on reaching those who are far away from God, on
advocating for those who are weak or powerless, and unable to advocate for
themselves in this world. The focus of
God is on getting straight as to who is God and who isn’t – ie understanding
that acknowledging and worshiping God is the first step of getting life
right.
That challenges us, as believer in God and followers
of Christ, to align all the parts of ourselves to those same ends; all our
skills talents, gifts, traits, strengths, abilities – all our life and energy –
to these same ends as the Divine One we worship. Our focus needs to be the same as God’s focus
– on the need of people to know God; on the needs of ALL people for food and
shelter and respect; on tending to God’s creation; on the need for justice
between people; on right relationships with each other in marriages, families,
communities, nations and world. God
knows how use the magnitude of God’s identity to work to reach anybody and
everybody – we can be like that, too.
The more we follow Christ, the more we pray and grow
the relationship with God; then the more Christ’s image can be formed in us,
and the more we can join in the work of Christ’s kingdom, where God’s will will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.
AMEN.
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