Sermon June 19, 2011

Three in One

Scripture Psalm 8 read responsively and Matthew 28:16-20

Preached by Linda Jo Peters ~ June 19, 2022

Trinity Sunday – Celebrating the gifts of Men – Father’s Day

Introduction to Scripture
Psalm 8 read responsively

Before the majesty of God, we human beings are of little significance in the grand scheme of the universe, yet God has destined that humanity be given a special responsibility for creation and a means to communicate with God in prayer. Even more we are assured that we are heard and will be answered. Psalm 8 gives voice to what a glorious and blessed gift God’s love for us is!

O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

Matthew 28:16-20
Besides today being Father’s Day it is also the day the church has set aside to celebrate the triune nature of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here in the Great Commission, Jesus sends his disciples out with the authority to baptize in the name of Three in One.

16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Sermon
Why even talk about the doctrine of a triune God? I get that I am a daughter, wife and mother, so I can know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But Daniel T. Benedict, a United Methodist Pastor wrote in his commentary on this passage:

Our congregations are starving, not for doctrinal correctness, but for life in communion with the triune God. Our churches need the subversive presence of the triune God who defeats and break the chains of the strong enslaving the weak. The whole people of God are yearning to be encountered by the God who gives up the idea of God (Philippians 2:5-11) and becomes incarnate in the demands and struggles of daily life. We long for this God.

Inclusive language may rub many people as wrong, but I see that it has given us access to the nature of God with these beautiful images as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. This is the God I hunger for:

The One who is creative in the most amazing ways.
The One who redeems my worse nightmares and makes life worth living.
The One sustains me through the mundane to the sublime.

I also need:
The One who is the Father. Abba, Daddy, who loves me as a child.
The One who is the Son. Brother, Friend, who made the ultimate sacrificed for me.
The One who is the Holy Spirit. Teacher, Guided, who inspires.

Trinity Sunday celebrates the oneness of God and the various ways that God reaches out to express divine love. It celebrates our call to service in God’s subversive plan for changing humanity from sinners without hope, to the redeemed who live and breathe hope into everything they do and see. Now that is worth celebrating! Amen.

Resources
Adapted from Joan Stott, prayers and meditations based on lectionary Psalms, 2011. see: http://www.wesleychurchgeelong.net/w_resources/pentecost1a_2011.htm