Living the Trinity

June 16, 2019

Today is Father’s Day.  I’m curious – did any of you fathers get a card that reads – “God couldn’t be everywhere; that’s why he created fathers”?

I’ve seen that saying on cards and t-shirts for grandmothers and mothers.  I can’t say I’ve seen it for fathers or grandfathers.  Nor have I seen those sentiments about brothers or sisters, although some people may feel that way. 

I certainly have not seen that saying applied to children, even though there is the testimony of scripture to support it.  Jesus himself said, “Whoever receives one such child receives me and the One who sent me.”  Children are innocent and wonderful, but especially after having spent a week with our three-year-old grandson, I don’t think we would associate them with God’s authority or would not want them to have God’s power.

Let me offer an alternative, though, that is more biblically sound and hence more radical than any of these sayings or would be sayings:  God couldn’t be everywhere – that’s why he created you!

What is your reaction to that statement?  Do you think, “That can’t be in the Bible, can it?  Pastor Chris must be making that up!” or “Surely, God doesn’t expect that much of us,” or “Oh, no!  Not me!  I can barely handle my own life, much less the life of the whole universe.  I'm sorry.  God will just have to get someone else for that job.”

But I’m afraid that’s exactly what God does expect and it is what God has done.

In 1987, just after I had started at Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, Illinois, my colleague in Madison – Cindy Ganzkow-Wold – invited Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the University of Wisconsin to speak to students.  And he accepted!

So, on that night, I piled a bunch of students in my car and drove two hours north.  The archbishop spoke in the old fieldhouse next to Camp Randall.  There were several thousand people there.  We sat somewhere in the upper reaches of the building, but directly in front of the stage.

Archbishop Tutu talked about the inherent dignity of every human being, regardless of race or creed or color or caste (and now I’m sure he would add gender and sexual orientation).  Every human being has dignity because every human being is created in the image of God. 

That means, he said, that every human being – including you – is God’s viceroy.  “Viceroy” is a good British word!  It means a ruler who is exercising authority in a colony on behalf of sovereign.  So, in virtue of being created in the image of God, everyone is a representative of God on earth.

That has to do, not only with how we treat other people, but how we live.  God couldn’t be everywhere – that’s why he created you!  You are God’s representative, God’s agent, on earth, to exercise God’s authority in the world. 

How can this be?  Well, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, God created sun and moon and stars and saw that it was good.  God created land and sea and sky and saw that it was good.  God created plants and trees and all manner of living creatures and saw that it was good. 

At last God said, “Let us create human beings in our image.  Let us make them God-like.  And let us give them authority over the earth.”  To be created in God’s image means to be a representative of God on earth.  Now ancient kings wouldn’t send out viceroys, as the Queen of England might.  They would have statues of themselves set up all over the kingdom to remind them who was in charge.  In the same way, we are created in God’s image to remind people who is in charge and also to exercise the authority of God – to reflect God’s nature – to be God-like.

This is how things started out.  This is how God intends the world to operate and human beings to operate within it.  The problem, however, is that we think we know what God means to be God-like.  We think we can have the power of God without the responsibility of God.  We think we can have the knowledge of God without the understanding of God.  We think we can have the privileges of God without the compassion of God.  That’s the temptation.  It was the temptation at the beginning with Adam and Eve.  “You will not die!” said the serpent.  “You will become God-like!”  Well…yes and no.

It was the temptation at the beginning.  It was the temptation with the people of Israel.  It was the temptation of David and all the kings.  And it’s the temptation with us now.  We think being God-like means we get to be the big shots without consequences to our actions.

But to be truly God-like is to exercise power as God exercises power – with compassion and wisdom and mutuality.  And since this has been so hard for us to understand and to do, God sent Jesus, who is truly God-like.  Jesus remained God-like, even though he was also tempted.

After he was 40 days in the wilderness, the tempter said, “Jesus, I know you must be hungry.  Turn this stone into a loaf of bread for yourself….Jesus, you could turn a lot of people’s heads and head them in the right direction, if you just do that thing you do…Jesus, this could all be yours, at a very small price!”

Jesus was also tempted.  But he did not use the power God gave him for himself.  He used the power God gave him for others. 

This is what it means to be God-like.  This is what it means to be God in the world.

Again, you’re probably wondering: How can this be?  How can we do this?  How can I do this?

You are not only created in God’s image.  You and I have been baptized. (At least, I assume most of us have been baptized.  It’s possible you have not yet been baptized.)

When we were baptized, water was poured over our heads and these words were spoken by the pastor – In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  That’s what Jesus commanded us to say when we baptize.  We call it the Trinitarian formula.

As an extension of that name – both at the time of baptism, but also often on Sunday mornings – we confess our faith in this same Trinity – in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, using the Apostles’ Creed.  Most often, we take this profession of faith to be about correct theology, that it is a summary of the most important things we believe about God, especially that God is a Triune God.  And it serves that purpose.  It helps us to get clear on what we believe and helps us be able to recall the most important aspects of Christian thinking about God.

It is a statement about God, but I believe it’s also a statement about us, because this God is an indelible part of who we are. 

This is the God who created us and all living things.  This is the God who came to us in Jesus to demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that this God is for us.  This is the God who continues to be with us – in the wide community of the church, in the fellowship of this congregation, in the forgiveness that we receive in message and meal, and in our hope for the life to come.

This is who we are and this is the life we seek to live.  This statement of faith centered in the Trinity is about good theology. Even more, it’s about good living.  It is about being God’s representatives – God’s viceroys – on earth.  It is a way of expressing our confidence in God – the way that God has been revealed to us by Jesus – but it is also an orientation to life, a way of living, that the amazing love that this God has shown us may take root in us and come alive in us for others.

This is the Trinity for us - God couldn't be everywhere; that's why he created you!