We are Spiritual beings have a human experience. Video is here:

We are spiritual beings having a human experience – that truth is the wisdom that calls – it is understanding raising her voice – before our forms were created the spiritual existed and the spiritual will exist after our forms cease to exist

Today we are celebrating Trinity Sunday – the Trinity being the foundation of our creedal religion – it is interesting to note however – that the Trinity as a construct was not created to better our understanding of the divine but to combat heresies which arose in the early church – heresies which had Jesus as subordinate to the Creator – separate from – and heresies which stated the Christ never really had human form – that he inhabited Jesus at his baptism and left on the cross – Or that God had separate functions – Creator – the Father – Redeemer – the Son – and Mover of the world – the Spirit – the Trinitarian expression and theology helped to fight against these heresies or false teachings – It is not something which we can truly understand – Saint Augustine said – and I’m not usually a fan of his – he said to his students who were trying to grasp the nature of God – “… know that when you love, you know more about who God is than you could ever know with your intellect.”

That’s what we do here isn’t it – why we do this religious thing we do – to have an experience of God as the human beings we are – for if we are as I believe Spiritual Beings having a human experience the essence of our Spirit yearns – leans – like a plant growing towards the sun – to connect with the center of creation – to know God – to join with our source – our scriptures are the stories and hymns – expressions of how a people of faith lived and struggled with their relationship with God and each other – the divine is revealed in scripture as a consequence of the very human experience of God being shared – first through oral tradition and then written down

The writing from Proverbs today is a beautiful case in point – Does Wisdom not call and does understanding not raise her voice – the nature of our understanding and experience of God cries out to all who live – from every portal and crossroad – Wisdom personified there with a feminine voice is the means through which we express our understanding of God – and if we do that through loving one another we will truly see God with us – to know God is to understand as Proverbs continues – that our relationship with God – our spiritual relationship was there before and exists beyond time – all the poetic and wonderful metaphors for a timeless relationship describe for us the nature of our relationship with the Divine – and isn’t that what a proverb is supposed to be a truth about the nature of a thing – a truth simply expressed – deep in a way only simple things truly are

This Trinity Sunday we also hear from Paul as we often do – outlining what many came to know as an oblique Trinitarian teaching – describing the nature of the belief in a Triune God – we have peace with God through Jesus – God’s grace we obtained when we understood our relationship with God is in essence Jesus – Christ’s love expressed is grace – And that Love comes to us through the Holy Spirit – we know God through our relationship with Jesus and that relationship is expressed in the Love of the Holy Spirit which we know as grace

Now this week as I sometimes do I was talking with my wife Maggie about what I was going to preach on – we got talking about how and where we experience God – she used an analogy which I would like to play out here today – With a show of hands how many of you experience God as a being outside of yourself – separate and distinct? – Now how many of you experience God inside of you – as a part of your being – living in your heart perhaps? – raise your hands – How many in either some combination of the two – or no real experience or haven’t a clue as to what I’m talking about?

 

The point that illustrates is how we each have and hold our own experiences of the divine – we hear the same scriptures – we even pray the same prayers and confess the same beliefs – yet our relationship with God is as unique as we are – if we raised in a mono-culture so to speak – who all profess the same love and belief in God vary in our understanding – how much more so a culture just beginning to understand who this Christ person is – who didn’t have fifteen hundred years of culture and institution to rely upon

If we know – that is have an experience of God – do we share it? – Maybe it doesn’t conform with the established teachings and dogma of the Church – sharing as we can learn from Paul takes risk – risk sometimes leads to misunderstanding – sometimes even suffering – surely it did in his day – not quite so much in a Christian culture – Sharing though produces a level of endurance to people’s reaction to our sharing – it takes courage and character to share – risk – yet out of that the wisdom of Paul teaches us comes hope – that hope comes because by sharing God’s love we create room for more love to flow into us

Last week the Gospel mentioned that Jesus said he would give to the disciples but not in a way that the world normally gives – When we ask for Grace from God – we get it by giving it – in blessing we are blessed – by serving we are served – by loving we are loved and continually filled with love and shown the very face of God

These truths are very difficult things to live into – truly – sometimes like Jesus’ disciples in the reading from John we cannot bear them – sometimes though the Spirit of truth lives in us and is declared to the world by our actions in the furtherance of God’s universal love – When we spend those brief moments bathed in Grace we can understand in a manner deeper than the fullness of Wisdom allows – how our Triune God is known and knowable in the world – that place where all human labels fade away – time is the no longer a constraint – just another point of reference

In that place of truth and love – Christ – the Holy Spirit – the Creator – are one in manner which transcends our earthly metaphors – Jesus asks us to meet him in that place – the scriptures sing about its glory – the hosts of heaven echo it with their cries Hosanna – we who gather in his name are blessed by the knowledge and love of that which is at the center of all our beings – we are Spiritual Beings living a human existence – that is what being made in the image of God means – let us rejoice in that – cherish it in our hearts – the heart that beats in us all – Jesus our Lord

AMEN