Humble Pie Meets the Potluck
Tiffany Kromer (Tiffany’s sermons and other reflections are on her blog)
It is that time in our church year where we stop and reflect on one of the most important, yet mysterious and confusing doctrines of the Christian faith—the Trinity—the three in one, one in three. Now, there are many ways we could talk about the Trinity this morning. I could break out the many metaphors people use to explain the trinity—the water, ice and steam metaphor—different forms of the same substance, the egg metaphor—you can fry it, scramble it, or boil it—but it’s still an egg. Or I could even use the M&M metaphor. You can have three different colored M&M’s in the palm of your hand. But when you pop these M&M’s in your mouth and you chew, you know longer have three distinct M&M’s; all you have is one, yummy chocolate taste. No, I’m not going to explain the trinity in this way. First of all, this kind of explanation only addresses the question, “How can three be one and one be three?” And, even if you are able to answer that question, we are still stuck with the questions, “Why? Why is God three in one? Why do we say that our one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” Which leads me to the next reason why I don’t want to ise water or eggs or M&M’s to describe God this morning. These metaphors still leave God in the abstract. They make God seem like a mathematical equation. What does a mathematical equation have to do with our real lives? I’m still convinced that the doctrine of the trinity means something to us today and actually impacts how we look at God, the world, and our relationships. So, today I want to focus on the why question of the trinity. Why is our One God also three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Just for fun, I came up with three metaphors for us to begin to explore this question of “Why” this morning. They most certainly are imperfect, so humor me:
I want you to think of the mystery meat we call “Spam”—God is a lot like “Spam”…in that there is a lot about God we don’t and never will know about. Our language, however sophisticated it is, will never be able to describe God completely. God is beyond us. That’s why the doctrine of the Trinity can be confusing. How can three be one and one be three? The God that created the universe and sent Jesus to bring the Word of God and continues to reveal truth to us today is the ONE God in three persons—Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God is mystery and that means that after that spam for dinner, we eat a heaping portion of humble pie. We are human beings. We are not God. Just as soon as we think we have God figured out, we realize we don’t. Just as soon as we make God into our own image, God surprises us with new experiences that force us to expand our thinking. We meet someone different than us, that forces us to think differently about God. Mystery is a part of our life experience and our experience with God. God is bigger than our black and white thinking, the kind of ideology that puffs us up and makes us think we have all the answers. God is in the midst of the grey areas of life, the parts we can’t figure out. This isn’t meant to be scary—it’s meant to bring us hope. The hope in mystery is that God isn’t defined by our limited thinking and limited ideals and limited goals. Praise be to God that my language, my thinking, my ideas about God do not describe all of God. Praise be to God for mystery.
Now I want you think about the Waffle House, our 24/7 connection to hashbrowns, bacon, eggs, and waffles. God is a lot like the Waffle House…in that God is always connected to us, even when we don’t know it, even when we don’t feel it. This is what Jesus explains to the disciples in our scripture this morning. Jesus is preparing his disciples for what it is to come—for the time when he will be gone, when his disciples will be left to live a life for God without Jesus himself to teach them what to do. Jesus tells them that their life will be hard and that there will be people who will hate them for what they believe and teach. There will be times when they are confused and scared and lonely, wondering what decision to make. Yet, Jesus tells them that they will never be alone. The spirit of truth will be with them to guide them. And this spirit of truth comes from the father to testify on Jesus’ behalf. All three are connected and do not work without one another. The trinity provide us with 24/7 access to God. At no time does God leave us alone. By God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God shows us that God is willing to give all of Godself to us and be with us no matter what, even when we who God created turn against God, even when we crucify God’s Son, even when we ignore the still small voice speaking to us—God is with us infinitely. That is what Jesus told his disciples before he left them, and that is what Jesus is telling us today as we go through life with its ups and downs. God is three in one because God is with us always.
The last metaphor I want us to think about this morning is the legendary Potluck dinner. Think about all the different kinds of food and desserts that are represented in a potluck dinner. It runs the gammot from Fried Chicken to sandwiches to spaghetti to salad to casseroles to cookies to lemon meringue pie. Yet, in the midst of this diversity of food, it becomes one meal that connects a diversity of people into one community.
God is a lot like a Potluck dinner…God is One because God is diverse. Sioux Indian and writer Richard Twiss has a fantastic video explaining the diversity in our One God. Richard Twiss explains that “Unity is impossible in the absence of diversity…You cannot have unity when there is no diversity otherwise all you have is uniformity, or conformity or sameness. God is none of those—God is not uniformity, God is not conformity and God is not sameness—but God is ONE.” Twiss goes on to use the example of the way in which different Christians worship. He says that it is “only in the many ways of worshiping and knowing and walking with God that we could even hope to have a glimpse of the indescribableness of God.” No one language or music can encompass all of God. It is when we encounter different ways of worshiping God that we get more of a glimpse into who God is.
I invite you to take a moment right now and look at the people gathered in our sanctuary today. Every person in this room is different. No two of you are alike. And to think—every person in this room is made in the IMAGE of God! When we encounter each other, we get a glimpse of God that no one else can give us. As I was preparing for this sermon, I found myself having to write in a public place with lots of different people all around me. So, I went to Starbucks and observed people. Some were conversing in a language I couldn’t understand. Others were whispering, deep in a serious conversation. Others were laughing. A woman talked on her cell phone, a child tugged on her mommy’s pant leg, a man ordered a caramel macchiato. The barista smiled at her customers and made them feel welcomed. Every single one of these beautiful people were different, yet gave me glimpses of our One God. We are a reflection of God and your neighbor is too, even the neighbor who gets on your nerves or has hurt you—they are made in God’s image too, and they reflect God. Thus, our God who is three in one and one in three connects us to our neighbors in a way nothing else can. The God who is diverse connects us to our diverse world and back to God again.
The trinity teaches us how to be a community. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different, but all three are fully God. These three do not have to conform to each other to be fully God. They are distinctly themselves but always connected, inseperable from one another. They are community. They are in relationship with each other, working together in a beautiful dance. And because we are made in God’s image, we are called to be connected to one another in relationship, in community with one another. We are all different—with different personalities and ideologies and beliefs and gifts and passions. We are not called to be the same as each other or to conform or to have one uniform belief. However, we are called to be ONE community, ONE body of Christ, that works together because we are different, because we respect and love and value each other’s differences. We learn to be a community because God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit—a divine, diverse community.
So whether you use Spam or M&M’s or Potluck Dinners to describe God, the most important thing about the Trinity is that it gives us a glimpse of our God that has a direct impact on how we live. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit humble us to stand in awe of the mystery of God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are promises that God is always with us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit in its diversity teach us how to be one, diverse, loving community. May it be so. AMEN