Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

So, I have a question for you this morning: What do a three-leaf clover, an ice cube and the sun all have in common?

They all fall short as ways of explaining the Holy Trinity – the doctrine that says that God is three distinct persons in One. All three of these analogies stumble into a heresy –a belief that’s contrary to Christian tradition – known as modalism that says God exists in different forms or modes but isn’t actually three distinct persons. If you insist on having an explanation, the best one I have come across says that “the Bible says that when it comes to God, 1 + 1+ 1 = 1.”[i] Of course, in the math we learn in school, that doesn’t work either.

And maybe that’s the best way to answer questions about the Trinity - to name that it is beyond our comprehension, rationale or logic. God doesn’t follow any of our careful plans or fit into neat boxes or formulas that add up. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (16:12) There simply are truths about God and God’s actions that we cannot understand.

What Scripture provides isn’t answers or explanations, but inspiration, that helps us know who God is and who we are as God’s people.

Before I ever went to seminary, I went on a women’s retreat with my home congregation, and I remember the Bible studies throughout the retreat looked at passages that offered language for God that was different than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Some of the participants were uncomfortable with Matthew’s image of God as a mothering hen (Matthew 23) or Isaiah’s illustration of God as a laboring mother (Isaiah 42). Imagining God - when God is beyond our understanding - is challenging.

Being attentive to the language we use for God isn’t about replacing or dismissing traditional language. Instead, the many scriptural images for God help us expand our understanding of who God is. Liturgical scholar and author Gail Ramshaw describes the images in Scripture as treasures, writing that

some of the treasure is old and some new. Treasure that is old is often of more value than that which is new, just as old images might be layered with more meaning for the self and the community than new images. [If we] think that only old treasures are valuable [we] forget that God's Spirit continues each week to offer our world signs of divine mercy.[ii]

The different words to describe God can feel strange in our mouths, but for the person who has suffered abuse by an earthly parent or bullying in school, finding God as a fortress and avenger in the Psalms or as a refuge in Jeremiah may bring comfort. For anyone who is awed by the beauty of our natural world, seeing God as a dove and an eagle in Mark and Deuteronomy or as rain and thunder in Hosea and Exodus helps us connect with our Creator God.

Today’s reading from Proverbs 8 invites us to expand our understanding of God to include Woman Wisdom. In Scripture, the feminine Sophia or wisdom can refer to the Holy Spirit and, in these verses, we hear her testify that she was there “at the beginning of God’s creating work.” (v. 22) As God’s companion, she was there “at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” (v. 23)

Some hear this text echoed in the prologue of John’s gospel where the Evangelist John says, “¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²

He was in the beginning with God.”

The Trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and
the Trinity is God, Jesus and Wisdom.

In these verses, Woman Wisdom calls out “to all that live” as she retells the creation story and how she rejoiced with God and delighted in the inhabited world and in the human race. (8:30-31) The Hebrew verb there is not “rejoice” but “play” so Old Testament scholar Robert Altar translates verses 30 and 31 as

I was His delight day after day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world, His earth, and my delight with humankind.[iii]

Author David Weiss has written a version of the creation story where he pictures the Creator giggling as She imagines all the things she will make, and humming as She scoops up the “softest, nicest-smelling Earth,” and makes “Humus Beings.” The delight and joy is contagious.

And the object of this divine delight is us. We delight God.

Let me say that again. You and I delight God.

In a world that measures success by productivity, it’s easy to forget that play, delight and joy are all part of a well-ordered world, but they are.

And in our modern world filled with division, cynicism and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of one another as beings in whom God delights, but we are.

Psalm 8 continues this theme of divine joy and delight.

The psalmist asks, in verse 4, “What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?”

The psalm assures us that God knows and remembers each one of us, “[making us] little less than divine” [crowned with glory and honor].” (verse 5)

And then it acknowledges how God has entrusted us with care for each other and all the works of God’s hands.

The same God who delights in us invites us
to care for the awesome creation we enjoy,
to see God’s majesty in it, and
to find joy and delight in that trust and care.

May our lives honor God’s invitation into life together, and may we find joy and delight in it.

Let us pray.

Holy God,

In the beginning, You were there, and the Word was there, and Wisdom was there.

And from the beginning you delighted in humankind and have shown us your majesty and your mercy.

Open our ears and our hearts to hear You call to us and to respond to your Word and Spirit, Your Son and Wisdom.

Amen.

[i] Tim Beilharz. “Why analogies of the Trinity fail.” Youthworks. https://youthworks.net/articles/analogies-of-the-trinity, accessed June 10, 2022.

[ii] Gail Ramshaw. Treasures Old and New. Kindle Edition. 36.

[iii] Robert Altar. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 379-380.

Fourth Wednesday in Lent

1 Kings 3:3-15

Tonight’s text is known as “Solomon’s prayer for wisdom.” But that doesn’t tell the whole story, who Solomon was or why he becomes associated with the wisdom books of the Song of Solomon, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Solomon was one of the sons of King David and Bathsheba, the wife of the soldier Uriah whom David sent into battle to be killed. At the end of David’s life, his two oldest sons were either dead or missing and by tradition, his eldest surviving son, Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, expected to succeed him on the throne and become Israel’s third king. But at the beginning of this book, we hear how Bathsheba intercedes on behalf of her son Solomon and then we have, essentially, an account of a turf war as Adonijah and Solomon vie for the throne.

Favored by his mother and the prophet Nathan and armed with his father’s blessing and military might, Solomon establishes his rule. And before his death, King David declares, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who today has granted one of my offspring to sit on my throne and permitted me to witness it.” (1 Kings 1:48)

When we learn more about Solomon, it becomes clear that, like his father, he too was imperfect, an example of both saint and sinner, capable of both evil and good. But here, what we see is a new king who has gone to Gibeon and offered ritual sacrifices, publicly demonstrating his obedience and loyalty to the god who has entrusted the monarchy to him.  And while he is there, God appears to Solomon in a dream.

As is often true in biblical stories, it’s helpful to remember the era where the story takes place and who its audience was. In the ancient world, dreams weren’t psychic phenomena to be interpreted by psychologists; instead they were understood as manifestations of a divine response, a Word from Yahweh. So when we hear that God spoke to Solomon in a dream, we are to recall the other dreamers we know in the Bible, like Jacob and Joseph in Genesis and Joseph and Paul in the New Testament.

In this dream, God says to Solomon, “Ask what I should give you." (1 Kings 3:5)

Can you imagine? How would you answer if you were offered anything you wanted? Would it be safety or security, esteem or affection, power or control? Or something material?

Offered the opportunity to ask for anything, Solomon doesn’t answer immediately, but his reticence isn’t indecision. First, he offers praise for God’s actions, and then he expresses humility and acknowledges his own ill-preparedness for the responsibilities of the throne. He doesn’t puff up with pride or make a show of his power and authority. He doesn’t pretend that he doesn’t need or want anything.

When he does answer, Solomon simply asks God to give him an “understanding mind.”

The word in Hebrew there is the word for “mind” or “will” or heart, and in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, the word is καρδία so some translations say he requested a “listening” or “discerning” heart.

Solomon isn’t focused on outward expressions of his kingship; he wants to be aligned with God’s guidance and purpose.

Teacher and author Ruth Haley Barton describes discernment as “the capacity to recognize and respond to the presence and the activity of God — both in the ordinary moments and in the larger decisions of our lives.”[i] Solomon doesn’t desire an academic or intellectual, post-Enlightenment wisdom; instead he is asking God for the knowledge of “What would you have me do?”

In Mark 12, when Jesus answers the scribe who asks, “What is the greatest commandment?” he repeats the words of the she-ma, telling his followers to “love the Lord with all your mind…..” He isn’t asking, as atheists charge, that we leave our minds at the door. Instead, he is asking that we align ourselves with God’s purposes, that we orient ourselves to God instead of allowing our egos to edge God out.

In the Lord’s Prayer when we petition, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven” we are surrendering to God, confessing that we are dependent on God and the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about wise action and help  us embody God’s love in the world.

We are asking God to work through us as we are called into a life of discernment where we follow the wisdom of Solomon expressed in Proverbs 9: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10 NIV)

Equipped with holy wisdom, we are called to go out into the world like Solomon and ask, “Lord, what would you have me do?”

Let us pray.[ii]
O Lord our God,
Show us your everlasting love that we may serve you from the obedience of our hearts.
Lead us in the way of your peace, that our souls may be restored.
Guide us in the way of the cross, that we might proclaim the strength of your love.
We pray in the name of Your Son Jesus,
Amen.

[i] “Discernment: The Heart of Spiritual Leadership,” Ruth Haley Barton. http://www.transformingcenter.org/2012/05/discernment-the-heart-of-spiritual-leadership/ , accessed 3/14/2018.
[ii] Adapted from Sundays and Seasons Midweek Lenten Series: You Shall Love the Lord Your God.