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SERMONS

Trinity Sunday
May 18, 2008

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

“ . . . Hiding in my room, I am safe within my womb, I touch no one, and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.” – Simon and Garfunkel {Sung by Homilist}

Do you know what the definition of an idiot is? “Idios,” Greek. “Peculiar to oneself.” It is someone utterly consumed with themselves, their station in life, their own vantage point, their own agenda, their centrality in the universe. A rock. An Island.

A rock. An Island. How true it is . . . how true it is for most us.

Think for a moment about how much energy we spend over the course of our lives trying to make a good defense our best offense. Living simply for emotional survival, many of us develop strategies of how to keep some one, or some thing, at arm’s length. Digging trenches around our hurt feelings and grudges; fortifying the high ground of a self righteousness. Saying to ourselves, “If I can keep them out there, then I can stay right here.” Safe and sound. A rock, an island.

The myth of rugged individualism is planted deep within our culture. The whole notion that I am a “self”. And that I, the first person pronoun, have the right for self- actualization and self-determination by right of my birth, we might say “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” is a respect and valuing of the individual conscience peculiar to our Western tradition.

The political “right” of self-determination in government, in religion, in the marketplace, is a liberty that thousands upon thousands of our forebears fought to give us. We must cherish it. The question for the modern West is not so much one of securing liberty and self-determination, as figuring out what to do with it now that we have it. And is this really the best that we can do with our “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” to become a rock or an island, and use all of our hard won liberties simply to make ourselves a tiny, isolated fortress in our personal and emotional lives. Saying in effect to anyone that gets to close, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

This is something that seems to cause so much pain in our lives.

We want the right to be left alone, the right to our point of view, the right to have our opinion heard, the right not to agree, the right see things go our way, the right to become a rock, or an island . . . Yes, we have our right of independence and self-determination, our right not to be tread upon, but then we face the possibility that will forfeit the only gift that will bring joy, peace, and true happiness - which is love.

The great mistake that we risk is to use our right of self-determination to make of ourselves a fortress, to become a rock, or an island; a place where the relationships and vulnerabilities of love are erased. Because love requires us to raise a white flag. Love requires us to risk losing our hard won selves. Love means that we will have to let someone “in,” and surrender that hard won personal agenda for which we have fought.

You see we always have the “right” to have our own way; but in doing so we may end up losing “good” which God means for us.

What could any of this have to do with Trinity Sunday?
Today we celebrate the fact that the Creator of our universe and our lives makes himself known to us. The source of our being, the source and meaning of our lives, is knowable. And how do we know God? What do we see as we peer into that eternal mystery? We see that God is not simply a grand projection of our notion of rugged individualism. We see that God is not simply a grand projection of the principle of the first person pronoun. We see that God, the in whose image we are made, exists in a relationship of love and dependence, of giving and receiving, between a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit. Some have come to use the images of a Creator, a Redeemer, a Sanctifier.

The early Christians spent centuries, thousands upon thousands of hours, pushing away inadequate language and imagery, and pulling together inspired and scriptural reflection, in order to give some voice and vision to how the source of this universe might be known. To think that we will have our arms around how God is Trinity in fifteen minutes of reading or listening to a homily, would be like someone saying they really know you after visiting in the check out line at the grocery store.

Something that we can know, and know almost immediately, is that God is, and will remain, so much more than our imaginations might fathom. We can know immediately and instinctively that God is not in the midst of this Creation as a rock, or an island, or an impregnable fortress under the flag “Don’t Tread On Me.”

My friends we can see and know that at the heart of the one we call Lord is the existence of living in relationships that are mutually dependent. As the Father gives to the Son and the Son gives to the Father and the Spirit unites . . . As the Father gives up the Son to the world, and the Son gives himself up to the saving of that world, and the Spirit comes to dwell and teach us who are in that same world . . . we see that the God at heart of existence becomes something “more” because each person of the Trinity surrenders their persona, their individuality, in an ultimate trajectory and direction of hope, of salvation, of love, and of eternal joy. This world is falling away around us, but they remain; and we will remain should we join them.

We become no greater as individuals than when we surrender to that which is larger than ourselves in God. We may not be able to comprehend much about the Trinity, but we can know that the Godhead does not exist in a supreme solitude.

Of course, the right to exist as a rock or an island will never be taken away from us. Existing as a fortress of one will always be our right. Preserving our position, maintaining our agenda, manning the trenches of our grudges and self-righteousness; but none of these, no island paradise or fortress of our own choosing will ever be what God is trying to teach us of what is ultimately Good.