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SERMONS

Trinity Sunday
June 3, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Isaiah 5:1-8
Psalm  29
Rev. 4:1-11
John 16:12-15

My favorite quotation about preaching on Trinity Sunday comes from a priest named Robert Capon, who once rather famously said: “[W]hen human beings try to describe God we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina.  We simply do not have the equipment…”  (Taylor 152-3) He’s right, really -- language just doesn’t really give us all the tools we need to describe, much less understand, the mystery of God. “[B]ut that has never stopped us from trying.”   (153)

I mean, we know the trinity is important -- we pray all the time in the Episcopal Church in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We bless in the name of the trinity. We sing some of our most beautiful hymns on Trinity Sunday, Like the hymn, “Holy Holy Holy,, Lord God Almighty,”

[@8:45 & 11: which we’ll sing as our last hymn,]
[@ 7:30 & 5:  we sang this morning in church,] which was written specifically for Trinity Sunday.  (Holy, Holy)

Because the Trinity is important, it’s the only theological doctrine I know of that has its own feast day in the church! The other feast days on the church calendar are dedicated to an event in the life of Jesus, or to a saint or to All Saints.. (Hawkins 16) But Trinity Sunday stands alone in its celebration of an abstract formulation.

By the way, the trinity is not Biblical per se.   Jesus never used the word himself. The doctrine of the Trinity developed in the early centuries after Jesus died as a way of answering questions about who God is.  (Fretheim 14)
The Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit --represents the best of “’earnest human efforts” to answer the questions that arose after Jesus died. (Taylor 152) Who is the advocate that Jesus says is coming after Jesus ascends into heaven? Is that the same as the Spirit of Truth (with a capital S) that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel from John? And doesn’t Jesus frequently speak of his Father who sent him? And that makes me wonder,   “Who are all these people?”   (Taylor 152) How do they fit together?    And how can we say Jesus was fully human and God at the same time?
                            
These are the questions theologians have struggled with for centuries, and today we honor the best answers that human minds have been able to come up with.  (Taylor 152) And today, in honor of the Trinity, I’d like to speak about a couple of images that might help us try to paint a picture of God, knowing from the get-go that we can no more “capture” God in words “than a bed of oysters can dance Swan Lake.”  (Taylor 153) The first image comes from the Book of Revelation. Today’s reading shows us John once again in the throne room of God, in heaven.          Around the throne of God are 24 other thrones, which are occupied by 24 elders, dressed in white robes with golden crowns on their heads.  (Rev. 4:4) We don’t learn much about the one on the center throne – just that he “looks like jasper and carnelian,” (Rev. 4:3) Which were precious stones in the ancient world, so God looks like brilliant jewels, dazzling with light.  (Harrington 81)

But there’s yet more dazzle in the throne room of God. For we learn that “in the front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.”  (Rev. 4:6) And when the four living creatures sing their song of praise to the one seated upon the center throne. (which they do “day and night, without ceasing” ), here’s what the elders do:          The elders get up off of their thrones, and they “fall [down] before the one…seated on the throne” they add their voices to the heavenly chorus. As they sing their own song of praise to God, and, as they do, “they cast their crowns before the throne.”  (Rev. 4:8-10)

The best distillation of this scene that I know of is a line from the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” [8:45 & 11: which we will sing at the end of the service.] Listen to this line from the second stanza:

Holy, holy holy! 
All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. (Hymn 362, v 2) That may be one of my favorite lines in all hymnody:“Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.”

Now let me tell you why I think that image of the elders “casting down their golden crowns” before God’s throne might help us understand God. The Book of Revelation was probably written during the reign of the emperor Domitian. (Harrington 8) The identity of the emperor is not really important, except to remind us that the early hearers of the book of Revelation would have been familiar with life under Roman imperial rule. (80)
                                               
“The Emperor of Rome ruled over many lesser kings,” and these lesser kings were” from time to time summoned to appear before the emperor. (Guzik 1) When they arrived at court, the lesser kings “removed their crowns” in the presence of the emperor. These lesser kings would cast their crowns before the emperor to symbolize that the victory and the glory belong to the one on the throne.  (Harrington 80) Then the emperor would give the lesser kings their crowns back, as a way of saying to them that “their crowns, their right to rule…came from him.” (Guzik 1)

With those imperial practices in mind, think about what it means for the 24 elders to “cast their crowns before the throne of God” – the elders were acting out, symbolically, their allegiance and homage to God. When the elders cast their crowns before the throne of God, they match in liturgical action the song of praise that they sing to God: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,…”  (Rev. 4:11, Guzik 1)

And that’s a powerful image to me. It makes me want to ask myself:

Am I willing to cast my crown at the foot of God’s throne? Am I willing to worship and praise God as the source of all my blessings? Or do I live as if I earned it all myself? And who sits on the throne in my throne room? Is it God, or has somebody or something taken God’s place in the throne room of my heart?

The second image I want to leave you with comes from the hymn known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate. [@11 only:  We sang this as our opening hymn.]
We sang it at the St. Andrew’s Cathedral at the ordination of two new deacons. St. Patrick’s Breastplate, the hymn, is based on a prayer called a breastplate prayer or lorica.  A breastplate prayer was a prayer that a soldier said or chanted while putting on his armor preparing for battle (that’s where the breastplate part comes in). St. Patrick’s Breastplate, then, was the breastplate prayer said by St. Patrick, legend has it, as he prepared to face a pagan king leading a group of pagans and Druids who were trying to prevent Patrick and his followers from preaching the gospel. According to the legend, the prayer worked, because Patrick’s men suddenly appeared to the enemy as a herd of deer (!) so Patrick’s company was able to slip past the pagans and Druids without being attacked.  (Glover 684) Like many legends surrounding the life of Saint Patrick, we’re not sure it’s true.  But the part of the prayer remains the prayer for the presence of Christ. [@11 only:  that makes up verse 6 of Hymn 370 and the text of the choir’s anthem this morning.] It goes like this: 

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I think that prayer makes a pretty good place to end this sermon on Trinity  Sunday – with ancient words beseeching Christ’s presence and protection.
I’ll close this sermon with one more verse of the hymn:
I bind unto myself today, The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward; The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard.  (Hymn 370, v. 5)  Amen. 

Works Cited:

Fretheim, Terence E.  Proclamation:  Pentecost I (6C). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997. 

Glover, Raymond T.  The Companion to the 1982 Hymnal.   III. New York: Church Publishing Company, 1995.

Guzik, David. Commentary on Revelation 4:1-11.  Blue Letter Bible. Bluetooth Bible Commentary.

Harrington, Wilfrid J.  Revelation. 16 Sacra Pagina series.  Ed. Daniel J. Harrington. Collegeville, MN:Liturgical Press, 1993.

Hawkins, Peter S. “Between the Lines.”  “Living in the Word.”  Christina Century May 23, 2001. 16.

“Holy, Holy, Holy” Wikipedia entry. 

Rowland, Christopher C. “The Book of Revelation.” The New Interpreter’s Bible. XII.  Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1998.