Transcript
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, please be seated.
During COVID, when the whole world shut down and moved to living online, I taught a class about this passage from Genesis, the very first chapter, plus a few extra verses of all of scripture. The class looked at the six days of creating and the nine acts of creation and compared each act of creation to a scientific field of study. We talked about Newton’s third law and the big bang theory. We talked about panga or pangia. We talked about the theory of relativity in the space time continuum. We talked about the theory of evolution and a universal common ancestor.
Since then, I’ve taught the class again. And with science and technology progressing, I’ve changed the curriculum a little bit, adding conversations about AI and free will and going deeper into how theology and science can all merge, supporting one another, and also refuting one another. It is one of my favorite topics, science and religion, because sometimes they do support each other.
Like Newton’s third law, if you don’t remember from physics class, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So everything that happens is really a reaction to something that already happened which then becomes the action that creates the next reaction. So absolutely everything becomes a chain of cause and effect action and reaction. But something had to have been the first action. Not the reaction to something previous, but the first initial sole beginning action like in the beginning. thus scientifically offering an explanation for who God could be the first actor.
Anyway, as you can see, science and theology is one of my favorite topics perhaps because science is so much about the world around us. The quantifiable and qualifiable, the tangible and lived and experienced world around us. And theology tries to explain the parts that aren’t quantifiable or qualifiable or tangible. I like to think I think that might be why Trinity Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays of the year as well because it is when we are invited to bend our brains, suspend some of the very rules of nature, not to mention grammar rules, and explore how God can be three and one. three persons, one God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and also just God.
And this passage from Genesis that Brian read, thank you for reading that long passage. It is a perfect example of God in three persons existing as one. Because you see, and now I’m going to go reference the Nying creed. If we believe that all three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, as in eternally begotten, then when we read this passage from Genesis, we are reading about God the Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
I know you’ve heard me say this before, and it’s some of my absolute favorite conceptualizations of the Trinity, and this isn’t just silly Priest Lisa spouting craziness. There is actual spiritual scriptural reference for every aspect of what I’m about to say. So if the three persons are begotten not made, co-eternal and of one being then all three quote persons had to be there in the beginning when God created. It means that as much as we might think of Genesis 1 being about God the Father, it has to be about all three, the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
And this is what gets me really excited and what I often repeat. If you hang out with Nerdy Priest Lisa enough, you’ll hear this a lot. If God the Father is the one speaking, then God the Son written as logos in Greek in John’s gospel is the word as in the words spoken. And the Holy Spirit wa in Hebrew which means spirit or wind or breath is the air that God used to say the words. So God the Father is the one who thinks of the items to be created. Jesus is the words spoken into existence and the Holy Spirit is the breath that goes into making those thoughts turn into words.
All three persons of the Trinity were there in the beginning and have to remain together from the beginning until now and into the future. Literally, it is the three persons of the Trinity in relationship that led to all creation existing at all, including you and me. Everything comes from the relationship of the Trinity. Three persons, one God.
Perhaps I wonder if that’s why we so often find ourselves encountering God out in creation, watching beautiful sunsets light up the sky in pinks and oranges, humming along with cardinals and sparrows singing their daily song. even noticing the tiny little ant carrying that massive piece of leaf working together with its fellow ants to create a safe and complete home for the whole colony. All of these and more are evidence of the God who creates in the beginning together and always to eternity. There’s an ancient Celtic concept referred to as thin places. It’s deeply rooted in scripture and is experienced in the world around us. You may have experienced it yourself. I know I did here.
A thin place is considered to be a location or a moment where the boundaries between heaven and earth, between creation and the creator, between the material world and the spiritual realm become something like porous or a little more sheer. We’re somehow thin. The space and time feels sacred and are often experienced when we are in deep suffering or deep joy, but not always because I experienced it right out there in the graveyard.
Was my very first burial. Feel like it was probably less than a week after I got here based on the number of burials we’ve done. I was carrying an urn across the cemetery and I could feel this energy, the history, the stories of everyone laid to rest there, their presence, almost feeling like they were curious who I was and what I was doing. I will admit it got so strong that I finally stopped. Mind you, I am in full robes and I am carrying an urn. I stopped, stomped my foot and said out loud, just wait right now.
It is insert name. I don’t remember who I was carrying. It is his turn. Then I will come back and listen to you, but not right now. If Patrick was looking out the office window at that moment, he would definitely be worried about my well-being.
What I was experiencing was a thin place. A place where God was reaching out to me, revealing God’s self in the world around me in a way that is liinal, as in a threshold between the here and there, the now and then, the me and them. A reminder that God in three persons is present with me always, even if I don’t realize it. Even if I’m too busy to see or hear or feel God, God, they, the Trinity is with me.
Because a thin place isn’t a place and time when God suddenly appears. It is a place and time when we our hearts and our souls finally notice God and God’s presence in all three forms in the world around us in our lives in the intimacy of being known down to the very core of our being. The very breath that was used to form the exact words that were spoken in order to make us exist as humans, as in the human race, and as individuals who exist. Because God picked each of us out, formed us exactly as we are and made us exist because God, the father, the son, and the holy spirit wanted us to exist. All three persons of the Trinity existed in the beginning and they continue to exist in the now and will always exist into the infinite future.
For God, time is not linear. It is merely another aspect of existence which technically God created just as space is merely another aspect of existence. And when God in any form comes to meet us where we are, that is the trinity. The blessing of h having a God who is in three persons and able to be present in whatever form we need in order to be in relationship with God.
We might not. We might not fully understand the Trinity. Even though I could spout quantum physics theories about the scientific evidence for a divine existence, not sure we really need to understand all aspects of God. After all, scripture even says something like that. Something about not needing to or not being ready to fully understand God. Says it a few times, in fact.
But we don’t need to fully understand the Trinity in order to experience the Trinity because the Trinity is really about connecting with God in whatever way connects you to God. Be it God the Father or Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. God longs to be in a relationship with each of us. So much so that God exists in multiple persons to allow us to relate to the one we like best or the one we need most. There’s no scientific explanation for that. There’s just heart, love, and soul, breath, and of course, relationship.
Trinity Sunday isn’t about explaining the mystery of the Trinity. It is about naming the mystery, being okay with not fully understanding the mystery and still being in relationship with the mystery. That mystery being God, the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.