Trinity Sunday Sermon

Note: Though I normally hear fairly positive feedback about the sermons I deliver, this one in particular really seemed to strike a cord with the people at Hope and I heard a LOT of good comments on it.

Sermon for Sunday, June 7 2009
Text: Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

Grace, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

There was a woman who owned a piano. Beautiful, old instrument: the rich mahogany of the wood was polished to a deep gleaming red; the ebony and ivory of the keys were kept in miraculous shape. Blessed with an ear for the pitch of sound, she had taught herself the basic tuning of her own instrument. Then one day a rich aunt of hers died; in the will, she was gifted yet another beautiful piano.

It had been well taken care of; but nevertheless, it was not in tune with her own instrument. She would try to play pieces for two pianos with her friends, but eventually stopped because the sound was terrible. She initially blamed her friends for making mistakes, but as time wore on she realized that no, it was the piano that sounded different than hers. Again dependent upon her gift of hearing, she sat down at the new piano while a friend played the keys of the old. She hoped to bring her aunt’s piano into tune with her own.

It became apparent after a few frustrating hours that she could not bring her aunt’s piano into tune with her own. Then, one day another friend of hers – one whom she had blamed for poor playing – showed up at her door again and claimed that she could fix both pianos. The woman exclaimed, there’s nothing wrong with mine!, but her friend reached into her bag and brought out tuning fork.

Both pianos were out of tune; but the woman for all her musical ability didn’t realize that she couldn’t tune one piano to another. But tuned to a tuning fork they were, as a matter of fact, in tune with each other. The music they made was beautiful.
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I wonder, are we reallay ‘in tune’ with God? Judging by the plethora of Christian help and devotional books I saw the last time I was in the Christian bookstore, a lot of people realize that they are out of tune with God. It seems to me that often, we try to tune our hearts to something else to try to bring ourselves into tune – and by ‘tune’ I mean a right relationship – with God. We read books, listen to teachers, preachers, leaders we hope will lead us to something better.

But often these things have the opposite effect and bring us into conflict with others. Those people who we feel aren’t ‘in tune’ with ourselves and our worldview and we set out to fix them.

When I was growing up my family was friends with another family of absolutely gifted musicians. They had a little band – sort of like the Partridge Family – and played community events and such together. They were popular and well-known – at least, as well-known as a group in rural southern Alberta can be – but one day they broke up. It became a very bitter feud; but true to their gift the only answer they could give to those who questioned them was “we don’t hear each other the same way anymore.” Each member had criticized the others for doing something different, or wrong. We do the same thing when we tune ourselves to someone else’s interpretation or idea of God.

You see, being in tune with God doesn’t mean that we are above, or better, or more holy that other people we meet. Being in tune with God means that we are in relationship and community with others who seek the same sort of community and relationship with us. This is the embodiment of the Trinity – the identification of God as perfect relationship and distinct community.

God, who is above us and rules over all things.

The Holy Spirit, who is around us and brings us to relationship with God.

And Jesus, who is in us and leads us not only into a greater communion with God but even more importantly, with those around us.

We need to tune our hearts and minds to Christ; but if there is any lesson that has been learned throughout the past it is that the music Christ makes is dissonant to our hearing. We have a taste for pop music; Jesus plays us the heavenly chorus. We need the ear of the Master; the one who creates the music is also the means of bringing us into tune.

But it is not easy. It means being stretched and pulled in ways that make us uncomfortable but will eventually make us whole. It means that not being so tight even when we want to be – when we want to be strong and tense in the face of life.

Consider Nicodemus. He’s a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing council. He was probably comfortably wealthy, and definitely powerful. He knew what was what, so to speak, but he also wanted more. He’d heard of the miraculous things Jesus was doing, so he sought him out.

Nicodemus, an educated and erudite man, set Jesus up with a statement. “I know that you’re a teacher, sent from God…” In other words, now Rabbi, I know that you’re in tune with me… But Jesus replied to him: Not as much as you need to be in tune with me. And then we hear the 'twang' of dissonance. This was not what Nicodemus was expecting.

In the past, we’ve given Nicodemus a bad rap, and assumed that he came by night so that he wouldn’t be seen by other people; that he was a coward who wanted to preserve his own reputation but at the same time seek out the Truth of Jesus Christ. That may be so. But ancient scholars said that the Torah – the books of the Law – were best studied at night, so that the conversation could be free of distractions of the day. So Nicodemus came at night, yes, maybe because he was scared of being seen, but also maybe because he knew that time with Christ was best spent away from the toils of the day.

But Nicodemus and Jesus weren’t in tune with each other. Their discussion:
“You must be born anew” – the Greek text is deliberately confusing, with the same word having the possibility of being translated as born again, anew, or from above; all are actually correct.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You must be born of water and the Spirit.”
“What do you mean by that?”
That same painful exchange is repeated and re-enacted countless times in our lives. Trying to tune each other to make us agree with one another or to bring God into tune with us. Euphemistically, we call this ‘not seeing eye-to-eye’.

Nicodemus persisted in being out of tune until Christ spoke the words that brought all of creation, the whole universe, into consonance:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
If you listen closely, you may hear the high keening of that fork still ringing throughout the world and sounding in the hearts of believers today.

It’s necessary to be in tune, because God’s way – his tune, opposed to our own – doesn’t blend with the natural human state. We try to force each other to conform, or ignore ourselves when in fact we’re the ones who aren’t in tune with others. But we have the most perfect example of what it really means to be in tune with one another: the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Trinity: the doctrine based on the biblical witness that there are three persons of God, co-eternal and as an integral part of creation as the spoken Word that brought life and light into being. Jesus, who took upon frail human flesh to show us that the purest way of being in relationship to God is to be in community with each other. The Holy Spirit, who calls us together, emboldens us to live in community, and keeps us in grace. And God the Father, who orders all things; he alone is the composer and conductor of the music of creation.

Keeping those relationships and community together is not easy, though. It’s hard to be in tune, and frequently we find it far easier to remove ourselves from community with God when we find the cost of discipleship too much to pay and the freeing transformation of our hearts too painful.

But Christ came for us, and never stops reaching out to us. When we can suspend our arrogance, our own demands, our own insistence on getting our way, then we can find out what it really means to be in tune.

When our hearts are in tune with Christ’s we are in tune with creation and Christ is within us. Then, if we are to be in community, the Jesus in me will see the Jesus in you.

And as a matter of fact, we are born anew, in tune.

Amen.