2025 06
15 TRINITY SUNDAY YEAR C
We believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Three persons but one God. Simple as that? Ok?
Maybe not so simple.
Our first reading tells us that wisdom raises her voice,
but in the year 325 AD many voices were raised, and the noise was chaotic. It was a time before Bibles were printed, churches
would meet, read readings from the Old Testament scripture and the apostles’
letters. They sang hymns, ate together,
prayed and relied on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then an influential priest by the name of
Arius and some of his followers began teaching different ideas about who Jesus
was. Arius claimed that Jesus was
created by the father, rather than being begotten. Eventually about 200 Bishops met to
discuss. I imagine that it was a robust
discussion to say the least. In fact, there are works of art that show Saint
Nicholas punching Arius at the gathering.
Wisdom is not silent.
We are told that wisdom raises her voice and cries out. Perhaps it is ironic that this very chapter
about wisdom is the one that was used by Arius, to speak against the
Trinity. He claimed that this verse
where we are told that God created wisdom at the beginning of his work, was
actually a personification of Jesus, meaning that Jesus was created, rather
than being God. My research has informed
me that this is a translation error, and the word translated as “created”
should be more accurately translated as God “possessed” wisdom at the beginning
of his work.
To be fair, we are all just “Joe & Jane”. By this I mean, that we are the creation,
trying to comprehend the creator. The
scriptures tell us that God’s thoughts and God’s ways are far beyond us. We all hold many beliefs about God that might
not be completely correct, but God does want us to know him and to love him and
to know that he loves us. While it only
stands to reason that we don’t know everything about God and that we will grow
slowly in our relationship with him, there are times when it is important that
we stand against the misrepresentation of God that allows error about God to
spread.
Faith is caught more than taught. This means that we absorb the ideas of faith
from all sources around us. We don’t
very often, if ever, sit down and talk about the nature of Christ and how he is
one with God and IS God. I generally
trust that God will reveal his truth in time and this is part of the role of
the Holy Spirit. However, there is a
time and place to clarify.
325 AD was a time that brought conflict to a head, and
200 people debated, prayed and voted.
Understanding this should cause us to ponder and question; are we also
willing to stand up against popular thought that erodes the image of God and
proclaim the Gospel truth?
Most of the time we will go with the flow, don’t rock the
boat, and accept the philosophies of popular thought. When those sources are Godly, faith is
caught, and wisdom’s voice is heard. When
those sources are false, faith is diminished, and the values of the Gospel are
eroded. We may find ourselves called to stand
up and defend and clarify the Gospel and Gospel values. Just between you and me, I kind of think we
are here now!
We belong to the family of God, but we also belong to a
human family, a local town, a state, a country.
We also live in an era. All these
things colour and influence the way that we understand or misunderstand
God. Faith is caught, not taught, but
what is it that we are catching? Wisdom
is not silent. She raises her voice and
cries out. But this doesn’t mean that
people are listening. In fact, if people
are listening, we don’t need to raise our voices. Today we are encouraged to reflect on just
what influences are impacting us and our faith.
Are they Godly and true?
The doctrine of the Trinity was officially established at
the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. The
creed that we know as the Nicene Creed stated definitively the beliefs about
God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God the Son is “God of God, Light of Light,
very God of Very God (or true God of true God), begotten, not made, being of
one substance (homoousios) with the Father,". This is not something that was devised
arbitrarily but is taken from the various scriptures that speak about the
Messiah.
Wisdom raises her voice.
It seems that wisdom needs to raise her voice because other
voices are so much louder. There are ways
to find wisdom and hear her voice. We
need to study the scriptures but know that great intellectuals have still gotten
things very wrong. The religious experts
of Jesus time, who studied God’s word, were those responsible for crucifying
him. So there has to be some other
element that is necessary to be able to find wisdom and truth - there is
another vital ingredient.
Last week we celebrated Pentecost, the birthday of the
church and the feast when the baptism of the Holy Spirit was poured out on the
disciples. The disciples had already had
Jesus breathe on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was a separate
out-pouring. That baptism of the Holy
Spirit was not confined to that event on that day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is offered to all of us, and today
we read where Jesus explained what would happen when this baptism would
come. He said; “When the Spirit of
truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his
own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things
that are to come.” Wisdom is
possessed by God. The Holy Spirit is
God. The Holy Spirit is God with and in
us. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father and the Son. With the Father and
the Son, He is worshiped and glorified. The
Holy Spirit will guide us into all the truth.
The Holy Spirit is the vital ingredient we need in discerning God’s
truth.
Some things happen all at once and some things happen
gradually. I also used an analogy last
week, that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit can be like jumping into a pool of
cold water. Some jump right in, but
others go in step by step… and when we are a “step by step” person (which is
more common), we need to be encouraged to continue to say, “Yes” to receiving
the Holy Spirit, and continue to enter into the call of God and into that Holy
Spirit baptism, receiving the gifts that God has for us. In the same way, some wisdom and knowledge
about the truth of God will happen all at once, like scales falling from our
eyes. Other wisdom and knowledge we will
need to wait patiently for God to reveal.
The important thing to remember, is always to say, “Yes” to God as He
invites us to come to know him by the gift of his Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
If today we don’t fully understand how the idea of how
three persons, but one God works, we can rest reassured that God knows that we
are only, “Joe & Jane”… Limited!!!
And God loves us so much that he suffered and died for us, so that there
would be nothing separating us from God.
Our reading from Romans explains that we are justified by
faith, and therefore we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That faith only needs to be the size of a
mustard seed. We don’t need to
understand, but we need to trust in the one who does know and who understands
everything. We know that God is the same
yesterday, today and forever. God
doesn’t change and He loves us, but our culture, our fears and doubts and the
various ideologies of the world and people around us can be like a blanket over
our eyes and they are like a loud cacophony afflicting our ears so that we
can’t hear wisdom raising her voice.
Can we, like a radio, aim to tune into the frequency of the Holy Spirit? God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. It is that love that has the power to cut through the noise that is in the world. And when we show God’s love to others, we and they can “Hear” the Spirit of God. Wisdom’s voice is heard. Our world needs the truth and the wisdom of God. Let us pray for God’s Holy Spirit to pour God’s love into our hearts. Let us tune in. Let’s take a moment to listen.
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