Experiential Trinity

I’ve sometimes wondered 

if anyone has done a study on church attendance on Trinity Sunday, 

to see if there is a dip in attendance on this particular Sunday.

My imagination pictures 

tedious sermons about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity 

full of heavy duty theologizing 

causing parishioners’ eyes to glaze over and brains to go numb.

 

Well, my thought is that the Trinity 

is not a theological doctrine or concept to be studied and understood, 

but something to be experienced.

You can’t talk effectively about the Trinity 

outside of experience of the Trinity.

 

So let’s look at the Gospel for today.

The passage from John 3 is full of the Trinity, 

but I’m going to say that it’s not in the form of theological concepts.

Instead it is about a spiritual process at work.

 

This has tremendous significance for those of us 

                                    who think of ourselves as followers of Jesus, 

and this is much more practical and connected with everyday life                         

            than being able to articulate the finer points of the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

In the dialog between Nicodemus and Jesus, what we observe

is not Nicodemus’ eyes glazing over, 

but his mind being blown, being blown completely away.

Jesus yanks the theological rug out from under Nicodemus.

 

You see, 

Nicodemus comes to Jesus secretly and alone for a private conversation.  

            And that right there is a good indication of his interest and willingness 

to do some serious and personal exploration of what Jesus is about.

 

In his role as a leading Jewish religious figure 

he could not have this conversation in public 

because in that context he would have to be defending the official theology.

 

But here in private is the opportunity to be much more personal, 

and so Jesus goes right to the heart of things.

Nicodemus says, 

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God…”

And Jesus zeros right in.

“You know I’m from God?

You can see the Kingdom of God revealed in me?

You can’t see that without having been born from above.”

 

And at least this is a better translation than the ones that say “born again.”

But even “born from above” falls short of the meaning 

of the Greek word here, which is the key to this whole passage - anwqen.

 

In reading, if something is referred to “above” 

we know that means something preceding in the text.

“From above” is like going upstream to the headwaters.

anwqen, translated as “from above,” refers us to the Source, 

to the beginning, to where it all began.

 

“In the beginning was the Word, 

and the Word was with God, 

and the Word was God.  

He was in the beginning with God.  

All things came into being through him, 

and without him not one thing came into being.”

 

You can’t see the Kingdom of God without being born from the Source.

Well, Nicodemus begins to feel the challenge to all his theology here.  

He, after all, is a son of Abraham, a son of Israel, a son of the Covenant.

His lineage, both spiritually and physically,

 has developed and been adhered to faithfully over the centuries 

by the remnant that came 

through the 40 years in the wilderness with Moses 

and the remnant that came through the Babylonian Captivity 

and who were now engaged in careful practice 

to preserve this lineage of the Children of Abraham 

by the exclusiveness of the way in which their religion was lived.

 

But the birth lineage that Jesus has just presented to Nicodemus 

is that of creation, going back to the Source, 

and the ramifications of that 

threatened the whole religious structure Nicodemus had worked out of.

The birth lineage of creation is inclusive of all, 

radically different from the exclusiveness of Nicodemus’ religious lineage.

 

Now Nicodemus reveals his predicament.

            He has lived his whole life oriented to this particular religious heritage.

How could he start over, how could he accomplish being born all over again 

into this totally different way of holding life?

Impossible, 

as impossible as it is for a grown person to enter the womb again 

and go through physical birth again.

 

So Jesus obliges him by blowing his mind even further, 

by exploding his theology even further.

You enter the Kingdom of God by being born of water and Spirit, 

through creation, 

through the Spirit brooding over the waters of the deep at creation.

 

Gen. 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth 

when they were created…

5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth 

and no herb of the field had yet sprung up

—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, 

and there was no one to till the ground; 

6 but a stream would rise from the earth, 

and water the whole face of the ground— 

7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, 

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; 

and the man became a living being.

 

And the Spirit/breath/wind blows where it chooses, 

and you hear the sound of it, 

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

You can’t discern any past location or future location.

The Spirit/wind/breath of God is indiscernible in past or future, 

only in the now, the present.

The Source, the beginning, the creation is present now.

No distant lineage of Father Abraham to be traced, 

but the Source, the Creator, the Father now and immediate and direct 

generating children being born into the Kingdom of God.

 

No wonder Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?”

Just as you might be saying, “This isn’t the theology I learned!”

 

But understanding is not necessarily what we are looking for here.  

After all, there is nothing we need to do or understand 

in order for us to be born from above, from the Source.

This being born is not something we accomplish, 

just as physically babies do not accomplish their own birth.

When the time is ripe 

the mother’s body automatically ejects the baby, pushes it out, 

even without the mother’s conscious part in determining when.

 

How can these things be?

            It is not necessarily theological understanding but experience.

 

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” 

this reading from John 3 goes on, 

“so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” 

a reference to the crucifixion, 

“that whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” 

whoever trusts in him.

 

It’s not a matter of understanding 

or accomplishing being born of our own efforts, 

but of trust.

 

And then we wake up to 

the realization of the Truth of what Jesus was saying here, 

because of our experience of the divine, 

our encounter with God, our communion with Abba, the Father.

 

So Nicodemus comes away from this interview with Jesus 

with his theology messed with and his mind reeling.

What does he do with this?

 

Well, he can’t go back to the old thoughts and beliefs now.

Jesus ruined that possibility.

To return to his old theology 

in which he had worked so hard 

in following the Covenant of Moses 

as a child of Abraham and a leading Pharisee, 

to return to that worldview would be a return to ignorance.

What has been seen can’t be unseen, can’t be ignored any more.

 

Later in John’s Gospel 

Nicodemus in his leadership role with the Jewish religious leaders attempts to make a statement in defense of Jesus, chapter 7, 

and they jump all over him.

 

This is a perfect example of what Jesus was talking about 

regarding the clash between his teaching and the world.

What does he mean by “the world”?

The World, in this context, is a concept, a reality claim that insists on 

an understanding of identity as individual 

                                                and separate one from another 

– having those who are in and those who are out, them and us.

But God so loved the world, that it would do no good 

to leave the world to its own devises, with these separations and divisions.

 

And then in John’s account of the crucifixion, 

while most of the disciples are in hiding, Nicodemus shows up again

to join the women and Joseph of Arimathea, 

expressing his devotion to Jesus at the time of burial.

Nicodemus had become a faithful disciple.

 

Our encounters with God, with Jesus, ought to be sufficiently disturbing 

so that we can no longer hold onto 

views, opinions, beliefs, biases, prejudices 

the way we did before, 

because of being shocked by the irrefutable reality of Creator God.

 

The reality of creation is a reflection of the Creator, 

not our mind’s conceptual constructs.

 

It is so good for us when we get jarred out of our mind sets.

Then we can see so much more.

Then we, like Nicodemus, are opened to reassessing our perspectives.

Then we are in a position to burst forth in spiritual growth, 

being born anew, being born again, being born from above, 

being born from the Source.

Then healing can take place within us.

 

I go to such lengths with this passage, 

because it is a key passage in the Bible, 

one that unfortunately has been a dividing point theologically 

rather than leading to opening awareness 

to the ever present and available salvation from our ignorance of God 

that this passage offers.

 

And here’s the challenge for us here at Nativity.

Does the theological stance that you hold 

divide you from others, separate the Body of Christ into them and us?

Then this is a theology of the tradition of the Pharisees,

like what Nicodemus used to hold.

 

What might it be like for you right now if you encountered Jesus 

            in a private conversation about your basic perspective on life?

What if, in one sentence, Jesus ripped holes in your whole belief system?

                                                He could, you know.

Would you trust him in bringing you to birth again 

into the Kingdom of God possibly realized in a whole new way?

 

If you are feeling uncomfortable right now, 

then you know how Nicodemus felt.

And in all love, I want to say to you that it is good to feel such discomfort, 

for it is in such agony of spirit, of looking within 

and standing revealed in our narrow-mindedness or our prejudices, 

our exclusivity,

that we are in a very good place spiritually.

Then we are in a place where the Spirit can blow and create us anew.

 

Ready or not, the Spirit has, of course, already been blowing,

stirring things up here in each of our lives.

 

Let you minds be blown away, and even your theology,

so that you can awake to a new way of being 

with Jesus, with one another and with yourself, 

in the Love of God.