Sermon for Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2010
Solemn Evensong
By the Reverend Stephen Gerth
Year C: Ecclesiasticus 43:1-12, 27-33; Revelation 19:4-16; Ephesians 3:14-21
 

On this Trinity Sunday, the Church brings us a lesson from the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation to John. The passage is the introduction to John’s vision of the final defeat of Satan and all his kind by the “King of kings and Lord of lords.”[1] are bound and thrown into the lake of fire. At the end, John sees the new heaven and the new earth, and its holy city, New Jerusalem, the place where God and his saints dwell for ever.[2]

This morning here at Saint Mary’s – and I imagine in most parishes in the city – we sang the hymn, “I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity.” The last words of the hymn are these:

Of whom all nature hath creation, eternal Father, spirit Word: praise to the Lord of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord.[3]

The hymn is addressed to the Trinity, but it is primarily an elaboration of the gifts that come to us through Christ, God’s Son, God’s Word made flesh. For Christian tradition, faith in the Trinity is inseparable from faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; faith in Jesus Christ is inseparable from faith in the Holy Trinity. It is in Christ and through Christ that God has revealed God’s self to us.

The psalms for tonight are psalms of praise, but the lesson reminds me of another psalm, 107. Bear with me, I’d like to read to you the first eight verses:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures for ever.
Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that he redeemed them from the hand of the foe.
He gathered them out of the lands; from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
Some wandered in desert wastes; they found no way to a city where they might dwell.
They were hungry and thirsty; their spirits languished within them.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
He put their feet on a straight path to go to a city where they might dwell.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy and the wonders he does for his children.[4]

Trinity Sunday is certainly about the relationship of the Persons of the Trinity to each other and the relationship of people to God and to each other. But it is also about victory over sin and death by Christ and his invitation to eternal life, to life in that city where his saints may dwell secure. Despite many wonderful stories, heaven is not here on earth. Heaven is in heaven.

“Journey” and “pilgrimage” are not words the New Testament uses to describe our life together as we follow Jesus. But I think they are good words for us as we live into our deaths with faith that we shall, at the end of time, be received by Christ in his heavenly city.

This leads me, finally, a few sentences on patriarchy. Journey and pilgrimage are also words that help me with perspective on when the changes in generic usage in English in my lifetime make me uncomfortable with traditional Christian language. In the journey of life, I trust that as we grow and change and discover new ways of describing our understanding of God, we will not lose the richness that which was so useful in the past. I don’t want to be afraid to move forward and change as long as you and I are headed for Christ’s salvation, Christ’s city, new Jerusalem.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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