Fellowship in the Trinity: Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2018

Maybe you've been in a situation somewhat like this before. In my case, I took a vacation to upstate New York so as to spend time with my girlfriend's family. She's the third of five sisters, so even though not everyone was there, there were enough. And one thing she warned me long before this was that one way she and her siblings always bonded was through playing games. Card games, tile-based games, domino-based games, all sorts. It's something they love to do – and it can get heated, since she and her brother-in-law are both fiercely competitive. And that sure did come out in New York on that trip!

For me, of course, raised as an only child, I never had much experience with that particular sort of family life. Competitive card games with multiple people – that wasn't really a big fixture in my house. She had to give me a crash course on plenty of unfamiliar games in the weeks leading up to the trip, let me tell you. But here's the big thing. For her and the others, these games have been a staple of family gatherings for years – longer than I've known her, for sure. It's a long-running and recurring tournament. I was being newly introduced to the family – initially an outsider, not yet integrated into their family life, not yet bonded with them. Or I was. But I could see I was included in their life, I got to really bond with them and share life with them, when they dealt me in on the gaming traditions that had been going on since long before I was ever around. Inclusion in their life, with all its traditions, was what I got when they asked if they could deal me in, and I said yes, and I sat down with them and joined the tournament and played their game.

Keep that thought in mind as we begin today to approach the God the apostles knew. Paul's God, Peter's God, Matthew's God, John's God – what kind of God is this? The passage we've chosen to take up today isn't a long one. A couple short verses, tacked on to the backside of 2 Corinthians. And let's be honest: Pastors don't often preach from the last few verses of any of the New Testament letters. Maybe if we're preaching through a whole book, then we have to. But they're usually filled with all sorts of personal greetings: So-and-so sends greetings, make sure you say hello to such-and-such, and oh yeah, I'd love to have what's-his-name bring me this and that. Not as readily applicable as the doctrines, the exhortations, the magnificent sweeping arguments and inspiring visions that saturate the bodies of the letters.

But 2 Corinthians is different. It ends with some very familiar words – so familiar, many churches use them without remembering they're adapted and altered from Paul. The benediction I say at the end of each service – here's where it's from. Listen to the way Paul ends this letter: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14). What kind of God is Paul talking about? What sort of God does Paul want them to know?

Focus in on that middle phrase: “the love of God.” We say that all the time. But what does it really mean? We know that another apostle, one of Jesus' personal disciples, famously said, “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us: God is love” (1 John 4:16). “Anyone who doesn't love, doesn't know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). And that's more than just a statement about what God does. It's more than just a description of our fleeting experience within the confines of time and space. It's a statement about who God is eternally, who God is in the very core of his being, what God's inner life is all about: love, love, love.

And for centuries, here's something theologians have realized. There are many kinds of so-called gods you just couldn't say that about. Obviously, the gods of most pagan religions – you could never say that they were love, because they weren't even especially loving. The pantheons of civilizations from Egypt to Canaan to Babylon, from Greece to Rome to the barbarian lands of old – they were full of myths pitting god against god in fierce and frequently self-centered competition. Those gods weren't even consistently loving, and they seldom gave a consistent devotion to any human, let alone humanity in general. So they won't do.

But also the so-called gods postulated by other major religions or by heretics who tried to water down the faith we share. The vision of the fourth-century heretic Arius (shared today by Jehovah's Witnesses) was all about a sole supreme God who, in the depths of eternity, was alone; Arius believed that the Son and the Spirit were created, that there was a some prior state when they didn't yet exist; there was some pure point, he believed, when God the Unbegotten stood outside any relationship. Centuries later, an even more radical vision surfaced in a new religion called Islam. God as described in Islam neither begets nor is begotten: an eternal lone deity, who stands from eternity above all relations. And such is also the god of generic American civil religion.

You might be able to see how, once creation happens, gods like those may or may not choose to be loving. But 'love' doesn't eternally characterize who they are. Alone from all eternity, they can't love, they can't be love, because there's nothing to love. Love is relational, it requires relationship. A god existing outside all relations is a god who has no chance yet to love, let alone be love. And gods like these – including the generic 'God' so many Americans speak of in sentimental terms, abstracted from any particular religion – well, the thing is, you cannot say about them, “God is love.” For God to be love, God has to have relationships in his inner life.

So here's what theologians saw a long time ago. St. Augustine said when he loves, it requires three things: “I myself, what I love, and love itself. … So there are three things: the Lover, the Loved, and the Love.” What kind of God have the apostles known, what kind of God have they taught the church to know? In deep eternity, where there was no creation, where there was no time or space, where there was nothing except the only God, God was love. God was so much love that there had to be relationships within God: the Father's love had to overspill to someone, and their shared love had to overspill to a third. The Father's love required an object, the Son eternally begotten, the Word eternally present with God before the very beginning. And the love they shared would be incomplete if it weren't fruitful, and if there weren't a bond of love between them. Their love is eternally fruitful in the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of love. Each is eternally relating to the other two. This is no play-acting. This is real. This is eternity. This is love.

A solitary god could never be love. The conflicted pantheons of the pagans certainly fell far short. And even if you give credit to the infinite recesses of Mormon cosmology, the infinite gods evolving from bare intelligences – even if they love, it's love between one intelligence and the next, one spirit and the next, one god and the next. No one such god is himself love; no one such god has relationship, has love, as the definition of his inner life. But the God of the apostles does. The real God does. This God is eternally relationship in action. This God is love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we call them, or Lover, Loved, and Love, St. Augustine says. God is eternal, and this is eternally who God is, deep down in his inner life, so love is an eternal reality.

In this God, John's God, Paul's God, the Church's God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally face each other – they don't turn their backs on each other, don't give each other partial attention. The Father is eternally giving his full attention to the Son and the Spirit, and vice versa. They look on each other eternally with favor. They celebrate each other, take joy from each other's eternal presence. Because they face each other with a favorable view, they're constantly giving to each other, constantly generous to each other, constantly open-handed and free with each other. They're active, they're energetic, they're in an eternal dance of favor and generosity and joy, the free exchange that flows eternally and infinitely. And the word for that is 'grace,' the name of their eternal dance – favor, generosity, celebration, that's grace. God is eternal, and this is eternally who God is, deep down in his inner life, so grace is an eternal reality.

And in this God, Paul's God, the Church's God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so eternally love each other, so eternally show grace to each other, that there are no barriers in, say, the Son to keep the Father and the Holy Spirit out. There is no limit in the Son's self past which Father and Spirit cannot go. The theologians used the word perichoresis, 'rotation,' but usually meaning 'interpenetration': the Father and the Spirit are fully in the Son – didn't Jesus say that the Father was in him, and he in the Father (John 17:21)? With no barriers, each is fully in the others, each fully shares with the others and fully shares in the others, each is fully filled with the others. They share in each other, they participate in each other – and the word for that is 'participation,' 'sharing,' even 'fellowship' or 'companionship.' God is eternal, and this is eternally who God is, deep down in his inner life, so fellowship is an eternal reality.

We who believe have seen this love, this grace, this fellowship, all play out on the stage of world history. We know how the Father's love sent the Son to graciously and generously give his life to us, and how they sent the Holy Spirit to us as our companion. We encounter them in history: “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). And “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I..., for all the promises of God find their 'yes' in him” (2 Corinthians 1:19-20). “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). “The love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them … We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20). And “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17), for he is “the Spirit of the living God” (2 Corinthians 3:3). On the stage of history, on the stage of our life stories, that's love, that's grace, that's fellowship.

But this is eternal love, eternal grace, eternal fellowship – they describe, not something God decided at some point to do, not even something God happens to always enjoy, not even his favorite hobby. Love, grace, fellowship – that picture describes God from the inside. This is God's inner life we're talking about. The inner life of God, from everlasting to everlasting, just is the Father, Son, and Spirit eternally in love, eternally gracious to each other, eternally in full fellowship with each other – that's God on the inside, eternally. Their pouring, their dancing, their sharing, this 'game' they play – it's both eternal and internal.

Since early times, the great theologians wanted to help the whole church find a good shorthand for saying that. So they did. They eventually came up with one word to summarize all that deep truth about who God eternally is on the inside. And that word is... 'Trinity.' Today is more than Memorial Day weekend. Today is Trinity Sunday. There are churches with 'Trinity' in the name, and we all confess the 'Trinity' in our creeds, our articles of faith. But too often, we think that the Trinity is a theological puzzle, a big question mark, a headache waiting to happen, an irrelevant paradox, a matter for eggheads in the seminaries.

But 'Trinity' is just shorthand for what the church has been blessed to know about God's inner life. And God shared that with us for some very powerful reasons. See, 'Trinity' is not just an abstraction, not just theological jargon. 'Trinity' is the deep reality, the inside scoop, on the God who saves. 'Trinity' means that we don't have to induce God to love us. 'Trinity' shows that we don't have to convince the Lord into grace. 'Trinity' says we that we don't need to badger the Holy Spirit into fellowship. Because what 'Trinity' tells us, this great word, is that love and grace and fellowship were never out of God's way. It was what God was already up to before the first stars were lit; even before the first proton and the first neutron were made and introduced, God's inner life was already active with love and grace and fellowship, had been from all eternity – that's what 'Trinity' is all about. And that's crucially important for us to see, for us to get!

See, our idea of salvation is chronically so small. We are so content to imagine salvation as such little things – oh, big to us, maybe, but not big to big eyes. What do we imagine our salvation is all about, really? Well, we think our salvation is all about having our debt paid off. We think our salvation is all about having the prison gate swing open. We think our salvation is all about having our name cleared. We think our salvation is all about soaring high. We think our salvation is all about receiving a trophy. We think our salvation is all about living forever in a paradise or a golden city. Those things all loom big to us. And those things are surely true. But they don't come close to the half of it.

Put all those things on the backburner. Full salvation is so much more than all that, than all that put together. To be saved, fully saved, is for God to 'deal us in' on his eternal love, eternal grace, eternal fellowship. What's been going on inside God from all eternity, whatever 'game' you could imagine that being, full salvation, real salvation, our salvation, ultimately means joining that, being 'dealt in' on that. The Father pours out his love in an endless royal flush of hearts – our hand is full of victorious love that never dies. The Son generously drops his chips onto our stacks – for “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9), and thus “he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4). And the Holy Spirit puts his arm around us, embraces us, pulls us close and tight, pulls us into the bear-hug of complete acceptance that never lets go. Full salvation is God dealing us in on all that. This is salvation. This is why the 'doctrine of the Trinity' matters, and matters completely. See, only a God who is Trinity could deal us in on the 'game' that is God's inner life, eternal and internal.

The gods of other religions can promise – and, of course, fail to deliver – on so many other things. A paradise in heaven. A paradise on earth. Prosperity galore. But they can't or won't seat you at their table. Or, in some rare few religions, they'll give you a seat at some table, but the game you'll play is one they just took up, a divine hobby at best, but keeping the barriers where they always were; a game that can begin and end, a game that can matter some or matter little, but not a game that defines divinity, not a game, not an encounter, that expresses who God is on the inside.

But that's exactly what our God offers. Our God is Trinity – our God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, world without end. And a God who is Trinity can invite us, not just to a place or a thing or an experience or a feeling, but to a permanent seat at the table eternal. And a God who is Trinity can invite us, not just to play around with a divine hobby, but to be dealt in on the divine inner life.

In truth, that God is – thank God – the only God there is. There are no other gods strutting around with any power to make other legitimate offers. No divine hobby is on the table. No real paradise can be paradise if it's outside of God's own life, because in him is life, he is life. There was a Russian theologian who once wrote, “Between the Trinity and hell, there lies no other choice.” And that's right, Vladimir Lossky had that right. The only kind of salvation that ever really saves is the kind of salvation that gets us dealt in on what's inside God, salvation that lets us join the eternal game, that brings us into the heart of God's own life and makes us participants with him, of him, in him.

That's what Paul wants for us: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14). Paul's impassioned prayer, his closing words here, the benediction we receive after every worship service, week after week, is a desperate request and urgent blessing for us to actually have this, for us to actually get there, for us to actually be dealt in on the eternal love and grace and fellowship that are who God is in himself. Paul doesn't just want us to get some thing from God. Paul does not just want to see us talk with God, walk with God, from a distance. Paul wants us to get so close that we get an inside view; having peeked in through Jesus already, Paul wants to see us actually admitted into God's inner life. All along, God made us because he wanted to share his inner life with us, wanted to pull more chairs up to the table. And only he can. Only he can show us this eternal love, only he can bestow this eternal grace, only he can open up the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, only he can deal us in. But that's exactly what he made us for.

What we can do is say 'yes.' That's what we did when we became Christians. We trusted that the invitation was real – that's faith. We turned aside from our old hobbies and the personal make-believe rules we used to play by – that's repentance. We declared ourselves open to the love of God and the grace of Jesus and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; we pledged to receive. We've done that, we've said yes, we've started on that road. Our actual admission to the table – that's an act of God. It's for him to actually give us that eternal love, grace, fellowship.

But what else is to be done, as God draws us to the table? We can't earn a place there, and don't have to. This isn't a championship to qualify for. It's invite-only, and we already got it. But what we can do is practice – we can practice amongst ourselves for the game of God's table, the game that marks God's inner life. It'd be better, so much better, to get some experience under our belts before we get there. We can practice amongst ourselves. The name of God's game is love. And so Paul tells us, “Put things in order” – you could also translate that, 'aim at restoration' – and “Comfort one another,” or 'entreat one another' (2 Corinthians 13:11). Let the eternal love of God reorder your priorities, so that those priorities cherish your eternal tablemates. The Corinthian church still hadn't overcome the divisive culture Paul denounced in his first letter. They played brutal games that left everyone feeling sore. They weren't in it, weren't in this whole 'church' thing, to enjoy and bond; they were in it for bragging rights over each other. But that ain't how the game's played in God's house. In God's house, there are good rules – put things in order, prioritize them by God's values – and the chief such value and rule is love, so comfort each other, exhort each other, encourage one another, and accept Paul's gospel of love and grace.

'Grace' – that, too, is the name of God's game. So Paul tells us, “Greet one another with a holy kiss; all the saints greet you” (2 Corinthians 13:12-13). Paul adds, “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice” (2 Corinthians 13:11). We need to greet and be greeted; we need to rejoice and celebrate. That's what grace is all about. To practice for what's ahead, we receive and give and celebrate favor; we face each other full-on, not flinching away; and no matter what we see on the surface when we look in each other's eyes, we face each other with happy faces and hearts of welcome. That's grace. That's grace. That's the name of God's game.

And lastly, Paul reminds us of fellowship. “Be of the same mindset; be at peace” (2 Corinthians 13:11). Paul urges the Corinthians to practice God's game, and they need to overcome their aggressive competitive streak. They need to open their lives to each other. They need to be so consumed by enjoyment in God that it becomes their sole rule for living. They need to see how to share and share alike. That's how we, too, have to practice. We practice by all adopting the mindset we saw on display in Jesus, and setting aside whatever disputes we have to admit just wouldn't matter to him. We practice by living at peace with each other. We practice by sharing freely and generously, by celebrating God and those who are in God.

That's how God lives. That's how God's always lived, from everlasting to everlasting. In deep eternity, before creation, in a timeless tournament, God already lived like that: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, living in fellowship and love and grace. That is God's inner life, the 'game' he aims to deal us in on. That is what the church believes, that's what the church confesses under that simple word 'Trinity.' All the explanations, all the formulations, all the articulations and elaborations – they're ways of protecting us from missing out, ways of keeping us from mis-seeing and badly misunderstanding. This is our holy doctrine.

And today is Trinity Sunday. Today of all days, we're called to accept no substitutes. Today of all days, we're called to not neglect it. Today, especially, of all days, we're called to believe it: “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” But let's not just believe it. Let's be in awe. Let's celebrate. Let's practice to join in the game, in the love and grace and fellowship of the Trinity. Let's prepare ourselves and each other, with clear vision and eager excitement and plenty of practice, for when we're all dealt in on that. For that, and nothing less, is the salvation we're aiming for. Thanks be to the God who opens up his inner life to us, who calls us to his eternity, who deals us in. Thanks be to our Triune God! Amen, and amen.