Today is Trinity Sunday. Today we celebrate God. Today we simply celebrate God.  We celebrate and praise the majesty and mystery of God.  Most festivals celebrate an event. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus.  Epiphany celebrates the visit of the Magi. Palm Sunday recalls Jesus entering Jerusalem for Passover.  Good Friday we remember Jesus crucified. Easter celebrates Jesus rising from death and the grave.  Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Trinity Sunday simply celebrates God, the majesty and mystery of God.

 

Notice how short the readings are today. God is not known by only information and words.  God is also known through imagination, majesty and mystery.  The Bible has a word to describe this knowledge that comes through imagination, majesty and mystery.  Wisdom. God's wisdom, which is there with God in the beginning.   In the beginning there was God, and the Word of God calling creation into being   and the Wisdom of God bringing chaos to order, turning darkness into light, death into life.  We see the Trinity in the very beginning, the Creator, the Word revealed in Jesus and the Wisdom revealed in the Sprit.

 

Today we celebrate God, the Trinity, God the Creator, God in Jesus, God in the Spirit.  Today we celebrate the majesty and mystery of God, the Word, and the Wisdom.  A doctor told this story at the Lutheran Health Care Conference a few years ago.  A child asked her father, a doctor, why she had a ditch under her nose.  Her father told her that while she was in her mother’s womb she started out as a tiny cell.  The cells split and grew until she became a baby.  The last cells to split were around her mouth and nose, which were just one big hole. The last cells split and closed the hole between her nose and her month.

 

Puzzled, the child asked her mother, “Why do I have a ditch under my nose?”  Her mother told that when little children are growing in mother’s tummy God whispers in their little ears all the secrets of the world.  But just before the children are born God sends the hushing angel to draw the ditch over their mouth so that she would not immediately tell the secrets that God told them.  That is why babies do not speak until they learn to talk. The doctor had knowledge.  The mother had wisdom.  We don' t know God only through knowledge, understanding, books, words, lectures and term papers.  God is known through Word and Wisdom, love and trust, imagination, majesty and mystery.

 

We think we know God through reading and studying the Bible. But that is only half the truth.  Augustine said if we were to know everything there is to know about God we would still be closer to ignorance than knowledge.  We also know God through faith, trust and love. The Church is hung up on understanding.  That happened in the Age of Enlightenment in Europe.  Reason and understanding triumphed over faith and trust.   Weekly communion gave way to communion four times a year.   Communion couldn't be understood in an age of reason, so the service became a preaching service in which the pastor explained the Word in hour-long sermons.

 

We still live under the fading influence of the age of reason. Albert Einstein, one of the most knowledgeable people on earth, said,  “Imagination is more important than information.” 

 

I have been telling my grandsons about the universe.  I’ve told them honey comes from the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.  The Little Dipper is Ursa Minor, Little Bear, and the Big Dipper is Ursa Major, Big Bear.   When the world turns the Big Dipper and Little Dipper turn upside down and drip honey to the earth.  And that is why bears like honey.              

Donna said, “Why do you tell them that.  They will never know what to believe.”  I said, “Imagination is more important than information.”  People still think you have to understand, have the information, to be baptized or receive communion.  Some churches do not baptize children. You have to understand baptism.  Some churches do not give communion to children. You have to understand communion.  So understanding and information become barriers right at the places of welcome.

 

Washing is about welcome and invitation and acceptance.  Eating and drinking are about welcome and hospitality.  We get it mixed up. The Word is about understanding.  But the sacraments are about welcome and acceptance and imagination.

 

Paul in 1 Corinthians says, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."  When we get puffed up we go around setting up barriers, getting in God’s way.   "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."  Oh, that we could understand each other through love, rather than knowledge.  How the world would change if we understood each other through love.  That's Wisdom. God's Wisdom. The creation isn't just a cold fact or reality.  Creation is a gift of love.   Creation is God’s wisdom and imagination at work in the world.  Let us use our imagination as we praise God and give thanks today.  Let us use imagination as we worship and work in the core of the city.

Let us understand God and people through wisdom and love as well as law and Word.  Repeat after me. "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!  Out of the mouths of infants and children your majesty is praised above the heavens."

 Let the people say, "Alleluia."

 

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