Seeing God

Trinity Sunday – Year C

May 22, 2016

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call,
   and does not understanding
        raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
   at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
   at the entrance of the portals
        she cries out:
"To you, O people, I call,
   and my cry is to all that live.

The Lord created me at the
   beginning of his work,
        the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first,
   before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths
   I was brought forth,
when there were no springs
   abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
   before the hills, I was brought forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
   or the world's first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,
   when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
   when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
   so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
   then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
    rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
   and delighting in the human race." 

One of the things about growing up in another country, especially a third-world country like Papua New Guinea is that there would be times when you saw something for the first time and were amazed. It's hard to remember now, but I know that every time a new student arrived at the school from the U.S., they were barraged with questions and their doodads and music were the talk of the school for a few weeks. Just being new made them the center of attention.

Being in New Guinea, we were at the intersection of the stone-age and the modern world. You could go into a village and find people still living in grass shacks, while in town people had televisions and flush toilets. Yet, from time to time you would hear a story about another outlying tribe encountering the outside world for the first time. They may have seen planes flying over their heads, but they had no idea that people were riding within them. There would be occasions when a young person from a village would come to town for school, sometimes staying for several years, then return home and have to share with their village the things they had seen and experienced.

100 years ago, most of New Guinea was still essentially stone-age, and so when the missionaries came from Europe and America with their furniture and books the natives would see new and amazing things every day. One of those things was the piano. So how would you explain a piano to someone who has never seen one, and has no reference to being able to understand it? Well, in New Guinea they said: One pela, bigpela, blakpela bokis. Na dispela bokis em I gat teet; na taim yu paitim teet bilong em, em I krai out. In other words: it's a big black box with teeth, and when you hit the teeth it makes noise. Not bad, huh. I think it describes a piano pretty well. But, what if you were to only get a bit of the picture? Just the keys, or just the body, or just the sound? What then?

It reminds of the parable of the six blind men that heard about an elephant and went to discover what it was like. They all touched the elephant but in different places.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a sharp sword," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

So, what does an elephant look like?

If you think that would be a hard question to answer, I've got an even better one: what does God look like? How would you describe God to someone who had no clue? Would you be able to do it without making the person even more confused, or getting into an argument with another person about your description (because your describing God's leg, and they God's trunk)? Today is Trinity Sunday, and I am tasked as pastor, and you are tasked as congregation with thinking about what God is like; what God looks like, how we understand God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sustainer. If you think six blind men describing an elephant was difficult, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Let's talk about the Trinity; how God is three individual distinct persons, yet there are not three Gods, there is just one. So, God, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are different people, but they are the same. Let's talk about how the same God that created the world, died on the cross, and as he was dying cried out to ….himself? Or, how Jesus prayed to God throughout his ministry, so was he talking to himself? There's a reason why the Trinity has caused so much angst and discussion, at times even splits within the church over the last 2000 years. It's something that we believe, yet can never truly understand. Sort of like, trying to describe an elephant when you're holding onto the tail.

So, what are you supposed to do? Where are you supposed to go to discover God, to see God? Are we supposed to go to the great big cathedral down the road? Are we supposed to go to the mega-church that meets in the basketball stadium? Are we supposed to go on a pilgrimage to a mountain in another country to talk to a holy man wrapped in a sheet? Are we supposed to turn on our tv, and listen to someone in a nice suit? Where do we go? Proverbs says that Wisdom is at the gates, crying out. Not in some far off special place, not in some holy citadel on a high mountains. At the gates, where we go and pass each and every day. Not in the cathedrals, but in our neighbor hoods.

Wisdom is sometimes understood as one way of speaking about the Holy Spirit (thus speaking about God); sometimes it's understood as one of the first things God created. We could go round and round, arguing about who and what Wisdom is, but what Wisdom does is clear and of greater importance: wisdom points us to God. Proverbs uses the imagery of nature to speak of wisdom pointing to God. Nature works together. We see the smallest of insects and the largest of fish. We count the number of different types of flowers. We are astounded by the colors on a spring day. We observe how nature works, how each animal and plant, each fungus and bacteria, each eagle, each living thing plays their part in concert with another. Individually and together nature is an organism that points to something far greater than itself. Proverbs helps us to see what the Psalms declare again and again, that nature itself sings out its praise to God. Nature helps us to see God. Wisdom helps us to see God.

How do you see God? Do you see God in the arguments and discussions that happen at large church gatherings, where people of faith discuss how a passage in the Bible or in their own organizing documents is to be understood? Do you see God in how we understand baptism or communion? Do you see God in arguments over whether the miracles and virgin birth in the Bible are real? Do you see God in the often over-the-top debates over the role of women in the church and abortion? Do you see God in the fight over bathrooms or affirming individuals gender or sexual orientation?

Me, I have a hard time seeing God in most of those situations. Not that God isn't active; I believe God is active in all those times and many more. But, I don't see God in discussion like those, I don't see God in our understanding of the Trinity. I see theology there – literally talk about God. But, I don't see God. I can perhaps get an idea or two about who we think God is, but I don't feel like I see God.

So where do I see God? I see God in the parent that stays up all night cradling their sick child. I see God in the teenager that mows the lawns of their elderly neighbors – for nothing. I see God in the woman that knits and donates baby caps for the brand new babies at the hospital. I see God in the person who reaches out a helping hand, when other hands are refusing. I see God in the husband who visits his wife every day in the care facility, feeding her, washing her, and dressing her. I see God when the outcast are welcomed home. I see God in the child holding hands and playing with another child of a different race or religion. I see God in the collection of food for the needy. I see God in giving a hug when words will not suffice. I see God in the lives and actions of people around me. I see God when God is active through the actions of people.

I hate to say it, but I could really care less about the specific theology that we throw around. About our specific doctrines or practices, whether we believe in the Trinity as explained in the Council of Nicea over 1500 years ago. Those things haven't really helped me to see God. They may have given me the technical words, the phrases to talk about God and sound all religious and stuff. But, I have come to know and see God through others.

Which brings us to the challenging part: how would people describe the God they see you living out? Is it a God of love? Is it a God that helps those less fortunate? Is it a God that does what is right for no reward? Who is the God you are helping people see in your lives? Who is the God we at Zion are showing to the Ohio Valley? How would people describe that God? How do you feel about that? What do you think? Amen.