Sermons

Sun, Jun 07, 2020

Doctrine and experience

A sermon for Trinity Sunday
Series:Sermons
Duration:12 mins 53 secs

Almost twenty years ago, my father died.

He had a number of health issues…

and he had dementia…

but he had not long been moved into care and seemed to be doing okay…

so his death came quite suddenly, even abruptly.

But I remember the events quite vividly:

the phone call from the nurse at the nursing home…

waking me in the early hours of the morning…

requesting permission to give him morphine for his pain, knowing that it would kill him;

then ringing my brother to explain what was happening and get his agreement;

ringing the nursing home back to give permission;

then lying awake…

staring at the ceiling…

waiting for the next, fateful phone call.

And, when it did come, I remember hearing the stark news quite calmly.

The reality, of course, took much longer to settle in––

followed by all of the typical grief responses…

which I had been taught in theological college:

the sense of disbelief––

that it didn’t seem really real;

the jumbled mix of emotions:

of relief and regret…

sadness and disappointment…

guilt and anger.

In the midst of all of that, I also had to think clearly and be practical…

and make all of the arrangements that needed to be made;

then travel over from Melbourne;

identify his body––

which was the first time that I had seen a dead person.

And, finally, there was the funeral.

To be honest, I found that an utterly unhelpful experience––

the words…

the language…

the sentiments…

just did not connect with me and with what I was experiencing.

I could recognise the soundness of the theology…

but it lacked any trace of genuine humanity.

This was not a triumphant occasion.

This was the death of my dad––

a man who was far from perfect…

and with whom I had had a somewhat rocky relationship over the years;

but he was still my dad.

And, in the aftermath of that––

as a way to channel my frustration and anger…

and honour the complexity of my feelings and meanings––

I sat and wrote my own funeral liturgy…

the one, more or less, that I still use today.

And every time that I used that service over the next couple of years…

there was a sense in which I was reliving my experience––

the experience that had given rise to it;

and, at times, I could feel those emotions stirring in me as well.

With time, of course, that faded.

The immediacy of the emotions began to wane.

I could still remember the events of dad’s death.

I could still remember how I felt…

and I had some insight into how others might be feeling…

but, in a sense, I no longer experienced those feelings––

not as such…

not directly.

There was something of a sense of detachment––

like I was looking back on those events somewhat as an outside observer.

 

The further we are from an event––

either chronologically or spatially––

the more distant it seems or becomes.

It loses its vividness and vitality.

The emotions associated with it are no longer at the surface.

There’s a sense of detachment.

And, consciously or not, we begin to interpret…

and repeatedly reinterpret…

the events.

How we remember it changes.

Of course, someone else observing what transpired…

but who was, otherwise, uninvolved… 

would have seen it quite differently…

and understood it quite differently.

That’s all part of the mysterious complexity of the human mind…

and the way that we process event, experience, and memory.

 

The very first Christians saw…

and heard…

and knew the historical Jesus.

Over time––

and especially in light of their Easter experiences––

as they reflected back…

they began to see him somewhat differently.

They began to recognise that God was present in Jesus in a special way…

such that––

in a way that they did not understand…

and, seemingly, did not feel the need to elaborate upon—

when they looked at Jesus they experienced God.

But it’s not at all clear that they experienced…

recognised…

or understood…

anything more than that.

Even Paul––

who seems not to have had any direct, personal experience of Jesus––

doesn’t really move beyond that.

In this morning’s reading––

from the very end of what is known as the Second Letter to the Corinthians––

he pronounces a blessing upon the fractious and factious Corinthians…

which comes the closest to a Trinitarian formula that we find in the New Testament.

But note:

there’s no reflection here, at all, on the relationship between Jesus Christ…

God…

and the Holy Spirit.

There’s not even any use of the relational language of Father and Son.

Nor is there any reflection upon their ‘natures’ or ‘substance’.

His focus…

and his point…

is both chronological and, in a sense, theologically practical.

Note, he begins with Jesus…

through whom, Paul argues, they have first or pre-eminently experienced God’s grace.

It was through this grace and graciousness that they fully and fundamentally realised––

and experienced––

God’s love;

and came to understand that God is love.

And, then, it was through the indwelling experience of the Spirit––

in which they all shared––

that the community of God’s people was formed and fostered.

So, even for Paul, the emphasis throughout is on their experience of God––

of God’s graciousness towards them…

of God’s love for them…

and of God’s ongoing presence in them and among them.

That, for Paul, is what mattered.

And that, for Paul, is all that mattered.

 

It was not until the mid-second century, then––

some one hundred years after Jesus had lived and died––

that we begin to see the first real theological reflection upon the nature of Jesus Christ;

and upon what he meant for our understanding of God…

all under the growing influence of Greek philosophy.

And it wasn’t until the third and fourth centuries…

that the concept of “the Trinity”––

and the complex arguments over language…

metaphysics… 

and theology––

turned into a full-scale battleground…

complete with ecumenical Councils, condemnations, and excommunications.

And, it seems to me…

the further that they moved into philosophical and theological debate––

the more that they argued about metaphor and model;

and the more that they pronounced their opponents ‘heretics’––

the further they moved away from their experience of God;

and the more that their conception of God moved from their experience of God…

or what that experience ought to have been.

 

Carl Jung once said, “Religion is a defence against the experience of God”.

Perhaps, then, it could also be argued… 

that theology can be a defence against the experience of God;

or, better still, that theology can be a substitute for an experience of God.

And, perhaps, we see that most in regards to the doctrine of ‘the Trinity’.

Instead, perhaps, “Trinity Sunday” could be a fresh call to begin again:

to go back to the beginning;

to re-focus upon our experience of the God who comes to us in varied ways…

and varied forms.

And, if more of us did that––

seriously and silently sat in God’s presence…

put aside our presumptions and posturing…

let go of our dogmas and denunciations…

and simply experienced God anew and afresh––

then, maybe, we could begin to unravel some of the mess that we have gotten ourselves into.

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