Trinity Sunday year B
Sermon given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church
By the Rev. Valerie Hart
May 25, 1997
Romans 8:12-17 & John 3:1-16
On
Friday in the Chronicle there was an article about an 11 year old boy named
Jason and his 12 year old sister Heather. Jason had had an abusive early
childhood and been removed from his home. He and his sister had lived in eight
different foster homes since they were preschoolers. They had struggled and
suffered, but things are different now. They have been adopted. Their foster
mother has now gotten through all the legal hurdles and has officially adopted
them. They are orphans no longer, moved from home to home. As they engaged in a
hug after she signed the paper, their new mother told them “I’m not leaving;
you’re not leaving. For time and all eternity, you will be mine.”
It
is a new life for Jason and Heather
They
have a new home
They
have a new identity,
New
hope,
A
future filled with love.
One
could say that in a very real sense they have been born anew. It is a
wonderfully inspiring story.
We
spend much of our lives like orphans, orphans going from place to place, thing
to thing, relationship to relationship, searching for something. Each of us
calls it something different, but we are all searching. Some search for power,
or money, or purpose, or direction, or perhaps we call it love. We might say
that there is something inside all of us that is searching for wholeness, to be
complete. Often we can’t put a word to it, it is just a hollow inside, that
even when everything is wonderful in our lives, we still feel incomplete.
Like
these poor foster children who bounced from house to house, searching for,
hoping for permanence, for love, we search to be filled, to be satisfied. We
may look for the answer in money, in work, in drugs or alcohol, even in
relationships, but the search still comes up empt. Something is missing.
Even
in the very best marriage, it is still not perfect. No human being can love us
totally, unconditionally. No human being can see our souls, not all of us, and
still completely, without demands, without expectations, without judgment, just
love us - warts and all.
And
that is what we are longing for - to know that we are loved, totally,
unconditionally, for eternity. To be loved without having to disguise, or
change any aspect of ourselves.
Nothing
of the world can satisfy this ache, this hollow inside. Nothing of the world
can satisfy it because this is a longing for connection with God. It is a
longing to know and be really known by God. It is the longing to live in God’s
love.
Paul
writes, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness
with our spirit that we are children of God.” He also states that we have
received “a spirit of adoption.”
To
be adopted by God - what an image. What a sense of connection and love.
Is
this what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus that we must be “born from above”?
Or as it is often translated to be “born again.” The Greek word has both
meanings - from above and again - and Jesus probably desired the ambiguity of
the double meaning, because in the same passage he plays with the word for wind
and spirit, which is the same in Greek and Hebrew, and uses that pun to make
important points about the nature of spirit. But I digress. Jesus said to
Nicodemus that one must be born again. Now that’s a phrase that sure has been
battered around a lot lately. But what does it mean? Nicodemus certainly
couldn’t quite figure out what Jesus meant. To be born again, born from above,
how can that be?
Perhaps
the reading from Paul helps us. To be born again- from above - may be to come
to know that we have been adopted by God, for adoption is in many ways like
being born again. To know that we
are adopted by God, that after all this struggle, all the abuse, all the dead
ends, all the fears, we are God’s and God is our eternal parent. Like Jason we
feel the security, the peace, the joy, when we can hear God say to us, “I’m not
leaving; you’re not leaving. For time and all eternity, you will be mine.”
How
is it that God - the creator - can let us know that we are adopted children.
How can this God who loves us totally and unconditionally, communicate to use
that we are God’s for eternity. The way the Creator chose to do this is to send
his son - the redeemer. The oft cited (especially at football games) John 3:16
which ends today’s reading states, “For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have
eternal life.”
God
so loved the world.
God
so loved each of us.
God
so loves us, so longs for us to know that we belong to him, that we are loved
by him, that he sent his child to let us know that we are all God’s children.
How
then do we become adopted by God? Not by signing papers and getting the OK of a
judge, but through the action of the Holy Spirit - the Sanctifier. Jesus says that
we are born of water and Spirit. Paul says that we have received a spirit of
adoption and that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
We
are sanctified through the spirit.
We
are redeemed - reminded - by the son.
We
are created and loved by the father.
The
Trinity - that divine mystery - that confusing theological concept - that
inadequate description of the divine (as are all descriptions of the
indescribable) - it is that which we name God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It
is that which passionately loves us - that which calls us to adoption - that
which transforms us. It is that which says to us, “For time and all eternity,
you will be mine.” because, you see, “For God so loved the world that he gave
his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have
eternal life.”
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