The Church as God’s Icon: Blessed Trinity

In the Orthodox tradition, the church is the icon – the visual sign and symbol – of the Trinity.*  Unity is

the point: from many, one.  We – the church – are the incarnation of the Trinity in the present tense.  Us.  Thus can we not be separate or separated, for the Trinity is not a unity of decision or will; rather, the Trinity is a unity of identity – unity is an integral part of who God is.  And because it is a unity of who God is, it is a unity of who we are.

Consider the Trinity: we understand God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit to be One, united in all respects.

Polytheistic beings (such as the gods of Greece and Rome) can and do disagree and have conflicts with each other.  Not so God – God as one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a perfect unity, does not conflict, does not disagree.  Reform theologian Karl Barth said it this way:  “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not names for different parts of God, but one name for God.”

And by extension, we the church are as God the Trinity: many and one at once.  Recall Jesus’ prayer in John 17.22 – “that they may be one as we are one”.  Who are the “they” of Jesus’ prayer?  We are.

As God’s icon or sign of God’s own Trinity-self, we are:

1. Invited into peace with God – invited by Jesus, who gives us in the form of his very self, an introduction letter to God.  Paul makes it clear that justification by faith is not so much a doctrine to be understood as the gift of wholeness to be received.  Peace with God is a grace, a gift, we receive, not a prize we earn.  Peace with God by the grace of God is the only solid ground, the only standing place, we have.

2. A looking forward people, looking into the very glory of God’s own self.  Looking back – back to who or what we were before only freezes us in time and turns us into useless pillars of salt.  We are to be, because we are, a forward looking people – looking forward and leaning into God’s own glory, which like the pillar of fire and column of smoke that led the Hebrew people out of Egypt and into the promised land, leads us into God’s own self, which is our promised land.

3. We are a poured forth people – just as Woman Wisdom, God’s Holy Spirit, was poured forth from before the beginning of time, through that same Spirit, God’s love is poured forth into our hearts that we may be daily poured forth into the world.

So church is the icon, the symbol, the sign, of God as Trinity – we many together as One are the sign to the world of the one-ness of the Loving God.  We’re the peace sign to a world at war with itself.  We’re the grace note to a world of discord.  We’re the solid ground, the standing place in a world off kilter.  We’re the glory of God shining into the darkness.  We’re the patient ones in the face of suffering, showing that there is nothing to fear.  We are the love of God poured forth into the heart of a world stretched beyond its patience, near if not beyond its own breaking point.  We are the heart of God laid bare to the world.

That, friends, is who we are. . . blessed Trinity.


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See The Church - an Icon of the Holy Trinity

Sermon Cliff Note: How God Is Is Who We Are

To understand God as Trinity is to understand ourselves as church.
In the Orthodox tradition, the church is the icon – the visual sign and symbol – of the Trinity.  We – the church – are the incarnation of the Trinity in the present tense.
Trinity is not a unity of decision or will; rather, the Trinity is a unity of identity – unity is an integral part of who God is.  And because it is a unity of who God is, it is a unity of who we are.
But what does it mean to be one?  As Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12:

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. . . there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.  If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.  Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Thus, quite literally, to wage ‘war’ against each other is to wage war against ourselves.  In a very real sense, if I kill you, I die.
I am church and so are you, for without you or without me, there is not church, for we are always and only church together.
A poured forth people, we are God’s own icon. . . of the one-ness of the Loving God.  We’re the peace sign to a world at war with itself.  We’re the grace note to a world of discord.  We’re the solid ground, the standing place in a world off kilter.  We’re the glory of God shining into the darkness.  We’re the patient ones in the face of suffering, showing that there is nothing to fear.  We are the love of God poured forth into the heart of a world stretched beyond its patience, near if not beyond its own breaking point.  We are the heart of God laid bare to the world.
That is who we are.

SermonCliffNote: Love Was Born

Scripture Text: John 17.20-26 (The Message)

Jesus prays . . .

I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me.
Jesus prays for his disciples and Jesus prays for us, the ones who come after the disciples, the ones  who will believe in him, trust in him, love in him, because of those very disciples who so failed him in his own lifetime.  And there Jesus is, praying for them, for us, and here we are today, the answer to his prayer.  Extraordinary and humbling as it is, we are the answer to Jesus’ own prayer.

The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us.  Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
We are called to a oneness with the Very Creator of All – but what is Jesus’ goal?  That we be of one heart and one mind with . . . God!  Then – then, when we are of one heart and mind with God, then  – might – the world believe that God sent Jesus.

The same glory you gave me, I gave them, So they’ll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me.  Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, And give the godless world evidence That you’ve sent me and loved them In the same way you’ve loved me.
The same glory – the same shiny-like-a-penny newness – the same glow-in-the-dark love light – that glory, that same glory that God gave Jesus, Jesus gives us.  And that glory light is a unifying thing – nobody takes a bad picture in God’s lighting and it’s always a group picture.  Unified we become matured, ripened; and then will we be exhibit A to the world that God sent Jesus, and sent him in love – a love that extends through Jesus to us and through us to the world.

Father, I want those you gave me To be with me, right where I am, So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, Having loved me Long before there ever was a world.
God loved Jesus before there was even ground for him to stand on.  God planned for Jesus and gave him birth.  And those are the shoes Jesus would have us stand in as well – the Jesus shoes – standing upon the solid ground of God’s own creating love.  It is a splendor thing, this kind of love.  It might be standing right in the middle of the worst day that ever was, and yet, and still, there is splendor and glory.

Righteous Father, the world has never known you, But I have known you, and these disciples know That you sent me on this mission.  I have made your very being known to them— Who you are and what you do— And continue to make it known, So that your love for me Might be in them Exactly as I am in them.
Paul says that we only see God as through wavy carnival glass, that is to say, we don’t see God very well at all.  But Jesus says: the world may not know you, Lord, but I do.  What Jesus knows of God is who God is and what God does.  And what Jesus knows, we know.  Why would Jesus give us such knowledge?  So that God’s own love for Jesus would be and become a real thing – living in us as surely as it lived and lives in Jesus himself.  That is the unity of which Jesus speaks – the unity of Love.

Jesus prayed and Love was born.

God dreamed and a world was born.

Peter preached and a faith was born.

God imagined and life was born.

Paul taught and a people was born.

God loved and we were born.