Trinity Sunday, 2018

“This is how much God loved the world:

He gave his Son, his one and only Son.

And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed;

by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.

He came to help, to put the world right again.”

                                                                                                  The Message

In the Name of God, the Holy Trinity.

     Things are not always---or even often--what they seem.

     Imagine you're at the airport. While you're waiting for your flight, you notice a kiosk selling cookies. You buy a box, put them in your traveling bag and then you look around the crowded waiting area for a place to sit down and enjoy your cookies.  Finally, you find a seat right next to a fellow traveler. You reach down into your traveling bag and pull out your box of cookies.

     As you do that, you notice that the guy next to you is watching you.  He stares at you, as you open the box and take your cookie. And then, he reaches over and takes one of your cookies from the box and eats it!

     You're shocked and totally at a loss for words. Not only does he take that one cookie, but he alternates with you.  For every one cookie you take, he takes one.  Now, what's your immediate impression of this guy?

    Crazy?  Greedy? He's got some nerve?

    Can you imagine the words you might use to describe this man to your friends and family back home?

     Meanwhile, you both continue eating the cookies until there's just one left. To your surprise, the man reaches over and takes it for himself. But then he does something unexpected. He breaks it in half and gives half to you.  He pops his half into his mouth and still chewing, gets up, and without a word, he leaves.

    You think to yourself, "That was weird!" You're left sitting there dumbfounded and still a little hungry.  So you go back to the kiosk and buy another box of cookies. You go back to your seat and begin opening your new box of cookies when you glance down into your traveling bag.  Sitting there in your bag is your original box of cookies -- still unopened.

     Suddenly you realize that when you reached down earlier, you had reached into the man's bag right next to yours---and grabbed his box of cookies by mistake. Now what do you think of that guy?

      If you’ve been able to imagine this cookie scenario, there’s good chance you’ve just experienced a paradigm shift. You're seeing things from a new---and previously unimagined---point of view.  In the gospel read today, it is clear that Nicodemus is in need of a paradigm shift!

     It is Trinity Sunday and our gospel focuses on this clandestine conversation between Jesus and the revered Jewish teacher, Nicodemus, under cover of night.   Like many—if not most of us, Nicodemus just doesn’t get it at first.  But then, neither did Paul, who also considered himself a teacher of the Law.  He had to get knocked off his horse and blinded for a time, before he was finally able to see what Jesus was talking about.

      As Nicodemus tries to understand Jesus’ words and gets it wrong—you can almost feel his frustration.  But the very good thing about Nicodemus is that he didn’t stop there.  He seems to have kept an open mind.  Nicodemus appears twice more in the Gospel of John.  Four chapters on, we see conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees heating up, and plots against Jesus’ life. 

     “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” he had said “and let the one who believes in me drink.” The chief priests and Pharisees wanted to arrest him, then and there. 

      But there was Nicodemus again, after all this time, who spoke up, stopping them from going after Jesus.  “Our law doesn’t judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing does it?” Nicodemus was hearing Jesus, and maybe he thought he could just make out the Kingdom of God coming near—still learning.

      Later, after Jesus’ crucifixion, when Joseph of Arimathea got permission from the authorities to take Jesus’ body to give him a decent burial, and here is Nicodemus again.  Nicodemus came and helped Joseph, bringing the expensive 100 pounds mixture of spices with which to anoint Jesus’ body in a final gesture of respect and love.

     With Nicodemus, we learn. We open our minds and hearts to the love, mercy and infinite grace of God, and we learn of how very intertwined our life is with the world of human sin, fear and pride—and know we are all on a journey of discovery—in which the eyes of our hearts, once blind, are enabled to see.

     Back at the airport, munching cookies with that stranger—we almost pointed an accusing finger at an innocent man.  He didn’t take your cookies.  He shared his cookies with you.  Those cookies were actually a gift--unrecognized at the time.  Grace almost lost.  Things are often not what they seem.

     The question for Trinity Sunday is just this: are we open to discovery, to not knowing, and yet trusting in God’s grace, to being surprised—as someone once wisely put it—by joy? 

    Hear the good news once more: “God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”

Amen.