What are You Expecting?

(Genesis 1.1-3 and John 1.1-3a)

A sermon preached by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ

Sammamish, Washington

The First Sunday of Advent: November 29, 2009

My cousin and his wife are expecting. One of the ways they’re living into this time of expectation is looking through books of baby names. I don’t usually expect people to respond to name suggestions with howls of laughter. But howls of laughter are what I heard when they read:

Everyone I know with an unusual name loves it. It’s only the losers named Dave

that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think. They’re named Dave. (spoken by Penn Jillette, father of Moxie CrimeFighter and Zolten)

Peter’s and my surrogate son, Pedro, is expecting. Before Christmas, the Department of Homeland Security should let him know if they’re going to approve his request for political asylum and let him stay in this country. One of the ways Pedro’s living into this time of expectation is by talking, laughing, and singing with a vigor and volume he hasn’t shown up to now.

As we gather on this first Sunday of Advent, different people are expecting different things. Advent means to come. Come Christmas Eve, it’s not like Christians are expecting Jesus to come into the world again as a baby as he did around 6 B.C. That’s not going to happen.

But what could we expect to happen between now and Christmas Day?

As that candle of hope burns this morning, what hope burns in you? What are you expecting? What might bring to birth whatever it is you’re expecting?

I’ve talked before about my spiritual director Sheila. The motorcycle-riding ex-nun who keeps finding me when I try to hide behind my reasonable faith that doesn’t get me anywhere. Once, after I’d said something I’m sure was quite reasonable, Sheila said, “Dave, you don’t expect enough from God.”

Do you expect anything this Advent? Do you expect enough…or anything…from God?

I’m not blaming First Presbyterian Church of Wooster, Ohio, or Yale Divinity School, or anyplace else when I say that nobody taught me to expect things from God. People taught me God expected things from me. I know people encouraged me to pray. But I don’t know how much they or I expected God to answer those prayers. I don’t recall people telling me to expect things from God. Even as they and I talked about God’s love, I don’t know how much I felt that love for me. Or how much I believed that that love was a power I could rely on. Or be comforted by. Or expect things from.

This may sound like a joke, or sound sarcastic, but it’s not: I wish someone would have taught me what the Trinity was all about. Because I think that would have helped me believe God wants to be close to me. It would have helped me feel like God wants to love me. And help me ask God for what I need. And help me expect God to respond – because God enjoys giving us what we pray for.

The Trinity says God is not some solitary, self-sufficient, go-it-alone Super Hero who either keeps a distance from us or is the puppeteer of the world. The Trinity says the only way we can talk about God is by attaching words to God like with, for, in. The Trinity says the only way we can talk about God is by saying things like God reaching out to, God moving toward, God drawing in, God walking beside, God listening to, God loving fiercely.

People who don’t like the idea of the Trinity say it’s not in the Bible. And it’s true the word isn’t in the Bible. But if we look at the first three verses of the Bible, and the first three verses of John’s Gospel, we find the idea behind the Trinity is right there.

Listen for a word from God.

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth – all you see, all you don’t see….God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared (Genesis 1.1-3, The Message).

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was

God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being (John 1.1-3a, New Revised Standard Version).

In your bulletin, there’s a sung version of these words from John. Let us read them

together. And then the choir will sing them.

Before the world began, one Word was there; grounded in God he was, rooted in care;

by him all things were made, in him was love displayed,

through him, God spoke, and said, “I am for you”

(John Bell, “I Am For You” © 1987 Wild Goose Publications).

Right from the start of the Bible, we’ve got God. And we’ve got God’s Spirit brooding over creation. We’ve got God speaking. The Hebrew word for God’s speech is the Greek word logos. And logos is the word John uses when he says, In the beginning was the Word. But this capital “W” Word isn’t just any old word. The Hebrew word for God speaking, and the Greek word logos, is refers to the way the invisible God becomes visible. It’s how we see the God who can’t be seen. When God was leading the Hebrew people through the wilderness with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night: that was God speaking; that was this logos.

And the early Christians discovered something amazing. When they looked at Jesus Christ, and when they felt the presence of the Risen Christ after Easter, they knew they were seeing and feeling God. Jesus Christ made God visible. So Jesus was this Word of God, this power that made the invisible God visible. Which means when God speaks, “Light!”, God was speaking a thing. God was speaking a person. God was speaking this logos. God spoke, and the Logos, the Word that is God did something to make God visible. Like bring forth light…and trees…and each other.

What the Christian belief about the Trinity says is that we see God in Jesus Christ because the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and ears and hearts to see God in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit opens us to see God in the person of Jesus Christ. We can’t just talk about God as if God is a solitary, isolated being. In traditional Christian language, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, many Christians believe God is actually a male. And on that basis of that “fact”, they restrict the rights and dignity of women. I wish there were a good way to talk about the Trinity without using exclusively male language. Some try to use, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. But that reduces the Trinity to functions: One part of the Trinity creates. Another part saves. And another part is like our breath, keeping us alive. But each person of the Trinity has the powers of the others. Using “Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer” loses any sense of God as a dynamic being in relationship and in community.

One way to try to make the language of the Trinity less male is to draw on the fact that the Hebrew word for Spirit is a feminine noun. I’m not sure how we’d talk about a feminine Spirit. But I think we need to keep working at that. Because I think we need to hold on to that language of relationship that “Father” and “Son” imply. The Trinity is about relationship or it’s nothing. The doctrine of the Trinity says these three persons of God look on each other with love and tenderness. The doctrine of the Trinity says the unseeable God is present in the Word, Jesus Christ. We see God in Jesus Christ because the power of the Holy Spirit lets us recognize Jesus Christ as the Word of God. As the one who makes God visible in the world. And the power that lets us see God in the Word Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit opens our eyes to see God and to connect to God as we see and connect with the Word Jesus Christ. They are always working together. You can’t separate these three persons who are God.

So all of the work of the Trinity is about building relationships. At the very heart of God is this dynamic of Father-Son-Holy Spirit. The most famous icon of the Trinity has three angelic-looking beings. Interestingly they do not have a clear gender. They sit in a circle. They look into each other’s faces with love. They are together. This is the God Christians worship. This is the God in whose name we are baptized. The God who calls us Beloved. The God we pray to and who prays through us.

It is the God of prepositions and participles. The God with, the God for, the God in, the God reaching out, drawing close, walking with, forgiving, loving, healing, calling. Always in relationship. Always in community. Always opening our eyes and hearts wider and wider. So God can draws us into Her circle. Where Father, Son, and Spirit sit. And dance. And feast. And draw in, draw in, draw in….they draw in this world in love. Because this God of the Trinity can do nothing else. For this God of the Trinity is a God whose truest truth is sharing love. The Father, Son, and Spirit share love with one another. They draw all of creation into their circle of love. Love is the truth of the God of the Trinity. We cannot talk about this God without talking about the love that creates and nurtures the community God shares among God’s self. And with creation.

Which gets us back to what Sheila told me. “Dave, you don’t expect enough from God.”

If the God I say I believe in is the God of the Trinity…if the Jesus I walk with is the member of the Trinity who lets me see God, and who loves me with God’s love and shows me how to live in God’s way…why don’t I expect things from God? If last Friday night’s stunning sunset, and the love you share with me, and the passion of all true peacemakers are ways this God-in-community reaches out to help us heal and forgive and deepen our bonds with one another…then why don’t I expect more from this God? Because clearly this God works miracles.

Drawing us into Her circle…filling us to bursting with a love we have to share there’s so much of it…filling us to bursting with a love that will to sour if we try to keep it to ourselves…this God cries out, It’s Advent…What are you expecting?