Trinity Sunday

Have you ever felt like Nicodemus, meeting in the dead of night, living a double life? When I was in college, my freshman and sophomore year, that’s what I felt like. My first life, was the architecture program.  It was filled with a wild variety of individuals.  Delta Preps, smooth city folks, dark emo kids, Hipster (before hipsters were cool, I might add), country bumpkins, religious fundamentalists, angry atheists, black, white, Latino, Asian.  We were most diverse set of 60 kids, all piled into one room in that old cow barn.  And we were together night and day.  Literally, sometimes one of us would just collapse.  It wasn’t too long before we knew each other’s distinct snoring sounds. We were close, despite our differences, those people in that architecture building became my kin.  I loved them… I looked out for them… just as they would do for me.
My second life was my fraternity.  It’s diversity consisted of individuals from different towns, a few different states. It’s emphasis, in stark contrast to architecture’s variety, was uniformity.  We were known for how we dressed.  Khaki pants, collared shirt, loafers, no socks, maybe a sport coat if it was getting cold.  About a hundred individuals that all looked exactly like what you would imagine if you encountered this, a Morris, in the wild (you know, away from the church). They were my people.  But the problem with too many of one type of person, is that they often don’t accept a different type of person. Uniformity doesn’t like diversity.
Now another trait of my fraternity was that we loved our music, and we threw the best Game night parties.  We got great bands.  We would get regional country singers, jam band, folk artists, even a rap group every now and then.  And people around campus were often itching to get on the guest lists.  This is where my double life would collide.  My eclectic architecture friends would get word about our Game night Fraternity performance and they would ask if they could come.  A reasonable request, after all we were kin, and I knew they loved this music, but I would often hesitate. 
There were always two things going through my head.  First, what would my fraternity friends think of me.  I’m bringing in people who aren’t like us, who don’t dress like we dress, who don’t act like we act, who don’t look like we look.  What would happen if my fraternity brothers realized that I have a fraternal relationship with another group of people? A group of people who have chosen not to assimilate to the same set of norms.  What if they realized, that though I dressed like them, I was maybe closer in thought to that more diverse set of people?  What if I was outed as different?
My second, and perhaps more horrifying concern, was how will my different friends be treated if they came.  I had already heard the ways in which some in my fraternity had talked about diversity about race and I was horrified.  Even after confrontation on the topic neither I nor those individuals would back down.  We would end with a stalemate, where neither party was satisfied.  So if they were willing to speak this way to me, a brother, how much worse wold it be if I brought a black friend into the house? Could I even hope that he would be treated with dignity and respect?  How could I explain this to my friends?  So I realized quite quickly, I needed to keep my two lives as far apart as possible.
This is the story of Nicodemus, a man of two worlds.  He was a Pharisee intrigued by the movement of Jesus.  Now these two things don’t co-exist.  Pharisee’s are strict rule followers, Jesus is a strict unorthodox interpreter of the rules .  They didn’t get along.  So Nicodemus visits Jesus in the dead of night, under the cover of darkness, where his worlds wont collide.  The problem is, Jesus is all about worlds colliding.
Today is Trinity Sunday.  Today is the Sunday I have the impossible task of explaining to you that the statement, “We believe in One God in Three Persons,” is not contradictory.  And you know what, no systematic theology class was ever able to prepare me for this.  They give you analogies like the divine dance or the trinity as H2O in its three different forms, but the truth is, all these analogies break down quickly under the weight of the Trinity. 
So while I can’t offer you some systematic breakdown of the Trinity, or some beautiful metaphor explaining the Three Persons of God dancing as One, what I do know is this. There is absolutely no way to define our God without the sense of Community.  Deeply embedded in the essence of our One God is that belief that He does not dwell isolated on his high pedestal, even God is not meant to be alone, so God itself must be communal.
I was listening to professor and author John A. Powell speak on the notions of race, individuality, community, and belonging and he said, “Individuality as we think of it is extremely problematic.  It promotes ideas of dominance over the other, and it is neither sustainable nor desirable!  So in turn sometimes people talk about how we need to do things to connect...” He says, “on one hand that is correct, but on the other hand it underscores the fact that we are already connected.  What we need to do is become aware of connection.  To live it. To express it!”
To be believers of the Trinitarian God is to be a believer in community.  It is a a belief that what we are is not simply ourselves, but more the collective body of which we are a part.  Jesus taught us this time and time again as he sought to bring outsiders into the fold.  Paul fought for this as he merged Gentile and Jew.  Even a man named King gave his life for it as he dreamed about the mountain top…
My friends this is one of Christianity’s  greatest tasks, the fight for connecting, for community, for belonging.  For we have seen time and time again, that the world does not naturally welcome a sense of acceptance towards the other.  So it must be up to us as Triune people, to proclaim that holy way of community.  That belief that we are only whole when we are together.  That we are stronger, smarter, more creative, more loving.  More wonderfully a part of God when we are together.  
Our task is to continue that work of colliding worlds.  Of bringing all the peoples into the loving embrace of their creator. That is the type of community God is urning for, so that is the type of community we must be.  In the name of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.