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Trinity Sunday 2005
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 22th May 2005
Revd. Matthew Vernon
There are some things that are very difficult to explain or describe.
But we know they are real and we see their affects:
• The workings of LEGCO
• The election of a new Pope
• American foreign policy.
More seriously:
• Bird-song – the one beautiful, elaborate noise sung by a bird early in the morning outside our flat.
• in the bathroom, water cascading from the shower
• the vagaries of people's behaviour
• the love we feel for those closest to us
God too is very difficult to explain or describe.
But we know God is real and we see God's affects.
To describe God we say "Our Father in heaven";
• we say "The Lord's my shepherd"…
But these are just metaphors.
We know God's presence in our lives,
• but because God is not a person standing next to us,
• because we can't see God or hear God's voice,
• God is very difficult to explain or describe.
God is a mystery.
In the end God is greater than our human language.
God is greater than our human experience.
God is God.
For our own sake we describe God in human ways:
• we anthropomorphise.
But in the end our language breaks down.
Which is good.
"A God understood is no God at all."
Or as St. Augustine says,
• on today's pewsheet,
• "If you understand it is not God".
This leads to two important spiritual truths:
We shouldn't hold too tightly to our notion of God.
And we should pray that God will keep moving us forward and deepen our awareness of God.
The story of the blind scholars illustrates the danger of believing we've got God right.
The blind scholars were the first people in their land to encounter an elephant.
They were also very competitive
• and tried to out do each other in knowledge.
Each of the three scholars was convinced that they could describe what an elephant was.
The first had felt the beast's leg
• so said that an elephant was thick and strong like the trunk of a tree.
The second scholar had felt the beast's trunk
• so said that an elephant was like a snake, a python.
The third scholar had felt the beast's ear
• so said that an elephant had wings like a bird.
Meanwhile, of course, the elephant was much bigger than any of them.
But until their dying day each of the scholars claimed that he alone could describe the elephant.
If only they had combined their knowledge,
• the scholars would have had a more accurate description of what an elephant is really like.
As for moving forward there are two examples in the film we watched on Thursday, "Third Miracle."…
There's a strong tradition in Christian thought called apophatic theology or negative theology.
It says there are limits to what we can say or know about God.
It says all our ways of describing God ultimately fail.
We say God is real.
But God isn't real in the same sense that these chairs are real:
• real physical, touchable objects.
The Bible says God is our rock and strong tower.
• But of course God isn't really a rock or a strong tower.
Even when we say God is love:
• for we can only have in mind fallible human love.
This tradition is vital at the moment.
Vital as people become more and more certain,
• more and more fundamentalist about their notion of God.
It's a strong part of our Anglican
• and just now we Anglicans are in danger of tearing ourselves apart in defending our human notions of God.
There's a story about Thomas Aquinas.
He's one of the all time greats of Christian theology.
In the 12th Century he wrote his enormous Summa Theologica.
It covers all aspects of Christian faith,
• often giving brilliant insights into the nature of God.
The story goes that he once took a break from his writing
• and he went for a walk on a beach.
There he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a hole in the sand.
Thomas asked what he was doing.
"Moving the sea into my hole" said the boy.
Suddenly Thomas realized the futility of his great work of language and words.
He was making as little impression on the vastness of God as the boy was making on the sea.
There are passages in the Bible that try to describe the mystery of God.
And they do a good job.
I'll read again some of today's first reading from Isaiah (40.12-17)
In this mystical tradition, the soul moves beyond images and language for God into the darkness that is beyond understanding.
Language takes you to certain point, but then language fails and there is silence.
At which point I will stop talking…
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