Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Trinity Can Also Give You Healthy Gums & Fresh Breath!

     At an earlier service I teased my rector Stefani about her upcoming sermon for this morning, Trinity Sunday: “I’m looking forward to having this whole Trinity business explained to me.”

     With a coy smile she replied, “All will be revealed.”

     During her excellent sermon, she gave a number of wonderful illustrations, including historical ones. There were two new ones I had not heard before that especially stuck with me.

     The first used the toothpaste Aquafresh. She mentioned she had picked this illustration up elsewhere, but it is delightful to think of a representation of the Trinity being right in your medicine cabinet.

     The other explanation came from Roman Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson who compares God with DNA. The shape of DNA is a double helix: two strands of genetic material woven together to form the building block of all biological life. Now imagine DNA with an extra strand, Johnson says – a triple helix that’s the greatest source of life ever! The sheer immensity of God the Trinity woven into every aspect of our lives like DNA spoke to me personally.

     The most delightful explanation of God, although Order In God's Name at Amazon!not explicitly Trinitarian, came this morning during the children’s service from another of our priests, Kathy, who read a wonderful children’s book entitled In God’s Name by Sandy Eisenburg Sasso. In it, everyone is searching for God’s name and all of them think they have found the best one. It is not, however, until they all gather around a still pond and speak their own name for God that God becomes present. The kids were enthralled, and the insight of the book, as we struggle to name the unnamable, awed me and gave me goosebumps.

2 comments:

  1. that reminds me to pick up my toothpaste from the pulpit ! :-) thanks for the shout out!!

    - Stefani

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was nice not preaching on the Trinity this year. Sounds like Stefani+ did a great job. I really like the DNA example (of course, you say). And In God's Name is a great book.

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