The Triune God Spills into Creation, Calling Us to Love One Another

Consensus Volume 46 Issue 2 Lutherans and the Nicene Creed Article 8 7-25-2025 The Triune God Spills into Creation, Calling Us to Love One Another Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus Part of the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Schiefelbein-Guerrero, Kyle (2025) "The Triune God Spills into Creation, Calling Us to Love One Another," Consensus: Vol. 46: Iss. 2, Article 8. DOI: 10.51644/ZRJN4443 Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol46/iss2/8 This Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact . Schiefelbein-Guerrero: The Triune God Spills into Creation The Triune God Spills into Creation, Calling Us to Love One Another1 The Rev. Dr. Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero2 Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from our One-in-Three and Three-in-One, God most merciful and majestic, who mothers and accompanies us on our journeys. Amen. T hose of you who are long-time Christians and those of you who are relatively new to the faith most likely have something in common: you both are not quite sure what to make of this central doctrine of Christianity. God is One, but God is also Three—and these Three are somehow connected to remain One. Are you confused yet? Well, you’re not alone. The concluding lines of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, what has come to be known as the “Great Commission,” provide the anchor text for subsequent baptismal liturgies in which God is described in familial terms consistent with the rest of the gospels. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the customary language of the Trinity, conjures up images of an old guy, a young guy, and some ambiguous bird or wind floating among them. Over the centuries, Christian artwork has reinforced this understanding—a male-dominated lineage of God’s work in the world. While Jesus certainly does use the language of “Father” or “Abba,” and Jesus is referred to as the “Son of God” throughout the biblical witness, we must take care not to limit our understanding of God, and thus our language of the Trinity, to that approach. Our biblical canon—both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—speaks of God in multiple ways: through attributes, motions, persons, animals, and so on. That may address one of our problems—understanding the persons of the Trinity beyond our male and hierarchical construct. But that is only half the issue. The Trinity is not three separate persons or three different modes of God. The familiar language that Jesus uses at the end of Matthew’s Gospel highlights that the Trinity is relational and active, not a collection of static persons. Generations of theologians—including St. Augustine, who attempted to describe the Trinity as “lover, the loved object, and the lover’s love for that object”—have attempted to explain the very nature of God in terms of what and how. Yet a doctrine, especially one that can be as technical and complicated as the Trinity, has no role in our faith unless it describes the why. Otherwise, it might as well be the “cleverly devised myths” Peter warns us against in his second letter. In her book God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, the late Catholic theologian Catherine LaCugna, whom I’ve quoted before in sermons, writes, “The God who is love does 1 This sermon was originally preached on Holy Trinity Sunday (4 June 2023) at St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Philadelphia, PA. The assigned lectionary texts for Year A are Genesis 1:1–2:4a; Psalm 104:24–34, 35b; 2 Corinthians 13:11–13; and Matthew 28:16–20. 2 The Rev. Dr. Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero is Grace Professor of Leadership and Director of Contextual Formation, Lutheran Theological Seminary Saskatoon Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2025 1 Consensus, Vol. 46, Iss. 2 [2025], Art. 8 not remain locked up in the ‘splendid isolation’ of self-love but spills over into what is other than God, giving birth to creation and history.”3 The community of love that is the Trinity mirrors the community of love that is the Church—or at least, that is how it is supposed to work. It is no accident that Jesus’ last words recorded in Matthew’s Gospel are words of the Trinity, calling his followers to baptize, teach, obey, and remember. These are central actions of the Christian community: baptize and break down the barriers we put up to the beloved community; teach about Christ’s costly grace and the free gift of salvation; obey Jesus’ command to love one another as he has loved us, modeled through the humble act of foot washing; and remember—remember through partaking of Christ’s body and blood, remember the call of the Holy Spirit in our lives … not just on the last Sunday of Pentecost but every day, remember the oppressed and the outcast, those who need both spiritual and physical nourishment. But this remembering is more than just fondly remembering what has happened in the past, or what we have recently experienced in the church year since the Season of Advent. The very last thing Jesus tells his Apostles in Matthew is to “remember”—but this is not nostalgia; the verb means to “take ahold” of something, which is why it is sometimes translated as “behold.” Jesus calls us to take ahold of what he has done and taught and go into the world. But this beholding goes all the way back to the beginning, when God first spoke the cosmos into being and the Spirit hovered over all creation. “When God began to create,” as an updated translation has argued,4 means that God is not yet done. This good creation, affirmed at the beginning of Genesis, is something truly to behold—not in exploitation but with care and concern. And this creation, begun by the Triune God, moves to today and into the future. Like the waters covering the face of the earth, the rain that falls, and the rivers and streams, so too God’s love flows throughout the cosmos. As LaCugna affirms, the Triune God does not live in “splendid isolation,” which means that those marked by this very water with the Triune Name also cannot live in splendid isolation; they must instead be toward one another—toward the neighbor. Just as God cares for people like a parent for a child, we too are to care for one another, nourishing the hungry and protecting the vulnerable. Just as God calms the troubled and gives assurance to the hopeless, so too are we to accompany those who are in danger, advocate for programs and policies that reduce the threat of harm, so that our siblings do not lose hope. We hear Jesus’ call to be immersed in the Trinity, and we experience the Spirit’s power—extraordinarily as at the first Pentecost, or subtly as an Advocate. And we go forth, caught in the current of the Trinity spilling over into the world. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen (...truncated)