Today is Trinity Sunday. I usually joke that I meant to get somebody else to preach. Pretty much nobody wants to preach about this enigmatic doctrine of the church. Or else they pull out the old metaphors. Yawn. The Trinity deserves more respect than that.
So I didn't preach about understanding the Trinity. I preached about not understanding it. Not even trying to understand it. If theologians with PhD's haven't been able to do it in 1700 years (it wasn't a doctrine until the 4th century), why would I presume to think I could. So I let myself off that hook.
You can read it in a little while on the Sermons page, but I ended it with Thomas Merton's prayer, and a number of people asked for a copy of it. Merton was about as faithful and holy a man as walked this earth in the twentieth century, but he was always filled with self-doubt and a sense of inadequacy. Here is his prayer:
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment