TRINITY SUNDAY
Psalm 8 Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15
In Brasil in a suburban booksellers we bought a book on Sigmund Freud –in Portuguese, just to make it a
challenge. The shop assistant said – in English – I love Sigmund Freud.
Would our bookshop assistants tell you us love an author – let alone Sigmund Freud?
Sigmund Freud developed the idea of the unconscious mind – he says, part of our mind is buried below
our consciousness, but that feelings and motivations arise from within that obscure part of the mind and
cause us to act without our realising quite how or why we are acting.
The psychiatrist is supposed to help us let the light into the shadows of the minds. Albert Einstein met
Sigmund Freud only once. Afterwards a friend suggested that he allow Freud to psychoanalyze him.
Einstein replied,” I should like very much to remain in the darkness”. I guess that’s how a lot of people
feel about psychiatrists.
We’re often in the dark about our own feelings and reactions; but the Bible tells us we are in the dark
about our own sins too. Romans 7:15; I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want;
but do the very thing I hate – I can will what is right but I cannot do it.
Alexander Pope described human beings as a chaos of thought and passion,
the glory, jest and riddle of the world.
He said, the greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a person’s own eyes when they look upon
themselvesi
And what he advised was
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
the proper study of mankind is man
Our efforts should be devoted to self knowledge he said, not knowledge of God.
Though he also says we are
Born but to die and reasoning but to err
That is, human minds miss the point; we can’t achieve self knowledge out of our own resources. We are too
ignorant, too biased, too much driven by our unconscious desires, too sinful, to really know ourselves.
Perhaps by a supreme effort we can limit each of those sources of error; but, left to ourselves we still have to
say, I ‘m in the dark – I’m in the dark about what I really want; or why I get stuck in a hole so often; or how to
improve my relationships; or I’m in the dark where to find real peace; or actually who I am.
Now the writer of Psalm 8 starts with God; he doesn’t really try to understand God; instead he is lost in
wonder, he marvels at God – how majestic is your name in all the earth; you have set your glory above the
heavens – he worships
Then he considers God’s creation, quite simply
When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars that you have established
What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them
in old Israel, in the wilderness, you could see a lot of stars – enough to know they were uncountable - we
know nowadays that their number is mind chokingly huge – but still our scientific minds catalogue and
classify them - red giants, white dwarfs, supernova, planetary nebulae – and I doubt we actually contemplate
the heavens as the ancients did.
The psalmist’s contemplation leads him into a wonder – what are human beings, that God gives us any
consideration whatever
The greatness of God and the littleness of humanity –
And yet what God has created in the human race!
Only a little lower than the angels – our power of thought that can penetrate into the furthest reaches of the
universe, reach back into prehistory, plumb the internal mysteries of the living cell or the atom. Our power of
love can create and nurture a child; the power of sacrifice that can lift up the fallen.
God has made us the pinnacle of the creation in this world – with dominion over the creatures, the beasts of
the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea.
You know it’s a great privilege to be given authority and responsibility; this is what is given to us – dominion,
responsible authority and power – and whatever we say about world history – wars and spoliations and
pollutions and exploitations –- it does not compromise the glory of what God in fact has made each of us to
be – a little lower than the angels.
Psalm 8 then considers first God – in worship and wonder – and then human beings. We need a light from
outside of us to shine into our hearts – the light of God – to appreciate ourselves
Jesus brought that light, was that light; the Son of God who came among us as the son of man – actually in
Psalm 8 where we translate human beings, the Hebrew says, what is the son of man that you bear him in
mind. When Jesus called himself the son of man he was taking the part of every man and every woman. He
came with words and actions and welcome to all- from God. He died on the cross for all. He rose up from the
dead - for all.
And he sends the Holy Spirit, he says, to guide you into all the truth. It is not just light from past times which
is handed on – it is God’s Holy Spirit present in us that is leading us on. Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will take
what is mine and declare it to you – light from God – truly from God. All that the Father God has is mine says
Jesus; and the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you. God the Holy Trinity binds us to himself.
This means that the darkness that lay between us God, God has taken on himself in Jesus. He calls us to place
our hope in him and what he has done for us; - as St Paul says, since we are justified by faith we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and our hope is not only to share God’s peace but to share his glory.
And says St Paul, this makes sense of so much – it makes sense for example of what we suffer; because no
matter how hateful the people are who make us suffer; or how hostile the environment that causes us
suffering; in God’s hands the badness of suffering, endured in faith, in trust, is transmuted into character, the
forming of the character of Christ in us. Yes suffering in itself is destructive; but suffering entrusted to God,
endured for Christ’s sake produces positive character, gentleness, patience, humility.
I remember Diana in Matamata; she lived alone, in considerable pain, suffering wasting disease; she was put
in bed by a carer at 6pm, left alone, and was got up at 7 the next morning by another carer. Whenever I had
an intern or student I made sure they did a home visit to her. They always came back inspired by her
Christian character. When I preached on getting to know the young people of the church, Diana put on a
book reading for the littlies in the school holidays. She hosted an Alpha course at her home because she
couldn’t get out to others homes. She had Christian character.
Also in town was younger woman in her fifties, stricken with paralysis, completely bedridden - a shining
Christian, she employed 7th form girls from the college after school to look after her. She too was left alone
from 6pm tucked up in bed. Our daughter was actually with her when she died. She inspired those young
women – suffering with Christ had taken her to a special place of witness for Christ. Suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope; and hope does not disappoint us because Gods love has been poured into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit.
So to return to our original theme – yes we human beings are rather in the dark – about ourselves- about
God. But if we seek for God we will learn that God has already come to us in his Son; that Jesus has already
endured all the darkness for us in his suffering on the cross, and has brought us light; and that as we trust in
Jesus he sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts to enlighten us.
And of course we continue to bear about our own history, our own hangups, and our reactions that we don’t
understand – but now we can expose them to the light – and more than that, the discipline of suffering that
all humans must undergo is used by the Holy Spirit to purify and enlighten and shape us, to drive away more
and more of the shadows and to nurture the life giving seed of hope within us.
What this means then is that part of our Christian commitment is to grow in the grace of the spirit – to be
committed to battling the darkness of our own reactions, our own negativities and harshness – that we
should seek by the spirit to understand ourselves and by prayer and effort to let the light in and be changed.
Will you do that for Christ.
And it also means that when we are suffering and hurt and therefore frustrated and angry that we turn those
feelings over to Jesus, that we believe he is with us in this place of pain and turn over to him our difficulties;
that we say work in us Lord the good things that you alone can bring out of the bad things that have
happened. Will you do that for Jesus.
In Christ’s light we see light – for Jesus Christ the son has come to reconcile us to God the fFather, and as he
receives God the Holy Spirit from the Father so he sends the Spirit to us, the light that enlightens all people.
.
i
Actually The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his
own person.