Christ the King- Epiphany, Wilbraham MA 

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

June 15, 2025 / Holy Trinity

Psalm 8

St. Augustine was the bishop of the region of Hippo in Northern Africa in the late 4th and early 5th centuries.  The legend is told that, in around the year 415, Augustine was walking along the beach, trying to clear his head of the frustration he felt over trying to complete his treatise “On the Trinity.”  As the legend goes, Augustine encountered a little child all alone on the shore.  The child had made a hole in the sand, and was running back and forth to the sea with a seashell, fetching water to pour into the hole.  Augustine approached the child and asked what he was doing.  The child replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.”  “And how do you think you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this small seashell?” asked Augustine.  To which the child replied, “And you, how do you suppose that with this your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?”  And with that the child disappeared.

And therein lies the problem of preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday.  How can I, how can any of us, possibly understand, let alone talk about, the immensity of God?  Or the complexity of God?  We can’t.  And in fact, that is one way of saying what the Trinity is all about – that God is so immense and so complex that we need to think of God in three persons.  One aspect of God simply isn’t enough.  So rather than try to explain the Trinity (which would be impossible), or outline the development of the Trinity as a theological concept (which would be boring), what I hope to do today is share some inspiration with you about the nature of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I  have taken my inspiration from Psalm 8 because, really, what can you do when faced with God’s immense creativity and authority and love and forgiveness and power and peace – what can you do other than praise God and say, “O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth?”

God is so much more – in every way – than we can imagine.  Every image that we have of God, every way we have of thinking about God, is insufficient.  Some see God as an internal police officer, causing our every fault to eat away at our conscience.  And surely God does see our every fault.  But God is more than that.  God sees, but God also forgives.  Some see God as a parent whom we can never please.  But God, our heavenly Father is so much more than that.  Even though it is true that we can never completely live up to our Father’s expectations, God loves us anyway because we belong to him.  Some people see God as a grand old man, a distant figure with a flowing beard who is far removed from our daily struggles and victories.  Yet God is neither distant nor removed, having chosen to walk with us in Jesus, and continuing to walk with us still through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Some people see God only as they saw him in gentle Jesus – a humble man who died a tragic martyr’s death to uphold his principles.  Yet that humble martyr also defeated death and the devil.  There is a natural human tendency to make God small enough to put in our pockets – like a genie in a bottle that we pull out when we get into a jam.  But that concept hardly dignifies our majestic God.  And there is a natural human tendency to make God in our own image – to think that God is just like us, only better, rather than remembering that it’s the other way around – that we are made, though very imperfectly, in God’s image.  God is so much more – in every way – than we can imagine.  

But we can’t handle a God who is all that and then some.  We’re like the poet who wrote:

            I’d like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please.

            Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, 

            but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk 

            or a snooze in the sunshine. 

           I want ecstasy, not transformation. 

           I want the warmth of the womb, not a rebirth. 

           I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. 

           I’d like to buy about three dollars’ worth of God, please.[1]

The Lord who created the heavens and the earth, who set the moon and stars in their courses, does not come in three dollar increments.  It’s all or nothing.  Psalm 8 says it all:  “O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”

But all or nothing is a little overwhelming.  A lot overwhelming, to tell the truth.  But here’s something even more overwhelming about this larger-than-life, more-awesome-than-we-can-imagine God:  God cares about us.  Cares about you.  And me.  Personally.  In the middle of Psalm 8, while the psalmist is waxing poetic about how unbelievably fantastic God is, he stops to wonder:  “What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?”  Or in other words, “Why do you bother with us?  Why take a second look our way?”  That’s the real mystery of God – that God who is cosmic is also intensely personal.  God didn’t just create human beings – God created you, and is still working in you to bring the new you to birth.  Jesus didn’t just die to earn forgiveness for humanity – he died for you.  He forgives you.  And the Holy Spirit doesn’t just empower people theoretically or make peace a possibility.  He offers you power and peace.  All because God’s love is larger than life, and because God loves – you and me – more than we can imagine.

Perhaps that’s why St. Augustine – the same one who spent his life trying to understand the Trinity – the same one who had the vision of the child trying to put the whole sea into a hole in the sand – taught his students:  “Lest you become discouraged, know that when you love, you know more about who God is than you could ever know with your intellect.”  God, at the core, is love.  The Father is creative love.  The Son is saving love.  And the Spirit is inspiring love.  So when we love, we understand God instinctively – not with our brains but with our hearts – because love is God and God is love.

And even if we can’t understand who God is with our minds, we can try to love as God loves.  And we can praise God from the depths of our hearts:  “O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” 

[1] Wilbur Reeves