June 15, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; John 16:12-15
On Trinity Sunday, Rev. Derek van Gulden finds a new way into a hard doctrine through Sophia, the Wisdom who dances with delight in Proverbs, and through the weathered sign out front: show up, stand up, speak up for justice. God the creator calls us to show up, Christ to stand up, and the Spirit of wisdom to speak up.
Transcript
People of God, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this morning I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your loving hand, and help each of us this day not be the instrument of our own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, in every moment of every day. Amen.
May the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each and every one of you in this moment. It is one of the passages that comes from Scripture. It's Corinthians, second Corinthians thirteen to fourteen. One of the few places that we hear what is known as father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. The creator, the Redeemer, the sustainer. All those words in Corinthians is really the only time you hear the three of them together. Well, in the passage that Louisa just read in John. But it gets a little confusing.
The Trinity is probably one of the hardest theological things to understand. I can only say that for myself, but it is hard to figure out just when I think I get it. I don't. And if you're like me, it's a never ending, not struggle, but path of finding out where it sits with me, where I find the Trinity. The three in one.
I spent a lot of time this week and I came across an amazing commentary. And it actually talked about the fact that this is the lectionary text for today on Trinity Sunday to hear John's passage along with to hear the wisdom narratives. In ancient culture, wisdom was known as Sophia, the woman of Wisdom. She can be found in different parts of Scripture. The wisdom narratives, the wisdom of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, song of Solomon. And if you listen closely to what Louisa just read, it states, or you can open your Bible and look at the very beginning in Genesis, God created everything with wisdom. So depending on how you look at that, God created everything with wisdom. Sophia at God's side.
And you hear in the scripture how. She delights in humanity. She dances throughout everything. A whirlwind spinning around. She's everywhere you go. You read on about Sophia and you see her and hear her at the gates to the city, in the midst of the city where they draw water, calling out to people, I have told you, listen to me. And in this beautiful commentary, right in the middle of struggling how to talk about the Trinity for not the first time. The author says. Wisdom Sophia is so much like the advocate, and Jesus says in other scripture, I am going, but I will send an advocate to you. Who we call the spirit.
If you can think of the Trinity in this way, there's God. There's three aspects of God. There's the God that create, created, and continues to create. There's Jesus. Who through who? Through Jesus. God walked on the earth as a human, experiencing everything that God had created. If you follow the Gospels, Jesus experienced everything came into the world as a newborn baby. Learn to trade. Started his ministry at which then might have been an old age of thirty. But for us, that's still really young. And then walk through everything, really showing all what it was meant to have heaven on earth, what it meant to free those who are oppressed, what it meant to bring people to the table that had been pushed aside, What it meant for people to stand up for each other.
What you're seeing. These days, people standing up in loud voices and celebrating each other. There are those that celebrate. White people. White people with power. But in this world, that's a minority, not a minority of the people yelling, but those who believe Caucasian is the the majority within this world. And it's not true.
We know that as of yesterday, listening to the people who went, Barbara sharing this morning how excited she was, and she was excited to say what it was like yesterday to be at the No Kings rally. To have friends of mine who I talked to on Friday who were so excited to go to Boston because yesterday was Pride Parade in Boston. And she said to me, I just love it because I'm going home. Never lived in Boston, but I am going home to be with my people and everybody. And yesterday, if you saw the news things, if you saw the pictures of it, pride parade, and also people that had rallied and gathered together to march in the No Kings march, the Pride parade, people said, join us. We'd love to have you. We'd love it if you line the streets and had your posters and everything with you. I'm assuming. that in Boston? There was a lot of people. There usually is for pride and the number of places and the call for justice.
As I watch those, it reminded me of people I've known in my life that have truly, without me realizing it, been the spirit, been Sophia, the woman of wisdom. Been the advocate that Jesus talks about to show us by the way they encourage people to live their life, which is really what the Spirit's here for, the advocate to remind people, to continue to tell them Jesus ministry, Not always the words he said, but the way he lived his life.
So for me, I was introduced to Sophia. I don't know, twenty something years ago. She became someone that I've spent a lot of time reading about, talking to others, experiencing. But at the very end of that passage in Proverbs where it says she dances with great delight, does everything with great delight. That for me brings the spirit up to this different place than I've ever been before. To where the spirit, The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the sustainer, whatever you want to call that aspect of God. Dancing. Dancing in great delight. Sharing wisdom. Encouraging others to hear and know that we all have wisdom. We all do. And to dance.
On Friday I was out front. Taking a break from the computer. And I always remember that this has sat outside since the pandemic. It's the only one of our things like this that actually has survived. Not that anybody has taken. Well, we had a few things taken but knocked down. It's usually the things that hold them to the ground fall apart. But this has been next to our our sign out front that's hidden in the bushes. And as I was looking at it and trying to think of a new way to think about. The Trinity, I look at this. Speak up, stand up, show up for justice. Although I saw it backwards. Show up, stand up, speak up. The creator, the Redeemer, the sustainer. And it made so much more sense to me, although I saw it that way. That's just the way my mind works.
So for this week, in this moment of today. I think it speaks for so much of what we need to be doing today. And God calls us to show up. And the Christ calls us to stand up. And the spirit. Of wisdom challenges us to speak up. That's how I see the Trinity today. Ask me next week. It might be different. But this simple statement for me is where I find the courage and the energy to use the voice that we've been blessed with, to know that we are all given wisdom, and that wisdom dances with delight with us through the spirit and the call moving forward.
And sometimes for me, hope comes in those moments where I say. I get it. I hear it. I'm going to do it. Instead of just standing there and going, there's so much going on. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do. For me, this is hope it will go back outside, but for this week we'll keep it inside.
May you know that God, the creator, Christ the Redeemer. And the spirit with wisdom dances at great delight. Just thinking about each of us. And is there. I believe in every moment and spreads that wisdom to us and let us know that we have wisdom. Because wisdom is how God created everything. Amen.