I Don’t Know

June 16, 2019

John 16:12-15

“I don’t know!”

This sentence alone can be interpreted in many ways. For a teacher asking a student the answer to a math or science question, it shows that the student does not comprehend or simply failed to do the homework or reading.

When it comes to hearing this answer in the setting of the church, how does it make you feel? Are you comfortable with living into not knowing, or are you more like the disciples that are constantly seeking concrete answers from Jesus? Are you comfortable with mystery, or are you stymied by it?

As a pastor, I hear plenty of questions where people want specific answers. Sometimes that is just not possible. At one point in my life, I have even had asked some of the same questions. I recall during CPE in seminary, where I was a chaplain in a hospital, the struggle and challenge of walking with families that encountered various diagnosis. One family I visited was in the ICU and they were sitting with their father, whose chance of recovery was very slim. As we prayed together, I could sense the love that filled the room. The next day I stopped by and he had awakened from the coma he was in and was beginning to communicate with his family. Another family had a sister that had had routine heart surgery and died a couple of days later due to complications. Where was God in these circumstances, I questioned at the time. It was safe to say I didn’t know and to just be present.

That is the mystery of God that we live into and it could not be made more apparent than today when we recognize Holy Trinity Sunday. The mystery that is God, lays in the very heart of the Trinity.

The disciples were uncomfortable with this mystery. They wanted answers before they were even ready to understand what those answers may be. They constantly sought answers to the mystery that was unfolding in front of them, yet they did not fully understand what was happening. They knew the God they followed in the Hebrew scripture, yet something was not computing when trying to equate God with Jesus. There was a disconnection with fully understanding that Jesus was both divine and human. There was a disconnection occurring when they tried to understand that Jesus was the Son of God. There was a disconnection when Jesus promised to send them the Holy Spirit.

So, where does this disconnection happen for us? It happens more times than we would like it to. To say that we fully understand God and the mystery that surrounds the Trinity means that you are fooling yourself. As David Lose writes in his blog,

“As I’ve said before, I don’t understand the Trinity and don’t trust those that report that they do. The Trinity is, at heart, our best if manifestly inadequate attempt to capture in words the mysterious nature of God.”

We fall short when we think that we have everything figured out and those that are different or have different thoughts than us are wrong. We stumble when we move forward in our own reasoning without listening to the Spirit’s guidance. We slip when we bow to the expectations of the world in preference to the teachings of Christ.

Jesus calls us to trust in the mystery. The mystery that we are not expected to fully comprehend. To be comfortable in the unknown requires faith. As Jesus tells us in today’s lesson, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” The disciples have already been overwhelmed with the journey thus far and Jesus knows that they are not quite ready to bear anything else. It will only be revealed when they are ready. It is the same for all of humanity.

As children of God, we are invited into this wonderful mystery. We are invited to join in community and walk with each other as the Trinity leads us. Richard Rohr, in his daily meditations, recently shared this about the Trinity,

I see mystery not as something you cannot understand; rather, it is something that you can endlessly understand! There is no point at which you can say, “I’ve got it.” Always and forever, mystery gets you! In the same way, you don’t hold God in your pocket; rather, God holds you and knows your deepest identity.

Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates every atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. Everything is indeed like “the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26-27).

We have the opportunity to encounter each part of the Trinity in our own time and place. We are invited to join in the dance of the Trinity as Richard Rohr refers to and that we will sing about soon. To enter that relationship is mysterious and yet also overwhelming. God is much greater than we can ever imagine. God is the creator that calls us to care for God’s creation. Jesus is the part of the divine that has come to us in our own human form to show us the way. The Holy Spirit completes the three to companion us on this great journey of life.

The Holy Trinity is present with us at all times in our lives. When we are born. When we fall off the bicycle for the first time and scrape up our knees. When we enter the scary world of high school. When we must start providing for ourselves. When our own children are born and when we grow old and experience all new aches, pains, and terrible diseases. The Holy Trinity is with those that wake up from comas as well as those that breath their last breathes in this earthly world.

The Holy Trinity is at the heart of our Faith and is revealed to us in Jesus Christ as he died on the cross to reveals God’s unbounded love. The Holy Trinity is the Spirit that companions us throughout all of lives twists and turns. The Holy Trinity is the creator God that brings us all together in a relationship that is growing and is mystery.

It is okay to say, “I don’t know,” when you do not have an answer. For we are not expected to know it all. For as Jesus tells his disciples, you are not yet ready to bear it all.

Let us pray. Holy Trinity, your mysterious way leaves us dumbfounded. As we enter the dance of the Trinity, let us be open to those teachings that draw us ever closer to you. In the meantime, let us be at ease with those things we cannot understand and let our faith guide us in your ways. Amen.