The Distance and Nearness of God - A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

The scriptures for this sermon are:

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

These can be read be clicking here.

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As an undergraduate in college I was a student of psychology,
and for awhile I considered entering into the counseling profession.
One of the things you learn early on if you are going to be a counselor of any kind is to maintain a distance from the person you are counseling.
A counselor needs to be close enough to the counselee to care,
and yet he or she must also be distant enough to be objective -
to dispassionately consider and reflect upon what the counselee says.
It is called professional distance.

One of the reasons I chose not to pursue counseling was the fact that I have never been very good at keeping a professional distance from people I really care about.
If I care enough about a person to listen to his troubles,
if I am going to take the time to consider the issues and concerns he or she has,
then I find it very hard not to offer them my own thoughts and advice on what they are going through.
I find it hard to keep my distance.

Distance versus nearness.
Or to put it into theological terms for this Trinity Sunday,
we can talk about the distance, the transcendence of God versus the nearness immanence of God.
Is God a God who is transcendent and above us, needing nothing and no one,
or is God a God who draws close to us and shares in our lives.

At the risk of losing you this early in the sermon,
I’m going to be up front with you this morning and tell you that my message today is about the Trinity and therefore it is about God.
I am going to use a few theological terms and talk about doctrine,
and I am also going to bring up two guys from the 4th century,
men who, over 1600 years ago, struggled with the idea of who God is.

Today is Trinity Sunday,
the only Sunday of the year devoted to a doctrinal teaching of the Church.

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To read the complete sermon, go here.