Ring Around the Rosy

sermon by Torin Eikler
Psalm 8 Romans 5:1-12

One evening not long ago, the doorbell rang, and I was surprised and pleased to see one of our neighbors on the front porch. Pleased because I like Charlie and his wife and have often wished we were more conscientious about spending time with them. Surprised because Charley has never actually rung our doorbell before. As I took in the pamphlets in his pocket and the bible in his hand and the other man standing there with him, though, I realized that he was not making a social call, and I began to feel a little uneasy.

I suspect that many of you have felt the same way when you opened the door or looked out the window only to find a pair of earnest-looking individuals standing ready to bring you the Word of salvation through one church or another. In our case it is usually Mormons, but we have also seen a Jehovah’s Witnesses and Lighthouse Baptists from time to time. Usually I take a deep breath, open the door, and invite them because I want to show them hospitality and respect for their deeply held beliefs. Sometimes, I’ll admit, I simply turn away from the door, hushing Sebastian and pretending that they won’t have heard his voice … that they won’t know that we are home.

Since this was Charlie, though, I pushed aside my misgivings and greeted him. After all, he knows that we are pastors, and I thought he would appreciate a warm welcome since most of his visits had probably ended with doors shut in his face if they had been opened at all. A few questions later, my suspicions in that area were confirmed, and I was congratulating myself on being such a good neighbor and such a “good Christian” when he surprised me by asking if I knew whether or not I was going to heaven.

I suppose that if I had just said, “Yes,” the conversation would have been over or at least moved on to more casual topics. But, I was caught off guard, and I gave the more honest answer of, “as sure as we can be this side of death.” Let me tell you, if you are trying to avoid a conversation about the state of your soul that is not the way to go.

In short order, we had been through the usual set of doctrinal statements that can be over-simplified as “we have an assurance that we are saved by grace through faith in the power of Christ.” I thought that we were pretty much done, and was getting ready to head inside to help get the boys to bed when Charlie asked, “So, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” After a pause, I answer, simply, “Yes.” I made my excuses and went inside to help Carrie with the boys.

I don’t know why Charlie asked that question. It seems like the answer would be a given with a Christian pastor no matter his denomination. Yet, it stuck with me for a couple of days … not because I was questioning my answer to any degree. No, I was considering what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.


This past week, the seeds planted by that question grew into dozens more. Thinking about my relationship with Christ in the context of Trinity Sunday, I began to wonder about the Father and the Holy Spirit. God is no less than all three – creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Why do we only concern ourselves about our relationship to the one and not the others? Is Jesus the only one that we can relate to? Is the creator God so far above us that we can’t reach out to make a connection? Is the Spirit to unknown to trust ourselves in her care? Would it be more proper to work at a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit since Jesus very clearly told us that he was leaving us and would be sending the Spirit in his place? Is it enough to build a relationship with just one of the three? How does the trinity work?


In the history of Western Christianity, theologians tend to envision the trinity according to a linear model. From the Father comes the Son and from the Father and the Son comes the Holy Spirit. The image that comes to my mind when I think from this perspective is a tree. God the Father is the roots. God the Son is the trunk. And, God the Spirit is the leaves. They are still one though they are distinct, and no part exists without the other.

Would that make us tree-huggers, then, with our arms wrapped around the trunk? What about the leaves? Do we simply enjoy the shade they provide or do we cloth ourselves in their comforting presence? And do we take the roots for granted though they are the source of our existence just like the rest of creation?


In some sense, the almighty Creator is too big, too powerful to approach. What do you say to the One who laid the foundations of the earth, who commands the morning, and who put the stars in their places? Even though we have been “crowned with glory” and “made just a little lower than God,” tradition says that even a glimpse of his face would destroy us. So, we kneel in awe and offer praise.

The Holy Spirit seems too mysterious, too unknown. We don’t see her. We have no stories that speak of her “personality” or explain the way she works. And what we do have is enough to give us pause: people caught up from one place and set down in another, death dealt out for lying, prophesy and tongues overwhelming people so completely that they remember nothing of the event. It’s risky to embrace the Spirit because we never know what will happen or who we will become.

Jesus, though, feels easier. He shared the human experience, and we can relate to the stories of his frustration and struggle. We can commiserate with him in his grief and pain. We can aspire to a life like his. The promise of new life is easier to accept … easier to believe when it comes from the lips of our brother than when it is thundered through the heavens or whispered on the breeze blowing in our souls.

And yet, John tells that he was there at the beginning and “all things came into being through him.” He had the power to still the winds, bring life to the dead, and alter the fabric of creation so that water became wine and the crowds were fed on five loaves and two fish. … How many people did his touch transform? How many lives have changed just because of hearing his words shared in loud proclamation or whispered consolation?


Jesus is no less God for all that he walked the Earth among us. He is not bound in history though he died some 2,000 years ago. That should make it easier for us to relate to the Creator and the Spirit, but somehow we still want to stop with Christ – to hold onto the trunk for dear life, pressing our faces against the bark with only an occasional thought of the roots beneath our feet or a thankful glace at the leaves shading our heads.

Maybe it’s an artifact of that linear view of the trinity. Maybe it’s just hard for us to overcome our need for control and our fear of change. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. I really don’t know, and I suspect the reasons are different for everyone. For myself, I have found that I can begin to move past my fears and reach out for more of God if I approach from a different angle.


One of my favorite ways of understanding God comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The technical word for it is perichoresis. I’ll say that one again … perichoresis. It’s a Greek term referring to the “mutual inter-penetration and indwelling within the threefold nature of the Trinity”[1] … which doesn’t go much farther toward helping us understand anything, I know. But, one of my teachers in seminary described it as a divine dance of relationship - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit holding hands as one God while they continually move around and through each other in patterns so intricate that it sometimes seems you can’t tell them apart.

It puts me in mind of a group of children playing ring around the rosey before they learn that you have to let go when you fall down or you end up in a big twisted pile. And that’s why I love this way of thinking about God: dancing, laughing, falling all over God-self in a messy pile only to get back up and keep going. When I picture that, the Creator doesn’t seem so far away, the spirit so strange, or the way of Christ so demanding. I do feel a sense of lightness and excitement. I want to part of that dance. I want to jump in and grab hold of whichever hands are offered in order to rediscover the joy at the heart of life.

I don’t exactly lose my fear or my sense of awe. If I stop to think about it, which I almost always do, I still hold myself back. But, it feels like I have opened up a little more to all that God is. It feels like I have invited God a little more deeply into my heart and my life in a way that will change me – that will make me more what God dreams I could be. And as I change, I become more open,
and I am further transformed,
and I become more open,
and Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and I go around and around and around holding hands and laughing as we dance until I am lost in the wonder of divine love and mercy and grace.

At least I hope that’s the way it will work….


Whatever you picture when you imagine God … however you feel about Jesus or the Father or the Holy Spirit, I hope that you can find a way to reach out to all three because our relationship with each one is important. Paul’s language ties it all up in knots to our ears, but he does have that right. Creations of God, we know salvation when we are at peace with our creator. That peace is ours through the grace of Christ that forgives our sins, heals our brokenness, and makes us one with God. And that grace comes to us through the presence of the Holy Spirit pouring God’s love into our hearts bringing peace that passes all understanding.

The tree cannot exist without any one of its parts. The dance cannot go on without all the partners in the circle. And tree or dance or whatever other image sparks your imagination, this is the source of our being, offering the water of new life, and providing the bread to keep us going. Without any one of these blessings, the Life within us withers.

The truly amazing thing is that God, in a wondrous act of love and compassion, has opened the way for us to join in the dance, to lean against the trunk and feel the deep roots beneath us even as the leaves caress our faces. Yes … build a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior … and explore your relationship with God your Creator … and embrace the presence of the Holy Spirit in your heart, so that your life may be renewed, filled with peace, and overflowing with love and joy to be shared with all of God’s children.


[1] taken from Wikipedia on May 29, 2010.