First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
Year A, RCL
May 18, 2008
All Saints’, Bentonville
Gospel:
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
The very idea of a Trinitarian conception of God, naming God in three different ways, suggests just how difficult it is for us to understand the nature of the Divine. The 4th century church settled on three names, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This particular conception of the Godhead really isn’t very common in scripture, appearing in the verses from Matthew’s gospel that we just read - a verse that was likely added later, once the doctrine of the Trinity was hammered out by the church fathers.
There is the Trinitarian reference in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, today’s epistle. And this verse from John, “O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God forever and ever.” Not a lot to go on really, when seeking to establish a foundational doctrine for the church. But today is Trinity Sunday, and since I spent four years in the seminary trying to understand what this Triune God is about, I think we should take a shot at it.
Here is a scriptural passage we didn’t read today:
Jesus said, “Whom do men say that I am?”
And his disciples answered and said, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.”
And Jesus answered and said, “But whom do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."
And Jesus answering, said, "What?"
That this fleshed out doctrine was the creation of a committee is not say that it isn’t useful. It provides us with a rather beautiful way of thinking of God. The triune God. God in community. A god that finds reality in the company of others. It’s an approach to understanding God that runs counter to our American spirit of individualism, our tendency in the west to go it alone, a desire to find our own personal God. A Trinitarian perspective compels us to recognize that even the godhead needs company.
In trying to understand the Trinity I think it is important to recognize that we are sharing an incomplete secret. What we have to offer is an opportunity to join in community on a journey of discovery. We are seekers after the Truth, not possessors of the Truth.
In reflecting on the nature of God, the early church arrived at the notion of the Trinity and presented it to us as a gift, a rich insight, into the nature of the Divine. Yet the church was not of one mind on the issue. Consider the words of Justin Martyr, that seeker for the truth who died in about the year 167. Justin tells us that anyone who thinks God even can be named is “hopelessly insane.”
But insane or not, we try. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer…Creator, Christ, Holy Spirit – All are Trinitarian ruminations on the identity of God that symbolize the way in which we are drawn into community. The Trinity acknowledges the relatedness of God. And our own relatedness mirrors the relatedness of the Divine.
But this Trinitarian sense of being drawn into community does not mean that we are meant to be uniform. As revealed by the Trinity, unity and diversity can exist in harmony.
As we heard in Genesis this morning “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” We are created in the likeness of God.
We don’t find a lot about doctrine in the Gospel. Jesus doesn’t have much to say about original sin or the Trinity or the nature of his own divinity. Jesus spent his time reaching out to the lowest of the low, people who were not religious, sinners, outcasts and telling them that they were all welcome.
Jesus, as a Jew – we have to keep reminding ourselves of that - emerged from a tradition where practice was far more important than belief. Jesus contemporary, the famous rabbi Hillel, said that it is living in a compassionate way that changes you.
It is our practice of being Christian, to take seriously Jesus admonition that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves – that would be truly transformative.
In the words of the self proclaimed “freelance monotheist” Karen Armstrong, "I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."
In the New Testament, when the word belief is used, it’s source is usually the Greek word “creedo”, which means to love, to prize, to hold dear. Creedo is about commitment, not rigid adherence to doctrine. And it is compassion – the ability to feel with the other – that permeates our belief, our commitment, our connection with the Trinity.
The Trinity Wind Project, the three wind turbines recently installed by St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Springdale, easily visible from 540, has revitalized my conception of the Trinity. It offers a way of looking at Trinitarian thinking that is not static, nor formulaic, not doctrinal, but alive, moving, doing something. Its whirling blades, generating electricity for the church that planted them, don’t shout to Northwest Arkansas, “This is what we believe.” Instead, each of those three windmills whispers, “This is what we do.”
Just as the windmills show compassion for the earth and its resources, the Trinity points us toward compassion for the other.
In the name of all that is holy, amen.