June 3, 2007
Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5;
John 16:12-15
I often have times that I get to spend with other clergy. Some I deliberately set aside and some, like this week, are a gift of coincidence. This week I met with clergy at the Dean’s retreat, at my book group on Friday where four of the twelve of us are clergy; and then again I had the chance to be with clergy on Saturday, yesterday, at the Deanery confirmation in
The number one topic of the day, each and every time, even book group, was, “So what are you going to preach about the Trinity?” It not usually first choice of sermon topics so gleaning wisdom from each other is a good course to run.
This is Trinity Sunday. Clearly you grasped that the lessons were all Trinitarian in nature! NO? Well, not exactly, I know, for the Trinity is never mentioned in scripture. We mention it a lot in liturgy and worship, but it is nonexistent except by inference in scripture.
So today is the only day in the church calendar dedicated to a doctrine: the doctrine of the Trinity.
And yet, the older I get, the more I pray, the more I live and move as a woman of faith, the more I believe that the church fathers (and they were all fathers!) got it right. The Trinity is a wonderful, mysterious, accurate metaphor for the “being-ness” of God. Holy Trinity – One God!
It is far more often to the Trinity that I pray, that I think of when pondering the vastness of God’s love and grace, or when I come humbly seeking God’s help or wisdom or intervention in my life or in the lives of those I am praying for, than to any singular portion of the One God.
This morning I am going to share what others and I have said about Trinity in the past, ways the Trinity has been explained during my life time, ways that make sense to me. When I was a child, the three in one-ness of the Trinity was explained to me like this: “I am a father, priest, man. But I am still one person.” Today I am a woman, a mother and a priest. But I am still one person.
This plays on the functionality of the various persons of God, but it still was not very satisfying in the long run. I am also a daughter, a friend, a needlepointer, a grandmother, and so on and so on. All persons do lots of things including the persons of the Trinity. Their function overlaps.
As I grew up I heard the expression that the Trinity is not a linear reality: 1+1+1 equaling 1 rather than 3. Rather the Trinity is a composite picture of the various functions and relationships of personhood and it’s more like 1 times 1 times 1=1
The best theological lecture on the Trinity that I ever heard was from Elizabeth Johnson, a theologian who spoke at Trinity Institute where I took a continuing education course. She held up a reproduction of Andre Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity. It is three persons, androgynous persons, sitting at a table, having a conversation. If you have seen an icon of the Trinity you have probably seen this one. She said, ”This is the Trinity who invites us to the table.”
There is, for certain, an empty spot in that icon waiting for the icon reader to engage. It seems to say, “The Trinity is Love and to love one must be in relationship.” So God is infinite relationship, infinite love, always has been, always will be. God loves us in the context of that infinite relationship, and loves and invites us to be part of it, every single one of us.
So, the Holy Trinity One God is about a love relationship, eternal and infinite relationship of love. And to be a person of faith is to let one’s self accept the divine invitation to sit at the table and converse with the One God in that relationship. But still our thinking of three in one and one in three, and same substance, different beings, is all very confusing; and we realize the icon is only metaphoric and not even remotely a picture of God.
Further, I think we get confused when we use the word “persons” for God. Somehow we are speaking metaphorically and assume that personhood is limited to humanity. However, Person-ness in the form of the godhead is not about embodiment at all, but, as I have come to extrapolate from Johnson’s lecture, the Person-ness in the Trinity is about the electric energy between all things that holds “all in relationship.” A better word for that “energy,” I think, is “love.”
When studying for my Doctorate, I discovered that in the new physics the atom was no longer the smallest particle of existence, rather particles of energy are. The thing about these particles is that they are pure energy, and they hold all things together in relationship. They are, I think, a wonderful metaphor for the Trinity – perhaps the best – “that which holds all things together.” Science doesn’t much like religion these days, but I find it fascinating that science has not only discovered these energy particles, but has discovered that they are in relationship with one another, what one does impacts the other.
What a wonderful metaphor for the Trinity! What one does impacts the other, and how true that feels! Don’t we all know that the Trinity is so much more than Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so much more than Creator, Word, Spirit, so much more than Rock, Wisdom, Grace, so much more than any description we can think of? And all our musings, not matter how wordy or theological or scientific, they get, only begin to get at a small portion of the vastness that is God.
So today, this Trinity Sunday, I like the idea of that which connects all things: Love. The mystery. The less said the better. The more lived, imaged, pictured, the better!
And as for a new metaphor, with all the thinking I have been doing about the Trinity this week, another picture came into my mind. It is this:
I would ask that each person here join hands, but like the icon let us leave a place at the table. Our arms are what hold us together; they represent the infinite energy of connection. We are far more than three persons: each of us is multiple persons and there are many bodied persons in this sanctuary, yet, in this holy space when we are together, held together in the tension of relationship, with space for God – the Holy Trinity One God with us – we are but one body. Many persons, far more than three, but one body.
So it is with God: Many persons, One God, one body.
And in both cases, the body we are, the Trinity God is, there is room for more. All are bound together by relationship and love and what we all do impacts the others. Simple enough – no?
Happy Trinity Sunday to all of you!
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd