Trinity Sunday
May 18, 2008
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20
Today is Trinity Sunday. The Sunday we celebrate the Trinity, or shall I say the Doctrine of the Trinity. And we know why doctrines exist in the Church. They are an attempt to explain and give definition to the mysteries of scripture. Mysteries which can only suggest, or point to ways we can understand God, precisely because there is no way we can prove them to be factual or true. Like the Doctrine of the Trinity; the notion of a God who is three distinct persons in one person: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In fact, the only reference to God as three persons is found in Jesus’ famous last words from the gospel account we heard today from Matthew. The Church calls Jesus’ last words from Matthew’s gospel “The Great Commission.” Jesus tells his disciples that after he ascends to heaven, they are to go into the world and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew references three distinct persons, for sure, but it requires a leap of faith, and not a little imagination, to understand how these three persons belong to one and the same God.
And that has always been difficult for people in the church. Personally, I don’t think it helps our faith or understanding that the three aspects of our triune God are referred to as “persons,” especially in our modern world and in our particular culture. It doesn’t help that one of the church’s most well beloved and often sung hymns makes reference to “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” The problem with calling God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit three “persons” in one “person” lies in the fact that we in the modern world do not understand “person” in the same way as people in the ancient world. It was during the third century that the notion of a three-person God became a doctrine of the Church. But in that day the term “person” was understood in the context of community. The problem for us in the modern world is that the term “person” is more likely to refer to an individual who is separate and distinct from community. Just think about it. If I ask you to describe a person you know well, you are more likely to tell me about his individual qualities or characteristics. But this was not true in the ancient world.
Persons were understood to be who they were because of the community they belonged to and the relationships which formed them in, and for that community. Consequently, “persons” was an apt word for describing God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as persons in community; persons who were distinct from each other and served a particular purpose, but persons who belonged to each other and functioned for the sake of the community. In fact it was necessary, even essential for the early church to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of One God in three persons, or three persons in One God. Because it was Monotheism which set Jews and Christians apart from the polytheistic worship of many Gods. So when Christianity developed its doctrine of a Triune God, it was important to make the clear distinction that this One God in three persons was still One God and not three gods. It was important to clarify that our One God found it necessary to reveal himself in three distinct ways, as three distinct persons in one community, the community of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
It will probably not come as a surprise to you, that despite the effort of early church officials to establish their Doctrine of the Trinity as distinctly monotheistic, the church came under the cynical scrutiny of the pagan world. Polytheists wanted to believe that our Doctrine of the Trinity was a cheap and inadequate imitation of their worship of many gods. What saved the doctrine from ridicule and contempt, even in the church, was the fact that the Trinity was characterized as One God in three “persons,” because the pagan world also understood personhood as something which happened in community, by the help of other persons. It was the community which made the person. So for pagan people who worshiped a pantheon of individualistic, self-serving gods, “person” was not a word they would have used to describe their gods. Their gods were not communal by nature. Each god was his own deity. Each had his own expectations and made particular demands of the people who worshiped him. Such gods did not act in unity with each other for any common good. They had their own agendas; they were changeable and they were not easy to please. The gods of polytheistic religions could never be thought of as persons; they were not formed, or given identity or nurtured or sustained in community.
Unfortunately, the Doctrine of the Trinity continues to suffer ridicule and scorn even today from people both inside and outside the church. Truth be told, the one Sunday most preachers do not look forward to is Trinity Sunday. Because the Doctrine of the Trinity is just too difficult; too difficult to understand, too difficult to explain and too difficult to preach. But preach it I must. It would be so much easier for me to stop here after having explained the history of the doctrine. But preach it I will, because I believe there is real theology and profound substance in the Doctrine of the Trinity, and I believe it comes primarily in our experience of God and in our understanding of God in scripture. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the Trinity remains the mystery it is meant to be. A mystery which does not require reason or proof, or any other kind of validity other than the fact that God in three persons makes sense to the way we know God in our life and in our relationship with others in religious community. And I am pleased that churches in the catholic tradition are required to observe Trinity Sunday. It makes us move out of our scriptural certainties and our complacencies of worship to encounter God in all his complexity and in all his mystery. Because this is the only Sunday we encounter God in his completeness. One God in Three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Today we get the whole package, even if we don’t quite know how or why the package comes with three distinct boxes wrapped up together. But we do know one thing; these boxes cannot be set apart from one another. Each one is necessary to the package. They belong together. We can open each box individually, in scripture and prayer and study, but none of them is complete without the others. Just think about it. How skewed our understanding of God would be if we only opened one of the packages. If we only knew God the Creator, and not God the Redeemer or God the sustainer of our life.
So how do we unpack the Trinity? How do we get our head around the idea that God can only be complete in three persons? I have heard many preachers over my lifetime use metaphors to try to describe God in these three distinct persons. And I think metaphors are helpful, precisely because they require us to bring our imagination to the mystery of the Trinity.
You have undoubtedly heard some of the metaphors which attempt to help us understand the Trinity. A popular metaphor for the Trinity is water. Water can take the form of solid, liquid or gas. Each serves a distinctive purpose, and yet in all three forms, they are still water. But not too long ago my imagination was swept away by a new way of seeing the Trinity. It came to me in my first theology class in seminary. The professor described the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity as partners in a dance. Now if you have ever tried to dance with a partner you know what it takes to coordinate the moves of your own body with the moves of your partner to accomplish the purpose of the dance, hopefully with a little grace a beauty, as well. Dancers must move their own body while being very attentive and carefully attuned to the body of their partner to bring about the desired results. I particularly like this metaphor, because I like to dance. And I learned to dance the kinds of dances you can see on the program, “Dancing with the Stars.” The stars and I can tell you, it takes much discipline and practice, and intuitive knowledge of both yourself and your partner to dance with the beauty and grace that you might imagine would come from dancing with God, our “Lord of the Dance.” But God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit already know each other, intimately. They dance exquisitely together, and they are always inviting us to dance with them. Those of us who accept the invitation soon realize that the more we practice dancing with the Father and the Son and the Spirit in prayer and song and the study of scripture; the better dance partners we become. The more attuned we are to becoming partners with God in creation, and redemption and in real presence with each other.
Now, I recognize that this might not be a useful metaphor for those of you who don’t like to dance or who never learned how. But there is one other metaphor I would like us to think about. However, it will require your complete attention, because the metaphor is so common we are inclined to take it for granted. The metaphor is common because it has been around for a long time. Since the third century, in fact, when the Church adopted the Doctrine of the Trinity. And the metaphor is this: Community. The essence of the Trinity is community and the Doctrine of the Trinity shows us how God can only be God, and how humans can only be human by virtue of our life with others in community. The Trinity shows us that neither God nor humans can live and move and have their being outside of community. From the moment we are conceived to the moment we die we are part of a human community. Throughout our life we belong to someone greater and someone other than ourselves. And we will always need each other to sustain our life and to help us grow our life in the context of the communities we belong to. No one of us, not even God, can go it alone. God the Father has no power other than the power to create, so the Father needs the Son, because the Son has the power to redeem his Father’s creation and bring us back to him. But the Son needs the Father to accomplish his work of redemption. The Son and the Father needs the Spirit to be present with us in our material life so that when the Son ascends to God, God’s people can continue the Son’s ministry in the world. And, of course, the Spirit needs the Father and the Son to accomplish their work in us. Wow, what a way to understand the Trinity. What an interactive community; what a complexity and precision in the ways they dance.
Personally, I think “community” is the best metaphor for the Trinity. The words of that hymn we all know so well say it best: “God in creation, blessed Trinity. Because it is not enough for God to be the Creator. God also needs to be IN creation. And so he came into creation through his Son. He came to dance with us. And when Jesus went back to God, he sent us a dance partner who would be present with us throughout our life, so that we might become better dancers with all three persons God reveals to us in the Trinity.
The Doctrine of the Trinity shows us something essential about our need for God and our need for each other in community. We are meant to be made and formed and nurtured in community. A community of people who recognize their need of each other. A community which loves us into being, a community which redeems us over and over again to new life, and a community which sustains us in the life God has given us to live.
So, now I ask you to listen carefully as we say together the Nicene Creed. Listen to the distinct qualities of each of the persons of the Trinity. Hear the role each has been given in creation. Recognize the need they have of each other in salvation history. And let us remember our own need of this Triune God and our need of each other in the communities we belong to which serve our common good, and the good purposes of God in creation.