No matter which diocese you find yourself in, whether in the Episcopal Church or any province of the Anglican Communion, one thing is certain – there will always be parishes named “Trinity” (in fact, I have been associated with three Trinity parishes over the years of my ministry: one in San Francisco, one in Kansas, and the other in Alabama). Episcopalians seem to know instinctively the importance of the Trinity in defining their faith as Christians, and they are proud to bear its name. They proclaim the Trinity week after week in the Nicene Creed and they often begin what they do and pray “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (as I begin my sermons). After all, that is how they were baptized and belief in the Trinity is the main thing that sets Christians apart from others who also believe in one God, like our Jewish and Muslim friends.
For those Christians who live their lives within the rhythm of the liturgical year, and for preachers who faithful preach on the weekly Scripture lessons appointed by the common lectionary, this is the only Sunday in the Prayer Book calendar that challenges us to ponder a teaching of the Church, rather than a teaching of Jesus or an event in His life. The word “Trinity” does not appear in Holy Scripture, although it can be inferred from many passages.
Although the mystery of God revealed in three ways is the core belief of Christianity, many struggle to explain it. Monotheistic Christians do back flips explaining why such a belief doesn’t make them polytheists. We often refer to water as an example: this common earthly element exists on this earth as a gas, a liquid, and a solid – three forms, one substance! Or even better yet, we might consider the complexity of human relationships in our lives – to you I am a priest, to my father I am a son, to Bob I was a life partner, to my sister I am a brother, and so forth – very different roles, yet I am the same person!
We preachers finding ourselves in the pulpit on Trinity Sunday feel the need and the burden to explain. Why? Because the annual recurrence of Trinity Sunday marks the persistent attempt to try to make sense of an abstraction and the very mystery of God; like a puzzle to be solved, an analogy to be cleverly presented, or a formula to be improved upon.
Part of the problem has to do with the feast day itself. Unlike Pentecost, Christmas, or Epiphany, Trinity Sunday has no narrative, no biblical story to ground us in space and time. Therefore, the day becomes the celebration of an idea rather than what it was meant to be – a glimpse into God as a community of Persons.
We might well ask: What is it about the Trinity that puts it at the very center of our Christian faith yet remains so elusive to our everyday understanding? Does the Trinity have any spiritual meaning for us today? Within Christianity these days the doctrine of the Trinity is called many things other than amazing. Some call it archaic, obsolete or patriarchal and have abandoned traditional Trinitarian language for something they consider less out of date. Some have chosen a favorite member of the Trinity and focused just on that. Some concerned that the Trinity expressed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit portrays the Godhead as overly male, have reworked the language to make it less offensive and more relevant. Some opt out of the Father-Son relationship and speak only of the function of the three in terms like: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, thus eliminating all anthropomorphic references. Still others are outraged that Christians dare tinker so casually with the ancient expression of the faith. No doubt the conversations and debates will continue, as well they should.
It seems to me that instead of trying to explain the Trinity – how three persons are really one – we must try to do what the doctrine of the Trinity was originally meant to do – give words to faith. The great historic Counsels of the Church, with their need to clarify and define what they found in Scripture, sought to make sense of the experience of God. To speak of the Trinity, the One God who is made known to us as the Creator, the redeeming Christ, and the life-giving Spirit, is to use a short-hand way of expressing the depth of the faith. Without the Trinity holding us accountable, we might be tempted to worship a one-dimensional deity.
This full view of God lifts up a God who is more than a Creator who made the world out of nothing, more than a God of the big-bang theory who began the universe and left it to run on its own. We do not worship a process, but a very personal God who continues to create and move among us. The God we worship creates being where there is none and at once transcends it. In breathing life into this world and redeeming it, God gives us a glimpse into divine life itself and into the meaning of our own lives.
Because God loves us, we exist. Yet for all God’s care and intimacy with the world and humankind, God is never consumed or overwhelmed by the many loose ends of our untidy existence. God simply loves. It is a fact of life. More than that, it is the fact of life. As paradoxical as it may seem, God is both unchanging and eternal and at the same time ever-changing and deeply involved in time and history, an on-the-move God of the present and of the future. God can have it both ways because God is God and that’s what the Trinity wants us to understand in our heart of hearts.
If we cannot understand the reality in arcane theological nuances, we can begin to understand God through our experience. Like love itself, although difficult to intellectually explain, it has deep meaning to all of us through our experience of it. We need not try to intellectualize God, nor apologize for God’s mysteries. For many Christians, the language of the Trinity has been valuable to personally approach their God. They find such motivation not in complex theological argument, but rather in allowing themselves to be surrounded by the overwhelming presence of God, caught up in the love that is the foundation of the universe.
And that is what we acknowledge and celebrate today.
Amen.
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