A WORD FROM ANGELA


 

In the movie, Angela’s Ashes, there is a very funny scene where six-year-old Frank McCourt was praying. When he finished he ended his prayer, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Toast.” I thought this a fitting introduction for a mind boggling theological doctrine…the Holy Trinity. Today, in case you weren’t aware, is Trinity Sunday and unlike Christmas, Easter or Pentecost Trinity Sunday is rarely acknowledged. Mostly, I think because most preachers don’t want to go near it. It’s after all a concept…a theory…without much relevance for our lives today. It’s hard enough to believe in God without insisting that God is one Being Who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons:[1] the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. See what I mean, be honest, your eyes just glazed over. I remember when I was in seminary, the first time around, while writing a paper on the Trinity when my friend at the time living in California called and asked what I was doing. When I told her, and I could tell on the other end of the phone she was probably rolling her eyes, she asked, what the Trinity had to do with real life? Her question startled me. Since it was a paper and not a sermon I hadn’t thought about it really…I was having fun arguing in its defense purely as a mental exercise. But, as a preacher and pastor, I had to admit my friend was right. After all, the word Trinity is nowhere in the Bible, it wasn’t’ even used to refer to God until the third century, yet hundreds of people were put to death for questioning the doctrine. Our own John Calvin was influential in having his friend Michael Servetus burned at the stake because of his beliefs or rather non beliefs about the Trinity. An act he later regretted…So where did it come from? Why do we use it?

First a word about any talk we do about God. The best we can ever do as mortal, limited finite creatures when trying to get our minds around Holy Mystery is to use symbols and metaphors. God is unknowable. We see through dimly covered mirrors, partly as Paul likes to remind us…at best we experience glimpses of our Creator. And yet, as Christians we believe as Sister Elizabeth Johnson explains, “The God of in exhaustible mystery who is inexpressibly other is also with the world in the flesh of history, and is furthermore closer to us than we are to ourselves.” We as Christian proclaim this outrageous good news: God became human…experienced everything human…to be in relationship with us…We dare to make the ridiculous claim that Jesus is Lord. And we don’t stop there we further insist that the Spirit is the living God present throughout the world and in the struggle of human history: Holy Spirit, the power who builds relationships between God and human beings and among human beings with each other and the earth. So right here we have it: A three-fold reference to our one God…a trinity. Far from being a made up theological doctrine, the Trinity metaphor comes to us from our religious experience of the gracious God who encountered human beings through Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Whether we label it or not…when Christians speak about God we speak about Trinity.
 

Still, when I told my non-Episcopal/Catholic colleagues I was going to preach about the Trinity they looked at me as if I was mad. But the truth is after all is said and done, I have to be honest…I love the metaphor of the Trinity. I love the idea of a God who at the very essence of the mystery of its being is a God who exists in relation to another. The trinity models unity in diversity without any hierarchy. There are three distinct persons…coexisting simultaneously and eternally… living in community because of the communion between them. In God’s Self…God’s very essence there is eternal co-relatedness, and self-surrender of each Person to the others. Our God is one but never alone: God is always the living-together and co-existence of Creator Christ and Spirit, all three existing from the beginning, revealing each other, knowing one another and communicating themselves from the beginning.

The metaphor of Trinity loses its power for us if we use it in vain attempts at getting secret information about the inner life of God. It is however a powerful symbol and model for us and for our relationships with others and creation. Elizabeth Johnson again proclaims: “Speaking about the Trinity expresses belief in one God who is not a solitary God but a communion in love marked by overflowing life…the Trinity provides a symbolic picture of totally shared life at the heart of the universe.” Imagine that: totally shared life…interconnected life at the heart of the universe.

So what does this mean for us who are created in the Divine Image? Simply put: Mutual relationship is to be the ultimate paradigm of our personal and social life. Jesus embodied this vision of human community in a relationship of equals. The world Jesus taught and preached reflected his own experience of shared power and community. Embracing this vision is our call and challenge. Reflecting on the metaphor of Trinity pushes us away from our comfortable faith to one, which takes seriously the needs of others because we are not separate from each other. The opposite is true: we are interconnected, one, distinct but together, a Trinity of Love of God, self and others. So, a Paul reminds us, if one part of the body hurts we all experience pain. Elizabeth Johnson is right on when she expresses the life to which this symbols calls us: “Spun off and included as a partner in the divine dance of life, the world for all its brokenness and evil is destined to reflect the triune reality, and already does embody it in those sacramental, anticipatory moments of friendship, healing and justice breaking through.” We are partners in the divine dance of life.

In closing I leave you with the words of poet and composer Brian Wren :

Who is She, neither male nor female, maker of all things only glimpsed or hinted, source of life and gender? She is God,

Mother, sister, lover: in her love we wake, move grow, are daunted, triumph and surrender:
Who is She, mothering her people, teaching them to walk,

Lifting weary toddlers, bending down to feed them?
 

She is love,

Crying in a stable, teaching from a boat, friendly with the lepers, bound for crucifixion.

Who is She, sparkle in the rapids, coolness of the well,

Living power of Jesus flowing from the Scriptures?

She is life,

Water, wind and laughter, calm, yet never still

Swiftly moving Spirit, singing in the changes.
 

May it be so, In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God, Mother of us all.