"It's Complicated!"

(Scriptures: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15)

The social networking site Facebook has been in the news recently. This website, which enables contacts from long-lost high school classmates, former supervisors and co-workers, and other people from your past whom, if you’re like me, you’d be just as happy to leave in the past, has gotten a lot of flak because of awkward and just plain faulty controls over private information. Those using Facebook and similar social networking sites have the opportunity to enter lots of personal pictures and data or no pictures and very little data, depending on how comfortable one is in hanging one’s private life out on the internet. One of the items to which users can respond is “relationship status.” For those so inclined, one can answer “married,” “in a relationship,” or “single.” There’s also a box for those whose personal life doesn’t fit into one of these tidy boxes. Those in this daunting situation can check off a relationship status box labeled, “it’s complicated.”

Which brings us to Trinity Sunday, celebrated today and other years on the Sunday after Pentecost, when we lift up our belief of one God in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Sunday takes place on the Sunday immediately after Pentecost, when, after Jesus’ ascension to the Father, the Holy Spirit came down to empower the church its mission of proclaiming the good news.

It’s important to note that the word “Trinity” is found nowhere in Scripture. The concept of the Trinity was hammered out by the early church fathers between the years 300 and 400 of the Christian era, notably in the Nicene Creed in 325 AD, in opposition to conflicting beliefs, eventually labeled heresies, such as Arianism, which said the Christ, the Son, was created by God and therefore did not exist from the beginning of time. So, today we deal with church doctrine. For believers, doctrine functions somewhat as a map functions for a traveler. On one hand, a map is a diagram which brings together the observations of many explorers, and will give a traveler the lay of the land, so they don’t get lost. In the same way, church doctrine does not just fall out of the sky, but brings together the observations and testimonies of great Christians from centuries past. On the other hand, seeing a map of a foreign country is very different from actually going there. And so the doctrine of the Trinity is saying something about who God is and how God acts – but, as in my earlier example, having some comprehension of the doctrine of the Trinity is not necessarily the same thing as having a saving faith in the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is a doctrine – perhaps the doctrine – which distinguishes Christians from Jews and Muslims. The Quran, in several places, while affirming Jesus as a prophet, denies the divinity of both Jesus and Mary – the Quran seems to see the Christians of its time holding forth Mary, not the Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity. In New England and elsewhere, Unitarians parted company from Trinitarian Congregationalists on the doctrine of the trinity – while Unitarians affirm one God, they did not recognize three persons. And between the years 1000 and 1100, the Eastern and Western branches of the church split on whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son. In a sense, you could say that all these theological differences are like differences in the roadmaps used in navigating faith.

Yet the presence of one God in three persons is attested multiple places in the New Testament, most memorably in the final verses of Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus commands his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19, Paul encounters a group of believers, likely followers of one of Paul’s rivals, a teacher and evangelist named Apollos. These disciples had received only the baptism of John, and “had not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Upon being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these believers received the Holy Spirit. We also see the three persons of the Trinity in today’s reading from John’s gospel, working in concert to proclaim the Gospel message to the disciples: Jesus said, all that the Father has is mine. And Jesus speaks of the Spirit: He will glorify me, for he will take what I have and declare it to you. So all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, work in concert to declare the Gospel to the disciples.

We may have some questions about the Old Testament reading from the book of Proverbs. We may wonder, “Why are we reading that on Trinity Sunday?” But some theologians identify Lady Wisdom, as personified in our Proverbs reading, with the Holy Spirit – and in so doing, affirm that the Holy Spirit has been encountered not only since the birth of Jesus to Mary, but has been active in various ways from the dawn of time.

Various attempts through time have been made to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. Various creeds, and the shield of faith diagram are examples we’ve already seen. St Patrick famously used the clover leaf, one leaf with three parts, as an analogy. Some have also compared the Trinity to water, which depending on temperature can exist as solid, liquid, or gas. Some think of the Trinity as God above us, Christ beside us, the Spirit within us. Along similar lines, some point to the functions of the three persons – God the Father as Creator, God the Son as Redeemer, and God the Spirit as Sustainer. Other theologians point out that these analogies, while helpful, miss the relational concept of the Trinity – that the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not only three ways in which the one God functions toward humankind, but that within God there is a relationship of mutual, self-giving love between each person of the Trinity and the others – like a dance of infinite self-giving love into which the one God in three persons invites humankind – while still existing as one God in three persons, not as three separate Gods.

I suppose if God had a page on Facebook, for a relationship status, God would have to put “it’s complicated.” To put it mildly, God is multidimensional, complex. But, even through the complexity, we can see that faith in the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to which we’re called, is also relational. To have a saving faith is not simply a matter of muttering one’s way through the Apostles’ Creed each Sunday, important though the Apostles’ Creed is. We’re not called to understand – if feel we fully understand God, we can be sure that we’ve only succeeded in giving God an extreme makeover in our own image – but we are called to trust – to focus our faith, hope, and love – all gifts from God – on the triune God from whom they came, and on our fellow human beings created in God’s complex, multidimensional image. And we are called to go, and make disciples, and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – to fulfill what is called the Great Commission.

The Great Commission is not exclusively the pastor’s job – indeed, it’s closer to the truth to say that my role is to prepare our members - to go out into all the world and make disciples, and teach, and baptize. We may feel drained and discouraged at times – but we can draw reassurance from our reading from Romans: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. Not only that, we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Hope does not disappoint us! The peace with God that we have been given through our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and God’s love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts – all this we are to go, and to proclaim, and to teach, and to share with our neighbors. We whom God has invited into the great self-giving dance of divine love, we are not to keep this invitation to ourselves, but to go out and share the invitation with all whom we meet. For humanity’s relationship status with God is….complicated….but we, who have been reconciled with the Triune God through Jesus Christ, have been given the ministry of reconciliation, of inviting our neighbors to be reconciled with God through Jesus Christ.

May God, revealed to humankind as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, heal our complicated and often broken relationships with God, with one another, and with all we encounter. Amen.
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Feeling that life has become complicated? In prayer and worship, we ask God's help with life's complexities, and sometimes among caring congregation members, it's easier to sort things out. Come join us at Emanuel UCC on Sundays at 10 a.m. on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org

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Historical note: The Athanasian Creed
(This has gone out of common use, and Pastor Dave doesn't endorse the anathemas with which it begins and ends, but it does give lots of detail on the doctrine of the Trinity.)

1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;
2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.
36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;
40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. and shall give account of their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.