One in Three

(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1 – Genesis 2:3 Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20)

Today is Trinity Sunday, in which the church lifts up the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in other language, God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday following Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Given the amount of thought the church has given to this doctrine and the amount of conflict the doctrine has produced – there have been numerous controversies, and even the split in around the year 1054 between the Eastern and Western church was related to the way in which the Holy Spirit relates to the other two persons of the Trinity – not to mention the much more recent and much more localized split in New England and elsewhere between the Trinitarian Congregationalists, who went on to become part of the UCC, and the Unitarians, who did not - it is striking that the word Trinity is nowhere found in Scripture. While readings such as today’s mention the persons of the trinity and there are other hints of the Trinity elsewhere in Scripture, the full-blown doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in Scripture. I say this to remind us that the doctrine of the Trinity is a human creation, a human attempt to understand that One God who is presented in three persons in Scripture. Inevitably it a human attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, to define the undefinable – for any God within our ability to define is inevitably a God that we have shrunken and made over in our own image. And whenever we discuss human doctrine, no matter how venerable, we need to maintain some measure of humility, recognizing that while doctrine is – one hopes - derived from Scripture, it does not carry the weight of authority that Scripture does. Nonetheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is among the most venerable the church has to offer.

One way in which the Trinity is understood is in terms of function: God the Father as creator, who created the world, and not just our world, but the cosmos, all that is, God the Son as the redeemer, who proclaimed the reign of God and by his death and resurrection liberated us from sin, and God the Holy Spirit as sustainer, God within us, God among us, giving us strength for each new day, praying in groans to deep for words when our human thoughts and words fail us. Yet all acts of creating, redeeming, and sustaining are done, not by three separate gods, but by our one gracious God.

However, the doctrine of the Trinity speaks, not of one God with three functions, but of one God in three persons. So there is an image of intimacy, fellowship, among the three persons of the trinity. This intimacy is defined under the Greek word “perichoresis”, meaning mutual interpenetration and mutual indwelling, beside which the deepest human intimacy appears only as the faintest of shadows. We get some sense of this in John’s Gospel in Jesus’ farewell address to his disciples, when he says such things as “I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and you are in me as I am in the Father. This only mentions two persons of the Trinity, Father and Son, but it’s no great leap to extend the metaphor to include the Holy Spirit in this image. Perichoresis – peri means “around”, and “choresis” comes from the same root as choreography – so we can think of the three persons of the Trinity in a continual, eternal, never-ending choreography or dance of mutual love. All of which is to say that we worship a God who is relational, both within Godself and in always reaching out in love to humankind, with a depth of relationship, of passion and yearning, that human beings can, at best, only barely begin to glimpse.

Our reading from Genesis shows our Triune God at work. As God speaks the universe into being – “let us create” – we remember that John’s Gospel affirms that Son, the Word made flesh, was present from the beginning, and we feel the Spirit moving over the face of the waters.

During the coffee hour last Sunday, we read the creation story, as we read it this morning. We noted that there’s something different in the creation of humankind than from the other parts of creation, that humankind is said to be created in God’s image. It’s the only part of the creation story where we read this affirmation – in God’s image God created them, male and female God created them. Certainly, we share much in common with animals – we have bodies, internal organs, and such. We have much of the same fight or flight instincts they do, what evolutionary biologists call our “lizard brains”. But as we think of the ways in which humans differ from animals – in having consciousness, a soul, the ability to think, to plan, to relate, to love – to name just a few – we can affirm that in these elements, humans resemble God in a way that animals do not. We’ve spoken of the dance of mutual love among the persons of the Trinity, and given that joy, we may well wonder, with the Psalmist, “what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them.” – and yet the Psalmist also affirms that God has created us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. The miracle is that, even though God has no particular need of us, yet in his grace he passionately cares for us, whom God created in God’s image. Certainly sin has deeply marred that image of God within each of us, but the resemblance is still there, however faint. This is important to remember when we’re inclined to abuse others, to oppress others, to dismiss others, to use others for our own purposes – and we are all guilty at times of the sin of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around – that those whom we abuse, oppress, dismiss, and use – are, like us, bearers of the divine image, however deeply buried under the wreckage of sin, and passionately beloved by God.

Our Gospel reading today is the last four verses of Matthew’s Gospel, commonly called the Great Commission. It is one of the very few places in which all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are named together…..appropriate for Matthew’s Gospel, as, among the four Gospels, Matthew’s Gospel includes the most developed language relating to the church. However, we should remember that our reading is not called the Great Theological Summit, but the Great Commission – the focus is not on theological reflection, but on action, on mission. There are two uses of the word “all” that are noteworthy. The Risen Jesus says that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” and “go and make disciples of all nations.” – and we are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything (or “all”) that I have taught.
This is all-encompassing language – Christ has all authority – not just over our Sunday mornings, but over all things; therefore we are to make disciples of all nations – which involves going way, way, way outside our comfort zones - and teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. But with this broad claim of authority and the broad mission statement comes an equally broad promise: I will be with you always”. Not just now and then. Not just on Sunday mornings. Always. Always.

Amid all that is mysterious about the Trinity, Jesus is the best revelation we have of the character of God. Remember that, in John’s Gospel, Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, to which Jesus replied that since they had seen Jesus, they had seen the Father. And so if we want to know what God is like, the best way to do that is to look at Jesus as presented in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. Jesus who came preaching good news to the poor, liberation of the captive, the reign of God, Jesus who ate and drank with those whom society scapegoated as sinners and confronted those who used their positions of power to oppress, Jesus who cast out demons and healed diseases, Jesus who, while we were yet sinners, died for us – this is the best image we have of what God the father is like. And as followers of Jesus, we are to live in the same way, going forth into all the world to make disciples and baptize and teach, so that through our words of caring and deeds of love, our neighbors nearby and our neighbors far away come to know this same Good News. May God use our congregation, Emanuel Church, to bring this good news to our neighbors down the block and our neighbors around the globe. Amen.