Scriptures: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8 Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
It’s
Complicated!
An interesting exercise – think of the number of
relationships that a single person, any one of us, can have. For example, you know me as Pastor Dave, but
my mom knows me, not as Pastor Dave, but as Dave her son. My sister doesn’t call me pastor or son, but
brother. I have no children, but if I
did, they’d call me dad. My friends
would consider me, not a pastor or a son or a brother or a father, but a
friend. The employees at my day job
consider me a boss, or an employee, or a co-worker, depending on how they are
situated. Other pastors consider me a
colleague. And when my car breaks down
and I pull into the shop for repairs, I’m a customer. And, of course, in each of these
relationships, I relate differently – the way I relate to my mother is surely
different from the way I relate to, say, the guy at the garage or to my
coworkers – or to you, for that matter.
And yet, while the relationships differ, I’m still one person.
Today is Trinity Sunday, when we speak of the ways in which God
relates to Godself and to God’s people, and to creation. In the grand words of our opening hymn, on
Trinity Sunday we speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – or, in
inclusive language, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, as God above us, God beside
us, and God within us, as “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” And this is not an easy doctrine to
understand – to borrow the words of a relationship status sometimes seen on
Facebook – “It’s complicated!”
It’s notable that the word “Trinity” itself appears nowhere
in the Bible. The closest we get to the Trinity is at the end of Matthew’s
gospel, when Jesus tells his followers to “Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”[1] We also get some sense of the Trinity in
John’s gospel, when Jesus, on one hand, makes such statements as “The Father
and I are one”[2] and “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”[3],
and on the other hand makes statements such as “But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and
remind you of everything I have said to you”[4]
and “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.”[5] So while it is firmly grounded in Scripture,
the doctrine of the Trinity is of human origin, a human attempt to express
something inexpressible about the nature and character of God. The conception of God as Trinity is the main
doctrine that divides Christians from Jews and Muslims – and for that matter
from Unitarians, because while both Jews and Muslims agree with Christians that
God is one, they do not believe that the one God exists in three persons. While Jews and Muslims will make beautiful
affirmations of Jesus as a rabbi, a great teacher, a mighty prophet, a healer –
and he indeed was all these things – their beliefs do not put Jesus on the same
level as God the Father.
I began this sermon with a discussion of the many types of
relations, or roles, any individual person may have, and many discussions of
the Trinity begin in this way as well.
God relates to us in at least three ways, as Father or Creator, as Son
or Redeemer, as Spirit or Sustainer. More recently, some traditions have named
the Trinity as Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, and Life-Giver – the Father, who
created the earth, the Son, who carried the pain of the world to the cross, and
the Spirit, the Life-giver, who sustains us day by day.
So the doctrine of the Trinity gives us three ways in which
the one God relates to us. But I believe
the doctrine invites us to go even deeper – because we describe God not as one
God with three functions, but one God in three persons. According to the traditional language, the
relationship of the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
is described as perichoresis – a Greek
word meaning “dancing around” – so we can think of a divine dance of self-giving
from one person of the trinity to the others, into which Jesus, the Son, invites all of us
to participate. Or, to use a slightly
different metaphor, from Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century,
it is the Father who kisses the Son, the Son who is kissed by the Father – and
the kiss itself is the Spirit.
All of this sounds pretty heady, sounds like a theological
head-trip. But beyond the specifics of
how various Christians in centuries past described the Trinity – bottom line,
what I think the doctrine is saying is that relationship, and relatedness –
specifically, a relationship of self-giving love - is at the heart of the character of God.
Relatedness, relationship, relating to others, connecting to
others, self-giving love for others - is
at the heart of the character of God.
And if we are made in the image of God – this means that relatedness,
relationship, relating to others, connecting to others emotionally and
spiritually, living a life of self-giving love for others - is at the heart of
what it means to be truly human. Now
granted, some of us are more outgoing than others - some of us are introverts while others are
extroverts – for me, as outgoing as I may seem occasionally, small talk and
keeping up casual conversations is a major effort, draining far more energy
from me than it should, which is why I often spend my Sunday afternoons in bed
– it’s the one time of the week when I don’t have to be at my day job, don’t
have to be thinking about Sunday’s sermon – basically, the one time of the week
when there are no expectations on me.
And that’s all a part of normal human variability – some folks are
chatty and outgoing, drawing energy from interacting with others, while some,
like me, just aren’t.
So some of us are more naturally outgoing than others – but
so long as we’re managing to connect in a loving, self-giving way to others,
we’re acting as persons made in God’s image.
When relationships become broken and twisted, or when we isolate
ourselves, or when we feel so self-sufficient that we don’t need to concern
ourselves with others – this is when we stray from God’s intent for us, when we
stray from the self-giving to others that is at the heart of the character of
God, and thus at the heart of what God intends for us.
A while back, I went to tour Eastern State Penitentiary, the
old decaying ruin of a prison up on Fairmount Avenue. As the tour guide discussed the design of the
prison, such as the wings of the prison that were all visible from a central
location, it was also mentioned that, at least in the early years of the
prison, inmates were kept in solitary confinement. The thought was that if prisoners were isolated
and given time to repent for their crimes, they could be reformed. What happened, instead, is that the prisoners
in solitary confinement often went insane. ...as often happens to modern-day
inmates subjected to long periods of solitary confinement. As human beings created in God’s image, we are
wired for relationship, for connectedness – and if all connection from others
is removed, our minds and spirits implode.
The creators of Eastern State Penitentiary, in their religious zeal to
inspire repentance, forgot the words of Genesis 2:18 – “It is not good that man
should be alone.”
As Jesus was speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper, he
told them he was going away – but he said he was not leaving them orphaned, not
abandoning them. And so Jesus said, “I
have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes” – which we
understand to be the Holy Spirit – “he will guide you into all the truth.” Jesus was telling them that even though he
was going away, he was not cutting off contact, not ending the
relationship. The relationship would be
continued through the work of the Holy Spirit, who would remind the disciples
of all that Jesus had said and done and taught. There were things that Jesus
wanted to tell the disciples, but they weren’t able to bear them – but through
the work of the Holy Spirit, the conversation would continue, and the
relationship would continue.
Similarly, Paul in his letter to Romans writes, “Therefore, since we are justified by
faith, 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 in the glory of God.” Peace,
access, hope, sharing – these are words of relationship. We are not saved through isolation, but
through relationship with God, through which God leads us back into right
relationship with our fellow human beings.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of relationship – a
doctrine that says that since God lives in a state of constant relationship,
and we are created in God’s image, we too are made for relationship. Our culture calls us to rugged individualism,
but our God calls us to community. May
our lives at all times reflect the self-giving love of God. May we live and die surrounded and filled
with God’s self-giving love, and may we share that self-giving love with our
neighbors who are starving for a word of good news. Amen.
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