Grace, mercy, and peace from the holy trinity is yours, amen.
Today, the church celebrates Trinity Sunday. A celebration of a doctrine the church has come to believe via the spilling of much blood and ink from the early Church Fathers. Gregorys of Nazianzus and Nyssa along with Basil, sat around their table, discussing all manner of things – including the Trinity – which resulted in an argument so big it split the western and eastern churches in two. And what they came up with is an attempt to understand a God that makes true the crazy sum that 1+1+1 equals 1. And that doesn’t make sense.
When I was at college we had two whole lectures on the Trinity, a week apart.
In the first our tutor gave us the history lesson of that roundtable debate between the church fathers and challenged us to go and find an analogy of the trinity that we liked, one that we thought worked. In the next lecture we shared our analogies and she told us which heresy we were committing. Deeply frustrating.
It seems we had been trying to figure out the un-figure-out-able.
You see, in truth, The Trinity is not like the sun in the sky, with one person being the light, another the heat and another the rays. It isn’t ice, steam and water. It’s not like being a father, brother and uncle at the same time, or a chord on a piano. The trinity isn’t a choir singing in harmony. Each of those fall short, in one way or another.
And there may be times when one of those analogies is useful to convey something of the wonder and brilliance of God. But God is bigger. God is entirely other.
If God fitted into our understanding, into our mind, God would not be other enough to have created all universes. If God can be understood, fully, then God’s wisdom is not beyond all comprehension. If God can be pinned down into time and space, then God was not there in the beginning, ages ago, before the creation of the world. If God were entirely understandable then there would be nothing left to learn, no truth left for the Spirit to guide us into. If God fitted neatly into our heart and mind, God would not be the absolute source and essence of love, light, life and all good things.
So rather than understanding the Trinity up here [head]…what we really need is to encounter him, experience her, and allow them to meet and transform us here [heart]. We cannot fully know the Trinity in our minds. There must come a time when we stand at the edge of our understanding and take a leap. And it is then that we discover that God, in God’s entirety – father, son and Holy Spirit – creator, redeemer and sanctifier – catches us.
The Holy Trinity comes to us in the waters of baptism, when we are baptised in their name, and in the bread and wine of the mass, when it is transformed before us. The Trinity comes to us in scripture and in sacraments; sends us out in blessings and dismissals; walks with us and before us and behind us, lives within us and welcomes us into the next life.
We don’t need to understand it all. Indeed, we cannot. All we need to do is say yes to the eternal invitation to partner with God, for now, for here, for what God wants to do in this generation. So what if we are to become so entwined within the personhood of God that we are almost like the 4th person of the Trinity; invited, called, captured, and caught up, in the love and light and life of God, for our own good and for the benefit of this world.
On Friday I went to a meeting about modern slavery and heard more about the work of Destiny Rescue, in their attempts to disrupt slavery where it is happening and rescue girls from being bought and sold. I heard about Dalia who was rescued at the age of 14 – having been sold for sex to feed her 4 year old daughter and pay the rent for her alcoholic single mum. I learned about Blessing who had been paid 25 american cents – 35 aussie cents – for sex so that she could put breakfast on the table for her brothers and sisters. In this world, in 2023.
A doctrine is not going to help those girls. Trying to understand how God can be both Father and Son or how the Holy Spirit can be equal to the creator is not going to bring rescue and redemption. Understanding doctrine is not our primary purpose, friends. Understanding that God created those precious girls in God’s own image, that Jesus walks among them in the hands and feet of those who rescue and raid and bring perpetrators to justice, and that the Holy Spirit equips and inspires us to join the fight, the Holy Spirit lights the fire in our hearts and bellies to make this world better – that is the true work of the Holy Trinity. That is the true reason for our praise and worship today. That is what we celebrate here. Not a level of understanding, but the vast and dramatic impact that can be had on this world, through the work of the Holy Trinity and our partnering with them.
So, if it is important to you, of course 1+1+1 can equal 1, because God can do whatever God wants. But the more important thing, the essential thing is, so what? What does it mean? And what and how will we change because we are people caught up in the work and life and love and radical transformation of this Holy Trinity. May it be significant. May it be big and may it be soon. Amen.
So, who cares if we understand that the trinity is or isn’t like the sun or water or a bike or a choir or a chord? Who cares what heresy that is? Who cares which church fathers sat and debated it? It might be interesting, or not. It might even be important for some. But the real truth, the real importance is that God – father, son and holy spirit – creator, redeemer, sustainer – is inviting us to be the 4th part of their holy partnership and is waiting for our response.
Do you hear the voice of the lord saying ‘whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’?
Will you respond, over and over, day after day, with ‘here am I. Please send me’?
Let it be so…
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy spirit. Amen.
Holy Adventures 