Sermon: Trinity Sunday
21 May 2005
The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector
I believe that one of the most important questions we can ask in the life of Christian faith is, “What do you mean by that?” Sometimes things we’ve “always” heard or said about God, about Jesus Christ, about the Holy Spirit, a number of well-tried formularies could use some elaboration. Kids are great at this, by the way, with questions like, “Who made God?” and “How do we know where Jesus is now?” “In the beginning . . . .” What do you mean by that? “The Word was with God and the Word was God?” What do you mean by that? “Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” What do you mean by that?
Trinity Sunday is a great time to ask this question, too. The catechism in the Prayer Book can say simply and confidently: “What is the Trinity? The Trinity is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” There is a symbol of the Trinity above the arch in Latin, and fancy script explaining that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Spirit, et cetera . . . But what do we mean by that? Well, it’s as simple as that, and as mysterious as that: one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; One who loves, Beloved, and the Love between them, and dozens of other ways of trying to name this mystery.
Since the time of Jesus, the world has been shorn of an awful lot of mystery the Enlightenment, and modern science, ease of travel, an electronically-fed world-weariness, all have contributed. People in Jesus’ time and place knew as the whole world maybe a third of the total surface of the globe. They thought the sun, moon, and stars moved around the earth, and many things we take for granted today were impenetrable back then. Things are very different today because of science and technology, and removing much of the mystery from medicine, for example has been a wonderfully beneficial thing. I would submit, though, that many medical practitioners, no matter how technically advanced, still have a profound respect for the mystery of the human body and its healing process.
We have gained incredibly from the loss of mystery in medicine and many other areas of life, but a loss of mystery isn’t always positive. I can think of no better example than the Russian cosmonaut who orbited the earth for the first time and reported that he’d looked for God while he was up there, but didn’t see God, as if God somehow could be more readily experienced from a spacecraft than from earth. Ironically, the more mysteries that are solved, the more impatient we can become with the ones that remain, and we may even start to rule out even the possibility of mystery. But something about the human mind and heart won’t let go of mystery, still believes in things that go beyond our understanding. With so many of the old mysteries gone, people find new ones, or rediscover old ones, and it’s a good thing, because the mysteries of the heart haven’t been conquered through Enlightenment scholarship or scientific research. Falling in love is still a mystery, so is the wonder with which we look into a baby’s eyes, so are the great sacrifices people make for one another, and reconciliation that comes after years of estrangement and bitterness. Mystery is alive and well when it comes to matters of the heart, and in matters of faith. But mystery when it comes to faith is different than they way we often think of mystery.
Medical mysteries have been solved by increasing knowledge. Mystery stories give us little clues of evidence but deliberately obscure “whodunit” until the very end. Once we have all the evidence, everything falls clearly into place. On the other hand, mysteries of faith are not deliberately obscure, they’re just beyond our human comprehension. We don’t get it because we can’t get it, not fully, at least. But God offers us revelation; God is showing us everything we can comprehend, We can grasp a mystery only partly in this world, yet we can still grow in our understanding, knowing that we’ll never fully get it, but that that’s OK.
In fact, part of this growth in understanding is recognizing how little we understand. Mysteries of faith are not solved by increasing knowledge alone, nor is God trying to trick us; in fact, the Greek word musterion is also used for what we mean by “sacrament”–an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. How do we share in Christ’s dying and rising in the waters of baptism? It’s a mystery. How are the bread and wine Christ’s Body and Blood to us? It’s a mystery. But in a world increasingly impatient with and even hostile toward mystery it’s important to resist both of the quick responses to mystery–either to try to collapse it, to explain it away immediately, or on the other hand just to shrug our shoulders and say, “I’ll never understand any of it.” No, there is a third way, a way that acknowledges and respects the mystery, and asks God to teach us in and through the mystery. This is a way by which we grow in faith and grace, by asking questions such as “What do you mean by that?” And probing the answers looking not so much for quick solutions as for spiritual growth.
How is one God three Persons? It’s a mystery. But it’s a mystery that is for our sake, to our benefit, a profound blessing, that at the very heart of God there is dynamic relationship. This doesn’t frame the question so much who God is or isn’t in a static way, but as who God is being and becoming in an unfolding and dynamic process. We say God is the Living God, yet human beings have done a lot over the years to try to keep the Living God from showing any signs of life! Recent theology of the Trinity, though, has recovered a Greek word to describe this dynamic, living relationship of the Trinity. The word is perichoresis, and comes from the same root as “choreography.” Perichoresis means “dancing around.” Now dancing is certainly a profound way to experience oneness yet with many parts, because the parts move together in a beautiful harmony. “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.” What do we mean by that? In addition to the catechism and the triangle and the creeds and all the other formularies, another way to say it is that the God we worship can really cut a rug . . . and keeps reaching out for us to join in!