Trinity Sunday 2010

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on May 30 2010, at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the one day a year when we pay particular attention to the nature of God - the idea that there is One God, but three persons within the Godhead. Since the very earliest days of the church, Christians have had a hard time understanding this concept. The Jews of Jesus' day strongly emphasized the unity of God, to such an extent that many early Christians had a difficult time with the idea of personal distinctions within God.

The word 'Trinity' is not actually found in the Bible, but was first used by the Latin theologian, Tertullian, in about AD 225 to explain the idea that God was 'one in essence - not one in Person'. A hundred years later, the Council of Nicea (325AD) met to respond to the teachings of a man named Arius - where we get the term 'Arianism'. The council of Nicea was led by the church father Athanasius, who helped develop the Nicene Creed, which describes Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father."

Although the council of Nicea pretty much settled the matter, there was still controversy around this doctrine for several more decades. However, after the fifth century, all branches of the Christian faith accepted the doctrine.

St. Augustine grappled with this idea and described the Trinity as comparable to the three parts of an individual human being: mind, spirit, and will - three distinct aspects, yet inseparable and together constituting one unified human being.

Icon painters looked for ways to help people understand the doctrine, but were put off by the prohibition against depicting God directly, so they turned to the story of the hospitality of Abraham, who was visited by three wanderers (Gen. 18:1-8).

"And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate." (ESV)

The painters who depicted this story included many details -- the figures of Abraham and Sarah, a servant killing a calf in preparation for the feast, the rock, the tree of Mamre, and the house (tent) -- all in an attempt to be as faithful as possible to the text.

But look at this reproduction of the most famous of all Trinity icons, that painted by the Russian Andrei Rublev in the 14th century.

Rublev has omitted all the narrative details of the story, including Abraham and Sarah, and only painted the three angels. By doing this he wanted to convey the Unity and Indivisibility of the three persons of the Trinity. Some people have objected to this, saying that Abraham was visited by the pre-incarnate Christ and two angels, so some icon painters painted Christ as the middle angel and set him apart either by a halo with a cross, by enlarging his figure, giving him widely spread wings, or a scroll in His hand.

Jurgan Moltmann, comments that in Rublev's version, 'the three divine persons are seated at a table. In the slight inclination of their heads toward each other and in the gestures of their hands, a deeper unity of the three is suggested. A chalice on the table symbolizes the sacrifice of the Son on Golgotha for the redemption of the world. ...

it is impossible to tell which is the Father, Son or Spirit. In this way, the painting expresses the ultimate un-representability of the triune God. (Moltman, Sermon on the Trinity.)

So although people have tried to illustrate the concept of the Trinity, it is fundamentally impossible to really represent God. He is just too big, and the concept is just too hard for us. But even though we will never be able to plumb the depths of God's being, we can definitely know that God is relational.

Moltman puts it this way: "the triune God is a social God, rich in internal and external relationships. It is only from the perspective of the trinitarian God that we can claim that “God is Love,” because love is never alone. Instead, it brings together those who are separate while maintaining their distinct characters."

In John 16, Jesus lays out this inter-relatedness :
Verse 5: "...I am going to him who sent me, (namely, the Father, v. 10).
In verse 7, he tells the Disciples, "I will send him [the Helper, Paraclete, the Comforter, the one, 'just like me'] to you.

Verse 10: I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer...

The Holy Spirit is to complete the teaching work of Jesus: (v.12)“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Add John 5:19 to the mix:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise."

The sense is of continuous intercommunication and cooperation, complete harmony among equals - each with a role to play, but each in complete agreement with the other two.

Phillip asked Jesus to show them the Father, and Jesus replied, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. ... I am in the Father and the Father is in me."

The Son is not only the exact representation of the Father, but He speaks and acts on the authority of the Father:

"The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works."

Again we see a complete unity of message and purpose - in the midst of diversity.
I'd like to relate this concept to some examples from our daily lives - with the caution that they are not really analogies of the Trinity - the comparison to the God who is 'one essence but Three Persons" quickly breaks down, but I still think they are useful comparisons.

The United States of America
According to our national slogan, "E Pluribus Unum", we become one people out of many backgrounds; one nation in the uniting of 13 - now 50 - independent states. Of course, the United States of America is not a Person, but the ideal of the founders was for us to come together despite our differences.

The Church
The Church is to be one as Jesus and the Father are one (John 17: 21: ...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us....). We are to function as His Body: (Romans 12:4,5: For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.)

I Cor: 12:12 "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ."

I Cor.12:27:"Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

Unity in Diversity. The church as a picture of the Trinity.

Many people are grievously offended by the fact that there are so many denominations. Yet, how can it really be otherwise, given that God is so vast and people have had so many different experiences in God, so many ideas about how to worship Him - and so many quarrels about who is right!

Because we are sinful, we will never have complete unity. Because God is big, no one way of worshiping Him will ever be adequate to do Him justice. There must be some basic things we agree upon - and that's why we have Creeds - so that we can say that some expressions are truly Christian, and some are not.

So, while we differ from the Orthodox in our understanding of who exactly sends the Holy Spirit - Father only vs. Father and Son - we still recognize them as Christians because they embrace the Trinity - unlike Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians, who deny the Trinity.
Our unity around the basics of the Creeds defines us a members of the same household.

Marriage
Marriage also provides us a picture of unity in diversity:
Eph. 5:28-33: ..." husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24) This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
Jesus quoted Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in regard to Marriage: (Mark 10:6-8 and Mt. 19:, 45): "But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Again, the comparison to the Trinity breaks down because in marriage, we still have two separate persons joined together by covenant and union, while in the Trinity we have Three Persons, but one essence.

So, there are three comparisons to the Trinity. How does this work itself out in our practice as Christians?

Let's start with our Worship

Anglican worship is very trinitarian. From the opening acclamation, to the Gloria, to the

Doxology, to the Sanctus and the Communion prayer, one hears many references to the Trinity. And as a local parish we say that we emphasize the Liturgical/Catholic/Sacramental,
the Evangelical or Word-based understanding of the faith, and the Spirit-led, or the Charismatic, roughly mirroring Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Our focus is both on the transcendent God, who is high and lifted up, receiving the praise of all creation, and on the immanent or Present God, who is Emmanuel, God with us.
Devotionally, as I read the Bible, I want to allow the words to become the Word of God to me - to allow the concepts I am reading to become life-giving 'manna' from heaven, speaking to me in my current life situation right now. I want the 'Logos' Word of God to become the 'Rhema' word of God to me, that I might become transformed by the renewing of my mind.
Psychologically, I want my mind to learn to think God's thoughts, my emotions to be conformed to those of Christ, and my will to be transformed so that I can choose to obey even when it's hard.

Responding to God's love, I want to give of myself - my time, my talents, and my treasure, I want to realize that the focus of my giving is God. I am giving back to the Father, through Jesus the Son, as I am led by the Spirit, just as God first loved me and gave His Son to die for me. I give in response to a God who gives me Himself. The hymn by William How puts it this way: "We give thee but thine own, whatever the gift may be. All that we have is Thine alone, a trust O Lord from Thee." (We Give Thee but Thine Own. How, 1864).

This giving includes service to our world. Through God's Spirit, we take Christ to our world. Through our good deeds, we proclaim the Good News that Christ has come to seek and save that which was lost - namely the whole world! .

In their book, The Externally Focused Church, Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson relate that 'When the Communists took over Russia in 1917, they vigorously persecuted the church, but did not make Christianity illegal. The Constitution of 1918 (chapter 5, article 13), in face, guaranteed a freedom of religion. But the Communists did make it illegal for the church to do any good works. No longer could the church fulfill its historic role of feeding the hungry, educating the young, housing the orphan, or caring for the sick. The state would handle those duties. What was the result? After seventy years, the church in Russia was largely irrelevant to the communities in which it dwelt. take away service, and you take away the church's power, influence, and evangelistic effectiveness. The power of the gospel is combining its life-changing message with selfless service "( pg. 118).

We proclaim the Good News through our actions, in addition to our verbal proclamation. Our goal is for all the world to know the Joy of Loving and serving God, the joy of abiding in God, and he in us, just as it says in the trinitarian pattern of I John 4: 13-16:

"By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Ultimately it comes back to the two great commandments: Love God, and Love your neighbor. I pray that as we contemplate our great God and his great love for us, that our capacity for loving God and others may increase and that we might truly abide in Him and He in us, just as The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit are one and abide in each other. AMEN.