Trinity Sunday 2015
Today is the Sunday known as
Trinity Sunday, and it appropriately follows Pentecost (the day the Holy Spirit
was given to world), and the Seasons of Advent and Christmas, when Jesus was
born and revealed as the Incarnation and Son of God. Of course, throughout all
of the Church seasons is the constant and enduring Presence of God the Father.
So, in terms of the Church year,
today represents the first Sunday after which we have recognized each of the
Three Persons of the Trinity—and, that ‘s kind of a big deal.
However, this is a big deal,
perhaps, not for the reasons we might think… I mean, after all, no matter how
many times we celebrate this day; no matter how much time any of us may spend
reading Athanasius or Gregory of Nazianzus (something I’m sure you all do in
your spare time); and no matter how many times we encounter the Apostle’s and
Nicene Creeds—the nature of the Holy Trinity still doesn’t make a lot of
practical sense to most of us.
I remember when I was in seminary,
there was this underlying sense of anxiety that all of us (once we were in
ministry) would regularly find ourselves asked to make an account for the Holy
Trinity. All of us just knew that at any moment, we could be asked about the
Trinity at Coffee Hour, and our answer could mean the difference between a life
of joyful, quiet, fulfilling orthodoxy—or the misery of continued confusion…
Like most of my seminary
colleagues, I worked to sort out the “orthodox,” or correct teachings on the
Trinity. I sought out what I believed would be the easiest ways to try to
communicate this mystery, without over-simplifying it, and falling into some
terrible, horrible heresy while I was at it.
Well, I was glad I did expend all
of that energy and time in seminary, because there came a day in my ministry
when a seminarian happened to be at the church where I was working, and he
really wanted to hear an accounting of my understanding of the Trinity.
It’s likely that he thought I was a
heretic.
But this gets at what I think is
most difficult about our theology of the Holy Trinity—all of our best attempts
to understand it are so difficult and convoluted, they are almost irrelevant.
And, while the stakes were a bit higher when people were drafting things like
the Nicene Creed, or the Apostle’s Creed—in reality it was mostly the Emperor
Constantine and the bishops who were making such a big deal about all of this…
The thing is, we know that Judaism
is a Monotheist religion—this is the belief in a single God—but, that can mean
a number of things. For Israel, in the early days, it meant that God—YHVH—was a
God above all other gods. And while this belief evolved in a few different
ways, the basic idea is that YHVH is God, and that’s it.
Of course this was the very clear
statement and belief that was held by Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth… and
while he spoke of God in terms of a Son referring to a Father—there was this
sense of equality that began to emerge after the resurrection.
Finally, add to all of this Jesus
sending his followers into the world to baptize in the Name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit—and the Holy Spirit’s descent into the world on the Day
of Pentecost—well, all of a sudden the math doesn’t quite work out for
monotheism.
So, as early as some of the letters
of Peter, and Paul, we begin to see attempts at trying to hold in tension this
weird problem of having God revealed in Three distinct “Persons.” But that’s to
say, I think they were a little more comfortable with that creative tension
than we are today.
Fast forward, then to the early-mid-4th
Century. The Emperor Constantine has not only converted to the Christian faith,
and made the bishops of the Church throughout the Empire into governors; but he
also sets about trying to fulfill this dream (or urge) to create a catholic
(literally universal) Church in the world. And he does this by encouraging the
bishops of the Church to begin codifying, and “clarifying” some of the trickier
aspects of the Christian faith.
Now, in a lot of ways, these
bishops, and perhaps even Constantine, really were trying to build the
Church—there is this sense that they were building the actual Kingdom of God in
the midst of this earthly empire. So, it wasn’t completely all about the
politics necessarily. But, then, politics and religion make very awkward
bed-fellows, all the same.
However, Christianity had been
going pretty strong throughout the world for at least 2 or 3 centuries
already—and like many things about the faith—this wasn’t the first attempt at
trying to make sense of the faith. In fact, by the time Constantine called
together the Council of Nicaea, (this ecumenical council that worked out a
statement of faith in the Trinity, and
formulated the Nicene Creed)…even before this, there were a variety of
views about the nature of God, and except for a few of them—these varied
understandings didn’t seem like a threat to the existence of the faith.
Unfortunately for Constantine and
these bishops, their main disadvantage was that they were working from a Greek
Philosophical worldview. So, to them there was this understanding that
everything—including the nature of God—could be (at least) articulated, if not
understood in a rational way. Because our own culture is a product of that
worldview, this might not sound too outrageous—except that I don’t think any of
us would say that God could be understood or articulated rationally…
But in the same way that a clear
and concise understanding of the Trinity only seems important to seminarians
and clergy—these Nicene bishops under Constantine set a precedent with their
Creed. And once that council happened, it sent shockwaves throughout the world
which, even today (believe it or not) have some strong resonances. Sadly, not all of these were positive.
Then again, before you run home and
toss out your copy of De Trinitatis
by St. Augustine of Hippo, all in a huff, I would like to point out a few
things.
First, while it might have been
fashionable around the time of the Nicene Council to really have a clear
understanding and confession of faith in the Trinity—the truth is, no one’s
here to quiz you on the finer points of Trinitarian theology. In fact, the
whole business of the Nicene Council didn’t get settled out for another couple
of centuries—and even then it still had its problems. So, our understanding
about this mystery of the Trinity shouldn’t be a deterrent to our faith, or its
fullness. Besides, the language of the Creeds really only make the most sense
if you’re a philosopher, a lawyer and speak Greek…so, not terribly helpful.
Secondly, and perhaps most
importantly—the nature of God escapes all of us. This is the reason that Jesus
spent all of his time speaking in parables and metaphors. The reality is that
God, and the Nature of God cannot be articulated easily. Our ancestors of the
faith knew this, and weren’t uncomfortable about this problem. But, I suppose
it’s when we feel that we have concreteness about certain things that we feel a
sense of control, or stability. Except that placing our complete trust in any
limited, or insufficient statement or claim about God will always prove to
disappoint us. In fact, it may even make living a life of faith all the more
difficult.
Finally, I want to make it clear
that it isn’t that I don’t believe in the Creeds of the Church—so, you don’t
need to call Bp. Lee. However, I do think it’s important to hold these
statements of faith in tension with the larger, much more mysterious and
ineffable reality of God. And so, I think it’s okay if we don’t fully
understand what the Creeds mean, or even if we have a little trouble buying
into them. However, I also think that they do give us some language, and even
some important images that can be helpful in our understanding of the
relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—and, certainly,
God’s relationship to us, and each of us to one another. If nothing else, we
learn that loving community is part of God’s very nature, and as creatures made
in the Image of God, we were created to love God and love one another.
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