God Is So One and So Threesome
On this Pentecost Sunday I want to talk first about the Holy Spirit, then about the Trinity.
I
The work of the Spirit is far broader than we often realize. The Spirit is active throughout the span of scripture.
1) There is the Creating and Creative Spirit, the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep, Genesis says, and brought the world into being. And the Spirit is alive in all human creativity. Through the Spirit we are co-creators with God.
2) There is the Birthing and Re-Birthing Spirit. The Spirit brings us new birth as daughters and sons of God.
3) There is the Calling and Anointing Spirit. The Spirit calls and anoints us to particular ministries in God’s ministry of love in the world. Baptism is the ordination of all believers to be ministers. The gifts of the Spirit empower and equip us for our particular ministries.
4) There is the Renewing and Resurrecting Spirit. Sometimes we are like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel. Our life has gone out of us. The Spirit raises us up to life.
5) There is the Sanctifying Spirit. The Spirit helps us live holy lives, lives shaped by the love of Christ. So we are all given the fruit of the Spirit. Nine: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. All nine are forms of love, like the colors in the spectrum of light.
6) There is the Spirit that Creates. Renews and Reforms the Church. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit brought the church into being. And it continues to renew and reform the church throughout history.
7) There is the Connecting and Unifying Spirit. On Pentecost there was the miracle of hearing. People could hear and understand what the apostles were saying even though they spoke many different languages. It was a sign that the Spirit is unifying not just the church but also all humanity. The work of the Spirit is unity in reconciled diversity, or peace.
II
Now let’s move to the doctrine of the Trinity. God is so three and onesome, so oneful and three. How do we express the relationship of God, Jesus and Spirit?
I’m under no illusion that you’ve been waiting with baited breath for a sermon on the Trinity. If I asked you to rank twenty topics for me to preach on, the doctrine of the Trinity would probably come in dead last.
Objections to the doctrine abound. Its abstractness, for example, especially as described in the early creeds. Then its incomprehensibility. You may have heard of the “fog of war”, the way war fogs understanding in the brain. Sometimes the Trinity is the fog of theology. And Judaism and Islam see it as a threat to the oneness of God, a retreat from pure monotheism.
Then there’s its male-centeredness: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One theologian described it: “two men and a bird”. It doesn’t have to be so male-centered. I saw once in a museum a 12th century sculpture of the Holy Trinity. Originally it was of a male figure holding a son in his lap, but at some point the head of the father figure was lost. So it now could be a mother as well as a father holding the son. Where is the Holy Spirit? The stone itself is the Spirit, that which connects the two figures. I love this image of the Trinity.
Then we have seen the doctrine used as a club for theological uniformity. To quote from the Athanansian Creed:
Whoever wants to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.
But I think the doctrine of the Trinity can be beautiful, which is the purpose of this sermon.
III
So I start here: before the Trinity was a doctrine it was an experience. People experienced God in three ways:
1) As the invisible, Creator, Provider, Preserver of the world. “In him we live and move and have our being.”
2) As Jesus of Nazareth who walked among us. When we met him, we met God. Now he is the Risen Lord part of the eternal life of God.
3) As the indwelling Spirit at work in us.
The doctrine of the Trinity seeks to make comprehensive sense of this experience while maintaining the oneness of God. It need not be a frozen doctrine limited to 3rd and 4th century formulations. The doctrine of the Trinity can be an expansive not constricting understanding of God
IV
One way of thinking about the Trinity is to see it picturing God as a Community: The eternal God is a Being-In-Relation. God, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit is an eternal family in eternal relationship. And we are invited to be part of that family.
So, to say that we are created in the divine image is to say we have a Trinity within, not just out there and everywhere, but within. The divine image is our capacity for communion and community, in other words, the capacity for love.
The seventh century theologian, John of Damascus used the word perichoresis to describe how the three persons of the Trinity relate to one another. It means to dance in a circle. Peri– around, choresis-dance, as in the word choreography.
And we are invited into the divine dance of the Trinity.
V
If someone asks me, “Do you believe in the Trinity?” I would say, “No, I believe in God.” But then I’d go on to say, “I believe in God; I believe in Jesus Christ; I believe in the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is how I try to put it all together and preserve the oneness of God.
The Bible itself has no doctrine of the Trinity. The word itself is not mentioned. But the New Testament speaks of God, Jesus and Spirit in one breath.
At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descends on Jesus like a Dove, and God’s voice says to him: “You are my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I take delight.” All three in one breath.
In John’s gospel Jesus says to his disciples: I’m leaving you now, but I am sending you another, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and the Spirit will teach you things I could not teach you (see John 16:12-15).
And Paul writes his benediction at the end of II Corinthians: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
And at the end of Matthew the Risen Lord sends us into the world to make disciples, teach and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
All in one breath. Not elaborated in doctrine, but there in our lived experience with God.
VI
The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that the character of God, Jesus and Spirit are of the same character. Jesus shows what God is like in human form. The Spirit will not act in ways discordant from the Spirit of Jesus. When someone claims the Spirit has told them to act in a certain way, and it is not in the character of Jesus, put a question mark there.
VII
So let us sing the trinity:
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee…
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Let us use metaphors to understand the Trinity. God is like the three forms of H2O: water, steam, ice. Or the tree with its roots, limbs and leaves. Or, as St. Patrick taught, the three-leaf clover with its three leaves and one stem. These metaphors point to the ineffable: God three in one.
Let us poem the Trinity: God is so three in onesome, so oneful and three
Let us dance the Trinity. Like the Shakers danced in circles as part of their worship. Let us so dance til all the world becomes the perichoresis of God, creator, Christ and Holy Spirit.
In my former church, Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas, the famous pianist Van Cliburn was a member. When his mother, Rildea Bea died, Van brought in for the funeral an orchestra to play among other things, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. There was a moment in its playing I’ll not forget: When they began playing the waltz movement. I’d never heard a grand waltz in church, and now it was filling the church with its sound. Mrs. Cliburn loved to waltz. I looked over at Van. He relaxed into a broad smile and tears filled his eyes. Our world had become a ballroom, and we were all waltzing.
The trinity is the grand waltz of God, one, two, three, one, two, three, with all creation joining.
There are many ways to talk about the Trinity, but I think I like best the perichoresis, the dance of God, Creator, Christ and Spirit in a circle. Then one offers us their hand. One, two, three, one, two, three. Will you join?