Trinity Sunday

May 26                                    NOTES FOR REFLECTION                         Trinity Sunday

Texts:  Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16: 12-15

Theme:  It may be best to stick with the obvious this week.  But for something a little more adventurous something like "The Reality at the Heart of Reality", or even "A Statement of Fact".  The point is that God IS Triune, and would still be Triune even if we had no doctrine of the Trinity.

Introduction.  The second lesson and the gospel passage are well chosen for today.  Both of them are clearly and explicitly Trinitarian, providing ample ammunition to blow out of the water those who still contend that the whole concept of the Trinity is a post-biblical invention by theologians and bishops with too much time on their hands in the fourth and fifth centuries.  All three Persons are there in each of these texts.  Somewhat more problematic is the choice of the first lesson, from the Book of Proverbs, as beautiful and as stirring as it is.  Yes, Wisdom is personified, and yes, it provides perhaps part of the Old Testament scaffolding used by the Fourth Evangelist in the construction of his wonderful Prologue.  But is Wisdom the alter ego of the Second or the Third Person of the Trinity?  And whatever your answer to that question is, doesn't it still leave us one short in this passage?  And then there is verse 22 in which it is said that God "created" Wisdom, whereas we don't believe that the Second or Third Person was created, do we?  And is Trinity Sunday the right day to reflect on the Creation?  If nothing else, the choice of this passage is perhaps a reminder that, whenever we ponder the Trinity we end up with far more questions than answers.  And it is a wonderful passage!

Background.  None of this means that there is nothing to be said about the Trinity: on the contrary Trinity Sunday needs to be seized by all preachers and teachers as an opportunity for fearless apologetics, and for a counter-offensive against those who would prefer to substitute their own woolly theology for Christian orthodoxy and creedal clarity.

Let's start with the common objection that the Trinity is merely a human construct, made up by learned (and not so learned) attendees at theological huis held over the first few centuries of the Christian era.  The most obvious rebuttal is to point out that it is based on a confusion between the Trinity on the one hand and the Doctrine of the Trinity on the other.  Of course, the latter is a human construct: so are the laws of physics, or Pythagoras' theorem, or the Periodic Table of elements.  Does that mean that they should be disregarded because they are not real?  What the Doctrine of the Trinity is designed to do is describe for us the identity of God as it has been revealed to us.  We might, of course, be wrong is our "observations" of God on which we have based our doctrine, just as scientists might discover that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is wrong in accurately describing ist subject matter.  But to say that we are wrong in our observation of the Triune identity of God is one thing: to say that God is not Triune is quite another.

What this is about, then, is what all good theology is about – explanation of our actual experience.  The Doctrine of the Trinity is our best attempt to explain how it is that we have over the centuries experienced the God whom we worship.  And, of course, all that is rooted in our belief that God has perfectly (fully) revealed himself in and through the birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

So this Sunday is, for me, the first of our Summing-up Sundays – coming, as it does, roughly halfway through our Liturgical Year.  We have now recalled, pondered, and celebrated the major stages of the life cycle of the Christ: after today we turn our attention to issues of discipleship as we seek to apply our understanding of who God is in our daily lives of faith.  That is exactly the process followed by the early Church in arriving at the conclusion that God is Trinity.  How could this man Jesus of Nazareth do the things that, hitherto, only God could do?  How could this man Jesus of Nazareth be put to death and yet re-appear three days later?  What sense does all the testimony by eye-witnesses to these events make?  And who is this "Abba" to which he directed his prayers; and this "Spirit of Truth" whom he promised and who came in such abundance at Pentecost (and has kept "coming" ever since)?

We need an intellectual framework, a mental construct, to make sense of these actual observations and experiences for exactly the same reason that scientists need one to make sense of gravity.  They call theirs "laws", we call ours "doctrines", but essentially they are the same.  We say that God is Triune because, to the best of our knowledge and belief, GOD IS TRIUNE.

And while I'm in an argumentative mood, here is something else I want to vent.  When the late Archbishop Brian Davis was Bishop of Wellington he used to send a monthly Ad Clerum to his clergy.  In one edition he included an Episcopal Directive to the effect that all baptisms were to be conducted "in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".  I can still remember my bewilderment on reading this directive as I was still very new and green in the priestly ministry at the time, and I hadn't realised that any of my colleagues might have thought otherwise.  However, reading on I discovered that some clergy had decided to substitute words such as "Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life", apparently because the traditional formula was considered too patriarchal for modern tastes.

Archbishop Brian was a gentle soul, and he didn't really enjoy issuing directives; but he pointed out that the traditional formula was spelt out in the Scriptures, had been used by the Church throughout its history, and was included in our baptismal liturgy, the only formulary approved for use in the diocese.  While it is, of course, true that God is our Creator, that is a relationship we share with every other part of creation: we have the unique privilege of being children of God through baptism, and therefore it is appropriate to acknowledge God as our Father.

I doubt whether many priests changed their practice as a result of the directive, if only because we prefer to be seen as warm, fuzzy, trendy and in touch with the mores of the time, rather than respect our own traditions, teaching and understanding.  But at least on Trinity Sunday, can we worship unapologetically the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and leave the modern mushy alternatives for less important occasions!

Proverbs.  What a wonderful passage this!  The whole chapter is worth reading.  The first part, of which verses 1-4 are a summary, seem to be about the dawning of consciousness.  To see what I mean, read verses 22-36 first, and then verses 1-21.  First comes creation, and then we reach a stage where dialogue between Wisdom and humanity becomes possible.  Verses 22-31 make it clear that there was nothing random, or whimsical, or experimental about creation.  I mustn't use such a charged expression as "intelligent design", of course, but "Intentional Creation" would surely be a fair summary of what these verses say.  Before God created anything Wisdom was there.  God, so to speak, conversed with himself, consulted himself, thought things through in his head, before he started his creative work.  "Let us make humankind", is a clear example given in Genesis 1:26.  Creation is a deliberate and deliberative action that continues to this day.  And it is one that brings with it great joy, as verses 30 and 31 make it clear – "rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race".  Come back to verses 1-4ff, and we see the parental care and guidance following on from the delight of childbirth, calling the new species to grow in understanding (consciousness and self-awareness).  It's all very Teilhardian!

 Taking It Personally.

• Read the whole of chapter 8 over slowly, several times.  Pause with any phrase that grabs your attention.  This is a great passage for lectio divina.
• Pay particular attention to verses 32-35.  How might these shape your own spiritual practices?
• Go for a walk, or look out of your window.  Select a small created item and gaze at it a while.  Experience your feelings as you do so.  How would you describe them?  Would "rejoicing" and "delight" come close?
• Remind yourself that God's delight in the human race includes his delight in you: how do you feel about that?
• Remind yourself that God's delight in the human race includes all those special people in whom you delight, too.  Share God's delight in them, and thank God for them.
• Make a list of them, and pray God's blessing on each of them each day by name.  Add to the list whenever you think of someone else in whom you delight.
• And do it all in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

 

 

 

Romans.  Characteristically, St Paul starts this passage with "Therefore".  Therefore, before we go any further we need to check back to see what he has just said.  We find that he has been reminding us that, because Abraham believed the wild promises of God, it was credited to him as righteousness.  Now, says St Paul, in a similar way, our faith in the promises of God made manifest in the resurrection of Jesus Christ will be credited to us as righteousness.  This term" righteousness" is a rather clunky way of saying that our previous battered relationship with God is restored to health, and so we have peace with God (we are reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ).  But wait – that's not all!  Also through him we have gained access to the ongoing grace of God.  And that's not all either!  We also now have hope of sharing in God's glory (or as the author of Second Peter puts it, we may become participants in the divine nature).  So, says St Paul, even suffering takes on a new meaning, as it enables us to "man-up" spiritually.  The key here is hope, and that is rooted in the love of God that has been (past tense, not will or might be at some time in the future!) poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  And there we have a brief theological summary of baptism, which (as I may have already mentioned) is always conducted in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

• Are you at peace with God?  Take time for self-examination.
• Are you conscious of standing in the grace of God?  What does that feel like? Reviewing the past week, can you think of any particular moment in which you were particularly conscious of standing in the grace of God?
• Focus on verses 3 and 4.  Has this been your experience of suffering, or has suffering been anything but a time of growing closer to God?
• Are you aware of the love of God in your heart?  Do you feel in need of a top up?  Ask God, in the name of his Son, to send his Spirit upon you afresh this very day.

 

John.  Jesus, the teacher, has taken his disciples as far as they can go at this stage.  To go further they need the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth as Jesus calls him here.  Perhaps we should pause here and think about this.  Our human capacity to hear, to learn and to understand can only take us so far along the way of faith – to go further we need the gift of the Holy Spirit.  In other words there is a wisdom greater than human wisdom, whatever Geering, Harris and Dawkins may wish to have us believe.  And of course, that wisdom comes to us courtesy of the Holy Spirit who draws it from the Son who has received it from the Father.  I don't want to labour the point, so I'll leave it at that.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

• There comes a time when words just don't cut it.  Spend time in silent adoration of the Triune God at the centre of all Reality.  And be thankful.