Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
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The Trinity is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons sharing one essence/substance/nature.
While the biblical text doesn’t name the Trinity per se, Jesus talked about his connection with the One he called Abba, and then he promised us the Holy Spirit, who would guide us into all truth. The Trinity is evoked in scripture.
So, now that we have the theological definition of Trinity and a scriptural basis for it, what does it mean for our life in God and our love of God?
Evagrius of Pontus, a Greek monk of the 4th century who came from what is now Turkey in Asia and later lived out his vocation in Egypt, said: "God cannot be grasped by the mind. If God could be grasped, God would not be God." So don’t expect to fully grasp the mystery of the Trinity after my sermon is over.
Our faith teaches that God is One God, in Trinity of Persons in Unity of Being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is not easy to grapple with the concept of the Trinity. God is full, rich, abundant, multiple, yet one. God is not alone. God is a collective; a community of three.
The Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier pour themselves out in love. Each receives the love and the love overflows in all of Creation. And we are not so much called to struggle with the concept of the Trinity as we are to relate to the persons of the Trinity.
If you are like me, you can relate to only one person from the Trinity at a time. And depending on circumstances, I call upon one rather than the other. Sure, some of my prayers address the Trinity as the Sacred Three, the ever One, the Trinity. But most often I call on Jesus. Next in my popularity chart is God the Creator. And apologies to the Holy Spirit but she comes in third spot nowadays.
We’re tempted to analyze and explain the Trinity by our intellect, but mystery can only be encountered by the heart. Mystery is that which cannot be apprehended by reason, but once apprehended, is not contrary to reason.
The mystery of the Trinity is a paradigm of what it means to be human and to relate humanely to others. God is always relating, within God’s self, and beyond God’s self, a love and joy so unimaginable that it cannot be contained.
Henri Nouwen called the Trinity a “House of Love”. He wrote that in that household “there is no fear, no greed, no anger, no violence, no anxieties, no pain, even no words, only enduring love and deepening trust.”
Jesus’ teaching to “Love your neighbor as yourself” is an admonition to love the other as a continuation of our very own being. It’s seeing that your neighbor is you. There are not two individuals, one seeking to better oneself at the expense of the other, or to extend charity to the other. Each is equally precious and necessary.
That is the kind of Love that goes around among the Trinity. The triune God is showing us how to empty oneself in self-giving love and at the same time being constantly replenished by God’s love.
When we open ourselves up, we move away from any need to protect our own power, we mirror the Trinity where all power is shared, where there is no domination, threat, or coercion.
To say that God is Triune is to mean that God is social in nature. It is also to say that those made in God’s image are likewise intrinsically social. If we believe in a Trinitarian God, then we must hold fast to the truth that God is community—a completely loving, mutually self-giving, endlessly generative relationship between equal partners.
True union does not absorb distinctions but actually intensifies them. The more one gives one’s self in creative union with another, the more one becomes one’s self. This is reflected in the Trinity, perfect giving and perfect receiving.
We mirror the Trinity where all power is shared, where there is no domination, threat, or coercion.
Br Christian Swayne, OHC, of blessed memory once noted that he was not much of a theologian, so he didn’t claim to know much about the doctrine of the Trinity. He described his view as just a simple view of the Trinity.
This is how he described that view: “I can love God, but I can't say I really understand God. God is simply too big and too vast. And I can say I love the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit is so mysterious that I can't say I even understand who or what the Spirit is – so I'm not really sure what I mean when I say I love the Spirit. But I can understand Jesus – Jesus the human being... I could stand next to Jesus, eat with Jesus, put my arms around Jesus, laugh and cry with Jesus. I can relate to Jesus.”
But Br Christian didn’t stop there. He said that the things he could understand, think, feel, or attribute to Jesus, he should also be able to understand, think, feel, and attribute to God and the Holy Spirit. The qualities of Jesus are, after all, the qualities of the One God in three persons.
And, more importantly, Br Christian noted, the things he could not think about Jesus, he supposed he should not think about God or the Holy Spirit either.
So, here we are, spiritual beings relating with a Triune God and one another. Living as related beings means that we seek out the voices in our midst that are not heard. It means we work through all of the barriers that seem to divide us, dismantling power systems based on hatred and domination. It means we treat the Earth, not as a reservoir of food and fuel, but as a dynamic and living organism to treasure and nurture. It means we learn to love the complexity within ourselves, having patience with the parts of ourselves that still need conversion. It means we give thanks for having been created as a part of a web of life and love that pours out of God’s own inner web of connectivity and relatedness. That’s how we live out the mystery of the Trinity in our very being.
As Br. Scott Borden said, I thank God because one of the most important theological concepts in Christianity is steeped in mystery. A mystery that we simply cannot easily explain away. And that makes our minds, formed by modernity, just a little bit crazy.
Or as Saint Paul put it, “… the foolishness of god is wiser than men.” Thanks be to God.
Glory to the Creator, and to the Redeemer, and to the Sanctifier, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
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