On the Trinity

Ann and I are participating in one of the oldest rituals that there is in human existence- one that goes probably goes back to Adam and Eve. The discussion of what to name the baby. I have a strong preference for two names. The first, for a girl, is Miriam. I think in Miriam, Moses' sister, we get the example of a faithful devotion to God filled with happiness, gratitude, fortitude and singing. Ann finds this to be a beautiful name as well. The name that I would pick for a boy is Athanasius. Ann isn't quite as enthusiastic about that one. My sister has said that if we settle on these names, she hopes for a girl. I admit that Athanasius is not a very common name, and it might take a while to learn how to spell, but his namesake, Athanasius of Alexandria of the fourth century was used by God in a way that few others have been. God used Athanasius to help us to understand the Trinity. Did you get that? Athanasius helps us to understand the true nature of God, he helps us to speak well about God. Some of you still look skeptical. As our call to worship, we read Athanasian Creed. I admit, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But if you spend some time with it, you can see the nutshell of our faith. This morning, we are going to look ever so briefly at what this might mean.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It is one of the times during the year where we pause for a moment and ask the big question to God- Who are you anyhow. The response that the faithful get is I am. I am the Father, I am the Son, I am the Holy Spirit. And we ask, which one? I am. I am the Father, I am the Son, I am the Holy Spirit. And this would be as good as a spot as any to end this sermon, because once we get past saying that God is the Father, Son, and Spirit, we start to get into trouble. But I am going to go on anyhow.

The most common criticism of Christianity by Muslims is that we are tritheists. A faithful Muslim would say, “there is but one God, Allah. But these Christians, they worship 3. They worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They baptize their children in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They give their lives to three, not one”. A faithful Christian must respond, “No, we worship but one God, in three personas.”

[Certain Tibetan Buddhist Monks ... chords]

This would have been a big help in the early third century, when Turtullian struggled to find a word to describe the three aspects of the one God.

(3-1) Let's try it together. This side says 1, this side says 3. I think that there is a message about why the church needs diversity in order to get the whole story, but that was a sermon that some of you already suffered through on Wednesday.

3-1. St. Patrick's Day children's sermon. [3 leaves or 1 leaf] What Pat really said though was, we do not even have the language to describe a shamrock accurately, how can we describe God? So maybe I better stop here?

No, lets give it our best anyhow.

The Athanasian creed that we read sets out four rules for speaking well about God.

1. there is one God

2. the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God

3. these three persons of the Trinity are distinct. the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

4. this is the essence of what Christians believe, so you better pray hard about it

To understand the basics of the Trinity is to understand the basics of God. God is excessive. God is overflowing abundance. Right now, on some deserted island, there are tens of thousands of flowers blooming that no-one will ever see. What a waste. No, God is like that. God doesn't do anything half way. We also know that God is love. Not that God has love, but God is love. And it is an excessive love. It is a love that is so excessive and perfect that the only object of this love that can handle it is Godself. God's love pours out from the Father and into the Son, and out from the Son and through the Spirit and from the Spirit and into God and it still spills over into all of creation. This excessive love that we see this in the Trinity shows us something quite amazing about God, if you think about it. Our God is a relational God. Not some mastermind in the sky. Not some cold. unconcerned great principle. No, our God, the God of love, the God of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is relational. And this is good news sisters and brothers. We are direct recipients of God's overflowing love and thank God for that.

God is relational. This is how we can understand how we can have 3-1. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Now, in these days of Oprah, we all take it for granted that we are to love ourselves. But lets step back and look at that for a second. When we speak of love, we are usually implying that there is a subject and an object. “I love Ann.” “Ann loves Eggplant Parmesan (and me too, I hope).” There is a person that is doing the loving, and there is someone or something being loved. But Jesus tells us it is perfectly reasonable to love yourself. In fact it is the benchmark for fulfilling our Gospel call to love our neighbors as ourselves. The subject is I, and the object is I. There are not two separate 'I's, but one I that loves and receives the love. So it is with the Trinity.

My identity is relational as well. I am a pastor. I am a husband. I am a friend. I will soon be a father. I am a son. I am me. Each of these entail different roles, different relationships. I say and do things differently in the role of a pastor than I do as a husband. But they draw from the same me. The same character, the same characteristics, are applied to all aspects of my life. So it is, in a sense, with God the Trinity.

There are many other ways that our church Fathers and Mothers have left us to understand the Trinity, and I love to explore, so if you want to talk more about it, give me a call. Seriously. But for now, lets go with this.

“Within the Trinity, there is constant movement, interaction, as the Father gives to the Son, and the Son is constantly returning praise and glory to the Father, and the Father and the Son give to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit constantly draws everything back to the Father and the Son. There is the Beloved, the Lover, and the Love.” (Willimon)

Next week, we will answer the question. “So what? How does God being a Triune God affect my life in some other way than giving me a headache.” But for this week, I think that it is enough that we pray for increased understanding of God. That we continue to seek to learn more about God, in the same way that we ask a newfound friend questions about their life and who they are so that we can have a deeper relationship with her. God's very nature is based on relationships. So we, as creatures with the image of God in our breasts- we are called to be based in relationships. We are called to give and take, to assert and sacrifice, to be willing to compromise with each other, even if it means not naming your child Athanasius, even if you know that it is the best possible name, to offer ourselves wholly to one another.

God being abundant, effusive, gracious and ridiculously generous in God's outpouring of love calls us to be abundant, effusive, gracious, and ridiculously generous in our outpouring of love. When we reflect on the awesomeness of the nature of God in the Trinity and our relationship with God, our illusions of lack melt away. We are introduced into a different way of seeing our lives. We see abundance. We see that we partake in God's abundance. The world tells us to hide away our talents, our money, and be cautious about who we love. The Trinity tells us that to stop moving through relationships is death. That if you bury your talents, you lose them. If Amen? Amen.