One of my current favorite things the Church Pension Group publishes is the monthly cartoon wall calendar. Every month has a cartoon from the Rev. Jay Sidebotham about parish life. The cartoon for May 2024 shows a priest wildly waving his arms at the front of a church with two well dressed ladies whispering to each other in a front pew. The lady in yellow says, “Psst. Why is the Preacher tying himself up in knots?” The lady in pink responds, “Oh, it happens every Trinity Sunday.”
It can be really hard to say anything real about the Trinity.
What can you say about something that is fundamental to our relationship with God, but that none of us understand?
Human language cannot truly describe God.
But we keep trying anyway.
The Center for Action and Contemplation, an organization created by Richard Rohr, Catholic priest, monk, and writer, sends out a daily reflection email. In their reflection on the Trinity, published Tuesday, September 11, 2018, the author wrote,
“In our attempts to explain the Trinitarian mystery, the Western Church overemphasized the individual names - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - but not so much the quality of the relationships between them, which is where all the power and meaning lies!”
“The real and essential point is how the three “persons” relate to one another: infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.”
“The Mystery of God as Trinity invites us into full participation with God - a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love. God is a verb much more than a noun.”
“This view of the Trinity invites us to interactively experience God as transpersonal (“Father”), personal (“Christ”), and even impersonal (“Holy Spirit”) - all at once.”
“Scottish theologian Richard of St. Victor (1110-1173) reflected this early theology. He taught at great length that for God to be truth, God had to be one; for God to be love, God had to be two; and for God to be joy, God had to be three!”
We cannot understand God in Gods’ self. We can enter into the mystery of the experience of God. God who is One and Three, always pouring themselves out for the other in perfect community. Andrei Rublev painted the classic icon of the Trinity as three angels who are all pointing to each other.
Liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff, wrote a book called, ‘Holy Trinity, Perfect Community’ about his understanding of the communal nature of the Trinity. God as Three in One represents a community in perfect love. Never focused on their own part, but always looking towards the other parts. We hear this in the way that Jesus talks about the Father and the Spirit.
Of course, God is also perfect Unity. One and only one, as the Shema from Deuteronomy says,
Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
Hear O Israel, God is our God, God is One.
Our amazing God is one and is community as well.
This is where we tie ourselves up in knots.
Which is it? It’s both.
We have all been made in the image of God, as it says in Genesis.
Yet, we don’t seem to be designed to be three in one or one in three.
As much as we can strive for unity with others,
It is much easier for us to strive to be community.
Unity may not lie within our abilities here on earth,
but community is something we can create.
As more and more people live more of their lives online, our abilities to sustain in person relationships are changing. Yet, churches are relational spaces. Community is based on the web of connections, relationships, and trust in each other. As I have gotten to know Messiah in the last three months, I have found many wonderful things going on here. Dedicated musicians, an emphasis on reaching out to the community in many and various ways. I have also seen some problematic communal behaviors, particularly a quickness to heated disagreement and a dismissiveness of others, which belies a crumbling of some of the core beliefs this community has about itself and its mission in the world.
As we move forward together, I hope that we can strive to be good healthy community. Not forgetting the past, but finding healthier ways to move forward. I think everybody who is here really knows the gift of Messiah and loves the community that gathers together. We may not always agree, and there are things that not everybody gets a say in and that can be hard in a community that has functioned in one way for a long time and now needs to function in a new way. There are healthy ways to disagree with each other and still remain in community.
The example of God as Trinity, as a perfect community, is hard to follow, since we know we will never achieve perfect community here on earth. However, in the example of Jesus and his disciples, we see a community in which the core values of God: love, grace, mercy, justice, humility, truth, joy, are lived out among people who disagree and still remain a community. Throughout the New Testament we see the disciples struggling with what it means to be in relationship, what it means to love, to forgive, to walk in humility, to find joy in a complicated world. Always they come back to Jesus, to God, to the Spirit and their relationships. Building our relationships with each other is a key aspect of being in good healthy community. Whether we do this through leadership roles or fellowship, doing community service projects together, or simply worshiping together, our community moves us closer to God.
Our God is an awesome God, who has created us in God’s image. We are beloved children of a Trinity who knows no bounds. Who loves and flows and cares for each other in ways we cannot imagine. We can strive towards living our lives in loving community as much as we are able to on this Earth, not limiting ourselves to our own cares, but regarding each other as integral parts of our lives and ultimate happiness.
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