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Trinity Sunday
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Scripture citation(s): Ecclesiasticus 43:1-12,27-33; Revelation 19:4-16
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Ecclesiasticus 43:1-12,27-33; Revelation 19:4-16
✛
We may speak much, and yet come short: wherefore in sum, he is all.
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There have been numerous attempts to find ways of teaching about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; the shamrock or three-leaved clover, being the favored symbol in many an Irish pulpit. I have heard the chemical formula for water, H2O, a molecule with three atoms also used. There was a priest back in Yorkshire who took a can of ‘3-in-one’ oil into the pulpit with him!
Of course, any human analogy or image will fail to adequately explain what, in essence, is unexplainable. Historically, it could be said that what we celebrate today is the first ecumenical council of the Church, the council of Nicaea in 325. That Council gave us the first version of the Nicene Creed, in which it was made unambiguously clear that the Church professed a faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the three persons of the Trinity shared the same nature and substance. But that declaration of faith and the use of credal formulae was not an end in itself, rather, a response to the life of faith and the experience of God revealed in the created order.
The Church has, for centuries, argued over words and what words mean. At its worst, Christians have been tried and put to death over what words mean. In that sense, any exploration of Christian dogma brings with it a sense of risk. On the one hand, the Truth which Jesus said ‘will set us free’ is of paramount importance, but on the other hand, the exploration of that Truth has led to disagreement and schism. Pilate’s words ‘What is Truth’ forever carry a powerful irony for as St Paul reminds us, “Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:22-25)
St Anselm’s great argument for the proof of the existence of God is often summed up in one sentence, “there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.” (St Anselm: Proslogium: Chapter 2)
Or, put beautifully in our first reading from Ecclesiasticus, “We may speak much, and yet come short: wherefore in sum, he is all. How shall we be able to magnify him? for he is great above all his works.” Ecclus. 43:27-28
The fact remains that our celebration of the Holy and undivided Trinity today is as much a celebration of the experience of the presence of God in our world and in our lives as it is about our attempts to put this into words or concepts. What makes Christianity different from other world religions is the belief, no, the knowledge, that this is not a religion about words but a religion in which The Word became flesh and, through God’s participation in the world, he has revealed himself in a way that can be described by mere mortals. God may be that than which nothing greater can be thought, but he is a God that has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Old Testament is full of images about God’s presence and action in the world. I guess if I were to ask Rabbi Angela Buchdahl from our nearby Central Synagogue, “Who is God?” the answer I would get would probably not be in philosophical terms, but more likely reach back to the very heart of Jewish faith and culture; perhaps she might say, “God brought us out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land” – a faith also expressed liturgically through symbolic action, ritual and music.
God made his presence felt through many signs and wonders. Those signs of God’s glory were tangible and real to those who experienced them; the burning bush, the pillar of fire or cloud that led the Hebrew Tribes through the Red Sea, the Cloud over Mount Sinai, or over the Tent of Meeting, or filling the Temple were just a few of the ways that God’s glory was manifest during the early years of Israel’s existence. Moses asked to see God face to face and was denied that opportunity; but in climbing the mountain God did allow him to see his glory, and, God the creator was experienced as Father.
The disciples, also, experienced the presence of God in the person of Jesus Christ who said that he and his heavenly Father would make their home in the heart of the believer. A classic example from the Gospels, which directly links into the experience of the Hebrew Tribes, is the Transfiguration, when Jesus, significantly, climbs a mountain with Peter, James and John and they glimpse his true nature as God and look him in the face. After the Resurrection, the disciples felt the presence of Jesus time and time again: the Emmaus disciples said “Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked to us on the road” and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread.” (Luke 24:32)
After the Resurrection, Christians experienced the power of God and felt the action of the God through his Holy Spirit in and through the Church – charging individual lives, and changing the church into a community of love.
This revelation of the action and the presence of God in the world has led theologians to describe God as the economic Trinity – the economy of salvation is such that God actively participates with human beings in creation and in time. This is very important to our understanding of the Trinity, for it is easy for Christians to be accused of simply inventing devices or paradigms for God; if you like, using human terms to describe the indescribable. But at the heart of the Christian Faith is the revelation of God as a human being – in Jesus Christ – who taught us to pray to the Father and whose Spirit inspires us still.
Therefore, saying ‘Amen’ at the end of the Creed is not about neatly wrapping our Faith in God into mere words or, worse, some kind of formula. May I suggest that the Amen is not the end but the beginning – a fresh invitation to God to enter again the lives of the ones he has created in his image, and to open our eyes to behold his glory so that we can one day say, as we read in our second lesson today: “And I saw heaven opened.” Rev. 19:11a
