Trinity Sunday Romans 5:1-5 May 30, 2010
Today is the day known as Holy Trinity Sunday.
It is that day in the life of the church that we take time to draw our attention to a doctrine of the faith, that being the church's teaching on the Holy Trinity.
Having said that, allow me to also say, that this is often a church festival preachers love to hate—OK, so maybe, "hate" is too strong a word.
It is, however a vexing prospect to find a meaningful and appropriate way to address this matter of faith in a way this is both helpful and relevant.
If you have sat through a few Holy Trinity sermons over the years you will have no doubt heard an assortment of analogies, images and metaphors used to illustrate the mystery and essence of the triune God in a way that makes some sort of sense.
I recall the image I initially encountered as a kid and one that I have used as well involving the chemical compound H20 and its various states of being: water, vapor, and ice. Going back even further to the Middle Ages, St. Patrick made use of the shamrock as a visual aid to describe the three-in-one nature of God.
One of the early church patriarchs, St. Augustine recalls walking along a beach where he saw a young boy digging a hole.
He saw the hole was filling with water and asked the child about the depth of the hole.
The child was purported to have said, "Immeasurable and fathomless" which pretty well summed up Augustine's perception of the mystery of the Trinity.
In a more contemporary version one woman wrote about wearing "different hats" or filling "different roles" and in doing so helps to flesh out the mystery a bit more.
She writes:
"I am a daughter, and a wife and mother—Three things, yet I am one totality.
To my parents, I would always be their child,
To my husband, a companion and mate,
To my children, the one who gave them birth and nurtured them till they reached adult state.
I seem to each of them a different person;
They each know a different kind of ‘me',
But I am one, within myself a trinity,
And each of them finds unity in me."
I like this analogy because it reminds us that like the Holy Trinity, the more wisdom and years accumulated on our shoulders, the more we realize in our various relationships that you really can't know everything about a person—let alone the mysteries of God.
There is always that great-unknown area.
All our personal knowledge of another is just that—personal, from our own personal and limited viewpoint. And maybe rather than approaching the Trinity like it's a crossword puzzle—something you can ultimately solve—maybe we need to simply stand in awe and appreciate the mystery.
Speaking of standing in awe, in years past it was not uncommon for some churches to subject the folks on Sunday morning to the reading of the Athanasius Creed, the long creed that says in part:
We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity,
Neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.
For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Holy Spirit is another.
But the godhead pf the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Sprit is one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal."
And so on and on and on…
Recently I came across another image, created by Andrei Rublev back in the 1400's in an icon depicting the three angles that visited Abraham.
You will find a copy and some comments regarding the icon in your bulletin.
With a little imagination you might be able to visualize the colors not present in the black and white copy.
Feel free to take it home and do some coloring and then tape it to your refrigerator door as daily reminder of the Holy Trinity!
Even if we did have a color printer, the sad truth is that all images we humans conjure will fall woefully short of the majesty and mystery of the triune God.
All images and metaphors are but poor attempts to explain what our limited minds cannot fully comprehend. Even though the words in our psalm for today stir up some of that majesty as found in the words:
" O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!—you whose glory is chanted above the heavens out of the mouths of infants and children…
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their course, what are mere mortal that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?
In the end, they pale.
So then, should we simply give up, call it a mystery, and move on with our day? No way!
Part of being good stewards of the faith, especially the mysteries of the faith, is in always trying to provide fresh and faithful ways of glimpsing our amazing God.
If we really are to go out into the world as the hands and feet of Christ, in the presence of the Spirit, and dearly loved by our Creator God, then we sure enough ought to keep trying, reaching and deepening our understanding, continually equipping one another with words and images to assist in communicating the good news.
A couple of weeks ago I ventured into unfamiliar waters by talking about music and harmony in order to make a point.
This morning I want to try another approach, one that the musicians will be able to translate into their unique context, but one that is directed primarily at acting and it is called ensemble acting.
Ensemble acting is an approach to the craft where everyone works on behalf of the play or film rather than on highlighting individual performances.
At its best, an ensemble production is seamless, powerful, and memorable; every part lifts the whole.
For some, this may sound like a bit of a stretch, but if you enjoy acting, good theater and cinema, or good television you'll probably be able to appreciate where I am headed in this analogy.
Some of you might remember the late director John Hugues's films like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, both of which are solid examples of ensemble acting.
Another is Spike Lee's classic, Do The Right Thing, or almost anything involving Monty Python.
Think of Broadway productions like Rent, Hair, and Guys and Dolls, or television ensembles such as the cast of Glee, The Office, and Saturday Night Live.
Are you still with me?
Or, have I muddied the waters?
Are you wondering how all this ties into the Trinity?
Take another look at the Icon again.
Take a good look at it, study it.
If you've read William Paul Young's novel The Shack, recall how the Trinity is manifested in the novel: an African-American woman calling her self Papa, a Middle –Eastern carpenter, and an Asian woman named Sarayu.
Do you see how all of these examples are communal in nature; not one person of the Trinity is elevating above the other?
The work of all three persons of God is necessary—creating, redeeming, and sanctifying, and loving this beautiful, broken world.
Perhaps the reason we have so much trouble with these imperfect analogies, metaphors, and images is that we humans are still trying to figure out the divine crossword puzzle and in doing so, "mastering" God.
We dissect the Trinity, even elevating one person of the Trinity above the others or completely discounting one of the three-in-one and one-in-three.
Ration and logic prevent us from fully embracing the mystery.
Now here's the really cool part: even though we're not in control, we're all connected, all part of this divine ensemble as beloved children of God and co-workers in this eternal "production".
What we do matters because we are all in this together (whether we choose to realize and /or acknowledge it.) True, we won't ever be able to fully understand and nail down the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we can work at being the best and faithful members of the ensemble that we possibly can be—disciples, stewards, followers, seekers, ministers, and neighbors—all in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
+ Considerable help is due to Pastor Sharron R. Lucas's essay blog: The Divine Ensemble
Pastor Stephen Blenkush
Zion Lutheran
Milaca, MN
www.ZionMilaca.org(Sermon Archive)
