"The Holy Trinity" Invitation And Definition" June 11, 2006

Today the theme of our worship is a church doctrine! This is the only Sunday of the church year that that is true. (Every other Sunday the theme is an event in the life of Jesus, or of the Jesus movement that became the Church.)

“Doctrine” is such a boring word to many people, particularly so when it is the doctrine of The Holy Trinity. But I’m here to tell you that this is exciting stuff! Here we are deep into the mystery that is God: God’s tri-unity. It is mystery that can never be understood. It can only be entered into. This morning, to pick just two aspects of the mystery, let’s look at the Trinity as invitation, and then as definition. (Are your seat belts buckled? Lots of this you won’t have thought about before.)

When God comes to us in tri-unity, God is inviting us into relationship. Indeed, God is relationship! Out of the stuff that is God, God proceeds, as Father, and as Son, and as Holy Spirit. God’s three identities are all equally God! (It’s not like there’s “God” up here, “the Father”; and then there is “the Son,” who’s not quite God; and then “the Holy Spirit,” who comes tagging along afterwards in third place.) It is God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in relationship with each other, in a three-way divine dance. God is relationship!

And as God comes to us, as Father and Son and Holy Spirit, you and I are invited into that relationship! Here is deep mystery: God refuses to be God without us (even though that causes God to experience suffering, as Jesus the Christ). And so, because God is relationship, and because God created human beings to be partners with God, you and I are drawn into what God is doing in creation. God’s activity is creating, and redeeming, and delivering, and saving, and making holy. As that is happening in you and among us, we are drawn into that activity too. The Holy Trinity means that our creativity is co-creativity with God! When you do what you can in the lives of others – serving and nourishing and modeling the way of Christ to others – you are doing that in partnership with God!

God is love. Growing in faith means falling more and more deeply in love with God. What kind of a word is “love?” Love is a relationship word! Love is what happens in relationship.

God invites you and me into relationship. God invites us into the divine dance. It is Father and Son and Holy Spirit dancing together, and including us in all of God’s activity in creation and among people!

If God is Holy Trinity, then all of that is true! Isn’t that an exciting way of knowing God?

The doctrine of The Holy Trinity also gives definition to God. I struggle with what word to use here, in the mystery. Should I use “definition?” Or “corrective,” instead?” Or “guide,” or maybe “boundary,” or even “expansion” of how we conceive of God? The Holy Trinity provides all of that.

For instance, because of the doctrine of The Holy Trinity, the Franciscan Richard Rohr describes God as “powerful powerlessness.” Rohr writes about a painting above the altar in a Cistercian monastery in Germany, done by a 16th century artist named Sebastian Dayg. In the painting, the Father and the Son are standing next to each other, looking at each other, reaching up and holding the same sword. Let me quote how Richard Rohr describes the painting, with its Trinitarian theology. (In From Wild Man to Wise Man: Relfections on Male Spirituality)

"Look at the stereotypical figure of God the Father. He’s a stern old man with a flowing gray beard, and in his left hand he holds the orb that in medieval times symbolized kingly power. If you look more closely, though, you see that the orb of power is slipping from his hand! God the Father, the supreme authority figure, is supposedly in control of the whole world, and yet he seems to be losing that control. Maybe he is sure enough of his own power that he can let go of it. He is so certain of his own authority that he doesn’t have to manipulate or dominate. He is self-possessed enough that he can allow for freedom, error and weakness.

"At the same time that the Father allows us our freedom, he is also demanding. This is symbolized in the painting by a large sword that the Father holds in his right hand, wielding it over his head. This is the expectant and exacting side of God, summoning us to use well the freedom he has given us and challenging us to be all that we can be. In human fathers it’s a kind of love that pushes and won’t put up with excuses. It’s a very masculine, tough love, not brutal or threatening, just hopeful and effective. …

"The other side of God in the picture is the Son. In the painting this is symbolized by Jesus, stripped almost naked and still wearing the crown of thorns. If the Father is the strong and demanding side of God, the Son is the weak and suffering side, the part of God that identifies with our brokenness and even with our sinfulness. God asks a lot of us, but God also knows our feebleness and limitations by solidarity with us. In the painting the Father is looking into the Son’s eyes and the Son is looking into the Father’s eyes in perfect reciprocity and mutual understanding. Strength is honoring weakness and weakness is honoring strength. They know they need one another.

"As if to emphasize his human weakness, Jesus’ right thumb is in the bleeding wound in his side and his fingers pointing toward it, but his left hand reaches up and grabs the sword that is poised above the head of these two figures. The Son holds back the sternness of the Father and prevents it from being too severe, so that the toughness and tenderness of God are in perfect balance. … If the Father is the powerful side of God, the Son is the vulnerable side. The two are in perfect tension… The creative energy that tension releases is symbolized by the dove of the Holy Spirit, which, appropriately enough, hovers on the balanced sword. It is this same kind of creative energy that is released whenever strength and gentleness understand and respect each other."

How exciting is this Trinitarian theology, as it helps us to understand who God is!
The doctrine of The Holy Trinity corrects the distortions of God that happen when one identity of the Trinity is emphasized over another. For instance, many people have a hard time with God as “Father,” because of abusive, or at least angry fathers. In the triune dance, God the Son expands that narrow conception of God. And so, God the Son is God absorbing and suffering the anger of the world! Wow.

Another example: it is limiting and distorting to think of God as male. Drawing from the riches of our Christian tradition, on Mother’s Day I printed the 14th century quote from Julian of Norwich, in which she called Jesus our perfect mother! In our Christian tradition, the male Jesus is the embodiment of holy wisdom – and wisdom is identified with the feminine. In addition, is the Holy Spirit the feminine in the divine, triune dance? (Are your seatbelts still buckled?) Perhaps you have noticed that I never use the pronoun, “he,” for God, because God includes and transcends maleness and femaleness.

Another example. As comforting as it may be, it is a distortion to overemphasize God as “friend.” (“What a friend we have in Jesus …”) Then God is distorted so that everything revolves around me! All God wants is my happiness, and I can do whatever I want to do and God is still my friend! Right? Wrong!

The doctrine of The Holy Trinity corrects such a distortion. For the Trinitarian corrective, simply check out today’s First Reading and Psalm.

From Psalm 29:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty….
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon….
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. …
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Wow! After all that scary-sounding imagery describing God, we come to a prayer for the blessing of peace, which is what God yearns for, for all human beings and for all of creation. What an admixture here, of holiness and grace and love! God is all of that, in tri-unity.

And from the first reading this morning, in Isaiah 6, the terrifying vision of God’s holiness, complete with seraphs swooping around:

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

What images! After all that talk of seraphs and red-hot coals, “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” What holiness and grace and love!

God as Holy Trinity is powerful and powerless, male and female, transcendent “other” and intimately present with us. God is all of that – and more. It is deep mystery.

In the life of faith, God draws us deeper and deeper into the Trinitarian mystery.

Thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia