Trinity Sunday - 26 May 2024

The arm of the Father be about you,

The way of Christ guide you,

The strength of the Spirit support you.

The holy God encircle you and keep you safe;

The might God defend you from all dangers;

The loving God give you his peace.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Trinity Sunday! The only celebration in the church calendar dedicated entirely to a theological concept. So you’d think that with an entire day on the church calendar dedicated to the Trinity that we all must be really well versed in what it is and what it means, right? How it works? But sadly, the Trinity is one of the most talked about but least explained elements of Christianity after the nature of Christ himself. Beyond consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it’s a very difficult concept to explain, which is part of the reason that so many actively try to avoid preaching on this Sunday. As I said to Rev. Justin when he asked if I would like to preach today: “it’s hard to say anything about the Trinity other than ‘it’s a mystery!’ without committing heresy.” I don’t know if that sets a low bar or a high bar, but it’s certainly intimidating!

So, what IS the Doctrine of the Trinity? Essentially: There is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is one in essence, three in person. The persons are distinct, each is fully God, but there is only one God. So, God is Father, God is Jesus, God is Spirit, Jesus is not Spirit, Spirit is not Father, Father is not Jesus. Co-eternal, always unified and always distinct, but always one. Clear as mud, right? I think the fact that we struggle so hard to wrap our minds around how God is both Three and One at the same time is why so many preachers and teachers of religion simply fall back on “it’s a mystery!”

For me, when I find that I have a hard time finding the words to express an idea, experience, feeling, or Truth I have experienced, I turn to art or music - I let the lyrics and melody or images help me build a bridge from where my imperfect human mind is to the place that God is calling out to me from. When I was in Seminary at VTS there were two topics that created the most conflict within and for me: number one was undoubtedly the deeply troubling anti-Jewish sentiments that underpin much of Christian history, theology, doctrine, language, liturgy, and lectionary. The other? Yup. The Trinity. I couldn’t understand how God was both three and one at the same time. It didn’t math for me. Any attempt to explain the three-ness of God sounded an awful lot like polytheism to me or just fell flat. I read a LOT of theology and analogies about the Trinity - but at the end of the day, what helped me truly grasp this essential part of the Christian understanding of God’s nature was a piece of art.

Andrei Rublev was a Russian artist in the late 14th-early 15th century and is considered the greatest Russian medieval painters of icons and frescoes. In the Orthodox Church, he is recognized and revered as a saint. His most famous icon, and possibly the most famous icon drawn by anyone else as well, is The Trinity, which you can see displayed on the table here. This icon is actually an adaptation of an earlier icon scene, titled the Hospitality of Abraham depicting Genesis 18:1-8 when “The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him.” The original version of this image actually depicted Abraham and Sarah serving the three holy men, who are dressed and posed identically. Rublev, however, zooms the focus in on the three holy visitors sharing a single chalice on the table. Abraham and Sarah have been cropped out of the frame. The heads and faces of the visitors are all almost identical and they sit in similar postures - but the color of their robes have shifted. The first figure wears a gold robe representing the perfection of God the Father. The next wears a blue mantle, the color or the sea and the sky, and displays two fingers representing the dual Human and Divine nature of Christ. This is God the Son. Then we come to the third figure wearing a verdant green to remind us the fertile life-creating force of God the Holy Spirit. Rublev simplifies the image to send a more complicated theological message. He has transformed the three holy visitors into The Trinity. They are equal, but they are not the same. The more you look at this deceptively simple image, the more you see.

The three figures seem to move and flow, one into the other. And as you draw closer to gaze through these images to the Divine Truths they lead you to, you can see that there is a small box in the center of the front of the table directly below the chalice. Modern art historians studying the original icon in Russia have discovered the remains of medieval glue here which may indicate that a mirror used to be affixed to this spot. You see - there are three persons in the Trinity, but there are four sides to the table they sit at, which means that there is space there for you. As you have approached for a closer look, you have joined them at their Holy Feast. You are not merely an observer from the outside looking in at the Trinity - you are seeing yourself sitting there, too.

The more you look, the closer you draw and the more you become a participant. And this participation is what God has been calling us to from the beginning. There are many words we could use to describe God, but at the core - God is relational. God is relational within God’s own self by virtue of the Trinity, but God is also relational with us. God maintained a personal relationship with Abraham and Sarah, with Isaac and Rebecca, and with Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. God maintained a personal relationship with Moses, with the Judges, Kings, and Prophets. And it was in order to establish a personal relationship with each and every one of us that God’s Word became incarnate in the form of Jesus.

My best friend is a priest in Indiana - some of you know one of Ellie Cate godmother’s, Chana - and she is also preaching today. And as we did when we were at VTS together, we were texting each other yesterday to commiserate and bounce ideas of off one another. We both had very similar complaints: the readings today - while WONDERFUL - aren’t really all that helpful in talking about the Trinity. Actually. there aren’t any truly good lessons from the Bible about the Trinity. And, there is actually a really good reason for that. The word “Trinity” wasn’t even invented until the 3rd century and the doctrine didn’t have anything close to widespread agreement until well into the 4th century. That said - you get a lot of language that seems to try to HINT at what they experienced at Easter and Pentecost. The descriptions of these experiences are then combined with descriptions of even earlier experiences of God from the Hebrew Scripture in order to create the Doctrine that we have today. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity points out that the problem with this is that the REALITY of of the Trinity is too complex for our human intellect (and therefore our writing) to fully understand. BUT … even though our minds may never fully be able to come to terms with this Divine metaphysical math problem, it is something that we can come to experience and know as true.

Of course, this weekend is not only Trinity Sunday. It is also Memorial Day weekend, when we honor those who gave their lives in defense of this country and comes at a time when our country and the world is deeply, deeply divided. One of the mistakes we make when talking about “unity” and “division” is that we tend to equate “unity” to sameness and division to differences. And if we take NOTHING else away from the Trinity let it be this - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are all distinct and different. They are experienced differently, discussed differently, and are depicted differently. Rublev uses the colors of their robes to symbolize their distinctnesses, while using their identical faces to symbolize their unity. But he was NOT saying that they are the same or identical. If they were, this icon would lose its power - it would be a wash of gold. Perhaps pretty to look at but utterly void of meaning. Looking at how God chose to enter into our lives, it is clear that God does NOT want us all to be the same or think the same or even believe the same. Look at the world that God created - look at how many types of plants and animals there are! Our God is clearly a god who likes to have options!

Relationships are hard. Relationships with people you care about deeply are REALLY hard. And relationships with people you really care about when you come from different backgrounds and have different experiences and beliefs are really, really hard. But with the help of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we can do hard things. So may we all seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and let us strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. AMEN.