Trinity Sunday 2018

Training College

This week visited Trinity College to see our new curate guy.

Had a good visit exploring how we would work together and met new baby Ezra.

Lunch time = awkward. Archdeacon siting at table.

Took me back to my time there training and also being Trinity Sunday has reminded me of my selection panel.

Its an intense three days where you are scrutinised, even over lunch! Archdeacon siting at table.

Explain the trinity to people who did not know about the Christian faith?

Some peoples answers were amazingly well thought out , deep and insightful.

Like speaking about it in terms of mind, body and soul. Useful way of distinction.

Or presenting a three leafed shamrock, which was very clever showing unity but three distinctive parts.

One lady gave an amazing comparison to her garden, with the gardener as God, the Holy Spirit the air around them and the son these beautiful plants. It sounded great but I couldn’t quiet follow it to the end.

And it was one from me. And I felt totally under pressure to come with something.

The lady before me said’, ‘oh its all a mystery anyway’.

And I felt released ! - I wouldn’t actually even bother - especially to somebody who didn’t know about the faith!

The irony is that I would end up going to Trinity College !

Today is Trinity Sunday.

I was shocked to learn when I looked back that I have never preached on trinity Sunday before. How did I avoid that one?!

So, lets look at the concept of the Trinity.

Firstly - its not biblical. Well, not explicitly anyway.

The new testament does not mention the word trinity once.

BUT the bible is littered with this description of God = beginning with the first three verses of Genesis so we cannot be dismissive of it.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. = greater

Spirit of God hovering over the waters = god is spirit

God spoke , let there be light … word of God speaks things and make things happen.

The beginning of the bible begins in a very strange way. With this God who is one, but somehow manifests himself as three. Where have we heard that before?!!

The trinity is not actually word mentioned in the bible as a collective, but the three different aspects of God, Father Son & Holy Spirit most definitely are.

Secondly - Vicars seem to hate preaching on Trinity Sunday.

I had in mind I would do something clever like compare the trinity to our benefice !

Well why not? We are three churches , sometimes referred to as a ‘triangle’, which is how the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred as.

All three of our churches are very different in character and this has its strengths and weaknesses ..

Three massively different churches in character.

You may think that these three churches could not have anything to say to each other. But during the vacancy the churches began to work together. They found common ground. They began to contribute and share gifts and resources between them.

And it was in this relationship between these three churches that something special was born and something we must keep.

3 but One - clever hey?

But.. there are other clever ways I have heard of trying to describe the Trinity. My favourite, you will not be surprised involves .. FOOD!

Show Ice Cream. You see the trinity is a bit like Ice Cream.

Seriously, I refer you to my diagram in the notice sheets as I eat through it.

God The Father is distinct and different

God the Son

God the Holy Spirit

But they are all God = all ice cream. If you leave it long enough it turns into brown mushy ice cream. Probably not a good analogy!

The title of this illustration is called the ‘neapolitan heresy’ !

So much for illustrations

Actually for me, nothings works - mostly because I don’t really struggle with the Trinity. So I have a hard time dissecting it and analysing it.

Actually for me, nothings works - mostly because I don’t really struggle with the Trinity. So I have a hard time dissecting it and analysing it.

Of course I have it all sussed ! No, of course its just as much a mystery to me as anyone else

- I just don’t think its something that concerns me. 3 in 1? I would have no problem if God manifested himself in 3000 different ways so three is ok!

To think, maybe the trinity actually uses human language that constricts our view of God in some way.

I suppose other than that some Vicars seem to think it is a day when we have to ‘explain’ the trinitarian nature of God and you may be waiting for me to do that now. But I am afraid if thats the case you are in for a disappointment !

For I do not think the Trinity can be ‘explained' in any way. Or Should be in fact.

The MYSTERY of the Trinity for me is the point if this.

The trinity is anti logic - it was an answer if you like to Greek logic and called it into question.

We want to solve the trinity as a mathematical equation or a logical problem. we want to show it in a clever way that 1 X 1 X 1 = 1 . We on Trinity Sunday would normally do a potted history of each part of the Trinity.. then hope you don’t expect us to explain how it goes together !

We would talk about The nature of God the father , creator of all

of God the Son.. who came to set us free

And God the Holy Spirit who we considered last week its all its power and majesty

and then quickly and without you dwelling on it try to put them back because they are all … one.

The Trinity is not meant to be explained in a cool logical way whatever illustration you use

The doctrine of the Trinity invites you to look differently at the world around us and explore imagine .

There is an element to our universe that cannot be solved by logic.

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who was a major contributor to quantum physics and nuclear fission, said the universe is “not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.”Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God"

The trinity Instead invites us to think relationally perhaps.

Richard of Saint Victor.Richard of Saint Victor, C.R.S.A., (died 1173) is known today as one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173.

Richard said, “For God to be good, God can be one. For God to be loving, God has to be two because love is always a relationship.” But his real breakthrough was saying that “For God to be supreme joy and happiness, God has to be three.” Lovers do not know full happiness until they both delight in the same thing, like new parents with the ecstasy of their first child.

We could even take that further because in that sense that The Holy Spirit is the shared love of the Father and the Son, and shared love is always happiness and joy. The Holy Spirit is whatever the Father and the Son are excited about; The Holy Spirit is that excitement—about everything in creation!

It is this relational aspect of the holy spirit that shared love - which is impossible to analyse in a logical way.

It can only be represented in art, poetry, illustrations or in music.

It also makes sense of world around us as we all live in a relational world where we are loved and love others. We all sit in those mysterious places that artists have tried to capture throughout the centuries.

And that is the element of the Trinity we perhaps should celebrate today.