he Rev. Dr. Joseph Lund
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
By now you have figured out, if you didn’t already know that today is Trinity Sunday! This is a day that has been celebrated officially in name by the Christian Church since the 10th Century; although the name Trinity was given to the doctrine it celebrates in Christian writings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
Let me take a moment to direct you to the Book of Common Prayer. On page 15 you will find a list of the seven principal feasts or holy days of the Church. If we had any days of obligation to attend services it would be on these days. Trinity ranks right up there with Easter and Christmas.
It is on this occasion that priests and ministers all over the world preach on the doctrine of the Triune God. Curiously, it is also believed to be the Sunday where there are more guest preachers than at any other time in the year.
For Episcopalians, we pray what we believe. That is what our Book of Common Prayer is all about. The genius of this Book is that it raises up to God prayers that reflect the totality of our Christian understanding and dependency on God alone. In other words it spells out its doctrinal beliefs in prayer. In the Nicene Creed we pray that we believe in One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And this morning we pray for "the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity."
Let me admit to you that the doctrine of the Trinity does not attempt to explain God. God is not found in human explanation. The doctrine of the Trinity only explains to us in a very elemental way what God has revealed to us about Himself - so far. It’s like describing all of an iceberg by referring to what it looks like above the water. So we Christians affirm the Trinity, not as an explanation of God, but simply as a way of describing what we know about God.
Back in the early 90’s when I was a fresh Priest in God’s Church; I would wear my black clerical clothing all day long. I wouldn’t even go home to change before running errands, like taking my car to the carwash. I strongly believe in a clean car so I frequented the same carwash over and over. Another reason is that I have a fondness for black cars! At the counter of this carwash was a young woman who was always reading a Bible – at closer examination it was the New Testament. Every time I came up to the counter she would smile at me and give me a quizzical look. I just knew I could draw her out and talk about God.
One day I was at the counter and making pleasant conversation with her when she abruptly thrust the New Testament at me and asked me to show her where in the Bible "Trinity" comes from. So, with the fresh knowledge I had recently gotten at Seminary, I went through the New Testament and showed many places where God was talked about in terms of Father, Son and Spirit. Even in the "Great Commission" Jesus told his followers to go out in the world baptizing people in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
And there was the Gospel for today: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." It all fits together: one God, Father, Son and Spirit. Boy I was good flipping through that Bible.
So I looked to her for approval or something and she gave me that quizzical look again and she said: "No, I said show me where in the Bible is the word "Trinity."
The idea of the Trinity is not emphatically stated as a doctrine in the Holy Scriptures. Yet, by implication, it is stated many times. The early Christians soon discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which God had revealed himself to them. This does not mean that there are three Gods. It means there is one God who has shown himself in three ways: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Not too long ago there was a religious weight loss program called Weigh Down. This program was created by a woman named Gwen Shamblin. The weight loss program grew from a small business conducted out of a home garage into a multi-million-dollar Nashville corporation. At its height there were over 30,000 churches and related organizations participating. (I don’t think this Parish was one of the participants.)
Eight years after its founding, the program became embroiled in a controversy that threatened to bankrupt the company when Ms. Shamblin made comments regarding her beliefs in the Trinity. This is what she said: As a ministry, we believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. However, the Bible does not use the word "trinity," and our feeling is that the word "trinity" implies equality in leadership, or shared Lordship. It is clear that the scriptures teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that God sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not send God anywhere, God is clearly the Head."
Her comments hit the Christian Community like a shockwave. Churches dropped her program; her publisher cancelled the publication of her book; key employees left; and, she was taken off The Women of Faith web site -- all because of her comments.
If you are confused as to why her words got her into such trouble that is understandable. The Church has continued to struggle to explain how God can be both One God and three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Where Ms. Shamblin strayed from Christian belief was in her statement that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were not equal in leadership. In a later interview Ms. Shamblin agreed that Jesus was both Lord and God but she maintained that Jesus held only a secondary and unequal relationship to the Father.
If you are still confused, ask your self what would fallow from that statement? It is this: Jesus is not fully God. And this statement cuts at the heart of the Church’s historic teaching that Jesus Christ, in his very nature, is both fully God and fully man. It is a mystery that we accept through the faith. Yet Ms. Shamblin argues that we would disrespect Jesus if we believe in a doctrine not found in Holy Scripture. She says, and my carwash clerk would agree, "If God wanted us to refer to Himself, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as the "trinity," God would not have left this word completely out of the Bible."
We all must tread very carefully when we make claims like that. Just because a word is not in the Bible doesn’t mean that it is unbiblical. There are a lot of words that we use in the Christian faith and in the Church that are not found in the Bible. The word Bible is an example. So here we are on Trinity Sunday, struggling like so many others with this ancient doctrine. Why is Trinity an essential of our faith and how do we protect the truth and keep "steadfast in this faith and worship?"
First we affirm God the Father. Nearly all Americans believe there is a God as Mr. Gallop tells us. But what kind of God do we all believe in?
If you ask Thomas Jefferson he would tell us that God is like a clock maker who, when finished with making a fine clock, put it on the shelf and left it. In other words, God has completely detached himself from His creation.
Much later the philosopher Nitche says that there was indeed one God but that now He is dead. Remember the headlines? Nitche’s school of theology claims that the God of the universe so completely poured Himself into the person of Jesus that when Jesus died on the cross, God Himself died.
These will not be our thoughts or words when we recite in unison the Nicene Creed later in this service. We affirm that the same God who molded the universe also cares about what happens in each of our lives and is actively and mysteriously involved in helping to shape the events of those lives.
We refer to the first person of the Trinity as Father. To Jesus, God was abba – father, which is the Hebrew word for the concept of daddy. If we could only think of God as that loving daddy who waits patiently for us while we squander our resources, talents, and integrity wandering off into the far corners of the earth doing our own thing. Then when we have come to our senses, he is there to meet us at the door and joyfully take us back inside.
It is easy from a reading of the Hebrew Bible only to think of God as the omnipotent, holy other, all-powerful judge. These are all traits of God’s Devine nature to be sure. But the Hebrews even believed that death, disease, catastrophe, and financial reverses were caused by a displeased God. The Law handed down from Moses became an end in itself, and only made God seem distant and impetuous.
But if our Christian understanding of the nature of God is to be correct, then we must also learn to think of God as our kind, sympathetic, compassionate, gentle and loving Father. The stern figure of God becomes a radiance of love. The Prophet Jeremiah understood the true message of our faith when he heard God say to him: "I have loved you with an everlasting love."
Secondly we affirm belief in the Son, Jesus Christ. We say that God took on human form and came to live amongst us. In doing so, God felt our joys and sorrows, our challenges and our victories. Jesus was purely human and purely divine. But Jesus was not God. Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus never drew attention to Himself, but always pointed to God. God in a moment of time was with us in our human history. He shows us He is on our side and that He loves us. Jesus gives us a first hand view of what the mind of God is about. When we are asked what God is like we point to the person of Jesus.
God Himself is incomprehensible. But in Jesus Christ this incomprehensible God makes Himself knowable. We get a glimpse of His glory. In the person of Jesus we discover that our God, who created the heavens and earth and all the stars of this vast universe, is willing to go all out, even to death on a cross, so that a single person may be redeemed. That is what God is like. That is the God we say we believe in when we say we believe in Jesus Christ.
Finally we affirm a belief in the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit it is the infinite becoming intimate. It is our realization of the presence of the Living God. Intimacy with God is what the Holy Spirit brings to us. It is that indescribable thing we feel when we know of God’s action in our lives or the lives of those around us. It is that energy and confidence we have in living a life honorable to God.
In the brief time Jesus was with us in the flesh and the brief time before His Ascension, he could not tell us everything we needed to know to equip us for a life of ministry in His name. So he promised to send the Spirit to be with us at all times. Jesus was not announcing the appearance of a hitherto unheard of phenomenon. We have met this "Spirit" before as it possessed many of the Prophets and when it "moved upon the face of the waters" at creation. This is the same Spirit that came upon Jesus at His Baptism.
When Jesus told His disciples about the Spirit which "was to come," he was not preparing them for some new supernatural presence. He was impressing upon them that the continuing work of the Spirit would assume a more prominent role in God’s redemptive activity.
The Spirit awakens us to the truth that God is not a distant, unknowable mystery but rather an advocate for the world of humans created in God’s image –advocating the truth and love of God. The Spirit is the giver of life and power revealing "God in Christ" at work in the hearts of God’s people.
The Trinity, then, is the Church’s interpretation, in the language of early days, of the living contact with God which Christ gives us. Many a preacher has tried illustrations and analogies to help people understand the Trinity. Legend has it that Saint Patrick used the shamrock as an illustration of one whole and three appearances. But I tried that in Sunday School only to have a young lady claim that her father found a four–leaf clover.
I heard one analogy that has stuck with me and that is of three lit candles. All lit together they provide a certain light. When one is extinguished it doesn’t dim one third of the room. The total light is still flooding the room – though somewhat diminished. Whatever light there is is always combined. One preacher grasping to say this in elementary terms says: "There is a Father in heaven who loves us, a Brother-Saviour who died for us, and a Spirit who helps us." One God! A M E N
© 1998 - 2008Saint Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Palm Desert CA" All rights reserved. Please contact the church for permission to use any of this material