Neither Pansy nor Pretzel

May 22, 2005 (First Sunday after Pentecost; Trinity Sunday)

  by The Rev. Linda Yeager, Deacon

- Genesis 1:1-2:3
- Psalm 150 or Canticle 2 or 13
- 2 Corinthians 13:(5-10)11-14
- Matthew 28:16-20

(From The Lectionary Page)

Did you ever play the game of hot potato when you were a child? Sometimes it is played with a beanbag as the hot potato. One player tosses the hot potato to another to another and so on until the music stops. The one holding the beanbag/potato at that point is "it." Well, when it comes to preaching on Trinity Sunday, this game comes to mind. Actually, since today is Youth Sunday, at the 10:15 service one of our high school students became "it." But for the other two services today, you are looking at "it."

Now, why would one want to avoid preaching on Trinity Sunday, which, by the way, is our Cathedral Feast Day? Well, if, for example, you are a member of a church named St. Philip's or St. Elizabeth's, you become very familiar with your patron saint and are able to speak about him or her quite eloquently on his or her feast day. But when the Trinity is the topic of one's feast day, speaking eloquently is more difficult, for the concept of the Trinity is one that challenges explanation.

Not that people haven't tried. While comparing God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit to a pretzel or an egg or a pansy or a shamrock or the three stages of water may be helpful, none of those examples can truly capture the concept of the Trinity. How God can be one God in three Persons is, indeed, a mystery which is accepted, not by rationalization, but, rather, by faith. The concept is complex to say the least.

There is an apocryphal story that says that when Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was, they answered "Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah or other of the old prophets." Jesus said, "But who do you say I am?" Peter said, "Thou are the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple." And Jesus answering, said, "What?!"

Lauren Artress of the Labyrinth project at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco says, "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey but spiritual beings on a human journey." As spiritual beings, we consider and understand aspects of this life in terms that are often beyond words. We may understand, but we can't express our understanding. Particularly in describing the arts, we have difficulty expressing how we feel about a work that touches us deeply, that we perceive in our hearts, in our senses. I remember vividly one Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago when there was a recital in Founders' Hall. The soprano was singing in German, which I don't understand at all, but as I sat there listening to the music and to her voice, I realized that there were tears rolling down my face. I can't explain what she was singing, but I somehow, in the spiritual sense,
understood.

William Carlos Williams was one of the great American poets of the Imagist school, and one of his poems also remains in my spiritual core. It's called "so much depends Upon," and here is how it goes:

so much depends Upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

That's it. But the image speaks to me beyond words and, somehow, I understand it. Don't ask me to explain it, but just to experience it.

To complicate matters even further, did you know that the word "Trinity" is not found in the Bible at all? The early Christians came to an understanding when they put reason to faith: they came to understand God the Father as creator, God the Son as redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit as sanctifier. Yet, none of the three acts in isolation from the other two. They understood that they did not know three Gods, but One God -- not three aspects of God either. They perhaps did not have a clear definition of the Trinity, but knew only of their experiences. They knew then that the Trinity could never be fully explained; it must be experienced. It cannot be intellectually grasped; rather, it is an experience of the holy mystery of God's ultimate self-disclosure. Confused yet?

If not, try this: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have an inner relationship in such a way that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are not three Gods, but one. Incomprehensible, isn't it?

This story is told of St. Augustine of Hippo: One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on the mystery of the Trinity, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine went up to her and said, "Little child, what are you doing?" and she replied, "I am trying to empty the sea into this hole." "How do you think," Augustine asked her, "that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?" To which she replied, "And you, how do you suppose that with this your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?"

The immensity of God is expressed in our first reading as well, for today, the work of creation. It is especially appropriate on this day when we celebrate the Trinity, that we look at the work of God the Creator. Theologian Walter Brueggemann says, "The main theme of the (creation) text is this: God and God's creation are bound together in a distinctive and delicate way. This is the presupposition for everything that follows in the Bible. It is the deepest premise from which good news is possible. God and his creation are bound together by the powerful, gracious movement of God towards that creation. . . This text announces the deepest mystery: God wills and will have a faithful relation with earth."

And so, you see, the mystery of God's relationship with us, his creation, is also beyond rational explanation. We are linked with the Creator through creation, and also with the Redeemer through redemption, and with the Sanctifier through sanctification. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a mathematical puzzle, except to minds resolved to see nothing but mathematics. Nor is it the devising of theologians. It is the flower of experience. In the gospel lesson from Matthew, we get to the heart of the message. Jesus says to the disciples, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." It is the mystical union of God's creations with the Trinity that empowers us, that enables us to reflect the faithfulness of God's love for us, the same love which encourages us to share with all of God's creation, to include all in the same embrace of God's love, and to spread the good news by our words and actions.

Paul, in today's reading from his Second Letter to the Corinthians, urges the Christians at Corinth to use the Christ that is within them to examine their spiritual selves, to live in peace with one another and to treat one another with love. And he ends the passage with this beautiful and meaningful phrase:

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." Grace, love, and communion: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit -- impossible to explain . . . possible to experience.