Trinity Mystery

 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; Gospel: John 16:12-15

I am always hesitant to preach on Holy Trinity Sunday. It’s a theological topic, and as you are well aware, I’d much rather tell you some stories. So, what I give you today is a collection of thoughts about the Trinity.

… It’s too easy to fall into a wrong interpretation of the Trinity. I have a video about it. I know it goes fast; the main point is that the analogies we use to try to explain the Trinity are wrong. (show video) 

Donall and Conall, and St Patrick, are citing the Athanasian Creed which declares that “We worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, without mixing the persons or dividing the divine being. For each person—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is distinct, but the deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty.”

It can be helpful to define God, the Trinity, as a black and white diagram, or as a grammatical exercise. But it’s more like this image, with Father, Son, and Spirit a constantly flowing and interchanging movement. There is one God, that we may experience in different ways, even at the same moment in time. It’s all about relationships, within the Godhead, and between us and God.

… We might think about the way we pray. For many, talking to God means calling on God the Father, the creator of all, who we think of as loving us the way a parent loves.

For others, praying to Jesus is like talking to a friend, who listens as we walk the neighborhood, or joins us at a meal. Jesus makes God seem friendlier, more understandable. At the same time, Jesus makes us want to be more just, more inclusive, as we learn to follow his way of life.

And for others, praying is a spiritual, meditative, contemplative experience. When we spend time in silence, we make room for God the Spirit to approach and enter us. Through God the Spirit there is an opportunity to feel a union with the Divine.

When we pray this way, we don’t pray exclusively to the Father, and ignore the Son or Spirit, and so forth. All the persons of the Trinity are there when we pray, and we know that.

… One of the confusing aspects of the Trinity is our language. We describe Father, Son, and Spirit as three persons, which tends to separate God into three separate entities.

But the original language describes God as three personas. In ancient theater, one actor played several parts, switching masks to identify who he was portraying in that moment. One actor, several personas. Now, Conall and Donall might describe this as partialism, or modalism, but the original intent is to describe the Trinity as One God, experienced in three main ways.

… I remember, imperfectly, a quote from a book by Justo Gonzales. He wrote something like this: The mystery of the Trinity is not a puzzle to be solved but a life to be lived. So we need to spend less time trying to solve the puzzle and more time living what Trinity teaches us. [Hanayama cast puzzle] 

Which takes us to our readings for today. Each of them describes aspects of our relationship with God, and the many ways God reaches out to have a relationship with us. It’s a mutual thing. It’s like that old song, “Mutual admiration society.” We look to God and God looks to us.

What’s the most important thing to know about the Holy Trinity? From the beginning, God has wanted to have a loving, caring relationship with us, and wants us to have a loving, caring relationship with God and with each other, as equally loved and cared for by God.

This week, I suggest you pay attention to how you pray. Do you focus on one persona more than the others? What happens if you switch it up? Does that enhance your prayer? Let me know if you try this. Amen