Trinity Sunday
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs
Today is Trinity Sunday, the only day in the entire
liturgical year that is devoted to a doctrine, rather than set aside to
commemorate an event in the great story of God’s love for us. Our readings this
morning, I’m sorry to say, are not much help. None of them is about the
Trinity, because the word “trinity” never occurs in the Bible. Not once. Our
Gospel reading comes as close as any passage of scripture does, mentioning God,
the Son, and the Spirit. But that doesn’t spell out the doctrine we proclaim
this morning, that God is Three in One and One in Three, inseparable, and yet
distinct.
Honestly, most of us are much more attached to stories than
doctrine, aren't we? We haven’t gathered here this morning because we have
logically accepted propositions about God’s existence as true, we are here
because we feel God’s presence in our lives. It’s about story, about
relationship, not about dogma, isn't it?
Our Bible study group is currently gathering on Tuesday
mornings to discuss The Shack, a book about the Trinity. This past
Tuesday, in part because I was preparing this sermon, we discussed how we felt
about the idea of God as Trinity. You know what people said? No one talked
about how meaningful the Trinity was. People talked about God as Father, as
Son, and as Spirit and how the relationship those names described was
meaningful to them. But even if the Church says that the Trinity is so important
that it deserves an entire Sunday devoted to it, it's hard to feel that
importance in our lives, isn’t it?
The problem is that it’s hard to find an example of what the
Trinity is like. Jesus could tell parable about how the Kingdom of Heaven is
like this or that, a shepherd or a seed or a woman seeking a lost coin. When
you try to do that with the Trinity, you get in trouble. Scott and Joe Morales
taught our middle school Sunday School class this past year—what is generally a
pretty thankless job—and more than that, they taught them theology. Last fall,
Scott was preparing to lead the lesson on the Trinity. We were sitting on the
couch in our living room, and he turned to me and said, “I’ve got the best
illustration for the Trinity. I promised the class ice cream, and I’m going to
bring Neapolitan ice cream.” He wasn’t expecting me to give him a horrified
look in response and to say, “You can’t do that! That’s modalism!” That lead to
a discussion about what modalism, an ancient heresy, is. Modalism
misunderstands the Trinity because it separates the inseparable Persons—the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—into three distinct modes through which
God interacts with the world. God as Father created. God as Son redeemed. And
God as Spirit is sustaining. But modalism says they do these things one at a
time. There’s only ever one active mode of God. Just like you can separate the
chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla parts of Neapolitan ice cream, modalism
separates God.
Eventually, I helped Scott find an ice cream recipe that had
three ingredients, which would become inseparable, and that the internet assured
us could easily be made in a ziplock bag. It wasn’t perfect as an illustration,
but it was pretty good. Everything seemed like it would go well on Sunday. I
even planned to stop by at the end of class to see how it went. When I did, I
found Scott and four middle schoolers washing their hands. “How was the ice
cream?” I asked. “We don’t know. The bag broke before it made,” one of them
told me.
“The bag broke” is actually a pretty good explanation of the
Trinity, even if it wasn’t particularly appreciated by the middle school Sunday
School class. Augustine of Hippo wrote a very, very long book explaining the
Trinity. He concluded it this way, “I have spoken much, and yet come short.
When, therefore, we shall come to Thee, these very many things that we speak,
and yet come short, will cease; and Thou, as One, wilt remain ‘all in all.’”[1] In
other words, the bag broke. No matter how hard we try, we can never explain the
Trinity. We can only experience it.
That's disappointing, because we live in a world of quick fixes and next big things. Honestly,
I’m always looking for that new thing that will completely transform my life. Last
weekend, a friend told me about a new organizational technique called
“Konmari,” which was founded by a Japanese woman named Marie Kondo. I am a
sucker for books on organization. Marie Kondo promises that none of her clients
have ever gone back to being cluttered people. It sounds too good to be true,
doesn’t it?
The fact is, that I want an easy, quick solution. I want
three-ingredient ice cream in a bag. But the Trinity is the opposite of easy,
quick solutions. It’s hard, and it’s incomprehensible, and, frankly, it doesn’t
the emotional appeal of a brand-new, life-changing, can’t-fail Japanese
organizational system. That’s why it’s important. That’s why I need to hear it.
In the Trinity, God reveals to us that the essence of God’s
nature is relationship. When we are told that we are created in God’s image and
likeness, that refers to our own capacity to enter into relationships with
others. But relationships—real relationships—are hard. They’re messy. They’re
complicated. Shortly before Scott and I got married, Jack and Doris Zimmerman
took us out to dinner and gave us some wonderful advice: “The two of you are
going to have a huge fight over something small like toothpaste. That is
normal. That is okay.” And you know what? Two weeks after we got married, we
had a huge fight over laundry detergent. And you know what? It was messy, it
was complicated, but it was okay.
None of our human relationships are like the perfect
relationship that is the Trinity, but they do all participate in that greater
reality. God uses our relationships to help us grow in love, grace, and
holiness. God, who is perfect, self-giving love, is revealed to us as Three in
One and One in Three to remind us that there are no easy fixes, no quick
solutions. We are imperfect, but we are loved. In the waters of baptism, we
weren’t promised an easy answer or a magical charm that would make everything okay.
We were promised a relationship, with all the difficulties that implies on this
side of heaven. We were promised grace to see us through. There are no quick
fixes. There are only broken ziplock bags. There are only relationships, imperfect
reflections of that great relationship that is God, in whose love we find our
truest selves. There is only grace, and that is enough.
Amen.
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