Trinity Sunday
By: The Rev. Brenda Sol
You’ve probably heard at least one clergy member confess that most of us dread Trinity Sunday. Theologians and church leaders over the millennia have attempted to explain the doctrine of the Trinity—or how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all relate to each other. None of them have brought any concreteness to the concept, so most of us clergy wonder how we could possibly do any better in a short, Sunday morning sermon?
Since it's such an elusive concept, I thought maybe it’d help if I started with a joke. But it turns out, even the joke-writers avoid trying to make sense of the Trinity. The only ones I could find were super lame. Here’s an example: “Why did the Holy Trinity start a band? They wanted to experience Divine harmony.”
Slightly more entertaining was coming across a more conservative preacher, who started his sermon by saying there aren’t any jokes about the Trinity, because the Triune God is not a laughing matter. What I’ve come to, in my own research, study, and prayer over the years, is what’s laughable is our claims that we humans know for certain how God works. I mean, really, how could we possibly know what Jesus barely alludes to in scripture? How can we begin to comprehend—with our human limitations—the eternal nature of God? That’s just silly.
On the other hand, discipleship involves trying our best to comprehend God so that we can live into our faith on a daily basis. In our Episcopal tradition, we believe that as we wrestle with concepts like the Trinity, we begin to dive deeper into the pool of God’s mystery, and our faith deepens. So, while it might be silly to think we can fully comprehend God, it is still an important and worthy endeavor.
Perhaps that’s why we’re introduced to Nicodemus in this morning’s Gospel reading. In his own way, he is wrestling with the understanding of the Trinity. As he asks Jesus how a person can be born anew, we start to get the sense of the expansiveness of God—past, present and future. Nicodemus asks, “We’ve already been born. How can we be born anew?”. He does so by comparing the mystery Jesus speaks of with what he knows intellectually, asking: “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
To which Jesus might have replied, “That was the creator-face of God. I am the redeemer-face, continually refocusing you on God—even in this conversation.” Then Jesus goes on to explain to Nicodemus that the other aspect of God—the sustainer-face or the Holy Spirit—will continue to be active far into the future. Jesus describes that force as a wind that blows where it will.
What’s clear, in our faith teachings, is that this idea of a Triune God matters. It matters, because it makes a difference that we understand our God is more than a singular, non-evolving, static being limited by place and time. Instead, our Christian God has many ways of interacting with creation from the beginning of time, to now, and into eternity. And, yet, God is more than just the past, present and future.
Also true is that a trinitarian explanation of the Divine isn’t unique to Christianity. For example, one of our parishioners recently brought me back a gift from her visit to Peru. It’s a blue, black and white pendant, representing the three realms of the Incan religion. One section represents the realm of God, heaven, and the future. Another realm is humanity, earth, and the present. And the third is the deceased, the spiritual path and the past.
A practice I find helpful is thinking of the Holy Trinity, in the way I mentioned earlier: the creator, redeemer and sustainer. That is, we were created by God sometime in the past. We are constantly being redeemed—or re-focused on God—by the risen Christ in our lives in the present. And we will continuously be sustained by the Holy Spirit in the future. Simultaneously, however, God is constantly re-creating and birthing things anew. So one aspect of God is distinct from another, and, yet, it’s all one God, revealing God’s self at once.
Some scholars refer to this as an ongoing dance between the three aspects. They call this a “dance of love” or perichoresis [perry-koh-rEE-sis] and describe it as “an eternal dance of the creator, Son, and Spirit sharing mutual love, honor, happiness, joy, and respect, and living in an eternal relationship of self-giving.”[1] Because perichoresis [perry-koh-rEE-sis] comes from the Greek word for a wedding dance, theologians suggest imagining three people, holding hands in a circle, and spinning round and round so fast that it looks like a single swirl of energy versus three distinct people.
In other words, our God is living, dynamic and evolving. Ours is not a god in the sky removed from us, rather eternal and ever-present, dwelling in and among us in a multitude of ways, always working toward bringing us more fully into communion with God. But the fullness of that communion depends on us being willing and ready dance partners with God.
Which takes us back to Nicodemus. I appreciated the way Anna Carter Florence describes Nicodemus in her book that I mentioned a few months ago (the women’s spirituality group is reading it also). It’s called: A is for alabaster. The author points out that, while we often think of Nicodemus as the faithful and generous donor, who brings spices and other supplies for Jesus’s burial, he is what we might call a “reluctant dance partner” with God.
Like many of us, Nicodemus has valid reasons for not wanting to risk the security of his life. In his case, Nicodemus is a well-regarded Jewish spiritual leader. He can’t be seen consorting with a rebel like Jesus, so he, literally, “goes by night” to meet with this new teacher. He’s curious about the God Jesus has been describing, but Nicodemus has too much at risk to just give up his status in the Jewish community.
If we were to keep reading the Book of John, we’d encounter Nicodemus again in chapter seven, when he and his colleagues are considering how to handle, what they see as a threat to their religious lives. At first Nicodemus asks them a question, as a way to offer his opinion that Jesus isn’t really breaking the law. But Nicodemus doesn’t directly state his opinion, and when his colleagues take the argument in another direction, he remains silent. His so called “faithfulness” takes some time to develop.
Like Nicodemus, our levels of faithfulness and willingness to be an active dance partner with God vary, so I’m always on the look-out for signs that we—as a species—are making progress. Maybe you saw the recent report on a phenomenon called “Spare Change”. You know, it’s that option you have in lots of grocery stores, fast food chains, and other places, that ask you to round up your payment to the next dollar. So, at the most, any one person is only rounding up by ninety-nine cents, and, often, by as little as three or four cents. So how much can that possibly add up to, right?
Well, in fact, the report explains that, in 2022, charities raised $749 million nationwide through point of sale donations, which was a 24% increase from 2020. The Taco Bell foundation alone received $42 million on roundups![2] We all practice giving in many different ways, but that just blows my mind—that over $749 million was raised through such a simple way of being a willing dance partner.
So, you and I are in a long line of the saints that have gone before us, and the smartest among us, who can’t fully comprehend the specific workings of the Holy Trinity. But with Nicodemus as our model, may we remember that the only thing sillier than thinking we can explain the ways of God from a human perspective, is thinking that it doesn’t matter. To that end, this morning’s passage from John offers us a very silly—silly because we don’t deserve God’s grace—yet serious, because it’s only ours if we participate—advice: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him [Christ].”
Jesus didn’t give up on Nicodemus and the Risen Christ won’t give up on us. Let the dance of love continue!
-AMEN
[1] https://vivatdeus.org/library/blog0065/
[2] https://www.npr.org/2024/03/10/1236458377/charity-roundup-donations-stores-fundraising
