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May 30, 2010, Trinity Sunday , All Souls' Episcopal Church

 Let us bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: Let us praise Him and magnify Him forever. (Office of Compline)

 This Sunday is called Trinity Sunday, the eighth day (octave) of Pentecost, and is the day when we give thanks to God for God and for his revelation of Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: Three Persons and One God. On this day, we give thanks for this Trinitarian teaching and we pray that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will keep us steadfast and sure in this faith in Him. In the words of the office of Compline: Let us bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: Let us praise him and magnify him forever.

 Of course, we do not worship the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. That would amount to making our ideology into an idol. However, we certainly give thanks today for our Trinitarian faith. We give thanks because this is how God has been revealed to us by God. We give thanks because we are told that we have been created in the “image and likeness” of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so knowing him and worshiping him belongs to our very essence. In fact, we cannot know God without knowing ourselves because we are created in his image. We can know facts or theological formulas or church trivia, but we cannot know God without knowing ourselves, as St. Augustine made abundantly clear. Knowing God is transformative in this way. We give thanks because, as Augustine observed, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity unveils what St. John meant when he proclaimed “God is love.”

 On this Trinity Sunday preachers will apply a wide variety of earthly images to describe the Heavenly being of God. Even St. Patrick of Ireland used the shamrock as his illustration of God the Holy Trinity. Legend has it he would hold up a shamrock and ask, “Is it one leaf or three?” The Irish would respond, “It is both one leaf and three.” Of course, we must be aware that all of these images fail because no physical thing is adequate in conveying the truth of God the Holy Trinity, and so I have no intention of adding my own to the list. I’m going to try something else instead and hope it works. In the recent Sunday morning class I had the privilege of teaching with Father Lock we ended with a question and answer period. Folks submitted their questions in writing before hand and we endeavored to answer them in the final class. That was so much fun I thought I’d try it again, only this time I’ve made up the questions which I’ll answer. It’s cheating, I know, but I have to do it this way because I’m the only one who can read my handwriting. So, here we go:

 Question #1: Are there ever differences of opinion between the members of the Holy Trinity?

 Answer: No! Perhaps I should elaborate. God is infinite, a perfect spiritual being with “no body, parts, or passions.” There can be no members. There is no division. There is no “them;” there is only and always Him: One God. When we speak a word, mind is expressing itself to itself, and so the Son of God is called the Word of God, “the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person.” (Hebrews: 1:3) So, no; there are no “differences of opinion.” And by the way, God doesn’t have opinions. When the very unity of thought and being thinks it, it’s true.  

 Question #2: Why do we insist on the terms “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?”

 Answer: It is certainly true that we use lots of images to describe God’s loving care of us. And yet, in referring to the eternal and blessed Trinity, three Persons and one God, we use the terms “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” because we believe that God has revealed Himself to us in those terms. These are the terms which our Lord Jesus used, and since the church is his body and his bride, we insist upon using his terms.

 Question #3: Is it possible for us to understand the Trinity?

Answer: Well, first of all thank you, that’s a great question. You should be aware of the fact that simply being able to ask that question means you have some understanding of the subject already. Now, if you’re asking whether human minds can understand the church’s teaching (doctrine) on the Holy Trinity, the answer is yes, of course we can since human minds wrote it. You just have to study the subject. However, this does not mean that we can fully comprehend God. If we could fully comprehend God, he would not be infinite and it really wouldn’t be eternity. On the other hand, we must remember that we were made in God’s image precisely so that we could know him (and thus comprehend him on some level) and enjoy him forever. We have the capacity to know God and to love God. The Bible says that our “life is hid with Christ in God” … “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

On this Trinity Sunday when Episcopalians are required to think theologically our focus and attention belongs to God in Himself. Think of it this way. The Church Year began in Advent and ran all the way until Pentecost which was last Sunday. From Advent to Pentecost our focus was upon the good news of God’s mighty acts of grace for us in Jesus Christ: His birth, his ministry, his teachings, his sacrificial death, his glorious resurrection and ascension, and the coming of God the Holy Ghost. The First half of the Church Year presents in an ordered form, week by week, the saving grace of God. In the second half of the Church Year, from next Sunday until the beginning of Advent, we focus on how we grow in that very saving grace of God, but before we do that, we pause in the middle on this Trinity Sunday to focus on God Himself.

Before we begin the Pentecost Season of growth in God, we pause to reflect upon God Himself. The Pentecost Season is traditionally know as Trinity Season because we are to use this time to grow up into the image of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in whose likeness we were made. If I say nothing else today that you remember – remember this: Becoming holy … our sanctification … is a journey which we begin already in God. We begin with God and in God, and we proceed only by God’s enabling grace. I think Americans of all people should understand this principle. After all, Americans are not awarded their rights by a benevolent government piece by piece over time. Americans don’t have to earn their fundamental rights, or prove they deserve them or merit them. Instead, we believe we are born with those rights. You start out with them. You’re already born free; growing up means learning how to live free. On this Memorial Day Weekend we humbly and respectfully remember those in uniform who laid down their lives to defend those very rights with which we are born. You’re already born free; growing up means learning how to live free.

In a similar sense, our sanctification … our becoming holy … is not a journey to God; it is a journey we make in God. We are already saved by our Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning death and glorious resurrection; growing up means learning how to live saved. We already are made in His image; He already loves us.  He calls us to enter more fully into the loving knowledge of God and move from the threshold into the deeper rooms of the soul’s interior castle. We do not seek to become holy so that God will love us; we seek to become holy because God loves us, and we love Him. You cannot work you way up to God. All that produces is an attempt to rebuild the tower of Babel. People who think they have to work their way up to God invariably have narrow souls with little joy and even less charity. As Christians, we instead begin our journey in God and with God and by God’s grace because we begin in faith – the faith once delivered to the saints. By faith in Christ we begin in joyful union with God.

When you begin in faith in the joy of the Lord terms like “penance,” “self-denial,” “renunciation,” and “mortification” may sound grim to the uninitiated, but “to us who are being saved” they are joyful adventures which we look forward to in God. We know because our faith teaches us that the extent to which we insist on our own way and try to shut God out of our lives we live a hellish existence, and to the extent we love and welcome God and remove anything which would keep us from him we live as citizens of Heaven. In union with God in Christ, we want to be corrected; we find comfort in discipline; we know there’s no refining without fire. 

On this Trinity Sunday we pause to give thanks to Almighty God for Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We see in God our very end in the eternal life of Heaven. As Augustine reminds us: In Heaven “we shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end, and shall never end.” In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

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