Sermon for Trinity Sunday – 12th June 2022: PROVERBS 8:1- 4,22-31, ROMANS 5:1-5, JOHN 16:12-15.

Deacon Christine Saccali – St Paul’s Athens

 

Endless Dance

 

May I speak in the name of the Triune God Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Today is Trinity Sunday. In many churches preaching on the Trinity is deemed to be drawing the short straw! Not so here today, I volunteered for this. Explaining how God is both three and one is philosophically complex; all examples and analogies such as three petalled flowers with one stem may be helpful but are ultimately misleading. I know of a few sermons leading on the ma’armalade sandwich explanation following on from the Queen and Paddington Jubilee tea sketch.

The great second century theologian Bishop Irenaeus taught his congregation that the Trinity is like two hands operated by the mind. Each are distinct in themselves but each cannot operate without each other. This sounds promising – it is much better than three petalled flowers because it conveys something of the way God operates in the world and in our lives, just as we operate in the world. But in the end this analogy fails too.  What about the one handed person? And come to think about it, does the mind need hands and body to operate ?

So, today we are not going to try to solve the problem of exactly how God as Trinity can be three in one, but we can together reflect on why the idea of the Trinity, while not explicitly mentioned in Scripture is absolutely crucial for our understanding of God, our relationship with the divine and others and why it is simultaneously both mysterious, joyous and Good News.

Let us see what light our readings have to shed on the Trinity and examine why they were chosen for today. We’ll start with Proverbs a very good place to start.  I was interested to hear and learn of an anthem composed for the Platinum Jubilee based on Proverbs chapter 3.

From very early on in the life of the Church Christians read the figure of Wisdom in Proverbs as a reference to Jesus. They assumed that God had already shown in hints, patterns of relating and characters what he would reveal in Jesus. Wisdom, in particular, Η Σοφια, lent herself as a very good introduction to what Christians were claiming about Jesus. Wisdom is a figure who is present with God before anything is created, and she teaches people God’s way in the world.

In the context of the theology of the Book of Proverbs itself, it was written, of course a long time before Jesus came to earth but at a time when the concept of a linguistically feminine Wisdom as a literary device in a patriarchal society or societies was familiar. To follow the way of wisdom is to live in the world as you should, rather as the Creator intended you to. In other words, if you follow the sayings of the book it will be better for us, our fellow human beings and the planet.

But when Wisdom is personified as she is in this passage then we get an insight into the mind of God. Suddenly, this is not slightly dull, impersonal advice but we find ourselves in the presence of God, the source of all wisdom. No wonder then that Christians made the connection with Jesus. To quote Archbishop Steven, Christ is God’s body language.

Onto Romans now, the first few verses of this chapter echo the senses of suddenly standing in our rightful place, in a world that makes sense. Our place is the one that has been won for us by Christ. Just as in Proverbs, the wild delight that Wisdom speaks of has to be filtered down into the minutiae of  daily life, so in Romans the almost unbearable relief of knowing that we are reconciled to God through Christ has to be the rock on which we stand, whatever happens in life. Paul wants us to feel the seismic shift in our whole perception of the world, now we are brought back right to God, that move colours everything. To live in Christ, as to live by Wisdom, is to live in tune with the world, so that everything that happens , good and bad deepens our understanding  of who we are in relation to God.

But, Paul continues, we have rather more than a system for recognising the purpose of God, we have the living presence of God’s Holy Spirit, given to us so we can sense God’s love in the world. We are now doing what Wisdom is doing in Proverbs 8, we are sharing God’s love for the world and his joy in what he has made.

Both of these passages give profound insights into God’s Trinitarian nature but it is the Gospel reading today that spells it out for us. John’s image of the Trinity is , rather like Rublev’s famous icon, is of a circle in which each figure is illuminated by the light of the torches others are holding. Each desperately wants to see and be loved by the others. What the torches reveal is how much they love each other and are alike. One flows from the other in a never ending circle or figure of eight . The three persons exist in a voluntary relationship of eternal love to reveal God’s glory.

Ann Persson in her excellent little book ‘Circle of Love’, which pictures Rublev’s Russian Orthodox restored icon of Genesis 18 Abraham narrative entertaining angels, on the cover, talks about dance/ perichoresis weaving in and out in an effortless way and how the whole world is caught up in it. I rather admire the Orthodox way here as they celebrate Pentecost today and the Holy Spirit, Aghios Pneumatos, tomorrow where churches dedicated to Aghia Triada have their patronal. Just the right amount of fuss,I feel, and often portrayed by a simple icon of God seated and enthroned with Christ at the heart and the dove of the Holy Spirit in the abdomen on His lap.

So the Holy Trinity I believe, is a very relevant theology to our struggle for unity which does not destroy personality not just a controversial, torturous, merely philosophical model of Christian doctrine. The truth is that it is impossible to fully express the depth and dynamic nature of the Trinity- the Godhead, with a symbol, drama or picture although an icon may help. Everything we humans attempt to do by way of an explanation falls short.

And that is how God has meant it to be – the personhood Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If God has no mystery to us and we know everything about him, then we become God ourselves, and it doesn’t take much stretch of imagination and recollection to see where that would lead. In the church calendar we enter ordinary time now Sundays after Trinity knowing that God is extraordinary but nevertheless present in our lives and work.

So relax and enjoy God’s unfathomable mystery knowing He is with us and basking in His love. That is the Good News.

Let us pray: O God, our mystery, you bring us to life, call us to freedom, and move between us with love.

May we so participate in the dance of your Trinity that our lives may resonate with you, now and for ever. AMEN