What More Shall We Say?

SERMON
THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY
St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church
Springdale, AR
Readings: Genesis 1.1-2.4a, Psalm 8, II Corinthians 13.11-13, Matthew 28.16-20

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. The Easter lilies, long out of bloom, are now a distant memory. Christ has died, been raised by God, and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. And as Jesus promised, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, has indeed come among us, to guide and sustain us. We have entered the longest season of the Church year–the season after Pentecost–during which we will focus on the teachings of Jesus during his earthly ministry. And to kick things off, we have the Trinity, the cornerstone of the Christian faith and life, the mystery of one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is eternal, from everlasting, greater than and outside of time itself. In our reading from Genesis this morning, we see the Holy Trinity at work (Gen 1.1-2.4a). God the Father is at work in creation, guiding creation from nothingness to fullness, from a formless and dark void to light, to evenings and days, to seas and dry lands, to green vegetation and flowers and animals of all kinds, and finally to us, a people created in God’s very creative and life-giving and loving image. And we read that all of this is brought forth from the Word as creation is spoken into being. The opening to John’s Gospel reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1.1). And it is this very Word, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God–this Word will become incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, and to reconcile us to God our Father. And we also see the Holy Spirit at work: A wind from God is sweeping over the face of the waters (Gen 1.2). This wind is the ruach, the breath, the spirit of God that was hovering, brooding over this creation-to-be. This is the wind we heard about last week, the Comforter Jesus had promised when he ascended to the Father: “When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting” (Acts 2.1-2). This is the unpredictable fire of God that birthed the Church and catches us up in wonder still.

We see the Trinity at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. Jesus, the Son of God, the Word of God, comes to the Jordan to be baptized. And as he is, the heavens are torn open, God the Father speaks, “This is my Son,” and the Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove (Mk 1.9-11; Mt 3.16-17; Lk 3.21-22).

And it is this God in Trinity that Paul speaks of today as he blesses the people of Corinth: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (2Cor 13.13). This is the only instance where Paul blesses his readers with such an overt and clear trinitarian blessing, invoking all three persons of the Trinity.

Of course, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as we understand it would come later, as faithful people wrestled with the testimony of the Scriptures and the Christian life, and as God revealed the mystery to them.

The word “revealed” seems to me to be of the utmost importance. The Trinity is not something clever that the Church came up with on its own. No, it is God’s revelation to us about who God is: One Being in three persons whom we have come to know and love and worship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The One God testified to in the Scriptures, and the three persons also testified to in the Scriptures.

Long ago, our Church fathers and mothers wrestled with the question of the Holy Trinity. They structured our creeds around it. So everyday at the Daily Office when we say the Apostles’ Creed, we say, I believe in God, the Father…the Son…the Holy Spirit. And every Sunday at worship, we say the words of the Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father… the Son… the Holy Spirit. And it is in these creeds and the Athanasian Creed that the Church has articulated what has been revealed to us about the Trinity by God.

What more shall we say? Truly, there is nothing left to say. Sometimes we have this urge to say something new, but there is nothing new under the sun–certainly nothing new about the Holy Trinity. And it is this impulse to say something new that can sometimes get us into trouble. Sometimes, even for the best reasons, we might say something outside the bounds of Christian doctrine–something other than what God has revealed to us.

Maybe you have seen that viral video on the Internet about St. Patrick and the Trinity? St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, tries to explain the Trinity to a couple of seemingly backward Irishmen with crazy red hair. St. Patrick turns to metaphor: the Holy Trinity is like a clover with three branches but one stem, or like water that can be liquid, solid, or gas, and on and on. It’s so hard to explain a mystery of heavenly things with earthly things–you can’t explain it! So at each turn the Irishmen respond, no Patrick! Seemingly there is nothing Patrick can say except the words of the Athanasian Creed: “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.” “Oh,” the Irishmen respond, “Why didn’t you say so, Patrick?”

What more shall we say, aside from the creeds, these gifts from God to Christ’s Church? Perhaps, as one English theologian wrote, silence is our safest eloquence for we mortals before the deep mystery of who the infinite God is (see Richard Hooker in Book I of Laws, cited in Rowan Williams, Anglican Identities (Lanham: Cowley Publications, 2003), 25-26).

So what more shall we say? Nothing new. But something true. Something ancient. Something divinely revealed to us that is so much greater than us.

We believe in one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And having confessed it by faith, we live it.

When we are baptized, we are adopted as children of God the Father and as brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus. We are invited to live in, to participate in the Life of the Trinity. And the Life of the Trinity is Love–boundless, endless, depthless, infinite Love of such generosity and vastness that it is constantly being poured out completely, yet it is never depleted by a single ounce. It is an unconstrained Love that breaks every barrier, that will never leave us, even as we pass from life to death. It is this Love that we receive, and it is only from this Love that we can love others. We can only love because God loves.

I was at a camp once talking to some young children, maybe around seven or eight years old, about the Trinity. There was one girl there who did not want to be there–or so it seemed. She sat there in some far-off la-la land, braiding her hair, fidgeting with her socks, untying and retying her shoes, messing with an ant that happened to be crossing the sidewalk. But then again, we were talking about the Trinity. Maybe she just wasn’t interested? She wouldn’t be the first child to find the subject confusing, or boring, or dull, or whatever. After we had all talked for awhile, I passed out some markers and paper, and we tried to draw a symbol for the Trinity. Some children drew venn diagrams of three overlapping circles; others drew triangles a lot like the triangle in the window above our altar here. The girl jotted something down, then turned the paper over and began to draw horses. Well, okay. You can’t win ‘em all. After a period of time we shared our drawings. I hesitated when I got to the little girl, not wanting to embarrass her. But she immediately stood up and brought her drawing over to me. She had drawn a big circle with four small, parallel lines in it. “Will you tell me about your drawing?” I asked. “Sure,” she replied. “The big circle is God, and inside it is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and me.”

The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and me. I don’t know what Athanasius or Augustine or Aquinas would have said about her drawing. But in ten seconds of minimal effort she had got to a deep mystery. The infinite God invites us into God’s very Life of Love.

Our own image of the Trinity here at St. Thomas’ does this in a different way. In the window above the altar, you can see a triangle within a circle, with each corner of the triangle representing a person of the Godhead. But coming from the heart of that triangle, from the heart of God, is a cross reaching down to us, bringing us to God. And that’s fitting, for the way of living in the Life of the Trinity is the Way of the Cross.

In our baptisms we are buried into this Life of Love, and then each day we take up our cross to live into this Life of Love all the days of our lives. We live in a Love that is overflowing and abundant, sacrifices all and never asks for anything in return; a love that is unconditional, complete, brave and bold and sure and vulnerable and open and willing to take a risk on you.

We can get a glimpse of what it looks like to live into this Life of Love in the eyes of the old woman who lives alone on the corner now, a block over from the old courthouse–maybe you know someone like her. Her name is Lucille, and she’s well into her nineties. She couldn’t be taller than four foot eight. Her husband died several years ago now. She has lived in the same house for well over fifty years; it’s foundation could use some work, the gutters could be cleaned, the shutters repainted. When you pass by, you’ll see her gardening, watering her ferns, sometimes even mowing her yard, or just sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade. Or maybe you’ll pass by late at night or early in the morning; she doesn’t sleep much anymore. She’ll be kneeling at her couch with her Bible open, praying to God her old friend, calling out the names of her loved ones. Or you might see her on the square downtown, holding a basket of peanut brittle that her church sells to raise money. “The peanut brittle lady is here,” the courthouse employees will tell one another. They’ll go find her, usually sitting on a bench in the shade. These strangers will go for a bag of homemade peanut brittle, a bargain at $3. But they’ll get the warmest smile; they’ll hear her quiet laugh; they will hear her say, “I just love God so much, I love my little church, and I love you”; they’ll get a weak and frail yet powerful hug full of love. They will feel as if they have known her forever, even though they have just met; she’ll remind them of their grandparents and parents. The strongest and most hardened people will melt. They get more than they bargained for. They get a dose of the love of God.

I go by and see her when I’m in town. I drive up and see her sitting on her porch. Whenever she sees me coming, the biggest smile spreads across her wrinkled face. “I just love you so much,” she will say with a little laugh. “You know, I’ve been praying for you.” And you know she has, because you can feel it deep within your soul.