William Yagel
Grace Radford
June 4, 2023
Trinity Sunday, Year A
Holy and Loving God - may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight O Lord you are our strength and our redeemer.
Amen
I really missed my chance today when I showed up today despite planning to have the day off. There is a running joke among priests that the new priest always has to preach on Trinity Sunday. There is an aversion to preaching on the Trinity, and here I show up for it. Glutton for punishment, I suppose. I believe there are two reasons, though, that priests like to avoid the pulpit today.
I think the first reason is because any conversation about the Trinity is necessarily complicated, complex, and nuanced while still being a holy mystery. That means it is hard to talk about and not wind-up sounding like Boomhauer from King of the Hill, which is completely unintelligible. Talking about this mystery of God is not easy because the creator of all things simply can’t be summed up in a couple of easy metaphors before skipping of to lunch. Each question raised illuminates more mystery. It is exciting, but it is daunting. In short, it is easier left alone.
The second reason, I believe, is because an understanding of the Trinity is so challenging that we priests are almost guaranteed to utter some type of heresy from the pulpit in trying to approach it. Good fun for you, but nerve-wracking for me! And yes, maybe I should say, that this is MY big fear. You see, every word matters, language here can be limiting, or it can imply something contrary to what is being offered. The limitless can’t be contained, especially on the page, but still we seek.
A conversation about the Trinity is necessarily a conversation about the nature of God. It is the biggest possible topic to approach and one that I will get wrong. BUT, we as adults so often forget that sitting with a big unknowable question and reflecting on it is important. Children very often ask those things which adults who focus so often on the practical, somehow forget to ask: why is the sky blue, are we alone in the universe, what is God like? So, I ask your patience and understanding as we think for a few minutes this morning about God, in 3 distinct persons, the Holy and undivided Trinity,
I need, here, to credit my Professor of Theology from VTS, Dr. Kate Sonderegger. Her voice will ring through what I am able to offer to you here today. It is no exaggeration to say that I know what I know because of her. What is right is her, what is wrong is all mine… And in her spirit of kindness and love I will say that nothing I offer here today is intended to make your faith feel “wrong”. If you leave this morning thinking how silly this all is, know that you are in good company. A robust life of faith in the Trinity is the goal, and I celebrate each of your faiths wherever they are.
We explain our ancient understanding of the Trinity every Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed. Our Creed has remained largely unchanged since its writing in 325 AD, three centuries after the death and resurrection of Christ. I like to joke that it was the last time the Church agreed about anything. Our Creed is fundamentally a statement about the Trinity and was the result of a couple hundred years of fighting about the nature of God. It speaks to this holy mystery of God as three persons and also it says:
We believe in one God,
This is the foundational truth of our faith. It is the first commandment given to Israel. It has been stated by and to Judeo Christians as clearly and often as anything, ever. There is no pantheon of Gods, there are no lesser Gods, there is one God. It seems simple, right? But have you ever heard anyone say things like “I believe in the God of the New Testament?” Maybe you have said it yourself. I know I have. Well, that is in keeping with 2nd century conversations by a Theologian and Presbyter named Marcion.
Marcion thought that the OT image of God was too pedestrian, or maybe, too human. God walking in the evening in the Garden of Eden, God and Noah speaking about the Ark, God arguing with Moses about sparing lives. These concerns were all below the creator of all things, Marcion figured. He reasoned that this Old Testament God must have been another God, a lesser God, in some way. Different from the God revealed in Christ. This resonated with lots of folks, because something seemed to have shifted, but Christ’s life speaks so clearly to the Jewish Scriptures. He fulfilled the Law, worshipped in temple, and recognized this God of Abraham so to see him and the God he professes as something separate and apart doesn’t work. The Creed goes a bit farther about God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
The one and only second person of the Trinity. If the conversation about the Trinity stopped right there it would be easier. God the Father, God the Son. Distinct persons. This highlights the enduring challenge of the Trinity. The more you think of the Godhead as unified the farther you get from holding distinction between the three persons. And the more we can understand these distincions, the harder it is to hold them together. Sabellius was the third century heretic who ultimately helped us clarify this mystery, who forced the choice to a decision.
He is credited with the theory of Modalism. He offered that God exists in different states. Sometimes God the Father, sometimes God the incarnate Son, sometimes God the Holy Spirit. The Lee Slusher understanding of God. That is, this is not unlike saying that sometimes Lee is a mother, sometimes she is a wife, and sometimes she is a School board representative. Always the same person, but in different modes of her life she is different people in relationship to others.
It sounds good at first, but here is the thing. All of those perspectives relating to God are ours, not God’s. It views God as changing because our relationship to God changes, it assumes that God changes from one to the next based on how we perceive God. But how does God see God is the question? So, the Creed went on to clarify that the Son was:
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
Fear not, this is the last little bit I will mention. This section of the Creed provides some the greatest clarity and explanation of how we understand Christ, and therefore, God. Jesus of Nazareth was indeed born into the world, but the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity is eternally begotten, not made. Forever and ever of one being with the first person of the Trinity. God spoke existence into being. As John says, In the beginning was the word. Always, eternal, and begotten, that is, of the same type. The second person is the same as the first and is distinct from the first. We say True God from True God.
You see if we can have only one God then we imagine that there can’t be precedence. Begotten, from the beginning of time. Always begotten. The first person of the Trinity could not create the others and be equal? The father is not the father in our gendered sense. The Son is not the product of the Father. The Son always was.
This phrase light from light, imagine a candle. When illuminated by another candle. The second light is not made from the first. The first gave nothing to the second. And neither is greater. Neither diminished. Both full and complete. Begotten. This is the nature of this procession. One and the other, but not in sequence. Both. Coeternal. This is the mystery of the Trinity that is beyond us-undivided and distinct, both.
And then through him all things were made. The Word was always there. Made by the Son, just as we hear in the first lines. God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth and God the son through whom all things were made, were spoken into existence. OK, enough for now.
The Trinity is an eternal relationship founded in Love which is beyond our knowing. To wonder at the mystery of God is folly, and yet we are compelled by reason, one of those unknown things created for us, look ever deeper for the heart of our Triune God. To wonder without expectation of arriving at the right answer, but, in prayer, we hope to find Truth.
Amen