A Much Needed Challenge

An image depicting the martyrdom of Thomas Becket of Canterbury.

Way back during the Middle Ages the Church ordained Thomas Becket as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Better known for his martyrdom when he stood up to King Henry II over the rights of the Church, Becket also bears a powerful connection to this coming Sunday. After Becket was consecrated as archbishop on the Sunday after Pentecost, he instituted a new festival to be celebrated yearly on that occasion. It was not a self-congratulating feast but rather a day dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Thus, Trinity Sunday was born—and for almost 856 years now clergy people throughout the Western World have been grumbling.

For 51 other Sundays throughout the year the Episcopal Church has a fairly straightforward way of doing things. Particularly, we practice a familiar pattern in regards to the Liturgy of the Word when we learn from parts of the Bible. Through various seasons we celebrate God’s saving love as exemplified in Holy Scripture and particularly in the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Easy enough right? Well, it’s not easy, but it is at least straightforward. But then, almost out of nowhere comes this Trinity Sunday, which feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog.

Even with almost a millennia of practice, Trinity Sunday retains a certain sense of oddity. It is a day in the Church when we remember a doctrine. The rest of the Sundays in the Church Year we let the Scriptural themes and stories speak for themselves, but on this day we shoehorn chosen Scripture to fit this belief about God. This day almost feels backwards. Almost. As we have been practicing it for the better part of a thousand years, it has also almost gained some sense of normalcy. But, imagine for a moment if we had Resurrection of the Dead Sunday, Justification Sunday, Total Depravity Sunday, or Doctrine of Your Choice Sunday. I am sure some would love it, but it would feel odd to me.

You may be thinking, other parts of the Church do this, and you are right. Nowadays in the broader Church, preachers circle a topic for a week or multiple weeks. They might use a thematic series to discuss sin, relationships, prayer, mission, or calling. And yet, rarely do preachers engage such a challenging doctrine as that regarding the Holy Trinity. It is one that has led to so many heresies. So, why do we do it?

The cop out is to say that all powerful word in the Church: TRADITION! Still, I think there has to be more to this than we did it last year (and the 850 something before it). Why would we keep doing something that is so challenging? Why keep going with something that leaves us—not just the preacher but the entire congregation—feeling a bit off kilter? Why continue bumbling and stumbling around in a delicate area that could get us labeled as a heretic? Well, perhaps it is because despite reciting our belief in a Triune God every week in the Collect, the Nicene Creed, and the Eucharistic Prayer, we seldom live our lives with this belief at the core. Maybe it’s dangerous to speak for you, but I have to sadly admit that I am a bad Trinitarian Christian.

How many of my prayers start with Father? How many of them end with Jesus? We just celebrated the Spirit coming down at Pentecost yesterday, but how easy it is for me to overlook the work of the Holy Ghost! I am deficient in remembering that Our Triune God exists co-eternally together. It is hard for me to remember that while the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit, and the Son is not the Father is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father is not the Son, they are all God.

So, while this week is frustrating, and while I might say a few choice words under my breath about Thomas Becket, I need this week. I need the challenge that God gives me to try and wrap my mind, heart, spirit, and strength around who God truly is. I won’t ever finish that work on this side of the grave. And, I will probably butcher some description of God this week—if I have not already. Still, I believe when we try to faithfully understand, experience, and express the beautifully complicated nature of God we please God. Yes, we must be careful and cautious to speak the Truth, but to be afraid of speaking it altogether is like not sharing the best news you have ever heard.

As I bumble my way through speaking of the unspeakable, I find that a couple good places to start the work of understanding, experiencing, and expressing God's Triune Nature are the Collect for Trinity Sunday (below) and the Creed of Saint Athanasius.

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, 228).

Concentrated Contents

This coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson seems short to me. After several weeks and months of lots of words from accounts of the Good News of Christ Jesus we stumble upon this passage from John 14. Do not let its brevity deceive you though, as its contents are like a concentrated beverage mix, without some liquid, or in this case time and space they may taste or seem overwhelming.

This passage opens with a doozy of a first line. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Wow! If we are not careful we may very well read this as an ultimatum or law and not as the graceful invitation that it is. God’s grace hits us where we are, but the transformation that comes with that grace typically leads us into following not some prescriptive path without any creativity or latitude, but rather into a life full of exciting co-creative moments when the Spirit of God moves through us. Not surprisingly, the next words of Jesus’ mouth pertain to the Spirit.

Jesus pledges that he will ask the Father to send the Advocate that is the Spirit of truth. Dangerously we may distinguish too much the persons of the Trinity making them separate entities (Father creates, Son saves, and Spirit sustains, or something like that). Maybe this is why Jesus warns of how the world has trouble receiving the Advocate. It cannot see the Spirit and does not know the Spirit, but in an attempt to nail down the mystery of the Divine Community that is the Trinity, we who make up the world **try to** pigeonhole God into the compartmentalized, dichotomous, either/or boxes in which we live our own lives. Said more concisely, the language of this world breaks down in the face of the Trinity, so Jesus speaking of Father and Spirit can come off sounding confrontational—and it is. However, this confrontation stems from Jesus’ love of us, his desire for us to live within this holy community, and the truth that we so often sell the gift of our lives short by not living in the Trinity.

If any of this worries us we only need keep reading this passage, for Jesus reminds us that we will not be left orphaned, alone, or abandoned. “I am coming to you,” Jesus promises, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” Sometimes the words through which John shares the Good News tend towards an esoteric realm that may be tough for us to fully grasp. Sometimes I find it frustrating, but typically I find it strangely reassuring. Christ—whom we identify as the eternal salvation-bearing person of the Trinity—continues to live now and always. But really we need say God lives always, which also means that Christ and the Father and the Spirit live always.

When Christ made himself fully known in the person of Jesus what also became fully sanctified was humanity. Yes, our bodies even in their varying degrees of failing, but not just that physical part. All aspects of our humanity were swept up in Christ Jesus’ divinity. Take a moment to remember at once both the Incarnation and the Ascension, for these were not just about God coming to earth and leaving to go to heaven, but rather providing a divine eraser for the perceived space between heaven and earth and earth and heaven. Christ lives on beyond that moment of Ascension, and through this we live. To expand this further, the divine community known as the Trinity is where we came from and it is where we are going, so certainly it is what we are made of at this very moment and it is who we are at our core. We may not currently see this reality with the eyes in our heads, but hopefully we observe it deep down with the eyes of those deeper parts of ourselves.

These Holy Words challenge us this week (and beyond) to merge the deeper vision with the way we look at the world. Christ’s Incarnation, life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension speak of the grand truth of the stages and seasons of our lives too. We do not live separately from God, but eternally dwelling in the community of the Trinity. This does not mean we always get it or see it or that life is a piece of cake. Rather, we live in this reality in which we must practice trusting that God’s Word is true that we live in Christ and Christ lives in the Father and the Father sends the Spirit and the Spirit lives in us. And yet, this statement is way too clean. For the life of the Trinity of which we are a part is both more interconnected, interwoven, and unified and at the same time more precise, distinguished, and specialized than my words can ever describe. So, it’s time I stop typing for awhile and instead experience life in the Trinity!