THREE IN ONE & ONE IN THREE

Schoolmaster: Now you’ve got the Catechism all buttoned up, Foster?

Foster: I’m a bit hazy about the Trinity, Sir.

Schoolmaster: Three in one, one in three, perfectly straightforward. Any doubts about that see your maths master.

Today is Trinity Sunday. Up and down the country preachers will be attempting to explain the doctrine of the trinity and many will be using visual aids. There will be shamrocks and emergency triangles; bottles of red wine will be flourished to be poured into a single barrel; Members of congregations will be dragooned into representing parts of football teams and cricket teams. This is visual aid Sunday. Well, I’m not going to do any of those things, so apologies to those of Irish descent, sports fans and those hoping for a glass of red wine after the service.

WHO THOUGHT OF THE TRINITY ANYWAY?

Instead I want to take a both a step back and a step forward. A step back to look at how the church fathers came up with this idea of God as Trinity, and a step forward to look at what it tells us about God that God is Trinity and about ourselves as God’s people.

The early church fathers who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity were trying to make sense of their experience of God. Now God is immense, in so many ways unknowable, yet God has revealed Godself to us, through scripture, through God’s dealings with Israel, through the life of Jesus Christ and through the experiences of Christian people throughout the ages. God desires our understanding, even if, as St Paul says, we now only see through a glass darkly. The early church Fathers were trying to make sense of two very important concepts. The first is from the Jewish tradition, encapsulated by the command “Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, is one Lord”. The Jewish people were surrounded by civilisations and cultures who couldn’t believe that there could possibly be only one God. The fact that Israel was able to cling on to this belief is nothing short of a miracle. This tiny monotheistic nation in a polytheistic sea. Often looking like it was going to be swallowed up but there was always a remnant left. This was the bed-rock on which the church was founded.

But the early Christian experience had another dimension. And that came about through the encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. Now Jesus didn’t walk round Galilee claiming that he was God, he used language about himself like “son of man” which we heard used in our gospel passage. Yet he spoke with all the authority of God, “”Very truly I tell you” whereas the Old Testament prophets had used words such as “Thus says the Lord”. He claimed the authority to alter and intensify the teaching of Moses. He claimed the authority to forgive sins, and assumed that he would be the judge at the end of time. But he left individuals with the task of deciding for themselves who he was: “Who do you say I am?” he asks. The early church recognised Jesus of Nazareth as the son of God, and millions today still encounter and recognise him as the son of God. And Jesus had to be a second person in the Godhead because he was constantly referring to the Father as someone distinct from himself. He prayed to the Father, deferred to the father, worshipped the father. The only way to make sense of this, therefore, was that God was both father and son.

THE THIRD DIMENSION

And of course there is a third dimension. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit as a source of comfort and help. We heard last week about two contrasting experiences of receiving the Holy Spirit: the Pentecost experience of a great wind and tongues of fire, and the more gentle experience of the risen Christ breathing on the disciples. The Spirit, then came from him, but was different to him. There is a third manifestation of God.

So that was the experience of the early church fathers, God as one, timeless, faithful throughout the ages to His people Israel. And God as three, as Father who sent, Son who was sent, and the spirit who remains to strengthen. Three in one and one in three. And that is how we experience God, through scripture, experience and liturgy The Trinity is a totally honest idea. It doesn’t try to fudge the issues, it states things as they are: God is one and God is three.

WHAT CAN THE TRINITY TELL US ABOUT GOD?

So what does this doctrine tell us about God? Well, first it speaks of God being in relationship and the nature of that relationship is love. Each person of the Trinity gives love to the other persons, each also receives love from the other persons, it’s a Godly triangle of love!! God has always given and received love, it is in God’s very nature. And that’s important for us. For a start, God is not dependent on our love, God didn’t create the world to get love, God was already loved. And this is our pattern, to be able to give and receive love. Note both sides of this, because some people are very good at giving love, but not so good at receiving, whereas others are very good at receiving love but not so good at giving. Of course we can only give and receive love if we are in relationship with others, in community, just as the three persons of the Trinity are in community.

And we are in relationship not only with each other, but we are also in relationship with the Trinity. Because we are in Christ, we are taken up into the divine nature. We have a place right there at the heart of God. In today’s Epistle reading Paul speaks of our being joint heirs with Christ. St Peter writes that “we participate in the divine nature”. Again as Paul says “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God”. So we are held in the eternal love of God.

IDENTIFYING GOD...

The Trinity also tells us something about identity. The three persons are distinct and individual. They have an individual role to play in salvation history, the Father sends the son, the son gives his life for humankind, the Holy Spirit inspires and aids those who believe. So each is distinctive, but they are all one God, there is also total unity. And that speaks to our individualistic society. The distinctiveness of each of us is to be celebrated, our giftedness is a gift of God, yet we are all part of the one body of Christ, we also are a unity or at least we should be. It doesn’t mean that we lose our individuality it does mean that we should work towards a church where all can find their place.

Linked to this is how the persons of the Trinity are seen to relate to each other. At the moment of Jesus’ baptism the Father declares “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased”. And Jesus prays on the night before he dies “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you”. And in our gospel reading Jesus says “No one can enter the kingdom of heaven without being born of water and Spirit”, he acknowledges the crucial role of the Spirit in salvation. So the Trinity, in a sense is a mutual glorification society. They praise each other and glorify each other and revel in each others giftedness. Now there’s a pattern for us to follow, how often do we praise each other and glorify each other and revel in each others giftedness.

WORKING HIS PURPOSE OUT...

But the Trinity isn’t just a mutual admiration society, God looks outward towards humankind, from the gospel reading “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God loves beyond the Trinity, God loves enough to suffer and to die for humankind. And our calling also is to look outwards and to do God’s work in the world, loving not just those in our own family and social group and church, but also the stranger in our midst. God gave to the world, we too are called to give to the world.

I think we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the church fathers who worked so hard to come up with a true description of the God they experienced. Over 16 centuries later we still use their words when we say the creed. The doctrine of the Trinity may be difficult to understand, but it’s total honesty, it’s total regard for the truth of how we encounter God makes it a crucial part of our understanding of God, and a pattern to follow in our own lives and community.  

Penny Sayer
St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea

Picture Credits on this page: last picture by Salvador Dali