Today we’re celebrating
the Trinity. Naturally, as good Christians, we celebrate the Trinity every day.
But today we commemorate the feast of the Trinity. One God, in three divine
persons: Father, Son, Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. Each person is unique
in their relation to one another, but remains one in all else. Co-equal,
co-eternal, consubstantial.
And of
course, we all perfectly understand the Trinity, right? Of course not. No one
does. That’s why we recognise the mystery of the Trinity. Not mystery as in a
whodunnit novel, but the mystery that no matter how many ways we try to
describe it, we will not succeed. No matter how often we try to understand it,
we simply will not. Our human selves were not designed to understand it, but we
were created to delight in it through faith.
We
have all heard many examples of ideas as to how to describe the Trinity:
there’s the 3-leaf shamrock (all connected as one); the 3 forms of water (ice,
water, steam); the egg (shell, white, yolk) or apple (peel, flesh, core); the
sun (the star, the light, and the heat). There are many ways we try – and
many ways we fail. Partialism (like the shamrock, egg, or apple) suggests that
each is just a part of a whole, rather than a whole being itself. Modalism or Sabellianism
suggests that God is just one person, being revealed in different forms (like
the water example). Arianism suggests a hierarchical structure (like the sun).[1] Lots of analogies, lots of challenges.
Yet. The Trinity - it's
important. It's an mportant teaching of our church. And so we dare not run away
from it, or try to ignore it, nor try to simplify it in simple descriptions. We
could, if we wanted to, all pull out the BCP and delve into the Creed of St.
Athanasius.
Or, we can look at it from
a slightly different perspective. When it comes to faith, we can try to describe
it until we’re out of breath, and it would still come across as simple words.
Alternatively, we can find ways to live out our faith.
We can describe all the
intricacies of a flower, but won’t appreciate it’s full beauty until we’ve
seen, smelled, touched it. We can articulate the physiological realities of
human contact, but we all know that words cannot explain the feeling of holding
a loved one’s hand. You get the idea – we could write out all there is to be
written about faith, but we all benefit most when we live it in all aspects of
our lives.
And faith - as we well
know, as we are reminded today - is what it's about. We are called to be people
of faith - people who believe: people who will be granted eternal life by the
Triune God, because of that faith. That faith which we all know and love and
have memorised form the end of the gospel passage today: "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. Indeed,
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him.
So. How do we then
celebrate that faith? How do we express our faith in ways that are genuine and
beautiful, ways that are not meant just for ourselves but as an invitation for
others to join us on a faith journey? Well, here I’m going to use the former motto
from the PWRDF: Pray, Act, Give.
The notion is that the
first thing we should do for any situation and any decision making is pray –
inviting the Triune God into our lives. Of course this implies prayer (where we
speak to God) and meditation (where we listen to God). We know the benefits of
prayer, we know that God hears the slightest prayerful stirrings of our hearts,
we know that it is the first tangible demonstration of our faith.
Then
we are called to act. We’re called to discern what God is inviting us to do,
how God is encouraging us to engage in our world, how God is desiring us to
serve. And then we are called to do just that: acting out what God made us for,
what Christ redeemed us for, and what the Spirit sustains us to do. When we are
doing something with our God-given gifts to glorify God, we are acting out our
faith.
And,
thirdly, we are called to give. We’re called to consider what it is that God
has given us, and what it is that we are able to give back. Are we able to
contribute the biblical 10% financially? Do we dedicate 10% of our time? Do we
commission 10% of our work to the glory of God? Tithing is not just about
pulling out the chequebook, it’s about a regular evaluation of giving one-tenth
to God and God’s mission. One tenth of our conversations, one tenth of our TV
or reading time, one tenth of our skills and abilities, and yes, one tenth of
our budget.
When we give of ourselves,
through our gifts to the church, we are giving for the love of God, for the greater
glory of God, and we are giving to other beloved of God.
So
this week, as we continue to ponder on the Trinity, I encourage us all to focus
not on finding new ways and analogies to describe the Triune God, but rather I
encourage us to find new ways to be intentional in our relationship with God. I
don’t expect us to completely understand how God works – remember, that’s a
mystery. But I do expect us to contemplate how we are responding to that great
mystery. How does God influence our prayers? How does God influence our action?
And how does God influence our giving? The divine may not be explicable, but
our human response should be.
I pray we are all inspired to live out our faith this Trinity
Sunday, this week, and throughout the year. I pray that we are all eager to
demonstrate the mystery of the Triune God that speaks in our hearts while our
fragile minds cannot find the words to describe. I pray that we might celebrate
and delight in the living Trinity in all of our prayers, actions, and gifts. I
pray that the many blessings of God – Father, Son, and Spirit – may rest upon
each of us, and those we love, and those we pray for, and those we serve.
(re-worked from a previous effort)
