Howard Anderson, formerly in charge of Cathedral College (the College of Preachers) in Washington, D.C., years ago gave this example of talking about the Trinity. Since the tree he uses is one we find here, I thought you might appreciate it:
‘My first confirmation class years ago had young man who loved biology. He had been studying aspen (we call them popples in Minnesota) and said something like this. “The popple root system is very wide and deep. The individual saplings grow out from it, and are fully a tree, yet interdependent upon the deep and wide root system. If you cut down a tree, another sprouts. So I think that the creator God is that deep and wide root system and when Jesus grew up as fully a human, and was cut down in the crucifixion, the resurrected Christ was like the sapling that grew up again out of the roots. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is yet another ‘sapling’ which grows out of the complex root system, part of the deep and wide roots, and maybe part of the tree cut down, like Jesus, but fully a part of the whole root system.”’ Then Anderson wrote: ‘How’s that for a 9th grader?’
How would you put the Trinity, the mystery that lies at the heart of our faith, into words or imagery?
Some preachers on this Sunday engage the congregation in the following exercise: they read the Nicene Creed, phrase by phrase. If people believe what is said in a particular phrase, they stand. If they have a hard time understanding the ideas in the phrase or don’t believe it, they sit down. The total effect is of a congregation looking like a jack-in-the-box, rarely all standing or sitting at one time. One sees how different people respond to different parts of the creed. (I did this exercise last year during a continuing education session with the clergy of the Anglican Church in El Salvador and the only person other than I who was standing and sitting was the bishop. The others were a bit too intimidated, I think.)
In my early years at Saint Mary’s, we held a Lenten series on the creeds, those prayers that articulate the Christian faith we profess. Some of what we discussed was met with a bit of resistance and even fear. How could we possibly question what is in the creeds? Wasn’t that wrong? But it is precisely that questioning about our complex faith that led to the creeds as the early church tried to nail down what it was about this God, the three-in-one and one-in-three that even on the clearest of days cannot be fully understood because its essence is mystery.
So I return to my first question: into what words would you describe your faith? If I were to sit down right now and leave you with a piece of paper and pencil, could you put into words what you believe, what draws you to this place at this time?
Other people in inquirers’ classes and the like have put down their thoughts and I collected their professions of faith. Here is a small sampling. Let the words wash over you and see if they reflect any of what you understand about the Trinity.
I believe in God the creator and sustainer.
I believe in Jesus who was crucified, was dead and who was raised from the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, our advocate and enabler.
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We believe in God, the Holy Being and Unseen Spirit
whose presence is felt in all good things around us.
There is no sin too big that cannot be forgiven by God.
We believe there is a piece of God in all of us.
We believe in Jesus, our Teacher and Rabbi
a prophet, messenger and the Lord,
our leader who shows us The Way.
We believe that He loves us with a selfless love,
He died for us and the sins of the world.
He performed many miracles and always puts His people first.
We believe that Jesus lives in each one of us
to spread the word of God’s love in the world.
We believe in the Holy Spirit who is
a gift of the Resurrection of Jesus
and part of the mystery of the Trinity.
We believe that the Holy Spirit lives inside us
to guide us to The Truth.
We believe that the Church is God’s gift to us:
A sanctuary – a safe place from the world
A Holy place where we can pray
and express what we believe.
A place to find forgiveness and hope.
A place to know Jesus.
We believe that the Church is God’s house,
our home, our community.
now and forever. Amen.
+
We believe in God the Holy Trinity,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
Originator, Saviour, Comforter,
each distinctive,
yet all being of one presence.
We believe in the Father, the beginning,
who brought into being
all that we know and do not yet know.
We believe in Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Saviour,
who came down to be one with us,
sacrificed himself that we may ever be forgiven,
and rose again giving us hope.
The Word of God,
he it is who loves us, teaches us,
and is always our unfailing friend.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
sustainer in our Christian life,
who inspires us now as in ages past.
We believe in one church,
and work for its unity.
We believe in one faith,
perceived in varied ways.
We look for the life of the world to come,
whilst acting responsibly with this world,
and the life upon it. (1)
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Sometimes rather than explain the theology behind something it is better to respond to it with our heart, mind, and soul, as the above people have. So, again, I ask, how would you put into words or music or imagery the mystery of the Trinity?
For the ninth grader, the image of the popple tree worked. For me, the trillium that will soon appear in the woods, whose needlepoint image I see every Sunday at the kneeler in front of me and whose photo is on the front of the bulletin, reminds me of the three-in-one and one-in-three. For someone else, expressing the creed might come in singing the Credo from William Byrd’s Mass in Four Parts or Saint Patrick’s Breastplate (hymn 370).
Frederick Buechner explains the Trinity another way: ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mean that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery. Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we experience God.… If the love of God as both Three and One seems farfetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror someday. (2)
Because when we boil all theological language down, we arrive at the realisation that all of these words are our way of expressing that the God we worship, adore and love is a God of relationships. In God’s coming to us, we find that God is presence, wisdom and power. God is present in all of our relationships; God has the capacity to relate to everyone. God is the related one — within Godself as the three in one and the one in three. The Trinity is a mystery of relationship that is visible, invisible and sensed. The Trinity is God’s mystery of relationship with us. As we have heard all of Eastertide, God abides in us and we in God, just as Jesus abides in God and we in him. So maybe another image for all this is the Mobius strip!
I always return to Meister Eckhart’s image of the Trinity: ‘When God laughs at the soul, and the soul laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity are begotten. To speak in hyperbole, when the Father laughs to the Son, and the Son laughs back to the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love gives the persons of the Trinity of which the Holy Spirit is one.’
At this church named, ‘Trinity,’ whose feast day it is today, take all these images, find your own and know that even as the Trinity is a mystery, it is also the expression of God’s infinite love for us.
END NOTES
(1) From various blogs, including telling-secrets.blogspot.com, and revjph.blogspot.com
(2) Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1973, 1993), 114.
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