Making (Some) Sense of the Trinity (Romans 5:1-5; Trinity Sunday C; May 26, 2013)

Making (Some) Sense of the Trinity

Romans 5:1-5
Trinity Sunday C
May 26, 2013

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA

In the secular calendar of our nation it is Memorial Day weekend.  At cemeteries around the country there are special ceremonies.  We are remembering our nation’s war dead, those whose lives were lost in the course of fighting our many—too many—wars.  We should remember them.  I think that we should also remember those who put on uniforms, went away to war and came home wounded and changed in ways that have made it difficult to impossible to live normal lives again. 

But in the church we have a different calendar, one that is tied, not to the rhythms of national life, but to the life and work of Jesus Christ.  You’ve been overhearing, I’m sure, when I’ve talked to the kids about the church year and the various colors that go along with it.  You may remember that there are two major seasons of the church year: the season that centers on Easter and the season that centers on Christmas.  Those two seasons take up twenty Sundays of the year, leaving thirty-two Sundays that belong to what we call “ordinary time.”  Ordinary time comes in two blocks, one after Epiphany and the other after Pentecost.  In their wisdom, the folks who put together our modern version of the calendar decided to “frame” these blocks of ordinary time with minor observances.  The ordinary time after Christmas begins with the Baptism of Christ and ends with the Transfiguration.  The ordinary time after Easter ends with Christ the King and begins, today, with Trinity Sunday.  The color for all four of those minor observances is white.  In four Sundays we have white, red, white, and green—it keeps us alert.

So today is Trinity Sunday.  Hooray, I guess.  What do we do with that?  Well, we’re Christians, we believe in the Trinity.  Uh huh.  So, Pastor, explain to me about the Trinity.  What do you want to know?  What is it?  The Christian tradition teaches that there is one God and that God is known to us in three persons.  Where does it say that in the Bible?  It doesn’t.  But we believe it?  Yes.  So, one plus one plus one equals three?  I suppose so.  Then why aren’t there fights with math teachers about arithmetic like there are fights with science teachers about evolution?

Now, of course, in this imaginary conversation, if I were not being flippant, we could go into the whole story of how the catholic, orthodox church—the part of the Christian movement where our roots lie—came to this decision about how we should talk about God.  It is not a pretty story. 

I had the chance to have lunch this week with Eric Schubert who will be commissioned as a minister two weeks from today.  I’m impressed with him.  He has just enough education to be dangerous and just enough experience in the church to be prudent.  I predict a challenging and rewarding journey for him in ordained ministry and challenging and rewarding times for the congregations where he will serve.

Anyway, Eric points out that the current fights in our denomination haven’t really been going on very long.  We’ve been fighting about sex for forty years.  We fought about the Trinity for over four hundred years.  We are amateurs, mere dabblers, in conflict compared to the heroic partisans of the early days!

It was a bitter struggle.  In Alexandria, Egypt, there were riots between the orthodox who believed that the Son was of the same substance with the Father and the Arians who believed that the Son was of a similar substance to the Father, the difference being expressed with a single letter, an iota, that marked the difference between the orthodox homoousios and the Arian homoiousios.  To this day the Eastern (or Greek) Church and the Western (or Latin) Church cannot agree on whether the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” or “from the Father and the Son.”

We can study the debates and controversies if we’d like.  They are things that fascinate the sort of people who are fascinated by these things.  As for the rest of us—not so much.  So maybe the question before us is, “Is this something that we don’t understand, something for which there is no practical use, but which we are nevertheless supposed to believe?”

The short answer according to me is, No.  Of course we can’t understand the Trinity completely.  Human language is not big enough to contain God, even on a good day.  But we ought to be able to understand enough to be able to experience in practice what the notion of the Trinity is getting at.  We ought to be able to make some sense of the Trinity.

Paul seems to be doing something of the sort in the early parts of our reading from Romans.  Paul says we have peace with God through Christ and, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Spirit, we are being formed and transformed so that we share in God’s glory.  So, we have God, Christ and the Spirit and all are involved in some way in forming us.

The Trinity is an elegant solution to a difficult problem that Paul has touched on.  The trouble is, the language that early theologians used to work this out makes as much sense to us as an algebra word problem written out in ancient Akkadian.  We have to express both the problem and the solution in language and forms of thought that make sense to us.

And here’s the background of the problem that I think Paul is touching on and the Trinity addresses squarely: We are followers of Jesus because we have met the God of Jesus.  We have met the God of Jesus because we have met Jesus.  We don’t meet Jesus in the flesh the way that his first disciples did.  Instead, we meet Jesus through the Spirit who is present when and wherever the followers of Jesus gather.  The problem itself is this: How do we live with confidence and boldness as followers of Jesus?  How do we know that the God that we meet when we gather with other followers of Jesus is authentic?

Let’s start at the beginning.  Jesus’ first disciples met God and experienced God’s love in the life and teaching, the ministry and person of Jesus of Nazareth.  But is this authentic?  Is the God whom they met in the life and teaching, the ministry and person of Jesus of Nazareth the same God as the God who made the mosquito, set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt, and entered into a committed relationship with them?  If so, then the disciples can trust the love that they found in Jesus.  If not, then who knows but what God is holding something back that might call that love into question? 

The idea of the Trinity says that the answer is, Yes, this is the same God.  You can trust the love that you find in the life and teaching, the ministry and person of Jesus of Nazareth as the love of the God who made the mosquito, freed captives and entered a committed relationship with the Israelites.  This God they met in Jesus is not a different God, or a being who is something like God, but the very same God.  The disciples can live with confidence and boldness as followers of Jesus.

But our situation is different.  We can’t see Jesus.  We can’t touch him, smell, hear or taste him.  He isn’t here for us in the same way that he was there for the disciples.  Without using any of the five senses, though, we are able to sense a Spirit when we gather with other followers of Jesus.  Sometimes that Spirit can barely be felt at all and other times it nearly clubs us over the head.  And in that Spirit we meet Jesus.  And in our meeting with Jesus in that Spirit we meet the love of God.  But is this authentic?  Is the God whose love we meet in the Jesus we meet in the Spirit the same God as the disciples meet in Jesus of Nazareth, the same God as the God who made the mosquito, delivered captive slaves and made covenant with those freed captives?  If so, then we can trust the love that we meet.  If not, then who knows but what God is holding something back that might call that love into question? 

The idea of the Trinity says that the answer is, Yes, this is the same God.  We can trust the love that we find in the life and teaching, the ministry and person of Jesus of Nazareth whom meet in the Spirit as the love of the God who made the mosquito and did all those other things.  Yes, the God whom we meet in Jesus is God.  Yes, the Spirit in whom we meet Jesus is God.  They are the same God, the one God, the God who made the mosquito.  And we can trust this love that has met us.

The idea of the Trinity was not something written down in the Bible.  Instead it is our attempt to make sense of our experience as followers of Jesus.  But it is not just arcane speculation.  It is a practical matter for a practical people like us.  It is the encouragement that we, acting together as the Church, give to ourselves as individual followers of Jesus that we are indeed on the right path.  It is our reminder to ourselves that we can trust this way of living out of and toward God’s love.  It is our charge to ourselves to live with confidence and boldness as followers of Jesus.

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