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Trinity Sunday
May 30, 2010
Proverbs 8: 1-4; 22-31* Psalm 8* Romans 5: 1-5* John 16: 12-15
The Rev. David M. McNair

Most of you know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”   We have before us today an icon depicting God, the Holy Trinity, whose description is beyond words. This icon is a replica of the famous icon written by the great fifteenth century Russian icon –og— rapher Andrew Rublev. Iconographers “write” icons – they don’t “paint” icons – they “write” them because icons tell a story. And a story is something I found myself needing (something to sink my teeth into) as I pondered a sermon for this unique Sunday in the church year.

In the liturgical calendar, today is Trinity Sunday. It’s a major feast day in our church but a strange day for preachers. In seminary we would-be priests were told — or some would say warned — that when/if we became associate priests, most likely we would be assigned to preach on Trinity Sunday. It’s common knowledge — in seminaries and sacristies — that senior rectors like to hand off the sermon for Trinity Sunday to a young associate priest so the senior rector can sit back, smirk, and watch him or her attempt to stay afloat in deep theological waters. It’s the only day in the church year when what is commemorated is not an incident or a story like the coming of the Spirit on the fledgling church with flames of fire and speaking in tongues at Pentecost last week. Instead of a story, what is commemorated today is a Church doctrine that attempts to give us a way to understand the nature of God.

Well, you can imagine, the whole notion of the Trinity can be pretty abstract. Even St. Augustine, who wrote a whole book on the Trinity once said, “If you don’t believe in the Trinity you will lose your soul. But if you try to understand it you will lose your mind.”

God, Christians have said, is “three persons” in one divine life. There are many ways to express the Trinity. The traditional one is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But some find this language not expressive of the fullness of God, because it seems to give male gender to The Holy One. So some use the three functions of the persons of the Trinity: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. The Anglican theologian Dorothy Sayers said this of the Trinity: “The Father, incomprehensible, the Son, incomprehensible, the whole darn thing, incomprehensible.”

So, since we don’t have an associate priest who I can turn this sermon over to, in my attempt to speak about the Trinity, I am grateful to have this icon to help me and all of us out. This icon was written to tell the story of the Holy Trinity. It was inspired by Genesis 18 which tells the story of the visit of three mysterious pilgrims to Abraham and Sara and Abraham who told them of the promise of Issac’s birth. This event was interpreted by the early Church Fathers and Mothers as prefiguring the doctrine of the Trinity.

Like all icons, this one was created for the sole purpose of offering access, through the gate of the visible, to the mystery of the invisible. Icons are regarded as windows looking out into eternity – windows to God. They are written to lead us into the inner room of prayer and bring us close to the heart of God. This might explain why icons are not easy to “see”. They don’t immediately speak to our senses. Only slowly do they start speaking to us – more to our inner senses than our outer senses.(1) 

Some of you may come from a tradition where icons were part of your religious upbringing. For some of us, icons may offer new and welcoming ways to gaze on God and God’s company. For others of us, icons may seem to skirt on the Old Testament prohibition against creating “graven images.” But, if we read the scriptures backwards – take our experience of Jesus, the Christ, and then look backwards, we have a new reading of the old. There is an “iconic” phrase in the Letter to the Colossians: “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God.”  The actual Greek is this: “He is the icon of the invisible God.”  Jesus puts a face, a body, a name, a heart on the invisible God. Jesus, the icon of God. In this beautiful icon, we see God as a Trinity, three persons in a circle of adoring love.

The description of God as a “Trinity of Persons” is not explicitly found in the Scriptures. We can infer a doctrine of the Trinity based on the biblical writings, but how you organize those thoughts, make sense of them, and justify their importance is a matter of incredibly diverse opinion. It’s a little like the story of interviewing five people who witnessed an occurrence and then asking them to describe in their own words what happened. What you’ll get is five different accounts from the five different people.

If we were to look back over the 2000 plus years of Christian history, we obviously will get a great diversity on what has happened, and what is happening with God — known to be the Creator – the envisioning, bespeaking, untouchable, demanding, faceless, nameless God whom Jesus called abba, “daddy,” God the Father. Yet Jesus says he is “at one with” this God. Jesus says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  

This is Jesus: the surprising, wandering, Jewish-rabbi-healer; the long-awaited Messiah who is the very image of God and who was with God in the beginning. Jesus, the innocent, saving, all-so-human incarnation of this One God. Jesus, the Son, embodies God with us – Emmanuel. And then he leaves us. At least, he leaves the earth in bodily form. In his leaving, he promises not to leave us alone or comfortless. He tells us that we shall experience a Spirit who will unify, sustain, comfort, interrupt, and empower us on Pentecost and who keeps coming to us day by day.

The Biblical descriptions of God are many. Listen to these: Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Holy One, Lamb of God, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Root of David, Lord God Almighty, Word of Life, Wisdom, Author and Finisher of our Faith, Advocate, The Way, Dayspring, the burning bush, the Lord of All, Son of God, The Truth, Savior, The Chief Cornerstone, Kings of Kings, Light of the World, Chief Shepherd, Righteous Judge, Morning Star, the Resurrection and the Life, Horn of Salvation, Governor of our souls, the Comforter.

All these experiences of God are summed up in the doctrine of the Trinity – which is the church’s attempt to make sense of God with us — past, present, and future.

As we return to our story written before us in this icon of the Holy Trinity, we remember that icons are typically written in reverse perspective. We, who gaze on the icon, are drawn into the icon. The invitation with this icon is to see our own place waiting for us at the table. There are three persons sitting at the table -- but right there (where one of the angels is pointing) is space for a fourth. You are the fourth guest at this table of fellowship. God gives us all an invitation to the table to share in the life of God. It is God’s invitation away from the dark powers of fear, anxieties, violence, and apprehensions and into the house of love where God resides.

For some of us, this invitation is wonderful and easy to accept, like someone who loves us saying to us, “Welcome home.”  For others of us, we may find some resistance within ourselves. This resistance may have to do with a sense of our worthiness to receive God welcome, to trust God’s love. You might think you’ve got too much baggage from your past, too many screw-ups, too much brokenness, too bad a record for God to love you. But God knows better, and God knows you better. God really does love you. And God’s love for you is not ultimately because of you. God’s love for you is because of God. God loves whom God creates. And if there is a question of your worthiness in God’s eyes – don’t worry. God covers for you. Jesus puts a good word in for you — intercedes for you— saves you. You are actually the apple of God’s eye says the Psalmist.(2)  And God adores you. Accept God’s invitation to be loved by God, forever.

We as Christians believe in, belove, one God: the God of Gods who was in the beginning, the alpha; the God of all eternity, the omega, and in the mean time – sometimes in the toughest of times, the God who meets us along the way and invites us into the house of love. This God, our God, whom the church has reverenced for ages as the holy and undivided Trinity. Blessed be God, forever and forever.

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