Remember the Far Side comic? Drawn by Gary Larson, it was a single frame comic that was a quirky take on every day life from a nerdy scientist’s perspective. It took the most familiar of human situations and twisted them into something altogether new.
Now I wouldn’t call the doctrine of the Trinity a familiar part of everyday life, but still I find some guidance in explaining the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God, from the Far Side.
My favorite Far Side comic depicts a figure looking an awful lot like Albert Einstein standing in front of a blackboard. Three headings sit atop three columns on the board, marked Step One, Step Two and Step Three. Under Steps 1 and 3 are numbers and mathematical symbols, suggesting some type of formula. Step 2 has no such numbers, no symbols, no formula. Instead it just says, “And then a miracle happens.” Sometimes, even in science, we just don’t know how we get from Step One to Step Three, we just know that we do. Such are the attempts to explain the doctrine of the Trinity: Father/Mother/ Creator, Son and Holy Spirit….one is tempted to give all the theological explanations and then just say, well, then a miracle happens: Step 1 We Believe in God. Step Three we believe in a Holy and Undivided Trinity. Step 2, a miracle happens which makes three into one, and one into three.
Some things can’t be explained as much as they can be experienced.
The bottom line is, none of us fully understand the Trinity. Sure we have a sense of it: we believe in One God who is present to us in three distinct, yet linked ways: God as Father/Mother/Creator, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit---but we don’t really understand it, to understand it would suggest that we grasp it in all of its nuance. We can’t do that. Our belief in the Trinity requires a leap of faith, a miracle, and an acceptance that we won’t know what this really means until the last day. Until then, we’re grasping at straws whenever we try to come up with a hard and fast definition.
So in no way am I going to try and make the Holy and Undivided Trinity understandable to you, Understanding is a personal thing which comes to each of us in different ways and at different times. It’s a dynamic process, constantly changing, evolving, moving. As a matter of fact that---the dynamic nature of learning, of understanding, is also an excellent way to describe the Trinity. For activity-- dynamic process-- is a key piece of the interrelatedness between our Creator Father/Mother God our Redeeming Son God and our Sustaining Advocate Holy Spirit God---they’re in constant movement toward one another and towards us.
Now let’s get one thing clear, we have one God. Period. When we say, there are three persons in One God, what we mean is that there are three aspects, three distinct ways the Divine is in relationship with us—the more authoritative, parental God who was and is the Creator of all things, the accessible fully human and fully divine God—the Son who felt all the same things we feel and was capable of all the same things--except sin-- and finally, the advocate, the Holy Spirit given to us on Pentecost; that unseen God who acts in and through other people in our lives and is that still small voice deep within us. But these three distinct characteristics of God are just that--- characteristics of a whole—they are not separate.
They are “part of. “
Throughout the generations, people have fought over the Doctrine of the Trinity---St. Nicholas was expelled from the Council of Nicea because he became so irate over the efforts to explain, in words, just what we mean by the Holy and Undivided Trinity, one God, that he actually punched another attendee. Others have made valiant efforts to explain the Trinity using visual aids:
St. Patrick used the three leaves of a Shamrock—each leaf is distinct but is not separate from the whole of the clover.
Icons show the Trinity as a swirling dance of interconnected parts—always attached, but each moving in it’s own way.
Almost all expository attempts at describing the Trinity fall short because at its heart, the essence of the Trinity is relationship. And describing the essence of a relationship almost always fails. Think of your own relationships---the most precious ones you have—how would you describe them? Can you find the words? Could you diagram it? You could get close, but it would still be lacking.
That’s my point---to describe the Holy and Undivided Trinity just doesn’t do it justice, because it’s a relationship and relationships can’t be explained as much as they are experienced.
God, in God’s three fold nature, is relationship. God, as expressed through the Body of Christ here at St Luke's....[and more examples of their ministries] is relationship
Retired Lutheran Pastor Richard Lischer shared this interpretation of the Trinity he discovered while contemplating a stained glass window depiction of the Trinity: “The fairly typical Trinitarian design of three interconnecting triangles reminded me of an aerial photograph taken of our small farming community,” wrote Lischer. Besides the straight and orderly rows of crops in the fields, another distinct pattern emerged: well-worn paths criss-crossing from one farmhouse to another. These paths, worn into the ground by generations of neighbors visiting and helping out in times of need, linked the town, they knit the community together.”
Lischer’s description of the interconnectedness represented in those paths explains my experience of the Trinity.
God grooves paths in our lives, coming to us at different times and in different forms to address a variety of needs.
God, in three persons, Blessed Trinity, reaches out to us as a strong parental type when we feel small and childlike. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a forgiving friend in times of loneliness and confusion. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a sustaining force of inexplicable peace when we are bereft and lost, angry and bitter, hopeless and helpless. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity, longs to be a palpable presence in our lives, so God in God’s infinite wisdom, walks a number of paths to reach us.
Step One: God Loves Us.
Step Three: God Wants to be With Us
Step Two: Through the miracle and mystery of God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity, God’s Love is always with us.
Amen.
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