May 18, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9 + Daniel 2: 52-55 + 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13 + John 3: 16-18
Last week I drove to Tulsa to give a talk, and Brian, a seminary student from the parish went along to do some driving since I wanted to come back late in the evening after the talk. It was a nice ride and conversation, and I questioned him about what he learning and studying in school. Since it is nearly five decades since I was at that level of education, I had some curiosity. To my surprise, things have changed, but at the same time, not much!
A contemporary of mine was recently reflecting on our theological studies which Brian will soon begin, and I was wondering earlier this week what that part of his education will be like as I tried desperately to remember what I learned in the seminary about the Holy Trinity. I remember all the things that don’t help. I remember that that class met at 7:30 am. It was dark most of the year at that hour. Try to imagine a room full of 22-year-olds sitting together at that hour through a lecture on the Holy Trinity. Courage was not the least of that professor’s gifts. I remember how bored I was or how boring the professor was, I’m not sure which was the cause; but I can you this much, at the risk of casing scandal, at age 22 I wasn’t very interested. The treatise on the Trinity was the Rubik’s cube of theology, summarized this way (I actually still have my notes): four relations, three Persons, two processions, one God, and no proof; and I would add, little relevance to my spiritual life at the time.
There is not much information on the Trinity from the Bible, and especially in the readings assigned to this day. John 3:16 is an important text which many Christians, stick on the bumpers, hold up on cards at football games, and quote by memory. I know this since a person who sideswiped my car this past week while talking on a cell phone had John 3:16 on the bumper of their car. I just a few words, John 3:16 sums it all up as far as we are concerned who live in the post-resurrection era remembering and deepening our understanding of what has happened to us because of God’s Love. But it isn’t going to provide much information about the central mystery of Christian Faith.
What these reading do is point to the experience that will lead us into the mystery of the Trinity because the Trinity is not about equations or Metaphysical expressions. It is about love: God-love, Divine Love. The Gospel of John does not present a theology of non-Christian religions but is written both for fence-sitters like Nicodemus (who is being addressed in the third chapter) and for John’s persecuted community. This text is abused when used to condemn nonbelievers. It is a gift of hope for us who are believers; hope that we are loved by a distant God but by one whose Son offered up the very life of God for our sake.
It is love that leads us into the mystery of the Trinity and what it reveals to us about God. We proclaim, we worship, we believe in a God who is love, and because of that love, there is a relationship in which we believe in a God with whom there is trust, confidence, and strangest of all, of affection. Our God acts toward us with affection asking for a response, and the only word describe that response if “love.”
Suddenly then we are not God’s creatures, we are God’s children. We share in God’s life. That means that it is not only God’s nature to know and to love creatively, but also our nature as well. If we are ever to become what we have been created to be, fully what God intended, then we live out our lives in likeness to God. We must become a true community, in which each member both creates and is created by the others, a community in which each member sees in others the perfection of God, so perfectly reflected that love is the only possible bond.
The more this revelation sinks into our hearts and our minds and our souls, the more powerfully the Spirit will have filled us, and the more we shall be led into the light in profound unity and reconciliation.
Yesterday afternoon I held the son of young woman I have known since she was about 12 years old. Her husband was standing behind her. I looked into the eyes of that 8-month-old beautiful child, and I said, he has his father’s eyes. When we find ourselves looking into each other’s eyes and able to see the eyes of God and see with the eyes of God, we shall have entered into the mystery of the Trinity; the mystery of God’s love which is not a closed circle. It has been broken open by the Incarnation in order to draw us into a new creation in which we shall have eternal life.
This is what we believe: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.