Trinity Sunday May 18 2008
19/05/08 11:23
Trinity Sunday
May 18, 2008
Trinity: Why It Matters
By Fr. Bruce Cecil, CSC
A little girl in kindergarten was drawing. Her teacher asks, “What are you drawing?” The little girl responded, “I’m drawing God.” The teacher replied, “That’s impossible. Nobody knows what God looks like.” But the little girl, without skipping a beat, responded with total self assurance, “Don’t worry, teacher. In a few moments, they will!”
How do we know what God looks like? As Christians, we see God reflected in human form in Jesus Christ, whom we believe is God. But apart from Jesus, we can’t see God or draw God or even comprehend God in a full and comprehensive way.
We can’t study God through a telescope, like we look at and study the stars and planets. We can’t dissect God under a microscope, like we do a frog in biology lab. That’s what make’s today’s feast of the Most Holy Trinity so difficult. It’s the only feast in the church dedicated to a “doctrine,” or “belief.” Many preaches look ahead to this day and groan, wondering how to make something so esoteric and so abstract as the Trinity comprehensible and meaningful to their congregants on Sunday morning. I’ve even heard fellow priests mutter, “If the Pope declared suddenly that there were four persons in God, not just three, most Catholics would just say, “So what?” and roll over in bed and go back to sleep.” The Trinity is NOT one of those doctrines that stirs the soul, that keeps us alert, on our toes, awake, full of enthusiasm and excitement. It doesn’t touch us at a gut level, at the level of real life.
A joke is told of a little boy on a cruise ship who fell overboard into the ocean. The mother, frantic, began screaming, “Help! Get a theologian!” All the people around started to ask, “Why a theologian?” The mother replied confidently, “Because theologians can go deeper and stay down longer than anyone else I know!” (Maybe you need to be in seminary and surrounded by theology professors to really get that joke!) It seems like the doctrine of the Trinity is one of those deep, dark mysteries reserved for study by the theologians!
But today, my friends, we are going to go down deeper and try to stay longer – but because the Trinity really does matter. And we’re going to look at why it matters.
Two ways we are going to look at God today: Ontologically and experientially. That first way involves using a very big, theological word, so please, repeat it after me: Ontologically. Once again – Ontologically. It simply means “the nature, the core real essence of something.” So the doctrine of the Trinity talks about the “ontological” or “core nature” of God. More simply: Who is God?
Our second question is experiential: How do we experience God? It deals NOT just with the question, “Who is God?” but with the deeper question: “Who is God to me?”
Let’s begin with the ontological question: Who is God?
I heard a story recently about a missionary priest who traveled to Japan to convert the natives to Christianity back in the 19th century. He was trying to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To explain God as Father, he of course used the image of a father. And to explain God the Son, he obviously used the imagery of a son. But for the Spirit, that was more difficult, so he used the image of a bird – of the dove descending on Jesus at his baptism. One of the Japanese men who was listening finally said to the missionary priest, “Father, I understand when you talk about the Honorable Father. And I understand when you talk about the Honorable Son. But you really confuse me when you talk about Honorable Big Bird!”
Theologian Sandra Schneiders says to us: “God is not two men and a bird!”
The problem is that we are born naturally curious. We want to understand God. A story is told of a little boy, 4 years old, who asked his mom, “Where is God?” She answered, “Everywhere.” The boy persisted, “Is God in this room?” and his mother replied, “Yes.” Then he asked, “Is God in my glass of milk?” Again, the mom replied, “Yes.” The boy paused, slapped his hand over the glass of milk and screamed in delight, “Gotcha!”
Would that getting a hold of God were so easy! But it isn’t. That’s why people, through the centuries, have used all sorts of analogies and examples to try to understand the Trinity. Saint Patrick used a three leaf clover. Saint Augustine used the sun – as a bright orb, as rays emanating from that orb, and as the heat we feel from the sun on our skin. Others have said the Trinity is like an apple – core, fruit and skin, but still, one apple; or like water, H2O – liquid, gas and solid, but still it’s water, H2O. The problem is that none of these analogies really works completely. How does one say that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1, not 3?
That’s why some religions attack us on the doctrine of the Trinity. They claim that the Trinity was invented by the bishops of the early church in the 4th century, at the Council of Nicaea. They claim that belief in the Trinity means we believe in three gods, not one God. Some groups today that deny the Trinity include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Apostolic or One-ness Only or Jesus-only Pentecostals, Unitarians, and of course, Muslims and Jews. But denial of the Trinity goes all the way back to before the time of the Council of Nicaea, to a priest named Arius who said the idea of the Trinity was nonsense. I want to ask, “If there is no Trinity, and if we accept that Jesus is God, then who was Jesus praying to when he prayed, ‘Our Father’? Was he merely praying to himself?
You may remember that ancient story about St. Augustine. One day he took a break from writing about the Trinity to take a walk along the seashore. There he came across a child with a little pail, intently scooping up a pail full of water out of the ocean, then walking up the beach and dumping it out into the sand, then going back down to scoop out another pail of water to pour into the sand, etc. Augustine asked the child what he was doing, and the child explained that he was “emptying the sea out into the sand.” When the Bishop tried to gently point out the absurd impossibility of this task, the child replied, “Ah, but I’ll drain the sea before you understand the Trinity.”
The Trinity is a mystery. Ontologically, we can never fully grasp the core of God’s being. That’s because we are not God. In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord tells us: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9, NAB)
So why does this all matter, anyway? Maybe you’ve heard people say, “It doesn’t really matter what you believe; it just matters that you believe.” Wrong! Lie! Warning, warning! Here’s why it matters. How can the beliefs about God of radical terrorist suicide bombers or an Osama bin Laden be equal to the beliefs about God of a Mahatma Gandhi or a Mother Teresa? Is God a teddy bear or a vengeful, wrathful dictator? Is God loving or capricious? Is God personal or just an impersonal force? You see, what we believe about God really does make a difference!
On your handout are some of the different ways people have looked at God, and how those beliefs have had consequences.
♣ In the time of Jesus, the Greeks, Romans, Persians and Egyptians believed in lots of gods. They were polytheists. They worshiped gods for the sun and moon, for love and war, for mountains and seas, for storms and fertility. Such beliefs lead to superstition – we pray to one god for good crops, another god for safety from storms and earthquakes, another god for our love life, another god when we go to war. Today, we may not believe in multiple gods, but there is still a lot of superstitious beliefs – people who worry about ghosts and their houses being haunted by evil spirits, or we wear a rosary around our neck in a superstitious belief that somehow, we’ll be protected from harm and danger.
♣ Today, some people are atheists and believe in no God or gods. In the last year or two, the atheistic viewpoint has become particularly prominent, because of vocal atheistic authors and scientists like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Harris. But if there is no God, life is completely meaningless, absurd, purposeless. We’re just cosmic accidents. That leads to hopelessness and despair.
♣ The founding fathers of the U.S. republic, people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, were deists. They believed in God, but they believed that God had been like a giant clockmaker who wound up the clock – the universe – and then left. So God is absent from the world. That leads to self reliance and a philosophy of rugged individualism and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” No wonder so many people in our country today struggle with trusting God in their lives. But Jesus teaches us to let go and let God – trust in God’s love, and in God’s grace to save us, not us having to save ourselves because of a God who is AWOL and absent from the scene.
♣ Another popular version of God today is what I call the “Star Wars God” – an impersonal force, “May the Force be with you.” Eastern religions and much of the New Age movement seem to believe in this kind of “god.” But a cosmic force is not the same as God, and leaves us cold and alone.
♣ Finally, we come to the Christian notion of God, which is what is revealed in our doctrine of the Trinity – a personal God who knows us intimately, who loves us dearly, who craves an ongoing, living friendship and relationship with us, now and for all of eternity.
Who is God? The way we answer that question makes a huge difference. But even more important is the experiential question: Who is God for me?
Theologian Elizabeth Johnson writes in her new book that Trinity is HOW the early Christians experienced God, not just who God is ontologically. She writes that the early Christians experienced God in three ways, hence the Trinity – as God beyond them, the Father; as God with them, Jesus, the Son; and as God within them, the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity does not attempt to explain God. It only explains to us in a very elemental way what God has revealed to us about himself so far. Think of an ice berg. We only see the tip, the part sticking up above water, but most the ice berg is submerged and hidden below the water. We Christians affirm the Trinity, not as a complete explanation of God’s ontological nature, but simply as a way of describing what we know about God.
Elizabeth Johnson goes on to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is extremely practical. While it does not give us blueprints on how to resolve wars, how to overcome world hunger or how to defeat AIDS, it shapes our vision of reality. God is NOT as a monarch ruling in isolated splendor, lording it over others, like a dictator. Rather, God is an overflowing communion of self giving love.
All three of our readings today focus on this experiential aspect of the Trinity. In our first reading from Exodus, God tells us: “I am the Lord, I am the Lord, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6, NLT)
In our second reading, Saint Paul shows how this belief in the Triune God affects our way of life as Christians: Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Rejoice. Change your ways. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other in Christian love…May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:11-14, NLT)
Finally, our gospel today contains what is probably the most famous verse in all the Bible, the one always flashing before the TV cameras at nationally televised football and basketball games, John 3:16. Please read it with me: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, NLT)
Focus on that word “gave.” You see, the Trinity is experiential. It’s relational. It’s is sacrificial. It is giving. We often say that God is love, and just as love of a husband and a wife result in the gift of children, so too, we are the product of God’s love, the love that swirls between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. That love has produced us, and has produced this wonderful world and this marvelous universe where we live. We are the children of God!
The community and the love that exists within God’s self in the Trinity is the same community and love that impels us to live in healthy fellowship and community with others, not as isolated “islands” and as alone individuals. It impels us to love our sisters and brothers throughout the world. It impels us to imitate and emulate our heavenly Father in his great love. That’s why Trinity pushes us to become more connected to the world, more connected to other people, more connected also to the Lord.
I want to end with a story. It was sent to me last week by a Dominicans priest and shows how our experience of the Triune God and God’s love for us can move us to live in a way that truly gives glory to the Lord. The Dominican priest writes:
When I was in South America, I met an American woman doctor a gynecologist - who also worked in the Amazon for many years. And gradually, after she had got to know me, she told me her story. She had first come to the Amazon ten years previously just for a few weeks and fallen in love with the country the land and the people. And also she had realized how much her skills as a gynecologist were needed and appreciated. So, after a long discussion with her husband, they both decided to come and give two years to working in the Amazon. They decided that this was the most time they could afford to take away from earning good money in America. And so they came with their two children an 8-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy who had a minor problem with his spleen. They both found valuable work to do and they were very happy to feel that they were really working to make people better rather than just to make money. Then, near the end of their 2 years, their 4-year-old son suddenly became ill. They brought him to the hospital. The doctors found he had a chest infection, but it didn't seem too bad, so they gave him some antibiotics to make it better. But it got worse. The doctors realized that his minor problem in the spleen was preventing his immune system from fighting the infection properly. Suddenly, he needed urgent specialist treatment that was not available in the Amazon. So they specially chartered a plane and evacuated him to Trinidad. He died in the plane on the way. She says that after that she cried every day for two years. And she deeply and bitterly regretted her decision to come to South America, believing that if she had stayed in the United States, her son would have had a better chance. But then, she says, after about 2 years of grief, there started coming to her mind the images of some of the people she had helped in the Amazon people whose lives she had saved, or whose sufferings she had relieved. And she began to remember how many, many of those there had been. It did not make it all right she knows that nothing will ever do that - but it gave her some comfort. And she began to realize that God was asking her to go back. And the moment of decision was when she and her husband prayed over this passage: "God loved the World so much that He gave His only Son." Having also lost her only Son, she now knew what those few words really mean. And so she went back. She and her husband are still there.
So today, on this Trinity Sunday, the question is not just, “Who is God?” but also, “Who is God to me?” How is this relationship with the living God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit – impacting my life and changing me? For God so loved the world that He GAVE his only Son. Now, He invites us to do likewise, to also use our life and to become GIVERS of God’s life to others.