A story is told of a little girl who was asked to write an essay on "birth"
She went home and asked her mother how she had been born. Her mother, who was busy at the time, said "why
the stork brought you darling, and left you on the doorstep."
Continuing her research she asked her dad how he'd been born. Being in the middle of something very important,
her father similarly deflected the question by saying, "Oh I was found at the bottom of the garden. The fairies
brought me."
Finally the girl went and asked her grandmother how she had arrived. "I was picked from a gooseberry bush",
said the grandmother.
With this information the girl wrote her essay. When the teacher asked her later to read it in front of the class,
she stood up and began, "There has not been a natural birth in our family for three generations..."
"Beginnings" are always the hardest part. Ask any author who has written a bestseller. The art of choosing
just the right color, the perfect angle, or the precise note to start the symphony is essential since everything
builds on the first element of the foundation, and much that is unseen and unappreciated is essential for all that
is acclaimed and applauded later.
But perhaps nothing is more difficult than the concept of "beginning again," or of starting over.
When you have worked very hard at something really important only to have it all come to an abrupt end, or perhaps
found yourself suddenly alone after many years in a relationship or on a career path that defined for better or
worse who and what you were…all meaning seems gone. Even something like graduation can seem like a frightening
conclusion for many young people who must suddenly face the fact that a door has closed on at least one portion
of their known reality. Even for the strok victim it is not really the "re-learning" to do again, as
difficult and painful as that can be, it is overcoming the fact of how easy and natural it once was to lift a spoon,
raise a glass, or even swing one's feet over the side of the bed.
Some things cannot be replaced and no one relishes starting over, be it in the aftermath of a divorce, a death,
or a disaster. We sometimes forget however that there are really no alternatives, we begin again or we die. A crisis
in understanding and self-definition requires us to reinterpret the events of the past in a new light, and to move
boldly forward with a confidence inspired by faith. Easier said than done, and too often not done at all.
The early Church went through a similar dilemma. At the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople the church decided
that the Christian concept of God should be more than the identifiable constructs of pagan mythology, more than
some idealized image that could be fitted neatly on the shelf of one's religious experience, even if that shelf
were invisible. They were departing in a sense from a strong foundation of two thousand years of Judaic history
and rejecting the pantheon of gods and goddesses who had presided over the world of their own time.
They decided that the Christian understanding of God should be seen as a "relationship" and not a being,
and a "relationship" that had to incorporate not only the way one interacted with the omnipresence of
the Hebrew life force but also the reality of the transcendent rabbi from Galilee who had revolutionized the world,
who was now gone and yet remained very much present with them.
Originally that relationship was named "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." A choice of words many today now
experience as supporting patriarchy, the male dominance of the Church and the World, and consequently have rejected
those words though not the concept, as irrelevant and distasteful for the present age.
The Festival of the Holy Trinity was always something of an anomaly in the church's calendar. Unlike other major
feast days, this day celebrates a doctrine rather than a faith-event, and for that reason it presents problems
to preachers and congregants alike. An event is meant to be experienced, a doctrine can be pondered from the outside.
How can we make a celebration of this day, and prevent it from becoming a mere intellectual exercise?
In Western theology the explanation of the Trinity focused on three or four Latin terms: co-existence -- that all
three Persons of the Trinity exist together; co-inherence -- that all three Persons mutually indwell in one another;
consubstantiality -- that all three Persons share one Being; and circuminsession -- that all three Persons are
active in the activities of each one. This is pretty heady stuff and difficult to understand!
In the Eastern church, on the other hand, a more dynamic and easier to visualize term developed: perichoresis.
The prefix "peri-" means "around" and the term "choresis" means "dancing".
(The former is found in all sorts of English words today like "perimeter", "peridontal", "perinatal",
etc; the latter, in words like "choreography".) Thus, the Eastern Christian image of the Trinity is less
intellectual and philosophical -- it is a community of Persons dancing together: the Father dancing with the Spirit
and the Son.
That is an image that most anyone can relate to, if when your children were little, you danced with them, or if
when they were infants, you carried them on your shoulder while you danced to whatever music was playing at the
time. Most can remember a time when as they matured and were able to walk, your children stood on your feet while
you danced, so that their feet moved with yours. Eventually, they grew able to make up their own dance steps, or
to follow yours without stepping on your feet, and in time, you danced together. Sadly too many families have stopped
dancing together. The only time you see a father dance with his daughter, or a mother with her son is at that symbolic
wedding moment so many even confess to dreading.
As the Father dances with the Spirit and the Son, we danced with our children.
The Greek doctrine of perichoresis is also more inviting than the Latin doctrines of circuminsession, coinherence,
or comsubtantiality because it includes the idea that we are invited to join in the dance. The Father together
the with the Spirit and the Son, or the Creator along with the Sustainer and the Redeemer wishes to dance with
the children who are part of that same flow of energy and enthusiasm that is our life force! And not just on Trinity
Sunday…but always!
For me, the Trinity is life. We live within the trinity. It is the relationship between all things. It is the very
DNA of our existence. The creative, loving, truth-filled spiritual reality which is ME and YOU.
It is when I try to dissect myself, that I start to come unraveled. The Trinity reminds me that I am a complexity
of flesh and spirit, interwoven to create a unique person. We are in the Father, and the Father is in us. We are
in the Son as the Son is in us. We are in the Spirit as the Spirit is in us. We are one, as God is one, and it
is that Oneness that links all our separate lives into one being which we call the Church.
The reason the Trinity is so demanding for us, is that we spend so much time trying to fully understand our own
existence as if we stood apart from common reality. We ask questions such as: What is life? What is truth? What
is love?
The trinitarian formula is not about 1, 2 or 3, it is about the elements that make up the recipe for life, and
life in all its abundance. To leave any crucial ingredient out is to spoil the entire mixture, or to create a mixture
that is less than perfect.
Having said that I do not believe it is simply coincidental how often 3 is needed for a sense of completion. For
example, the minumum number of lines needed to make one geometrical figure is 3 - a triangle. The 3 elements, length,
breadth and height are needed to define the simplest solid - a cube. Whichever point you view from you can only
see 3 sides at any one time. Time itself has three divisions to make it complete - past present and future. The
three persons of grammar, he, she, and it
express and include all the relationships of humankind. Thought word and deed complete the sum of human capability
and, as most people agree we are some strange mix of body, mind, and spirit.
I see the Trinity in every element and fabric of life-all life! The mystery of spirit, word and creativeness, is
not the sum total of God and were never meant to be seen as such, but they are certainly the most fascinating elements
of existence.
Celebrating Trinity is celebrating life in its fullest sense! And confronting life can be terrifying…because one
can never master it.
Consider the differences and similarities between the two major players in our lections for today: Isaiah and Nicodemus.
Both enter the Temple, one a Temple made of stone, the other a temple of flesh.
Isaiah is encountered by the holy, whereas Nicodemus who goes seeking for it is so rational that he almost forgets
where he is and to whom he is speaking. "We know you to be a teacher come from God"... It sounds so everdayish...with
no sense of awe and no awareness of the Presence that fills the night air.
Seraphims appear in one; Wind moves in another ....
One recognizes his guilt; the other is not sure how to be born into God.
A hot coal touches the lips of Isaiah, whereas a burning presence stands before Nicodemus inviting him into something
deeper!
Both experiences are potentially life altering and hence revolutionary, but not in the sense of "coming to
faith" Neither one of these men need to find their faith experience. That's what brought them to this moment
in the first place. This is a conversion of a different sort…from one kind of faith to another…and it requires
the ability to start over, to begin again. Sadly, the difference between Isaiah and Nicodemus and ourselves is
the fact that Isaiah and Nicodemus needed to "take only one step" (into the temple, or before Jesus)
and they were transformed; where we continue to "look at" the holy, to attempt to dissect it's true meaning,
instead of being willing to surrender fully to it... and thus be carried where it chooses to take us.
Martin Luther called John 3:16 "the gospel in miniature." And, this being the Sunday before John Wesley's
300th birthday, and who had more to say about the Holy Spirit than any other theologian of his day, it seems entirely
appropriate to talk about how that experience is felt in the everyday act of prayer.
CS Lewis - in his book Mere Christianity tries to describe part of this experience - this three-fold knowing -
this three-fold loving - in his description of a Christian at prayer. "What I mean is this." he writes,
"An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But
if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him. But
he also knows that all real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God - that Christ is standing
beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying
- the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on - the motive power.
God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. The whole threefold life of the three-personal
Being is actually going on in that ordinary act of prayer."
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