“Three's Company”

Homily for Trinity Sunday       27 May 2018
The Rev’d John R. Clarke, Rector

God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity! 

“Jesus and Nicodemus Meet Abbott and Costello.”

That’s what you could call it: the prime-time routine emerging from the strictly-hush-hush encounter between inquisitive Nicodemus and controversial Jesus.

It reads a lot like “Who’s on first?” A refresher on how that goes:

Abbott: They give ball players nowadays very peculiar names.

Costello: Funny names?

Abbott: Nicknames, nicknames. Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who’s on first. What’s on second. I Don’t Know is on third.

Costello: That’s what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St. Louis team.

Abbott: I’m telling you. Who’s on first. What’s on second. I Don’t Know is on third.

Costello: You know the fellows’ names?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: Well, then who’s playing first?

Abbott: Yes.

And you can get the rest on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZksQd2fC6Y). But the point is: Abbott and Costello. Each using the same words. But each talking past the other to comic effect.

Same with Jesus and Nicodemus. Words, pretty much the same. But they’re talking past each other.

Jesus: You have to be born all over again.

Nicodemus: Isn't birth a one-time deal? Can’t be born all over again.

Jesus: Yes. You have to be born all over again.

Nicodemus: But you can’t do the whole birth thing again, yes?

Jesus: Yes. You have to be born all over again.

Maybe not quite the comedic punch of Abbott and Costello. But Jesus and Nicodemus are talking past each other, too. Jesus mentions being “born all over again.” That is, re-engineering … now … in the present … our primal, love-and-justice-limiting DNA into the pristine, fresh, life-changing, life-giving DNA of God’s Kingdom. Love-in-full-bloom for God, neighbor, and self.

Nicodemus hears “being born all over again” and thinks obstetrics.

That’s the sort of thing that’s going on when we talk about the Trinity, especially as our convictions about the Trinity — traditionally configured as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — are expressed in the words of the Nicene Creed, which we proclaim together just about every Sunday.

In other words, we say and sing today what we’ve always sung and said, variations on

And we think we know what we mean. Frankly, I’m not so sure.

There’s another complication. If you walked in off the street this morning having never before heard of God — or, at least God expressed as Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit — you’d think we worshiped three gods, not one God.

Or at least you’d think we tolerated a contradiction — a contradiction that doesn’t make sense at all: One God in Three Persons. Three “people” somehow comprising something called the “Godhead” (that’s another term thrown into the mix) that’s one, but also three.

“I get it,” you’d say. “You worship a God who lives in three parallel universes. Is that what you’re talking about? … No?”

“Oh. You worship a shape-shifter. One minute, a father-figure … next minute, his son … and then (poof!) some sort of airy-fairy spirit thing that’s neither here nor there, but everywhere. A shape-shifter. Have I got that right? … No?”

“Ummm. How about a sci-fi collective-consciousness, ‘We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated’ thing? Got it!”

And that’s just a sampling of responses a stranger might have to the words we use on a day like this.

What about our images: stained glass, statues, paintings?

For much of the Church’s history, the three persons of the Trinity were depicted as triplets. Identical. Triplets. The earliest set is from a third-century sarcophagus: God as triplets creating Eve out of Adam’s side. Of course, the Eve-Adam-rib thing is problematic on its face. But the triplet act? Try getting a total stranger-to-things-churchy to swallow that one.

Not to mention the depictions of the Trinity triplets favored in icons and illuminated manuscripts: all seated at a table-for-three (set by Old Testament patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah) … anachronistically dining on what appears to be the Eucharist. Where to start?

My favorite, however — from a 16th-centuruy illuminated manuscript — is as creepy as it is comic. This Trinity sports a singular, hefty torso topped by this one-headed, Godhead thing. Three heads mashed into one: three noses, three mouths, and three bearded chins, but four eyes (only two of which are visible). Shades of The Island of Doctor Moreau. A genetic-engineering Science Fair project gone awry. A project called “The Trinity.”

“Houston, we’ve got a problem” … because you want your brand — your witness to God’s work in your life and in the world — to be understood, persuasive, and memorable (in the most positive sense).

Read: The way we talk among ourselves when we try to make sense of the Trinity and the images we use? They’re utterly unintelligible — worse, they’re grotesque — to the people God sends our way to share the Good News with.

That’s not evangelism, it's nostalgia. Moreover, we end up talking only to ourselves. And even then, we’re not sure exactly what it is we’re talking about.

This situation is unsustainable ... if we want our neighbors to enjoy the benefits we experience as the People of God and the responsibilities and burdens we share.

The root of the problem, then, is another “Who’s on First” routine — this one performed by the Early Church Fathers and us. Again, same words, but we’re talking past each other. Blame translation challenges and the migration of the meanings behind words from a fourth- and fifth-century world to now.

For example, the Church Fathers attempted to put into words their experience of Jesus. Jesus not only as Messiah and then Son of God, but ultimately God. As St. Paul says, “Christ, the image of God.”

Well, that opened up a whole can of worms. Because you have: the One Jesus calls ‘Father’ is God … Jesus is God … and, as our Gospel this morning puts it, “God is Spirit.” Do the math: 1 + 1 + 1 = … 1? Or, "We believe in one God.”

How do you wrap your mind around that?

The Church Fathers made a noble effort. They appealed to images. For example, they spoke of Jesus as “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” Sound familiar? From the fourth-century Nicene Creed. But helpful in the 21st? Doubtful.

That’s because experiencing God shouldn’t require a Ph.D. in fourth-century Aristotelian and neo-Platonic metaphysics. And if you’re scratching your head and saying, “Aristotelian and neo-Platonic metaphysics, wha’?” Well, then, that proves the point!

As a result, rescuing the Creed from the fourth century means asking, “What do you mean by ‘person,’ as in the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity?”

Now, when we each think of ourselves as a “person,” we’re thinking “individual” … that each of us is essentially an autonomous, singular, conscious entity. The Trinity, then, as three “persons”? Three entities? Before you know it, we’re back to the Trinitarian triplets.

Not the fourth-century writers of the Creed. When they say “person,” they’re thinking more of attributes — what makes up a personality. So, to them, the Creed isn’t really talking about three individuals, but basically a “trinity” of attributes that correspond to our experience of God, say, as Creator, Savior, and God alive and active in us today.

But rather than attributes — which strike me as rather static — I prefer to talk about impulses: God’s forward-into-the-future creative, sparking, regenerating impulses.

Triggering questions: Should we abandon the Creed? Should we re-tool our hymns?

Awkward.

What should we do? Answer: Find words — new words — that capture our experience of God. Words that respect the contours of our tradition, and yet words that pop for us and — more important — pop for our non-ChurchSpeak neighbors.

But what words, as in the “30-second Rule”? How can you explain — to a stranger — the Trinity in 30 seconds … in a way that is clear, persuasive, and memorable … or at least curiosity-inducing (as in “tell me more”)?

For starters, it’s all God, one God, and one God only we’re talking about.

And our experience as a community attaches three impulses to God — primarily three expressions of the nature and activity of God:

(1) God’s “creative” impulse (the One Jesus calls Father).

(2) God’s “saving” impulse lived out by Jesus, in whom God’s Spirit was so uniquely and fully active, we experience God uniquely and fully in Jesus. By “saving,” we mean Jesus’ work to restore our relationship with God, with each other, and with all creation.

(3) God’s “striving” impulse … striving to see replicated in humans Jesus’ behavior and his relationship to God. That impulse we call “God’s Spirit.”

Bottomline (in 30 seconds): We see God in the face of Jesus Christ. This knowledge or experience is made possible through the power of God’s Spirit, who reveals all truth about us … and about God … and works through us to achieve God’s dream for all creation.

Okay, that was 15 seconds.

Even better, we join with the whole Church throughout the world today — and spanning the ages — in one unending hymn of praise:

To God the Father,
God the Son,
and God the Spirit,
Three in One,
praise, honor, might, and glory be
from age to age eternally!

Amen.