Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He Who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, Who lives in you. (Romans 8:5-11)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I’m going to make a guess that there are a lot of people in church today - not just here, but everywhere - who have come to church totally unaware that today on the church’s calendar is called “Trinity Sunday” - which is always the Sunday after Pentecost. As the name suggests, today is a day to mark that one doctrine in particular that marks Christianity as unique among the world’s faiths - a trinitarian God, Who exists as (according to the traditional language) one God in three persons. Since that is unique to Christianity, I suppose it’s worthy of having a Sunday set aside for its celebration, and yet the truth is that a lot of people, a lot of churches and a lot of clergy won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. I rarely dedicate a service or a even a sermon just to the trinity. Partly because I think the trinitarian nature of God is just something that flows through most of what I preach anyway; partly because the doctrine, if we go too far into it, is truly and completely baffling. It’s so baffling that I recently came across these words from David Lose, who teaches at Luther Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota: “Here’s my rule of thumb regarding the Trinity: People who say they understand it aren’t to be trusted. Which means, I think, that trying to explain the Trinity in a sermon is a really, really bad idea.” Fair enough, I suppose. The doctrine of the Trinity is baffling. It’s led to a lot of debates, divisions and conflicts over the centuries. There are those who believe that the Islamic faith exists today because Mohammed was exposed to early Christianity, kind of liked some of the beliefs, but fundamentally misunderstood the Trinity, believing that Christians were worshipping three gods - Allah, Jesus and Mary - instead of one God revealed in three different ways. So the Trinity is difficult to understand. There are all sorts of analogies that supposedly try to help us - H2O can be water, ice or steam (but they can’t be all at the same time.) An ancient formula talked about the Trinity as being like the sun in the sky - the actual sun, the light that shines from it and the heat we feel from it. (I like that one because all three depend on each other; you can’t have one without the other two.) An analogy I sometimes use is to compare the Trinity to a man who is at one and the same time a father, a husband and a son (one man in three distinct persons, but with the three persons always intersecting.) But in general I agree with David Lose. It’s impossible to truly understand the Trinity. Analogies help, but they’re never perfect. So, why bother with Trinity Sunday then?
Not that God needs a defence, but I suppose that foundational doctrines that guide us in what we believe do sometimes need a defence. I don’t want to get bogged down in doctrine. I think doctrine is important, but sermons aren’t the best times to get overly doctrinal. Still, I suspect some of you have probably heard that the doctrine of the Trinity is unbiblical; that it never appears in the Bible. If you’ve heard that, it’s not entirely true. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus says that we should go and baptize “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Some say that was put on the lips of Jesus by an early church that was developing the doctrine and wanted to justify it. But it’s there, so you can’t say it’s unbiblical. But I think there are stirrings of trinitarian language in the Bible long before that was written. When I want to consider the earliest Christian thoughts, I always turn to Paul, because most of his letters were written before any of the Gospels were written, and I have always found myself intrigued by today’s passage - not because of its emphasis on the sinful nature but because of the way Paul speaks of God. He doesn’t say anything explicit about the Trinity as we speak of it. There’s no “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” but there are those first stirrings I mentioned. Paul here uses the terms “Spirit of God” and “Spirit of Christ” basically interchangeably and he says that “Christ is in [us]” and that “the Spirit of God lives in [us].” To me that’s trinitarian. Paul is already struggling (even if unconsciously) to come up with a way to speak of this God revealed in three different ways. So I believe the concept of the Trinity is biblical, and therefore it’s good doctrine grounded in Scripture. And that’s all I want to say about doctrine because David Lose says you can’t trust me if I claim to understand the Trinity, and I want you to trust me, and I don’t understand it fully, anyway! What I want to concentrate on isn’t the doctrine of the Trinity, but why it’s important to us. What difference does it make? How does it affect our lives? In this sense, I think it’s very important. If the crucifixion and resurrection are the heart of the good news, the Trinity may be the soul of the good news.
That’s enough doctrine. Suffice to say that I believe God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I actually want to talk about another “God is” phrase - and this one’s definitely in the Bible, found in 1 John 4:16, where we’re told that “God is love.” I want to talk about that on Trinity Sunday because I believe it’s relevant to that idea. I don’t believe that “love” is another “person” of the godhead; I believe that love is the very essence of God, and because of that the Trinity is important. To say that “God is love” is a very bold statement. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “only ‘God’ and ‘love’ are joined by ‘is.’” In other words, the boldness of the statement comes from the fact that it can be said of no one or nothing except God. To say anything about God with such certainty is bold - but I believe it’s true. “God is love.” God is also eternal; God has always existed. There has never been a time or place in which God has not been present. Before anything else existed, God existed; everything that exists finds its origin in God. If God is eternal, then God has always been “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” and God has also always been “love.” There is no other way for a Christian to understand God’s nature.
If, indeed “God is love,” then I invite you to think about this with me. Love by its very nature needs an object. Love needs someone or something to love. An eternal God existed before anything else existed, and yet God was still love, even when there was nothing but God, so God’s love must have had an object; there must have been some way for God to be in relationship, even though there was nothing except God. Even if we can’t understand it perfectly, the idea of the trinity was perhaps a way for early Christians to establish that God is perfectly self-sufficient in all things. God needs nothing. God doesn't even need an external object for divine love, because God is love, even in the absence of anything else. If God is love - then love is simply a part of God's being or nature. Love is perfectly expressed internally for God - not in a narcissistic, selfish way but in a healthy way in which God sustains and nurtures God's self even absent anything or anyone else. God cannot simply be one - because then there would be no object for God's love before God created; there would be no relationship possible. So relationship is foundational to the Trinity, and it’s therefore built into the godhead. The trinity is a Christian way of expressing that God is always by God's very nature expressing love outwardly. God's love is being extended and not reserved. So, “God is love” refers to an inner divine quality that necessitates relationship being a natural characteristic of God. That means that since love must be expressed outwardly and extended, God is self-sufficient. This can happen even if God has created nothing else. Speaking of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a way to say that there is a healthy and outwardly expressed love that’s just a part of God. God doesn’t have to create anything to express love to, because “God is love” - and the Trinity helps establish that. But while God doesn’t have to create, God does create - and God creates prolifically! This leads to the second important thing we can say about the mystery of divine love contained within the Trinity.
It’s perfectly legitimate and totally biblical to say that “God is love,” but love is more than just a characteristic of God. It’s not just internal - it's active. Love may be perfectly expressed within the godhead, but from God love is also outpoured. That’s why I said a moment ago that God’s love is never just narcissistic. It’s never just a self-consumed love that blots everything else out. Narcissus, of course (in Greek mythology) was the man who fell in love with himself looking at his own reflection in a pool of water. So consumed he was by love for his own reflection that he could never leave it, and he died by the side of the water. This is not God. That’s what I mean when I say that God is not narcissistic. In fact, God is so not-narcissistic that “God so loved the world.” God loves that which God creates. It’s important to understand that God does not “need” that which God creates, because love can be satisfactorily expressed within the divine nature, but God “wants” that which God creates - which includes you and me! A former Moderator of the United Church once said that “God needs us.” No, God doesn’t. I do not meet a need of God. God did not have to create me. God created me just because God wanted to; just because God chose to. And I can say the same thing about all of you. To be wanted rather than to be needed makes me (and you) very, very precious. If God needed us for any reason (even if God needed us simply to have an object to express love to) then our relationship with God would be strictly utilitarian. It would be mutually beneficial, but it wouldn’t be real love. We would exist only because God had no choice but to create us. But the concept of the Trinity tells us that God has no need for us. God just wants us. God just wants to love us. That's an incredible statement about God when you think about it. And it's good news! God is love and God really - REALLY!- loves us!
To me, that’s what’s so important about the Trinity. That’s why I take it so seriously as a part of my faith. It’s the absolute proof of God’s love for me and for all the world. I don’t really worry too much about understanding the technical aspects of the doctrine. David Lose is probably right - you shouldn’t trust anyone who claims to understand it, anyway. But you don’t have to understand it, because it’s part of the foundation of divine love - and since when was love ever understandable or rational? Just accept from the concept of the Trinity what’s really important about it. It’s a sign of and a witness to divine love - a love offered to you and to me!
No comments:
Post a Comment