TRINITY SUNDAY – Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15 –
30 May 2010 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

How I Experience God as Trinity

INTRODUCTION – What theologians say about the Trinity

Preaching today on Trinity Sunday has led me back to one of the theology books that I bought in seminary. The classic language going back to the fourth century was “one substance and three persons”, but “the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one.” (Principles of Christian Theology, John Macquarrie, p. 190) The problem with this language for the modern mind is that the word “person”, in the early Church, did not mean what it does today – a conscious center of experience. The persons of the Trinity are not separate beings, for there is only one Being (with a capital “B”), and no person of the Trinity is any less God than the others. To quote John Macquarrie, “… in particular, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not demigods or intermediaries, subordinate to the Father. They are all one in respect of their Godhead.” (p. 192)

We come up against the limits of our language when we speak of how there are three and yet still one. St. Augustine wrote, “When the question is asked (concerning the Trinity) ‘What three?’ human language labors altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given, ‘Three persons,’ not that it might be spoken but that it might not be left unspoken.” (De Trinitate, V, 9; quoted in Macquarrie, p. 193)

Clearly, the notion of three persons comes to us from Holy Scripture. The first Christians, who had as their scripture what we now call the Old Testament, believed that God had created heaven and earth, that God had become incarnate in a particular man – Jesus of Nazareth – and that God still dwelt in the Christian community, and guided it, through the Holy Spirit.

Theologians also agree that it is not accurate to “appropriate” an activity or character trait of God to one person of the Trinity when it belongs to all three. An example concerning creation might be helpful. We often speak of God the Father as Creator, the “maker of heaven and earth”. But according to scripture, creation is not only the work of the Father. The New Testament speaks of the work of the Son or Logos (Word) in creation. “All things were made through him…” (John 1:3) and “All things were created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16) The Spirit also had a role in creation, as the Spirit of God moved over the waters. (Genesis 1:2) In the same way, though we may often talk about the Spirit’s role in guidance, clearly God the Father and Jesus guide us, and though we often associate Jesus with reconciling us back to God, clearly the Father and the Spirit are involved in that process of reconciliation, too.
(Macquarrie, p. 194)

Macquarrie suggests that perhaps we would do better to replace the idea of the “persons” of the Trinity with the notion of “movements” of Being, or “modes” of Being, as long as we understand that these modes are not temporary. (Macquarrie, p. 193)

HOW I EXPERIENCE GOD AS TRINITY

So now it is time for me to walk on that very thin ice – with the intent, at least, of not speaking too many heresies all in the same sermon – and tell you how I experience the One God as Trinity… how I experience the three movements of God in my own life.

GOD THE FATHER

Though we’ve already established that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all involved in creation, I experience God the Father primarily as I spend time in nature. I feel a deep connection to the Psalmist who wrote Psalm 8, who says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him, the son of man that you should seek him out?” (Psalm 8:4-5)

On Wednesday night, as I let my dog, Sophie, out for the last time of the day, I ambled into the backyard and looked up at an amazing full moon. I then went back in and invited Julia to come out and gaze on it with me. And we did. When I get up in a high valley above treeline, and I’m at the shore of an alpine lake, and I have mountains looming up above me on every side, I get the same feeling. I feel wonderful and very insignificant at the same time, and if I allow myself to have thoughts (sometimes it’s very nice to let the thoughts disappear), I might think to myself, “There is definitely a force behind all this, a power and a love that is so much beyond who I am, One who is wholly Other and Holy Other.” And I sometimes say out loud, “Thank you, Lord God, for the beauty of your creation.” And sometimes, truth be told, I raise my arms above my head in a posture of praise, because there is nothing else I can do that seems even remotely in the ballpark of an appropriate response.

GOD THE SON

I experience God the Son – the risen Jesus – primarily in my relationships. First of all, as a Christian, my sense is that my path – my connection to God – is through Jesus. God has given us this tremendous gift – Himself in the flesh. And another amazing gift – four different Gospel writers who tried to capture the essence of how this man lived and loved while he was on this earth. To me, Jesus reconciles us with God and offers us eternal life with God – yes. But just as important, in my eyes, Jesus shows us what love looks like, and demonstrates that love is the most powerful force in the world.
So whether I am striving to love God with all that I am, or striving to love a family member, friend or neighbor, or striving to love an enemy, or striving to love myself (which on some days feels like the biggest challenge of all), I find that Jesus is very close at hand. Because Jesus is love in the flesh.

Again, someone who understands that there is only one God knows that God the Father is love, and God the Holy Spirit is love. We might even say that love is what makes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit inseparable. But I experience God as love – and as loving – primarily through the movement and work of Jesus, God the Son… probably because he took on human form, and became one of us, and was challenged to love God, love others, and love himself, in the very same way that we are.

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

I experience God the Holy Spirit primarily as a force of guidance, wisdom, and power. My sense is that, when I am moved to pray, the Holy Spirit is the one who brought me to that point, who gave me the urge to pray in the first place. When I am trying to make sense out of something that happened to me, or trying to figure out what next step I should take when I am in a conflict with someone, I go within . That is how I understand God the Holy Spirit, in fact – God dwelling within me – the Spirit whom Jesus said would “guide [us] into all the truth…” (John 16:13) And when I feel I need to draw on reserves of strength or power that are beyond what I have as a limited human being, it is the Spirit that I call on – the same Holy Spirit who empowered the apostles to go out and proclaim Jesus with boldness. And, in my experience, it is that Spirit that shows up, and leads me, guides me, inspires me, and gives me strength.

This does not mean, of course, that God the Father and God the Son are not just as involved in guiding us, or in giving us wisdom, or in providing the strength and power that we need to be faithful witnesses in the world. Clearly it’s one God, and this God is a God who teaches us, a God who guides and empowers us. I’m simply saying that when it comes to guidance and power and even creativity, I mainly experience that through God the Holy Spirit.

STAYING CONNECTED TO GOD

One thing I’m saying is that there is creativity, love, wisdom, and power in the essence of God. It’s one God, so these character traits are in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It’s just that I often experience God’s creativity in the person or movement of God we call “Father” (or “Mother”). I often experience God’s love in the person or movement of God we call Jesus, the Son. I often experience God’s wisdom and power in the person or movement of God we call Holy Spirit.

According to the book of Genesis, we are made in the image of God, male and female. That must mean that, among other things, we have the capacity to be creative, loving, wise, and powerful. My sense, though, is this: we don’t tend to be creative, loving, wise, and powerful unless we abide in God – the Source of all those things. In fact, when we turn away from the Triune God, we often end up being destructive, self-centered, stupid, and powerless.

I think, on one level, staying connected to God means this:

To stay connected with God the Creator, we must be connected to His creation, and to the spirit that is in each part of His creation.

To stay connected with God the Son, we must stay connected to others.

To stay connected with God the Holy Spirit, we must be open to learning from every single experience and interaction and circumstance of our lives.

CONCLUSION

There is one God, but we often experience God in three movements or modes. Each mode – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is fully God and contains all the attributes of God. But our ancestors in the faith experienced God sometimes as a parent/creator figure; at other times as a fellow traveler on this earth, modeling how to love; and at other times as a teacher and guide who leads us into truth and into deeds of power.

To speak of God at all is an approximation, an attempt to express a deep mystery, a shot in the dark, a best guess. And yet, we have experienced God, and we are relational people, designed to speak of what we have encountered. So we speak, with Augustine, as inadequate as our words might be, acknowledging our great poverty of speech, “that it might not be left unspoken.”