Trinity Sunday, ah yes…the Sunday where every preacher becomes a heretic. Why is this? Because it is the only Sunday where we feel compelled to explain to you the unexplainable…where we feel it is our duty to shape mystery and divinity into a tangible thing so that you can get a grasp upon a truth that we ourselves do not have a grasp.
I love Google searches because you can find some really great heretical stuff out there just by typing a couple of words. I typed, “Trinity is like…” into the Google search box and I came up with only a little over 21 million hits. Like I said, Trinity Sunday is the Sunday where every preacher becomes a heretic, and apparently each one of us is so proud of our heresy that we put it on the web for everyone to see.
I love one of the first hits, it sounds so promising in its opening statement:
“Perhaps the most difficult concept of Christianity to explain is the mystery of the Trinity. How can our God exist in three separate and distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet be one God?
If Christians find it hard to grasp this possibility, imagine the problem it presents for those of other faiths. Moslems, in particular, cannot understand how Christians can profess to believe that there is only one God, yet worship Him as three individual beings. They claim that Christianity is not monotheistic, but polytheistic.
Can our belief in the Trinity be explained in understandable terms?
Perhaps it can!”
I would just like to say one thing; any time you start using pitches from used car salesmen to promote your theological assertion, you know that you that what follows must be great. And it is great, because did you not know that God is like three-in-one shampoo. I bet you did not know that. I did not know that either. That is right, each part of the shampoo does a different task, but it is the same substance. Tada! All of your questions about the Trinity answered, plus your hair is now shiny and clean! Just fail to mention that this is actually the heresy of tri-thiesm, because there are actually three gods living in that shampoo to do the different tasks of washing your scalp…if you do not mention that, it works perfect!
Oh, is three-in-one shampoo last year’s model for explaining the Trinity, well then, let us look in the new lot. How about the Trinity is like water! Of course, God quenches our thirst, it makes total sense. Plus, water can exist in three forms, as a vapor (steam), as a liquid (that wet stuff), and as a solid (what you use to cool your drink, ice). This is great, I totally get God now. I had no idea that it is actually God coming out of my pours when I get hot. No, actually sweat is not God; this famous heresy is known as, modalism. Yeah, that is right; the heresy that says that God can only be in one place at one time, not as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” but “Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.”
Did you know that God is also an egg, an apple (which solved lots of problems for people who do not like God in the old testament, just peal the tough Holy Spirit off the outside and core the creator God out from the inside and you only have sweet juicy Jesus left), a three layer bar…Oh, I could go on and on with apparently twenty million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety five more examples.
There was actually one that I kind of liked. The Trinity is like the ocean. The ocean is God and the waves that rise to form are Jesus. Jesus never separates from God the Father, but is distinct. And the ocean permeates the air with its salty moisture, drawing you to its shores just as the Holy Spirit draws us together.
This too is not a great example, but I kind of like where the end is going, with the salt air being like the Holy Spirit drawing us close to God. Of course, God is not an ocean, or a wave, but God does draw us into a relationship. This is what the Biblical witness has to say about our Trinitarian God.
It is interesting that Paul never tries to attempt to describe God so that we can understand God as something (nor does any other biblical writer). They never try the God is an apple bit. But they do talk about God as Father, God as Son, and God as Holy Spirit a lot, and it all has to do with a loving relationship.
God the Father has made us right; God has set us straight, through the love of Jesus, so that we might live in peace with God. Wow, that is amazing. Notice how trite all of this talk about God being like a shampoo is compared to that. God wants to live in peace with you. God the Father has made things right between the two of you through the cross of Christ and the alluring draw of the Holy Spirit. God desires to live at peace with you and with all creation. This is not understanding the Trinity; this is living with the Trinity. Maybe the Trinity is like someone in your home who you dearly love; you will never understand them or what they do, sometimes they make you infinitely angry, but at the same time, they comfort you, they help to direct you, you can get a lot done together, and most of all, without them the house would not be full of love.
You see, the Trinity is not about understanding. We do not understand the ones we love. But, we have a life and we have hope because we have a loving relationship. Understanding is not the point. God choosing to live with us is the point. And, God is present here with us. As Paul says, “God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” God is present now, and so are you, and it is a beautiful relationship.
All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
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