Three in What?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
May 30th 2010
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Proverbs 8:1-4; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Trinity Sunday
“Three in What”

Who understands the Trinity and why does it matter? Well, the easy answer is because it has been part of church teaching since about the year 325 CE so that is good enough for some folks. I appreciate deeply a faith which has a trust in what has been handed on from subsequent generations. However, I could never leave well enough alone. I always seem to need more, and to ask the hard questions. And the doctrine of the Trinity is no exception. However, with the doctrine of the Trinity, those questions are not easily answered.
Each year I have tried to think through how to preach on the trinity. Each year, I feel like I fall short. On some level that is exactly the way it should be because the doctrine is a way of explaining something which is essentially mystery. However, it also reveals the discomfort with simply using mystery as the default response whenever we are unable to explain something. So what shall we say about this mystery of the God we know in three persons with in being.
I promise that no attempt will be made to explain all the complexities of this doctrine. Instead, I simply say that the doctrine matters at this time and place. We believe that human beings are made in the image of God. And the God we know in Jesus Christ is a God who is not solitary but in community – the communion of three in one, unity in diversity. In other words, human beings were not created to be solitary but in community. In a time of more and more individualism this is radical talk.
But it is not really radical to acknowledge that human beings need other people. So as people of a Trinitarian faith, what might that life look like? Alyce McCKenzie sums up this well when she says:
What kind of life does the Trinity shape? Lives that are a personal response to a personal God that results in participation in community. It does make a difference that God is three persons and one substance. It means we can only know God by personal response that is a participation in the activity of our Triune God in community
What does that mean? It means we can only be fully human in relationship with one another. There are no solitary Christians. We can be faithful as individuals, but not alone.
This week Jim Wallis of the Sojourners community wrote an article asking if Libertarianism and Christianity were compatible. His conclusion was that they are not. And while he is not talking about the trinity I believe he gets at our inherent interconnectedness when he says:
The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone.
In other words, we are made in the image of a God who shows us that we are not the end of the story. God is not solitary and neither are we.
As our society pushes us to be individuals and places our desires and wants at the center of our economic and communal life we have become more fractured, selfish, and strident. The idolatry of individualism is really just another form of totalitarianism. But the good news is that our faith teaches a different story. Our faith pushes us into relationship because it is part of the fabric of our very being. The God we worship and serve is known to us in three persons. So at the heart of our life we are released from the tyranny of self. Does this solve the mystery of the Trinity or explain away all the contradictions and difficulties? Of course not, but if this doctrine can bring us back from the brink of our current mess, then I for one am willing to live with the mystery, at least for today. Amen? Amen.