Today is Trinity
Sunday. One of the seven Principal
Feasts of our church calendar. One
of the most important holy days we celebrate together. And the only one commemorating a
doctrine, and a particularly difficult doctrine at that.
This week I came
across an interesting discussion of the Trinity. It wasn’t so much focused on defining the doctrine, as
describing the context in which the doctrine evolved.
The commentator
wrote: “The Trinity was the early
church’s way of trying to grapple with a monotheistic belief in one God in
light of their actual, lived experience of God’s activity powerfully in the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus and after an encounter with the power of
the Holy Spirit” (HERE).
The Trinity was
an attempt to describe the 4th century church’s experience of
God. It did that by emphasizing
both who the early church was not and who they were. The church was very clear that its belief was monotheistic,
not like those pagans, Greeks, with their smorgasbord of many gods. But the church also wanted to say that
they were people who experienced God in relationships and those relationships
were multifaceted, especially across time.
The Trinity was
the church’s attempt to describe its belief and its identity by saying: This who we are not and this is who we
are.
That was not the
only time the church sought to define itself by outlining both what it was and
what it was not. We see the same
thing in the 39 Articles, written in the 16th century. The 39 Articles are in the fine print
in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, amid the historical documents. They come from the Church of England,
our denominational forebear at the time of the Reformation. Some of the Articles say who we are;
some say who we are not.
For example, we
are people who affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as a description of God. We affirm the Incarnation, that the Son
of God took on human flesh and lived among us. We affirm Christ’s death and Resurrection as the means by
which we receive eternal life with God.
These are some of the more important Articles stating who we are.
Then there are
these articles, that clearly articulate who we are not:
“The Romish
Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of
Images as of Relics and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly
invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to
the Word of God.”
The early Church
of England was very clear that it was not
Roman Catholic. Or this one:
“The Riches and
Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and
possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of
such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to
his ability.”
The 16th
century Church of England was also very clear that it was not like those Anabaptists,
extreme Protestants that arose at the time of the Reformation.
These days, we
do not need to differentiate ourselves from the Greeks and their pantheon of
gods like Christians did in the 4th century. Nor do we need to separate ourselves in
the same way that the Protestant Reformers did in the 16th century
from the Catholics and Anabaptists.
If we were to
describe ourselves as not something today, what would it be? The first reaction for some of you
might be to say: we are not like those Christian fundamentalists of today. Others might say: we are not like those
Unitarians who believe everything and therefore nothing. We might learn from those conversations
if they were done faithfully and respectfully.
But it seems to
me that what we most need to affirm that we are NOT these days is secular. We are not like the secular world that
surrounds us. We are not like
those people who see nothing in the world as holy or sacred. We are not like those people who do not
view other people as bearing the image of God; therefore other people are expendable. We are not like those people who
confuse busyness with purpose. We
are not like those people who measure their life’s work by the comfort they
have achieved in their own lives. We
are not secular.
At all points in
history affirming what we ARE is probably more important than stressing what we
are not. And that’s important for
us, too, today.
We are people
who experience God in relationship.
And that relationship is multifaceted. We do not encounter God in just one place or in just one
way. We encounter God, we come
into relationship with God: in
creation, in one another, in the Scriptures, in the sacraments, in prayer. We also meet God as we do God’s work in
the world.
And there’s a
wondrous positive feedback loop about being a Christian. The more we think of ourselves as
non-secular… the more we decide to see the world and other people as sacred… and the more we choose intentionally do
God’s work… the richer and deeper our
relationship with God will grow.
