June 15 | Trinity Sunday, Year C
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8 or Canticle 13 or Canticle 2
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
Historically, the human understanding of the divine was straightforward. Most religions have looked to a pantheon of gods. They have worshiped gods for fertility, military might, daily guidance, love, domestic harmony, prosperity, personal protection, and even gods to control the other gods. In contrast, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have centered on a single deity. Each worships one God, uncreated and undivided. This is the God who is revealed in the Scripture lessons and the liturgy for today.
In the Nicene Creed, we affirm our belief in “one God, the Father, the Almighty; one Lord, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.”
As Christians we worship one God. Looking at these passages, we can only ask, “How can this be?” The Church’s answer is the doctrine of the Trinity: “the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal” (Athanasian Creed, BCP, p. 864).
God has revealed himself as Trinity in Scripture, but it is equally clear that “three persons in one substance” does not easily fit our human understanding. The problem we need to face is our inability to fully understand a Being who is more different from us than similar.
We need a shift from the physical sphere to the realm of relationships if we hope to approximate the concept of the Trinity. In Scripture, God’s essence is described as love. Since love, especially the self-giving love of God, is inherently relational, how can a solitary being be love? Love is only perfect or complete if it has an object, the beloved. Further, it is impossible for God to be eternal and complete if he needs a finite creation as the object for his love. Thus, the object of God’s love must be co-eternal and co-terminal with God if he is to be sovereign.
If God is to be the one God, then the object of his love must be identifiably distinct but still within God. Richard of St. Victor, a 12th-century French theologian, argued that love in its highest form requires a right relationship between persons. We experience this as human beings through family. One family is composed of at least three persons—father, mother, and child. Each is a separate person, capable of giving and receiving love. Yet the world experiences the three persons as one family. It is love that holds them together, and that love overflows into the world around them.
We have been created in the image of God. If God has revealed himself as a Trinity of perfect love or an internal society of lovers and beloveds, then we have been created as social beings who are interdependent on each other through the expression of mutual love. Therefore, the Trinity becomes a corrective for the debilitating disease of autonomous individualism that plagues our modern world. Our faux love of self must make way for the true love of those who are like us and those who are unlike us if we are to reflect God’s image in the world.
The doctrine of the Trinity also should serve as the model for the existence of the Church. As the community of God’s children, our nature is to be relational and our task is to be benevolent. If we are to announce and demonstrate the purpose and direction of God in the world, then our greatest and most effective tool is the divine self-giving love of the Trinity.
Look It Up:Â John 16:12-15
Think About It: In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described the Trinity as a dance.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
