Trinity Sunday Yr A, Lesley Borowitzka

Sermon: Trinity, 15/6/14, Cygnet
Exodus 34: 1-8, 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13, Matthew 28: 16-20
Today is Trinity Sunday, and time to ponder this central and mysterious
doctrine of the Christian church. It’s the only Sunday we celebrate a
doctrine. This Sunday comes after the heady and exciting coming of the
Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and after Ascension day, when the resurrected
Christ returned to his Father. I think Trinity Sunday follows on as we try
to integrate all we have learned about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit
over the past weeks.
This central doctrine of the Christian church, the Trinity, proclaims the
unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one God head (or one God),
each of these being of the same essence, substance, identical in nature
but distinct aspects of the same essence. Not three Gods but one, yet the
Father Son and Holy Spirit are each different. An example sometimes
given is this: consider water, liquid water, ice and steam. All are water,
of the same essence, yet they are distinct, interchangeable and have
different properties. Theologians use a lot of words and images to try to
describe the three in one-some liken it to the ideal community, intimate
but individual.
This is the theology of the Trinity, a word not found in scripture, but an
idea put together by the early church in the third and fourth centuries.
Trinitarian theology is common to the Eastern and Greek Orthodox
churches, the Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches:
Anglicans, Lutherans, Uniting church and more.
An important subject of study within Trinitarian theology is called
Christology, and I’ll come back to that.
Our idea of trinity, One God, three persons each of the same substance
or essence is not accepted by some churches. For example the Mormons,
understand God to be made up of three separate beings, united only
in purpose. The Trinity is not accepted by the Quakers and Christian
Unitarians who reject all creeds, though not necessarily rejecting
Trinitarian language. My understanding of the Churches of Christ is
that they don’t accept it. They believe that God as Trinity is not clearly
articulated in the bible, and so believing in it is not necessary for
salvation. Jehovah’s Witnesses see Jesus as a divine being, but second in
rank to the Father.
Since early times, some theologians believe that in the Trinity the Son of
God is eternally subordinated in authority to God the Father. That means
that the Father has the role of giving commands and the Son has the role
of obeying them. This comes very close to a heresy banned from the
church in the 4th
Father, not of one essence or being with the Father in this theology. More
on Arianism later.
Some feminist theologians prefer to name the trinity Creator, Redeemer
and Sanctifier, emphasizing the roles of each rather than gender. Creator,
Redeemer and Sanctifier. This Trinitarian formula uses words which
are quite scriptural, though not traditional in our liturgies. It makes
God gender neutral emphasising his role as creator and the role of the
Son as redeemer. It may be helpful for those who have suffered a poor
relationship with own father. It does, however not show the Father –
Son relationship between these two members of the trinity, and we know
Jesus himself cherished that relationship.
 The word for Spirit is grammatically feminine in Hebrew and Aramaic
and in Greek, all of our biblical sources, and this comes through in the
representation of the Spirit as a dove (grammatically feminine), and
the spirit brooding over the waters in Gen 1 (like a hen). Sadly, we
lose that feminine aspect of God in English because of our neuter word
for spirit. We should be calling the Spirit ‘she’ instead of ‘it’! Other
modern Trinitarian proclamations are Source, Word and Holy Spirit; and
Lover, Beloved and Spirit Between. I think these are all helpful ways of
understanding God as trinity, enriching our understanding of what is still
a mystery to us, as it is to theologians.
The word trinity does not appear in scripture (Our Church of Christ
friends are right). Yet the idea comes from scripture as we heard in
today’s readings:
ß From today’s gospel reading: Matthew 28:19: "Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" We use this wording our baptism
service: ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit’.
ß And from Paul’s letter in 2 Corinthians 13:14: "The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with all of you."
ß Another well known one with all three members of the trinity is from
Jesus’ baptism: Matthew 3:16–17: "As soon as Jesus Christ was
baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was
opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
landing on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom
I love; with him I am well pleased.' " (also Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:22;
John 1:32)
ß Luke 1:35 The angel speaking to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and
for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. "
An interesting question is : How does the idea of God as trinity-Father, Son
and Holy Spirit fit with the OT concept of God? Before the time of Jesus?
Well, OT God was one, made up of Yahweh-father and Spirit.
Note that the insistence that there is one God, in trinity theology means it is
not contradictory to the Shema in the OT, quoted by Jesus, which we hear
every Sunday: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is One, you
shall love the Lord God with all your heart..
The same insistence on one God is found in the New Testament: Paul’s
statement "there is no God but one" (1 Corinthians 8:4-6) was important for it
was a misunderstanding of the Jews that Christians were proclaiming Jesus as
a second God.
Which brings us to Christology-the study of the person of Christ. How can a
human fit into the trinity of God? Right from its beginnings, the church has
wrestled with the question: How can Jesus be God as well as human, how can
he be an equal with God and his spirit?
Scripture tells us that something of Jesus (called the Word or logos in
Greek) was God before the Word became the human Jesus: John 1:1: "In
the beginning was the Word (meaning Jesus), and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God"; and 1:14 "The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who
came from the Father, full of grace and truth." In other passages of John's
Gospel Jesus deliberately used “I am’ as a name, and it almost got him stoned
for blasphemy; I am recalls the Genesis incident when Moses asked God
his name, and God said ‘I am who I am’ For example John 8: 58 (Jesus
said "before Abraham was born, I am!"), 10:30 ("I and the Father are one"),
10:38 "The Father is in me, and I am in the Father").
Thomas, who was previously doubting Thomas, recognised Jesus as God
(20:28) ("Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'")
But the ideas of God as three in one, and Christ as human and God are
difficult, and theologians are still struggling to understand and explain them.
The ideas have been developing since the second century, and led to their
expression in the creeds of our faith: the Nicene Creed which we say together
every sunday, and the simpler Apostles’ creed we say at morning prayer and
baptisms.
How did the ideas of trinity and the creeds develop?
In the early third century the Latin theologian Tertullian may have been the
first one to take these scripture verses and write of the trinity of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, one in essence, but not one in person.
Trinitarian theology led to the first major confrontation over doctrine in the
church, and as I have mentioned, many disputes and splits since then.
In 325 Roman Emperor Constantine wanted to use the Christian faith as a
political tool for uniting his Roman empire, so he ordered a council of all the
bishops of the empire who were arguing, as theologians do, to write down a
common creed, a statement of their fundamental beliefs that they all could
agree on. They drafted the Nicene Creed which was finalised in some later
councils.
That Council of Nicaea was "a bitterly contested struggle, during which
bishop Arius got up to speak and Bishop Nicholas of Myra punched him
in the nose". Most of the disputes were about the humanity and divinity of
Jesus. Arius questioned the divinity of Christ. How could God the creator be
crucified and suffer? If it was God on the cross, surely he didn’t suffer as a
human would have. Was Jesus fully human? Perhaps he was God in a human
body, so essentially he had no human soul, just God animating a human male
Some were not able to agree with the majority, eg Arius, who was
excommunicated. The Nicene creed was carefully formulated by the bishops
who didn’t get kicked out, to exclude the heresies of the time. Arians kept on
trying for decades to be heard, but their bishops were excommunicated and
others exiled.
Our Nicene creed, which we will say soon, is based on the theology of the
We affirm we believe in One God ( not three)
And in Jesus Christ-eternally begotten of the Father (comes from the
beginning of John’s gospel: The Word was from the beginning of time-co-
eternal, co-existent with the Father. Not a creation like us but begotten,
meaning Son, of the same essence as the parent)
True God from true God, of one being (or substance) with the Father (not
inferior, not subordinate to God’s authority, which would be Arianism)
He became truly human, or, and became man (not an illusion or a soul-
less human inhabited by God, the heresies of Docetism and Sabellianism)
We believe in the Holy Spirit, ... who proceeds from the father and the
Son (this is the filoque clause)
The htree words of the filoque clause are the principal disagreement between
Western Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and Eastern Orthodox
Christianity. The great split was not about the humanity and divinity of
Christ, but about the relationship of the Father with the other persons of the
trinity. The original wording of the creed from Nicaea was that the Holy Spirit
proceeds "from the Father". This phrase is still used unaltered both in the
Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, since 589, as they believe that the
Father breathed the Spirit and begets the Son. It became customary in the
Latin speaking Roman Catholic Church, and so into the Protestant churches
including ours, to add "and the Son" (Latin Filioque).So we continue to
say ‘that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son’. This denotes
the equality of the three, but implies that both the Father and the Son both
breathe or send the Holy Spirit. The orthodox churches won’t accept it, as it’s
not the original wording agreed on at Nicaea-and they are right.
What does scripture say about it? In preparing his disciples for his coming
death, Jesus said that ‘the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name’: that
could support either view! (John 14: 26) Anyway this tiny phrase is a major
stumbling block keeping these large sections Christianity apart. Which is
tragic!
During more than a thousand years of Trinitarian orthodoxy in the church
nontrinitarians were occasionally executed or forced to keep their beliefs
secret. One such was the English scientist Isaac Newton who disagreed with
trinitarian doctrine -he wrote much more about theology than he did about
his laws of thermodynamics and gravity!. The eventual establishment of
religious freedom, however, allowed nontrinitarians to preach their beliefs,
and the 19th century saw the establishment of several nontrinitarian groups in
North America and elsewhere. These include Christadelphians, Mormons, and
Jehovah's Witnesses,
With all the complexities of trinitarianism, we can sometimes get ourselves
tangled up in our understandings. The idea is meant to help us understand
God, rather than hinder us. I’ll give you an example of what I mean. Let us
look with trinitarian eyes at that best known of bible verses from today’s
gospel reading: John 3: 16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal
Are we talking of some kind of cosmic child abuse? The theology called
atonement and penal substitution refers to the idea that the Father sent his
Son to die such a death to balance a cosmic leger of human sins, to atone
for human sins like an OT temple sacrifice, an eye for an eye. People have
asked me, What kind of a loving Father, however justified and powerful,
would do that? It seems to stress the separation of God and Jesus, ordering and
subordination, rather than their being one.
 An alternative understanding coming from Trinitarian thinking is this: Jesus
was God himself in human form and his purpose was to make God known. In
fact he was fulfilling what had been the purpose of the scriptures in making
God known to those who wanted to know. His life and actions let us know
how God feels about hunger and suffering and illness and relationships and
injustice. Jesus’ revelation of God climaxed in his death, which showed the
depth of God’s love for his people: Greater love has no man than this: that
he lays down his life for his friends. Jesus didn’t stop teaching and healing
and confronting even when his life was threatened. He didn’t chicken out,
kept on loving and teaching and healing to the last, even though he knew the
inevitable outcome of his challenge to the authorities. Jesus did die for sinners,
for all humans, his followers and those who do not follow him, as the ultimate
act of a loving, giving God, showing that nothing could stop the fullness and
depth of his love. That’s a bit different from the view of God insisting on a
terrible penalty to be paid by another, balancing a leger, an eye for an eye.
And God did not send another to die such a death, God came himself in Jesus.
God did not send another to die such a death, God came himself. As Jesus,
he lived his life to love and teach and save us and died the inevitable death at
that followed; he did all that for us.
Salvation comes from accepting the risen Christ’s offer of relationship with
God, through him.
As you can imagine there is huge amount of reading you can do about the
Trinity and Christology and how they have impacted on the history of the
church. It’s actually very interesting to learn how different people have tried
to understand more about God in this way. On the other hand it can give you a
bit of a headache. It’s interesting, but if it’s not your thing don’t worry.
 I think Jesus would grieve over the arguments and excommunications and
executions that have taken place in the church over how the Trinity works.
It’s important to know that understanding theologians’ ideas about the Trinity
is not a prerequisite for having a loving, saving relationship with the Father,
inspired by the Spirit, because of what the Son has done for us.