Genesis
1:1 – 2:2 / Psalm 8 / II Corinthians 13: 11–13 / Matthew 28: 16–20
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, June 7, 2020.
“THE HOLY TRINITY:
ADVISORY NOTICES”
(Homily texts: II Corinthians
13: 11–13 & Matthew 28: 16-20)
We come,
this morning, to Trinity Sunday, a day in which we concentrate on the nature of
God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three Persons.
Since we
live in a world in which nearly everything we use comes with user instructions,
advisories, and even warning labels (I wonder how, in an age gone by, we ever
lived without all those advisories and warnings…somehow, we managed!), I
thought it might be good to approach the mystery of the God who is One God in
Three Persons (as the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” proclaims)
with some advisory cautions.
Perhaps an
advisory or warning having to do with
the necessary work of trying to understand the nature of the Holy Trinity might
go something like this:
“NOTICE TO
THE USER: As you approach the mystery of the nature of God, caution is in
order. For any tool or method you choose to use will fall short of an accurate
and complete description of God’s true nature.”
How would
such an advisory notice work in real life?
Here are
some ways.
As we
approach a contemplation of God, we should be aware that we could easily lapse
into focusing on just one of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity at a time,
to the exclusion of the other two Persons. Such an approach is known as modalism, and it
points to the idea of thinking about God according to the mode that we
are experiencing or considering. To illustrate what a mode is, consider your
Rector: He is a father, a grandfather, and also a priest. He operates in these
differing modes according to those he is interacting with. The same, then, is
true when we consider God. We think about God according to the way we are
interacting with, or thinking about, Him. But the antidote to modalism is to
remember that, whenever we concentrate on one Person of the Trinity, the other
two are also present, all the time.
Another
advisory would have to do with thinking of the three Persons of the Trinity as
being separate one from another. Along with the point we’ve just made about the
truth that, whenever we focus on one Person of the Trinity, the other two are
also present, this truth also emerges: The three Persons are so intertwined
with one another that it is impossible to tell just where one Person leaves off
and the others begin. Such a concept carries with it a technical name that
theologians use to describe this truth: Perichoresis (coming
from the Greek).
An
important advisory would have to do with the relationship between the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit. It would be easy to think that, for example, the
Son is secondary in some way to the Father. (The same could be said for the
Holy Spirit.) Such a view is known as subordinationism. The
correct view sees each Person of the Trinity has being of equal status and
importance.
Yet another
advisory would have to deal with the limitation of human language to describe
the ineffable mystery of God. The best that our human language can do is to use
human concepts (out of which language arises) to attempt to explain in some way
the truth of God’s being, a reality which, ultimately, lies beyond our attempts
to accurately describe in full this side of eternity.
One final
advisory would have to do with the term “Trinity” itself. If we were to take a
concordance of the Bible and search for “Trinity”, we wouldn’t find an entry
for the term. The truth is, the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in any biblical
text. However, two of the appointed texts for this day do point to the nature
of God: One is the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel account, in which He
records the Lord’s charge to the disciples to “baptize in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
This passage gives us Christ’s own authority upon which to base the understanding
of God as One God in Three Persons. The other passage that points to the
existence of God in Three Persons is the final verses of Paul’s second letter
to the Corinthians. There, he says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” The
question then naturally arises: “Where did the word ‘Trinity’ come from?” It seems to arise out of a statement made by
Tertullian (c. 150 – 225 AD), who was (apparently) the first to articulate the
“One God in three Persons” concept.
Heeding
these advisories will enable us to approach the nature of God as best as we are
able, given the limitations of human thought and language. Understanding God’s
nature as Father, Son and Holy Spirit launches us into a lifelong quest to know
God as best as we can this side of heaven. Though the journey is never ended so
long as we are in this life, it is, nonetheless, critical to our spiritual
maturity.
We pray
then, for good questing as we make this journey. May the Holy Spirit enable us
to come to know God more fully and more accurately.
AMEN.
