Plays well with Others (Trinity Sunday)

Plays Well with Others
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Sunday after Pentecost, 7 June 2020  
Homily preached at 10:00 a.m. live-streamed Eucharist 
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D., Rector

In the name of the Holy and Triune God:

Lover, Beloved, and Love Itself. Amen.

We are creatures of words and images. We tell stories, draw comparisons. We think and feel in metaphor, simile, and meme.

We define ourselves in large part by the stories we choose to tell and not to tell, and by the images we choose to describe our world. 

We saw this big time this last week.   Some of us, overwhelmed by yet one more unjust murder took to the streets following a narrative of wicked, evil policemen enforcing the tyrannical power of White Supremacy.  Some took to the streets to simply protest and peacefully fight the Power; a very few others burned and looted.   Some of us counter-demonstrated or sat at home stewing, taking as our principal narrative the idea of feckless parasites trying to burn down society, destroy community peace and the rule of law.  And, sadly, others took the feckless parasites narrative to heart, and then went on false-flag rampages trying to force the authorities to crack down mercilessly or even provoke war between races, or what they called “true Americans” and their perceived enemies.  

A few managed to keep their narratives under control:  fight against systemic racism and police brutality, yes, but also insist on keeping the peace and supporting those charged with that difficult job.  

We define ourselves by the stories and images we choose to describe our world.   

I, as a white male, am reluctant to tell any person who feels they have been the brunt of murderous racial bigotry how to proceed.  My job in this situation is to listen and hear, not prescribe.   

I must say, though, that I personally fully support the idea of Satyagraha, truth force, or peaceful direct action that was the program pursued by Ghandi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who said:  

 “Every time a riot breaks out it actually helps the cause of [racists] …  [W]e must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.… [T]here is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies … We see [them] in a new light. We recognize that … hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God’s image is ineffably etched in [each human] being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love…  [So] we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but to win [their] friendship and understanding.”   

That, within the context of ceaselessly striving for justice and holding people to account for their ongoing wrongs.

Today is Trinity Sunday.  The images we choose to describe God tell much about us:  they inform who we think we are, and what we are called to.   If we believe that God is a hate-filled, violent, and bloodthirsty deity, we probably will emulate some of these traits.   If we believe that God is a complete mystery, unrevealed and unrevealing, that kind of takes away any ability for God to actually touch us or change our life.   If I believe that at heart I am a depraved wretch, I may from time to time actually act like one.

If we think God is the ultimate alpha-male, easily annoyed, jealous of his dignity, head of the armies and police of heaven, we end up with worship as primarily time sucking-up to the Deity, and with a deep sense of permanent unworthiness and constant risk at being thrown into Hellfire by the angry big guy.  Prayer becomes merely an occasion for begging forgiveness and asking favors. 

If we think of God as three distinct beings, gods, really, with a clear pecking order: Father first, Son second, Holy Spirit dead last, we end up with God as a pecking order at the top of an equally steep order of creation, and with an authoritarian hierarchy lording it over the church and ruling over the lowly unwashed laity.

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a great fence keeping us from such unhealthy images of God.  At its core is the idea that God is social in God’s very being.   God is in essence plurality and diversity, bound in gentle agreement and unity.  It is not that the Father dominates the Son or Spirit, but that all three persons are in un-coerced honest agreement. 

When we say “God is love” we are not saying merely that God has love, but that the essence of God is the social relationship of loving equals.  I think that “plays well with others” is as the heart of the idea of the Triune God.

Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff put it this way: 

“God is communion rather than solitude… [A]t the root of everything that exists and subsists there is movement; there is an eternal process of life, of outward movement, of love.  Believing in the Trinity means that truth is on the side of communion rather than exclusion; consensus translates truth better than imposition; the participation of many is better than the dictate of a single one.”

It is right to call this special gathering of seekers and sinners here in Ashland, “Trinity.”  Community, consensus, free give and take and mutual service—this is who we are.  Mutual invitation, mutual welcome, mutual respectful listening define us.  And still we must constantly eschew and reject mutual reproach, mutual condemnation and judgment, or trying to score points of being holier than thou, or more woke than thou, or more patriotic than thou. 

Beloved family members here at Trinity: the last few months have been hard, and the last week harder still.  But love is the way through bad times, in fact, the only way through bad times.  God is love, and where love is, God himself is there. 

In the name of the Holy Trinity, Amen.