Lover, Beloved, and Love Itself (Trinity Sunday)

Lover, Beloved, and Love Itself
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Sunday after Pentecost, 16 June 2019  
Homily preached at 8:00 a.m. said, 10:00 a.m. sung Eucharist 
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

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

In the name of the Holy and Triune God:

Lover, Beloved, and Love Itself. Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday, a celebration of that most theological of all doctrines.   For many of us here in Ashland, both those words—theology and doctrine—tend to be trigger words.  They have an intimidating, threatening ring to them.  For many of us, they are redolent of dry and dusty intellectualism that at best kills love and the spirit, and, at worst, hurls authoritarian anathemas, excommunicating and burning witches, scientists,  and adherents of (gasp!) heresy.  That’s another trigger word:  even mentioning it summons images of Grand Inquisitors violently forcing confessions and renunciations out of people whose freedom of conscience and religion should have been respected.   

It seems to us, especially here in the West of the United States, where "none of the above" is the largest religious grouping, that freedom of religion and freedom of belief implies that all religious opinions are equally valid, and have an equal shot of arriving at Truth.  Here in woo-woo Southern Oregon, however, where Iawasca Vine Spirit Quests and magic mushrooms and peyote buttons, or just plain Everclear grain alcohol are used by some instead of Communion wafers and wine, and have won Supreme Court protection as expressions of religious freedom, our general inclination to think that all religion is good religion is shown to be problematic.  Not all faith is created equal, though we must act as if this is so if we are to live in a society free of inquisitors and theocrats.  Quirky, irrational, and downright crack-pot ideas and practice, though you are entitled under our constitution to practice them, simply cannot be on par with more mature and nuanced faith.  For those of us who flinch to hear this, just think of bad religion from the other direction: fundamentalism, racism, homophobia and patriarchy tarted up in religious robes, now demanding under the banner of “religious freedom” special protections to enforce their kind of religion on others. 

This last Thursday, our church calendar commemorated English social and literary critic and Christian apologist, Gilbert Keith Chesterton.  100 years ago, he defended the idea of orthodoxy versus heresy, fully aware of the disrepute the idea had fallen into in a pluralistic society.  For Chesterton, orthodoxy was truth, well-balanced, fully rounded, growing irresistibly from the ground of comprehensive reason and faith, and always leaning toward greater, broader truth.  Heresy, however, was in a sense truth gone mad.  One part of the truth was seized upon in a monomania and focused on to the exclusion of all other truth.   For him, heresy was to be rejected not because it was too broad and open, but rather, because it was too narrow and restricted in its view. 

“But how can dusty doctrine compare with the reality of experience?” C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity mentions a friend who says he prefers the spirituality of going out and experiencing the beauty of God’s creation, to the unreality of the dry and deadly musings of theologians any day.  Lewis writes:

“[One who] look[s] at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, … will be turning [in some way] from something real to something less real… The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based upon what … thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map” (p. 154).

Trinity Sunday is not just a celebration of doctrine.  It is also our patronal feast, the commemoration of the Saint or Doctrine for which a Church is named.  That’s why we here at Trinity Ashland try to make this day just a little special. 

Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff summarizes the Holy Trinity this way: 

“We believe that God is communion rather than solitude.  Believing in the Trinity means that at 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” (Leonardo Boff, Holy Trinity, Perfect Community).    

Here is the core of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as well as the core of our community life here.  It expresses why it was so right to name this special gathering of seekers and sinners “Trinity.”  Community, consensus, free give and take and mutual service—this is what makes us who we are.

  

The heart of Christianity is not in theology or doctrine.  It is in the experience of the living God in our lives and our loving service to and compassion with others.  “The first commandment is love God.  The second is on par with this: love your neighbor.”   This is the life-giving heart of the Church.  The early Church leaders got into the business of theologizing and defining orthodox doctrine only when they realized that some ways of thinking about God and ourselves were not life-giving.

How you think impacts on how you experience life and the world.  How you believe colors how you live.  If you believe that God is a hate-filled, violent, and bloodthirsty deity, you probably will emulate some of these traits.   If you believe that God is a complete mystery, unrevealed and unrevealing, that kind of takes away any ability for God to actually touch you or change your life.   If you believe you are at heart a depraved wretch, you may from time to time actually act like one.

 “Heresy” in Greek simply means a choice, or alternative.  The Church over the centuries has identified many such “choices” as something to be avoided.  A history of these controversies make a very sorry story, one where Christians have not been their best at following Jesus.  But the Church first began to be concerned about such things only when it saw the harm that some “choices” wrought on a comprehensive and healthy Christian life.  

Judging even by today’s inclusive standards, many of these condemned ideas are problematic.  Believing that the Son was created or begotten in time, and that Jesus thus became the Son, technically called Arianism or subordinationism, suggests that the only relationship possible with God is simple submission to higher authority.  This works all sorts of mischief in the life of the Church. 

Believing that the father, son, and holy spirit are simply three separate masks of, three separate ways we experience, or three different functions of, the one person God, technically called modalism or patripassionism, also robs us of community at the heart of all things and leads to submission to domination as the sole way of relating to God and to each other. 

I know how beloved some of the newer more gender inclusive three-fold ways of talking about God are for many of us here.  “Earth maker, Pain bearer, Life Giver” touches us because it is grounded in things we touch and feel.  But I fear it obscures the inter-relationships at the heart of God: it is modalist.  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” may seem too androcentric.  But when Jesus taught us to call God our father, our abba, he was not emphasizing gender, but parental intimacy.  Perhaps the Order of St. Helena’s use, “Source of Being, Incarnate Word, and Sacred Breath” might work.   I think, though, St. Augustine of Hippo, in his great classic de Trinitate, said it best:  Lover, Beloved, and Love Itself.   This preserves the relationships in the Trinity rather than giving us different functions and reducing each of the persons to one of these.   It is important to be inclusive, and to keep a clear mind on the social nature of God. 

Beloved family members here at Trinity:  We are blessed to be here in a loving and serving, and welcoming community.  We are blessed to be gathered here seeking further guidance in our sail out on the ocean, in our walk in the beautiful wood around us, in our contemplative mysticism.  God is love, and where love is, there is God.   Elena and I thank you for welcoming us here 7 years ago and for including us in this glorious celebration of the social nature in the heart of God.   

As we all welcome our new congregants today with open heart and hands, let us pray that we all may continue in this fellowship of love and service. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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