The doctrine of the Trinity, simply stated: There is One God and this One God is three \u201cpersons,\u201d Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity are equally God, \u201cco-equal and co-eternal,\u201d we say. One is not more divine than another. One is not subordinated to any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But God is not simply a category with three members. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are single substance. They have a single will, a single energy. There are not three Gods, but only one God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question for us today is: Do we still need the Trinity? This peculiar doctrine manages to combine two thing many of us like to avoid \u2014 technical jargon and mathematics. The technical terms are not hard to say, but they have very specialized philosophical meanings: Substance, Person, Co-eternal. As for trinitarian mathematics, the good news is that the numbers don\u2019t get very big. You never go over the number three. The bad news is that this is mathematics like we\u2019ve never seen. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland, it doesn\u2019t follow any of the rules. Three equals one and one equals three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More disturbingly, the doctrine of the Trinity seems to attempt to describe the inner life of God \u2014 the relation of the three Persons, in themselves, one to another \u2014 and this is something we mortals really don\u2019t know anything about and, even if we could know about it, we don\u2019t see how it could affect us. So, the questions remains: Do we still need the Trinity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we dispense with the doctrine altogether, we really ought to look at the Bible. Naturally, the passages of Scripture which best relate to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity are those appointed for this feast of Trinity Sunday. For instance, we just heard St. Paul assure the Romans that when they cry out to God \u201cAbba, Father!\u201d it is the Holy Spirit bearing witness that we are children of God, and joint heirs with the Son of God, the Christ. The Spirit bears witness to our kinship with the Father and our fraternity with the Son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, our reading from St. John\u2019s Gospel combines the Spirit, who births us into the kingdom of God, with the Son of Man who descended from heaven, with the God who loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Granted, the connections between Father, Son and Spirit are not very clear or very close in the passages. In fact, all three persons never even manage to fit into the same sentence. The lessons appointed for other years in our lectionary are much tidier in this respect. For example, the Epistle for year A closes with the splendid conclusion of Second Corinthians: \u201cThe grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.\u201d Here we have Jesus Christ, God and Holy Spirit all together in one breath. The Gospel for year A is the Great Commission from St. Matthew and this reading is as \u201ctrinitarian\u201d as the Bible ever gets. The Risen Christ directs the Eleven to \u201cgo and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the theologians would say that even this last passage is not trinitarian but merely \u201ctriadic.\u201d In other words, the three names \u2014 Father, Son and Holy Spirit \u2014 are mentioned, but nothing is said about their relationship. Nothing about three in one or one in three. Nothing about God in three persons. The word \u201cTrinity,\u201d of course, never appears in the Bible. All of that language came a couple of centuries later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, I think that the doctrine of the Trinity is going to stay with us because it has a mystery of great importance to reveal to us, something more than just the inner workings of the divinity. First of all, the doctrine states that we believe in a personal God. You won\u2019t find \u201cpersonal God\u201d in the Bible either, but that concept has emerged from the experience of believers over centuries. Yes, we do believe in a personal God, for we believe in God in three persons. The word is carefully chosen. It means, above all, that God is cognizant of us and loves us. And it means that we are able to love God, intensely and wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, the doctrine of the Trinity affirms that God does not exist in isolation. God is a social God. Even prior to the creation, God existed in relationship, the relationship, the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit one to another. Since we are created in God\u2019s image, the means that we are created for relationship as well. We become whole persons only in relationship to one another and to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, we need to observe the traditional language about the Trinity (and this is from the Athanasian Creed): The three persons are Co-equal and Co-eternal. They exist in communion, in a mutual sharing of life. The persons of the Trinity do not allow for inequality, or subordination, or domination, or hierarchy. Our Baptism into the Church in the name of the Trinity means that all of us, though irreducibly unique, exist together as equal partners in Christ in a relationship of mutual love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps that is why Paul\u2019s prayer that \u201cthe grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all\u201d flows out of Paul\u2019s appeal to the Corinthians to live in peace and to greet one another with a holy kiss. The loving mutuality of the Church has its source in the loving mutuality of the eternal Trinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, do we still need the Trinity? We might just as well ask: Do we still need mutuality? Do we still need to be in relationship? Do we still need a personal God? Do we still need love? AMEN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Andrew D. Parker<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The doctrine of the Trinity, simply stated: There is One God and this One God is three \u201cpersons,\u201d Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity are equally God, \u201cco-equal and co-eternal,\u201d we say. One is not more divine than another. One is not subordinated to any other. But God is not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[377],"class_list":["post-511853","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-trinity-sunday-b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":377,"label":"Trinity Sunday B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473306,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511853\/revisions\/3473306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}