One of the nurses I work with in the hospital says there are three things that nurses don’t talk about with their patients: money, politics, and religion. Without further explanation, we can easily see why money, politics, and religion are not talked about. These rather divisive topics can lead to a heated debate and argument, potentially judging each other for disagreements. I think this unofficial rule of nurses might apply to those who preach on Sundays except religion. And there’s one avoidable subject matter that can replace religion for preachers. That is the Holy Trinity.
In some monastic communities, the honor (or pressure) of preaching on Trinity Sunday used to be given only to those brilliant minds who could theologically unpack the mystery of God the Holy Trinity. It is indeed a great honor and recognition of how others respect and admire that chosen preacher’s theological depth, but it still is a great burden to proclaim something that no human minds can fully grasp or logically understand. There’s also great anxiety about saying incorrect, wrong, or even confusing things about the Trinity. So on this feast of the Holy Trinity, here I am standing in front of you, asking your forgiveness in case I make you more confused than before. With that in mind, I would like us to meditate on, not try to understand or grasp, this mystery of the Holy Trinity. I would like us to ‘undergo’ this mystery of God the Trinity, Three in One, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, not three gods, but one God in Three Persons. 1+1+1 does not become 3, but 1 in the doctrine of Trinity. Logically speaking, this doesn’t make sense to us. This divine mystery of the Holy Trinity puzzles and confuses us as Christians. And I believe it’s supposed to do that. It should put us at unease. It should make us feel uncomfortable with this mystery, especially in our time. I say this because one of the few things that is revealed to us about this mystery of the Trinity, Three Persons in One Being, dancing together in perfect, self-giving, self-emptying, loving harmony is that this divine life calls us to think differently about ourselves and our entire understanding of humanity. It challenges and disrupts the way we perceive personhood, who we are. In our extremely individualistic, self-serving, and even self-centered culture, to think of myself, my being as communion is highly counter-cultural. Most of us in this consumerist society are used to considering autonomy much more importantly over community. I am my own, You are your own, My existence, my being has nothing to do with you. I am my own person, which subconsciously or unconsciously can very well lead to self-idolatry, “I am my own creator. I am my own god.” Can you see how hard it is for us to understand ourselves, our personhood without individualizing it? What I mean is that we see and treat ourselves and each other as an island that is not connected with other islands. Each one of us is just a single unit of one’s own. But this kind of understanding is problematic, almost making us see each other as a product that is uniformly manufactured in a factory. We become individuals, not persons in communion with one another. The mystery of the Holy Trinity sheds light on who we really are. Dancing together in unity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit reveal us, “I am because you are.” I exist because you exist. I can never be who I am meant to be without you. You can never be who you are meant to be without me. Being in communion with you, I can truly be who I am. Consider the following questions to see how we don’t see ourselves from this trinitarian understanding of personhood. Have you ever experienced comparing yourself with others? Have you ever discovered yourself putting the other person down in order to put yourself up? Have you ever tried to define yourself against another as if you don’t do that, you might become worthless or less important and less valuable than the other? The Book of Genesis says we are created in the image of God, not in our own image. This directly applies to this mystery of the Trinity. All human beings are created in the image of the Triune God, God beyond all, God with us, and God in us, One God in perpetual communion with one another. In other words, we are created as a being that can exist and sustain its life only when it is in communion with other beings and God Himself. Just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, we are called to be who we are in relation to one another, finding the source of our being in the Trinity. There’s no other way around making sense of who we are and how we come to exist. This is what Jesus means when he says to Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, “...no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from above.” No one can dwell in the presence of God without seeing one’s very own being that can only exist in communion with others. This being in communion with God and others is the very nature of the divine life. Jesus says to Nicodemus and all of us gathered here, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” God’s very nature is love. In this love, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in unity without losing themselves. If I cautiously say more about the Trinity, its life can be said something like “Love loves loving.” This divine love created the world and humanity. This is what our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry talked about in his historic sermon at the royal wedding. I quote, “When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are brothers and sisters, children of God.” Becoming brothers and sisters, children of God is seeing myself and others in communion with God as God’s children. Jesus of Nazareth embodies and incarnates this trinitarian life of the divine love. Jesus reveals the divine life of the Trinity as well as the essential nature of being truly human. He died for each one of you. He died for all those who came before him and after him. He died for this entire creation and cosmos. By his dying, he wounded the sin of autonomy, selfishness, individualism, and exclusion of the other. By his rising again, he restored the true image of humanity that is created in the image of God who dwells and enjoys God’s very own communion. This sacrificial love which never asserts his own desire and will is in and of itself the way in which we find our true selves, our true being in communion. Through Jesus’ showing of his sacrificial love on the cross, he paved the way for us to enter the divine life of the Holy Trinity. And through his resurrection, our being in communion with the Triune God is never lost, even in death. In Jesus, he invites all of us to participate and enjoy that divine life of the Holy Trinity. A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Pavel Florensky prophetically said, “There is no other way in which human thought may find perfect stability except that of accepting the trinitarian paradox. And if we reject the Trinity as the sole ground of all reality and of all thought, we are committed to a road that leads nowhere; we end in an aporia, in folly, in the disintegration of our being, in spiritual death.” (Paraphrased; Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 66) Whether we see ourselves in this trinitarian understanding of humanity or not, as baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we are already in this trinitarian presence. The Eucharist which we receive every Sunday is always the sacramental sign in which we’re embodied in the life of the Trinity. The Eucharist reveals, not hides, the mystery of the Trinity, the Son begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit transforming the bread and wine and all of us as Christ’s Body and Blood. Our prayer life is always trinitarian in that we call ‘Abba Father’ in the work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus the Son. For us, it really is a matter of constantly reminding our trinitarian being and living out that trinitarian life which always requires other beings, our neighbors. This trinitarian way of looking at ourselves and others and living out our lives, which always leads to the life of love for God, our neighbors, and ourselves. On this feast of Trinity Sunday, we celebrate this trinitarian life given to us, particularly through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I pray for all of us that may we take this trinitarian personhood upon us and remind ourselves to joyfully live it out whenever we cross ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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