Sent to Dance with the World: Reflections on the Trinity (16 June 2019)

Sent to Dance with the World

Reflections on the Trinity

RCL Trinity C

16 June 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the opening minute of the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist.

Click here to listen to the rest of the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist.

            During my first year of theological college at Nashotah House I was appointed as one of the college’s six sacristans.  The sacristans were responsible for every aspect of the worship life of the college from polishing the silver to planning the great liturgical festivals of the college’s life.  Among the responsibilities was hosting the various groups who came to tour the chapel and to learn more about the history of Nashotah House from its beginnings as a monastery in what was in the 1840’s the western frontier of the United States to its contemporary role in theological education.

            It fell to me to guide a group of primary school students from the local Wisconsin Synod school.  The Wisconsin Synod was, and perhaps still is, a fairly conservative community within Lutheranism.  In those days Anglican and Lutherans were working towards what we call ‘full communion’, but the Wisconsin Lutherans weren’t even talking to other Lutherans! 

            So I was a bit apprehensive about what to expect from the group.  We walked through the chapel and I shared little bits of history that I thought would be of interest to the children.  Just as we were to move on, one of the children pointed to a piece of carved woodwork.  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.  It happened to a familiar symbol of the Holy Trinity, an series of three interlocked circles within a triangle.  We have at least one here in the Cathedral in one of the west windows.  ‘It’s a symbol of the Holy Trinity:  one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,’ I said.  The boy turned to his friend and said, ‘See, I told you that they believed in God.’  In that moment I realized that these kids thought that they were on an inter-faith visit as if they were visiting a mosque or a temple or a synagogue.

            Our artwork says a great deal about what we believe about God.  On this Sunday when we focus our thoughts and our prayers on our confession of God as a God in community, as the One-in-Three and the Three-in-One, our artwork can help us or hinder us in understanding what we believe and why it is important in today’s world.

            When you look around our Cathedral, especially the windows of the nave, you will see a variety of Christian symbols.  Most, if not all of them, are abstract and require knowledge of the Christian story and theology.  I learned that during the recent Heritage Tour when a fair number of the people with whom I spoke asked, ‘What do these windows mean?’  One brave soul asked why we had a Star of David in the north window. ‘What does Judaism have to do with Christianity?’ she asked innocently.  

            But abstract symbols are not the only way we try to express our faith.  In the Chapel you will find a copy of a famous icon of the Holy Trinity ‘written’ as the language goes by Andrei Rublev, a Russian iconographer from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. The three Persons of the Trinity are portrayed as angelic figures, almost identical in their features, seated around a table.  They face inward and are pictured as if they are having a meal together.  

            There is a small rectangle in the table which, I have been told, originally held a mirror.  In this way whoever is viewing the icon is ‘at table’ with the Holy Trinity.  It’s a pleasing thought, sitting down with the Three Persons of the Trinity to share in a meal and listening to the conversation. It’s a contemplative vision of God.

            But I find a different image more compelling.  The indigenous painter, Amado Peña, was famous for his depictions of the life of the indigenous people of the southwestern regions of the United States.  One of his paintings is call ‘El Nacimiento’, ‘the birth’.  Three figures are shown, one seated, the two others behind.  All three are holding ‘ollas’, large clay jars used for many purposes.  All three are looking outwards, directing their eyes to something in the distance we cannot see.  The two standing figures hold their jars out as if they are offering them to some unseen persons.  Something is happening and we, the viewers, are drawn into it.

            On this feast of the Holy Trinity we celebrate this ‘happening’ that God is bringing about just beyond our sight.  In Jesus God has gathered us into this beloved community where we are helped, where we are offered hope, where we find home.  But being gathered into beloved community is only one facet of what is happening, what God is bringing about in this world.

            In the Spirit God has transformed this beloved community from an inward-looking group of disciples who were frightened to share the stories of their friend and teacher, Jesus, into beloved and missionary community.  God breathes confidence into us so that we can use the gifts we have been given to share the help, hope and home we have found. God breathes courage into us so that our fears about sharing our faith with others can be set aside as we invite them to ‘come and see’.

            And today is the day we are sent.  We are not sent to proclaim an abstract God enclosed within symbols only understood by those who are ‘insiders’.  We are sent to proclaim a God who reveals God’s very self in the person of real human beings whether apostles, prophets and martyrs, whether followers of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, whether rich or poor, male or female, young or old.

            We are sent to proclaim a God who does indeed invite us to this table to share in the divine life but not as an end but as a means.  Our time spent in contemplation of God, in the company of God, in communion with God, is intended to be viaticum, ‘food for the journey’ outward into the world God created, God has redeemed, God is renewing.

            As a gathered and transformed people we are sent out holding “this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4.7-9)  

            We hold out the treasure of teaching, worship and prayer.  We hold out the treasure of resisting evil even as we repent of our failures.  We hold out the treasure of the good news of God in Christ.  We hold out the treasure of serving each and every human being because in them we see Christ.  We hold out the treasure of striving for justice, peace and dignity even as we recognize how difficult and costly this is.  We hold out the treasure of sustaining and renewing the life ‘this fragile earth, our island home’.

            So, I say ‘yes’ to the young boy I met forty years ago.  Yes, we do believe in God.  We believe in a God who has brought us together so that we can become more fully ourselves as God intends us to be.  We believe in a God who cannot wait to let us loose on an unsuspecting world. I don’t think any of us can wait to see what’s going to happen next.