Isaiah 40. 12-17, 27-end, 2 Corinthians 13. 11-end, Matthew 28. 16-20
Once there was an elderly man, and one evening he was taking his usual walk. He was enjoying the crisp night air and the wind blowing gently. But suddenly he heard a voice crying out, ‘Help me! Help me!’ The man looked around and saw no one and so he continued his walk. Again he heard a tiny voice, ‘Help me, help me!’ This time he looked down and he saw a small frog. He gently lifted up the frog and looked at it intently. The frog spoke, ‘I am really a very beautiful princess. If you will kiss me, I will turn back into a princess and I will hug you and kiss you and love you forever.’ The man thought for a moment, placed the frog in his top pocket, and continued walking. The little frog looked up out of the pocket and asked, ‘Why don’t you kiss me?’ The man looked down and said, ‘Frankly, at this stage of my life, I’d rather have a talking frog.’
I’ve been wondering how I would have reacted if I had come across the frog and it had offered, for a kiss, to turn into a handsome prince. Being a practical sort of person, I think I would probably have opted for the prince. He’d be so useful for getting things down off high shelves and carrying the shopping. We could still have conversations. He might even help me with sermon-writing.
The Trinity is a somewhat abstract concept for a practical sort of person. So I’ve been asking myself – Why is the Trinity important? Why is it the only doctrine which has a whole Sunday to itself? And, most of all, how does it relate to our life here as a church community? What difference does it make?
Two of our readings today, the prayer of blessing from 2 Corinthians and the Gospel instruction to baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit use Trinitarian language. But the New Testament doesn’t describe or explain the Trinity. It can only be inferred; the doctrine wasn’t fully developed until about the fourth century. It tells us that God is both three distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and one Godhead.
There are two ways in which we can think about the Trinity. Firstly, the immanent Trinity – a way of expressing what God is inherently like. Secondly, the economic Trinity – the way God relates to the world, the way He’s revealed and experienced in human history as Father, (our Creator), Son, (our Redeemer), and Spirit, a life-giving power present and active in the church and the world.
I want to focus mainly today on the first way of thinking about the Trinity. To think about what the being of God is like.
One of my fellow-curates the other day described the doctrine of the Trinity as being a bit like having a frame beyond which you can’t stray. We believe in one God; we also acknowledge the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as unique persons, who are each fully God. The two statements appear to push us in different directions, but somehow we have to stand inside the frame, hold them both together. Doing this is a bit like pulling against a magnetic field or trying to draw in more than three dimensions. As Augustine wrote Si comprehendis non est Deum If you can understand, it’s not God.
I find the Trinity a very reassuring doctrine, because it reminds me that God is much bigger than I am. Of course I can’t understand.
One theologian said something like this about the Trinity – I’m paraphrasing here: The triune God is personal and mercy is an intrinsic quality of God because love of the other is central to his being. [Colin Gunton paraphrased].
In other words, the Trinity tells us that there are three persons who are all God, and that love flows constantly between them. Love can’t exist in a vacuum, without someone to love. God is then love because of the love which flows between the three persons of the Trinity. This love spills out to create, redeem and sustain the world. It’s an active kind of love.
It’s possible, of course, to love without doing anything about it. I have an Aunt I’m very fond of. She lives quite a long distance away. For most of the time I simply get on with my life as if she wasn’t there, but every now and then I remember to phone her, and very occasionally we manage to make a visit. And we might say that making a charitable donation for the relief of suffering is an act of love. In the end love usually prompts us to some kind of action, because love only truly exists between beings in relationship. As Paul says, in our reading from 2 Corinthians “Brothers and sisters, put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace.” So we have to cope with the delight and challenge, and at times frustration and annoyance of dealing with our fellows. We all have our wounds, our sharp corners and annoying habits. But the church is a place where we’re called to exercise love, to build up community, to grow together. This is where it gets practical.
The doctrine of the Trinity is based on the conviction that God is personal, and shows us that God is also relational. We are relational beings because we’re made in the image of God. The story of the frog princess – or prince, which I told at the beginning, isn’t just a funny story. It’s about the human longing for relationship, and perhaps the fear of the loss of relationship. That’s what makes it both funny and slightly poignant.
The theologian Miroslav Volf wrote this:
“Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God- a “foursome,” as it were– for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.”
It’s particularly appropriate in the light of this that we have a party after the service today for newcomers to our church, because it seems we don’t have an option. We belong together because we belong to God.
I won’t ask what you will do next time you meet a talking frog. I think we can all make our own decisions on that.
But on this Trinity Sunday, we might perhaps remind ourselves that the same Spirit which flows between Father, Son and Holy Spirit has been given to us and flows between us. Because of this, we too, with all our imperfections, are indeed a community of self-giving love.
Amen.