Trinity - invitation not puzzle
Genesis 1: 1-5, 24-27 Matthew 28: 16-20
Every year, the week after Pentecost and the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to celebrate Trinity Sunday.
But unlike Pentecost, or Easter, or Christmas, Trinity Sunday is based on a theological truth rather than an event. And so Trinity Sunday has become a difficult one in many people’s eyes.
Some people (mainly preachers) wonder how we can explain the Trinity, or at least ask how can we illustrate it or explore it, without mangling the truth and falling into heresy?
Other people might be left wondering why this idea matters anyway – does it really matter whether we look at shamrocks or Celtic patterns or tricycles? How will the Trinity make any difference in my life tomorrow morning?
Perhaps instead of thinking of the Trinity as a puzzle to try to solve, we will gain more by thinking of the Trinity as an invitation – an invitation to join the dance of life.
In the beginning, says the book of Genesis – God created the heavens and the earth.
And God does that by making room for other things to come into being.
In the beginning there was nothing but darkness, like a vast ocean – and God filling the darkness, with the wind, the Spirit of God, swirling around the surface of the deep.
And God created light, and began separating out space – for light and darkness; sun and moon, day and night, dry land and water and atmosphere. Then God created living things which were diverse and different – plants on land and sea, land animals, water creatures, and many, many flying things.
These living things were inter-related, and grew and reproduced.
And then God says “let us make humankind in our image”.
From the very start – from the time of darkness and nothing else, Genesis tells us that God existed in relationship : there is a relationship within God – of God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son (according to the letter to the Colossians, God the Father created all things through Christ). What we call “God” is the inter-relationship of God – Father Son & Spirit – all taking a part in creating the universe in which God relates to all living things.
Then God say ‘let us make humankind” and the invitation goes out to human beings to be part of the relationship with God, part of the dance of creation, as stewards and carers of creation.
One of my favourites ways to depict this relationship of the trinity of love which is God, is this icon of the Holy Trinity made originally by a Russian icon painter, André Rublev, in the 15thcentury.
It is a depiction of the three angels who visited Abraham at the oaks of Mamre – it shows three figures, with wings and halos, sitting at a table on which there is food – and in the background you can see a house (Abraham’s house), a tree (one of the oaks) and a mountain (Mount Moriah in the account of the hospitality of Abraham).
But this is also a depiction of the Trinity.
The three figures are equal, similar, looking at one another – clearly in relationship.
The cup on the table makes us think of the cup of communion.
The figure on the left signifies God the Father. His hands blesses the cup on the table, but from a distance. The right hand figure, the Holy Spirit almost seems to be pushing the cup towards the central figure. The central figure, of God the Son is also blessing the cup, but is closest to taking it, accepting it, as Jesus accepts the cup of suffering in the garden of Gethsemane.
The colours the figures are wearing are significant. Blue is the colour of divinity – of godliness – and all three figures are wearing it.
But God the Father (on the left, has the divinity covered in the gold of the rule of God); God the Son wears brown, signifying earth, mortality, under the blue of divinity, with a distinct stripe of the gold of ruling; and God the Spirit wears over the blue colour a green robe signifying new life.
Finally, those things in the background have significance – Abraham’s house is established and called into being by the relationship with God the Father; God the Son offers his life on the tree of the cross; and the God the Spirit is the one who brings people into a higher spiritual awareness of God, raising them up, as if on a mountain.
We are invited to look at this icon and look at the relationship between the three persons of God and marvel at the love and sharing and equality of the three.
It is meant to echo so much that we know of the story of God’s relationship within the Trinity, and God’s relationship with the world.
But this icon, like the Trinity itself, is not, primarily, a puzzle to be solved, but an invitation.
The three figures sit around a four-sided table. There is a space around the table for each one of us. We are invited to sit and eat and share at the table of the Lord.
If you think this is just a fanciful description of the icon and makes no difference, I’d like to share with you a story which appeared in the Church Times this week.
Three nuns from a French Order “The Little Sisters disciples of the Lamb”, went to an apartment block to beg for their lunch, as is the custom of the sisters, who live very simply. They rang on the bell of one flat, saying “we are three Sisters, could you provide us with something to eat for lunch”. Then man who invited them in gave them three plates of food, explaining “I live alone but I love cooking, and today I have cooked for four!”. As they ate, he explained he was an agnostic who had given up work 6 months before to search for the true meaning of life.
Somehow the conversation turned to the Trinity, and the sisters started describing Rublev’s icon to him.
He said to them “you are three..” - visitors just like the visitors to Abraham.
One of the sisters explained (just as I have) that the fourth place is empty, ready for the guest. As they sat together at his little table, the man said simply “So we are the picture”.
All are invited to the feast of life.
And right at the end of Matthew’s gospel we read another invitation – this time from Jesus to his disciples - to become part of the dance of God’s life. They are invited to dance away from the life they have known with Jesus of Nazareth and to go out into the world to spread the news of the God who is Father Son & Holy Spirit.
All nations need to hear this invitation to share in the life of God – to know the love, sharing, healing and joy that is shared by the Father Son & Holy Spirit.
All are welcome at this table – to meet with God, who made all, who saves all, who fills all.
May we accept the invitation to join in God’s work - to that same Trinity’s praise and glory – and to the eternal blessing of all God’s children. Amen.
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