Living with the Trinity
Living with the Trinity
Theologians speak of the Trinitarian God in two ways: in relation to each other, and in relation to us. Perhaps the best example of the first is St. Monica’s son Augustine describing the Trinitarian God as Lover, Beloved, and the Love that flows between them. But too many metaphors about the relation of the three persons to each other in this one being we call God has usually led to accusations of heresy; either of dissolving the persons into parts or functions of one being, or of creating three beings, all gods.
Some believe that we can only speak of the Trinity in relation to us because it is presumptuous for humans to speculate about a mystery of which we know nothing except what has been revealed to us in Holy Scripture, and what has been revealed to us is what the Trinitarian God has done for us. But still others object that solely focusing on the Trinitarian God in relation to us encourages us to project our own images on to the Trinity, so that we end up worshiping ourselves rather than God.
Jesus himself tells his disciples, then and now, in today’s Gospel reading that there are still things we have to learn about the Trinity: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
In this entire 16th chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus testifies to the infinite openness of the three persons to each other. Jesus the incarnate Son, who could only be present where his flesh was, has to leave this world so that the Holy Spirit (or as the Greek could also be translated, “Holy Breath”) can come to make Jesus present in every breath. And this Spirit/Breath only guides the church into the truth that Jesus taught, which is nothing but what his Father has given him to say. It is this circle of unreserved openness that makes them one being while still three persons. This much at least Jesus reveals about the three Persons’ relation to each other.
That much openness is more than we can bear on our own. There is so much pressure to look out for ourselves, to be independent, and avoid the shame of our failures and our dependence. Think of the Christians in Rome boasting in their “pressures” instead of “sufferings,” and we might be able to identify with them more closely. All of the Jews, including those who had become Christian, had been expelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius some years earlier. Consider the shame they must have felt. The new emperor Nero had allowed them to return to Rome, but later he would have them beheaded, crucified, burned, fed to lions in the Colosseum for the entertainment of others and to their shame. And throughout his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks to the pressures of integrating Jews and Gentiles into one community that can reflect the trinitarian life of God.
And yet, Paul exhorts the Romans to “boast” in their pressures, because facing down pressure breeds endurance, which breeds character, which breeds hope, which saves us from shame. Pressure can lead to shame if some take the pressure off themselves by projecting their shame onto others. But the Trinitarian God has taken all the pressure off us. By his perfect sacrifice, Jesus has “justified” us by kicking us out of the courtrooms we construct from our shame, and in that justification reconciling us to the Father and to each other again and again and again.Thus, there is no shame between us and God, because being reconciled to God and each other, there is no wall between us and the open love of the Trinitarian God.
However many times we may succumb to pressure, the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Lover, Beloved, and the Love between) is as close to us as the air that God the Holy Spirit breathes through us. The shame we either wallow in or project onto others God the Son has borne, God the Father has forgiven, and God the Spirit has replaced with hope.
Love binds the Trinitarian God in relation to each other, and this love has been made available to us all through the Cross and the Spirit. The more we help each other bear each other’s pressures, the more and more this love will exhale our shame and inhale us with the same Trinitarian love.
June 15th, 2025
1st Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
The Rev. David Kendrick