Whole in One
“Whole in One” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning. Happy Father’s Day, Trinity Sunday, and 2nd week of Pentecost! That’s a heads up that there’s kind of a lot of stuff to stuff into this sermon. In my experience, when this is the case, someone usually end up unhappy: I didn’t say enough about one thing, or too much about another, or whatever. I want you to know that I feel your pain, and if you came here today looking for a reason to be unhappy, pay attention — this may be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.
I want to start by drawing your attention to the sermon title listed in your bulletin, Whole in One. This is a profound statement about the identity and character of God, but is also one W away from describing a golf shot. If it helps you to grab onto the unique and miraculous idea of the trinity, that is terrific. The Trinity is the Christian doctrine that God exists as one being in three co-equal and co-eternal persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. These three are distinct yet united in essence and are each fully God. That concept is kind of a lot to wrap our heads around.
You may have noticed, or can see if you are looking at our text from Romans chapter 5 that it doesn’t mention the trinity. It’s about being justified through faith, and how we gain endurance and character and hope. These are themes we would expect from the theology and experience of the Apostle Paul. Not only is the word “trinity” missing in this passage, you can’t find it anywhere in the New Testament. Jesus did not use it to describe himself, it is not in the gospels or in the writings of Paul. It doesn’t appear in the Old Testament, either. So what’s the deal with a Christian doctrine that isn’t in the Bible? It’s a fair question, which I would answer by saying the Trinity is the work of centuries of Christian theologians trying to understand what the Bible says about something which is beyond our comprehension: the character of God.
Because our understanding is human and finite, and God is divine and infinite, one way to explain God is through imagination and imagery. Here are some historic and a contemporary examples:
[Slide 1] This is a shamrock, which you probably recognize as the national emblem of Ireland; you might see these around Notre Dame University, too. The shamrock is in Irish symbol in part because legend has it that St. Patrick, the first Christian missionary to Ireland in the 5th C, used a shamrock to explain the Trinity: three leaves of one plant. That means, among other things, that the idea of the Trinity has been part of Christianity for more than 1, 500 years.
[Slide 2] This symbol is also Celtic in origin. It has a name — triquetra — a word which I didn’t know until Lisa Vardaman used it. You can see that three points which are interwoven with a circle, a statement of integration, wholeness, and balance. This symbol also shows up in tattoo art, where it probably speaks to a more general human longing for integration, wholeness and balance, rather than a commitment to a Christian doctrine.
[Slide 3 Icon] This icon was created by Russian artist Andrei Rublev in the 15th C. It’s the most famous icon from Russia, so if you’re only tracking one, this should be it. It was originally written to portray the three angels who visited Abraham by the Oak of Mamre, but it is interpreted as a portrayal of the Trinity — separate beings, but in community and harmony.
[Slide 4 Stained glass] And finally, this more contemporary image. I am drawn to this one because of the color: a full spectrum of light to represent fullness and inclusivity. It also includes a symbol for each member of the Trinity: the hand of the Creator, the cross of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as a dove.
And here is a place where symbolism can trip us up, and do a dis-service to our understanding. It is inevitable that humans imagine and make reference to things which we understand and experience in the human world. But we have to keep track of the reality that these are metaphors, ways of representing or imagining God — they are not actually God. Jesus, in the tradition of Old Testament writers before him, referred to God as Father. But God is not a man any more than Holy Spirit is a bird. It is natural and probably inevitable to envision the Creator in human terms, but the Church starts tripping over its own theological shoelaces when we confuse metaphor with reality.
Betty Yoder, whom many of you remember, was a favorite Creekside person of mine. She was not very educated, but she taught me a lot. She loved God; she loved God in a way which is different than reading about God or thinking about God. Devotion is different than intellect. Betty, out of long habit, addressed her prayers to “Our dear kind heavenly Father,” a title which I loved, and adopted when I prayed with Betty. I’m sure this was what she had been taught, and it was undoubtably helped by the fact that she experienced her earthly father the same way. If you were fortunate enough to have a father who was or is strong and gentle and wise and compassionate, you are fortunate indeed. These are qualities which reveal the character of God and we should celebrate people with those qualities wherever we find them. But none of us — not a one — had a father who was perfect. Some fathers are absent, inconsistent, unreliable, and even abusive. God is none of those things. Every metaphor has its limitations, and if we begin to think and act like the essential quality of God as Father is that God is male, we have missed the point. God is the pattern for humans, not the other way around.
The Trinity is a reminder that there is a lot about God as three co-equal and co-eternal persons that we will never fully understand. The Church has spent a lot of time and Church councils and whatnot hammering out a doctrine, right down to the prepositions: is Christ of God, or is Christ from God or like God is wording which was hotly debated and divisive. You may be wondering why this matters: just let the theologians fight it out. And here’s what I would say, what we believe about the character of God and the relationship of God the Creator to the Son and the holy Spirit is important, because that is the pattern for our own character and behavior. It’s a worthwhile question to consider: who is GOD anyway? And part of the answer is to acknowledge that we will never fully understand the answer (this is where the theologian Augustine came out, so I am in solid company here.) This little piece of today’s text from Romans chapter 5 mentions all three members of the Trinity — peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ because God’s love has been poured into our heart through the Holy Spirit. But for me the substance of this passage is that it underlines how we understand ourselves because of how we understand God. It is the formula that affliction produces endurance, endurances produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. There it is: the power of God, the One God working through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
This is a fine course correction for traditions, like the Church of the Brethren, which are prone to overlook the work of the Holy Spirit, or worse, to invoke the Spirit only when we’re using the Spirit to justify a course of action which we have already decided on. At the beginning of this season of Pentecost, it is a good reminder that the inspiration of the Spirit is a manifestation of God’s love. God’s mission in the world and the work of salvation in Jesus Christ are also manifestations of God’s love. The Trinity is not only One in nature and essence, it is One in purpose.This Father’s Day, I hope we can be grateful for and extend forgiveness to the fathers who raised us — in whatever measure those things are needed for our own balance and wholeness. I hope we can celebrate men who are strong and wise and compassionate and faithful — and other qualities which we ascribe to God and are not limited to men. We give thanks for people of endurance and character and hope who have poured the love of God into us. May the Holy Spirit guide us to share that love with others, so that the all may see the light of Jesus Christ. Amen.