HOLY TRINITY

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-17

Prayer of the Day: Almighty Creator and ever-living God: we worship your glory, eternal Three-in-One, and we praise your power, majestic One-in-Three. Keep us steadfast in this faith, defend us in all adversity, and bring us at last into your presence, where you live in endless joy and love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
   ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
   worship the Lord in holy splendor.” Psalm 29:1-2.

I was raised in the traditions of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, one of the most conservative branches of American Lutheranism. On Holy Trinity Sunday we affirmed together the Athanasian Creed. For those of you who might not be familiar with this lengthy statement of Trinitarian doctrine, allow me a brief introduction. The official title of this statement of faith is “Quicunque Vult.” That is Latin for “What must be believed.” It was almost certainly not written by the great bishop, pastor and theologian Athanasius. Though frequently identified as one of the three ecumenical creeds, along with the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, the Eastern Church had no part in formulating it and never accepted it as authoritative. Thus, I question whether it ought to be considered “ecumenical.”

Furthermore, while the Athanasian Creed does lay out what I believe to be a sound, orthodox understanding of our Trinitarian faith, some of its language is more than a little problematic. Most notable is the withering admonition at the end of the creed to the effect that “One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.” There are a couple of problems here. In the first place, our faith has never been about believing a doctrine, however sound it might be. Our faith is about trusting a person, namely, Jesus Christ. When all is said and done, can anyone really say they understand the Triune God? Can anyone claim to understand the miracle of the Incarnation? Can we really explain the glorious promise of resurrection and eternal life? As important as our creeds and confessions are, they can take us only to the precipice of human understanding from which we view “as through a glass darkly” mysteries that surpass human understanding. Thus, it seems more than a little presumptuous to imply that salvation is contingent on possessing a body of knowledge.  

The second problem is the presumption that all who do not affirm the propositions set forth in the creed “will doubtless perish eternally.” That is not what Jesus and the New Testament witness say. Though the New Testament does say those who reject Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims face judgment and potential rejection, it also proclaims that salvation is bigger than the church. As our gospel lesson points out, God loves the world enough to send the Son to save it, not condemn it. John 3:16-17.  It is not God’s will that any perish. II Peter 3:9. Jesus has told us that he has other sheep that are not of his fold that he intends to gather in. John 10:16. There are many outside the church who, though not among Jesus’ disciples, are with him in furthering the gentle reign of God. Mark 9:38-41.

Trinitarian faith is an outgrowth of Trinitarian worship. Before there was a “doctrine of the Trinity” the lyrical account of creation in Genesis spoke of God’s lifegiving breath blowing over the waters and creating the universe by God’s Word of Power. The poetic prologue to John’s gospel speaks of the unity of God’s word with God’s self. I do not mean to say that any of the aforementioned texts articulate, much less “prove” the doctrine of the Trinity. They are addressed not chiefly to metaphysical assertions about God, but to the worship of God whose marvelous and passionate love for us is revealed in acts of salvation, yet who remains beyond the reach of our partial and limited capacity for understanding. The Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds grew out of and are a part of the church’s liturgical language of worship and praise. They “ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name” and serve the church in “worship[ing] the Lord in holy splendor.”

That being said, the Athanasian Creed makes a valid point. What we believe, teach and confess about God matters. While failure to subscribe to what the church understands to be correct teaching may not lead one to “perish eternally,” there are understandings of who God is and what God requires that are toxic and potentially lethal. People driven by their twisted ideas of God and what God demands have launched bloody wars, shot up Planned Parenthood clinics, conducted suicide bombings, carried out mass shootings and led lynch mobs to commit murder. Belief in God has led to the ruthless persecution of LGBTQ+ folk in the name morality, the banning of literature in our schools and racism thinly disguised as border security. I wish I could tell you how many people I have encountered who left the church because they were introduced to a god that bore no likeness to the Triune God we claim to worship. Bad religion produces warped faith and perverse actions.

Trinitarian faith has some important things to say about God that need to be heard. Perhaps the most important is the affirmation that God is love. Let us be clear about what this means. It does not mean that what we experience and understand as love is God or that love leads us to a knowledge of God. It is quite the other way around. As John the Evangelist reminds us, we know love only because God has revealed it to us. I John 4:7-12. Love preexists creation. Saint Augustine teaches us that perfect love is the glue binding the Trinity, the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God, as lover, beloved and the love between them, is complete in God’s self. There was no necessity for creation in the sense that God needed it. The universe is not the product of God’s loneliness and boredom. Yet one could say that creation was necessary in this sense, namely, that love is always seeking to expand, to embrace and to become more. So, as the hymn says, “the universe of space and time did not arise by chance; but the Trinity in love and hope made room within their dance.”[1] God said, “Let there be…” God makes space for something other than God to exist, to become, to have agency and freedom. The world God made is a theater into which Trinitarian love expands, gets entangled, becomes flesh, embraces suffering, brings healing, hope and newness. This expansion of God’s self into the world God made will cost God dearly. But nothing, not even the cross, can deter God from sending the Son to become flesh in the midst of it.

It follows, then, that God does not need anything from us. God does not need our worship, service, prayers, love and, certainly, God does not need our defense. But our neighbors do need our love, care and defense. Disciples of Jesus need the sustenance of prayer and worship to persevere in such love, which can be as costly as the love God first showed them. It ought to be clear from all this that there is no room for violence on God’s behalf, as though the reign of God needed strength of human arms to establish it; no necessity to make America a Christian nation, as though God were so feeble and impotent that God needed a nation, society or culture to prop God up; no need to protect Christian faith from “godless” literature and dangerous ideas, as though God’s truth were so unsound and indefensible that it cannot withstand critical inquiry. Trinitarian truth, the truth as it is revealed to us in Jesus seeks only faithful witness, not defense.

Here is a rendering of the well known Prayer of St. Patrick that I believe reflects a worshipful expression of Trinitarian Faith

The Prayer of St. Patrick

Source: Though attributed to the legendary Irish Saint Patrick, no one knows the precise origin of this beautiful expression of faith which appears in many abbreviated forms and has inspired numerous hymns, including “I Bind unto Myself Today,” by Cecil Frances Alexander in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, (c. 2006 by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; pub. by Augsburg Fortress Press) Hymn # 450.  

[1] “Come Join the Dance of Trinity,” by Richard Leach, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, # 412.