That Trinity Thing

Trinity Sunday. Ah, yes, the first major milestone in the Liturgical Year which celebrates a doctrine, rather than a specific event in our Judeo-Christian heritage. For "free-church" Protestants -- including the Campbell-Stone-heritage Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which claims me -- the doctrine of the Trinity is not only a head-scratcher, but also already dismissed by Alexander Campbell's disdain for anything speculative in theology. So we don't do "Trinity" very well to start with (but see John Mark Hicks' article on Campbell's take on the Trinity here). Furthermore, the postmodern skepticism of any "grand narratives" lends its suspicion to calcified doctrines -- like the Trinity.

Besides, there are all the arguments hurled at us that "the Trinity isn't biblical" (well, true, the word itself does not grace the pages of scripture, the the relational reality sure does); and the objection, "isn't that a Catholic thing?" To which we reply: and Orthodox, and Reformed, and Lutheran, and Alexander Campbell himself took it on.

Suffice it to say, any preacher who feels the urge to take on the Trinity this Sunday is already facing a steep challenge.

All too often we hapless preachers start at the top, and tangle ourselves trying to explain the mechanics of the Trinity. Our acrobatics fall flat: "Well, you see, the Trinity is like...."

And the sermon is D.O.A. Harry Emerson Fosdick once observed that folks rarely come to church "desperately anxious to learn about the Jebusites." Truth is, many might actually prefer the Jebusites over laborious explanations of "The Doctrine of the Trinity."

So, all too often, we'll just avoid the whole scene, thank you very much.

What may help the preacher who bravely dares to navigate these theological waters, is to start with our own perceptions. Specifically, to answer the question: "Trinity: so what?"

Yes, the doctrine is a part of the Church's theological heritage, and we do need to educate folks about the "deposit of faith handed on to us." Absolutely. But our challenge is to make it make sense, and to reveal its significance for ordinary slobs like us. This is not to advocate a trite "making the Trinity relevant," a little holy "3-in-1 oil" to make life easier. Please! To the contrary, what we try to do is to show how the Trinity is plowed into the theological air we breathe; how it animates the ecclesial life we aim for (at our best).

How to pull it off?

Start with the person in the pew. In fact, preacher, go ahead and sit in the pew, and ask yourself: what's the big deal about "Trinity"?

Then you start thinking, reading, and pondering some more. We have had handed to us two chief perspectives on the Trinity -- which all the theological Leading Lights have addressed, in some way or another: the "immanent" Trinity and the "economic" Trinity. As many of us know, the "immanent" Trinity seeks to understand the internal divine interrelations between God the "Father," God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and that takes us, of course, to the notion of "perichoresis," a gift from the Eastern church: the "divine dance of mutual love" within the immanent Trinity. How love is swapped back and forth (to be irritatingly superficial). If we preachers start here, we've already lost the homiletic game. We contort our sermons into pretzels, trying to find analogies which will do justice to the subtleties of this Mystery. If we have a screen, we may try a Venn diagram to help.

Or we can start with the "economic Trinity": how we understand that God shows Godself in the activity of salvation in our world. Ah! Here we can touch on human experience, to relate us to God, God to Jesus to the Holy Spirit, and all of those disparate characters to Divine Love invading this earth. Creator God creatively weaving things back toward the original dream, using Redeemer Son to show us the human face of God -- and the lengths to which Love will go, and Holy Spirit God flooding the community of faith with Divine Energy to become invited participants in the redemption of all Creation back to God.

Hmmm. That includes me! You mean that the Trinity is not some dusty doctrine up on a shelf, to be brought down once a year whether we need it or not? You mean, it might have something to do with how I interact with folks at work, at home, at Wal-Mart? You mean that the "Trinity" might actually have something to do with real life? Who'd have thought!

Only then do you bring out the immanent Trinity. This is what God is like: relationships, the best kind. Who doesn't wish for that, I ask you? Animated by a self-giving love for the Other that just won't quit -- and celebrates the "otherness" of that Other. In a world obsessed with drawing lines between insiders and outsiders, obsessed with denigrating people of color, bent on "ethnic cleansing" of any who might threaten paleface dominance, the immanent Trinity radical love for the not-like-me Other comes as a prophetic challenge indeed. Also, you find within its perichoretic dance of love: reconciliation, cooperation, harmony -- all of those noble goals we like to sling at each other. The immanent Trinity displays them, not as impossible ideals, but as the very heart of Creation, as example, as inspiration -- and as power-to-accomplish its demand. If "because He lives, I can face tomorrow," as the song says, then even more because They love, we can become God's agents of love in a world starved for it.

That might just preach.