= Domingo de la Santísima Trinidad Today is Trinity Sunday; a day in the Christian calendar where we pay special attention to the fact that God is 3-in-1. Also, traditionally, a day that preachers everywhere try their hardest to get out of preaching on the difficult and confusing topic of the Trinity! So I thought I'd add my experience of two VERY different sermons this morning on the matter! :-D So first, I went to the college Chapel here in Magdalene; a small Anglican Chapel where my Director of Studies is the Chaplain, and a very good one at that, and as always, he gave a short but intriguing and attention-holding sermon! He started off by mentioning some of the most common (and amusing - a Jaffa cake!) analogies that have been given to describe the Trinity, and how they quickly fall into heresy. And I completely agree with this; all our analogies do indeed fall short. But once that is recognised I don't feel they need be condemned as heretical! Sometimes an analogy can explain an aspect of God very well - Jesus did this all the time in parables, and all through the Old Testament God is spoken of using images and metaphors, rather than the abstract words and phrases predominantly used in our theologies. For example, rather than say God is omnipotent and sovereign, Genesis begins with God creating everything with just his voice! And while we REALLY need not get into a creation vs. science debate (mainly because it is a pointless one!), we can all agree that this story does show God to be omnipotent and sovereign without once using those words! But the college Chaplain did go on to offer a different type of picture of what the Trinity is; again, one I fully agree with as the only way to see the WHOLE picture. The Trinity is explained by - and makes sense of - those famous 3 words in 1 John 4.8: "God is love." If God has existed forever, which by way of being eternal he has been, then before us; who did he love? Well, he loved himself, for he IS love! But not in a narcissistic way ("combing his hair in the mirror before a night-out" as our Chaplain put it!), because in loving himself the Father loves the Son, and loves the Spirit; the Son loves the Spirit, and loves the Father; and the Spirit loves the Father, and loves the Son. {NB: My order is nothing more than me being systematic! ;-P} Thus, the Trinity IS love; the Trinity IS God; God IS love. And being loved by God means being held within that Trinitarian, loving relationship! After this I went to my church in Cambridge - Castle Street Methodist church - where the local preacher there took a completely different approach. I mean, the number of three-ended anaologies in that service!!! And he did show what I'd thought earlier; that an anaology can be used to show something - though clearly not everything - so long as you don't try to stretch it too far! So the main illustration he gave in the sermon was a "chuck", like in a drill. And it usually has 3 clamp-things that hold the drill bit in (I don't really know much about drills!). And he had brought a drill in, and loads of different sized and shaped drill bits, all with very different purposes, that could go into it. And to me that just said, 'Look! This is what that love means'! That Trinitarian, loving relationship means that I am held tightly within them; within God. The Gospel reading in the lectionary for today and used by John was Nicodemus asking about being born ανωθεν ("again, or anew, or from above"). And John talked about how this born-ανωθεν-ness is being brought into that relationship; that family of God. Big or small, and with a variety of jobs and abilities; the Trinity - which IS love - envelopes us within itself; holding us, protecting us, enlivening and empassioning us, speaking to us, washing our feet and creating us anew. This is what the Tinity is. Yes, the Trinity is "like" nothing else we know about - it is 3-in-1! But it is love, rather than a mathematical or philosophical "theological Soduko" (our college Chaplain again!); it is a relationship, it is personal, and it is true. But this shouldn't make us afriad to talk of God using analogies. So long as we recognise that they do indeed fall short and we are careful not to push them too far that they then become unhelpful.
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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