This beautiful time in glow of Easter brings us some of the greatest feasts of the Liturgical Year: the Ascension, Pentecost, and near the end of the month, The Trinity. We have learned that the Ascension is not just ‘Yay, Jesus!’ but the realization that our own humanness, our very DNA is now located in the very Heart of God. We have understood better that the coming of the Spirit into our lives can come in doses of small, medium, or large. But the Trinity?
Years ago, we learned it well: There are Three Persons in God, but there is only one God. That was it. We may have learned it, but why is it that when we are asked to explain it to a Jewish or Muslim friend, to our family, we are tongue-tied. We really don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s time for an update, for moving this most profound of Feasts from the language of doctrine to the language of meaning.
Why do we, of all the world religions, believe that there are three ‘somethings’ in God? Because Jesus told us so. He told us so because it is basic to our understanding of the transformation of the entire world. He had to open our minds. He had to widen our narrow, sin-bound understanding. We think that difference means competition: you-against-me. No, Jesus taught. Difference can unify. Now this is a strange thought…for the races, for the nations, for human culture, for the human ego.
If you have a Singer, you know that because there is a Song. If there is a Song, it is because you heard the Singing. If you have a Speaker, you know that, if there is a Word. If you hear a Word, it is because you heard the Speaking of it. If you have a Lover, you need a Beloved, and you know both because of the Loving between them. Remove one difference and the unity collapses. Hmm…that simple? Grammar? Yes, and that profound.
That is what Jesus taught us, and that is what we have to learn as humans to heal human relationships. Difference is meant to create the beauty of unity. Is that why all creation is Trinitarian? Is that why we are Trinitarian as humans: physical, emotional, spiritual, yet one entity? Is that why all of human culture is Trinitarian, for it is in our differences that we will find our oneness? We will finally be healed…because truly we are in the image and likeness of God?
Holy One,
What am I to say?
Are you Love simply Expressed in Expressing?
Are you God-Mystery who has a God-Word through a Spirit-begetting?
Hmmm…I have to think about that…
Amen.
