Trinity Sunday: Are You Lonely, June 3, 2012

 Rev. Kathryn Ransdell
Trinity Sunday
June 3, 2012

I'm not sure, but I think the anti-establishment nature of west coast/BC living is rubbing off on me.  Or perhaps it is the energy of my colleague Tim Scorer who is discussing with me how we can be so easily co-opted by the state and made agents of their will rather than representatives of the truth.
I don't want to live a life co-opted by any higher authority, but I would like my Nike shoes, Lucky Brand jeans and  with a McDonald's cheeseburger and a Coke to drink. 
So here's how I think this seed of anti-establishment is growing within me:  In the liturgical cycle of the church, we observe Lent, which gives way to Holy Week, and then we celebrate Easter, and 50 days later we celebrate Pentecost.  One week after Pentecost the church decided to hold what it called "Trinity Sunday."  I must admit that I have observed Trinity Sunday quite dutifully and faithfully as a minister since my first Trinity Sunday sermon 17 years ago.

I've always thought it important to preach on the subject of the Trinity so that the flock knows what it believes.  This week, though, I found myself asking this question:  Of all Sundays, why now must I stand before you and explain the Trinity?  We just had Pentecost; the Holy Spirit just arrived.  We haven't had enough experience of it for me to begin to find words to make sense of it.  And it hit me --  I've been co-opted into preaching someone else's story, that I'm just an agent of the Western branch of Christianity. 

I am a product of the Western (Latin) branch of the division of the state church of the Roman empire that occurred in the Great Schism of 1054.  You know this schism, the one that divided the state church into the Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches which later developed into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. 
It was the Western branch that staked its claim on the notion of "filoque"--and of the Son.  The filoque controversy was the theological line-in-the-sand with the Eastern branch rejecting a doctrine that the Western branch demanded.
The Western branch believed that the Holy Spirit was of the Father and of the Son.--the same essence.

On Trinity Sunday, the Western church wants to immediately put the Holy Spirit in its place, immediately, no questions asked.  So, let's fall in-line and do what the establishment wants us to do:  Please get out a pen or use a pencil in the pew if you have one and draw on your bulletin a triangle as if it was pointing down.  In the middle of the triangle, write the word, "God."  Draw a line from that word to each point of the triangle.  At the point of each triangle, write one of these words, "Father", "Son", and "Holy Spirit."
Now, on each of those lines, write the word "is" and on each of the lines of the triangle, write the words "is not."
There you have it:  the classical definition of the Trinity.  Think really hard on this and believe this and the church will churn out another generation of Christians who fit the mold and don't ask why.  (Cue Pink Floyd...)

If the Trinity doesn't have the "filoque," then your triangle is flipped with the Father at the top and then the Son on one end and the Holy Spirit on the other, three distinct divine persons who share one essence that is uncreated, immaterial and eternal.  The Eastern trinity has three distinct divine persons with no overlapping who share one essence.  (this is how you keep from getting three Gods.)
(Remember, as opposed to the Western Trinity who would said that the one God is three persons, who are uncreated, immaterial and eternal.  As the early church really wrestled with this one, the powers that eventually became the Western church instituted public cursings for anyone who would say, "There was a time when the Son of God was not."  See--that's what's wrong with our world today that we no longer have public cursings...church could be way more exciting.)
There's more mystery in the Eastern church's concept of the Holy Spirit...it really is more like a Holy Ghost, God's direct way of reaching us. 
And moreover, guess when the Eastern Church celebrates Trinity Sunday...it's the same day as the Sunday of Pentecost.  Today, the Sunday after Pentecost, is All Saints Sunday.  I'm guessing it is a day to remember all the saints who have been publicly cursed since this controversy first erupted in the late 200s. 

Now that I fully understand how I'm an agent of the Western branch of Christianity, going along for 17 years teaching exactly what they wanted on this Trinity Sunday, I find myself asking why the Trinity really even matters. 
And this is what I found:  What I notice about the Western diagram is that it is too easy; too clear cut; too neat and tidy. 
And what I notice about my life is that it not easy, life is not clear cut and life is anything less than neat and tidy.

So how does Trinity Sunday really matter?

The doctrine matters, but whether you fall in the Eastern branch or the Western branch, discussion of the Trinity makes for great intellectual bantering but doesn't really get to matters of the heart. 
What I find most meaningful about the Trinity, both the Eastern and Western conception, is that to believe in the Trinity means you somehow take a leap of faith to believe that the God we worship is inherently a God who is in relationship:  the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are engaged in eternal communion.
   
The Western Trinity holds up this notion of kenosis, a total emptying of oneself for the Higher Good, combined with this notion of inclusion...that all are welcomed in and that unity comes from joining together without mandating uniformity. 
The Eastern Trinity holds up this notion of perichoresis, that there is such dynamic activity of exchange between them, but there is no confusion about who is who.  This is the Greek word from which we derive choreography.  The Trinity as two dancers, Father and Son, with the Holy Spirit being the music that spurs them on.  (You know, I could really "get" this image of the Trinity...and I tell you, if you want to freak out a conservative Christian and change their patriarchal , give them this image of two men dancing together...)
Speaking of patriarchal language, the church father who gave us the language of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" also thought women were the spawn of Satan--so it's hard to take everything he said as golden.  But he also described the Trinity as "the deep root, shoot and that which spreads beauty and fragrance."

We live in a time of history where we are so highly individualized that when we come to Trinity Sunday, we totally forget that this is all about relationship and nothing to do with getting it "right."
My individualist self thinks that all that matters is that I "get" the doctrine as an intellectual pursuit and then move on to the next.
Augustine met a little boy on a beach who was desperately scooping water and pouring it back into what looked like a hole in the ground.  "What are you doing?"  "Trying to put the ocean back into this hole."  Augustine realized that the human attempt to understand the great mystery of the Trinity is like trying to put God back into this little hole."
What if to "get" the concept of Trinity it takes stepping into new relationships?  Entering into relationships where the goal is to empty yourself, care for the other, even dance a little...and here's the key...this concept of Trinity is supposed to be the model for how we are as a church. 
We are to be formed as the church in this same pattern as the Trinity...dancing into new visions, emptying ourselves of our own agendas, caring for the person at the other end of the pew...
And all I can say is, "Do you even know the name of the person at the other end of the pew?
If anything, Trinity Sunday can be a reminder to us all that we are to live into this dance of being the Church with one another.  There's not that many of us around here in Vancouver, anyway, so we might as well take our coats off and get to know one another.  Engage with one another.  And ask Trinitarian questions together,
  What are we called to create? 
 What are we called to redeem? 
 What are we called to sustain?

We live in a time of history were loneliness is one of our greatest public health threats.  We are so much more socially networked than any generation and yet we are the loneliest?  How can that be?
Maybe you clicked on the link in Friday's gleanings with the Yale student who died in a car crash.  One of her last essays published right before graduation, where she describes the web of relationships created in college as being the opposite of loneliness.  
She was right.  We don't really spend time weaving that web now that we are adults.  We have our own worlds we keep spinning.  Why butt into someone else's world or want anyone to butt into our own?  Sometimes it's just enough to have to manage those we are related to, much less someone who just happened to choose the same church as I.
To be Christian in today's world means we must live radically different lives to the machine that wants us to believe the most important thing we can be is consumers and the most important thing we need is more. 
We must actively look for ways to subvert the system.  And one of the most radical ways we can be different--wait for this one--is to make a friend, to form and be in relationship that embodies this idea that it is not just about me.

Make a friend...when was the last time you made a friend?  If you have one good friend, you have more than most adults. 
When I moved to Vancouver, I had an interesting conversation with my dad at the playground one day.  I asked him how I would make friends in this new city.  My dad is very shy, and he said, "Take a pen and paper to the playground with you, and when you see a kid playing with Ethan, go up to the mom and complement her on her child, then ask for her name and number and give her yours, and then call her up and schedule a playdate." 
And before long, you will have a friend.
So on this Trinity Sunday, we have all come to a spiritual playground called St. Andrew's-Wesley.  And perhaps there is someone in this room who you have exchanged "hellos" with for some time but you have no idea what their name is.  Today is Amnesty Sunday for you...Perhaps there is someone in this room who you would like to get to know, perhaps over a cup of tea, but it would seem like you are stalking them to go up to them after-church and introduce yourself.  Today is Make-a-Friend Sunday for you...

In each bulletin is a small business card.  Write your name and email or phone, and during the final hymn, I want us to mingle, find someone who you might want to get to know this summer, and give them your card and let's just see how we can move from church being an intellectual pursuit to church holding a living, vibrant dance amongst us.