Divine Wellspring Of Unity

June 7, 2020

Holy Trinity Sunday

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20

Divine Wellspring of Unity

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday. Every year we dedicate this Sunday after Pentecost to ponder the nature of God. God’s nature is a great mystery. It’s beyond our ability to fully comprehend. God is one, but yet this one God has revealed godself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This divine mystery is greater than our minds can comprehend. But by being of a scope so beyond our knowing, God’s very nature challenges and expands our thinking. Like the ever-expanding universe, God stretches our imaginations.

So we try to understand how this one God can also be three “persons,” as we say. But these three persons are not three gods; just one God. In trying to fathom this three-in-one God, we ultimately resort to geometry. We end up drawing triangles.

But not just any triangle. No, not the Isosceles, with two sides of the same length. The Isosceles has always scored as my personal favorite triangle. But it’s not helpful for our conversation on the Trinity.

And not the sturdy old Right Triangle, either, with its helpful 90% corner. The Right Triangle is ever so useful to carpenters, but for theology, no good!

And then there’s the odd duck, the Scalene Triangle. All three sides are of varying lengths. The angles are all different. The Scalene is definitely the exotic in the triangle family. But again, it’s not the triangle we call upon for when we consider the trinitarian nature of God.

No, on this Holy Trinity Sunday, our minds look to the Equilateral Triangle. Its name derives from its equal values. All three sides of the triangle: the same length. All three angles of the corners: the same 60 degrees. The Equilateral Triangle is a perfection of equivalence.

So we look to the Equilateral Triangle as we ponder God’s trinitarian nature. There is an organic equality within God’s nature. God isn’t a hierarchy.

God the Father isn’t greater than God the Son. And the Holy Spirit isn’t any less or more powerful than the Father or the Son.

Radical Equality. It’s not something we have many models for. Much of our world is hierarchical. Corporations and the military are hierarchical by nature. That structure is necessary for their functioning. Someone needs to be in charge. But the divine Trinity is equal and unified.

We rarely ever use the Athanasian Creed. We’re familiar with the Apostles’ Creed and the longer Nicene Creed. But we never recite the Athanasian Creed on a Sunday morning. The main reason is that it’s so very long. What makes the creed so lengthy is that the writers of the creed went to great lengths to describe the trinitarian nature of God. To drive home the point, everything is repeated in triplets:

What the Father is,

the Son is,

and so is the Holy Spirit.

Uncreated is the Father;

uncreated is the Son;

uncreated is the Spirit.

The Father is infinite;

the Son is infinite;

the Holy Spirit is infinite.

Eternal is the Father;

eternal is the Son;

eternal is the Spirit:

And yet there are not

three uncreated and unlimited beings,

but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

The creed declares clearly the radical equality within God’s nature. It sums up thus:

And in this Trinity,

no one is before or after,

greater or less than the other;

But all three persons are in themselves

coeternal and coequal;

This equality, this unity of divine being, is fundamental to the nature of our triune God. We worship a God who is relational in nature! God dwells within a triune communion!

The Trinity isn’t static. God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dwells in a dynamic, interactive, divine relationship. There’s an energy within God, like the energy within an atom. The Trinity is ever circling and moving in concert as one God. You could say it’s a dance, the dance of the Trinity.

In this divine community, our three-in-one and one-in-three God shapes the universe into being. God creates all things, and in doing this, community is expanded.

The book of Genesis tells us that God created humanity in the image and likeness of God. We bear the image of God.

When children are born, old family photos are hauled out and dusted off. The baby pictures of Baby’s parents are carefully compared with Baby. Who does Baby look like? Where does that red hair come from? Who has that nose? Those family similarities can also manifest themselves in behaviors. The turn of the head, the posture, the laugh. Someone will say, “That’s just like your grandpa!