Entering Into the Mystery of God as Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Trinity Sunday June 12, 2022
St. Martin’s
Episcopal Church
Williamsburg,
Virginia
The older I get, the more interested I am in God as
mystery. God is beyond human
understanding! There is grace in that: there
is no minimum required understanding to be considered in good standing.. And this moves us to a healthy humility:
because no one can claim to have God all figured out. (Lord knows the world would be a more
peaceful place if more Christians acted less out of arrogance and more out of
humility.)
But how can we
know anything about God, if God is beyond human understanding? That is the purpose for this day on the
liturgical calendar. Today is the Sunday
of the Holy Trinity. It’s the only
Sunday that is devoted to a doctrine, a teaching of the church. (I hope to make that more interesting than it
sounds!) Let’s use the Nicene Creed, following
its words into the mystery of God, who the Creed names to be Father and Son and
Holy Spirit.
The Nicene Creed takes its name from the Council of
Nicea, which took place in the year 325.
By that time, the Church had developed deep divisions over how to
understand Jesus the Christ to be God and
human. (It is a myth to think that there
was ever a Church without divisions – but that is a topic for another time!) If you would like to learn more about the
specific arguments that were raging in the year 325, when you get home, Google
“the Arian controversy.”
The Nicene
Creed that we use today in worship did not come quickly or easily. There was a statement of belief
presented to the Council in 325 – but it’s not what we use today. What we call the Nicene Creed actually
developed over many decades following the Council, and it developed through
argument and through usage: as consensus developed about wording, among the
versions that were used among the many communities of the two major developing Christian
traditions of faith: the communities of the west, centered in Rome; and those
from the east, centered in Constantinople.
(Today, those churches of eastern Christianity are identified by the
many names of “Orthodox” – Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and so on.)
Let’s look at
the Creed. Do you notice that it is in
three paragraphs, or articles? There’s
one article for each person of the Trinity.
Do you notice that the second article is the longest, by far? That’s because the chief controversy in the 4th
century was how to understand Christ to be God and human being. That was the issue needing resolution.
Let’s read the
first article together:
We believe
in one God,
the
Father, the Almighty,
maker
of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
In worship, we
barrel through these words! What if we
actually paused at the commas? Look at
how this ancient sentence opens us to the mystery of God’s creation of all that
is being discovered today, in the sciences of biology and physics and
astronomy. “[M]aker of heaven and
earth”; and not only that, but: “of all
that is”; and to emphasize what that means: “seen and unseen.” Wow! And so, listen as I pause at the commas:
We believe
in one God,
the
Father, the Almighty,
maker
of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
That sentence
alone would provide a lifetime’s worth of contemplation. I am tempted to just stop there, so we can
sit in silence.
But that would
only encourage a partial appreciation of who God is – because God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. This guides
us deeply into the mystery that is God. So,
let us speak together the entire second article, about God the Son. (Here will be the trick: to best be attentive
to what the words are saying, we must pause for commas – but avoid pausing where there are no commas!)
We believe
in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the
only Son of God,
eternally
begotten of the Father,
God
from God, Light from Light,
true
God from true God,
begotten,
not made,
of
one Being with the Father;
through
him all things were made.
For
us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under
Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in
accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is
seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to
judge the living and the dead,
and
his kingdom will have no end.
These words
reveal a great deal about the issues of the 4th century; issues that
need to be clarified, still, today. For
instance, calling Jesus “Son of God” seems to make Jesus less-than-the-“real”-God,
right? The “real” God appears to be God
the Father, right? To this day, this is
a major impediment to understanding who God is.
Is there “one God, the Father, the Almighty,” and then two secondary
“Gods”: the Son and the Holy Spirit?
That’s a
natural question for us, because we tend to think in terms of hierarchies in
organizational flow charts and chain of command diagrams. The 4th century thinking about God
was much different, and it is helpful for us.
Here’s how it goes, and I’m going to use a very technical word. Are you ready? There is stuff that is God. Oh, all right, if you insist on using the
Greek, the stuff is called ousios. Here’s the Trinitarian consensus that
developed over many years: that the Son (and the Spirit) are homoousios – of the same stuff as the
Father! So – there is God. God the Father proceeds to become the Son, and also to become the Holy Spirit; all
three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – God – the same stuff! Or, as it’s often translated into English:
the same substance.
That’s why,
each time we speak this second article of the Creed, we say that the Son is
“eternally begotten of the Father.” God
the Son was not created by the Father, but was “begotten,” of the same stuff that
is God. Indeed, the Son was “eternally begotten.” There was not a time when the Son did not
exist! In fact, “through him all things
were made!” (This is long before the Son
became the human person, Jesus!)
Can all of
this mystery be understood? Look at how
the wording of the Creed tries to express the reality of God the Son, mystery
that cannot be understood:
eternally
begotten of the Father,
God
from God, Light from Light,
true
God from true God,
begotten,
not made,
of
one Being with the Father;
through him
all things were made.
Does that
language settle all the questions? Of
course not! Language is so limited. The real tragedy is when language about God,
which is inadequate, is turned into theological formulas that are used to
exclude others. And so, the Creed can
cause great damage. There are many, many
people who do not worship in a
Christian church because they do not think they “measure up,” according to what
they see to be requirements of what
must be believed, according to the Creed.
Instead, here
is what I think about the purpose of the mystical and inadequate language of
the Creed: it is to invite us into prayer and contemplation, to lead us into
the mystery of God as Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Part of that
mystery is what we affirm about Jesus: fully God, and fully human. Look at the
attempt, in the language of the Creed, to affirm that God the Son became human
in Jesus. (The fancy word for that is
the “incarnation.”) God the Son:
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under
Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On
the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
“[W]as
incarnate”: God the Son became the human flesh of Jesus. “[T]he Virgin Mary”: Jesus had a human
mother. “[B]ecame truly human.” “[C]rucified”: this was a human being who
suffered in this way. “[C]rucified under
Pontius Pilate”: this was a human being who lived at a particular time in
history. And then, this: “he suffered
death and was buried.” His human death
was real. His human burial was real – as
real as our own deaths and burials will be.
God is Father,
and God is Son (who, for a short while, took on our human flesh).
God is also
Holy Spirit. Speak the third article
with me:
We believe
in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who
proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who
with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who
has spoken through the prophets.
We
believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We
acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We
look for the resurrection of the dead,
and
the life of the world to come. Amen
See that word, “proceeds?” You know how important that word is – now that
you are 4th century Trinitarian theologians! In fact, in that phrase lies the split
between Eastern Christianity and Western.
Doesn’t the language we say seem to make the Father and the Son to be
“really” God – while the Holy Spirit is not quite as much God, since it
proceeds from the Father and the Son?
Hmmm….
And, of course, you know that the word, “catholic” does
not refer to the Roman Catholic church, right?
Small-c “catholic” means the universal Church of all times and places,
right? I have to stop. I do wish I could get 17 centuries of
Trinitarian theology into a 15 minute sermon.
Here’s what’s
let’s do. When we speak the words of the
Nicene Creed in a few minutes, let’s allow them to invite us into mystery –
that which we cannot fully understand.
Speaking the words, let us enter into the mystery of God as Father and
Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Pastor Andy Ballentine
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