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Trinity

The Good News Written

The Wisdom of Malinda Cramer

“I walked to the window and looked [out]… and instantly I saw the Law of Expression. I turned from the window and said to myself, ‘I see in this law, or trinity — Creator, Creative Action, and Creation — the unity and fulfillment of all Law; a method by which humanity can free itself from the false… belief of separation from God, and from all errors… resulting therefrom.’ This Law of Expression… proves that we are the All-Good in Being, at one with God; we proceed forth in perfect action at one with [God], and in perfect result at one with [God’s] result, or creation.”

John 16.13-15

When the Spirit of truth comes, it will guide you into all the truth…

The Spirit will glorify me, because it will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the Eternal has is mine. For this reason I said that the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Good News Proclaimed

Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2010.

In literature, a persona is often the author’s voice expressed through a character.

In Roman drama, a persona was the mask actors wore to amplify their voices.

In Jungian psychology, the persona is the façade or social mask one presents to meet the demands of a situation.

In each of these cases, the persona is how one presents oneself to a public…to readers, to theatre patrons, to the public at large.

The reality of public personas is highlighted and dramatized by stories about super-heroes.

Andrea Thomas would don the persona of Isis in her battle against injustice. The Andrea who taught school is not the same persona experienced by people in need of her super-hero assistance.

The Amazon Princess Diana took on the persona of civil servant Diana Prince, who would then further take the persona of Wonder Woman when fighting against the evils of imperial expansion in World War 2 and beyond. Of course, there was one complex being behind all those personas, but no one could know all of who she was. Some knew her as their island princess; some knew her as their colleague in a government agency; and some knew her as the bullet repelling, bad-guy chasing Wonder Woman: one woman, known in different situations and to different people by different names and different appearances.

Peter Parker, an insecure student and budding photographer with feelings of inferiority puts on a mask and presents himself as Spiderman. The heroic, courageous face of Spiderman is what some people see and experience, while his co-workers and family see him as a mild mannered and even shy bookworm. Of course, both expressions are true, but not everyone experiences the same expression in the same way at the same time.

We all have personas. We all can make ourselves act kind when really we are feeling misanthropic. We can all make ourselves smile when really we are feeling quite sad. We can all make ourselves do something with bold intention when internally our stomachs are churning. We are all fragile and strong, anxious and brave, generous and selfish, kind and unkind, the life of the party and a wallflower, self-confident and deeply wounded with self-doubts.

We all have different masks we wear at different times. We all are known in different ways by different people at different times. At our dear Betty Priscak’s memorial service yesterday someone came up to me and said, “It’s wonderful to see you in this persona.” I smiled and agreed, but had no idea what she meant. My funeral persona? My Saturday afternoon persona? But then I realized, she wasn’t someone who worshiped here often; she probably remembered me from a performance here at Sunshine Cathedral, where I did indeed present a very different persona!

This is Trinity Sunday, which is actually quite a challenge for a lectionary preacher because there is no explicit mention of Trinitarian theology in the bible. The Apostle Paul does give a benediction to the Corinthians, saying, “The grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the holy Spirit be with you all” and Matthew’s gospel, which was written almost two generations after Jesus’ life, does conclude with a commission to “make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of God, and of Christ, and of the holy Spirit…” These are the only two passages in scripture that link these three aspects of divinity together, and neither of those passages explains how or if the aspects are truly related.

In some feminist theologies, the trinity is a way of understanding human development: youth, adulthood, and senior adulthood…three phases of growth, stability, and decline in the life cycle.

In Hindu theology, there is a triad deity: Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer…sort of mirroring the on-going cycles of life.

And, in the 4^th century, about 300 years after Jesus’ life, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity got hammered out and it has been a central teaching of the larger Church ever since.

The doctrine of the Trinity says that the Godhead consists of three persons, or personas: The Divine Parent, the Divine Child, and the Divine Spirit. We could say Creator/Christ/Comforter, or Mind/Idea/Expression, or Being/Action/Result, or Sovereign/Savior/Sanctifier, or Source/Symbol/Substance…so many ways to express the Trinity, or Tri-unity, the various personas/experiences/understandings of the one Divine Wholeness…but in any case, the undivided One is known and experienced in diversity, in variety, in complex relationship.

Though that doctrine developed after biblical times, it remains for some of us an important way of understanding the Divine…after all, it’s even how we understand ourselves. We are body, mind, and spirit…I can’t just express myself in one way, can I? Can you? I am friend, colleague, supervisor, pastor, son, brother, uncle, nephew, neighbor, teacher, writer, lover…there isn’t a single understanding or experience of me, or of you, so of course the God in whose image we are made must also be complex and able to present a variety of personas. How God shows up for us probably depends a great on how we need to experience God at any given time. Do we need a divine Parent in this moment? Or a divine sibling? Or a refreshing, energizing wind? God can do and be it all. God has to be at least at interesting and complex as Wonder Woman.

Let’s consider the sun. The sun is a Reality. It’s too big, too hot, and too far away for us to understand it, but we have ideas about it. There is the sun that we intellectually know about. It exists; it has mass. It’s important. But what do we see of the sun…its light. And what do we feel of the sun…its warmth. One sun, but we know it in different ways. There is the sun we think about, the light of the sun we see, and the warmth of the sun we feel. The sun, in our experience, is a tri-unity: one sun, but complex and diverse in our experience of it.

And there is God. The God we philosophize about, the God we think about, the God in our sacred stories, and in our imagination, and in our traditions. We assume and trust that there is a Creative Principle, a living Intelligence back of all that exists. God is the creator.

But what of God do we see? We see the light of God in Jesus, who shows us that Inward Light is actually in each of us, in all of creation. That of God that is in us all, expressing through us all, is the Christ Nature and Jesus is our symbol of this Christ Presence, this Christ Light. We see God in the lives of heroes. Christ is the creative action expressing through us.

And what of God do we feel? Love, warmth, hope, encouragement, appreciation, courage, beauty, peace, happiness, the manifestation of goodness is how we feel God. That presence, that energy, that spirit is the substance of all that is good. The spirit is the result of the perfect creator’s perfect creativity. The spirit is the substance of our lives. The spirit is the presence of God in which we live and move and have our being.

The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t an essential doctrine. Jesus doesn’t seem to have known much about it or at least had no reason to teach anything about it. The Trinity symbolizes a complex and relational divine Reality, but like all symbols, it points to Something beyond itself. The Trinity isn’t meant to be one more idol. Remember that Trinitarian language is one attempt to explain our experience of divine Love…and explanation is never the same as experience. Explanation is our attempt to describe what is indescribable, and tell what can only be lived. Trinitarian imagery isn’t meant to define, limit, or contain God…it is meant to be one more big way to suggest that God is big enough to meet you where you are. God is more than any one understanding.

If you don’t buy it, that’s OK. Unitarian Christians and Oneness Pentecostals have long been skeptical about Trinitarian language. But if you find it very important, that’s OK too. It is a rich symbol that we contemplate and play with endlessly, allowing God to be more and more and still more in our lives. Malinda Cramer came to see the Trinity as “a method by which humanity can free itself from the false…belief of separation from God.” I like that.

If Trinitarian language helps you know that God is with you no matter what, then please hold it gently and let it bless your spiritual journey. If someone else finds other symbols and language to describe the bond of divine Love that holds us close and that will never let us go, then let them have those symbols and language. The point isn’t what we call divine Love, but that we experience it, that we trust it, and that we let it transform our lives.

I like the image of the Trinity because it mirrors our triune purpose and mission here at Sunshine Cathedral…to offer progressive, positive, and practical spirituality to as many people as possible so that their lives can be as good and as fulfilled as possible.

On this Trinity Sunday, my prayer is that our Omnipresent God, through the indwelling Christ, in the power of the spirit will bless you and keep you. Amen.

The Good News Affirmed

Our omnipresent God,

Through the indwelling Christ,

In the power of the spirit…

Is blessing me now.

Thank you, God!

Amen.

Audio readings and sermon (http://sunshinecathedral.org/sermons/audio/20100530_1.mp3)