For Trinity Sunday this year, we did a hymn sing format that included reflections on the Trinity from several authors. If you’d like to meditate further on any of these pieces, simply click one of the buttons below:
The Mystery of the Trinity
The notion of God as Trinity is the foundation of all Christian thought, and yet it never has been—not truly! Our dualistic minds largely shelved the whole thing because we simply couldn’t understand it. Most Christians do not consciously deny the Trinity, but as Karl Rahner wrote, “We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.” What a sad statement on our fundamental understanding of God!
The Trinity reveals God more as a verb than a noun, but we rarely speak about God that way in either our preaching or our prayers. God is three “relations,” which itself is mind-boggling for most believers. Yet that clarification opens up an honest notion of God as Mystery who can never be fully comprehended with our rational minds. God is dynamic—a verb rather than a static name. God is Interbeing itself, and never an isolated deity that can be captured by our mind.
Christians believe that God is formlessness (the Father), God is form (the Son), and God is the very living and loving energy between those two (the Holy Spirit). The three do not cancel one another out. Instead, they do exactly the opposite. Recognizing the Trinity as relationship itself opens conversations with the world of science. This surprising insight names everything correctly at the core—from atoms, to ecosystems, to galaxies.
The shape of God is the shape of everything in the universe! Everything is in relationship and nothing stands alone. The doctrine of the Trinity defeats the dualistic mind and invites us into nondual, holistic consciousness. It replaces the argumentative principle of two with the dynamic principle of three. It brings us inside the wonderfully open space of “not one, but not two either.” Sit stunned with that for a few moments.
The most ancient and solid theology of the Trinity proceeds from the Cappadocian Fathers of the third and fourth centuries and is then adopted by later Councils of the Church. Trinitarian theology says that God is a “circular” rotation of total outpouring and perfect receiving among three intimate partners. Historically, most of us, except for mystics, preferred the pyramid model with God the Father at the top, which then got imitated and promoted all the way down! This is no exaggeration.
As Catherine LaCugna presented in her monumental study of the Trinity, any notion of God as not giving, not outpouring, not self-surrendering, not totally loving is a theological impossibility and absurdity. God only and always loves. You cannot reverse, slow, or limit an overflowing waterwheel of divine compassion and mercy and a love stronger than death. It goes in only one, constant, eternal direction—toward ever more abundant and creative life! This is the universe from atoms to galaxies.
— Richard Rohr
Trinity Is a Poem
Trinity is a poem uttered free verse as cosmic love gift
sending sound waves through earth to hurl speech
into the ionosphere stirring radio waves to hum
Trinity is a synchronistic dream we and God have
nightly about the interface of human and divine
the matrix of connections between holy and common
Trinity is a syncopated counterpoint of melody lines
referencing each other and making music as sonorous
as whales and pulsars and seismic waves all held in tension
then someone inscribed the free utterance in indelible ink
and someone analyzed the shared dream with Freudian precision
and someone forced the messy melodies smooth in straight time
behold: just when they think they finished the job and
brush the dust of such work off their hands and rest
Trinity dances out the door and finds willing partners to twirl
— Michael Coffey
Trialogue
The Gods that are Three-in-One said
to the God that is One-in-Three
We must be parted for a time,
me from me from me;
but one of the One-in-Three said
to the Gods that are Three-in-One
What is to become of us
when all of this is done?
For a God that is man will know of things
that a God should never know
and will eat of the tree of knowledge
where the fruit of despair will grow.
Then the God that is the Father said
to the God that is the Son
You know I am with you always
for you and I are One
but the God that is man must somehow know
that the God that is God may not be,
so I must hide myself enough
to disbelieve in me;
and the God that was now a dying man
cried out all-knowingly
my God my God my God
why have I forsaken me?
— Godfrey Rust
I Praise an Ever-Shifting God
I praise an ever-shifting God,
who slips through the fingers of any hand that tries to grasp it and pin it down.
My God is found in silver crosses and pipe organs,
in long robes and candles–
and my God is found in drums and clapping and dancing and loud “Amen!”s.
My God forgives debts, trespasses and sins,
whether you believe in One God or God the Father Almighty.
My God sings through raised soft palates
and speaks in tongues.
My God penetrates the words of the great theologians,
and lifts up the voice of the testimony,
and sparks the questions of the doubting.
I worship the God of the mountains; majestic, eternal, unchanging.
I worship the God of the sea; unfathomable, unknowable, unpredictable.
I worship the God of the desert; harsh, purifying, searching.
I worship the God of the city; vibrant, busy, colorful.
I worship the God of the home; comforting, intimate, warm.
I worship a human God, who laughs and weeps as all humanity does.
I worship a separate God, who sees what I cannot.
And I sing to a God that left the church’s doors
to weave in and out of all the world
to appear in blue jeans
and on cardboard signs begging for money
a God that found its way into the synagogues, the mosques, the temples, the yoga classes,
who appears to the churchfolk through the voice of the atheist
who finds a strain of love in the world
and wraps itself around it, multiplying its light,
for my God is everything and anything that is based in love.
My God dances away from my reaching fingertips
but is somehow in my hand.
And I spend my life trying to glimpse it,
only to hear it laugh and say, “I am right here! Open your eyes!”
If your God is an idea you can easily grasp,
a one-gendered, unconfusing, comprehensible idea that seems to hold much power in that simplicity,
I would like to challenge our Gods to a duel.
For how could my big God lose against your tiny one?
For if we believe God is all-powerful,
how dare we restrict God to one image?
Is it not the gravest sin to limit this lively, playful, mysterious, abundant, loving thing we call God?
— Slats Toole
A Poem for Trinity Sunday
Holy One,
I contemplate the sacred dance
and wonder when I will learn the steps
steps of peace, healing, hope
not just for a few
for all who yearn for freedom
You created all that is
as the Spirit hovered
and the Word spoke
and Wisdom beaconed
and the whole of You delighted in Creation
now we are tangled up in the limits of our language
trying to make You three and one
when You are always so much more
a Sacred Mystery breathing Life
and stirring visions
our lips have been burned clean
our sins have been blotted out
yet we remain outside your realm
(with guns in hand and fear holding us still)
which is close enough to reach
and too far for us to embody
because we have yet to believe
that which has always been:
Your love for us never ends
we can refuse to see it or claim it
we can deny it and avoid it
yet, we cannot separate ourselves from Love
what if the day is coming when our world is shaken
by the power of your glory
shaken so hard that we fall from doubt and disbelief
fear and hatred
apathy and ambivalence
into the truth of your delight in us?
what if we hover with the Spirit over Creation’s waters
and see only Love reflecting
an invitation to learn the steps of the dance
right now?
what if we hear the Word that sears our lips
and speak only grace, hope, and joy
echoing the song you’ve been singing from Earth’s beginning
longing for us to listen?
what if we follow Wisdom’s way
and create justice and offer mercy
until the world finds its rhythm
without violence
without destruction
without division?
God-in-Community,
may you remain patient with humanity
remain steadfast
until we claim your Love
share your Love
embody your Love
continue to shower us with forgiveness
until we know the truth
of your claim on us
and have the courage
to see you
in ourselves
in each other
in the whole of Creation
teach us to seek justice for all people
to love with your patience and compassion
and rely on You when we encounter the limits
of our bodies
of our minds
of our human ways
during this Pentecost season
blow through our lives
and set our holy heads on fire
that we may be the Church-Made-New
born again
born from above
born anew
Amen.
Victor UMC 