12 th June: Trinity Sunday: Proverbs 8.1–4,22–31;Psalm 8;Romans 5.1–5;John 16.12–15

Trinity: Living in Love ¹

My recollection of first hearing the word “Trinity” was at Church as a child, living in Ireland. The minister, as in the legend of Saint Patrick, held up to the children a shamrock (three-leafed clover) and asked if there was one leaf or three! Some replied three, others said one. Both answers were affirmed by the minister: the shamrock leaf is both one and three. This is how it is with the Holy Trinity, the minister added. God is One and three persons, in one family of love. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Even if it was not wholly adequate to the sophistication of classical trinitarian doctrine, I am grateful for the modest insight the lesson of the shamrock gave; it still resonates.

Social Trinity

Some twentieth-century theologians have focused on the social heart of the Trinity. God is not an isolated, self-absorbed ego, but rather a community of persons, a model of relationship and love. I find this a suggestive concept. If relationality, community, and love are primary in God, then for us humans to relate in love and care is divine.

John’s gospel gives us the insight that relationship was core to Jesus’ way of life and his way with God. Jesus lived in intimacy with and dependence upon the God he called Abba, Father. Everything Jesus imparted by way of teaching, or practical example, was born out of relational piety, characteristic of his Jewish heritage. His very life, his calling, his destiny; these were given and received as gifts as he grew in understanding of God through experience; through nature, people. and events.

The gift of intimate friendship with God was passed down to the disciples, as Jesus promised. ‘He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it unto you.’ (John 16:14). Jesus was speaking of the Spirit who would come to comfort and teach, sharing wisdom greater than he could impart in one short lifetime. The divine Spirit, created before the mountains were shaped or the hills came into existence (Proverbs 8:25), would carry on the work given to him by the Father. We find here rudiments of trinitarian thinking. At the heart of divine reality there is plurality, mutuality, and love: relationship is the sine qua non of love. Trinitarian purists in the classical tradition are critical of the idea of a social Trinity, lest it let tritheism in via the back door. However, if a social idea of divinity were to catch our imagination and shape our devotion then it is much more likely that worshipping communities would live in fairness, in truthfulness and in forgiveness. The social Trinity raises our awareness of how life could be, and how with the help of God it can be: not just in the Church, but in the world. Praise be to God.

Economic Trinity

How can such a beautiful idea as the social Trinity work in an ugly world where evil spits in the face of love and greed tramples care underfoot. The gospel, the good news given to Paul is that love both presides over creation and enters the pain of the world. After his dramatic encounter with the ascended Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul went for a time to dwell in the deserts of Arabia. (Galations1:17) From this period of isolation, he emerged with the conviction that through the suffering of the Messiah, God’s anointed, redemption is possible for humanity and the cosmos. The whole of God’s purpose for creation has been revealed in that singular event. In Christ crucified and risen, we see divine love that bears and forbears; we glimpse incarnate love with bleeding hands and feet, we hope in the triumph of love, to the point of death of death and hell’s destruction. ²

The beauty of love is seen in beautiful actions. This is what the theologians in the early Church meant when they spoke of the economic Trinity. God faces outwards, God holds a hurting world in his caring hands. Trinitarian understandings of the divine are found in ancient mythologies, but in Christianity the Trinity is framed historically. The suffering of the Son reveals the compassionate heart of the Father, and the Spirit empowers and sanctifies. Paul describes the Spirit-led life with great realism (Romans 5:1–5). Suffering, trial, endurance, and patience are commonplace; indeed, signs of authenticity. Hope of the Kingdom of God, in the end, being realised uplifts the soul, and the peace of Christ and the love of the Spirit are the stars that illumine the present darkness.

Paul knew, as the Christian knows, that if it were not for the love of God, the grace of Christ and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, one might never start, never mind complete, the journey that is the Christian life.

The Church and the Holy Trinity: Challenges and Opportunities

A recovery of the Holy Trinity for the devotional life of the Church may well help with much needed renewal. This is not to say that doctrinal purity per se will save the Church from oblivion. Indeed, the quest for doctrinal purity has frequently turned demonic. The long history of persecution of deists and unitarians by zealous trinitarians is a sad case in point.

With that caveat in mind, the need of trinitarian churches at this time in their history may well be a re-affirmation of trinitarian doctrine through liturgical renewal, or perhaps more accurately liturgical restoration. A sense of awe, reverence, and holiness has markedly disappeared from worship. In many instances, worship without as much as a blush has morphed into entertainment. Is it too much to hope that the name of the Holy Trinity, woven into liturgy, vocalised in repetition, a focus for devotion, may restore a measure of beauty and holiness?

Liturgy is one of the casualties of Church decline, especially in traditional Protestant Churches. Presbyterian Churches, for example, have historically been minimalist in liturgy. Calvin valued catechesis but was ill at ease with ritual; and so, liturgy—a primary catechetical aid—was undervalued. The throwing out of the proverbial baby with the bathwater was corrected to some extent by indirect influences from the Oxford movement in the nineteenth century. In this twenty first century, however, a Common Order in Sunday worship is more rare than common. What was minimal was precious: the trinitarian benediction, trinitarian hymns and the shamrock! A visual aid for children. The faithful in the pew, or at the altar, long for liturgical substance, for that which endures through time, especially through changing times. The restoration of liturgy would allow worship to be more personal, not less. A familiar, repetitive rhythm allows for personal space and reverence before the ineffable glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.