Genesis
1.1-2.4
2
Corinthians 13.11-13
Matthew 28.16-20
In a troubled and
violent world, we might wonder, what is the use of Trinity Sunday? It can seem rather
academic and abstract. Is it a
distraction from the real issues that affect real lives? Is it a puzzle to be
solved, a cryptic crossword clue? Two across: “One and Three: seven letters.”
No. Trinity Sunday is
not a puzzle, but an invitation to worship, to encounter the mystery of God who
surpasses our understanding. Far from being distant from real life, this opens
to us a true understanding of what life is all about.
The mystery of God
speaks to us through creation, through the scriptures, through the readings we
heard today. Genesis tells us, under the symbolic language of myth, the truth
that God is the creator of all things, and that all things are good. The
culmination of that goodness comes in the creation of humanity, “in God’s image
and according to God’s likeness”. Male and female, in plurality and diversity,
humanity bears God’s image.
The image of God in
humanity means many things, and one is that plurality is an essential part of
what God is and what humanity is. One nature, many persons. As God is a
communion of perfect freedom, equality and love, so too humanity is meant to
be. God’s purpose is that all humanity should come to share and reflect the
life of God.
And yet our history
tells us another story. Division, sin, greed, inequality, violence. One person
dominating and oppressing another. And this is the tragedy of Genesis: the
story of our fall. Created for freedom, freedom abused leads us into slavery.
Slavery to our own passions, to our hatred. Slavery of one human being to
another. This is not how it was meant to be. This is not the goodness for which
we were created.
But the scriptures tell
us that the Creator is also the Redeemer. The Father sends the Eternal Son to
take our human nature to himself, to become the new Adam, to re-found humanity
and so restore the image of God that was lost. And even to add to it what it
never had before, participation in the Divine nature.
And the Eternal Son
sends his Church into all nations, to gather all peoples into unity. “Make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The name of the Trinity is to be imprinted on
humanity through its participation in Christ, restoring that communion of
freedom, equality and love for which we were created, as we read in Genesis, by
which we reflect God’s image.
Getting our worship of
God right, and getting humanity right, go together. Although God surpasses our
understanding, nevertheless, what we say about God matters. This is why we
speak in very specific terms of the Trinity. One God, Three Persons. Each
Person equal to the others.
This is why the Creed
says some very specific things, too. About the only Son of God, for instance,
we say that He is:
“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.”
You might wonder where
these words come from. Well, the Church, around the fourth Century, found it
necessary to say these very specific things as a correction to understandings
of God that had become distorted, unbalanced and wrong. And the danger is that if
you get God wrong, you get humanity wrong, too.
Quite a number of
people wanted to say, for instance, that the Son was inferior to the Father. He
wasn’t really God on the same level, and had a subordinate role. This idea of
God was particularly popular with emperors. If humanity reflected the image of
God, then they wanted a God who was more like a chain of command than a
communion of freedom and equality. One monarch at the top giving the orders,
those beneath obeying.
And against that the
bishops of the Church had to insist, in the words we now read every Sunday in
the Creed, that this was not what God was like. The Son is equal to the Father.
The Son obeys the Father’s will, yes, but in perfect freedom. And this was not
just an abstract or academic question. It matters, because if you get God wrong,
you get humanity wrong, too. These things had to be said, as a correction to
things that had become unbalanced and wrong.
Emperors, then and now,
have tried to co-opt God to support their own erroneous view of power. So there
is nothing particularly new in a President clutching a Bible for a photo
opportunity in front of a church he’d just cleared with tear gas. But grabbing
the power, one way or another, is getting God wrong, and so getting humanity
wrong, too.
We’ve focused very much
on one particular way in which humanity has gone wrong in these last two weeks.
George Floyd was a precious member of humanity made in the image of God. His
killing damages all of humanity. As with so many other black and minority
people who have suffered violence and oppression, it is the very image of God
that is insulted and abused when equality and freedom are denied. Black lives
matter. That needs to be said. It isn’t enough to say that all lives matter,
because that is to avoid the place where our understanding of humanity has become
unbalanced and wrong. Just as every clause in the Creed needs to be said, to
stop us getting unbalanced and wrong about God.
Black lives matter. To
say that is to affirm the image of God in humanity, and therefore it is
Christian doctrine. Non-negotiable. Absolutely so, in the face of systemic
racism, violence, and oppression. But, also so, in the more general and subtle
ways in which society tends to order itself to the advantage of those who are
already privileged. And that is all around us.
In these troubled times,
for example, hard questions will need to be asked about why the death rate from
Coronavirus is so much higher in black and minority communities. A question
that cannot be addressed without looking also at issues of opportunity, exclusion,
and wealth distribution. Black lives matter. That needs to be said. Because if
we fail to see that black lives matter, then we fail to see the image of God in
humanity, and we fail to co-operate with Christ in restoring that image.
Because freedom, equality and love, for all people, is the image of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Church can never compromise or give up on
that vision.
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