So, I have a question for you this morning: What do a three-leaf clover, an ice cube and the sun all have in common?
They all fall short as ways of explaining the Holy Trinity – the doctrine that says that God is three distinct persons in One. All three of these analogies stumble into a heresy –a belief that’s contrary to Christian tradition – known as modalism that says God exists in different forms or modes but isn’t actually three distinct persons. If you insist on having an explanation, the best one I have come across says that “the Bible says that when it comes to God, 1 + 1+ 1 = 1.”[i] Of course, in the math we learn in school, that doesn’t work either.
And maybe that’s the best way to answer questions about the Trinity - to name that it is beyond our comprehension, rationale or logic. God doesn’t follow any of our careful plans or fit into neat boxes or formulas that add up. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (16:12) There simply are truths about God and God’s actions that we cannot understand.
What
Scripture provides isn’t answers or explanations, but inspiration, that helps us
know who God is and who we are as God’s people.
Before
I ever went to seminary, I went on a women’s retreat with my home congregation,
and I remember the Bible studies throughout the retreat looked at passages that
offered language for God that was different than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Some
of the participants were uncomfortable with Matthew’s image of God as a
mothering hen (Matthew 23) or Isaiah’s illustration of God as a laboring mother
(Isaiah 42). Imagining God - when God is beyond our understanding - is
challenging.
Being attentive to the language we use for God isn’t about replacing or dismissing traditional language. Instead, the many scriptural images for God help us expand our understanding of who God is. Liturgical scholar and author Gail Ramshaw describes the images in Scripture as treasures, writing that
some of the treasure is old and some new. Treasure
that is old is often of more value than that which is new, just as old images
might be layered with more meaning for the self and the community than new
images. [If
we] think that only old treasures are valuable [we] forget that God's Spirit
continues each week to offer our world signs of divine mercy.[ii]
The different words to describe God can feel strange in our mouths, but for the person who has suffered abuse by an earthly parent or bullying in school, finding God as a fortress and avenger in the Psalms or as a refuge in Jeremiah may bring comfort. For anyone who is awed by the beauty of our natural world, seeing God as a dove and an eagle in Mark and Deuteronomy or as rain and thunder in Hosea and Exodus helps us connect with our Creator God.
Today’s reading from Proverbs 8 invites us to expand our understanding of God to include Woman Wisdom. In Scripture, the feminine Sophia or wisdom can refer to the Holy Spirit and, in these verses, we hear her testify that she was there “at the beginning of God’s creating work.” (v. 22) As God’s companion, she was there “at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” (v. 23)
Some hear this text echoed in the prologue of John’s gospel where the Evangelist John says, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2
He
was in the beginning with God.”
The
Trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and
the
Trinity is God, Jesus and Wisdom.
In these verses, Woman Wisdom calls out “to all that live” as she retells the creation story and how she rejoiced with God and delighted in the inhabited world and in the human race. (8:30-31) The Hebrew verb there is not “rejoice” but “play” so Old Testament scholar Robert Altar translates verses 30 and 31 as
I was His delight day after day, playing before
Him at all times, playing in the world, His earth, and my delight with
humankind.[iii]
Author David Weiss has written a version of the creation story where he pictures the Creator giggling as She imagines all the things she will make, and humming as She scoops up the “softest, nicest-smelling Earth,” and makes “Humus Beings.” The delight and joy is contagious.
And the object of this divine delight is us. We delight God.
Let me say that again. You and I delight God.
In a world that measures success by productivity, it’s easy to forget that play, delight and joy are all part of a well-ordered world, but they are.
And in our modern world filled with division, cynicism and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of one another as beings in whom God delights, but we are.
Psalm 8 continues this theme of divine joy and delight.
The psalmist asks, in verse 4, “What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?”
The psalm assures us that God knows and remembers each one of us, “[making us] little less than divine” [crowned with glory and honor].” (verse 5)
And then it acknowledges how God has entrusted us with care for each other and all the works of God’s hands.
The
same God who delights in us invites us
to
care for the awesome creation we enjoy,
to
see God’s majesty in it, and
to
find joy and delight in that trust and care.
May our lives honor God’s invitation into life together, and may we find joy and delight in it.
Let us pray.
Holy
God,
In
the beginning, You were there, and the Word was there, and Wisdom was there.
And
from the beginning you delighted in humankind and have shown us your majesty
and your mercy.
Open
our ears and our hearts to hear You call to us and to respond to your Word and Spirit,
Your Son and Wisdom.
Amen.
[i] Tim Beilharz. “Why analogies of the Trinity fail.”
Youthworks. https://youthworks.net/articles/analogies-of-the-trinity, accessed
June 10, 2022.
[ii] Gail Ramshaw. Treasures Old and New. Kindle
Edition. 36.
[iii] Robert Altar. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 379-380.
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