Trinity Sunday: God's Relationship to God's Self and All Humankind.

I found this remarkable image of the Trinity on a web site for the Daily Office.

The following description was found beneath this image.

Douglas Blanchard: Trinity. It's startling, overly erotic perhaps, but the best art is always startling, so we can think. The Spirit as a woman, above the men? The Father as a young one with the stigmata of his Son? Is our God Michelangelo's old man, or is our God still young? Plus I love the flowers, the milk and honey; this artist is full of faith, presenting us Three who love each other perfectly. Forget the sexuality, notice the wounds on the Father's hands. We all bear the stigmata. We all get nailed to that Cross. And then we rise again.

Many classical theologians and artists have produced outstanding work that has brought us the good and the bad within the Christian religion. Through their contributions we have gotten many images and understandings of God.  God in the Bible, in art, music, in the doctrines and dogmas, the Catechism's of the Church and all the prayer books that have been passed on through the centuries, have in one way or another shaped our understanding and view of God.  

 

Many have chosen not to embrace the Christian religion.  The one reason that gets most of the publicity is how Christians behave towards each other, and towards other groups of people that do not fit their ideological interpretation of the Bible.  The interpretation of the Bible literally has led to many erroneous understandings of how God relates to God's Self and all of humankind.  In Forward Day by Day, the author of today's meditation offers the following thought.

When Jesus ended his earthly mission, he still had "many things to say" to his disciples which they were not then ready to receive. Yet such things need not become the lost words of Jesus if we permit the Spirit of truth to guide us into "all the truth."

Note what this means and what it does not mean. The New Testament writers were inspired and led by God, yet they never pretended to be infallible. Saint Paul admitted that not everything he wrote carried divine authority: "I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion...and I think I too have the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 7:25, 40).

Would that all Christians were so modest and so honest! No person or church can claim infallibility or a monopoly on divine truth. It is enough that God promises to reveal to those who humbly seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit all that they need to know of him and of his saving love.

 
May the whole church of Christ be led into a more humble and faithful surrender to God's will. (1951)

Last Sunday, the Church celebrated Pentecost.  One understanding the Church has been developing over the years is that the Holy Spirit represents the feminine nature of God.  The Church being dominated by a masculine understanding of God and humankind has resulted in limited understandings of how God relates to all of humankind.  The resistance to the notion that God relates to humankind by exercising female and male roles might tend to make men like myself a bit uncomfortable.  Except that, I am not a "privileged" man.  I am a gay man.  I am married to another gay man.  I may be "privileged" to be a Caucasian, male, because of how society and many even in the Church regard those who are not Caucasian or men, but because I am not heterosexual, I am by many other people's standards not a "typical, ordinary" man.  Our understanding of how God relates to humankind, not only severely limits our relationship to God, but also how we relate to others who are different than ourselves.

On this Trinity Sunday, we are presented with some extraordinary Biblical texts to talk about how God relates to Humankind through those three Persons of the Trinity.  While no one can adequately explain how the Trinity, we can say some important things to help deepen our relationship to God the Holy Trinity.  The three persons of the Holy Trinity show us how God relates to God's Self and all of humankind.  Our Bible texts for this Sunday and those who have commented on them in Out in Scripture want to help us be open to new ways of thinking about how God relates to all of humankind through the three Persons of the Trinity.

Just as bold as Pentecost's rushing wind in Acts 2, "wisdom," or "Woman Wisdom" (as translated from her Hebrew name Hochma), takes to the streets with a loud voice in the book of Proverbs. Most of the book is an edited version of various collections of proverbs. Woman Wisdom's speech in Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, however, is part of a group of instructions and wisdom poems found in chapters 1-9.

The setting of the book of Proverbs is the patriarchal family in which the father instructs the son, passing on the wisdom of the sages encapsulated in the form of proverbs. Hochma represents wisdom, which has broken loose from this traditional setting of court and family. Instead she can be found in public spaces such as the street and the city gates. Her knowledge is relational, not based on the memorization of a fixed body of knowledge.

Woman Wisdom's presence at creation, her delight in humanity and God's delight in her evoke strong connections with the Spirit. In fact many scholars have understood hochma to be a female personification of God's creative and saving actions in the world.

In the New Testament, Jesus is identified with the hochma (sophia in Greek) of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul calls Christ the wisdom (sophia) of God. The connection is also especially present in the gospel of John. Like hochma, Jesus exists with God from the beginning of creation (John 1:1-5). He speaks in the same fashion as hochma: with a loud voice to the masses (John 7:28, 37) and in long discourses (chapters 14-17). The passage assigned in the lectionary for today, John 16:12-15, is part of what is often called Jesus' farewell discourse found in John14:1-17:26. Jesus is preparing his disciples for his physical departure, but promises the comfort and guidance of the Wisdom/Spirit of God. The loud and clear voice of the Spirit will continue in the community of faith, and, like hochma in Proverbs, "will guide in all truth" (16:13).

In his letter to the Romans, Paul wants to present his understanding of a life of faith to a congregation he has not met yet. After stating the theme of his letter in 1:16-17 ("The righteous will live by faith") he goes on in Romans 5:1-5 to claim that the Spirit will sustain believers who have been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. This particular section of Paul's letter lifts up the theme of hope. Even in the midst of suffering, the Spirit engenders hope in the person of faith, reminding all who suffer of God's love so freely given. 

Often the "historical mediation" of the Spirit is lost when coupled with the Trinitarian concept of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." One reason for this is the devaluation of the female identity of Spirit in a traditionally patriarchal construct of "Father and Son." But like hochma, the Spirit speaks with a loud voice in these passages for today. Elizabeth Johnson has indicated that the Spirit manifests in history anytime a "community resists its own destruction or works for its own renewal; when structural changes serve the liberation of oppressed peoples; when law subverts sexism, racism, poverty and militarism … wherever diversity is sustained in koinonia; wherever justice and peace and freedom gain a transformative foothold" (She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, p. 126).  

As we with the commentators consider the relationship of God with humankind in both female and male characteristics, how does it help us as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians and those who support us find room for full inclusion in the Church and society?  One matter that can be made very clear is that Transgendered persons who are often looked upon by many in both secular and religious communities, as the T at the end of LGBT and therefore are to be treated like the lost tail.  When we attach stereotypes to gender and how a particular gender is suppose to behave, dress or be perceived, what results is excuse upon excuse for prejudice and violence of the most detestable kind.   We may have a Bible full of gender specific pronouns for God and all of the three Persons, even with the great developments of the New Revised Standard Version, but that does not mean that violence, subordination and prejudice toward women, or men who behave like women, or women who behave like men, women who become men, or men who become women is in any way, shape or form acceptable.  The numbers of transgendered people who are murdered, harassed or beaten cannot be justifiable.  Just as the violence aimed at lesbian and gay people often by Christians, cannot be justified.  

Today at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the sermon was given by retired Bishop Christopher Senyonjo from West Buganda, Uganda.   The current Anglican Archbishop of Uganda who is sadly very much supports the "kill the gays" bill in Uganda, has expelled Bishop Christopher from all services in Uganda, because he has spoken out against what Uganda is doing to LGBT individuals there.  Not only has Bishop Christopher been expelled from all service, he has also lost his retirement pension.  Yet, when Bishop Christopher spoke today, he did not talk of any bitterness towards the present Anglican Archbishop.  Instead, he spoke of how the Holy Spirit of God, desires to lead us into all truth, by everyone opening their hearts and minds to the fact that many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals are God loving people.  Bishop Christopher mentioned that most LGBT people oppose the idea of pedophilia, lewd personal and sexual conduct and instead just want to be able to embrace God and the people we love, as we are, children of God.  

As we meditate upon God relating to God's Self and all of humankind through the mystery known as the Trinity, we need to ask God to lead us by the Holy Spirit into all truth, as Jesus promised is disciples.  Being led into all truth, means being open to the possibility that no one of us has a complete understanding of God and others around us, any better or worse than anyone else.  God is so mysterious and so beyond our knowledge or comprehension, that it is very likely that we are all missing the mark.  No Pope, Bishop, Priest, Deacon, minister, lay or ordained has any claims to total and unparalleled truth than anyone else.  Just because something is written in the Bible does not mean that is how it is understood, or means that is what we must all do.  The Bible is as open to many possible interpretations as why the earth is round or the ocean is blue.  Is it any more or less true that the earth is round and the ocean blue?  Is it any more or less true that in the Bible absolutely everything that is written there word for word is totally infallible and/or even inerrant?  No.  

What we can know for certain thanks to what is written and understood in the Bible and has been taught from the beginning of Church history to this present day, is that God desires to relate to all humankind through God's unconditional love.  There is no person on this earth that God the Father, Mother, or God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit the feminine nature of God, does not love and has not given God's all for.  God reaches out to all of God's creation in extravagant, unconditional and all inclusive love.  God weeps when God's children experience poverty, sickness, sadness, discrimination, violence for any reason.  God does not always stop what goes on, but God does care and God makes use of those things that happen to do wonderful and incredible things in and through our lives. God relates to all of humankind, because God loves all of humankind.  When will all humankind in society and the Church get that through our thick minds and stubborn hearts?

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Trinity Sunday, Book of Common Prayer, Page 228).

Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 816).