If we were Dominicans, perhaps of a somewhat traditionalist
inclination, this morning’s homily – it being Trinity Sunday
– would be given by the brightest theologian in the house –
the Regent of Studies, the primus doctor. However, we are
not Dominicans and for the homilist you’ve got me! However,
it seems that in the past the Feast of the Holy and
Undivided Trinity provided the opportunity for theologians
to dazzle one another with their verbal and metaphysical
gymnastics, as they indulged themselves in what Martin
Luther called the mathematics of God.
On the whole we English are not much given to metaphysical
speculation and abstract thought. So perhaps it is
surprising that it was a feast which was popular in England
long before the Pope in the fourteenth century enjoined its
observance throughout the Western Church. It seems to have
owed its popularity in this country to its association with
Thomas Becket. For it was on this first Sunday after
Pentecost in 1162 that he was ordained to the episcopate,
having been in priest’s orders for a mere 24 hours. By local
custom, the monks of the Cathedral Church of Christ in
Canterbury, where Becket was ordained, observed this Sunday
In honour of the Trinity and, so, from them perhaps with the
encouragement of the new Archbishop, it passed into English
usage as an annual liturgical celebration, at the same time
providing us with the means of numbering the Sundays in the
second half of the Church’s year. As a feast it’s presumably
intended to be, among other things, a celebration of right
belief – a celebration of orthodoxy, of the correct way of
thinking and talking about God – the God who can scarcely be
talked about at all and who is beyond the range and scope of
human thought and definition. That being so, it’s not
surprising that the language of Trinitarian orthodoxy is
taxing, to ay the least, to the human mind and imagination –
all that talk about Substance and Persons, about begettings
and proceedings, about uncreatedness and
incomprehensibility, about the Three who are distinct from
one another and yet are altogether One, without confusion
and division. The mind spins. Such linguistic and
metaphysical contortions would seem to contrast sharply with
the general thrust and tone of Christianity as a religion
which takes facts and history seriously and is deeply rooted
in particular historical events and circumstances which from
Advent to Pentecost – from the Child in the womb to the
descent of the Spirit – we commemorate and keep in memory in
the liturgical cycle. But on Trinity Sunday we break from
those specific historical events and people and turn our
attention to the One who is the beginning and the end and to
whom belong all times and seasons, the One who is.
On Trinity Sunday we seek to consider how God happens, how
God is in himself, how God is God.
The quest goes back a long time. At the burning bush Moses
asks God to tell him his name. The most likely translation
of his reply is “I will be whom I will be” (Exod.
3:14). Although God identifies himself to Moses as
“the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exod 3 : 6), he seems to
indicate that it is less important to know what he has been
in the past and is in the present, than to be open and
receptive to what he will be. Indeed in subsequent
manifestations he will say of himself that he is “the one
who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev 1 : 4-8) – he is
both once and future: for he is not an entity among other
entities : he doesn’t belong to any genus.
The Old Testament is full of this sense that it’s not yet
clear what God’s name will be. In the New Testament there’s
the gradual realisation that “the mystery hidden for ages
and generations has now been made manifest” (Col 1: 26)
among the children of men. However, it was precisely the
revelation given in Jesus of Nazareth which challenged the
first believers and compelled them to reconsider their
understanding of God as the God of their Fathers, the God of
Israel. Because of what they had “heard and seen with their
eyes and looked upon and touched with their hands” (1 John 1
: 1), they had to re-think their whole idea of what it is
for God to be God – a God who is not only Lord and Creator –
and Law-Giver but a God who passionately longs to show us
how to be fully and truly human beings made in his image and
likeness. He does this not just by sending messengers and
prophets to teach us and give us good advice but, without
privilege and without safeguard, himself comes to us, to be
with us as one of us, with us in flesh and blood, in sweat
and spittle and not only risks his life for us but gives it
– for us and for our salvation, our well-being, our freedom
and our happiness. The snare is broken and we are delivered.
As the first believers tried to assimilate the significance
of the things concerning Jesus in the days of his flesh,
they couldn’t fail to take note of the fact that he had
spoken of himself as having been sent into the world by One
with whom he seemed to claim a relationship of particular
and special intimacy and whom he called “Father”. Somehow in
his mouth this seemed to be no mere metaphor or figure of
speech. He also spoke of his continuing and abiding presence
in the hearts and lives of those who would be moved and
inspired to share his journey to the Father and his
Kingdom. He called this continuing Presence the
Spirit, sent through him by the Father. Gradually those
first believers came to see that all that had come to pass
in Jesus of Nazareth had been foreshadowed in the
Scriptures, “in Moses and the prophets” (Lk 24 : 44).
Perhaps they remembered how, through their long and
tumultuous history, God had been known under many names
–Jahweh, Adonai, El Shaddai, Elohim. Perhaps too they
remembered that the prophet Zachariah (14: 19) had foretold
of the day when “the Lord will be one and his name one.” It
is into that One Name of the three-personed God that we are
baptised. It is to that Name that we bear witness. It is in
that Name that we pray – to the Father, with the Son, in the
Holy Spirit – to the One who will be whom he will be – our
God and our all.