On Trinity Sunday we can take a step back from the capital campaign, from the parish council, from the elevator that still doesn’t work and remember why we’re really here: it’s all about God. Everything that we do, from the food pantry to attending mass on Sunday, from teaching catechism to Jazzin’ to Feed all have God-consciousness as their aim. Let’s look at the Scriptures for this Trinity Sunday to help us understand what we mean when we say, “it’s all about God.”
Try to imagine this: see a new-born baby, maybe Bill and Jami’s. You look at the parents and say with great tenderness, “She is very beautiful.” And they answer back, “This is nothing! You should see her photographs.” Of course, that would never happen. The real person is so much better than a picture could ever be. But too frequently we do something like that with God — we value the “picture” we have of God, the description we have of God, more than actually meeting God. Nowhere is that clearer than on this feast of the Trinity. As Catholics we confess that God is triune — that there are three persons in the One God. Since it is part of our faith we believe it, but that picture of God can become more of a block than a help. We can’t figure out what it means so we just back away and presume knowing God is for the experts. But the definition of the Trinity, that particular image for God, did not come from experts, from philosophical speculation on what it’s like in heaven. Rather, it was the experience of God which led the early church to adopt Trinitarian language as appropriate for God. They experienced God in a three-fold way which led them to describe God as the Trinity. First, they experienced God as for them. Second, they experienced God as with them. Third, they experienced God within them. If we are going to have the Trinity as more than a mathematical puzzle for our heads, we must experience God for ourselves and notice the triple nature of our own encounter with the divine, how God is for us, with us and within us. Our scripture readings for this Sunday point to different ways that God is experienced — which means different ways that the Trinity is experienced — if we have the eyes to see.
St. John’s gospel reminds us that one way to experience God is in coming to know the truth: “the Spirit of truth will guide you to all truth.” Our search for the truth is another way of naming our search for God. But what is truth like? Truth is beyond us; it is not just a matter of opinion. Truth is dependent on the way reality actually is? For example, you can have your own opinion about climate change but the truth about it will eventually be proven. “The truth is out there” as the old TV show said. Yet truth is also with us. We come to recognize the truth in the person and action of Jesus. We know the truth that love is stronger than death because of his life, death and resurrection. And truth is within us. There is such a thing as “my” truth — my way of seeing the world. But it isn’t “mine” in the sense that I created it. It is mine because I have appropriated, taken in the truth and made it my own. These three ways of knowing the truth illustrate knowing the God who is beyond us, creator of the universe. It is finding that God is not content to remain in heaven but chooses to enter our human world as the “word made flesh.” It is discovering that God’s spirit dwells deep in the heart of each one of us. Where truth lies, there lives God encountered as Trinity.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul says he experiences God in a way that seems unusual at first — in his afflictions. “We even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance; endurance, proven character; and prove character a hope that does not disappoint.” We don’t ordinarily think of affliction as a way to experience of God but it was for St. Paul. He knew God was for him even when things weren’t going well. He joined his afflictions with those of Jesus and found a meaning there which surpassed understanding. He found than no matter what affliction he had to endure, the love of God had been poured into his heart in the Holy Spirit. Paul’s experience of God in the midst of his affliction becomes for him the insight leading to the image of the nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In the book of Proverbs it is the wisdom of God to be delighted, “playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth.” We experience the nature of God as Trinity even in play. How can we play when there is so much work to be done, so many evils abroad? We play in the face of a world filled with disaster and despair because we know that there is a ruler in the universe making all things well. We play as human beings filled with limits, inabilities, death because we are brothers and sisters to one whose own limits, inabilities, and death were the very presence of God. We play because, unasked and unearned, there is, deep inside of us, a joy and a peace which comes to us as a pure gift. To be delighted is to experience God. When we play we are making an act of faith in the Trinity.
The search for truth, enduring affliction, delightful play — these very human experiences become the opportunity to encounter God as Trinity according to the scriptures chosen for this Sunday. We could choose other scriptures which would point out the Trinitarian nature of love, or of forgiveness. All of this kind of religious language is a pointer. Nothing we say about God, even the word Trinity, says enough. We use concepts like these as an invitation to our own personal experience of God. Confucius says: when the wise man points out the moon, all the idiot sees is a finger. All of our language about God is a pointing finger. Don’t get distracted by that. Let’s look to the moon. Let’s keep focus on the object of all this religious language – our own personal relationship with God. On this feast day let’s look straight into the heart of God who is for us, who is with us, who is within us. There once was a group in a lounge which had live entertainment. They heard a melody they all recognized but no one could remember the name of the tune. So they beckoned to the splendidly clad waiter and asked him to find out what the musician was playing. The waiter went across the floor, talked to the musician and returned with a look of triumph on his face. He declared in a loud whisper: “he’s playing the piano.” Some things are as simple as that. Names and descriptions and statements and explanations might satisfy our minds but they don’t do anything to affect our ability to enjoy the music. So with God. Let us just enjoy the music, enjoy the deep personal encounter with God that is at the heart of our lives as a people of faith. AMEN!
