Trinity Sunday, Year B, May 31, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God incarnate, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Last week I told you that the Feast of Pentecost is my favorite church holiday. It’s always followed by Trinity Sunday – not my favorite. It’s the only Sunday in the church year entirely devoted to a doctrine – that’s the good news I guess (that there’s only one). Even though it is the most beautiful of doctrines, I doubt if it’s possible (for me) to preach on Trinity Sunday without accidentally tripping over some orthodoxy and falling headlong into heresy. One option, I guess, is to just choose the alternative lessons for the first Sunday after Pentecost, or focus on the Feast of the Visitation, which falls on May 31 (and is the twelfth anniversary of when the Church named me a priest). The thing is, though, I love the Trinity hymns. I love St. Patrick’s Breastplate – the name of our processional hymn this morning. It’s frequently playing in my head. I love the hymn we will sing at the offertory – Holy Holy Holy – called Nicaea. In the hymnal of my childhood, it was number one in the book and in my heart. I still remember the time about thirty years ago when I first heard someone read Isaiah 6:1-8 in Hebrew, demonstrating the power of the poetry and the mystery – Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh.

I’ll confess to you what most of you who know me have already figured out – I’m not much of a philosopher of religion, and I don’t carry ideas of classical theology in my head. I’ve never known where to put those ideas so that I can find them when I need them. So one of my prized possessions is a big fat book called The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. I love to look things up in it. Here’s what it says about the doctrine of the Trinity: “The central dogma of Christian theology, that one God exists in three Persons [capital P] and one substance…God is one, yet self-differentiated…three distinct modes of existence, yet remains one through all eternity.” [1] Now I’ve always assumed that my IQ is not high enough to understand what that means, but my very smart friend Gretchen Grimshaw tells me that “it doesn’t matter what your IQ is, you’re not going to be able to figure out the Trinity because it’s a mystery.”

You may know that the word for trinity doesn’t appear in scripture, or anywhere else in Christian literature until the end of the second century of the common era. Yes, there’s the baptismal formula in the Gospel of Matthew at the end, and other passages that people look at through a special Trinitarian spy-glass that appear to point to the idea of a three-in-one deity. Of course the Unitarians way back in the 17^th century declared that lens defective. Our first rector at Emmanuel, Boston, Dan Huntington, was a Unitarian minister who became an Episcopal priest a full year after being called as our first rector, and later was bishop of Central New York. I don’t think it was the doctrine of the Trinity that called to him as much as his love of liturgy – and the hymns, no doubt. I like to say that Emmanuel Church has been Episcotarian ever since.

The language defining the doctrine of the Trinity was nailed down in outline form by Church councils in the 4^th century, when it had become very important to people in power to control the message of Christianity. The Church began in earnest to propagate a message that said, “tell me what you believe and I’ll tell you whether you belong.” [2] Regrettably, it often wasn’t “belong” in the sense of a particular community, it meant, whether you belong alive on the earth. It’s quite hard to tease apart the development of the doctrine of the Trinity from the practice of military and political power of the late Roman Empire once the emperors were persuaded that putting crosses on army shields helped them to win battles. So, while there are many beautiful and true aspects of Trinitarian thinking, I do think we best hold it loosely. (see what I mean about heresy?) If we are going to bind the Trinity to ourselves, let’s not bind so tightly that we (and others) can’t breathe.

Here’s an interesting thing that I never know how to work into a sermon, but today seems like the day to try. In the historic Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (Nicene Creed for short because no-one can say that second word), the way we have received it, there is an error in the third stanza on the second line, the part about the Holy Spirit. Do you know what it is? It’s called “the Filioque” referring to the words, “and the Son.” The Holy Spirit, according to the 4^th century councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, proceeds from the Father. Period. The error entered documents of the Western Church (but not the Eastern Church) at the end of the 6^th century, and by the end of the 8^th century, when the Western Church started singing the creed in its liturgy, it got written on people’s hearts, the way words of songs do. When the Church in the East got wind of it, they objected strenuously, and the West acknowledged its error. Pope Leo III tried to fix the problem by having the original form engraved in silver and put in the tomb of St. Peter. [3] My trusty Oxford Dictionary says, “and it’s been the cause of debate and division ever since.” The Episcopal Church’s website calls the Filioque “a major cause of conflict between the eastern and western churches,” [4] and our Episcopal Church General Convention moved to make amends, finally, in 1994, resolving to delete the Filioque from the Nicene Creed in the next edition of the Prayer Book and Hymnal (whenever that will be). Imagine the uproar it will cause. In the name of ecumenical reconciliation, let’s practice not saying the offending clause today – take a pen or pencil if you have one, and cross out the line, “and the Son.”

So back to that idea of holding theological doctrine loosely — that really is essentially Anglican, it seems to me – essentially Episcopal Church. We are not a doctrinal denomination. Our governing principle is lex orandi, lex credendi – as we pray, so we believe – that is, our convictions can be discerned through our communal prayers and actions, as opposed to being expressed primarily in theological documents. Other traditions have founding theologians or agreed upon confessions of faith that systematically define communal belief. Systematic theology is a disciplined, orderly, rational, coherent account of Christian beliefs. We don’t have that. What we have is a cacophony of voices, languages, perspectives on the meanings of lived communal experience, which is dynamic rather than static. What we have, in my view, is strongly creative, incarnational, and inspiring – which sounds quite Trinitarian, doesn’t it? Or maybe what we have is a way, a truth and a life, to call upon the words of Anglican Divine, George Herbert. Oh how I wish we baptized in the name of a Way, a Truth, and a Life. (see what I mean about heresy?)

If I were to choose a guiding systematic, it would be Process Theology, which emphasizes the changing nature of the Divine in relationship with a changing universe, in which Jesus was the full disclosure of what had been discerned only in theory before he lived his life to show that “love and persuasion are more significant and effective than power or coercion,” and in which the definition of sin is “deviation from creative advance…[of the Spirit of love-in-action for] the wider shared [or common] good.”

Process theologian, Catherine Keller, writes in her book called On the Mystery that “theology is never anything but an open-ended interactivity between many voices, living and dead.” [5] My theology teacher, Fredrica Harris Thompsett says, “We are all theologians” with the capacity to think about essential principles and values, teachings and traditions, and relate them to our communal and individual lives. [6] And my theology teacher, the late great Verna Dozier, said, “Don’t tell me what you believe, tell me what difference it makes that you believe.” [7] I’d add, “and then show me how you are leaving the world better than when you found it.” So sure, let’s continue to be Trinitarians, to live into, to lean into the mystery of One God in Three Persons while we do what we can to participate in the creative, embodied, inspirational dream of God for the well-being of all people.

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