Trinity Sunday 2015
Holy Family Church
Trinity Sunday is here again....
People often say it’s the only Festival in the Church’s Year of Grace that is dedicated to
neither an event or a person, but to a Doctrine......
But I don’t think that’s quite right......
There is the Doctrine of the Trinity.......
The mind-boggling assertion that God is one but also three
persons at the same time....
And for seventeen-hundred years....
Theologians have been trying to explain that....
And time after time the Church has declared
that the most reasonable explanations are all
wrong....
If anyone is interested I can give you
a list of the classical heretical misfires made by honest Christians
trying to get their heads around the
Trinity as a Doctrine.
Now all this is because we tend to think that Doctrines are propositions that we are supposed to
believe.....
And its very hard to honestly believe something unless we can...at least sort
of.....understand it....
But the Doctrine of the Trinity .....like most Christian doctrines.....is a mystery....
And a mystery is not something to understand as you would understand
and engineering problem...
A Mystery is a fantastic idea that helps make sense out of life....
A Mystery is something we carry around with us that lights
up the dark places we all find ourselves in...
A Mystery is something that gives us hints about
who we are....
And inklings about where we are going....
And Trinity Sunday is a celebration
of one of the Church’s very great
Mysteries.....
Which is also the Mystery of Love.....
And the Mystery of Creation.
Right after the Second World War there were a lot of Orphans...
These were displaced babies.....
Their parents were dead or lost....
And the Allies set up large orphanages.....
The babies got good food, clean clothes and warm beds....
They were fed and changed regularly...
But many of them....
Did not thrive....
And as they grew up...
They tended to be depressed....isolated....intellectually slow
above all....they could not relate to others....
Researchers invented a new diagnosis for them:
They suffered from “Attachment Disorder”.
To become full, functioning human beings, these children
needed more than good physical care.
I don’t know if you have ever noticed what happens if a mother arrives somewhere with a very
new baby...perhaps in a carriage.
All of a sudden, people are gathered around, peering into the carriage....and making all
kinds of sounds....
They are “ooo-ing” and “Ahhhh-ing”....
They are making baby-talk.....
And they are gushing praise for this “beautiful baby”!
And if the baby is awake and happy....
All eyes are on that baby’s face....
Its as if her eyes were a fascinating
magnet.....
Maybe some of you remember.....
A child of your own....
Gazing at her or him....
Locking eyes.....even if you suspected she couild not see...
Adoring....
Holding that tiny, precious being...
Looking at that little scrunched-up face and
knowing that this was the most beautiful thing in
the world...
The act of creation that began nine months before in the womb..
Was continuing then.....
And would continue.....
On and on......
Through infancy....
Through childhood and adolescence..
Into adulthood...
And in fact...
Never ends......
Even after we die!
When a baby wakes up and looks up....
And sees the adoring face of Mom or Dad gazing at them...
The baby smiles...laughs....
Because that baby is seeing himself mirrored in the loving gaze of her
parents.....
The feeding breast....the loving arms are important....
But there is something about that adoring gaze.....
When baby and parent are locked in that gaze of
love....
That’s when the baby begins to have some
2
sense of himself as a person....
There’s the mystery.....
It is only when parent and baby are enmeshed in love....
Only then....does the individual get born.....
The great pediatrician turned psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott used to say:
“I’ve never seen a healthy baby
but I’ve seen hundreds of healthy mothers-andbabies stuck together”!
And it doesn’t end with infancy.....
I remember making a pastoral call on a young family some years ago....
Husband and wife and I were sitting in the living room having a cup of coffee and
talking.....
I think I was trying to convince them to teach Sunday School....
When suddenly, a door burst open and in ran their very cute little
two-year old daughter....
Buck naked and squealing in delight!
Dad looked at me....kind of embarrassed....I think
afraid the Priest would disapprove....
Mom..lit up.....
“Oh Oh...what a
beautiful baby!”
She scooped the child up in her arms and laughed and looked at her adoringly.....and the child
was delighted!
And then mom said: “Why don’t we go put on that pretty new dress and show that to
Father Hackett?”
It was perfect.....
And the little girl grew in love and self-esteem.
And got a little message about social acceptability at the same
time....
I’ve often thought how sad it would have been if that mom
had been embarrassed and had disapproved of her daughter
who was in fact....
Showing off her God-given beauty
She had learned she was beautiful in the loving gaze of her parents.....
Now that she was getting around, exploring the world....
Figuring out how to be beautiful with other people....
She had to learn some other lessons......
Wearing clothes....
Understanding and respecting other people’s feelings....
The world doesn’t actually revolve around me.....
But at bottom......
There had to remain that conviction
born in the loving gaze of adoring
adults:
I am good.....
I am lovable.
3
When that little girl burst in on us....
When her mom was delighted and picked her up.....
I was watching creation.....
I was watching love do its work!
And I could imagine that in twenty-some years or so.....
That question would surface again.....
When she was perhaps daring, risking being in love....
“Do you love me?”....
“Do you really love me?”
It is the question that is always, always
bound up with our growing....
With our on-going creation!
And when we are not sure the answer is “yes”....
When we are worried about whether we are loved....
Whether we are lovable....
Unless we are convinced at some level that we are quite wonderful.....
Then it becomes hard to love others.....
It becomes hard to look into other eyes
And adore......
Because it is hard to believe that we are adored....
So.....what does all this have to do with the Trinity?
That is....after all....where we started today....
The doctrine is: “The Holy and Blessed Trinity is God”.
God is The Father
loving the Son and the Son
loving the Father....
And we talk about Father and Son and “begetting” as if they
happened in time....
As you or I would “beget” a child in our family....
But this “divine begetting” is out of time.....
IT IS ETERNAL.....
It is forever going on right now!
That is what is at the basis of all creation.....
God who creates and sustains is a God who is eternally in
the act of adoring,
loving, .....and so creating....
That is the basis of all reality......
We are created in love....
Not just in the womb but throughout life....
And forever afterwards......
We are created by the adoring gaze of others....
And our creation is grounded in....
Begins and ends in......
The adoring, eternal gaze of the Father for the Son
And the Son for the Father......
And the love they have....
The love which creates them together...
The love which is generated between them....
Is what we confess is “The Holy Spirit”
4
When that little girl bust into our conversation....
And her Mom saw her and loved her and scooped her up....
That was the Holy Spirit.....
That was the adoring love which is at the heart of all creation....
Because that is...GOD!
Holy and Blessed...
Eternal Trinity.....
One God.....
Who we may adore....
Because God first and forever.....
Loves and adores us!
5