Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Canticle 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

"Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Sprit; we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever." (Canticle 13)

They say that more heresy is preached on Trinity Sunday than any other time of the year. I suppose that is why ever since I went to seminary I have been asked to preach on Trinity Sunday J... a dangerous time! One begins generally to describe the nature of God as Trinity, grasping for illustrations and metaphors, and the slide into confusion or heresy is predictable. As one author wrote:

"We've probably all seen the medieval paintings that attempt, with uneven success, to illustrate this concept (of the Trinity). The most common image seems to involve an old man, a young man and a bird. There are many variants of this, of course: one head with three faces or three identical triplets. The upshot, in most cases, has probably been a blurry impression that Trinity means that God is three guys - or alternatively, two guys and a bird. For those Christians who reject this mental picture, the whole idea of Trinity may be laid aside as incomprehensible."

As I reflected on the readings this week, I looked up the origin of the celebration of Trinity Sunday. It seems that the feast day was not widely observed until the Middle Ages when Pope John the 22nd commended it to the church, as a fitting end to the season which commemorated the life of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Trinity Sunday was set aside to honor the three Persons of the Trinity and was celebrated as a one-day only Sunday feast. It was especially popular in England because of the consecration of Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury on Trinity Sunday in 1162.

The heresies preached this day arise not so much from the combination of the lessons which we read for this Sunday, but from the doctrine of the Trinity itself. The doctrine was developed by the early church fathers and became the orthodox belief of the church at the Council of Nicaea in 325. The first explanation of the Trinity was by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, in 180 in his writings to those in the Roman Empire, contrasting the revelation of God in the Scriptures to the stories of the Greek gods. Although the manifestation of God in three persons can be identified throughout the Scriptures, the definition of the nature of God and the relationship among the persons of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - occupied the mind, writings and councils of the Church for four centuries.

As was the case in most of the development of orthodoxy in the Church, the Trinitarian doctrine was formed finally in contrast to a stated heresy, in this case Arianism. Arius, a priest from Alexandria in the early fourth century, championed the belief that:

"the Son of God was not eternal but was created by the Father from nothing, as an instrument for the creation of the world; and that therefore He was not God by nature, ... (and that his place) as Son of God (was) bestowed on Him... on account of His foreseen abiding righteousness."

This doctrine was rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and again at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Nicene Creed which we use in our Eucharist each Sunday was developed from the statements of these three Councils and contains the language "eternally begotten of the Father... begotten not made ... and of one Being with the Father" clarifying the nature of Christ and rejecting the tenets of the Arian heresy.

Many church fathers concentrated on defining the doctrine of the Trinity throughout the early centuries. Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian of the fifth century, wrote his famous thesis "On the Trinity" defining the nature of God as "he who loves, that which is loved, and the power of love." But perhaps the most familiar description for us of this doctrine is that of St. Patrick, the fifth century bishop of Ireland, who compared the Trinity to the shamrock or three leafed clover - one entity with three distinguishable parts.

Historically God has been described by a relationship: Father/ Son/ Holy Spirit. The controversies over both the humanity and divinity of Christ defined his role as Son - and correspondingly God the Creator as "Father." The Father/Son description defined their relationship - and the early church was anxious to find language which would convey both intimacy and authority. Confusing to many were the Scriptural references to Jesus' prayers, the voice of God at Jesus' baptism, and the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

A second great controversy between the Church of the East (the Orthodox) and the Church of the West (the Church of Rome) arose in the 9th century over the nature of the Holy Spirit. Historically, the Church undivided had agreed that the Nicene Creed "contained the full doctrine on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The description of the nature of the Holy Spirit rested on John 15:26,

"When the advocate has come, whom I shall send you from the Father -

the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father - he will bear witness to me."

400 years later, under the influence of St. Augustine, the Western Church held that John 16:14 (the gospel we read this morning) with the statement "all that the Father has is mine" REALLY defined the relationship of the Son with the Holy Spirit. After more than a century of conflict between East and West, the phrase "and the Son" was added to the Nicene Creed in describing the nature of the Holy Spirit at the enthronement ceremony of Pope Sergius IV in 1009. In the Western Churches (which includes both Roman Catholics and Protestants), this portion of the creed now reads:

"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of Life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son..."

The Churches of the East and West finally divided over this issue in 1054 and have not been reunited since then. Bound as we all are by time, space and culture - the concept of a triune God is complicated and throughout the first millennium, the church struggled with theological, liturgical, artistic and evangelical expressions of the Trinity.

Trinity Sunday is a time set aside by the Church to reflect not only on the nature of God, but on his presence among us. Probably all of us here this morning recognize God in our lives, but for each of us this is a different experience. Some will recognize God in his creation - in the beauty and order of the world around us. Many, in the person of Jesus Christ - the historical reality of the incarnation and the personal experience of his redeeming grace. Others will recognize God in the gifts of the Spirit, and still others in the work of the Church among the poor, the alienated, the despised, and the forgotten. Our images of God will be different - and our experience of prayer different again. Compare for a moment these two prayers, one recent and one from the 17th century, each by a well known poet and priest:

"Holy Spirit, who moved at the beginning of creation,

teach me your divine dance, that I may move with you.

Through my hands, invite others to the circle of love,

that we may move in rhythm together.

Praise be to you, Spirit, who breathes the pulse of life,

through Jesus Christ, who danced among us,

to the glory of God the Source, in whom we live and move and have our being."

(Ruth Duck)

"Batter my heart, three-personed God: for You

as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

that I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new."

(John Donne, from sonnet 14)

Each prayer reflects not only the individual's experience of God, but that of his/her time and culture. Each writer seeks to encounter God and to be conformed to God's image - but the description of that longed-for encounter is so different as to be almost incomparable. We are left wondering if they really were looking for the same God at all...

Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his reflections on life in the North African desert in the early 1930s told this story:

The French, who colonized North Africa, spent an inordinate amount of time explaining to the Africans the superiority of French life compared to that of the "primitive desert". The French pilots would often take them for rides in their planes to show them the miracles of modern technology. At one point, three of the Africans were taken to Paris and shown the Eiffel Tower, the train system, and the great steamships which crossed the Atlantic. They were not impressed.

They experienced the beauty of the French countryside and wept at the sight of a tree and the bounty of nature. Years of desert life had trained them to expect only shortfall and stinginess.

But when they traveled to a high alpine meadow beside an enormous waterfall, they stood in silence. That which came roaring out of the belly of the mountain was life itself, the life-blood of man. The flow of a single second would have resuscitated whole caravans that, mad with thirst, had pressed on into the eternity of salt lakes and mirages. Here God was manifesting Himself. They refused to leave, declaring to their French guide that honor required their waiting...waiting for the end. Knowing the water could not last much longer, they awaited the moment "when God would grow weary of His madness," when this wild extravagance would suddenly and finally exhaust itself. Resolutely they stood their ground. "But, you see," the guide at last proclaimed, realizing how absurdly unintelligible his words must seem to such men, "this water has been running here for a thousand years!"

Each of us experiences God differently. Each of us imagines God differently. Each of us sees God acting in the world around us - differently. And, each of us reflects a different part of God's image. Perhaps sometime today, each of us will have a few moments of quiet to reflect on the Trinity. When you begin your prayer or meditation or reflection, imagine the God with whom you are comfortable - the comforting shepherd, the loving Father, the enlivening Spirit - and then envision the dance. Perhaps we will begin to see a God that is unfamiliar to us - a God with whom we are less comfortable. A face that is not like ours - a guide that does not act in a predictable way - a dancer who beckons us to move with music we do not know. We pause: confused, and afraid - not sure what our response should be. And then we step into the unknown, the untried, the uncertain - and join the dance that is for eternity - the "whirl of Love" of the Trinity.