Trinity Sunday

When my kids were young, our family often had dinner at a restaurant called China King, and our kids were always enthusiastic about the paper placemats.  There were several times when, at the end of the meal, they insisted on taking these paper placemats home because they could not bear to be parted from them.  The appeal of these placemats is that they have on them the Chinese Zodiac.  As the placemat explains, “The Chinese Zodiac consists of a 12-year-cycle, each year of which is named after a different animal that imparts different characteristics to its year.  Many Chinese believe that the year of a person’s birth is the primary factor in determining that person’s personality traits, physical and mental attributes, and degree of success and happiness throughout his lifetime.”  The Chinese zodiac is the sort of thing that says if you were born in 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, or 1990, your sign is a Horse: “Popular and attractive to the opposite sex.  You are often ostentatious and impatient.  You need people.  Marry a Tiger or a Dog, but never a Rat.”  Or if you were born in 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, or 1993, your sign is a Cock: “A pioneer in spirit, you are devoted to work and quest after knowledge.  You are selfish and eccentric.  Rabbits are trouble.  Snakes and Oxen are fine.”  

There is something very appealing about the idea that a person’s abilities and character can be summed up in four sentences on a paper placemat.  There is something very appealing about the idea that you can simply avoid a broken heart or a bitter divorce by heeding eight words you saw on the table while eating egg drop soup: “Marry a Tiger or a Dog, but never a Rat.”   Because we have plenty of experience with our family members, the ways in which they fit the description of their Chinese zodiac come immediately to mind.  We can think of how Cousin Margaret, the family member who is a Horse, is impatient because slow traffic drives her crazy, and is attractive to the opposite sex because that guy with the curly hair kept calling her all the time.  We can think of how Cousin Bill was a pioneer in spirit because he came up with all those cool things you could do on the computer that nobody had ever thought of, and how he was selfish when he was so rude and insensitive to Grandma last Thanksgiving.  But before long, even young children in the family realize that in almost every case, the opposite is also true.  While Cousin Margaret is impatient with slow traffic, she is very patient in training her dog.  While she is attractive to the curly-haired caller, the guy with the green eyes at the dinner party paid no attention to her charms whatsoever.  Cousin Bill who is a pioneer on the computer, hates travel to unfamiliar places.  While he was selfish toward Grandma, he gives generously to the poor.  And since almost everyone in the grade 5 is a Rabbit, and almost everyone in grade 3 is a Snake, our experiences of the variety in that class makes it hard to fit the entire class into a single personality description.

We are all subject to the temptation to try to fit complex human personalities into tidy categories, by focusing on the experiences that fit the category and ignoring the experiences that do not.  Sometimes the category someone put us in during childhood, “he’s the irresponsible one” or “she’s the cheerleader type” limits us far into adulthood, when the irresponsible one wants to take on a leadership role or the cheerleader wants to go to med school.  Anyone who has ever been in an argument that included the words “you always” or “you never” knows how unproductive these categories can be.

The solution for all of this is the shift from either-or thinking to both-and thinking.  When we make this shift we honor the fullness of our experience of the other person, who turns out to be both responsible and irresponsible, both a lover and a fighter, both analytical and creative, both vulnerable and strong.  And once we see that the richness of a fellow human being cannot be reduced to four sentences in a Chinese restaurant, we may be more open to something beyond a paper-placemat theology.

Our first impulse is to fit God neatly into a category.  At first we think in either-or categories such as: “Jesus must be either a human being or God” and Christianity shifts us to both-and thinking: “Jesus is both fully human and fully God.”  At first we think in either-or categories such as “God must be either a spirit I feel within myself or a transcendent power beyond me” and Christianity shifts us to both-and thinking “God is both a spirit I feel within myself and a transcendent power beyond me.”  

We are familiar with the concept that someone might show different personality characteristics at different times.  But the idea that someone can be two different things at the same time trips us up.  So it’s helpful to remember that even though we humans experience time as a linear sequence of events, as if we were moving along on a two-dimensional timeline, God is not limited by our concept of time.  God does not live in two dimensions along our timeline.  God does not have to wait for the future because God is already in the future.  God is the entire sheet of paper on which our little timeline is drawn.  

Ever since the beginnings of Christianity, various people have been trying to place God into tidy little categories, whether they are members of ancient heretical sects or Thomas Jefferson who literally cut out of his Bible any descriptions of God that didn’t fit into the categories he’d come up with.  Still, over the centuries the Church has kept returning to the concept of paradox.  This emphasis on paradox is alive and well in the doctrine of the Trinity.  Here’s the reason I love the doctrine of the Trinity: the doctrine of the Trinity says “God is beyond the tidy little categories.”  

That is the main message of today’s sermon: “The doctrine of the Trinity says God is beyond the tidy little categories.”  And here’s why I believe the doctrine of the Trinity.  

First, I do experience God as the creator of the universe, and I see God at work in oceans and mountains and sprouts growing in the ground and dogs and stars.  I experience the creator of the universe as something transcendent, beyond the limitations of my mortal and deeply flawed life.  

Second,  I do experience God in Jesus who taught us to love our neighbors, to care for the poor, to forgive those who hurt us, to welcome the excluded, to seek truth and righteousness above all else.   I experience God in Jesus who healed the sick and fed the hungry and taught the searching and touched the impure, who came down from heaven to live beside ordinary people, and to show us what God’s love can look like in a real human life, who faced death, and who rose again to show us that even death cannot conquer God’s love.  

Third, I do experience God working in my own life, despite all my flaws, and I experience God working in the lives of the worshipping community, as the Holy Spirit enables us to pray, to love, to grow in faith, to give generously, to experience divine peace, and joy, and courage, and hope.  

Here’s my explanation of the Trinity: I experience God beyond me, God beside me, God within me; are all different, and all are the same.

That is how I experience God.  And while I am sympathetic to those who want a more clearly constructed definition of Trinitarian theology, it does seem like asking, “Sure, it works in practice, but what I want to know is, does it work in theory?” 

Categories for God are about as useful as paper placemat descriptions for people.  We can use them as a way of getting a conversation started.  But once the kids read the placemats and talk about them, the conversation moves away from categorizing to telling stories, and giggling, and appreciating each other’s accomplishments that week.  And I look across the table and realize how incredibly blessed I am to have these amazing people in my life.  It turns out I haven’t avoided friends the placemat thought I should avoid, and yet I am deeply grateful to have those friends.   While I see the wonderful particularity of each of the people I adore, I also have the sense that love and friendship are not exactly something we produce, they are more something that flows through us from a source that comes beyond us: God.  And then there is no need to worry about how God can be both three and one; we can experience the fullness of the love of the three and the one.  May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.