NICAEA
Christian Bishops from around the Mediterranean Sea assembled in a resort on
the waterway that leads to the Black Sea. They had assembled to rule on profound
questions that had emerged in the two centuries since the death of Jesus.
During this two-hundred years, Christians had emerged from meeting underground
(literally) and in private homes to being declared the official religion of the
Roman
Empire that was now governed by Constantine. The Bishops were wined and
dined by Emperor Constantine in a resort town called Nicaea. We read parts of the
document they produced this morning, the Nicene Creed.
One
of their most important questions was, “Who did Jesus pray to?” It sounds
simple, but it is really quite complex.
·
If Jesus was
God, did Jesus pray to himself?
·
When did
Jesus become God; and when did Jesus become the Christ?
·
What does it
mean to baptize new converts in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit?
And
the Nicene Creed was their answer.
THINKING IN THREES
The only way to explain it was to realize
that in order to understand God, you have to think in threes, not twos. God wants us to think in threes. God the
Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit within us, was their answer. God is
like a triangle with three strong sides; God is like a shamrock that is one,
and yet has three leaves. The Egyptians often spoke of God as a family of three
(Isis, Osiris, Re). It already
made sense to think of a Triune God, and the Council made it part of Christian
doctrine.
All
you have to do this morning is remember to think in three’s, not twos.
It’s a big deal because there are many who only think in twos. They
believe that the great decisions in the world are either black or white. They
say that their decisions are between good and evil. World leaders have said you
are either with us or you are against us.
Thinking in twos is a roadmap to disaster.
God wants us to think in
threes, not twos. That is one of the most important foundational statements of
the Christian Church. To understand culture we think in terms of action,
reaction and synthesis; creator, redeemer, sustainer; Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. We call it the Trinity and this understanding of the cosmos is basic to
Christianity. The world in which we live is filled with a million colors, not
just two. This is nothing new. The world has always been filled with a
million colors.
EXAMPLES ARE EVERYWHERE.
·
What should be the punishment for a crime? The law says that punishment depends upon
whether the crime is a felony, a misdemeanor, a first, second, or third degree
action. The law differentiates between legal and illegal behaviors in hundreds
of different ways. People who understand the many different ways in which the
law works make a lot of money. Black and white does not describe the legal
system.
·
What race are you? It is
unlikely that anyone in this room is not a mixture of ancestors that come from
all over the globe. In twenty years, in forty years, the mixture will be even
greater, and that question will be nearly impossible to answer.
·
How smart are you? Intelligence can be measured in dozens of
different ways from literary to mathematical, to emotional intelligence,
artistic, musical, intelligence in languages, athletic intelligence, and
dexterities of all kinds. Most kinds of intelligence cannot be measured by
testing.
·
Where was your car made? Check under the hood; it was made in lots of
places. How much of your car needs to be from the same place to qualify for
citizenship? Your furniture, your food, your clothing – where do they come from
and how many buttons does it need to say that it is American, Chinese,
Vietnamese, or German?
Return to the Top
Go to the Middle
Go to the End
DUALITY DOES NOT DESCRIBE
OUR THEOLOGY.
Our
scripture today says that we should reach out to people and bring them to God.
How? You shall reach out and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. And that has nothing to do with good and evil.
TRIANGULAR NAVIGATION
Yesterday,
Peter Maier, our Pastor of Visitation, and I did something we don’t do very
often. We went for a ride with Tim Slater.
We returned home safely because Tim and his co-pilot think in threes
(and sometimes as many as sixteens) before they make decisions about where they
want to go.
Peter
and I had been visiting with people at the Festival in Bowen Hall when Tim came
in to bring his son, Jacob, to his wife, Lynn, after lunch. Tim needed to be in Oakland in about an hour, and he asked Peter
and me if we would like to take a short ride with him.
“What
kind of ride did you have in mind?” we asked.
“About
a hundred miles.” Tim was performing a test flight for a Gulfstream G-3
corporate jet because the left engine had been recently overhauled, and they
wanted to make a final check of the engine before placing the plane back into
service. Tim said he would be flying out of Oakland, vectoring east toward Concord and completing a short loop that would
return to the airport in about 30 minutes. It didn’t take either of us long to
decide that we wanted to take a ride with Tim.
At
the airport, Tim conferred with the mechanics, the Rolls Royce technician, and
his co-pilot to be sure all systems were ready. In just a few short moments,
Peter and I had been transformed into parts of a precision team of courageous
test pilots whose mission was to push the edge of the envelope to the very
frontiers of flight. We were ready to help Tim test the plane in any way we
could.
In
the process of our testing, we talked about triangulation with his aeronautics
technician. Modern navigation is based
upon processing radio signals from at least three sources, and often as many as
sixteen sources, so that you can determine exactly where you are. The navigator triangulates our position. If a
pilot relied upon only two sources, he would never have any idea where he is.
Navigation is done by triangulation.
In fact, our airplane had three radio
systems, triple back ups for hydraulics, triple redundancy for electrical and
almost anything in it. When I learned about triangulation, I determined right
then and there that I would never fly with anyone who only believed in only two
reference points. He would have no idea how to get me safely home.
Last
summer, the Presbyterian Church adopted a new paper on the Trinity. The
Presbyterian Church wants you to think in threes, not twos. I have some
excerpts from a paper on the Trinity that was adopted in Birmingham last June, and I think we will be surprised how
logical it is for Presbyterians to triangulate their theology. Our church says
no one can reduce the most important decisions of life to “you are either for
me or against me.”
SPEAKING
OF THE TRIUNE GOD
We
speak of God in terms of the Trinity.…The
divine attributes are held in common by all three persons: all are holy, all
are loving, all are wise and powerful. Similarly, an action of God cannot be
restricted to one of the three persons. All of the acts of the Triune God are indivisible. The
persons of the Trinity do not work independently. Each of God’s acts is always
the one work of the whole Trinity.
For example, while the
first person of the Trinity is often referred to as the “Creator,” this must
not be understood to exclude the involvement of the second and the third
persons in the work of creation. Thus while the triad “Creator, Redeemer,
Sanctifier” appropriately describes distinct aspects of God’s relationship to
the world, it does not designate the relationships of the Triune persons to
each other. In the life of the Triune God the three persons are uniquely
distinguished and uniquely united by their mutual relationships. Each person
gives and receives love from the others in a distinctive way.
The
Presbyterian Church (USA) affirms and values this way of speaking of the Triune
God, resisting any tendency to discard or diminish it.
AS WE EXPLORE DIVERSE POSSIBILITIES FOR TRINITARIAN IMAGES,
WE ARE MINDFUL
OF THE TEMPTATION TO BRING THE MYSTERY OF GOD UNDER OUR CONTROL. THEREFORE, WE
MUST ALWAYS BE GUIDED BY THE WORDS OF SCRIPTURE AND CREEDS
THAT SPEAK OF GOD AS FATHER, SON, AND HOLY
SPIRIT.
EXAMPLES
Female
imagery of the Triune God has yet to be
adequately explored. The overflowing love of God finds expression in the
biblical depiction of God
·
as compassionate mother (Isaiah 49:15; 66:13),
·
beloved child (Matthew 3:17),
·
and life-giving womb (Isaiah 46:3).
Recognizing
that all language about the Triune God refers beyond itself by way of analogy,
we draw on scripture and our confessions to speak of the Triune God in
historically faithful yet freshly imaginative ways.
Some triads have a
narrative quality; others are drawn from creation. Three guidelines have been
followed: in each case the three terms
must have an inner relationship; … Functional Trinitarian language should be
understood to amplify and enrich our understanding of God - it cannot replace
personal language.
While classical
Trinitarian theology speaks of the “first, second, and third” persons of the
Trinity, scripture also refers to the three in other patterns, as in the
apostolic benediction which invokes “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 13:13)
As we
read, proclaim, hear, and live out the message of scripture, the Triune God is
known to us as
·
Speaker,
·
Word,
·
and Breath (Hebrews 1:1; John 1:1; John 20:22; Psalm 104:30).
As we worship, the
Triune God is
·
the One from Whom,
·
the One through Whom,
·
and the One in Whom we offer our praise (Romans 11:36).
As
we seek God’s grace and wholeness, acknowledging the sin and brokenness in us,
our human communities, and the whole creation, the Triune God is
·
our Rainbow of Promise,
·
our Ark of
Salvation,
·
and our Dove of Peace (From Gail Ramshaw, Koinonia: Services and Prayer (Geneva: Lutheran
World Federation, 2004).
In baptism, the Triune
God is for us
·
Overflowing Font,
·
Living Water,
·
Flowing River (Book of Common Worship, p.412; John 4:10, 13-14; John 7:37).
As we offer ourselves,
our resources, and our gratitude in stewardship and Eucharist, the Triune God
is
·
Giver,
·
Gift, and
·
Giving (James 1:17; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 9:15; 1 John 3:24).
In celebrating the communion of our life
together in Christ, the Triune God is
·
Lover,
·
Beloved,
·
And the Love that binds
together Lover and Beloved (Augustine, The Trinity).
As members of the believing community, we
acknowledge the Triune God as
·
our Rock,
·
Cornerstone,
·
and Temple (Psalm 28:1;
Ephesians 2:20-21).
As we seek to live in faith, love, and
hope, the Triune God is for us
·
the One Who Was,
·
the One Who Is,
·
and the One Who Is To Come
(Revelations 4:8).
Of course
the Birmingham newspaper reduced this piece of work to absurdity
saying, the Presbyterian Church now believes that God is mother, child and
womb. Nothing could be further from the truth.
MY CAMERA CAN CAPTURE MILLIONS OF SUBTLE CHANGES IN
COLOR IN CREATING PICTURES OF OUR BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPE;
WE SHOULD BE NO LESS CAPABLE
IN IMAGING GOD.
The
difference between black and white is the third eye of synthesis.
Politicians these days say the issues are black and white. But now we are hearing
talk about a need for a third political party, and there is talk of a
synthesized party emerging – perhaps too late. There are many who feel that
neither of the major parties fully represents us, and leadership needs to
understand the need to negotiate and fully discuss the complex issues of our
times.
I asked
you a moment ago if you knew what race you
are. There are thousands of genetic variations even in the same race. Reducing
life to two categories is absolutely meaningless in building multicultural
neighborhoods.
We do
not live in a world that is divided into Christian and Jew. That represents less than one-third of the
world’s population, and does not account for variations within the
denominations themselves. It is a waste of time.
Santa Rosa is far more complex than to think of ourselves as
a small city divided in half by a freeway.
SOCIAL SCHEME
Some talk
about the understanding of culture as a triad:
·
Tradition: Religion, cultural habits, and family relationships.
·
Market: Goods (moveable), property (fixed or real), and trade (money system).
·
Power: Internal controls (police), group protection (military), and
government structure (legal).
Others
have said that there are at least three types of truth:
·
Absolute
Truth: This is the truth
of religion. Unfortunately, to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre, God does not
telephone you and tell you of its nature. As a result, there are thousands of
opinions as to what constitutes God's absolute truth.
·
Relative
Truth: Science. This
discipline can only measure relationships.
·
Legal Truth: The notion that "truth" is discovered
within a framework of legislated rules and precedence. Judgments are then made
to imprison, confiscate, and label.
Return to the Top
Go to the Middle
Go to the End
AND HOW DO WE ARRIVE AT
THE "TRUTH"
All
human beings use the following three methods to gather information:
·
Experience: Experience is what gives value to decision. Every
person's experience is different from every other person's. Psychology attempts
to catalog experience and has had some success in the statistics of
marketing, but has never been shown to be able to predict a specific individual's
future behavior.
·
Observation: Science has formalized this method of information
gathering. Experience clearly has a critical role in determining what will be
studied through the process of decision, but once this has been determined,
everything possible is done to prevent experience, now called bias, from
clouding observation and the interpretation of that observation. Unlike
experience, which is unique to the individual, the formalized
observation of the scientific method has, ideally, a set of protocols that can
be shared among observers.
·
Authority: This is simply accepting the experiences and
observations of others. Science has a formal way of deciding whose authority to
accept. It largely avoids the authority of experience, since it is nearly
impossible to pinpoint and measure. Absolutists, on the other hand, accept and
welcome the authority of experience. Religious knowledge can, ultimately, only
come through this method. Authority should not be dismissed out-of-hand as a
useful tool. Obviously, we don't want to repeat all the learning of previous
generations, nor do we want to lose the moral teachings of a Gandhi. But it is
important to be wary of everyone who claims to speak for God.
YESTERDAY I LEARNED SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SURVIVAL
·
Never fly
with anyone who does not understand the importance of triangulation in
determining where you are. It is just too dangerous.
·
Look for
leaders who can draw the world with more than two crayons, and whose art work
shows more than angels and demons.
·
Take a walk
down your street this week and think about the seasons. Sonoma County has so many wonderful shades of green in the spring that are so
iridescent that you can hardly describe them to someone who hasn’t seen them.
In the fall, maroons, oranges and yellows create vineyards that are luscious
beyond imagination; and golden fields in the summer shimmer in the sun. Don’t
try to photograph Sonoma County with a black and white camera.
·
And don’t be
a Presbyterian who forgets the importance of the Trinity in understanding the
Triune God who is the creator, redeemer and sustainer of life itself. 
Dr. John
H. Cushman
Presbyterian
Church of the Roses
2500
Patio Court
Santa
Rosa, CA 95405
October 15, 2006
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TRINITY: A RULE OF THREES