June 15, 2014

Allanah Church

Trinity Sunday     Matthew 28:16-20

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 “brightness, a flashing forth, and a fire”….this is how  the 11th Century theologian and mystic, Hildergard of Bingen imagined of the Trinity.

Today is Trinity Sunday!

Tackling the theology of the Trinity may be some form of madness! The tomes that have been written on it are innumerable, complex and often unfathomable! As one writer puts it ,  any human attempts to define the Divine is like trying to catch water in a net!

Nevertheless, the Doctrine of the Trinity cannot be easily dismissed nor deemed irrelevant for today. The Trinity is not dependent upon the Creeds, nor is it replaceable by Kingdom of God theology. As Carter Heyward and other contemporary theologians have developed it, in modern form, it is all about the mutuality and connectedness of God as dynamic community. The actions of creating, redeeming, and  life giving have to be held together in some sort of image. How else are we to name our experiences of mutuality, connectedness and communion? I love the words Carter Heyward uses when she says..we are involved in this Trinitarian(radically relating) “godding”- all creatures are part of the ongoing processes of life and liberation in the world.

In the 12th Century, Meister Eckhart provides us with his very radical understanding of the Trinity. He invites us to let go our images and language for God, which he calls incomplete. He asks us to stop thinking of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, because they are images and therefore contain elements of illusion and limitation, of projection and externalization. Instead he says “I pray to God to rid me of God”.

He speaks of creativity; of the Trinity giving birth in us of being, knowing and doing.

He goes beyond the idea of relatedness…and speaks of Union, Oneness and of melting.

Within Celtic Christianity, there is a long and deep tradition of using the symbolism of the Trinity, especially within their prayers and blessings:

The Three in One and One in Three (St. Patrick’s Breastplate)

So how did this idea of the Holy Trinity begin to evolve within our Christian tradition? The first generation of Christians after Jesus’s death remained Jewish, so they were not Trinitarians. It was Gentile Christianity which developed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The earliest hints of it are in Paul’s writings: he uses the words “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” At this point is not yet a trinity formation but rather a collection of three experiences, brought together in close association…

In our Gospel reading for today, from the story teller, Matthew, we find the same three elements occurring together, in what was becoming the baptismal formula –“baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. This can only be understood as a very tenuous link to the so-called doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It is very unlikely that these instructions to the disciples are actually from the lips of Jesus. It is evident from the rest of his teachings and sayings that he had no plan to launch a world mission.These words are much more likely to be those of the early Christian movement after the death of Jesus.

Just as the early Christian movement struggled to put words to their ongoing experiences and understandings of Jesus, so we too have our different ways of apprehending and naming our lived experiences, our understandings of God .What we do know about doing theology is that we must never make something absolute out of what is dynamic and evolving.

Leading New Testament Scholars have undertaken penetrating research into the gospel texts to uncover much of the authentic words of the historical Jesus. Among these is the theologian  John Dominic Crossan who  presents us with a very human Jesus…a prophetic Jesus, with a political edge. A compassionate and justice-making Jesus, whose core narrative is the Kingdom of God.

The theology of the Kingdom of God does not replace the doctrine of the Trinity but it gives us another dimension for exploring Jesus’s understanding of relatedness in community and of mutuality.

The Kingdom of God is an English translation and it is masculine (from the Greek New Testament word Basileia, feminine). Jesus’s  home language was one or other versions of Arabic. The use of the words Kingdom of God significantly reduces the originality and dynamism of what Jesus was onto. Crossan suggests a closer translation would be: the companionship of empowerment!.... This brings it alive! …it’s about co-creating communities and networks through which justice, healing, forgiveness and empowering companionship can happen.

Today, after our worship, we will have an open gathering to create a space for dialogue about  companionship of empowerment and compassionate caring within our community of faith and beyond. A pastoral care group will begin to take more shape today but coming along to have an ongoing conversation will not be in any way be understood as an intention to become part of the pastoral team.

Sadly the idea of pastoral care has become rather imprisoned in the pastoral counselling movement. This approach has brought with it some excellent skills, ways to be present and to listen, but it has also become somewhat reduced to something of a case- work theology. I think it is important to address this disconnect from our rich theological heritage. There is a need to explore different paradigms of pastoral care.   It needs to be an approach which is psychologically informed by contemporary research in human relatedness. It needs to have some good practical wisdom, safe practice with an awareness of good boundaries. It needs to address the inherent dangers of power imbalance.It needs to be grounded in the context of our community of faith… which is urban, non-geographical, with the City Mission as our neighbours.

Here at St Matthews we stand in a deep tradition of justice-making compassionate action… May the dynamism and relatedness of the Holy Trinity and the companionship of empowerment be with us, now and always! Amen!