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The Festival of the Holy Trinity, 06/19/2011
Sermon on Matthew 28:16-20, by David M. Wendel
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (RSV)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Leaving a Place
Believe it or not, I do still remember some things I learned in college-some useful, some not so much. And one of the things I remember, from a class on telecommunications-basically, a class on TV-was that in early television, the reason folks always sat on three sides of a table for meals, was not just to provide the camera with a clear shot of all the faces-that was one practical reason, of course, but there was another reason, as well. As you watched the Cleavers, for example, sitting at the dinner table, with father, Ward at the head of the table, and mother June on the opposite end, with Wally and "the Beav" sitting side by side on the far side of the table, the open side of the table, nearest the viewer, was left open to invite you in-to invite the viewer to come, be a part of the family, so that once you were, figuratively, seated at the table, the family, the household would be complete, and you would be drawn into the action. And in all those old TV programs, "Father Knows Best", and "The Danny Thomas Show" and yes, probably even "The Waltons", one side of the dinner table was always left open, for you! Now, see, kids, what you, too, can learn from college!
And yet, that's not useless knowledge, because I'm even going to be able to apply it to this festival of the Holy Trinity, as we look at the icon of the Holy Trinity, and find that hey, that beautiful, ancient icon of the Holy Godhead, has the same arrangement! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are seated on the three sides of the table, and the fourth side, nearest the viewer, is open! Now, of course, the practical side of us questions that, and wonders if it wasn't just the nature of the image-how else could you have painted, or as we say with icons, how else could you have "written" an icon of the Holy Trinity, with all three persons visible, and none obscured or turned away from us? On the one hand, this is a logical, reasonable way to write an icon of three persons all seated at one table. Which is true. On the other hand, no icon is ever written from a purely practical, reasonable perspective. No icon ever has as its first consideration, how do we make this look balanced and correct, from an artistic point of view? You see that in the fact that figures in icons are rarely well-proportioned or balanced. Often something is oversized, or placed in such a way, not to make the icon aesthetically pleasing, but to emphasize what needs to be emphasized. Because, icons are first and foremost, a proclamation of Truth, a proclamation of the Gospel, or some aspect of the Gospel, which was originally being presented to faithful who were often, indeed, illiterate peasants. Icons were, and still are, Scripture and Truth, in visual form which anyone could understand-never willy-nilly, or twisted just for artistic purposes. Which tells us that in this icon, the open space in the front is not a coincidence, or a convenient way of staging the image. Rather, the arrangement begs us to ask, why is there a space at the table? Why are the three persons sitting in this particular way? And the answer? They are inviting the viewer in, to sit at the table with them, to be a part of the eternal community that is the Holy Trinity. They are leaving a place for all those who would come to be a part of God's forever family-making it profoundly clear that the Holy Trinity is about-relationship-community-being more than one!
The Holy Trinity is About Community
Now, the Holy Trinity is more than that-indeed, the Holy Trinity is such a mystery that theologians and preachers continue to write and preach on this mystery, and never really have the mystery "solved" and can never really have the Holy Trinity "figured out". But what we can say, what is probably most important to us, and for us-is that the one true God presents Himself to us as a community of personages, to communicate to us that life itself, is about community. Life, as created by God, is not about being one, alone, a solitary, independent, autonomous person. Life is not about going to the mountains to live by yourself in a cabin, relying on no one but yourself-with no human contact, no human interaction, no human ties. Oh, because of dis-function, sin and brokenness, there are those people in our world who would probably do better living in a cabin by themselves, with no human interaction. We have all too many psychopaths and sociopaths who never developed healthy, normal patterns of social behavior and interaction, who in ages past might have become mountain men, living off the land. Now they live, either in houses with aluminum foil covering all the windows, or in apartments with multiple locks on the doors and windows-or, they end up in prison for the rest of their lives, where human contact and interaction is extremely limited and regulated. But this is not how God created us to live! God did not and does not create antisocial persons-we create antisocial persons, through our unhealthy families and structures and relationships. God created, and intends for us all to be able to live within stable, nurturing communities-even if that community is just two or three gathered together.
The First Community: Adam and Eve
We see that in our first reading from Genesis, when God created not just earth, and sky, and waters, and sun and moon and birds and living animals of every kind-but God created man-male and female he created them to live in relationship with one another, and to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth-so that there would be a world-wide community of persons, all living in harmony with one another. Later in Genesis, the Lord God says, "It is not good for the man to be alone", so He creates Eve, to be a friend and companion for Adam. And they have children, and the earth is to be filled with people who are to live in peace and love in God's good creation. St. Paul alludes to that when he writes to the Corinthians, "put things in order, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you." That's how we are supposed to live with each other, in this world-living in peace, with the God of love and peace living with us, or rather, with us, living with Him. This is the Holy Communion that the Holy Trinity, invites us into. The only problem?
Every Generation is the "Me" Generation
We continue to be more focused on "me", than on "community". Like Adam and Eve, we are more concerned in life with what I want, and what I desire, and what I think I deserve, than with what is best for my family, my city, my nation, my world. While there may have been one generation we could rightly call the "me" generation-the truth is, every generation is the "me" generation-from Adam and Eve on-we have been caught up with "me" over against "you". Marriages stumble and crumble over issues of "me" over against "you". Families have difficulties and dissolve over issues of "me" over against "you". Conflicts at work, tensions in neighborhoods, gangs and gang violence, hatred and intolerance between races, wars between nations, all get their start with issues of "me" over against "you". And how will this ever be reconciled? If this has been with us since the Garden of Eden, what hope is there of ever overcoming this "me" over against "you" tension? Of course, our hope is in Jesus Christ, and Him crucified and risen. Our hope is that as we are reconciled as sinners, with God, through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross-as our relationship with God is healed, through the forgiveness that's been gained for us through Jesus, giving His life as a ransom for us, to pay the price for our sins, on the cross-our only hope is that we will be reconciled, restored to our brothers and sisters as well-so that through Christ on the cross, humanity will be gathered into one, to live in peace, with the God of love and peace.
Ultimate Unity
Benedict XVI writes, the answer to this "me" against "you"-or "I" against "Thou" dichotomy is the Trinity, "that ultimate unity in which the distinction between I and Thou is not withdrawn, but joined to each other in the Holy Spirit. In God there are three Persons, and so God is precisely the realization of ultimate unity. God did not create the individual person so that he might be dissolved but so that he might open himself in his entire height and in his innermost depth-so that the Holy Spirit embraces the individual person and is the unity of the divided persons." In practical terms, Benedict says, "the Church in the deepest part of her nature, is the overcoming of the boundary between I and Thou-the union of all persons among themselves, through the radical transcendence of self, into eternal love. The Church is humankind being brought into the way of life of the Trinitarian God. She, the Church, must "gather into one all the children of God who are scattered abroad, as Jesus in John's Gospel suggests."
Baptismal Unity
In even more practical terms, Jesus sends us forth to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that He has commanded, so that entering into the unity of the Holy Trinity through Baptism, our "me" against "you" will be replace with, restored with, Holy Communion-a relationship with God and others that transcends our selfishness and self-centeredness and is fused into that new creation that is called the Body of Christ, and the Church. This new relationship takes repentance and conversion, and truly, a death to self in Baptism, so that, as St. Paul writes, it will now be not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me-for it is Christ in us, that creates communion, with God and with one another. Just as it is Christ who invites us to the table of the Holy Trinity, where we eat and drink, ingest and digest, the divine Godhead, present for us in the Body and Blood of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. Which is why the center of all that the Church is and does, is the Lord's Supper, THE Holy Communion, where we come together as individual persons, but kneel together as the Body of Christ-taking our places at the table where there is always room for one more.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.