Tag Trinity

The Power of Three

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Have you ever noticed how many things come in threes?   Our constitution, for instance, give us a government of, by and for the people, with three balanced and equal branches, the executive, the legislative and the judicial.  Well, they’re supposed to be balanced and equal.

Our lives depend on the environmental threesome of land, water and air.  The plants that feed us are dependent on the trio of soil, rain and sunlight.  Native Americans learned long ago to plant a triplet of crops together corn, beans and squash.  They called them the Three Sisters because they worked together in a way that made all three healthier and more robust.  The corn provided a natural pole for the beans to climb.  The beans fixed nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the corn and squash, and the squash spread out its leaves and vines around the roots of the corn and beans to provide shade and preserve moisture in the soil. 

Our planet is composed of three kinds of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic and the elements that compose the stuff of the universe come to us in a triad of solid, liquid and gas.  The nearly infinite variety of colors we see are all built from the three primary colors, red, blue and yellow.

We describe our passage through the day as a journey through morning, noon and night, and as we drive through the city streets our stopping and going is controlled by a troika of green, yellow and red lights.  When we’re on the go, we often refuel with the gastronomic trinity of fast food—a burger, fries and a shake, then we decide who will pay the bill with a quick game of rock, paper, scissors.

When we relate to each other thoughtfully, we realize that the human person we’re conversing with is a complex triplex of intellect, physicality and emotion.  Freud tells us that our psyches are a gordian knot of id, ego and superego.  And in broader, more ancient terms we understand ourselves as body, mind and spirit. 

Jesus told us that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and St. Paul told us that Faith, Hope and Love abide, which are the three things we need most as we confront the evil triad of greed, sexism and racism.

Aristotle said that everything that comes in threes is perfect.  Omnes trium perfectum, a statement that may have had some influence on the bishops of the early Church who gathered at the Council of Nicaea.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the one day in the Church year dedicated to a doctrine, the first doctrine adopted by the Church, the doctrine that tells us that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit exist eternally as three persons but also as one God.  In his book, The Divine Dance, the Trinity and Your Transformation, Richard Rohr says that the Trinity is the fundamental reality of the universe, a perfect balance of union and differentiation, and a model for human relationships—God for us, God alongside us, God within us.

It’s not always easy to wrap our heads around this idea.  Martin Luther once said that denying the Trinity might imperil your soul but trying to understand it could imperil your sanity.  The truth is that the infinite God cannot be boxed into our very finite minds.  The limitless God cannot be corralled by our limited understanding.  “’Circling around’ is all we can do,” says Richard Rohr. “Our speaking of God is a search for similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe. That’s the best human language can achieve. We can say, ‘It’s like—it’s similar to…,’ but we can never say, ‘It is…’ because we are in the realm of beyond, of transcendence, of mystery. And we must—absolutely must—maintain a fundamental humility before the Great Mystery. If we do not, religion always worships itself and its formulations and never God.”[1]

The Holy Trinity, the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons living as one God, is not a puzzle to be solved.  It’s a mystery in which to immerse ourselves.  Frederick Buechner described the Trinity as the Mystery beyond us, the Mystery among us, and the Mystery within us.  You don’t solve mysteries, you explore them.  You enter into them.  You participate in them.  Maybe instead of calling this day Trinity Sunday, we should call it Mystery Sunday.

Richard Rohr said that when something is a mystery, especially when it’s a God mystery, that doesn’t mean it can’t be understood, it means that it can be understood endlessly.  There is always more to see.  There is always more to relate to.  There is always more to understand.  There are always new steps in the dance.

And it is a dance—or at least that’s, historically, one of the best descriptions we’ve ever had of the Trinity.  But how did we come to have the Doctrine of the Trinity in the first place?  There is no passage in the Bible that specifically describes or defines God as Trinity, though there are some passages that hint at it.  The closest we come to a full statement of Trinitarian theology is at the end of Matthew when Jesus tells his disciples to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  And St. Paul ends his second letter to the Corinthians with Trinitarian language when he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the union of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” As my colleague Heather Anne Thiessen once said, the Trinity isn’t spelled out in scripture, but it’s there in kit form.  

Early followers of Jesus had a problem.  Like the Jews—and remember, the very first followers of Jesus were Jews—these early Jesus followers believed that there is only one God.  But they also believed—or at least most of them did—that Jesus was divine and that he was somehow completely one with God whom he called Abba or Father.  On top of that, they had received the Holy Spirit—the very breath of God, who they also experienced as a divine person because the Spirit often seemed to exist and act independently of Jesus and Abba.  At the baptism of Jesus, though, all three seemed to have been present: Jesus coming up out of the water, the Spirit, descending in the form of a dove, and Abba, speaking like thunder.  So how do you reconcile three divine persons but hang onto the idea that there is only one God?

Well, you don’t, said one group of Jesus people.  These people were called Arians because the main proponent of their theology was Arius of Alexandria.  The Father is God, said Arius.  Jesus, the Son is a slightly lesser god.  He was created by the Father in the first millisecond of creation and all his authority and power comes from the Father, but he is separate in substance and stature.  And the Spirit is a slightly lesser god than Jesus, the Son, and also of an ever-so-slightly lower stature and substance.  What the Arians were saying, more or less, is that there are really three gods and, while they are eternally united, the Father is the first and most important God, the one with all the power and authority.   

Hang on a minute, said the Trinitarians.  Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.  You who have seen me have seen the Father.”[2]  He also said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”[3]  After the resurrection, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples.  The Spirit is in his breath.  It’s his Spirit that flows in us.  When the prophets would say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”  they were talking about the Father’s Spirit.  So, the Three have to be One.  But they are also Three.  And they are still One.  Three persons, One God.

This disagreement the Trinitarians and the Arians had started to become violent and threatened to completely and irreparably divide the church which had only recently really begun to come together in a meaningful way.  So 1700 years ago last month, in May of the year 325, the Emperor Constantine, who had recently declared himself to be a follower of Christ, decided that this question had to be settled for the good of the Church and the good of the empire.  He called for a Council and ordered all the bishops to meet at Nicaea to debate the matter.  After much argument, Constantine declared that the Trinitarians had won the debate and ordered the bishops to formulate an official statement to describe the Doctrine of the Trinity.  

This was the very first official doctrine of the whole Church, by the way, and the bishops and presbyters argued heatedly over the words they would use.  They argued about whether the Father and the Son were made of the same substance (as if anybody could possibly know that) and whether they had the same nature.  They knew they were standing at the edge of an enormous Truth about God and they felt it was vitally important to get all the details exactly right even though there was no possible way for them to know or even see all the details.  In some ways, they were like children who stand on the beach and think they can fully describe the breadth and depth and power of the ocean and all the life contained in it.  

The bishops created the first draft of what we now know as the Nicene Creed and decided that adherence to this statement of faith would determine if someone was a true Christian or not.  Ironically, their very useful insight about the all-loving, all-relating God who exists eternally in the expansive community and relationship of the Trinity led them to formulate a faith statement that would be used to exclude people from the community and the embrace of the Church.

The doctrine of the Trinity continued to confuse a lot of earnest Christians, and, truth be told, it was not universally accepted everywhere even though the Emperor had declared it to be the official stance of the church.  For many people it was just too confusing to figure out how one plus one plus one could equal one.  Fortunately, about 50 years after Nicaea, the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil, the bishop of Caesarea, his younger brother, Gregory, the bishop of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen, the patriarch of Constantinople came up with a better description of how the three persons of the Trinity exist as one God.  

The model they used was a circle dance, and the fancy theological name they gave their idea is perichoresis, a Greek word which more or less literally means circle dance.   The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they said, exist as one in an eternal circle dance of love.  The Trinity is an eternal, joyful, radiant manifestation of love, loving, and being loved.  The love that endlessly flows between, in and through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit creates and sustains the universe.

One of the beautiful things about this idea is that there is no hierarchy in it.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal in their eternal love for each other and for their creation, which includes us.  Another wonderful thing about this idea is that it describes God as always in motion.  God as a verb, and not as a static noun, exists as an endless flow of love.  But perhaps the most powerful thing about this idea, at least as far as we are concerned, is that we are invited into their dance.  We are invited to participate in the endless flow of love, loving, and being loved.  The Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, carries us into the loving embrace of the Father and the Son and invites us to learn the steps of the dance.

We are called to embody this trinitarian flow of love, loving and being loved to carry it out into the world, loving God, loving our neighbor and being humble and vulnerable enough to let ourselves be loved.

In the name of God the Father, in the authority and authenticity of Jesus, and in the power of the Spirit, we are called to practice in what the late Walter Brueggemann called prophetic imagination.  As we are embraced by the wholeness and balance of the Trinity, we are called to speak out, to proclaim the inbreaking of the kingdom of God, to speak truth to power, and to live out God’s definition of goodness—to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God and with each other.

In his book Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out, Walter Brueggeman said, “The church has a huge stake in breaking the silence, because the God of the Bible characteristically appears at the margins of established power arrangements, whether theological or socioeconomic and political.”  He went on to say, “Since we now live in a society—and a world—that is fitfully drifting toward fascism, the breaking of silence is altogether urgent.  In the institutional life of the church, moreover, the breaking of silence by the testimony of the gospel often means breaking the silence among those who have a determined stake in maintaining the status quo.”

We are called to remind the world that God is inherently just.  God’s justice is inseparable from the love, kindness and grace that flows endlessly in the circle dance of the Three-in-One, and from the Triune God to us and through us.  If we live in the trinitarian flow of love, loving and being loved, we cannot remain silent and inactive in a hurting world.  

[1] Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation

[2] John 10:30; John 14:9

[3] Matthew 28:18

The Dawn of a New Day in the Middle of the Night

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

John 3:1-17

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.  Some have suggested that Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night because he didn’t want to be seen talking to Jesus.  The Gospel of John tells us that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and an archon, a leader or ruler of the people and a highly respected teacher.  He was also fairly wealthy.  He had standing in the community as a righteous man, blessed by God, so he had a reputation to protect, and he was putting all that at risk by meeting with a man who many of his fellow Pharisees regarded as a troublemaker.  

Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night because it was less risky.  Nicodemus came at night so he could avoid the crowds.   Nicodemus came at night because it would be easier to have an open and honest conversation away from the judging eyes and oppositional expectations of his fellow Pharisees.  That’s how this meeting of the minds is often framed, and, in fact, that might all be true.  But there is more going on here that we might miss if we simply accept this very practical and prosaic explanation then go charging ahead to our favorite verses later in this passage.  I’m looking at you, John 3:16.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.  Night, nyx in the Greek, means darkness.  Nicodemus came in darkness.  Figuratively, night can be symbolic of blindness, especially spiritual blindness. Metaphorically, night can also mean a state of incomplete or defective spiritual understanding.  But night is also a time for revelations, especially in dreams.  

The dynamic tension between light and darkness is an important recurring theme in the Gospel of John.  One of the first things this gospel says about Jesus, the Logos, is, “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:3-4)  Later, in chapter 3, we will read that light has come into the world but people loved darkness. . . “For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light so that their deeds may not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.  He came in the darkness of an incomplete or faulty understanding of God and how God works and what God was doing in the world.  No judgment there.  If we’re honest, we’re all in the dark to one degree or another.  But he came into the light of Jesus, who could illuminate and broaden his understanding.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night… and night has yet one more meaning that might surprise us.  For the Jews, the new day begins at sunset.  That means that night is the beginning of a new day.

When Nicodemus sat down with Jesus, it was, for him, the beginning of a new day.  He was moving out of darkness and into the light.  Nicodemus reminds us that faith is a process.  He reminds us that understanding unfolds by degrees.

The first thing Nicodemus said to Jesus when they sat down to talk was, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from God.” It’s kind of sad, really, but in our time and our culture, when we see a greeting like that we think it’s just flattery, and our first impulse is to hold onto our wallets.  But Nicodemus wasn’t trying to schmooze Jesus.  He was simply stating his confusion.  It’s as if he was saying, “Look, I can see that you have a direct connection to God, but you are just so different from what we’re used to, from what we expect.”

His confusion and doubt notwithstanding, Nicodemus showed Jesus great respect. He called him rabbi and acknowledged not just the powerful things Jesus had done, but the source of his power.  Nicodemus acknowledged the relationship Jesus shared with the one he called Father, though he couldn’t possibly have understood the true nature of that relationship.

But then, who does?  Oh, we have no shortage of doctrinal formulas and illustrations now to describe that relationship—relationships, really, because the Holy Spirit is part of that eternal dance of love we call the Trinity.  But when you get right down to it, who can really understand the relationship between the Maker, the Christ and the Spirit?  Saint Augustine said that trying to understand the Trinity is like trying to pour the ocean into a seashell.  

We recite the illustrations and restate the formulas and then think that because we found some language to corral it, we understand the mystic communion of love that is God.  But our language, itself, betrays our lack of real understanding.  In naming them Father, Son, and Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer we insert a separateness between them and ascribe roles for each person which is the antithesis of their relationship, their existence, their being, their unity, where they cannot and will not be separate.    

Frederick Buechner described the Trinity as the Mystery Beyond us, the Mystery Among us, and the Mystery Within us—and it’s all one deep and eternal Mystery that gives us life, the Mystery in which we live and move and have our being.  The best we can do is enter into the Mystery and experience it—and understand that we will never completely understand.  

Right now we stand at a perilous moment in our history.  Our planet, our only home, is sick from pollution that we released into the air we breathe and the waters that sustain us.  Our economies are dominated by greed.  There are political forces at work in our country and our world that are bent on authoritarianism and oligarchy.  At the same time there are those who want to flex their moralizing muscles to invade everyone’s privacy and codify what you may or may not do with your own body, or tell you who you may or may not love, or even deciding what you may or may not be allowed to read.  Ironically, some of these power-hungry people call themselves Christian.  And let’s not forget our seemingly relentless fear of anyone who is different, a fear that endlessly reasserts itself in unreasoned hatred and violence.  And on that note, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of the death of George Floyd. 

The world is a mess, and it seems sometimes that all of creation is crying out to the heavens saying, “I can’t breathe!”

Fortunately for us, God’s love and grace is patient and kind and the Holy Spirit, the Breath of Life, continues to draw us into the dance of Trinity.  The Mystery Within us leads us to the Mystery Among us who forever points us to the Mystery Beyond us.  In the light of Christ our eyes are opened to see the promise of the new day, the possibility and promise of the Reign of God—the Commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness—becoming a reality on earth as it is in heaven.  

When the Spirit draws us into the perichoresis, the circle dance of love that is God, it’s like being born anew, being born from above, and it can happen to us at any age.  

Love can change us.  Love can change us as individuals, it can change us as a people, it can change us as a nation, and it can change the world.

When we are captivated by God’s love for the world, for all of creation.  We see each other and the world with new eyes, we hope with a hope that is greater and deeper than our practical assessments allow, and we love with a love that’s beyond our capacity.  

This is how God has loved the cosmos—the world—all of it, everything: God gave God’s unique son so that everyone who lovingly trusts him need not be destroyed or lost in the endless waves of chaos but may instead have eternal life.  God did not send Christ into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be healed and made whole through him.  

That’s what love does.  Love heals.  Love unites.  Love makes things whole.  That’s the point.  God loves.  God loves everything God has made.  The dance of Trinity embraces all of creation and says that it is good.  

Jesus reminds us repeatedly that the Reign of God—the Commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness—is in reach.  It’s doable.  The Spirit, in love, is calling us to embrace God’s vision of a whole and healthy world and to join the work of making it our reality.

As the Spirit draws us to the light and love of Christ, in the middle of the night may we find the dawn of a new day.  

Dear Nicodemus

Steve Beckham 3 Comments

John 3:1-17

Dear Nicodemus,

I owe you an apology.  I confess that I have not always held you in very high esteem.  The fact is, in the past I thought you were—how to say this?—too cautious and, well, more than a little timid—and, if I’m being really honest, I sometimes thought that you were not the sharpest quill in the inkwell.  I’m sorry I was so quick to judge you.  I confess I hadn’t really read the story from your point of view. 

I realize now, Nicodemus, that it was actually very brave of you to seek out Jesus that night when you two sat down to talk.  Nothing timid about it.  Some people think you came at night just because you didn’t want to be seen talking to the “enemy.”   That’s the frame a lot of people put around your meeting with Jesus.  They see the antagonism and contempt that some of your fellow Pharisees had for Jesus—but to be fair, he gave as good as he got, better really—anyway, people see that enmity in his back-and-forth with your fellow Pharisees, so they assume that you came to that meeting that night with a little malice and a big agenda.   

I hadn’t really thought about it before, Nicodemus, but I can see now how much was at stake for you.  John says that you were an archon, a leader or ruler of the people.  And the language he uses indicates that you were a most highly respected teacher among your people.  Plus you were wealthy.  You had standing in your community as a righteous man, blessed by God.  You had a big reputation to protect, and you were putting all that at risk in order to have a meeting of the minds with a man who many of your community regarded as a troublemaker.  That could have badly tarnished your reputation, and I admire you for putting that concern aside so you could have an honest, personal discussion with Jesus, rabbi to rabbi.

Having said all that, I realize now that you probably came at night simply to avoid the crowds.  I see now that what you wanted was a real conversation with someone who cared deeply about the same things you cared about.

Some have said that your coming at night was symbolic.  They see you as a caricature of  “those who walk in darkness.”  That idea makes a certain kind of sense based on the ways that John’s gospel uses the themes of light and darkness.  But since you came to Jesus, who later calls himself “the light of the world,”  wouldn’t it make more sense to see you as someone who was moving out of darkness and into the light?  You remind us that faith is a process.  Understanding unfolds by degrees.  Too often we forget that.

I’ve also been thinking, Nicodemus, about that first thing you said to Jesus when you sat down to talk:  “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  It’s kind of sad, really, but in our time and our culture, when someone greets you with flattery like that, our first impulse is to hold onto our wallets.  But I’ve come to think you were really in earnest when you said it.  You showed him such respect, calling him rabbi and acknowledging not just the powerful things he had done, but the source of that power.  You acknowledged his relationship with the one he called Father, though you couldn’t possibly have understood the true nature of that relationship.  

But then, who does?  Oh, we have no shortage of doctrinal formulas and illustrations to describe that relationship—relationships, really, because the Holy Spirit is part of that eternal dance of love we call the Trinity.  But when you get right down to it, who can really understand the relationship between the Maker, the Christ and the Spirit?  We recite the illustrations and restate the formulas and then think that because we found some language to corral it, we understand that mystic communion of love that is God.  Our language, itself, betrays our lack of real understanding.  In naming them Father, Son, and Spirit, we insert a separateness between them and ascribe roles. That is the antithesis of their relationship, their existence, their being, where they cannot and will not be separate.  As Frederick Buechner said, they are the Mystery beyond us, the Mystery within us, and the Mystery among us—and it’s all one deep and eternal Mystery that gives us life.  The best we can do is enter the Mystery and experience it—and understand that we will never completely understand.  Saint Augustine said that it’s like trying to pour the ocean into a seashell.  

Speaking of understanding, I now understand that I have greatly misunderstood your conversation with Jesus.  When I dug a little deeper, did a little more homework, I came to realize that the dialogue between you two was typical of the way rabbis talked to each other and mulled over ideas in your time.  I didn’t realize before that you were actually inviting Jesus to elaborate more on “being born from above” when you asked, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”  You gave the obvious “dunce” response to Jesus so that he had a reason to go deeper into what he was teaching.  It was a rhetorical device.  You are far from a dunce, Nicodemus.  I may be wrong, but your dialogue with Jesus now sounds to me like you and he were using a familiar and respected rabbinic method to engage in a kind of team teaching for the disciples.  And you, with grace and humility, played the role of the “not so bright” student.  

Even when Jesus says, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things,”  it reads to me now as if he’s using you as a foil, and you great teacher that you are, you graciously play along.  You help him make the point to those gathered around and listening, that these are not simple, easy concepts to grasp, these things that you two are discussing.  Even a “great teacher of Israel” has to wrestle these ideas.  You help him spur the other listeners into thinking more deeply and opening their minds and hearts more fully to the Mystery of God in, with, under and around them.  You give them permission to have questions.

If you’re wondering why I’ve reassessed my opinion of you, Nicodemus, it’s because I took a good look at the two other times you are mentioned in John’s gospel, particularly that time in chapter 7 when the other Pharisees in the Sanhedrin are upset with the temple police for not arresting Jesus.  They throw shade on him because he’s from Galilee, which is just pure prejudice.  They say he should be arrested for misleading the people because “he does not know the law.”  But you stood up for him, and with perfect irony said, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?”  That one cost you, I know.  Somebody in that group tried to throw shade on you, too, when he said, “Oh are you from Galilee, too?  Nobody’s ever heard of a prophet coming from Galilee.”  But I think you were maybe beginning to suspect that he really was a prophet, and maybe something more than a prophet.  Even if he was from Galilee.

And then there’s that other thing you did—that beautiful, generous, heart breaking thing.  You were there when he was crucified.  When his disciples had deserted him, you stayed.  Right there at the foot of the cross.  And when you and Joseph of Arimathea took his body down from the cross, you brought a mixture of myrrh and spices—a hundred pounds of myrrh and spices—to prepare his body for a decent burial even though the scriptures said he was cursed for hanging on a tree.  Some have said that in preparing his body you were betraying that you didn’t really believe what he had said about resurrection.  Well if that’s the case it’s no shame on you.  Nobody else believed it either.  Not then, anyway.

No…that was an extravagant act of deep respect, one teacher for another.  That was an act of love.  And that is why, Nicodemus, I have had to revisit what I thought about you.  I realized that you were a person of profound integrity and generosity of spirit.  I realized that you were a righteous man.  I realized that I had no right to judge you to begin with.  

So please forgive me, Nicodemus.  And please know, teacher of Israel, that you have taught me a great deal.