May 22, 2005 Trinity Sunday Contributed by Paul S. Nancarrow

See aslo: [2008][2002]

Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

In preaching on Trinity Sunday, I often point out that it is the only day in the church year given to the celebration of a theological doctrine. Other days on the liturgical calendar are given to the celebration of events in the life of Christ (Christmas, Easter), or images of Christ’s ministry (Good Shepherd Sunday, Christ the King Sunday), or events in the life of the church (saints’ days, World Communion Sunday, Reformation Sunday). But Trinity Sunday is the only day in the church calendar set aside to celebrate a theological idea; an idea, moreover, that may be implied in scripture but was not fully developed for centuries in the early church. For process thinkers today, it is an idea that has come in for some mixed reviews. Some process theologians have tried to map the traditional three Persons of the Trinity onto Whitehead’s ideas of the Primordial, Consequent, and Superjective Natures of God; others have found these attempts less than convincing. Some have argued that the perichoresis of the three Persons in Godhead show that relationality is at the very heart of God, and that therefore we should not be surprised to find relationality at the very heart of the universe this relational God has created and is creating. Some have argued that, while it makes some sense to speak of the three Persons as three ways God relates to the world (eg, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier), in Whitehead’s metaphysics it would be hard to account for three distinct personal societies or hypostases within the one ever-concrescing actual entity that is God; that is, they allow for an “economic Trinity” but not an “immanent Trinity.” In this connection, it is interesting to note that the readings chosen for Trinity Sunday in Year A also reflect a more economic than immanent emphasis in their Trinitarian imagery.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

The story of Creation has in it what we might call a “latent” Trinitarianism: it certainly does not reflect the fully developed doctrine of the fourth century, nor does it even use the Trinitarian names as 2 Corinthians and Matthew do below. The Trinitarian interpretation comes from distinguishable roles or functions of God in the work of Creation. In the first place, God is the origin and source of each new stage of Creation’s unfolding: God brings forth from God’s knowledge of infinite possibilities particular potentials to be actualized in new creatures: light, dry land, life, and so on. In the second place, God’s Word is spoken to give definition and form to the new created entities: “Let there be light”; “Let the waters be gathered together and let dry land appear”; and so on. In the third place, the Spirit (ruach, also translatable as “wind”) hovers over the unfolding Creation and holds the many creatures together as one Creation: we saw in the readings for Pentecost that the Holy Spirit may be regarded as “God’s power of relationality at work in the world,” and we may think of the Spirit playing much the same role in the Creation story. The process of Creation reflects these three divine “moments”: God addresses an undifferentiated unity, the Word introduces differentiation, and the Spirit brings the differences together into relationship. Thus the chaotic tehom is differentiated into sea and dry land, which are set in relationships of coasts and islands and continents; the original light is differentiated into sun and moon and stars, which are set in relationships of movement to mark seasons and days and years; the earth is differentiated into living and non-living, and into species of plants and animals, which are set in relationships of growth and eating and reproduction. Each new “day” of Creation unfolds as work of difference and relationship, the work of the Word and the Spirit, coming forth from the creative will of God. We should note that this “latent” Trinitarianism is strictly economic: it says something about God’s activity in the world, but nothing about God’s inner experience of being God. The economic Trinitarian “moments” of God’s creative work—origination, differentiation, relationship—are further specified to human life and faith in the passages from 2 Corinthians and Matthew.

Psalm 8

The Psalm is chosen to complement the creation theme of the Genesis passage. It does not contain the same Trinitarian nuances we saw in the first lesson. We should note the special place the Psalmist accords humanity within the scheme of creation: “a little lower than God,” yet still mortal, humans have been given “dominion over the works” of God’s hands. Much has been said and written about the proper way to interpret this “dominion,” and whether it implies a license to dominate other creatures, or bespeaks a calling to serve the flourishing of other creatures. From a process perspective, in which God’s power is the power of persuasion rather than coercion, we would note that human power in creation is derived from God’s power—it is God who, in the end, is the “Sovereign” of all things—and therefore human power in creation should be equally persuasive rather than coercive.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Paul’s epistolary farewell to the Corinthians includes a closing blessing that attributes different functions to the Persons of the Trinity in the economy of salvation. The “love of God” is the original fact, the initiating reality of Christians’ being and becoming, and their new being and becoming in Christ. The “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” is the more particular gift of new life for each believer, the distinctive and differentiated way in which each believer’s human experience is taken up into encounter with the divine. The “communion of the Holy Spirit” is the relational power of God which draws the particular experience of individual believers into a shared experience, the relational power which creates a social field to harbor the individual believers in a shared life, and to empower them to share that life in ministry in the world. Together, these three modalities of blessing constitute the core reality of the Christian life.

Matthew 28:16-20

The closing verses of Matthew’s gospel are best known as the locus of the Great Commission; they are included in this Sunday’s readings principally because of Jesus’ instruction to use the Trinitarian formula in baptism. It is worth noting that the commission to “make disciples” is described as having two parts: to baptize in the Trinitarian name, and to teach “obedience” to Jesus’ “commandments.” Although there is no historical-critical evidence of connection between this pericope and the 2 Corinthians passage above, for preaching purposes it could be noted that to baptize someone “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is precisely to initiate them into the relationship of threefold blessing Paul wishes for the Corinthian Christians. It is also to initiate them into a conscious and intentional role in the work of Creation as described in Genesis: it is a call to become a faithful created co-creator. In that respect, teaching “obedience” to Jesus “commandments” would be seen, not so much as slavish adherence to a moral code, as an informed, intentional, and willing repetition in the believer’s life of the same values instantiated in the life and ministry of Jesus. To “obey” Jesus in this sense would be to participate in the gift of grace mediated through Jesus, originating in the love of God and brought into communion with others by the relational power of the Spirit. Human life baptized into this threefold relationship with God and others is indeed the life of discipleship.

Paul S. Nancarrrow is rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in St. Louis Park, MN, and Canon Theologian for the Diocese of Minnesota. He is co-author of the upcoming book, The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in the Contemporary World.

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