Proverbs 8:22-31 Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15

Today’s feast is a doctrinal feast, that is, one not occasioned by any particular event in the life of the Savior or in any of the Church’s annual liturgical seasons. Rather, what is brought to mind here by way of our Paschal Imagination and dynamic contemplation is the very Reality of God, the Divine Mystery. Christians have struggled to articulate insights into this indescribable reality through human perception ever since the earliest days of the Gospel fellowship. They received and handed on the ancient Jewish idea of the one, invisible God who’s very mysteriousness was respected by the First Commandment of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments): have no other gods. In the Old Testament, God was referred to by various titles or descriptions, in lieu of visual images. The Spirit of God, also known as Holy Wisdom, was sometimes depicted as the same entity as God the Creator and at other times as a sort of divine alter ego or companion. In the theological reflections which produced the four canonical Gospels (i.e., those we label Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Jesus described himself as the one most intimate with God, calling God “Father,” and referring to himself obliquely as “the Son.” Today’s liturgical festival is rather difficult to grasp or preach unless one simply admits to the Mystery of God as the unknowable, the infinite, the eternal and the indescribable. Hence, our human imaginations are very, very important when thinking about God.

Do not underestimate the importance of the various, long-used human images which believers have projected onto God’s invisibility. If belief in God is to be relevant, meaningful and intensely personal, then the imagined scope, scale and (however inadequate) description of the Divine Mystery must speak to us in our human terms. Our imaginations and descriptions of God must also constantly grow, develop and evolve into ever “larger” and “new” insights prompted the constant addition of ever new scientific discoveries and insights, many quite different from those which ancient believers could have appreciated. The anthropomorphic descriptions of God (i.e., the projection onto the Mystery of God of our important human qualities and attributes so that we imagine God as one who hears with ears, sees with eyes, knows with a mind, loves, angers, judges, etc.) serve the important purpose of allowing believers (us) to imagine and relate to that otherwise Unknowable Divine Mystery in very personal terms. Such attribution is our imperfect attempt to give God a shape and form to which we can relate and for whom we can have affectionate feelings. Thus, our God is able to sympathize with us (through mercy, pity, compassion, love, etc.). Such images suffice so long as believers operate in part from an ancient cosmology (the ancient understanding of the created, physical universe, e.g., a flat earth and terra-centric universe) and an ancient anthropology (the ancient understanding of humanity as individuals and society, e.g., a mortal, machine-like body with an infused immortal soul with a somewhat pre-determined destiny). By the arrival of 20^th and 21^st Christian Centuries’ scientific insights into the nature, scope and scale of the universe and the human person, the ancient ideas of God have become simply too small to satisfy human needs, perceptions and the modern human intellectual and Paschal imaginations of some of us. The ancient Jewish ideas of God were frequently fashioned on the image of a grand, male tribal chieftain who, as absolute ruler, was arbitrary, relatively all-powerful, just, and ideally compassionate and merciful. But, he also occasionally demonstrated some of the worst of human emotions and attitudes like wrath, murderous vengeance, and jealousy (remember Noah’s ark, Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, and the original homes which the Angel of Death did not “pass over” in Egypt). Today’s reflections on the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity must acknowledge such descriptions, but they must also progress far beyond anything most ancients would have recognized. Our main challenge is to describe God (1) as the infinite, Divine Mystery, who is Source and Savior of all creation, and (2) as absolutely creative, loving, merciful and just, and (3) to imagine these insights all the while mindful of our 21^st Century scientific and philosophical appreciations of cosmological and anthropological realities. The image of Jesus having “the whole world in his hand” is fine for small children, but only metaphorical for any with an intelligent, balanced, adult faith and complex life. We have used numerous images – triangles, shamrocks, and three inter-locking rings, the apocalyptic Ancient of Days, one like a son of man, something like a dove descending, tongues of fire, the sound of a strong wind – as artistic representations of what would be called, by the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel, “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (we heard this Gospel text last year on this feast day). These are intelligent imaginary and metaphorical attempts at understanding, certainly not idolatrous images. Note that the words “Trinity” or “Triune” do not appear in the sacred scriptures, but are compound words from the Latin prefix for “three” and the Latin word for “oneness.” The mystery of today’s feast requires some critical thought.

So, with that lengthy preamble, let us engage the festival’s scripture lessons. The text from the Book of Proverbs is a soliloquy by a personification of God’s Wisdom, whom Christians call the Holy Spirit. The divine speaker has a strong and confident feminine voice (“The LORD possessed me...”) and claims a perspective on reality since well before any of the created universe was brought into being by the Creator God. The divine speaker also claims to be the competent craftsman-companion of the Creator God one of who’s principle attributes is a playfulness causing divine delight. This reveals a lighthearted, joyful, intimate and (dare we suggest?!) a humorous essence within the divine act of creation which the Creator and Wisdom together make obvious. Is this like watching an affectionate couple recently in love? It is healthy for believers to regularly seek out the humor to be found deep in God’s creative will. Indeed, even the human race, as sad and as troubled as it can be, is made in divine delight as well as in the divine image. This wonderfully self-reflective poem could be an aria in an Italian opera, with soaring music, conveying an overwhelming love and satisfaction that the Creator (not yet called Father) has for Holy Wisdom (of feminine gender in Greek: Sophia) and Wisdom for the Creator. It also reveals the nuanced seriousness with which we believers ought to see ourselves as creatures. Far more subtle than Genesis’ assertion that we are made in God’s “image and likeness,” is the text here, “I [Wisdom] find delight in the human race.” Remember, Genesis asserted that humans were mere clay formed and enlivened into Divinity’s children by the very breath of God! At least part of our purpose and task in life was, from the very beginning, to please God and Holy Wisdom by engaging life fully, freely and responsibly, even if imperfectly! What trust! What freedom! What encouragement! Truly, this is the very best of parental delight and hope! What a commission . . . to give delight to God in all we are. That’s an important insight into the very mystery of the Holy Trinity: we personify God in reality by how we live thoughtfully and thankfully as relational beings.

The text from Romans expresses Paul’s conviction that all of life is a genuine divine gift, “we have been justified by faith.” The passive voice is crucial; it happened to us! In other words, God put faith into believers and because God had done that, God made believers worthy of divine love and salvation. Parents do this to their infant children all the time: give, give, give to receive one simple smile in return. “...[T]his grace in which we stand” is the very life God gave us, the life in which Holy Wisdom found delight in the Proverbs’ text above. God did the work. We received the gift. The very word “grace” in this passage is the Greek word “charis” which literally means “gift.” Of course, the gift is neither magical fairy dust nor is it always secure nor even smoothe. The gift of real life – life fully engaged, life in the reality of the cross – entails joys and sorrows, pleasures and sufferings, challenges and wonders. Life is messy, even for the believer. Paul acknowledged this necessary connection in the chain of realities along which he had personally traveled from afflicting religious persecution on the earliest disciples to his own sudden conversion by and embrace of God’s love and salvation. Life at it’s best is not compartmentalized, although that may sometimes be an effective strategy and tool of survival. Healthy and holy life is relational and connected, integrated and reflective, messy and interesting. Wise observers notice that when religious people (including religious leaders) become disconnected from real life and preoccupied with their imagined power, they risk (and often succeed at) becoming silly, ineffective and destructive believers, and less effective witnesses to the Gospel. Perhaps they inadvertently substitute their institution for both the Gospel and the Divine Mystery. Institution office (even in church) can become a sort of idol and too much institutional loyalty can be a serious form of idolatry. The Divine Mystery however is never disconnected. God, the Trinity, is always in a relationship of nurturing, inspiring, critiquing, forming and saving.

The Gospel text comes from those instructive and encouraging moments right after John’s foot-washing narrative when Jesus was subtly trying to prepare the disciples for the violence and witness that would follow over the next three nights and days. His insight into their inabilities (“you cannot bear it now”) was important if not yet fully appreciated by them. It provoked no reply from them at all. They only reacted when he predicted his immanent departure and, even then, they missed the point rather completely. His promise was that understanding and insight would come by means of the Father and the Spirit. But, this, too, was beyond them, just as he said. Indeed the full Divine Mystery is beyond us still today. The wise and humble believer appreciates this. Numerous others through history have claimed a certitude of, an authority from, and a unimaginable clarity about God. Sometimes these were mystics who experienced what they thought were glimpses into the very reality of God. These might have some profound insight as long as such insights lead to lives of balance consistent with the profound Gospel themes of love, peace, forgiveness, compassion, justice, wisdom, and gratitude. The same measures ought to be used to determine the worth of the ecstatic claims and knowledge of any believer. More than a few have been crackpots and eccentrics, themselves more psychologically needy and unhealthy than holy. That God would disregard the practiced good sense and wisdom of the intellect and heart integrated in responsible and thoughtful lives of ordinary believers, only to replace such with wildly exotic claims of the ignorant, irrational, childish, eccentric and unhealthy individuals of any age or station seems very unreasonable, superstitious, and contrary to balanced Gospel Wisdom. Some of those eccentrics have even been canonized. Fortunately, they are in our past (near or distant), not our present. Reject and flee from the silly. Embrace the Wisdom of God’s Mystery!

Remember and think on the words spoken to you once in life: “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” You were initiated into a life of grace and gratitude in this very ancient description of the Divine Mystery. How do you relate to that same Divine Mystery now, years later, in ways healthy and humane, humorous and intelligent, lively and lovingly? Are you a delight to God? Are God’s “love” and Wisdom’s “why?” intertwined in your daily life? Are they visible in your own personal joyfulness as one of God’s own?

A reflective scholar I know, who spent some years living in an Islamic country decades ago, taught me that the Trinity is a difficult concept for the Islamic believers to deal with for it makes them think of three gods. So, Christians in such locales developed the custom of making the Sign of the Cross while announcing these words: “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; One God!”

God is One! God is Love!