Readings for The Most Holy Trinity, June 15
Proverbs 8:22-31 | Romans 5:1-5 | John 16:12-15
Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; to God who is, who was, and who is to come! God is Triune. God is not a singular entity, not even a supreme being. Rather, God is the mystery beyond being and the mystery of gratuitous love. God is the incomprehensible and utterly transcendent mystery who is the unity of three persons in an unfathomable love. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier. According to St. Augustine, God is Love, the Beloved, and the Loving between them.
A medieval mystic named Julian of Norwich testifies, “The all-powerful truth of the Trinity is the Father, who created us and keeps us within him. The deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we are all enfolded. The exalted goodness of the Trinity is our beloved Lord: we are held in him and he is held in us. We are enclosed in the Father, we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are enclosed in us.” Beyond all gender, all descriptions, the Most Holy Trinity loves us and dwells within us. Even more, we dwell within the mercy of the Triune God.
To say God is Trinity is to take seriously God’s self-revelation in Jesus. God shows us who God is through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus tells us and shows us God is self-emptying love. The resurrection assures us self-emptying love always, ultimately, wins. The death and resurrection confirm the life and teachings of Jesus: humility, letting go of self, poverty, and universal love. Thus, God is sheer humility and utter vulnerability; God is self-empty. This is what we mean by Trinity. God comes to us, to embrace us and deify us, through Jesus and the Spirit. We accept God through humility, letting go, inner poverty.
This is very different from our normal ideas of God, which we tend to draw from human experience. One idea we find in the Bible and that emerged from human experience is to call God a king. But what we mean by a king and what the Bible means by God as king diverge radically. We believe God is Trinity: The Infinite Mystery who comes to us by the self-emptying love. The world typically understands a king as an authority who is removed from his subjects and rules over them. Historically, kings have acted like despots. Indeed, we have mountains of evidence for this from the Bible itself. There are far too many terrible kings. And God warned to ancient Israelites to not give power to a king. They did not listen. They wanted to be like other ancient societies who had their own tyrannical rulers.
Throughout the history of Israel, culminating in Jesus Christ, God opposes kings. The Holy Trinity, revealed in the cross, is humble and merciful. We do not find these qualities in the kings of history. They tend to be authoritarian, harsh, punitive, cruel, and even narcissistic. Kings try to make reality about them. God – Absolute Reality – makes the divine life about us: the Holy Mystery reaches out to be with us through the Word and Spirit.
Both the doctrine of the Trinity and the Bible agree: no kings. We adore the true king, God. And this true king is not authoritarian in any way, shape, or form. As followers of Jesus, we are called to worship the Trinity not a king or any leader with fantasies of being authoritarian. While some in our country may be swooning over the theatrics of a military parade, a real follower of Jesus knows such so-called shows of strength are brittle displays hiding a deep fear of losing control, wealth, privilege, and power. All kings fear this.
We have nothing to fear. The Trinity is a doctrine assuring us of God’s presence in our lives, deep within our souls, as gratuitous and humble love. This divine love calls forth a response from us: we must embody this love. While many in our country seem eager to be cruel regarding immigrant communities, we must protect them and confront such malice with the love of God, which is shown to us in the triune nature of God. While some politicians appear all-too comfortable with the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and the horrific gutting of Medicare, Medicaid, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (some of the largest programs fighting poverty in America) in the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” we must oppose it with the truth of God’s triune love. Each of us must discern how to oppose the current administration’s antihuman policies. But, because of the Trinity, know this: every time we reach out in compassion, whenever we look upon someone with kindness, every time we show someone tenderness, and whenever we act with mercy we are pouring the life of the Trinity into the world.
A contemporary mystic, the Trappist monk Fr. Thomas Keating, describes this Trinitarian life: “The movement of emptying—kenosis—that goes on in the Trinity: giving away…all that the Father is to the Son and vice-versa, and each receiving everything back in and through the Person of infinite love, the Holy Spirit. This compassionate, non-judgmental, selfless love is the Source of all that is; the ultimate beatitude is to disappear into it—coming to know truly that our deepest nature is Love.”