Getting excited about the trinity...

(this is a work in progress - working towards Trinity Sunday which isn't until June.)

Do you remember the dialogue from the hilarious film "Nuns on the run"?
Brian:    Explain the Trinity.
Charlie:    Hmmm... well, it's a bit of a bugger. You've got the Father, the Son and the holy ghost. But the three are one - like a shamrock, my old priest used to say. "Three leaves, but one leaf." Now, the father sent down the son, who was love, and then when he went away, he sent down the holy spirit, who came down in the form of a...
Brian:    You told me already - a ghost.
Charlie:    No, a dove.
Brian:    The dove was a ghost?
Charlie:    No, the ghost was a dove.
Brian:    Let me try and summarize this: God is his son. And his son is God. But his son moonlights as a holy ghost, a holy spirit, and a dove. And they all send each other, even though they're all one and the same thing.
Charlie:    You've got it. You really could be a nun!

The doctrine of the trinity has just been "one of those things" that you hope people will not question you about.

If you want to know what I mean by this, just ask yourslef why so many ministers arrange their holidays so they do not have to preach on Trinity Sunday.

Three in one and one in three; undivided union; three distinct persons; one God. It is irrational, incomprehensible, pointless and even absurd.

Sermons try to explain and encourage but once you start trying to explain or elucidate the conundrum that is the trinity we can get in a muddle. Or if you try to read out the Athanasian creed seriously and with a straight face how do you not sound like a Monty Pythonesque parody of religion.

Basil, one of the Cappodocian fathers of the early church, (320 - 379AD) wrote about the trinity in a way that I find exciting. In over twenty years of ordained ministry I have never previously felt excitement about the trinity.

Basil taught that the point of the doctrine of the trinity is to stop Christians thinking about God in rational terms. If you used rationality then you could only think of God as "a being". Our minds cannot get beyond this. The trinity was an image to be contemplated. It is a device to counter the idolotry of thinking of God as a being as in the Arian heresy, contemporary with Basil. The trinity was a mystery because it initiated Christians into a different way of thinking about the divine. (I see here a parallel with Zen and the visulisation of the sound of one hand clapping) It is purposely logical nonsense because meditation on such an image swings your mind beyond sense and human understanding to the pure being which is God. God lives beyond human comprehension. Meditation on the trinity is an activity to be actively engaged upon rather than a metaphysical doctrine to be believed.

The orthodox icons helped in this meditation. The best known is Rublev's old testament trinity. The picture showns three characters (angels) each absorbed in each other, united around a meal. There is a perpetual motion in the picture as each of the three engages with the other two, but this is not a closed circle as the viewer is also drawn into their circle of contemplation. The three characters gain their persona from the presence and their knowledge of each of the others. This is spirituality and artistic creativity giving insight that is too deep for words.