June 12, 2022

I tried to find an opening Trinity joke, but most of them were blurred out with a warning that ‘this joke may contain profanity’ – who knew that Trinity was so risqué! Thanks to one of our knowledgeable Bible Study people I recently learned that in Rembrandt’s famous 1660’s painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son https://en.wikipedia.org/.../The_Return_of_the_Prodigal... -- the father’s hands on the shoulders of the kneeling son seem to be one female hand and one male hand. I’ve often seen this painting online, but never noticed or heard of that detail, have you? One theory has it that this represents both the fatherly and motherly love for their son, but the mother is never mentioned in the biblical story (Luke 15:11-32). Given that the father in that story Jesus told is also meant to be seen as God the Father, another lens through which we can see the male and female hands – is what we are told in Genesis 1:27: “So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (NRSVUE Updated Edition). All the way back to the King James version, this line from the first chapter of the Bible has been essentially the same. So why, I wonder, is it still seen by many as so radical to think of God as both male and female?! Actually ‘radical’ is a good word for this, since it derives from the Latin word for ‘roots’ – our oldest biblical roots in Genesis One state clearly that God is both male and female.

While the implications and ramifications of this are vast, especially given today’s blurring of genders in different settings and contexts, today for Trinity Sunday this helps us to see the greater fullness of the Trinity. In our first reading today from Proverbs 8 we have God’s holy spirit of wisdom revealed as God’s partner in creation, and named as she/her numerous times. Believing in the Trinity as we do, we know that all three ‘persons’ or aspects of the Trinity must have existed from the beginning, and here’s some of what wisdom says about herself in our first reading today:

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work … When he established the heavens, I was there … when he made firm the skies above … when he assigned to the sea its limit … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight …”

Proverbs 8 is perhaps the most explicit Bible passage revealing God’s holy spirit as the female ‘Ruah’ or later Greek ‘Sofia’. But there are many other Hebrew Bible or Old Testament references to this female spirit of God. Perhaps the Russian icon painter Rublev had this fluid or nonbinary gender of God in mind when he created his famous Trinity icon that I sent you last week and is also on our leaflet cover. As the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(Andrei_Rublev) points out, this icon depicts the three angels who visited Abraham in Genesis 18 – a visit that is ultimately understood to be from God. Their bodies and postures form a circle, with God the Creator (Father/Mother) on the left, Jesus in the middle, and the Holy Spirit on the right. There’s a mountain behind them, as a symbol of spiritual ascent, and the colours they’re wearing refer to their special attributes. Jesus and the Holy Spirit seem to nod in submission to the father, and yet there’s an overall equality in their placement in the icon. It’s good to see in the Wikipedia article that this 600 year-old icon is still influential with its nongendered equality and loving unity amongst the Holy Three.

Let’s also focus a bit on our encouraging epistle from Romans 5. This is a well-known theme in Paul’s writings that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. I’m sure that many Christians over time have tried to point out to God that given the challenges they’ve faced in life – perhaps they have enough ‘character’ and would prefer smoother sailing going forward. My son in the navy is fond of a similar well-known saying that – whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger -- so we should try and focus on how our resilience is building when life seems to throw another curveball our way.

Last week I also appreciated hearing a similar message from a Rabbi and Jungian psychoanalyst, Rabbi Dr Tirzah Firestone, who works on Ancestral Healing Alchemy in the Shift Network of spiritual teachers from a range of world religions. She said that “All mystical journeys begin when things fall apart in our world.” Although a “mystical journey” can mean various things, I’d say that when things fall apart in our world, we’re more open to receiving the Divine Healer and Divine Wisdom and Love.

Malcolm Guite, whom we heard last week on Pentecost, also wrote this sonnet on the Trinity, ending with our God beyond us (Father), our God beside us (Jesus), and God within (Holy Spirit).

“In the beginning, not in time or space,

But in the quick before space and time,

In life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,

In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,

In music, in the whole creation story,

In his own image, his imagination,

The Triune Poet makes us for his glory,

And makes us each the other’s inspiration.

He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,

To improvise a music of our own,

To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,

Three notes resounding from a single tone,

To sing the End in whom we all begin;

Our God beyond, beside us, and within.”

Amen!!!