30 May 2010

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-15
John 16:12-15

Yes, it’s the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity – an annual celebration in many traditions of the Church for which any preacher with a whit of common sense finds someone else to preach for her or him. I mean, who wants to stand up in a pulpit and try to tell people that 1+1+1=1? And there isn’t any sort of new math that can explain that sort of equation. I know. I’ve checked. There is of course an alternative to trying to preach the Holy Trinity – in the church, if you don’t know what to say or to do, well, then – sing. And we certainly do that here. But this is also a community where it’s O.K. to embrace the notion that ordinary language isn’t always adequate for talking about God. This is a community where we’re free to admit, in the words of the Episcopal priest, Fr. Robert Capon, that for humans to talk about God is a little like oysters talking about ballerinas. Yes, the language of history and math and science does have its place, but here, we understand it also has limits; often the arts – of theatre, of dance, of poetry – are best for speaking of that which is infinite, beyond time all time and space, that something we call “God.” So – with that in mind, two words, two concepts borrowed from theatre and dance, both from the Greek language: persona, and perichoresis.

I remember, how as a kid, we would sing today’s opening hymn not only on Trinity Sunday – but also on just about every Sunday following Trinity Sunday. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! . . . God in three persons, blessed Trinity. One God in three persons – not one God in three people – but persons – and the word person coming from Greek theater. Imagine a drama with one actor playing three parts – three characters – and to distinguish between the characters, the actor would make use of a particular mask for each part – that mask was called a persona. Persona: a word meaning to sound through. One actor would sound through a particular mask, a particular persona, a particular person for each character being portrayed. So – One Actor – one God – sounding forth through three masks – the Father, the Parent, the Source of all life, the Source of all Creation being one persona one mask. And the same Actor – sounding through another mask as the Son of the Parent/Source of all life. And yet one more mask for yet one more role – the same actor now donning the person, the persona of the Holy Spirit, of Dame Wisdom, Hagia Sophia. One actor playing three roles: Parent, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now – we can’t be linear in this – there are moments in this drama when the One Actor, the One we call God, is playing all three characters at once – which would seem to call for the One Actor having to do quite the juggling act with the masks as the three persons interact with one another. This is where perichoresis comes in – perichoresis ­– meaning to dance around. Long, long ago, the Trinity, the Three Persons were said to dance around a center. Imagine, the masks beyond the speed of light swirling round the One Actor in a perfect show of unity – a circle, without beginning, without ending – no line with one person, one persona, one mask, one character being first, another second, another third. Sure, it’s perhaps natural that we would talk about the characters, the persons hierarchically, as one coming first, another second, and the remaining character a distant third. But that would not do – only in a perfect circle, a perfect dance, perfect perichoresis – are the three persons co-equal in majesty, co-equal in splendor, of one equal accord.

And what of the One Actor at the center of this perichoresis who speaks – or perhaps sings – through three persons, what of the One Actor? Some of you here are, like me, advanced enough in years to remember a children’s hymn of another generation (and please pardon the gendered language): “Praise Him, Praise Him, All ye little children? – and what was the next line – remember it with me . . . . . . Precisely: “God is love, God is love.”  We call the One Actor at the center, the One God, love. Now, the English language isn’t always the best language to use when talking about the God who is love. In the Christian Scriptures, there are at least three words that each denote a different sort of love. And the word for the love that is from God and about God and is God is agape. Agape is a love that is limitless, unbounded, and unconditional – it is a kind of love that wills every good thing, that wills the very best things for all, even for those who will not ever be loving in return, even for those who hate the source of love. Now the drama that the One Actor, God, is presenting through three persons is an autobiographical play – all about the God who is love unlimited – and this play – the playwright seems to have decided it really needs three persona. The Parent persona presents the God who gives birth to the whole creation – and who like every proud parent – declares the one who has been born – good, very, very good. And the Only Begotten Son persona – that persona tells what you might not know otherwise – that the Parent persona is . . . indeed . . . always loving, not like some human parents – but an unconditionally, infinitely loving parent, one without favorite children. The Son tells of the Parent whose love can’t be earned, the Parent who will never disinherit a child, no matter what. And the third person – Holy Wisdom, Holy Spirit, the Breath of God – whatever it is you want to call her – She’s the persona who’s something like a kindly grandmother or doting aunt perhaps. She’s the persona who tells stories about the Parent and the Son, the persona who prepares scrumptious feasts, the persona who teaches us how to pray, the person who is there to comfort us in our times of trial – reminding us of the God, the One Actor whose drama this all is in the first place.

Back to words, back to language. Make no mistake – all these words – persona, perichoresis, agape – like all words and language, they are not the thing, the entity, the phenomenon to which they attempt to point. Even as the word apple is not the same as the piece of fruit – so all our words about God and the Most Holy Trinity – they are not the same as that to which they point – and our bumbling about with our words about God – sort of like oysters conversing about ballerinas. But they are, when all is said and done – all that we’ve got. And generation after generation after generation of people have lived in those words, have told their own stories with those words, have insisted that in the end there isn’t any other story to be told – and have insisted that the story must be told and in every generation – for the story about the Parent, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the story of how we are born, the story of how we are broken, the story of how we are mended – and those who tell the story – well, many of them would rather die than not tell the story – and many have gone to their death with this story on their lips. And by God, I have come here to say to you today that this story – and the way it’s told with words and with water and with bread and with wine – it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness – and I do believe, I do trust – the darkness has not and will not overcome this light, rather one day the light will overcome the darkness – not with violence, not with vengeance, not by obliterating it – but by loving the darkness into the light. Actually, I do believe that it has already happened – only we just don’t quite know it yet – though it already knows us.