Oh my God!
Am I a Unitarian?
In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity! Amen.
Last Sunday somebody thought I might have some Unitarian leanings because of some of the comments I made in my sermon. I do think thoughtfully about the Biblical narrative and I do question biblical literalism. So I can see how some might think that of me. My paternal grandmother was a Unitarian Universalist, so there is something of all that in my blood. But I am an Episcopalian so this whole business of the Trinity is very important to me. It makes me very comfortable to be in a Church dedicated to the Triune God. When my grandmother asked me to bury her, when the time came, I told her that I’d have to use the Trinitarian formula. I was younger then and a bit singleminded in my own theological bias. My grandmother looked at me with her piercing eyes, smiled and then very firmly but kindly said; “Buddy (that’s what they called me then) you bury me by whatever formula makes you happy!” Spoken, I might say like any true Unitarian Universalist.
St Patrick is said to have explained the Trinity by using a three leaf clover. It has three distinct leaves and yet is one; The Three in One and the One in Three! On the other hand my maternal grandmother often said; “Never in Two’s but in Three’s.” That applies to a whole wealth of wisdom and is at the heart of so much human experience. I’m not as smart as Patrick, I cannot “explain” the Trinity but I know in my heart that God is my Creator, Jesus is my Savior, and The Holy Spirit is a whole other dimension of God. She is the “Hagia Sophia” in my heart. She is the Gift Giver and the Holy Wisdom from on High. The word “Sophia” is a lovely feminine name.
The word for Spirit in Hebrew is “rucha, ruach”. Just listen to the sound of it and you can hear the breath or the winds of God. In Greek the word for Spirit is “pneuma”. It also suggests breath and wind. In the Hebrew the word is in the feminine form, in Greek it is in the neuter. The Spirit of God is unseen yet powerful. In English we derive the word pneumonia from “pneuma”. The struggle for breath is as critical to life itself as the ease with which we take it for granted day in and day out. It has been said that God is closer to us than the very next breath we take. Deep sigh here!
Another word for the Holy Spirit is “Parakletos” is our counselor; someone who will come to our aid as an Advocate. and Guide.
And in Eastern Christianity there is the notion of this “Hagia Sophia”, Holy Wisdom. She, is closely associated in Orthodoxy with the idea of the Holy Spirit and also with the person of Jesus. In fact the Great Church in Constantinople (now Istanbul) is called the “Hagia Sohpia” and stood for a thousand years as the center of Eastern Christianity.
The very concept of the Triune God is multifaceted. Not only as Father and Son, God also reaches out to us in the feminine dimension as well. I will tell you this; that it was both grandmothers who guided me to God. They were consummate storytellers. It was through the art of the story that they communicated the experience of God. God is made known to us in the Story, God’s story as well as our own. That story is given to us in an Anthology of stories called the Bible.
To me the idea of God has a very real feminine dimension, this in spite of the fact that the Church tends to name God Father to the exclusion of the other side of who God is. The totality of our experience of God requires the totality of who we are as human beings; male and female. For example we are after all created in the image of God. As we are told in the very first chapter of Genesis (vs 26 & 27)
“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
By the way this is the First Creation Story, the one in which God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The Second Creation story begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter and tells us the story of Adam and Eve. It is the story of disobedience and alienation, the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Things went from bad to worse in the second story. We had nothing of this in the First Story. You will remember that God rested on the Seventh Day and with a wonderful sigh of satisfaction called the whole creation “very good.” These two strands of thought weave their way through the Biblical Narrative. And from time to time we find ourselves one side then the other of that story; sometimes perfectly at one with God and the created order, at other times very much at variance, in violence, and alienated from from one another, from God and even ourselves.
In today’s Gospel the Greeks say they wish to see Jesus. I know I do and so do you. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”. But then when we do, in a few short verses, he is deeply troubled and in agony with God and wondering if he can be delivered from the suffering he is soon to endure. He answers his own question. “No, it is for this reason that I have come into this world. “Father, Glorify your name”. Interesting juxtaposition there! The glorification of Christ, the Gospel tells us, is in lifting him up on the cross where he can be clearly seen. Thus all the world will be drawn to him.
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us; “he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
This is a compelling idea and not at first easily understood. Friends, it is through suffering and obedience that Jesus becomes the source of eternal salvation for all who likewise obey him.
What does it mean to obey Jesus? It means more than saying those two syllables; “Je-sus”, doesn’t it? I would suggest to you that it is in the “Imitatio Christi” as Thomas à Kempis put it. It is in the “Imitation of Christ”: that we learn obedience; yes, and suffering too. We learn to love the unlovable: the outcast, the poor, the lame, the sick, and the mentally ill. We learn to forgive the unforgivable both our friends and our enemies, and most difficult, we learn to forgive ourselves. It is in learning to reconcile the irreconcilable; a most dangerous place to be. Peacemakers are often asked to pay dearly for that work.
I will tell you this of my experience of living in God. It is most often when I surrender that I find God most able to salvage something of my life. Ask anybody in the Twelve Step program and you will learn the same thing. I was once at the center of a controversy over building a homeless shelter in a suburban neighborhood near Charleston, West Virginia. There had been zoning disputes, law suits and even a death threat, but when my executive director ran up a $40,000 bill unbeknownst to me or to the board of directors, I had to fire him. It seemed as though all was lost. I gave up! I threw in the towel as it were. But lo and behold, the Bishop, the Diocesan Council, and the local bank would not allow me to fail. The Board of Directors and some very dear friends rallied around me and held me up!
We built a homeless shelter and it continues to provide housing for 28 persons every single night to this very day.
It is a funny thing about suffering and surrender. It is the central truth of the cross that in radical obedience to God and in total surrender with or without suffering, we find our way to eternal life.
Likewise at the very end of life itself, in great weakness, in total surrender, and often in much suffering, you and I and our loved ones all find our way with Jesus to eternal life!
The Prophet Isaiah said that the days are surely coming when God will write a new covenant, but this one will be written not in stone but within our hearts, and then the scripture says; “I will be their God and they shall be my people”.
So then dear friends am I a Unitarian or a Trinitarian? I know God my creator, I know Jesus my savior, and I know the Holy Spirit, The Holy Wisdom both my Grandmothers once taught me to love. And I know how to tell a good story!
You are living eternal life now dear friends! What is your story with God? Practice telling it to one another. The world is waiting for us to Lift up Jesus so that there may be some salvation. After all, the world is in a sorry state is it not!
In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity! Amen.
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