TODAY, as part of my training as a Methodist minister, I shared this reflection on Trinity Sunday. This feast falls eight weeks after Easter. This year it coincides with Father’s Day in the UK.
This term, I am on a placement in a different area. I am preaching in churches in that area for the first time. Trinity Sunday is a challenging day on which to preach. You may have heard about senior clergy who delegate preaching on this day to junior clergy and trainees. I hope I have risen to the challenge. The readings for the day were Proverbs 8: 1-4; 22-31, Romans 5: 1-5, and John 16:12-15.
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago… I was beside him, like a master worker … delighting in the human race.
– Proverbs 8:22,30-31.
These words spoken by Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs echo the creation story. In Genesis 1 we read:
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth… the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.
– Genesis 1:1-2.
And later:
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.
– Genesis 1:26-27.
They also echo the opening of John’s Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things came into being through him…
– John 1:1-3.
Since the early days of the church, Christians have used this imagery to explore aspects of God’s nature, and develop an understanding of these ‘characters’, or characteristics, as three roles or ‘persons’ of God – Father, Son, and Spirit, or Creator, Word, and Wisdom – what we now call the Trinity.
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in France in the second century after Christ, identified Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs with the Holy Spirit, and the Word in John’s Gospel with Jesus, as aspects of God, not just go-betweens from humanity to God.
Notice that in Genesis, God uses the words ‘us’, and ‘our’, which sounds like a group talking to each other, or about themselves, then in the next verse, God is ‘him’ – one ‘person’. Theologians have wondered about how God can be both ‘they’ and ‘he’ since before Jesus was born!
Which makes the description of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs even more fascinating, as Wisdom is described in feminine language. Wisdom is portrayed as a woman with the qualities of a prophet, which is unusual in the Hebrew Bible. But it is the portrayal of Wisdom’s part in creation that has led to Wisdom being understood as an image or aspect of God, identified with the Holy Spirit. Earlier, Proverbs chapter 3 says:
‘By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations’
– Proverbs 3:19.
And in the passage we heard, Wisdom describes herself as being beside God ‘like a master-worker’ from before earth and heaven were created [Proverbs 8:30].
Wisdom is not the only feminine image of God in the Bible – perhaps you can think of some?
For example:
- A mother bird protecting her young, in Deuteronomy, Ruth, Psalms, and when Jesus speaks of Jerusalem in Matthew and Luke’s gospels.
- A mother bear protecting her children in the prophecy of Hosea.
- As a human mother, in childbirth, and breastfeeding, in the prophecy of Isaiah.
But the personification of Wisdom as a woman is the only one so strongly related to God’s being from the beginning. While the Hebrew word for Wisdom is grammatically gendered as feminine, many Bible commentators recognise that the meaning of this female personification is more than just grammatical. It may teach us about what we might understand as the ‘feminine’ aspects of God’s nature.
So theologians have wondered for centuries, how can God be ‘they’, ‘he’ and ‘she’?
I wonder, how can God not be?
[This year, Trinity Sunday falls on Father’s Day. So, on this Trinity Sunday and Father’s Day, it may be helpful for some to reflect on the qualities of God as Father, while for others it may be a challenge. As the Archbishop of York said to the Church of England’s governing body in 2023:
‘I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life’.
Some people prefer to draw on the breadth and diversity of our Hebrew and Christian traditions. They aim to use more inclusive and expansive language about God. For example, the representation of Wisdom as a feminine aspect of God complements the masculine aspect of Jesus. It also reflects the masculine and feminine representations of God throughout our Scripture and tradition. If we look again at the Genesis creation story,
God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness
– Genesis 1:26
So all of humankind is made in God’s image, not just us men! As Wisdom prophesies:
‘My cry is to all that live’.
– Proverbs 8:4
I have found great insight from working with a United Reformed Church minister called Alex Clare-Young, After research into the experiences of Christians who don’t conform to traditional masculine and feminine gender stereotypes Alex concluded that:
‘God is entirely genderless and entirely genderful’.
God is beyond gender. Masculine and feminine images help us understand aspects of God. God is always beyond our full understanding. Language about God should help us to understand and encounter God. We should not confuse the reality of God with the limits of our language.
For those whom the image of God as Father is helpful and life-giving, that’s good. However, it’s not all there is to say about God. It’s OK to seek out other language, other images, and other ways of connecting with God. It’s not helpful to criticise those for whom a masculine image of God doesn’t work, as some did in response to the Archbishop of York’s speech.
The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr writes:
‘All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe… And we must – absolutely must – maintain a fundamental humility before the Great Mystery. If we do not, religion always worships itself and its formulations and never God.’
Or to put it more simply, as the children’s song says:
‘Our God is a great big God… beyond my wildest dreams’!
So words about God may be limited, but what about images?
Perhaps the most famous representation of the Trinity is this 600-year-old Russian icon (see image at the top of the page or on this link) . It is also known as The Hospitality of Abraham. It depicts the three strangers who visited one of the founders of our faith [Genesis 18:1-15]. Angels in the Bible are sometimes God’s messengers of God, and sometimes personifications of God. Genesis says God appeared to Abraham as ‘three men’. The icon shows the three angels, or representations of God, looking toward each other. The one representing the Spirit gestures to the empty place where Abraham would have sat. As the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament says:
‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’
– Hebrews 13:2
At the front of the table on the icon there appears to be a little rectangular hole. Art historians believe there was once a mirror at the front of the table, so you, and I, could see ourselves as the host, or the guest.
If we take the image of God in this icon seriously, along with the images of Wisdom in Proverbs and Word in John’s gospel, we could say: ‘In the beginning was the Relationship.’
- How does it feel to be invited into relationship with God: Father, Son, Spirit – Creator, Word and Wisdom?
- How does it feel to invite God in, like Abraham did?
- How do we receive God’s hospitality?
How does it feel now to see the Trinity portrayed in this modern icon? They are depicted as three women with different skin colours, seated at a table draped with a rainbow flag. They represent people who have been treated as ‘other’ because of gender, ethnicity, sexuality. They challenge us to see God in them, and everyone. The artist writes:
‘The other may have something to teach us about what we know, about who God is, the world we live in and who are our neighbors.’
– Kelly Latimore.
The first image challenges us to wonder what it’s like to be at God’s table. This image invites us to consider who is missing from God’s table – and ours.
If any of these words or images of God challenge, I invite you to talk with God about them. In John’s gospel chapter 16, Jesus says ‘the Spirit of truth… will guide you into all the truth’. God’s spirit of truth can and does take us out of our comfort zone – because that’s how we grow.
John Wesley, founder of our Methodist tradition, wrote:
‘I believe this fact… – that God is Three and One. But the manner, how, I do not comprehend… I believe just so much as God has revealed, and no more. But this, the manner, [God] has not revealed; therefore, I believe nothing about it.’
– Wesley, On The Trinity para 15.
Wesley taught that the good news of the Gospel is based on Jesus and the Spirit being equally divine and one with the Father.
When St Paul wrote to the Romans, he did not have such a developed understanding of God as Trinity. That word wasn’t used until more than 100 years later. It didn’t become part of the Creed until more than 150 years after that.
Paul attempts to explain how God, Christ and Spirit relate to each other, and to us. Paul says the benefit of being justified through faith is a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This relationship brings peace, grace, hope of God’s glory and God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This is the fact of the Trinity in which Wesley believed, which began this movement of the Spirit called Methodism. How God is ‘Three in One’ is not as important. What it reveals about God, and our relationship with God is what matters most.
On this Trinity Sunday, and every day, the God of relationship invites us to be part of this divine community. Can we accept this invitation? Can we, in turn, include others to be part of God’s welcome? As Wisdom prophesies:
‘My cry is to all that live’.
As Jesus says to his disciples in John’s gospel:
‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.’
– John 16:12
So, I’ll end with a prayer:
God For Us, we call You Father,
God Alongside Us, we call You Jesus,
God Within Us, we call You Holy Spirit.
You are the Eternal Mystery
that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,
even us, and even me.
Every name falls short of your Goodness and Greatness
We can only see who You are in what is.
We ask for such perfect seeing.
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be. Amen.– Richard Rohr, OFM
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