The Dance of the Trinity

John 16:12-15

In John 16:12-15, the Trinity Sunday Gospel reading, we find just four sentences; but in this handful of words, we see a glimpse into the wild mystery that we call the Trinity. Jesus, the Son, is talking about the coming of the Spirit and the Spirit glorifying him. He also says all that the Father has is his as well. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… one God made of three distinct persons.

Theologians have written volumes and volumes about the Trinity and historically it has been the source of some nasty division and conflict. People are often open to the idea of God the Father and even God the Spirit but the idea that a young Jewish man from a blue collar family, who grew up in the backwoods area of Nazareth, was actually God incarnate tends to stir up a little more debate. This doctrine was clarified and articulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE where they were wrestling with whether Jesus was homoousia with God – of the same substance or homoiousia – of like substance. There was a good bit of disagreement on this until Emperor Constantine stood up and said that Jesus was homoousia, of the same substance as God and therefore truly divine. He went on to say that anyone who did not sign on to the Nicene Creed would be exiled and potentially executed. Which is one way to quickly reach group consensus.

I was in seminary in my 20’s when I learned that our Nicene Creed, this declaration of Trinitarian doctrine which we say every week, was pushed through with the threat of violence. And in all honesty, this was surprising and upsetting. I thought surely through Scripture, tradition, and reason we can prove the divinity of Christ and Trinitarian doctrine. I went on a theological tear researching the Trinity. With the dedication of a first-year med student in gross anatomy, I started dissecting Scripture. I dug into the Hebrew of the Old Testament looking for clues about the Trinity before the birth of Jesus. I scoured the New Testament comparing Greek and other translations. I read commentaries, historical documents, and even scientific articles. And after all my time and energy and mental mojo was exhausted, I discovered a few things. First, there is no empirical evidence to prove or disprove the doctrine of the Trinity. I realized that, ultimately, this doctrine resides in the realm of mystery. While reason and logic are helpful tools, they are limited in reach. And I also found that after all that intense research, my heart had grown cold and I even felt apathetic about the whole topic.

Author EB White once remarked that, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” In this same way, purely analyzing the doctrine of the Trinity makes Christianity a sterile affair and robs it of life. This is the reason so many folks jokingly call seminary “cemetery.” Our faith and spirituality is dissected and pinned to a board. You are left with lots of information and often times a dying faith.

So in that research process, I discovered that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a riddle to be solved but a mystery to be explored. It is not an impersonal theological system to be analyzed but rather a dynamic relationship to be entered. As I approached this doctrine with an open heart, the Trinity was transformed from a frustrating mental exercise into an infinite landscape with mountain ranges to hike, rivers to swim, and new territory to discover. In the words of author Anne Lamott, “I didn’t need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”

So, with open minds and with open hearts, let’s spend a few minutes exploring the infinite landscape we call the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and see what unfolds.

In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is described as living from all eternity in the bosom of the Father… this is an ancient metaphor for love and intimacy. In our reading today from John 16, Jesus states that the Spirit will glorify the Son. Later in the book of John, Jesus says he glorifies the Father (17:4) and the Father glorifies the Son (17:5). But what does this really mean? All of this glorifying each other? In brief it means to enjoy and delight in the other.

To glorify something simply means to truly delight in it. Maybe you’ve experienced these moments in your own life. Can you think of a song or piece of music that when it comes on you make everyone else be quiet? Maybe it’s Vivaldi or Brahms or perhaps a song from The Beatles or The Avett Brothers (or even secretly Taylor Swift). Maybe it’s a piece of artwork that you could stare at for hours. Or maybe the first time you saw that guy or girl that made you stop in your tracks. I remember when I was 18 and saw my future wife Beth across the room. I was gob-smacked. After my temporary paralysis wore off, I made a bee line across the room and struck up a conversation. She filled all my thoughts.

When something is useful, you enjoy it for what it can do for you. But if something is beautiful, you enjoy it simply for what it is. Your joy is to see their joy. This is the opposite of self-centeredness where everything orbits around your own needs. In this description of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit glorifying each other, the trinity each makes the other the center… the core is self-giving love.

Pastor and New York Times Bestselling author Tim Keller describes this dynamic beautifully, “When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into a dynamic orbit around him or her, we center on the interests and desires of the other. That creates a dance, particularly if there are three persons, each of whom moves around the other two. So it is, the Bible tells us. Each of the divine persons centers upon the others. Each voluntarily circles the other two, pouring love, delight, and adoration into them. That creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love.”

This idea of the dance of the Trinity is not new. The early church fathers coined the phrase perichoresis [Ancient Greek περί (peri, “around”) + χορεύω (khoreuō, “dance”)] describing the Trinity in a “holy dance.”

Forth Century Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Hilary of Poitiers, captures this concept poetically as he writes that each person of the Trinity, “reciprocally contains the others, so that one permanently envelopes and is permanently enveloped by, the others whom he yet envelopes.”

So, what does this mean for us… this dance of the Trinity? It means the nature of the universe, the center of all creation, is a divine celebration of love and joy. The doctrine of the Trinity declares that love is, in the words of Anglican author CS Lewis, “the great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality.” And, Scripture teaches, that you were created in the image of God. You were designed to be right in the middle of the dance of the Trinity, constantly growing in awareness of this endless celebration splashing all around you and within you.

We all have within us deep longings which nothing in this world seems to satisfy. No matter how much money, power, or popularity we amass, our souls are still hungry. That is because we are designed to find soul rest within the unconditional love of God… within the dance of the Trinity. It is what we are designed for… it is the proper medium for our souls.

If you take an artfully engineered hang-glider and submerse it under water, it will not fly, but just sink. Why? It was designed for the medium of air, not water. Place it in the sky and it will soar. In this same way, we were designed for the medium of God’s unconditional love and acceptance… it is in this medium that we take flight and soar. We learn more and more how deeply loved and accepted we are which allows us to truly love and accept others.

So how do we grow in awareness of this unconditional love? Is this illumination and awareness reserved only for the elite mystics and saints? Absolutely not… it is hardwired into your very DNA. Scripture and our tradition teach that God is dancing around and within you right now. This idea of immersion in the presence of God is not new. Listen to 13th century Franciscan St. Bonaventure’s translation of 1 Corinthians 15:28, “God is an intelligible space whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere… God is within all things, but not enclosed, outside all things but not excluded, above all things but not aloof, below all things but not debased… God is supremely one and all inclusive, God is therefore ‘all-in-all’.” You don’t have to do a thing to earn God’s presence or call it down. You are simply invited to allow God to slowly open your eyes… everyday… for the rest of your life.

Sadly, many people choose not to make the space in their busy lives to tend to their inner spiritual journeys. Many folks live their entire lives in anxious self-consumption oblivious to the love and beauty all around and within. This is what spiritual masters call living asleep or living dead. But we are each invited to so much more… clearly and beautifully articulated in the mission statement of this church… To know Christ and make him known through an inward journey of faith and an outward journey of service.

To tend to our inward journey of faith we must slow down and create the space to grow in awareness through spiritual practices. Like a farmer, we cannot make the seeds grow but we can till the soil and wait with expectation. If you don’t till the soil through spiritual practices, the seeds aren’t going to grow.

This reminds me of an old story when a Zen master tells a student that he, as a human being, is already enlightened, even before beginning the path of meditation. The student asks the master, “If I am already enlightened, why do I have to sit and meditate so much?” The master replies that the sun rises on its own every morning, but if the student doesn’t wake up, he will never see the sunrise.

By creating space in your life and engaging in spiritual practices you do not make the sun rise, but you can wake up to see the beauty of the sunrise, which dawns on its own. (This idea is nuanced and wonderfully explored in David Frenette’s book The Path of Centering Prayer).

How do we get up to see the sunrise? To grow in our awareness of the dance of the Trinity?

There are many ways to slow down and create space in your life and they are all rooted in living in the present moment. In reading the spiritual masters who have written throughout the centuries, I have seen a common thread connecting all their works… real spiritual maturity is the ability to live in this present moment. Not worrying about the future or dwelling on the past but realizing that this present moment is the only moment we have to truly live. Being present and simply paying attention.

So you don’t have to wait… start right now. Even now ask our very present God to open your eyes to the dance… as we corporately speak the Nicene Creed, allow your mind and heart to be engaged by the words. When you share the peace, look each other in the eye and realize you are a conduit of divine love extending the very welcome of Christ to one another. When you step foot into the aisle to celebrate the Eucharist, know that the heart of God leaps in anticipation of intimacy with you. And as you leave Holy Trinity and start your week, know that you remain squarely in the middle of the joy-filled dance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.