Our Image
Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20
June 19, 2011
For quite a while, this congregation has declared institutionally that worship has many faces. We have a provocatively entitled ministry, “Word, Worship, Music and the Arts.” Word, lots of words, and on Sunday mornings we don’t do liturgy, we worship – with music, to say the least and to say the best.
The unusual, if not unique, initiative was to include the Arts as part of our panorama. The Arts, not music per se, is usually more visual, but has not always found an obvious place in the Sunday morning drama. Our sanctuary is often graced by flowers and candles, communion table displays for specific days, banners and pulpit paraments, and there have been occurrences of dancing and drama, not least with the Junior Choir.
While traditional visual art doesn’t appear very often, today it will in the bulletin insert, unfortunately in mere black and white, of Andrei Rublev’s most famous icon painting of the three angels who mysteriously came to visit Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18. It is legitimate to question why bring in such a painting today, and the answer is that on this Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the church year based upon an idea, Rublev’s icon, painted around 1425 in the region around Moscow, has a more familiar name, “The Trinity.” I have heard countless explanations of the Trinity, the Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and most people roll their eyes and wonder whether it really matters. Words never seem to quite make sense about the Trinity, but by showing this seemingly simple painting we can see depicted in oil what we cannot say in ink.
The Word still finds its way into the icon. The very beginning of Genesis, the Creation of the World, and the last word of Jesus, the Great Commission in unique Trinitarian language in the Gospel of Matthew, will illuminate the painting as well.
Andrei Rublev, a monk of the Trinity Lavra near Moscow in the early 15th century, became the most famous icon painter in a revival of the art. The custom then was to coat the painting with a clear lacquer for protection and enhancement of colours, but eventually it turned black. There were a number of attempts to restore the painting, finally successful in the early 20th century, but the sharpness of the painting has suffered, but not its message.
In the heat of the day in ancient Israel, Abraham looked up to see three men right there in front of his tent. They had to be crazier than mad dogs and Englishmen, but Abraham knew there was something extraordinary about their presence. The Near Eastern obligation of hospitality weighed in and he was instantly off to prepare the fatted calf for his guests. Abraham and Sarah were both originally part of this painting, but their appearance was one of the casualties of the damage and restoration. The climax of the story was when one of the men told Abraham that Sarah would have a child in the next year. Abraham being 99 and Sarah a young 89, Sarah just had to laugh. But these were no men, these were angels.
But for Christian interpreters of the Bible, these were no mere angels, but the three persons of the Trinity. The Triune nature of God is the Christian idea among the world religions and the one that gives us much trouble. Naturally, Judaism does not accept the divinity of Jesus Christ and Islam takes the principle of the Oneness of Allah further, rejecting vigorously the three-fold nature of God as just another form of polytheism. Christians themselves have seldom found the One In Three formula easy to comprehend and restate.
In Rublev’s painting, the three persons are seated around a table and are pretty well equal in size, shape and demeanour. Other icons tried to depict the three persons of the Trinity, but tended to make God or Christ a noticeably larger figure, but not here. The three are equal and their faces are quite similar – different expressions, but the same general facial features – exactly what the concept of the Trinity declares, that all three are one, yet are nevertheless distinct.
But there are clues to the identities of the three in the colour of their garments which black and white cannot show. All three wear one blue garment, the colour of the heavens and therefore divinity. The figure on the left is the Father with only a blue undergarment peeking through a shimmering ethereal robe; the center figure is Christ with an undergarment of brown, symbolizing the earth and humanity; and the figure on the right is the Spirit with an outer garment of green or new life. The Son and the Spirit have their heads bowed and looking in the direction of the Father whose head is upright, his expression sorrowful, talking to the other two. They are in conversation about God knows what, but there is a circular, dare we say eternal, movement. They are all at ease with one another, the Trinity seen not as a ruling triumvirate, but as a family in continual conversation with one another concerning matters of heaven and earth. Instead of our human tendency to demand that there be someone in charge, God is in the first instance a community and family of equals who are always talking to one another, giving occasional deference to the skills and talents of the three persons.
When the Creator gets around to creating humanity, the resolution is declared, “Let us make humanity in our image.” This is the image Rublev paints for us to see. The three angels look like us, talk like us, and we are certainly capable of acting like them in conversing and sharing and being family. Where do we act this way most faithfully, fill in the colours of this image most completely? – in the church. We human beings have always been notoriously difficult to figure out and comprehend, so seeing ourselves as images of the One in Three and the Three in One is eminently fitting.
At the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus commissions his disciples to go out and baptize all nations, in other words, spread the Word everywhere, share it everywhere, don’t keep it hidden as a prized possession anywhere. He adds with a twist that you should baptize all those people and nations “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When you do something “in the name of …” you are following as closely as you can the behavior and characteristics of the name you are saying you follow. So, let us be equal, recognizing and appreciating everyone’s purpose, and instead of trying to lord it over others, escort them into the family, don’t wait for them to pay their dues. Keep talking and listening to one another, see how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit listen and learn from one another continually. And while you are being properly Trinitarian, remember that Jesus said to Go out and make disciples, don’t just stay inside the church and wait for everyone to come in.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan