Bearing the Truth
John 16:12-15

June 6, 2004

Those three short phrases spoken as water is administered in baptism have sparked a firestorm, to mix metaphors. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the recognition in many Protestant churches grew that the Father and the Son, the first two Persons of the Trinity were so obviously male and not female that females might have real problems translating God into their spiritual lives. Inclusive language has gradually become the norm in the wake of this realization, so much so that it jars the ears to hear even the classic words of John Donne, “No man is an island.”

Baptism was next: I baptize you in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. The latter are the functions of the three persons, and while they do not roll off the lips so easily, they do work intellectually for many.

But not for all. Eighteen or nineteen centuries of usage does not fade away easily. Traditionalists, conservatives simply resisted anything different.

The Orthodox Churches were something else. Not just that the Orthodox have had a millennium and a half head start on we Protestants, but that they have thought about the Trinity, talked about it, worshiped with the Trinity on their lips. They weren’t about to relinquish all that activity and passion to people who had come up with a new idea in one decade or two.

In the fellowship of the World Council of Churches, the Orthodox Churches pressed towards a definition. Any group that does not baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not a church. The Orthodox were seriously threatening to withdraw from the World Council for a lot of reasons, political and theological. The United Church of Canada was openly espousing the new formula, but three years ago the General Council blinked and reaffirmed the traditional phrases grudgingly, while allowing that other forms may be added as well.

No situation, especially one about ideas, is static. For the time being, we have made the better decision to opt for love and respect for our sisters and brothers rather than insist we are personally right.

So, for the time being, there are several things we can reap from all those centuries of conversations about the Trinity. Appropriately, let me offer three.

When we affirm the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are recognizing Persons, not bureaucrats. It is more difficult to love an It. The root of all prejudices and biases is to reduce a person to a function - the bus driver, the garbage man, the cleaning lady - to deny her a name. By not wanting to call God something personal, are we backing away from calling one another sister, brother, by name?

To think of God as Three Persons in One is almost humanly, intellectually impossible. This difficulty of understanding the Trinity insists that we are not yet right. We are pilgrims who have not made it quite yet to the Promised Land. Whenever we are certain that we have the final definition in hand, it can mean we have decided lots of others are not right - a perilous position for our souls.

Most importantly, however, the Orthodox churches have emphasized that the Trinity is a witness to the ultimate community of the Three Persons of God. Three Persons are distinct and have different functions to be sure, yet in this loving relationship they are so unified in purpose and assistance to one another that when one makes a decision it benefits all equally. Occasionally, you will find writers who collaborate on a book and they will not be able to distinguish at a later time who wrote what. Who can tell the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from one another, and does it really matter? The love and actions of God are shared by all three.

Bearing the truth is a hard job. It is not carrying around a collection of facts and formulas, but making that truth so much a part of you that the truth keeps changing you, modifying you, creating a new you.

Why do we keep bothering to talk about God in three ways, three persons, three activities? It is the Christian way to talk and think about God, and the Trinity was never meant to be an archaic museum piece of academic useless information. This way of being God reminds, instructs you how to love, how to think, how to live with other human beings in a relationship so giving and reciprocal and mutually beneficial that it no longer matters who gets credit for what.

The Christian Church has baptized in the name of the Triune God because it continually reminds you and me that God is more than we can ever imagine. Still, to hear that God takes on these three personalities and functions helps us to imagine how great a God we have.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan