20^th July 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 15 June 2014

Lessons - Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; Matthew 28:16-20

Jesus said to them, 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you.' (Matthew 28:18-20 NRSV)

This is the day on which the Church's faith is most clearly expressed and
most sorely tested! Christian worship is marked by adoration, confession
and intercession to the triune God. The doctrine of the Trinity sets forth
Christian faith in God. It gives a distinctive shape to belief in God in
contrast with the monotheistic faiths of Jews, Muslims and Deists ('God is
One') and the pluralistic faiths of many religions and New Age
spiritualists ('God is many').

Trinitarian language is puzzling. We may wonder if sense can be made of
'One in three' in speaking of God. We may think that belief in the Trinity
is optional or that it obscures 'simple faith' in God. Is it only for
theologians who, like the White Queen in Alice through the Looking Glass,
take a certain perverse pleasure in 'believing six impossible things each
day before breakfast'?

To many people, the Trinity is not only incomprehensible, but nonsensical.
Scepticism abounds. Atheists, rationalists, Mormons, Masons and Jehovah's
Witnesses are highly critical of trinitarian belief, complaining that its
tri-theism or deification of the man Jesus is idolatrous or that it is too
impersonal. Liberals and evangelicals squirm at what they think is dry
doctrine: a complex, outdated 'faith explanation' that is unreal. (E.g. M
Morwood, Is Jesus God? p81ff).

It is a great pity that profound insights into the nature of God are
belittled or misunderstood in this way! Faith in the Trinity is a
positive, joyful affirmation of God's breathtaking mercy to wayward humans
and a warning not to make God in our image.

It is not a mathematical conundrum to bewilder us! Nor is it the product
of abstract thinking that distorts Jesus' simple, personal message. It
came about because people were so enthralled and enchanted by the
inexhaustible 'mystery' of God's incomparably gracious self-revelation in
Christ. Seeing in him the One who embodied the magnificence of God, they
were forced to re-think their understanding of God. Simple expressions of
faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit 'cried out for fuller
elaboration'.

They did not 'invent' the Trinity but 'uncovered' what is hidden in
thinking about and experiencing God's revelation in Christ's life, death,
resurrection and ascension. 'Faced with the choice between an invented God
who could be understood without the slightest difficulty, and the real
God, who could not, the Church unhesitatingly chose the latter.' (A
McGrath, Understanding the Trinity, p151.)

As they thought about their faith in the 'otherness' of God (Yahweh or
'Father'), their calling as Jesus' disciples ('Son') and the presence of
God in the ministry of Jesus and in their midst ('Holy Spirit'), they
concluded that God's self-giving love for Israel and humanity must be
expressed in terms of the Trinity.

They were compelled by their experience of Christ and the logic of faith
in him to hold together two things: the 'unity of God' (God is One) and
the relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (God exists in
communion). So they said that 'God is Love' and that 'God exists in a
community of perfect Love'.

Both things had to be said simultaneously! Otherwise, the splendour of
God's love revealed in Scripture would be dulled. Having experienced the
fullness of God's grace in Christ, they had to speak of him as 'God
incarnate'. Knowing that Jesus and his 'Father' shared a relationship of
deepest love, and that the Spirit was active in creation, in Israel's
life, in Jesus' ministry and in the Church, they had to speak of distinct
'persons' in God.

It is not easy to express 'the mystery of God's triune being with us' in
words or images, particularly because it is characterised by the deepest
Communion of Love, for which there is no human parallel. The love between
Father, Son and Holy Spirit is perfect love that overflows in love for
imperfect humans who, unlike the persons of the Trinity, do not fully love
God or our closest friends and families or those who have wronged us.

Far from being irrelevant or a barrier to simple faith, faith in the
Trinity is necessary to express the unparalleled breadth and depth of
God's free, costly and victorious love for us. It expresses the Christian
conviction that in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we have the Being of
God, and though we have to distinguish between God in Himself (the
Father), God incarnate (the Son), and God working in us (the Holy Spirit),
it is always the One God with whom we have to do.' (From G Hendry, The
Gospel of the Incarnation.)

Important though it is to think deeply about the mystery of God's self-
revelation in Christ, the Church's primary task is to worship the Trinity
in song, prayer and sacraments. Thus she will glorify the One God known to
us in the outpouring of Love for imperfect people that flows from the
communion of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is magnificently expressed in Together in Song 478. Legend has it
that St Patrick (389-461) said these words whenever he wrapped himself in
a protective 'lorica', a bullet-proof leather vest, before going out to
preach. We expect preaching to be soothing, but he expected to meet stiff
resistance from dark forces that wanted to silence him.

He is well aware (vv 5,6) of personal temptations and threats from powers
of idolatry, vice, heresy, superstition, torture and death. In verses 1 &
8 he invokes 'the strong name of the Trinity' to encourage, protect,
comfort and refresh him in his vital and dangerous work (vv 4,7). At the
start and end of this magnificent hymn (vv 1,8) he pledges his commitment
to God 'the three in one, the one in three'. His often difficult calling
is encompassed by faith in the Triune love of God.

The hymn urges us to put our faith, not in ourselves or in a vague,
impersonal Deity, but in the inexhaustible mystery of God's gracious self-
revelation. He is so enthralled and enchanted by what God has done, is
doing and will do through the incarnation, baptism, death, resurrection,
ascension and return (which are magnificently affirmed in v2) that he is
confident that Christ will strengthen him in any situation he must face
(v8).

In view of this it is most unfortunate - and serious - when the triune
love of God is dismissed as an 'outdated faith explanation'. In our multi-
faith society, which promotes diversity of religious belief, the Church is
called on to worship the One God. Also in our community, which promotes
love as the expression of an individual's desires, the Church is called to
witness to the perfect love that exists within God and overflows in Love
that redeems our imperfect loves.

Today, we are faced with attacks on Christian faith which deface the
magnificence of God's Love. We must resist the temptation to simplify the
Gospel falsely so it conforms to what our small minds and shrunken hearts
think is reasonable or relevant. Our confession of faith in the triune
love of God is not abstract or impersonal but a joyful, open-hearted act
of defiance against every self-centred attempt to 'domesticate' God. It is
our response to the revelation of the unparalleled grace of God that
cannot be adequately contained in everyday thoughts and experiences.

The doctrine of the triune love of God expresses the 'marvellous
incomprehensibility' and inexhaustible 'mystery' of God's gracious self-
revelation in Christ. Triune language expresses the magnificence of God's
love for us and all people in ways that prevent us from making God in our
own (small) image and enables us to truly worship God.

As the One God is united in the Holy Communion of Love that exists between
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so we are bound to him (and to one other) in
preaching the Gospel of Love and participating in the Sacrament of Holy
Communion, knowing that we are upheld by grace no matter what trials beset
us.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is the minister of St John's Uniting Church,
Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is a member of the Council
of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.