TRINITY SUNDAY, St Mary's Potters Bar
You may be surprised to know that there’s a connection between the Charlie Brown cartoons, and the mystical theology of St Bonaventure in the 13th century! I’m thinking of one Charlie Brown cartoon in particular: Charlie Brown is lying on a hillside along with his friends Lucy and Linus (Lucy is the know it all loudmouth and Linus her quiet piano playing, comfort blanket hugging brother). The three friends lay there looking up at the sky watching the clouds pass by.
Charlie says: "If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations…What do you think you see Linus?" Linus considers for a while and then says: "Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean….. That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor….. And that group of clouds over there reminds me of the stoning of Stephen…..I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side…..". "That’s very good", says Lucy. "What do you see in the clouds Charlie Brown?" "Well," says Charlie, "I was going to say I could see a ducky and a horsie, but I’ve changed my mind!"
The link with St Bonaventure (which you can probably already sense is a little tenuous!) is that he too looked and saw very clearly. When he looked up at the sly, or around at creation, or at the spiritual experience of human beings in their journey into God, he saw - not a duckie or a horsie (or anything more elaborate) – but he saw Threes. Trios. Trinities. Whatever he was trying to describe, it would be three-fold – a bit like the traditional preacher’s three point sermon. It is wasn’t just a convenient way of organising his information, or communicating his understanding. Bonaventure saw the world in threes, because in everything he saw the mark of God. God the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So if Bonaventure were lying on the hilltop with Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown, he’d be pretty predictable in what he thought he could see!
Today is Trinity Sunday. Since the fourth century the church has placed a huge emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity as the touchstone of orthodox Christian belief. Not surprisingly that was quickly reflected in the church’s liturgy – and came to a climax in the days following the feast of Pentecost. There’s a logic there, of course. We believe in the Trinity simply because that it how the Church has experienced God – the Creator who sent the Son and the Spirit: one God, experienced and known in three distinct ways. So to celebrate the Trinity having told the story of Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost is a way of putting all the pieces together.
For those of you who like liturgical detail, it really took off as a festival in its own right in the 12th century. Thomas Becket was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury on 3rd June 1162, the Sunday after Pentecost – and decreed that it should be kept as a celebration of the Trinity thereafter. Then in the 14th century Pope John XXII fxed the celebration across Christendom. [So now you know….]
Of course, the biggest mistake one could make on Trinity Sunday (or in fact at any point in the Church year) is to try and explain the understanding of God as Three in One and One in Three. It is something that if we try to understand it in its entirety, we can only fail. We can explore, and contemplate the nature of God, but he will never be fully known – at least not in this life.
I caught a snippet of a programme on Radio 4 a while back (I think it was about Jean-Paul Sartre and his partner Simone de Beauvoir but I may be getting confused there!) but the point was made that in any relationship there ought to be part of the other person which remains unknown, which remains a mystery. Well if that it true for human beings, how much more true that is of God. If we know all there is to know - about husbands, wives, children, parents, friends - then there is no need to reach out, there is no longer any need to grow closer.
Back to Bonaventure - whose theological and spiritual outlook was based on the experience and spirituality of St Francis of Assisi. For Bonaventure, God is Trinity because God is love. And God is love, because God is trinity. To believe that God is revealed to us as Father Son and Spirit is to believe that God is about relationship. The very nature of God is relationship. An interdependence, a mutuality and equality in love. That’s what God ‘looks like’ when we are talking about the Trinity. And its because God IS relationship, that our relationships are so crucial. By being in right relationship with one another, with the environment, with God, within families, churches, religions and communities – by being in right relationship with one another, we reflect the nature and heart of God.
When you come forward for Communion this morning you’ll have a chance to look a bit more closely at the icon on/by the altar. It will be familiar to many of you, and is based on an original by Andrei Rublev. It’s called ‘The Hospitality of Abraham’, or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’. It represents God – Father, Son, and Spirit – sitting at table and inviting you to join them. An invitation to accept their hospitality, and to enter into their relationship of love. And as you come forward for Communion, or for a Blessing, that invitation is made to you once more. An invitation to intimacy.
In any relationship there ought to be part of the other person which remains unknown, which remains a mystery. You and I may more often feel more like Charlie Brown than St Bonaventure in terms of what we are able to perceive or understand about God – but in our relation with one another and with the world around us, may we be drawn into that intimate relationship that is at the heart of who God is. That intimate, loving relationship which holds together the whole of creation. Amen.