The Holy Trinity is serious business,
so you don’t hear a lot of jokes about the Trinity,
but, maybe because I’m in the business,
I have actually heard one.
A bishop is at a parish for Confirmation
and decides that in his homily
he will quiz the teenagers
he is supposed to be confirming.
So he asks them,
“who can tell me what the Trinity is?”
They all look at their shoes,
in that way that teenagers do.
So he calls on one young man
who mumbles a reply,
in that way that teenagers do.
The bishop says,
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.”
The boy sighs,
in that way that teenagers do,
and replies, only slightly louder,
“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
The bishop, wanting the boy to speak up
so everyone can hear him,
says, “I’m sorry, I still didn’t understand.”
And the boy, rolling his eyes,
in that way that teenagers do,
says loudly and clearly,
“You’re not supposed to understand it.
It’s a mystery.”
Maybe not the best joke,
but it makes a point
about how many Christians approach the Trinity.
It is a doctrine that we are taught to repeat
but cannot possibly be expected to understand.
And this is true, in a sense,
because the doctrine of the Trinity says something about God,
and God is the ultimate mystery of existence,
which our finite minds cannot comprehend.
At the same time,
our Scripture readings for this feast of the Holy Trinity
do give us some insight
into why the Church came to profess belief
in a God who, while one,
is also three distinct persons who are equally God.
In our first reading, from Deuteronomy,
we hear rehearsed the fundamental tenant
of the faith of ancient Israel:
“that the LORD is God in the heavens above
and on earth below,
and that there is no other.”
God is one, utterly unique;
God has no competitor gods,
no rival deities;
God possesses the fullness of divine power
and God commands unwavering loyalty from God’s people.
But then, in our Gospel,
the risen Jesus tells his disciples,
“All power in heaven and on earth
has been given to me.”
The power that the book of Deuteronomy tells us
belongs to God alone,
Jesus says has been given to him
by the God he calls “Father”;
what the tradition of Israel says
can only be true of God,
Jesus claims as true of himself.
And finally, in the letter to the Romans,
Paul speaks of the “Spirit of God”
who has the power to make us co-heir with Christ,
so that we too cry out to God as our “Abba,” our father.
So the Scriptures,
while teaching that God is one,
also claim for Jesus and the Spirit
things that can only be true of God.
Not three gods, but one God
eternally existing in three persons,
who are united in a perfect and eternal dance of love,
each fully sharing in what it means to be God.
This is what that rather strange word “consubstantial,”
which we find in the Creed,
is trying to get at.
Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just as much God
as the Father is:
they are not demigods or messenger boys;
to say that the Son and Spirit
are “consubstantial” with the Father
is to say something
about the incredible intimacy of God with us:
the coming of Christ into our world
is the promised coming of God,
not the arrival of some emissary
dispatched by God from above;
the presence of the Spirit in our lives
is the presence of God,
not the presence of some go-between
linking us to a distant deity.
The mystery of the Trinity
is the mystery of eternal love,
eternal joy,
into which we have been invited
through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
The 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote:
“Do you want to know what goes on
in the heart of the Trinity?
I will tell you.
In the heart of the Trinity
the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son.
The Son laughs back at the Father
and gives birth to the Spirit.
The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.”
Leaving aside some finer points of theology,
Eckhart presents us
with a picture of the Trinity, of God,
as an eternal act of shared joy,
shared love,
shared hilarity,
ecstatically overflowing into the world
in our creation and redemption.
This is who our God is:
truly a mystery,
but not a mysterious force operating at a distance
nor an inscrutably stern heavenly lawmaker,
but something like the mystery of happiness
that arises from mutual love,
the mystery of an infectious act of eternal laughter
that draws us in and makes us laugh along
until cleansing tears of joy run down our faces.
So perhaps we should tell more—and funnier—
jokes about the Trinity.
Or maybe we should live our faith
in the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit
with such joy,
with such passion,
with such infectious hilarity
that those around us
cannot help but join in that laughter
and feel a bit more faith,
a bit more hope,
a bit more love.
