In the name of God, Father, Son, Spirit, Holy Three in One, Holy Trinity. Amen.
As the youngest member of the staff, I drew the short straw for preaching on the Feast of the Holy Trinity. It is always an honor to preach on the feast of title of a parish, but as you can imagine, perhaps, preaching on the mystery of God as Three in One is always a daunting task for a priest. It can feel presumptuous to speak about what it means for God to be Holy Trinity. In addition, when I was a child, this always marked the beginning of summer and because the sermon on the Trinity was always utterly incomprehensible, it marked the beginning of my stopping to listen for several months. I hope to avoid that with you this morning.
So here we are in this parish named for the Blessed Trinity, but it's not us as just a building or an historical community that's named Trinity, but you and I as a community gathered. Somehow, this God who is mysteriously Three in One, whom we know as Father, Son, Spirit, has called us together to live and reflect the community that is God. Now that way of naming God as Three in One, Father, Son, and Spirit, the most traditional way of naming Trinity is only one of many, many ways that Christians down through the ages have tried to name God. Down through the centuries sages and sinners, saints and stumblers, have tried to plumb the mystery of God and name God as Holy Trinity in a wonderful array of images. Believing that no one set of images can capture the fullness of the infinite nature of God.
For instance, St. Augustin, that wise African bishop and theologian, from the 300's and 400's, imaged the Three in Oneness of God as lover, beloved and the love exchanged and overflowing. Our brothers and sisters in the much-maligned middle ages loved to see the Three in One God as alive and at work in the natural world. So that we wouldn't think that somehow God as Trinity is distant, cut off from our life. And so they named the Trinity and saw it at work in such varied images as one from Botany, seed, plant, pollen. Or one from Light, the light that our eyes are able to pick up, we now know with the cones of our eyes the three primary colors that our eyes can see, red, green, blue. Or music, that the world somehow sings with the Trinity, in the three primary chords that make up all of western music, tonic, dominant, sub-dominant. But the image of God that I would like us to use and reflect on together this morning is one that comes from the early days of the church as well and images God as Trinity as a Holy Circle Dance, a Holy Circle Dance.
In the Greek that the early theologians used, the word is pericoresis, a word you probably never heard before and will never hear again. Though if you Google it you'll find quite a number of hits. What they saw as they imaged God as Trinity in this Holy Circle Dance was that from before the beginning, before there was ever time or creation, God had been dancing, dancing, dancing. And though dancing has fallen on hard times recently, what they meant by the Holy Circle Dance was something rather like what we used to call contra dancing or square dancing.
Now I happened to be away this past week on a continuing education event called CREDO where all priests in the Episcopal Church eventually go away to look at our vocation and our spiritual, physical and even financial health. On one of the nights of CREDO we actually had a contra dance together. When I saw it on the schedule I can't say I was thrilled. I hadn't done contra dancing since I was a teenager, and that was quite a while ago. But what I began to realize as I watched and yes, even participated, in the dancing, was that there is an amazing kind of graciousness of movement in that kind of dancing. The bowing, the curtseying, the circling around each other known as do-si-do. So gracious, so giving, so joyful and so yes, I even ended up enjoying the evening though I hadn't looked forward to it. What our early theologians saw was that that is the kind of dance that God has been doing since the beginning, God as Trinity bowing, curtsying dosey doeing around one another. But that it didn't stop there, that the love they were expressing and the joy they felt in their dance together had to overflow into creation, the creation of all the beauty that we see around us, the beauty of one another, the beauty of our similarities and our differences. And so they thought of God in Creation as the Father singing creation into being and the Son as leaping down from heaven's heights to dance God's dance here into the world so that we could learn how to dance with God. And the Holy Spirit's continuing breath, breathing in us and among us, as giving us enough energy, enough spirit so that we could dance from here to our last day and then cross the line into the eternal circle dance that we know as eternal life.
Nice image, if you haven't fallen asleep yet, maybe you're asking, "How is this any better than the other images of God as Holy Trinity? What's this got to do with us?" Well in some senses it has everything to do with us. Because God's Holy Dance, contra dance, circle dance has come to dwell in our midst and God's intention for us is to live it out. To circle and dance with one another. In the words of Isaiah, God may be saying to us in every moment of every day, whom shall I send into this circle dance? Who will go for us? Who will bow, curtsy and do see do to show the love of God? And will we say with Isaiah, "here I am, send me."
Back to that dancing at the CREDO conference; some of it was easy and fun, but some of it wasn't so easy and fun. Because those of us who were CREDO participants found out that not only did we have similarities, we are all priests for instance, but we had many differences. We ranged in age from 39 to 55. We were men and women. We were black, white, Hispanic. We even turned out to be from many continents. One raised in Africa, another in England, another in Australia, one from the Caribbean, one from Mexico. We were gay and straight, conservative and very progressive and here we were trying to dance with each other.
Soon, as you heard the Vicar mention, the whole Episcopal Church will gather in General Convention and will have the opportunity to carry on a kind of contra dance together and those same similarities and differences that we saw at the CREDO conference, among us as priests, will be gathered in Columbus, Ohio. And there will be some votes taken, votes on momentous issues like; will the Episcopal Church ever again consecrate a gay bishop or not? Will the Episcopal Church take one side or another on the immigration issue? Will the Episcopal Church repent of its complicity in slavery and join in making reparation to those who were enslaved or not? Those of us gathered here today, probably some of us have many, many strong feelings on one side or another of those various issues, if we were to try to dance together, like the deputies and bishops gathered at General Convention, could we bow and curtsy and dosey doe with one another around God's altar. Even if we found we stood in separate places on those issues? If one vote went your way and another vote went mine, could we still dance together? Or would we say, no, I will only dance with those who see it my way and you can't come to God's altar with me if you don't agree. Whom shall I send? Who will go for us, God asks? Us, here at Trinity, and the whole Episcopal Church. Who will dance with us says the Holy Trinity to you and to me? Will you be able to dance together even if you disagree or will you banish some from the dance?
The dancing goes on in joy and in disagreement. The dancing also can go on when times are hard and there is suffering. Dancing isn't always beautiful, as I found out dancing at the CREDO conference, as I stepped on some other peoples' feet and they stepped on mine. Dancing hurts sometimes. The dance of life hurts. Is God separate from that part of the dance? Is God's dance with us only beautiful and joyful or does God dance with us when we hurt, when we die, when we watch someone that we love hurt or die? And if God does dance with us then, what would God have us do in the dance?
This past week those of us on the staff found out that one of the people that the Trinity Boston Counseling Center works with, a young man eighteen years old, who had been a part of the Department of Youth Services, moving in and out of prison and trying to get his life together. Who had finally managed to get his life together, was gunned down with his best friend on Bowdoin Street in Dorchester. And Nate Harris, who had been working with him this past year, is mourning for him. We prayed for him in the prayers this morning. I will call him Abel. How does this circle dance go on when someone dies? How does the circle dance go on when someone you love dies? Will the Christ who came to take the divine dance here into our midst, asks us, and so often we don't know how to answer this question, asks us, do you really believe that I am somehow distant, on some throne separated from you? Or do you believe that I am dancing in your mourning heart? And dancing, yes, in Abel's broken and dead heart? Do you believe it? Can the dance go on then?
Nate needs you to believe it. Abel's young son, Abel Jr. needs you to believe it. And all of us who hurt in this room in one way or another, need you to believe it because sometimes we hurt so much that we can't believe it. We need to believe it for each other, so that you can dance when I can't, so that I can dance when you can't.
Is that all we can hope for, a circle dance, where we're agreeing and disagreeing and bowing and welcoming each other even though we disagree? Or a circle dance that spirals up to heaven, away from the violence and death and destruction of this world? Or can we hope for one more thing? There is one more thing we can hope for. One more way that God's circle dance can be present here. On this Legacy Sunday, we remember two members of this parish, Helen Sherwin, Annie Galbraith, in whose memory the flowers are given to God's glory. Their part in our dance that we can witness has ceased, or has it? They remembered this parish in their plans for their wills. Their dance in some senses goes on. Maybe they're helping to fund the work of Nate Harris with the Abels of this world. And so you and I, the spirit calls us and asks, who will go? Who will dance for us? What circle are you dancing in already and can you continue to dance and welcome, even, those who don't agree with you into that circle? Or what new circle is God calling you to dance in? Some yet unimagined place where God wants the spirit of joyful love, forgiveness, bowing and curtsying to be spread. Can you dance? Will you dance? If you say, I can't always, I don't have the strength, I don't have the courage, I don't have the spirit. Don't despair. The Holy Trinity dances even when we cannot and continually invites us back into the dance. So as you consider where you are dancing or where you might, remember that there is One whose dance goes on. In the words of that hymn:
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black.
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone,
but I am the dance and I still go on.
They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that will never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me,
I am the Lord of the Dance said He.
So dance then wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance said He.
And I'll lead you all wherever you may be,
I'll lead you all in the dance said He.
Amen |
