What’s in a name? Recently at Trinity Church we have begun a custom of offering our names to one another as we exchange the peace. It seems to bring out something good in us as we share our names.
What’s in a name? Our name is among the first gifts that we receive when we come into the world. It represents our parents’ hopes for us and sometimes it carries family memories. All of our names have a story.
What’s in a name? Spend some time at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C. and you will witness the power of names. For 25 years, pilgrims have gathered at those big black walls engraved with the names of the dead. You see loved ones trace a name with gentle fingers. Sometimes they use tracing paper to take the name to the folks back home.
Our names are symbols through which we relate to the world. We take our symbols very seriously in the Episcopal Church as guides along the path to God. The 20th century theologian Paul Tillich said that "The symbol participates in the reality which is symbolized." And so today on Trinity Sunday, we reflect upon our name at Trinity Church and how it guides and blesses us.
Remember that the word Trinity became part of the Church’s language in the fourth century. In the year 325, the Church gathered for its first big conference, something like our modern Anglican councils. There were heated debates about the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ and how he fits into God’s ongoing divine plan. Finally, the notion of the Trinity was invented to describe the ways that we know God: through creation, through the person of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit.
This sounds neat and tidy yet it was anything but that at the Council of Nicaea. The conflict at that meeting more than matches the heat in the current debates of the Anglican Communion. This is a reminder that from the earliest days of the Church, we have discussed our faith and doctrine with great passion.
The questions posed at the Council of Nicaea are still relevant. How do we know God? How does the name of our church, Trinity, give us clues? It helps to begin by thinking of the Trinity as a dynamic rather than a doctrine. The Trinity is God’s dynamic hospitality offered to us through creation, through the person of Jesus, and through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
First, I want you to think about the sheer awesomeness of God as our creator. Consider the wonder of this fragile earth, our island home. You walked across it to get to church this morning. Be aware of the vitality in this room which is full of people who are listening. Sit completely still for a moment and be attune to your own beating heart, to the life pulsing through your body…isn’t it amazing? God’s creation is at work in you.
Now, think about the women who are giving birth today in Boston hospitals. Creation is unstoppable, it is happening all around us. The grass on Boston Common is busy growing while you sit in these pews, just as your lunch in the future is growing in someone’s garden today. The Hawaiian Islands are expanding even as I speak because lava beds continually change and grow. Creation is everywhere, all the time and provides for us. This means that the Creator is everywhere, all the time, providing for us. So how do we know God our Creator? We know our Creator through the air we breathe, the nourishing meal that we enjoy, and through our experience of life all around us.
This leads us to ask, "How can we little human beings connect to such a huge Creator God? Where is the hand we can grasp and hold onto in the midst of a vast creation?" Where else but the living, breathing presence of God offered to us in Jesus? The New Zealand Prayer Book refers to Christ as "Jesus our Beloved Companion."
He offers us hospitality at a table where we are fed and embraced by the Body of Christ.
Jesus our Beloved Companion taught us to seek God in our neighbor and in the world around us. From Jesus we receive gifts we do not earn and are invited to share them with humility. Through baptism in the name of Jesus we are stretched to care deeply for people beyond our personal preferences, people who are way off our radar screens. And when this gets to be difficult and risky, we look again to Jesus who lived and died for others, who rose to eternal life. We know God because we can touch the hand of Jesus.
The Trinity is God’s dynamic hospitality and it can take on surprising forms, especially in the third way that we know God. This is charged with energy and the unexpected: the Holy Spirit will surprise us every time. It is full of power that cannot be measured. Even the biblical writers could only speak of the Holy Spirit in metaphor: a mighty wind, or tongues of fire. But we can identify the fruits of the Spirit.
Perhaps you have experienced an insight, a revelation that clearly comes from beyond your own thought. Or perhaps you have known unexpected courage and have been surprised to hear your own voice speaking out in a crisis.
Or maybe you have been led to connect with someone very different from yourself and have discovered a common humanity. And then there are those times of unexpected healing, the deep solace in the midst of unbearable pain.
These few examples are all moments of grace, of poignant realization. They come to us as God’s power through an unpredictable Spirit in the room. This Holy Spirit always leads our spirits to a deeper and wider place.
And so we have the Trinity, God’s hospitality offered to us through creation, through Jesus Christ, and the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit.
But it is not enough for us just to know about the Trinity. We also want to live into the blessing of the Trinity in our daily lives. After all, it is our name.
We can find guidance for living the hospitality of the Trinity in another part of our story. Look back to earlier times in the life of the Church, and you will find that the Celtic Christians in Ireland and the British Isles lived with a keen sense of the Trinity everyday. Their prayers and customs have been recorded by a contemporary Anglican writer, Esther De Waal.
In the Outer Hebrides, the Trinity was invoked throughout daily routines with prayers passed on through generations. There was no time for formal prayers in a culture where everyone worked very hard. So, little prayers were said, some as short as Haiku poetry.
A woman began the day by splashing 3 palmfuls of water on her face in the morning and she prayed:
The palmful of God of Life
The palmful of the Christ of Love
The palmful of the Spirit of Peace
As she milked the cow and ground the corn, other short prayers shared the rhythm of her work. The Trinity was invoked as women sat at their looms, weaving cloth and praying by name for those who would later wear its garments. The men, too, remembered the Trinity as they went about their day’s work and silently chanted,
My walk this day with God,
My walk this day with Christ,
My walk this day with Spirit:
The threefold all-kindly.
Finally, the Trinity blessed the work at the end of the day when the peat fire was smothered for the night. Three peats were laid one at a time in the hearth. The first peat was laid in the name of the God of life, the second in the name of the God of peace, and the third peat was laid in the name of the God of grace. A prayer for the household was offered to the Three of Light.
For the Celtic Christians, the day’s work and ordinary routine was a pathway to God. Living and praying were inseparable. It was understood that work was important and necessary in itself, but that it also played a part in God’s world.
Today at Trinity Church, we live in a very different time and have very different work. And yet the simple Celtic prayer may be just what we need in the modern world. Try saying the names of the Trinity, the God of Life, the Christ of Love, and the Spirit of Peace as you rise and move through the day.
Or as you walk around in this great walking city, pray quietly: my walk this day with God, my walk this day with Christ, my walk this day with Spirit. These can be forms of deep prayer. Remember that God is not looking for eloquence, God is seeking our hearts. And remember also that your work plays a part in God’s world.
What’s in a name? In our name at Trinity Church, more than we can ask or imagine, it seems. As you sit in this great church today, embrace the name of the Trinity as the hospitality of God in your life. May it lead you ever closer to the heart of God as you are blessed through creation, loved through Jesus, and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
AMEN
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