Trinity: Words Are Not Enough

 

Human beings communicate using words. For some of us lots and lots of words.

This morning is Holy Trinity Sunday and through the centuries tomes have been written to explain this doctrine of the church.  And although a lot of very smart people have spent lifetimes on the subject, their descriptions fall short and are oft times accused of being close to heresy.  As musician Jon English wrote – “Words are not enough.”

 

In this morning’s Gospel, Nicodemus and Jesus are having a conversation about the kingdom of God. Jesus says, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” and also, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh. What is born of Spirit is spirit.”

The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is a multilayered story, pregnant with possibility.  Stepping aside from traditional interpretations, this morning we are going to continue the conversation begun in the season of Easter, where we have considered how to tell the Gospel story, --- Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s love---- to a hurting world; exploring authentic and innovative ways to share the Good News.

When I heard the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, “the flesh is flesh and the Spirit is spirit,” I interpreted a dualism – two very different ways of being and understanding: body vs. spirit, thinking vs. feeling, ... and a lack of relationship between the two, other than they are on either end of a polarity. The conversation is full of words, what might be called ‘heady’ phrases issued by Jesus, thought provoking where Nicodemus -and of course ourselves- know we hear something important, but, can’t quite grasp the fullness of the explanation.  To top that, Jesus used ‘heady’ phrases to talk about the heart, the feeling, the action of Spirit, who is beyond words.

 

Although the church has spent centuries discussing and arguing about the nature of God – the doctrine of the Trinity- I would like to think that the discussion mirrors that of Jesus: ‘heady’ phrases that emphasize the dualism human beings make between using our heads and using our hearts. Perhaps the very idea of Trinity is to draw out the polarity, so that in trying to work out the nitty-gritty of the Trinity, the complex relationship of the Mystery has us give up and move to heart and experience --- drawing us to the centre of the relationship where the polarity crosses over.

Preacher Claudio Carvalhaes explains God as Trinity where Trinity’s nature and character is the relationship’s deep belonging and entanglements --- a very dynamic and moving being and action - as is all relational living.  Words are not enough to describe the fullness of this relationship.

In this place, where the polarity crosses over – where our heads and our hearts converge, here, one finds a synergy, life, possibility. It is here that language -words- are transformed.

The kin-dom of God is experienced (flesh and spirit, in water and word, thinking and feeling) in the language of art: poetry and spoken word; song lyrics and music; drama, theatre, and dance; visual art in a plethora of mediums; mathematical equations and coding.

 

Assistant to the Bishop Rev. Doug Reble tells this story in his sermon for today:

The story is told of a wealthy man, who commissioned Pablo Picasso to paint a portrait of his wife.  When the portrait was completed, the man was shocked to see the image that had been created. “Why that looks nothing like my wife. You should have painted her the way she really is!” Picasso took a deep breath and said, “I’m not sure what that would be.” Without hesitation, the man pulled out his wallet and removed a photograph of his wife saying, “There, you see, this is how she really is!  Picasso bending over, looked at it and replied, “She is rather small and flat, isn’t she?”

 

Or what of the famous portrait of Winston Churchill painted by Sutherland and given to  Churchill at a public ceremony in Westminster Hall for his 80^th birthday.  Churchill felt the portrait to be terribly unflattering; as the artist captured the fragility of age, a sternness, and a look of disenchantment.  So unimpressed with it, Churchill did not display it – after his death his wife said that to relief his frustration she had had it destroyed a couple of months after it was painted.  

 

Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, wrote some very good theology about art – abstract art – to be exact. There is ‘art’ from WWII , that are paintings that appear as exact representations- draftsmen-like- of fighting war planes or navy vessels for example; rendered in greys and blues, model-like, and flat.  The works engage the head not the heart. This was the point – the art recorded the war, while safely keeping feelings out of it; in other words, bottled up never to be addressed.  Like talking about the Trinity with words alone, is keeping God talk in the realm of word and the head, so there is a measure of control.

Tillich describes the birth of abstract art as a counteresponse. All the pent-up emotion (anxiety, PTSD, depression, conflict, change) post-war was painted out, splatted, smeared, thrown, across canvasses. Emotion was up-chucked, spewed out, and publicly displayed.  Many spoke out about their dislike for abstract art, their discomfort with the chaos, the inability to make sense of the works of art.  Tillich theologized that abstract work was the post-war gospel, the Spirit at work. You see the chaos depicted -when looked at- moved and had the observer FEEL the work, often agitating the fear and anxiety within the onlooker; making the onlooker uncomfortable in their own skin, as what the person was bottling up would come to the surface because they were seeing how they felt. As one continued to engage with the abstract the movement would lead the eye to a bright spot -HOPE- that carried off the canvas....the abstracted caused a disruption that allowed the person to move -to be changed... leaving the art the person returned to the world with options, a heart and mind to experience and see resurrection, and possibilities for healing and wholeness.  A picture of the Ultimate (that would be Tillich’s name and expression for God – rather than Trinity); a picture of the Ultimate’s kin-dom come to life in relational living, where head and heart converge so one can enter more fully into the Mystery of God.

 

I have learned a lot over the past month while writing and retelling Luke’s version of the resurrection using words that begin with the same letter of the alphabet.  Pondering words, scouring the dictionary, imputing words into an online thesaurus, to recreate the story has brought the resurrection story to life and given my heart and brain innovative, provocative, exciting, disturbing, and changing ways to enter the story.  It’s in the dimensions, the nuances that the story has infected me in a new way... and now is proclaimed as a new creation --- abundant with meaning, purpose, and life. It is the same old story, but it is not the same old story. To say that Jesus was murdered, martyred, rings in my ears differently than the word crucified. To say that the Marys found Jesus missing!.. has me experience the story in more depth.

 

I suppose the sermon for today comes from a theme -read in blogs and talked about on the radio- of there being an over all ‘flat’ feeling going around.  COVID has many feeling that life is flat.  Before COVID, and now even more through COVID, many were feeling that church life, the story of the Gospel was flat – some of us were too afraid to let that thought bubble to the surface.  I think -I feel- that in regular time our telling of the Gospel, our love for God, faith, hope, engagement with the church and community was comfortable and lived more through our heads so we had more control of the outcomes. Perhaps this abstract art titled ‘COVID’ has forced us to move from our being too much in our heads and returned us to matters of the heart.

 

I have a memory of my dad being commissioned to do a watercolour painting of an immaculately tended house, the sort where one would never find even a blade of grass out of place on the front yard. Dad painted the house and included (almost emphasized) the downspout of the rain gutter; the end of it looked like the lawn mower had runover it; the man commissioning the work, asked dad to redo it – on the next trip past the house the rainspout had been replaced. I don’t remember if dad redid the painting – I remember him commenting that the spout was the character that made the flat house come alive.

 

Our bumps and bruises, our fears and foibles, our crazy ideas and creative mannerisms, our gruffness and worries, our enthusiasm and untapped talents, our approach to change, the things about us that endear us to others, the pieces that annoy and grated on others around us, ... the things that make us characters... these are the parts of us that are authentic and alive --- that are the abstract ... the Spirit ... working to get us out of words alone, because they are not enough.  To be un-flat, is to relish being in the convergence point of head and heart, in relationship’s deep belonging centre where in the entanglement hope and resurrection burst forth; that is where the mystery of Trinity dances and from that revolving synergy creates the energy that is spewed across the canvas of the world with healing for all.