Three is Better Than One (an excerpt from my sermon on Trinity Sunday)

Karl Barth, the German theologian who wrote an indepth analysis of God, came to the conclusion that God is slowly revealing more of God’s self to us over time. In his huge exposition called Church Dogmatics, Barth concluded that God is totally contained not needing anything from others. And yet God reached out to the “other” (us humans) because our God is a relational God who wants to be with us, the creation. The pattern of the Trinity is a symbol of the relationality in the character of God.

         Karl Barth also wrote about eternity and said it could only be understood in the light of the relationships of the three persons of the Trinity. We tend to think of eternity as everlasting time. But the Bible speaks of eternity as everlasting relationships. Each member of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit are always in communion with one another. And us children of God are adopted into that relationship with God, not due to any action of our own but because God loves all of creation so much we are all adopted and heirs of God’s kingdom. As it said today in Romans 8: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.”

         The Trinity or triune God has adopted you into a Trinity family made up of our Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit and YOU. …. We are always in communion with God whether we are aware of it or not. And for that we should be grateful!!

         Ted Peters, a professor of systematic theology who prolifically writes about science and religion, expands the concept of the relational Trinity in his book, God -- the World’s Future, “God is personal through one or another of the three persons. And the net effect of the doctrine of the Trinity is to understand the divine reality as a unity of relation.” Peters goes on to say, “The Trinitarian understanding of God is that God’s full self-investment in the incarnation redefines divinity to include humanity.”

         In 2010, I wrote a paper for a Cosmology course. I titled the paper: The Symbol of the Trinity Reflected in the Relational Three-Patterned Character of the Cosmos. As I researched for the paper, I found so many patterns of three everywhere!

         The more humans discover about the creation and fundamental structure of the cosmos, the more we see the Triune nature of God reflected all around us. Think about it: in our galaxy we see the pattern of three in relationship: Stars, moons, and planets. In molecular matter we have the pattern of three in: Protons, neutrons, electrons.  Living Matter on earth all depends upon: Water, Air, and Soil. All matter must exist in one of three forms: solid, liquid, or gas. The strongest geometric pattern is the 3 sided triangle. In human biology our bodies have patterns of three. Human hearts have three valves.  Human Blood is made up of: white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.  Our Body needs 3 basic elements to sustain life: protein, carbohydrates, and water. And 3 physiological systems necessary for life are: the brain, cardiac, and pulmonary systems.

         Social patterns also come in 3’s. Father, Mother, Child. Remember the movie: Yours, Mine, and Ours? In first grade it was Me, Marcia and Jane. The three of us would walk around the playground hand in hand every recess. Some people called us the 3 musketeers. And sometimes we would fight about who got to walk in the middle. One day Marcia was walking in the middle and we decided to play 3 blind mice and shut our eyes and run down a ravine blind. Poor Marcia broke her leg! That day 3 was NOT better than One… But it is interesting how humans gravitate towards a pattern of 3 even in personal relationships. And we say things like “Third times a charm!” Or bad things always happen in 3’s! 

         Humans are created in the image of a Trinitarian creator as body, soul, and spirit The triune three-pattern is reflected in the basic structure of our DNA. DNA proteins are made up of codons each with three base pairs of amino acids. Quarks are the tiniest particles that make a proton. They exist in three’s: two up quarks and one down quark.

         Does it really matter, knowing there are so many patterns of 3 in the world? Maybe the Trinity 3 is a symbol of reaching out beyond ourselves??

        Albert Einstein answers the question this way:  “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He/she experiences self, through thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... But that separation is a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

         The Cosmos is created to be relational. What happens in one part of the Universe reverberates in another.  The Universe is considered a living organism that is relational as are the smaller living organisms that inhabit it. Vaclav Havel once said, “we are mysteriously connected to the entire Universe, we are mirrored in it as the entire universe is mirrored in us.”

         Being created in the image of God whose essence is relational in the Trinity leads us to see that all creation is relational, including the Universe.

         You were born to be relational. Don’t isolate yourself away. Remember 3 is usually better than one. Jesus died on a cross between two robbers. He was not alone. The symbol of the Trinity was hanging side by side on the hill of Calvary.

         Ted Peters concludes his book by saying, “Down at our deepest level we do not want to be alone.” And WE ARE NOT! The Bible testifies to this in the name, Emmanuel, “God with us.”  Thanks be to God!   

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Created in the Image of Our Triune God

The Trinity and the relational three character of creation is so fascinating! Patterns of three are all around us! If you look you will see "3s" everywhere! The illustration above is a "quark" which is the fundamental constituent of all matter in our cosmos. This points out that the very fundamentals in our universe reflect the Trinitarian nature of God. A quark is never found in isolation, it is found in relationship with two other quarks. A proton is made up of three quarks. The proton can be seen as a reflection of the Trinity, God's Divine triune self providing the building blocks of creation. Atoms are made up of a relational three: protons, neutrons, and electrons. And the recently discovered fractal geometric way of viewing the design of the universe uses the division of 3 to break down the fragmental makeup of matter. Three base pairs of amino acids in DNA make a codon which makes protein, an essential component of all biological life. How can it be denied? The Triune God permeates all of creation from the tiniest known parts to the grandest places.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Loving Parent, Sacrificial Role-model, Wise Comforter - there are so many ways to describe our God but they still don't quite grasp the magnificence and mystery of our Yahweh who is intimately interwoven in all of creation. With an emphasis on the relational character of God our early church leaders were inspired to comprehend part of God's majesty and workings with the concept of the Trinity, which became a doctrine of the Presbyterian church.

According to to the Reformed tradition, our God is a Triune God - One God in three persons. The Nicene Creed was the first to define the Trinity in our confessions. Saint Augustine, one of the greatest thinkers of the early church, described the Trinity as comparable to the three parts of an individual human being: mind, spirit, and will. They are three distinct aspects, yet they are inseparable and together constitute one unified being. Looking at the whole cosmos through the lens of the Trinity, we see many patterns of three. Land, sea, and air. The earth's biosphere is made of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The rhythm of our days are trinitarian in nature: morning, noon, and night. Our Universe is made up of three intricately related parts: space, time, and matter. God has placed her stamp on the structure of the Universe. The trinity is illustrated in the connective relationship of time, space, and matter.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin identified the three aspects of our triune god as: Power, Word and Fire. In his, Mass on the World, he explained his scientific view of the Trinity: "In the beginning was Power, intelligent, loving, energizing. In the beginning was the Word, supremely capable of mastering and molding whatever might come into being in the world of matter. In the beginning there was not coldness and darkness, there was Fire." Ted Peters, in his book: God and the World's Future said, "God is personal only through one and another of three persons, not as a single ineffable entity. The net effect of the doctrine of the Trinity is to understand the divine reality as a unity of relation."

God's goal for us is to be in "unity of relation" as God demonstrates in God's loving relational self. 1st Corinthians 12: 26 reminds us, "When one part suffers, every part suffers and when one part is honored every part rejoices with it." We are all connected to one another from the quantum quark level to the space, time, and matter level. "So now faith hope, and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Trinitarian prayer of the Cosmos
Our Triune God, You who are the Creator of all things, bring forth from us an awareness of our relational nature made in the image of your nature. Help us live in the Trinitarian pattern you intended for us, that connects us to one another as Jesus is with you and the Holy Spirit. May all your children of the cosmos know that we belong in relationship with you and in unity together. May our longings for Oneness bring peace, justice, love, and wholeness to the world. Amen

(Quark illustration from: http://www.aip.org/png/images/quark-spin-png.jpg)