We all remember 2020. It was a very tough year. For me, one of the hardest things was having to close the church and learn a whole new way of being a parish priest. In my parish, Coolum Beach, we decided to do Zoom Church. That meant I had to teach some 40 or 50 people how to use a new technology so we could worship online. Now, I was a university lecturer for more than 30 years; I'm used to teaching; I think I do it well. But I normally teach face-to-face. I'm in the same physical space as the people I'm teaching. I can show them things, demonstrate how to do a task, use illustrations or film clips or a host of other ways to present material. I've even had a couple of blind students in the past and have been able to provide them with physical items so they could follow what I was saying by touch.
But in 2020, I had to teach people how to zoom when we were in different places. We couldn't see each other and I couldn't give them pictures or demonstrations. This made things pretty difficult for everyone, teacher and learner alike. I couldn't say, 'Now click here' – where's 'here'? I couldn't say, 'Turn on your camera' when the person on the other end of the phone had never used their computer camera before. And then there were the different pieces of equipment we were all using – different computers, tablets, phones. Every single one seemed to have the appropriate icons in different places. It was a teaching and learning nightmare!
But it pales into insignificance beside the challenge God has faced in teaching humanity who God is. How does the Creator explain the Creator to a creature? They are certainly not in the same room: the creature – us – can't see the Creator, God. There are occasional visions, but they tend to be terrifying and confusing. Confused and terrified people don't learn well.
So God came up with a way to be present in creation, to travel alongside us so we could slowly come to understand something of who God is. God began small – always a good way of starting a new project. God worked with one man, Moses, and through him, with one group of people, the Israelites. God took them from a place of pain and struggle – slavery in Egypt – to a place of peace and prosperity – Israel, the promised land. God accompanied them on the journey, leading them in a cloud by day and fire by night. God supplied the people's needs, providing bread, meat and water in the desert. The people learnt by experience that God is our companion in both tough times and good times; God cares for our needs.
Then, God joined the journey. God became one of us, a human being, living as one of us. Jesus of Nazareth knew the joys of being human, growing up in his family, sharing friendship with his disciples, healing and preaching. But Jesus also knew the pain of being human, grieving over the death of a friend, feeling the hurt of rejection, and enduing pain and death. Ever since, God knows what it is to be human.
The pillar of cloud and fire were temporary; Jesus' human life came to an end, as all human life does. But God intended to dwell with us permanently, not just as the God who goes ahead of God's people, not just as the God who lives amongst God's people as one of us, but as the God who dwells within us, always. God sent the Spirit to guide us from within. So now, God is with us, always, to the end of the age.
Over time, the people of God – the Church – reflected on how they had come to know God. God's people experienced God as the one who journeys with us as our companion, supplying our needs. God became one of us; God knows what it is to be human. And God dwells within us, guiding us through our lives.
The Church reflected, the Church prayed, and the Church named God 'Father, Son, Spirit'. Three names, three persons, but one God. That is a difficult concept for us human beings. One plus one plus one equals three, we think. But the being of God is not about mathematics, any more than being human is. The being of God is about relationship, about love.
Father, Son, Spirit – three persons so closely intertwined in love that they are one, eternally. God – Father, Son, Spirit – knows that human minds find it hard to wrap themselves around this concept. So the God who journeys with us invites us to journey with God. We are invited into the life of the Trinity, to share in that intimate loving relationship that is God, so we can learn by experience who God is.
This is what we've been preparing for, what we were made for. Words fail at this point. Pictures are better, like the one on the front of the pew bulletin. Three Persons, seated around a table, with room for another to join them. Come, sit, eat: that is God's invitation to each of us.
This picture is an icon. An icon is not just a painting. It is a window into heaven, an aid to prayer. This particular icon was painted by Anton Rublev around 1410. It is centred around a chalice shape which is repeated several times.
The three figures seated around the table form the shape of a chalice. There is a cup – a chalice – on the table which itself is shaped like a chalice. Inside the chalice on the table is a lamb, although that is very hard to see in a reproduction.
As we look at an icon, we are drawn in, to take part in what the icon depicts. The focus of this icon is the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. The three figures in the icon – the holy Trinity – call us to enter the icon, to take the fourth seat at the table.
The icon reminds me that it is through Christ's sacrificial death that I am able to enter God's presence, accept God's hospitality, and even share in the very life of God. As I sit with the icon, I enter prayer, allowing the love of the Trinity to enfold me, hold me. And so, the Trinity is no longer just a complex theological concept; the Trinity is an experience of enveloping love.
This icon comes to us from the Russian Orthodox church. The Orthodox, or eastern, churches have a word for the way Father, Son and Holy Spirit relate to each other, a Greek word, perichoresis. It means moving around, giving way, intersecting, or, in a single word, dancing. Perichoresis is an image of the Three moving together in an eternal single dance of love.
The dance of the three Persons of the Trinity is a single dance, but not an exclusive one. There is room for others to join the dance, just like there is room for others at the table in the icon.
Both images, icon and dance, teach us that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are so closely intertwined in love that they are One. Their unity is open to us, the beloved of God.
That God, the holy and blessed Trinity, invites us to a seat at the table, to join the dance. Let our RSVP be yes.
Amen.
