“Wisdom, Character and Truth – A Different Trinity”

Sermon delivered May 30^th, 2010 at Belleville Presbyterian Church.

 Scriptural basis: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

Based on the title of this sermon, you might be thinking that I’m a coward trying to avoid preaching on the doctrine of the Trinity. And you’d be right. The doctrine of the Trinity, as central as it is to our faith, is nonetheless a thorny theological problem that has confounded giant-brained scholars for centuries. The Western and Eastern Catholic churches don’t agree on it, so much so that they named a controversy after it – the Filioque, at least one heresy resulted from it (that would be modalism) and a lot of us just accept it as a mystery. Several very thick, scholarly books have been written on the Trinity, and in some seminaries you can spend an entire semester digging deep into it. For something that is so important in Christianity, it’s amazing how controversial it is. Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian minister and writer, tries to explain it this way: “The much-maligned doctrine of the Trinity is an assertion that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, there is only one God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit mean that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery. Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we experience God. The Trinity is also a way of saying something about God and the way he is within himself, i.e., God does not need the Creation in order to have something to love because within himself love happens. In other words, the love God is is love not as a noun but as a verb. This verb is reflexive as well as transitive. If the idea of God as both Three and One seems far-fetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror someday. There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you choose to communicate it to (the Father). There is (b) the visible face which in some measure reflects that inner life (the Son). And there is (c) the invisible power you have in order to communicate that interior life in such a way that others do not merely know about it, but know it in the sense of its becoming part of who they are (the Holy Spirit). Yet what you are looking at in the mirror is clearly and indivisibly the one and only You.” I appreciate the Reverend Buechner’s efforts, but it’s still not completely clear to me.

The conflict between the Eastern and Western Catholic churches boils down to where the Spirit comes from. For adherents to the Eastern Orthodox view, the Spirit comes directly from the Father, while for Western believers the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Eastern church is attempting to make clear that there is only one God and therefore the Son and the Spirit flow from God, the Western church is trying to emphasize that the Son gives the Spirit to the church. No less a luminary that Saint Augustine seems to come down on the side of the Eastern Orthodox view when he wrote towards the end of the Fourth Century “it is the Father only who is not of another. For the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Father is neither born of, nor proceeds from another. And yet this should not occasion in human thought any idea of disparity in the supreme Trinity. For the Son is equal to him of whom he is born just as the Holy Spirit is equal to him from whom he proceeds.” I think this last statement is part of the basis for explanations of the Trinity as three persons of one substance. Recently there has been rather intense debate about the Trinity in theological circles, not so much around attempts to get a clearer picture of how three-in-one works but around the gender-specific names given to the three persons of the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are seen as sexist by some theologians today, and they are suggesting changing to Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Personally, I don’t much care for this, if for no other reason than that it would screw up a whole bunch of classic hymns and prayers, but at the same time I’m all for using language that doesn’t exclude anybody from feeling a part of the church community. As Reformed Christians, we separated from the Roman Catholic Church, the Western branch so we adhere to the view of the Trinity that has the Son and the Spirit both proceeding from the Father. This whole controversy is a great example of how the same Scriptures can be interpreted in different ways by intelligent, faithful people, the end result being centuries of arguments that sap the energy of the faith community so that less good work is done. Hmm, maybe I just preached on the doctrine of the Trinity! But the Trinity that came to mind as I read the Scriptures for today is quite different that Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What jumped out at me was Wisdom, Character and Truth.

The Hebrew Scripture for today is from Proverbs, chapter eight. This passage introduces us to Wisdom. Verses twenty two through twenty five read like this: The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. Wisdom, hokma in Hebrew and Sophia in Greek, is a feminine noun in both languages, hence the frequent physical images of wisdom in art as a woman. Wisdom is a helper to God, working alongside God during the creation as a master worker. King Solomon sought wisdom above riches, fame and power and was rewarded with all four things. We prize wisdom, admire those who display it even more than we admire raw intellect – I think we all know some very intelligent people who don’t have a lick of common sense, which we sometimes call folk wisdom. It’s interesting to me that we tend to equate wisdom with age and experience. While certainly fitting, given that Wisdom was there at the beginning working with God, the School of Hard Knocks and the accumulation of years aren’t the only ways to gain wisdom. Some folks are truly “wise beyond their years.” Ask a seven year old about what’s really important in life and I guarantee you that you’ll get a pretty wise response.

And what of character? The passage Baxter read from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome tells us that suffering produces endurance, which in turn builds character. How many times have we heard a variation on this particular theme? Tough it out, you’ll be a better man for it. No pain, no gain. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. We like to be around men and women of character. We can almost sense when we’re with someone who’s possessed of a strong character. They’re honest, hard-working, dependable, upright and true. They can be counted on to come through no matter what the odds. If we take Paul at his word, or words in this instance, the way to build character is to suffer. One could argue that what Paul is doing here is taking the sting out of the problems we face in life by telling us that they’re good for us, that suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as William Shakespeare puts it builds our endurance and then our character, especially builds our patience. Patience, that capacity to have endurance, staying power, resilience and fortitude. Patience, that attribute which I have so very little of… Having these aforementioned characteristics is what we need to live without complaint, but we can only do this if we have a deep and abiding sense of the presence of God. The more we accept, indeed the more we embrace the presence of God in our lives, especially when times are tough, the stronger our hope and faith become. And that’s something else about people whom we say have character. They walk the talk when it comes to their faith, more often than not very quietly but there’s an underlying strength in people with strong character that draws us to them.

And then there’s truth. One of the bedrock principles of society is honesty, trustworthiness. It’s what angers us the most about politicians and business leaders, when we don’t trust what they’re saying. The most severe punishment I received as a child was for being dishonest, for lying. Kwame Kilpatrick was just sentenced to prison for lying, Bill Clinton was impeached as President of the United States for lying. Nothing gets our blood boiling faster or more intensely than being lied to. I’m not talking about a child’s tall tales or the embellishments of a co-worker describing his fishing trip, I’m talking about flat-out, bald-faced lies that cause us to make bad decisions or spend money on shoddy products. Number one on my list of five leadership rules is “don’t lie to me,” number two is “don’t surprise me,” which sometimes is the result of rule number one being broken but the point is that we rely on people around us being honest. Even the most cynical amongst us are hard-wired to want to believe what we’re told, that’s why it angers us so when we find out our trust was misplaced. We count on being told the truth in virtually every aspect of life – from getting correct change at the checkout counter to believing what a subordinate tells us has happened to accepting as true what we read in the newspaper. Truth, defined as factual information presented without bias or prejudice, is absolutely essential to the proper functioning of society at every level. The Gospel reading tells us that the Spirit of truth is coming to guide us into all the truth. The Spirit of truth is coming to speak for the Father, and we most certainly can take that to the bank! One little problem here, though. Truth in the context of the Gospel lesson is a direct reference to Jesus, from whom the Spirit flows. Jesus, as in “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” And this brings us right back into the doctrine of the Trinity – if the Spirit is coming to speak for the Father, and the Spirit flows from the Son and from the Father, and all that is the Father’s is the Son’s and vice versa, then the only way you can even begin to make sense of this is to accept the Holy Trinity as three persons of the same essence.

And I think that the only way we’re going to survive and thrive as a community and as a nation is if we enlist the other trinity we’ve been talking about – wisdom, character and truth. By drawing on the wisdom God has given to each of us, that we can find on the pages of our Bibles and in the works of inspired writers, wisdom we can draw out of ourselves in prayer and in conversation with family and friends, wisdom that we sometimes don’t believe we possess. We should aspire to be men and women of character, reliable and honest and upright. I’m not suggesting that you go out of your way to find harsh trials to build your character, but I do urge you to not avoid challenges or complain about the rotten hand you were dealt. Embrace the presence of God in your life and let your good, strong character shine through the tough times. They’re going to come to all of us, but they don’t ever have to break us. And of course be truthful. Tell the truth, demand the truth from others. It’s the only way our society will function properly. And be Truth-ful as well, as in be filled with the Holy Spirit that is the Spirit of Truth that proceeds from God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.