more reflection on the doctrine of the Trinity

As we prepared to receive communion this past Sunday I shared the following quote:
Rowan Williams: “if salvation is for any, it is for all…. The ‘return’ to the lost, the excluded, the failed or destroyed, is not an option for the saint, but the very heart of saintliness. And we might think not only of Jesus’s parable of the shepherd, but of the great theological myth of the Descent into Hell, in which God’s presence in the world in Jesus is seen as his journey into the furthest deserts of despair and alienation. It is the supreme image of his freedom, to go where he is denied and forgotten…. He comes to his new and risen life, his universal kingship, by searching out all the forgotten and failed members of the human family.”

Someone asked me after the service what Williams meant by the word, myth. Here is Webster’s definition of myth: “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”. I think what Williams means when he talks about the great theological myth of Jesus’ Descent into Hell is that Jesus’ descent into hell, referred to in the New Testament and attested by the earliest of the creeds of the church, gives us a glimpse of what it is like to be God and so it should should shape our practice of “returning to the lost”.

I offered that quote before communion as a follow-up to some of our meditations on the doctrine of the Trinity. At the heart of God’s being is love given and received between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What God desires is to draw others, the lost, the failed, the destroyed, and the excluded, into that very love. This must always be our lead story about God when we represent him to the world in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything else that we know about God must be subordinated to our passion to express and live in his love as best we can to all people.

In the homily I addressed the question of how we are to share in God’s self-giving love in a way that helps us draw others into discipleship relationships with Jesus in the name of the Triune God? I offered a couple of suggestions that were by no means meant to make it seem that they were the only or the best - but a couple of good ones none-the-less.

1.
By being a community that says to the world by how we relate to each other that we do not worship a God of monolithic force who at his core is one who wishes to wipe out his enemies. Rather, we must communicate by how we relate to each other that we worship a God who is a community of self-giving love, who calls forth a new humanity, a new community of people who are learning to live in this very love.

As the church, we are a community of people who are very different from each other but who have come to love each other not because of naturally occurring affinity but because of our common experience of God’s love. Many times, churches, over the years, develop what I will call, “heart trouble”. The community’s arteries clog because of years of unresolved frustrations, bitterness and judgmental attitudes that characterize the relationships of many within the church. The caution for us, and for every church that is called forth to live in and represent God’s self-giving love in this fallen world, is that we must first make sure that we are living in God’s love with each other. We must strive in the Spirit’s power to ensure that we are being forgiving of one another, kind to one another, seeking the best for each other, and not simply for those with whom we share a natural affinity. Our basis for this sort of affection is not more or less than our common friendship with Jesus. Profoundly, our model for this sort of commitment to unity is drawn from God’s triune life, his unity of persons. Let’s note well that many visions of community in this world are based on monolithic expressions of power. For some you have to have certain clothes or a certain style to be accepted; for others you have to be a certain class or ethnic group; for others you have to be morally acceptable on their terms before you are welcomed at their version of Jesus’ table. But the new humanity who experiences the power of self-giving love will welcome all, will welcome the other, and will seek relationships based on God’s love of all people. This new community will draw its life from the love given and received between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and consists of people who are patient with each other and open to dialogue with each other when they disagree; moreover, this community will be a place where people value being in community with each other as much, if not more, than any one individual values being regarded as absolutely in the right.

2.
By being a community where we model to each other the truth that sacrificing for others should be more deeply satisfying than being defined by the consumerist mentality of the spirit of our age. David Brooks, NY Times Columnist, recently wrote a piece in the NYT about the phenomenon of Kiki Ostrenga, the teenage girl from Florida who found stimulation, attention and fame on the Internet by posting pictures of herself online and gathering an enormous following. Sadly she did not realize that she was entering into an online world where eros and violence dwell together in an unholy alliance and where people quickly become objectified configurations of pixels that are used in whatever way the consumer wishes to use the objectified persona. Her fame quickly brought her unwelcome advances, threats and violence. In a Rolling Stone article, a traumatized Kiki, who is now living with her bankrupted parents in her grandmother’s home, is quoted as wanting to know how people actually connect in life: "How do you even meet people?" Kiki asks. "Like, how do you connect with people? In person, it's just so weird, no one talks to me." Even online, surrounded by hundreds of fans, Kiki feels alone. "I feel like a butterfly in a jar," she says. "They'll watch me. And they'll take from me. But no one ever connects." In commenting on this sad tragedy, Brooks writes as follows: “some young people seem to be growing up without learning the distinction between respectability and attention. I doubt adults can really shelter young people from the things they will find online, but adults can provide the norms and values that will help them put that world in perspective, so it seems like trashy or amusing make-believe and not anything any decent person would want to be part of themselves. Kiki’s story is not only about what can happen online, but what doesn’t happen off of it.”

Well, I don’t know about Brooks’ assertion that these sorts of terrible interactions don’t happen offline but the question he raises is provocative: how do we teach our children where true value is found, how good and right relationships can be formed? I would suggest that one of the best things we can do for our children is to pattern for them and for each other a way of life wherein we feel and learn, over time, to be deeply pleased and satisfied by loving and serving others. We must cultivate a discipline of living for the sake of others whereby we become trained to feel and sense that this pattern of living is fundamentally true, good, and right - that this pattern of living reflects the life of the Trinity.

As it is, the spirit of our age sends us many siren songs that tell us that we are only happy, or are at our happiest, when we are being entertained, pleased or titillated. I am not recommending some sort of sectarian/ascetic withdrawal from enjoying the pleasures of culture, good food, good wine, good music, theater, TV, etc. What I am saying is that if we only feel our happiest when we are consuming or being entertained then something is wrong. And if we are yet to find deep pleasure in sacrificing for others then we need to beseech God’s spirit to intervene in our lives. Jesus said famously, where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Similarly, if we begin doing things for others born out of our conviction that this way of life is patterned after the very love of God, we will become the sort of people God intends us to be.

We must ask ourselves what is strong enough to capture the imagination of a young teen with the power of the Internet at his or her disposal; what can compete? It will not be an appeal to live decently and modestly based on religious and moral maxims about the virtues. It will be seeing love in action, the self-giving love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit taking shape in our lives as adults, communicating with our lives THAT self-giving and sacrifice are truly life transforming experiences. May what Jesus said of himself be said of us: “I am among you as one who serves.”

Questions for discussion:

1. Does Williams’ quote about God seeking the lost, the failed, the excluded.... help you think about how you might portray God to those who do not know him? If someone were to say to you, I can’t believe in a God who likes to send people to hell, how would you respond?

2. Do you value being in a church community with people who do not agree with you about everything you believe to be true about God and his world? Do you value being in a church community with people who are learning to be patient with you as you are learning be patient with them? Have you thought much about how this sort of church community is an advertisement for God’s love towards humankind?

3. Have you thought much about how learning to live in God’s pattern of self-giving love can benefit your life over-all? In other words, do you see how this pattern, when it takes hold, leads you better and better choices of what you do with your time and resources? Do you buy the idea that a pattern like this is only learned with practice and is necessarily learned in community?