The Festival of the Holy Trinity

"The God of Many Names--or the Holy Trinity?"

June 15, 2003

The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel

Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lessons:  Isaiah 6:1-8;  Romans 8:12-17;  St. John 3:1-17

On this Festival of the Holy Trinity, let me read you some verses from a hymn that's becoming popular in Christian circles; a hymn that is now found in the Methodist Hymnal Supplement, the Bread for the World Songbook, and indeed, was the name, and guiding light of a Christian conference in Alabama in January for anyone who wanted quote--renewal in their quest to find a name for God that expressed their deepest thoughts and feelings--endquote.  The name for that conference, was the name of this new song--"God of Many Names".  It goes:

    "God of many names, gathered into one, in your glory come and meet us;  moving, endlessly becoming…Sing, God is love, God is love!

    God of hovering Wings, Womb and Birth of time, joyfully we sing your praises, Breath of life in every people…Sing, God is love, God is love."

     Now, I should say, that this hymn by Brian Wren, does employ some Christian language--talking about the God of the Jewish faith and the Exodus, together with the God of Jesus Christ, Rabbi of the poor, crucified, alive forever--but it always comes back to the refrain, that there is one God who has many names--with the suggestion, now, all we have to do is find whatever name for God expresses our deepest thoughts and feelings.  That's the message of the hymn--that, according to the brochure, was the goal of the conference in Andalusia, Alabama, and that, we're being told, over and over again, should be the quest of any Christian, today, who wants to be a faithful believer.  We're told it's not enough to accept old, outdated addresses for God that are patriarchal, hierarchical, and oppressive.  We're told "God is too big for one religion, or one way of conceiving of God"--so let's embark on a journey of discovery--discovering not how God has revealed himself to us--discovering not what the catholic tradition has always believed and taught about God from Holy Scripture, but discovering, as it says in the brochure, "a name for God that now, truly expresses our deepest thoughts and feelings--about God"--a name that reflects what I believe about God, and who God is, and how God works--because, isn't the most important thing--as it says in the song--to sing--God is love;  God is love!?

     Why is it that so many in the Christian Church today--in many different denominations, seem so willing to abandon the name that God has revealed as His own--the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit--to search for a new name for God;  a name that expresses MY deepest thoughts and feelings?  Why this--EXPLOSION of new names, and creative expressions for God, that range from "God of Hovering Wings", to "Mothering God", to  "God-Lover"?  All from supposedly Christian people--who ought to know better.  All from Christian people who worship a God who has revealed himself, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?  Why this quest for new, more expressive names for God, as I understand Him?  And isn't a search for the many names of God--all good?

     On Trinity Sunday, you know I don't like to get all--academic--too, doctrinal, abstract and intellectual--so, the simplest way I can put it is:  those who are seeking new, more expressive names for God, are latching on to, and indeed, misusing, apophatic theology, while denying (or ignoring) cataphatic theology!    Now, what does that mean?

     There's a long tradition within eastern and western Christian theology, that claims God as God, or God in his essential deity, is unknowable, inexpressible, incomprehensible, and ineffable.  Many theologians today make much of this apophatic dimension of God--suggesting that since God is Mystery--beyond human knowledge and description--then human beings are left to search for God and to name, address, and describe God according to their own understanding and experience.  Thus, the reasoning goes, since God has had, and will have many names--all are equally valid because they're simply our human attempt to relate to God.  Since God has many names, your name for God is as valid as my name for God.  The only problem, as we said, is that these theologians--these Christians are clinging to the apophatic dimension,  while ignoring the cataphatic dimension.  In other words, they're focusing only on God's mystery and their desire to name and describe God, while denying that though God is mystery, unknowable from a human perspective, to keep us from going off the deep end, so to speak, God has revealed himself, and God has definitively revealed himself, in Jesus Christ.  This self-revealing God is the God whom the Christian worships, in Christian worship.  Thus, though God in his ineffable essence, is beyond all knowledge and language, God IS knowable, for he actually unveils himself and reveals himself.  In fact, God tells us His name!  He tells us He is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!  He tells us, in Holy Scripture, that He is a "Tri-Unity".  Holy Scripture proclaims that God is Trinity--and that the Trinity is God.  That's how God is--as God is in Himself.  What God has revealed to us, about Himself, is that he doesn't have many names--but one name, the name of the Trinity.  The name that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  God has not revealed three names, but one name.  He says that clearly in what may be the greatest scriptural witness to God's revelation of Himself, the Great Commission in St. Matthew 28, where Jesus says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in THE name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  This is THE NAME of God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--this God is the God we first came to know as Jaheweh--the Lord.  This is how God is--as God in Himself.  But God reveals this to us, not just so that we can get a glimpse into the mystery that is the Holy Trinity;  God reveals this to us, so that we can understand, God--as He is--for us!  Whether God cares that we understand His Tri-unity, we can only guess.  Whether God cares that we understand how He is, in himself--we may never know.  What God does care about, is that we understand how God is--for us.  God has revealed Himself to us, not so that we can understand the doctrine of the Trinity;  not so that we can grasp His Mystery--God has revealed Himself in Scripture, so that we can understand how He loves us--and how He has expressed that love, in and through the saving death and resurrection, of Jesus Christ. 

     Alisdair Heron, the Scottish Reformed theologian explains this, writing:

     "The heart of the mater is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not an abstract mathematical puzzle--not the projection upon the Ultimate of the manifold triplicities that a little inspired imagination can easily suggest to us.  The heart of the matter is that the doctrine of the Trinity arises from the fundamental recognition that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us, a recognition which is itself enabled by awareness of participation in the Spirit in that same mystery.  The rhythm of life is that of faith and of worship, and the mystery at the center is the crucified and risen Christ--the sacrament and pledge of the reconciling and redeeming good favor of the Father, extended even to us.  Yet because he is God with us, the awareness of faith opens into recognition of the triune being of God."

     In short, Christians believe in the Holy Trinity because of the Incarnation;  because God became God with us, in Jesus Christ, and through His death and resurrection, we have been reconciled to God;  and this saving event is made real for us--for you and for me, through the work of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, this is what Jesus is talking about in our gospel lesson for this festival, as Jesus tries to explain to Nicodemus, about God, and God's kingdom, and how God has revealed Himself to us, for us.  Jesus says, after trying to lay it out for Nicodemus, and Nicodemus still does not understand, "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen;  yet you do not receive our testimony.  If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven, except the Son of Man--the Christ.  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life." 

     Jesus had been trying to explain to Nicodemus, and to us, about the earthly process of being born again, or born from above, through water and the Spirit--in other words, through baptism.  But this, Nicodemus couldn't grasp.  So, Jesus, frustrated, it seems, pointed Nicodemus to the crux of the matter.  To understand salvation;  to understand being born again, and born from above;  to understand baptism by water and the Spirit, understand this--"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life.  Because, just as Moses lifted up a bronze serpent in the wilderness and everyone who looked to the serpent, lived, so was the Son of Man, Jesus, lifted up on the cross, that whoever looks to Him, believes in him, may have eternal life.  This, is what God wants us to understand about Himself.  That He so loved, loves us, that His only Son, Jesus, was crucified and raised, for us, and for our eternal salvation.  As St. Paul writes in Romans, we are now children of God, because reborn by water and the Spirit, we are now adopted into God's eternal family.  That's what God wants us to know, to understand, and to believe.  That God is, for us, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  That eternal life, and abundant life, comes only through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  NOT, through the God of many names.  Not, through God as I experience God, or God as I perceive God, or God as I imagine Him with my deepest thoughts and feelings.  God wants us to know, and to understand and to believe,  that salvation comes from Him--from the Father, through Jesus Christ, in and by the Holy Spirit…ONLY!  Only.   Which is why we have this festival of the Holy Trinity--to help us, not only to believe in the Holy Trinity, but to LIVE in the love, salvation, abundant life, that is given to us--From the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  In whose name, only, we say--AMEN.