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| The Holy Trinity - Szymon Czechowicz, 18th Cent. |
I freely admit that I often talk to
myself. Actually, I talk to people who aren’t there. I’m not schizophrenic. I know they’re not there, but I like to
talk and argue and discuss with them all the same. I like to try out my
theological arguments on noted skeptics and atheists. I imagine sitting in my
local Starbuck’s having a dark roast with, say, Thomas Jefferson or Richard
Dawkins debating the existence of God. I want to cross wits with the late smug
and supercilious intellectual dink Christopher Hitchens and see if I could hold
my own against his withering anti-Christian rhetoric. Or, just for gits and
shiggles, I want to cross verbal swords with the departed comic genius George
Carlin or even with the current acerbic tongue of Bill Maher—both gentleman
being less than complimentary about matters of religion.
I wouldn’t try to convert any of them to
my Trinitarian beliefs, mind you (Not that it would even be possible. Only the
Holy Spirit does that). I’d just like to get them to see the Christian faith as
being, perhaps, a little closer to their own belief systems and vastly less ridiculous
than they have imagined it. I would start with the most elemental question:
So what do you
really mean when you say the word GOD?
Some years back, when I was a volunteer chaplain
at Aria Torresdale Hospital, I entered the room of a young man who had been in
a pretty nasty car wreck. His legs were in really bad shape from the accident.
I remember the first thing he said to me was, “Father, I’m losing my faith.” It
seems this kid had lived a pretty straight arrow life, and yet everything in it
was turning to crap. Like Job, he couldn’t understand why a loving god would
open his almighty bowels on someone who hadn’t really done anything to deserve
it. The problem, as I understood it, was this young guy was imagining God as
either the judgmental “Invisible Man” of George Carlin’s outrageous rant or as
some kind of cosmic Santa Claus. Neither image does Yahweh justice—not that we’re
even capable of doing that.
Who is God and how do we speak of God?
That’s the question the bishops at the Council of Nicaea tried to answer all
those centuries ago when they gave us the creed of the Christian faith and
cooked up this doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The problem is—and was in their
day too—that we can’t really understand or define God. We can only experience God.
The Trinity is a mystery. So is everything
else about God. I wish I
could understand quantum mechanics and quarks and dark matter and the Higgs
boson particle and string theory. But even if I did, all the study of the physical
universe and all its associated mathematics can do is try to define the “how” of
being. It can’t answer the question of “why.”
My answer to the “why” of is-ness is
always “God.” There is matter and energy, and in some miraculous, vibrating way
this matter and energy is capable of manifesting itself in what we recognize as
“life” and “consciousness.” What’s more, this life and consciousness seeks and
desires a purpose—to be in relationship and to know love and sacrifice and joy.
We can’t separate the miracle of creation from the miracle of life, nor can we
divorce being alive from seeking purpose. There’s a three-fold connection here
which I think those ancient bishops in Asia Minor intuited back in the fourth
century.
The study of physics is a great and noble
pursuit, but I think it will always lead us deeper into more mystery. There’s
nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s just that it won’t teach us how to
love our neighbor. Those dear ancient bishops took a much simpler approach. They
just said, “It’s all God.” God in creation, God in the sacrificial love of
Jesus, God in relationship—God in us.
Jesus, in our appointed Gospel Lesson for
Holy Trinity (Matthew 28:16-20) says “I am with you always.” God is not an
external being living off in a cloud somewhere. God is with us and in us and
all around us. When we baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity we are
acknowledging that this mysterious God, the creative power that made all
things, is with the baptized, and that the baptized is connected through God to
all people and all creation. It all might sound a bit confusing, but that’s
okay. I long ago learned that you don’t have to understand someone in order to
love them. Neither do we need to understand God. The love will be there all the
same.
Someday I really want to sit down for a
chat with someone who claims they don’t believe in God. Maybe they might find
out they’ve known him all along. You think?
Thanks again for dropping by. Might I ask
you to take a look at the “Featured Post” at right? It’s an homage to the late
George Carlin I wrote a while back. I challenge you to watch the linked video
(sorry about all the swearing in it—Carlin liked to work “blue”) and think
about how you would respond to someone with Carlin’s opinions about religion.
LINK: Carlin
LINK: Carlin
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