Sarx

Today was the feast of Trinity Sunday. The lesson assigned for liturgy today, from the Old Testament, is the Creation Story - the poetical one from the first chapter of Genesis.

In modern politically correct terminology (and modalism) the Trinity is often renamed to “Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.” I *think* that is the reason we got today’s lesson, although I don’t know for sure what was in the minds of the creators of the 1979 BCP on the Revised Common Lectionary. (Mindful that neither the 1928 BCP nor the Tridentine Missal has an OT Reading for this feast.) So I was struck, at the moment of reading, by the Eastern Orthodox idea that Jesus was the creator.

All the while that Mother Sarah was talking about wonderful article about Neural Buddhists (although I disagreed with her reading of it) I was wondering about the Logos as Creator and the Father as the Unmoved First Cause. What struck me was the Neural Buddhist read of a non-theistic universe and the idea of the First Cause as a parallel non-Theisim, especially when coupled with the idea of the Holy Spirit as that indwelling of God “everywhere present and filling all things” - living in our hearts guiding us “into all truth”.

The Gospel reading included my favourite verse, Matthew 28:17, which I think has one of the most revolutionary bits of inclusive theology in the NT. “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” It’s revolutionary because the next verse is not Jesus kicking out the doubters. Rather he sends them out as evangelists anyway: doubting evangelists.

Jesus doesn’t sort them out: “Believers over here, doubters over there until you get it right.” He sends them all out - doubters and all - to baptise and preach. Can you imagine what a doubter’s sermon sounds like? I’ve heard them before… They are the sincere ones that come from people still trying to suss out this whole “God thing”.

And they don’t need a feast called “Trinity Sunday” to confuse them.

I found myself wondering what those first evangelists, non-believers at the open Eucaharistic fellowship of Jesus, would have thought about our sermon today.

It’s funny, the passage in Matthew is clearly not very dominical: it tells a rather different story than, eg, Luke. It’s the focus of the Matthew Community that is different, however, not their origin. Yet the Church chooses to focus on what most clearly is *not* Jesus’ words - “Go, baptise everyone in the name of ‘the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’” (When we hear Jesus said to be speaking in a third-person way, you know we’re into grey text.) So the Church focuses on the 3rd person phrase in the “Great Commission” when, I think, the most important part is how the author includes that bit about doubters.

The Jesus that the Matthew Community worshipped, at least as reported by this story, didn’t care about how well you passed a checklist of doctrines. He may have been the Creator of All, but he was certainly not like the American Santa Claus or Easter Bunny - neither of whom will give you presents if you don’t “believe” in them.

To borrow furniture from Hooker, I believe the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Eucharist to be the three equal legs on the stool that is our salvation. One can not take those three doctrines collectively and still be a “neural Buddhist”. I don’t think you can be non-Theist and still accept the doctrinal images of Trinity and Incarnation (maybe Eucharist). But I don’t know if it is important to “believe” in them as on a Check list.