Icons of the Imagination - Trinity Sunday
We have celebrated the incarnation and the resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of the church, and now we find ourselves at one of the strangest, most beautiful feasts of the Christian year—Trinity Sunday. I admit, preaching a sermon on this occasion is no easy task. So, the last couple of weeks I looked to my shelves for help. From Augustine to Zizioulas, I read profound reflections on this strange idea of God as three persons, one and many. But as I turned through their pages, I found myself struggling to keep up with the ideas, much less finding a way to share any insights I gleaned in a ten-minute homily.
Maybe, I thought, I will just preach a sermon on three key Trinitarian concepts: hypostasis, kenosis, and theosis. I mentioned this idea to my wife Emily, and mercifully she said, “please don’t.” I kept reading and found myself in a book by the wonderful, contemporary Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley. A priest and professor who mixes theology and prayer, systematic thought with contemplative mysticism, Coakley’s book God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay on the Trinity is refreshingly approachable.
At the center of her book is a chapter on Trinitarian iconography—showing dozens of imaginative ways that artists have practiced theology through their pictures of the triune God. The images, Coakley writes, can help us accomplish two ends: First, by looking at a variety of icons we can participate in a purging of idols—getting rid of false or static images that hinder our encounter with the Divine. Second, we can “redirect our minds, hearts, and imaginations towards a new participation in the trinitarian God.” That participation is, after all, the goal of our faith.
Taking a cue from Coakley, I thought perhaps the best way for us to reflect together on this Trinity Sunday would be to look at a few of images of the Trinity and let them clear and renew how we imagine God.
The first is perhaps the most famous Trinitarian icon, one whose familiarity can obscure its profound meanings. The Troitsa is an icon from 15th century Russia by Andrei Rublev. Though it is called the hospitality of Abraham, referring to the time that Abraham hosted three divine beings, the hospitality here is really offered by the three persons of the Trinity who are inviting us to the table of God’s being.
The Trinitarian God is a personal God, one who makes room for us at the table, inviting us to join in the community of God’s love.
In this image our eyes are drawn into a circle. We invited to wonder who is Father, who is Son, who is Spirit. Their faces are all alike, but in their postures, we begin to discern each of the three persons of God. It is Christ, not the Father, who sits at the center. Christ is how God is known to us, the Word who became flesh. He is gesturing toward the meal of communion, inviting us to come and sit.
To his right is the Spirit. Like Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading, it is the Spirit who comes alongside us, showing us the way. It is the Spirit who pulls the chair back so that we can find our seat, there at the table with God.
God who we call Father is on the left, looking toward the Spirit and the Son. The Father is the source, the God whose love for the world brought forth these new processions of God’s person, Christ and Spirit, so that all creation might join in the feast at the table.
On the side closest to us, there is a small square. There is evidence that there was once glue in that spot on the original icon. It is thought that a mirror was held there so that as the observer sat before the image, she would see herself reflected back. As Paul said in our reading from Romans—our lives are to join in the glory of God’s life. The communion of the Trinity is a communion of love to which we are invited through the hospitality of God.
The next image is from the 18th Century poet and artist William Blake. The movement in this image is one of descent. The Trinitarian God is the God who comes down, toward us, entering into the pain of human life, the suffering of creation. It is the Christ who carried out this mission of the humble God most completely. He is the lower figure, arms stretched as though on the cross, as he is embraced by the Father who bends down toward him. The image of the Father here resembles Mary in the Pieta, embracing the crucified body of her son. Yet Jesus faces the Father, offering another possibility for his movement. His body seems to be leaping upward into the Father’s arms, his descent and ascent both present in the reality of the cross.
Hovering over the scene is the Spirit, its wings stretched in cruciform shape, groaning with us in our pain, embracing us in mercy. The Spirit resembles a bird gathering all together under her wings as Jesus said he wanted to do with Jerusalem before his death. Birds in scripture are often signs of hope, the promise of renewal, and that is surely part of the Spirit’s image here as well. Our hope is in the God who came down among us and now draws us up with the risen Christ.
Our final image is by contemporary nun and artist, Sister Marlene Scholz. Hers is a picture of human life being drawn up into the divine. At the center is a figure that we can take to be Christ, but could just as well be any of us, for it is through Christ that our own lives are drawn into God’s life.
God became human so that humans may become God, wrote Athanasius, the ancient Egyptian theologian who helped give us our concept of the Trinity.
As the human figure of Christ reaches up, the arms of God who we call Father reach down. This person of the Trinity is the one that St. Augustine said is God without qualification, while the Son and the Spirit are marked by their missions, all together working to reconcile creation into the shalom of God.
The Spirit in this image is the link, emanating from the center of God it is both heart and fire and bird, moving down to join the life of the Human One with the divine. This is the final movement of Trinitarian life—our lives joining in God’s life through the work of the Spirit.
Three images for the three-personed God. Three key concepts at the heart of Trinitarian theology. You see, I have to admit that despite Emily’s complaint, I snuck in hypostasis, kenosis, and theosis after all. For these old Greek words simply name the idea that God is a community of persons (hypostasis), descending to share in our suffering (kenosis), and drawing us into the divine life by becoming like Christ (theosis).
The Trinity may seem a strange concept, and it is. It may seem mysterious and hard to grasp, that’s for certain. But I hope that through these three images we may find some help in seeing the beauty of a God who desires our place at the table and is willing to enter even our suffering to bring us there. I hope that in the blank page in your booklet you’ll take some time to add your own image of the Triune God, reflecting on the beautiful mystery this Sunday invites us to contemplate. It’s our turn now, not only to create new images, but also to reflect the hospitality we’ve been given to a world in need of hope. God’s love is being poured into our hearts by the Spirit and this hope will not disappoint us, for Christ has entered our suffering and now draws us into the common life of God.