Some thoughts on the Trinity from our Archbishop from some years ago.

In May 2007, Bishop Philip, now Archbishop Philip wrote this for the Waikato – Taranaki Ad Clerum. I offer you this as we again engage with the concept of the Trinity.

“As I write this we stand between the feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, between our celebration of the birth and empowering of the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit and our acknowledgement that while experienced as three, God is indivisible in purpose and action. Putting words around this experience and understanding of God as Three in One is challenging.

There is a story told of Augustine of Hippo who was taking his summer holiday along the North African seashore.

Walking along the water's edge on a delightful day, he was pondering the mystery of the Trinity. All this genius was getting for his efforts was a severe headache. Finally, he thought he was coming close to breaking the code of the mystery.

Suddenly at his feet was a boy of five.  The Bishop asked him what he was doing.  The youngster replied, "I am pouring the whole ocean into this small hole." Augustine said, "That's nonsense.  No one can do that." Un-intimidated by the towering giant above him, the child replied, "Well, neither can you, Bishop Augustine, unravel the mystery of the Trinity." Then the boy disappeared.

Whether this account is apocryphal or not, I leave to your good judgment.  However, I think we all get the point.  The Trinity, like love, will remain a mystery.  In the end Augustine came to describe the Trinity in these terms “The lover, the beloved and the love between them”.

Just as Poets often are best at describing love so too poetry may be best at describing the Trinity, have a look at James K Baxter’s Song to the Lord God, in the Prayer Book on Page 160.

The fourteenth century mystic, Meister Eckhart, has perhaps the last word in amusing language to describe the Trinity.  "God laughed and the Son was born.  Together they laughed and the Holy Spirit was born. From the laughter of all three the universe was born."

However difficult it might be, to speak of God as Trinity is to speak a wonderful truth, for the Trinity speaks to us of a God who is no distant, remote, isolate monad, but rather proclaims an experience of God who in essence is relational.  God as Trinity is God in communion, three in one. Inter-dependence, mutuality, loving in communion are all expressions which flow from our knowledge of God as three in one.

To speak of God as Trinity also takes us to the heart of our understanding of the Church. For we cannot begin to describe what the Church is, or what it is for, aside from our understanding of God and the purposes of God.

The central proclamation of the Church is of God's self emptying, suffering love - Kenosis.  God's love, born out of the Community of the Trinity cannot be contained, the love of this community bubbles over the edges and flows out.  It can do no other.  We bear witness to the God who continually reaches out to us, entering into the very stuff of human existence, even to that point of abandonment and sacrifice which is the cross ~ a love willing to suffer that all might have life and wholeness.”