I Bind Unto Myself This Day

I preached this Trinity Sunday sermon at St. John's in Northampton, where I am covering the rector's sabbatical. 

Last Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost and the coming of God’s Holy Spirit like wind and fire. That celebration gives us hope, because Jesus has promised the Spirit comes to lead us into all truth, sometimes as Comforter and sometimes as Prodder.

This raises a great big theological question, however: if we know the God of Israel, who created the heavens and the earth, to be the Abba of Jesus; and if we see God revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of the Incarnate Word, Jesus; and if we know God as wind and fire sent by Abba (and maybe the Son too) then: how are these three ways of being God related to each other? 

To say it more succinctly: do we worship one God or three? How much should we emphasize the unity? How much should we emphasize the diversity and uniqueness of each of the three persons? And that, Charlie Brown, is what Trinity Sunday is all about!

There is no fully developed doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament. There are only hints and guesses in that direction. Answering the questions I have raised took the Church several hundred years or so to answer and even then it was not quite "settled." (Go ask a Unitarian!) That is, I think, a good reminder that good questions often don’t have immediately accessible answers! 

This also means our readings for this day can only point us in the right direction. To impose the doctrine of the Trinity onto any of them would be anachronistic. Since my own preaching almost always focuses on a single text (rather than a theme or thread) this has been a challenge for me for almost four decades now. In fact, as a parish priest I almost always tried to give Trinity Sunday to my associates. The primary reason is not that I don't believe in the Trinity. I do. With all my heart, I bind unto myself, this day and every day, the strong name of the Trinity. 

Yet this is a day like no other precisely because it doesn't have a Biblical text. Think about Christmas Eve: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered..."  You can work with that! Or at Easter, "on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb..." But there is no definitive Trinity Sunday text, at least not in the Bible. The reason for this is simple: the latest of the New Testament documents are late first century and the Trinity is a fourth century doctrine.

So if we mean to reflect on the Trinity, then we need to move outside of the Bible to another time and place and to a different kind of “text.” That text is the Nicene Creed. The time in which that text emerged is 325, almost three centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The place is Nicaea, in modern-day Turkey, where a whole bunch of bishops gathered together at an Ecumenical Council to try to figure all of this out. They came together because Constantine told them to come together to answer the very questions that I have put forward. Is God one? Is God three?  After a great deal of spirited discussion, they responded, "yes.”

That conversation continued even longer to the Athanasian Creed which you can find on page 854 of the Book of Common Prayer but I’ll spare you that one today and focus on Nicaea. I’m a little intimidated today by the presence of our junior warden, Dr. Tamsin Jones Farmer, who did an excellent study on the Creed pretty recently at our adult forums. If I fall into any heresies today, I trust Tamsin will set the record straight.

Those early centuries in the Church’s history are sometimes called (by the Orthodox in particular) the time of the “undivided Church.” The context in which the Creed emerged was a time when there were not yet different denominations. But just because there were not denominations in the fourth century doesn’t mean there weren’t different schools of thought. Think about how hard it is today for Christians in East Africa and in Central America and in Western Massachusetts to communicate with one another. Or even how challenging it can be for Quakers and Episcopalians to find common ground. The barriers are about more than language: they are cultural. 

In our day, the great divisions in the Church tend to run along a north-south axis. Those same challenges of communicating across linguistic and cultural barriers existed in the fourth century, but the primary divide then was between east and west. The Western Church was shaped by Latin and culturally centered in Rome. The Eastern Church was shaped by Greek language and culturally centered in Constantinople. Trying to figure out how to say that God is one and that God is three and trying to find the way to say that while moving from Greek to Latin and Latin to Greek proved to be quite the challenge for those bishops.

Seventeen hundred years after Nicaea (and particularly in the west) it is tempting to turn Trinity Sunday into a kind of math problem. It doesn’t matter whether we were raised as Protestants or Catholics, we are all shaped by western culture, including the Enlightenment. But if we can listen across the centuries to the more mystical nature of Eastern Christianity, I think that we stand a better chance of seeing something new and transformative in the Creed itself that might help us to hear and to proclaim something like "good news" on this holy day.

To do that, I want to go back to a single word that was part of those conversations in Nicaea, a word that comes to us from the east. It was at the heart of the Trinitarian thought of three eastern theologians in particular who came to be known as the Cappadocian Fathers: Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. It was the latter Gregory who first used the word perichoresis (from the Greek peri-, around and -chorein, to contain.) Perichoresis refers to the mutual indwelling within the threefold nature of the Trinity. 

Say what? As I said, the New Testament doesn’t have a full-blown Trinitarian theology. But the meaning of that word does grow out of a close reading of the fourth gospel, the most mystical of the gospels. John says that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father." (John 10:38) Through the Holy Spirit, you and I dwell in Christ in the same way. We participate, in other words, in the divine life. This can sound almost heretical to western Protestant ears, but it's at the heart of those earliest Greek theologians. And even when we say it differently, its clearly rooted in St. Paul's writings as well as the fourth gospel: we are the Body of Christ, members of the risen Lord who dwells in us and we in him. 

This word, perichoresis, means to convey intimacy and relationship: a “cleaving together.” The Orthodox tended to develop and stress the love and communion that the three persons have for each other.  

Fifteen years or so ago, I had the chance to see Archbishop Desmond Tutu at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, in the flesh. (It was actually our second meeting as I'd once "bumped into him" walking along the Charles River when I was staying at the monastery and he was at Episcopal Divinity School.) In any case, he spoke about the African idea of ubunto which means (in contrast to Descartes) “I am, because we are.” Many of you have heard or read about this idea, as I had also. But hearing the Archbishop himself talking about it one evening in Shrewsbury made it real in a different way. And true.

Moving beyond my name-dropping, I invite you to hold these two words: ubunto and perichoresis, as we ponder the mystery of the Trinity. Both take us out of our western heads and into our mystical hearts. We discover who we are not by our separateness but in relationship.  When you begin to ponder the meaning of the Trinity in these ways, it changes the questions and invites us to take another look. It's no longer a math problem. It's a mystic sweet communion.

It’s not like we don’t have any notion at all of this in the west. The Christian idea of marriage, for example, is that two become one. As a math problem, two can only become one if you make less of each partner. But if you begin to understand marriage more mystically, as something like perichoresis or ubunto, then it is possible to imagine each person becoming more fully themselves in marriage. Two become one as each dwells in the other, and in the process each discovers who they truly are meant to become. It’s not addition and it’s not subtraction. It’s multiplication.

If you apply this wisdom to the question of how God can be three, and yet one, then adding words like perichoresis or ubunto to our vocabularies helps the conversation along. Jesus says that he came into the world that we might be one: as he and the Father are one.” (See John 17:21) Father, Son, and Spirit permeate each other. It is not their separateness, but their perfect unity, that draws us into their love and calls us to share in the divine life through that love. It's good to remember, then, that the first word of the creed is we. It is we who believe. It is we who are loved: not sentimentally but fully, and mystically. We are because God is. We are, because God, the holy and undivided Trinity, first loved us. “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena.  

I love the Book of Common Prayer, but the collect for today is not the BCP's finest moment. It seems overly steeped in our western confusion about the Trinity, especially as it tries to be sure that we stay focused on “the confession of a true faith.” In my humble opinion today’s collect is overly focused on the document that came out of Nicaea more than on the conversation that got us there. It is a clunky prayer.

I offer you then this simple Orthodox prayer to the Trinity, not as a replacement, but as a way into the deeper meaning of this day:

The Father is my hope; the Son is my refuge; the Holy Spirit is my protector.
O, all-holy Trinity, glory to thee.

The Trinity isn’t a math problem to be “solved.” It is an invitation to enter more deeply into the mystery and love of God. As we bind ourselves this day to the strong name of the Trinity, to the God who is three in one, and one in three, may we discover and rediscover our true selves, and our shared calling to light the world on fire! The divine spirit dwells in us! 

O, All-holy Trinity, glory to thee!

The Seventh Sunday of Easter

On this Seventh Sunday of Easter, I have preached at St. Philip's Church in Easthampton. Today is graduation day at Smith College and the tradition is for St. Philip's to welcome folks from St. John's to their church on graduation weekend when Northampton is busier than usual. I was grateful for the invitation from the Rev. Michael Bullock to preach. 

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I was ordained in 1988, thirty-eight years ago. I realize that this is not even close to my much (much) older brother, Michael, but still, it’s a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.  

In all that time, however, I’m pretty sure that I have never preached on First Peter. And I’m positive that I have not done so on this day, the Sunday after Ascension Day, when I’ve normally felt obligated to say something about the Ascension. Not once in nearly four decades! But I’m going to do just that today.

Although the author of this epistle presents himself as Peter the Apostle, the ending of the letter includes a statement that implies that it was written from "Babylon", which is likely a reference to Rome. The letter is addressed to the "chosen pilgrims of the diaspora" in Asia Minor suffering religious persecution. All of this leads most scholars to date it later than Simon Peter the Fisherman from Galilee, and closer to the time when the Book of Revelation was written under Emperor Domitian.

I’m not going to linger on this point for too long. Honestly, it’s not a ditch worth dying in. But context matters. What is clear is this: whoever wrote it was living through difficult times. It was never easy to try to make your life in an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, but things got much worse later in the first century, and so it makes some sense as context to hear these words addressed to a later first-century Church.

Notice the language used to describe this context: the writer calls attention to the “fiery ordeal” and to sharing in Christ’s sufferings, and being reviled for the name of Christ. The writer speaks of the anxiety this causes as the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. The writer reminds these early followers of Jesus that this suffering is not local but global: look around and notice that there is suffering in all the world.

What to do? Despair? Give up? It’s very tempting, isn’t it. But no. Like John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation, the recipients of this letter are encouraged to rejoice, and shout for joy. When reviled, to remember they are blessed. To be humble, to know God cares for them. To keep alert. To resist evil and remain steadfast in the faith. The hearers of this Word are promised that Christ will restore, support, strengthen and establish this community, and that in the end God is in charge.

So do not lose hope! All will be well, and all manner of things will be well, eventually.

It’s a word of encouragement in a very difficult time. It’s a reminder that en-couragement is about cultivating and finding courage. We can choose to dis-courage one another and ourselves when faced with big challenges but that’s not a given. We can choose to en-courage one another, reminding ourselves and one another to be brave. As that great hymn of the Church puts it: grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days.

I know some of you know about the lawyer and activist, Frank William Stringfellow, a layperson who was born on April 28, 1928 in Johnston, Rhode Island, but was raised in Northampton. Stringfellow graduated from Northampton High School in 1945. He died in 1985 but if he was still alive he would be 98 years old, so a local and near contemporary saint among the great cloud of witnesses. If you don’t know about him I encourage you to check out his writings.

Stringfellow left Northampton for Bates College and then Harvard Law School. He’s a person I think we need to listen to, a visionary and critic of the social, military and economic policies of the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a tireless advocate for racial and social justice which he insisted could only be pursued according to a serious understanding of Biblical faith. He wrote lots of amazing commentary on the Book of Revelation. Do you all know about this local saint?

One of his books is called “An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land.” I commend it to you along with this quote from it:

…in the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, I repeat, speak the truth. Confront the noise and the verbiage and the falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God. Know the Word, teach the Word, nurture the Word, preach the Word, defend the Word, incarnate the Word, do the Word, live the Word. And more than that, in the Word of God, expose death and all death’s works and wiles, rebuke lies, cast out demons, exorcise, cleanse the possessed, raise those who are dead in mind and conscience.

Some of you know that for almost twelve years I served as Canon to the Ordinary in our diocese, serving on Bishop Doug Fisher’s staff. For almost all of that time, the Rev. Michael Bullock has been here at St. Philip’s. I’m told that he’s going to retire soon. He deserves to do that, and I also know he will be greatly missed. Michael and I have become friends along the way – he has been a support to me and I hope I’ve been a support to him. Before we ever met our sons had, which is pretty cool: my son, Graham, travelled with Cristosal to El Salvador when he was a senior in high school and there met Noah; Graham is now 35 and the father of two boys.

We are living in perilous times and both Michael and I have been around a while. Let’s be honest: it’s never been easy to be a follower of Jesus: not when the Epistle of Peter was written and not when William Stringfellow spoke up during the 1960s and 1970s, and not today. It’s never been easy to be a follower of Jesus but there are seasons in human history where it seems especially hard. And I think we are living through one of those.

But we should also remember that hard times can bring about moral clarity about who and whose we are and what we are called to be about. When all is going well in the world around us, it may be more difficult to be clear about what the good news of Jesus Christ is all about and why it matters. But when the world around us feels like it’s coming unglued, when we see violence and degradation and wars and rumors of wars and anxiety is high, it also becomes clear what it means to be a community that resists evil and strives for justice and peace. It becomes clearer what it means to be a community that respects the dignity of every human being. No exceptions. We don’t defend holy wars because we know there is no such thing and that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

The writer of First Peter, whether our friend Simon Peter or some later disciple, knew and understood the costs of discipleship with great clarity. William Stringfellow knew as he confronted injustice in this nation the costs of discipleship with great clarity.

This is, I think, what we are called to in this time as well. To face our fears directly, to know that these perilous times cannot define us, because we are called to be an Easter people, a people after God’s own heart. We are not called to react to every news story; it seems to me that keeps us off balance and we lose our way pretty quickly. Rather, we are called to keep our eyes on the prize. To focus on Jesus, the Word made flesh. To pray for courage and wisdom for the living of these days, and to build up the Body of Christ.

Although no longer on the Bishop’s staff I pay attention and the reason I’m here today is that I’m covering a sabbatical for the rector of St. John’s, Northampton. There is life and vitality in that congregation as there is life and vitality here at St. Philip’s. God isn’t finished with us yet. For a long time we Episcopalians have adapted a narrative of decline. Actually the post-war period when all those baby boomers were born turns out to have been a moment of growth mostly based on pure demographics. Suburban churches with nice red doors had lots of kids in their Sunday School classrooms in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If you start there then it feels like we’ve been in a 65-year decline. But who said that was the place to start? If you take the longer view you find there are ups and downs along the way. And if you look at what is happening coming out of the pandemic there is growth and signs of new life in many of our congregations. People are scared and hungry and looking for community and purpose. And they are beginning to find what they seek in the Episcopal Church.

This time of growth is about more than demographics; it’s about purpose. Why are we here on a Sunday morning in May 2026? I think more and more of us are here because it feels like the world has gone off the rails and we need a place where hope is cultivated by courageous and kind actions, a place where love forms community that is stronger than hate and fear.

Here at St. Philip’s, Michael has served faithfully. Well done, good and faithful servant. But the work isn’t finished. So I wonder where God is calling this congregation next and how you will build on the good work that has been done here. Know that there are not magical pills or easy answers to what lies ahead. We live in perilous times. And yet by God’s grace we put our trust in the living God, one day at a time.

…in the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, I repeat, speak the truth. Confront the noise and the verbiage and the falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God. Know the Word, teach the Word, nurture the Word, preach the Word, defend the Word, incarnate the Word, do the Word, live the Word. And more than that, in the Word of God, expose death and all death’s works and wiles, rebuke lies, cast out demons, exorcise, cleanse the possessed, raise those who are dead in mind and conscience.