June 12, 2022 Trinity St. Andrew Church Rev. Anne McAnelly
First Lesson: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
1 Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?
2 At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
3 beside the gate leading into the city, at the entrance, she cries aloud:
4 “To you, O people, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind.
22 “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
23 I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
30 Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.
Second Lesson: John 16:12-15
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
In the 1960s Alfred Adler outlined a birth order theory that assigned traits to children based on their place in the family from oldest to youngest. Being the baby of the family, I never bought into this theory because I behaved more like an older child than youngest. However, included in this theory is this idea of middle children being invisible, peacemakers, who might feel overlooked. The theory goes that the oldest gets all the attention and becomes responsible, the youngest is let off the hook and rebels, while the middle children get lost in the shuffle and might feel neglected or insecure. Or they can act out and become very independent. With three children in the family, the middle child might feel invisible. Yet from all accounts this child is an equal member of the family with all the benefits.
I start here because it reminds me of the three persons of the Trinity, each unique and each with its own place, and the Holy Spirit might be thought of as the middle child, the invisible child. Of course, the Trinity is not a sibling relationship, but it helps us to start the conversation about this profound mystery of three persons in one Godhead, much like three children in the same family. The three children come from the same parents, they each have their own traits, and each one moves through the world in their own way. The three persons of the Trinity do so as well.
On this Trinity Sunday, first I want to explore the Holy Spirit and then see how it fits within the Godhead. If you start with John, the Holy Spirit is male through and through- He/his is mentioned 8 times. I would guess we often think of Holy Spirit as male or maybe neutral, but I would like us to consider the Holy Spirit as feminine. In the creation story, the breath of God, “ruach” hovers over the deep. The word “ruach” is feminine, while pneuma, Spirit, in the Greek is neutral. Today Proverbs speaks of Woman Wisdom. Now I must say some don’t see this passage as being the Holy Spirit, but I makes sense to me. Let’s be clear, God is beyond gender. Yet seeing God, the trinity as exclusively male falls short. It denies half of creation, it ignores the birthing and creative nature of God.
A member called me this week to thank me for referring to the Holy Spirit as “she” in my sermon last week. I said, “You know the Spirit because she abides in you and lives in you.” It expanded his view of creation, and the female within the trinity.
I recall my view of the Trinity exploded when reading the novel The Shack, by William Young. Each person of the trinity was portrayed in human form. Jesus was a Jewish male; God was a wise and comforting Black woman, and the Holy Spirit was a lilting Asian female. I love that many genders and races are reflected in God, and that Jesus looks like a faithful Jewish male, not a white American. Now I pray I am not offending here. My hope is to release us from constraining views of a mystery so profound, so central to our faith, and to welcome in anew the fullness of the divine.
The Holy Spirit as the feminine part of God balances the trinity. In Genesis when God creates humans on the sixth day there is a wonderful line, “Then God said, “Let US make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…male and female’” (1:26). Since God created us male and female, doesn’t it make sense that God embodies both male and female natures. This also begs the question, who is the us? Who is creating the world? Of course, this is God, but could it also be Jesus? Could it also be the Holy Spirit? Could US be the trinity?
Our Old Testament lesson gives us a possible clue. We all know about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the one who was with God from the beginning of creation, but we do not always see the Holy Spirit as Wisdom. Proverbs proclaims Woman Wisdom, a female force some liken to Sophia, or wisdom in general, and others to the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit as female. She is a force to be heard at the crossroads and the town square. Then she makes an audacious statement, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts long ago” (22). Then Woman Wisdom goes on to recount creation, before water and mountains, when God created the heavens. Then she concludes, “When God marked the foundations of the earth, I was beside him, like a master worker; I was his daily delight” (29-30). Could it be that this feminine part of God was there at creation, and is part of the fullness of the trinity now? Interestingly the word used for “master worker,” can also mean “little child.” This idea lends itself to the delight and joy that is shared within and through the Trinity with the creation of humanity. Little child harkens back to the possible invisible nature of the Holy Spirit and more importantly the relational nature of God.
Pope John Paul II once wrote, “In the light of the New Testament it is possible to discern how the primordial model of the family is to be sought in God Himself, in the Trinitarian mystery of His life…God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself Fatherhood, Son-ship and the essence of family, which is love.” The pope is building on Augustine who established the Church’s understanding of the trinity and who answers who is the us in Genesis. Who was with God at creation? For Augustine the primordial God of Genesis was not the Father, but the Trinity. He focused on their inherently necessary interior relationship with each other, the persons of the Trinity. Augustine explains it as a matter of love. The trinity is love. Think about that for a minute. The trinity has been likened to water, steam and ice, it has been likened to a tree with “God as a deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit that spreads beauty and fragrance” (Tertillian according to Brett Blair, Sermons.com) But what if the one who is invisible, the Holy Spirit, really is the glue that holds this entire thing together. Augustine explains, “When we love, three equally necessary things are present – the one who is the lover, the one being loved, and the love itself. ‘There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love.’ While emphasizing the unity and equality of all three members of the Godhead, the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved as scripture often represents him, and the Spirit then is love, or the gift of mutual love that binds them all together. So the Trinity is a communion of love: The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, but for either to love the other, each must love Love Itself, which is the Holy Spirit.”(https://summaphilosophiae.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/augustine-and-the-spirit-as-love/)
So maybe the Holy Spirit is not the middle child or the invisible part of the trinity, but rather the very force, the love that connects the trinity and us to the Creator, redeemer, and Spirit of God.
On Trinity Sunday, one commentator writes, “we contemplate the triune nature of God as both one and three, confessing that communion is part of God’s very nature. And the image of woman Wisdom reminds us that we too are divinely created for community, designed to delight in our Creator with joy and wonder. In an age when our communities are often fractious and fraying at the seams, Wisdom’s call prompts us to heal the divisions in our own communities and to do so with a deep and abiding joy, delighting in the world and the people that God created” (Working Preacher, Anne Stewart).
May we as God’s children, who sometimes feel invisible, abide in the love that is the very nature of our God. Trinitarian love that both animates each person of the trinity and motivates each one of us in our faith. Love that we share in our communion with God, and our fellowship with each other. May Father who is the Lover, the Son who is the Beloved and the Holy Spirit who is Love Itself abide with you now and forever more. Amen.
