Calculus and the Trinity - in Thanksgiving for Mr. Wallace

Trinity Sunday, Year C

My favorite teacher in high school was Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Wallace taught calculus.  It was a small class, and it got even smaller when we winnowed to Calc 2 senior year.  Over those two years, Mr. Wallace got to know us pretty well. It was clear he cared about us beyond our math skills and was interested to learn about what we were up to in our non-math hours, too.  He read our speeches, laughed at our campaign slogans, and sympathized with our college application struggles.

But Mr. Wallace was also a great teacher.  He made calculus feel interesting and relevant, which, as I discovered when I revisited the subject in college, was perhaps not the norm.  Whenever possible, Mr. Wallace weaved our real-life high school experiences into the examples he used. We measured the rate of the growth of couples forming as Prom got nearer, and the frequency and future likelihood of decent school lunches, and we graphed a regression line comparing the amount of hours each of us had studied for a test with the grades we received.  But my favorite math moment was when he was introducing the concept of vectors (objects with both magnitude and direction). We weren’t getting it, and I think he was as frustrated as we were. And so the next day when we entered the room, all the desks and chairs had been pushed to the side and he had us all pretend to be vectors, moving around the room as he explained the concept until we all caught on.

Mr. Wallace taught us calculus and prepared us well for our AP tests, but he also somehow managed to transform what could have been a dreary subject -- with its limits and derivatives and logarithms -- and made it matter to us.  Through our relationships with him and with each other, we experienced calculus.  And that was why we not only learned it, but enjoyed it.

Today, we have at the heart of our worship something else that has a tendency to be a fairly dreary subject -- the Trinity.  This is the only day in the entire Church year when our readings and prayers focus on a doctrine, rather than a story or an event or a person.

Today we celebrate that we have one God in three persons: traditionally termed Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

The doctrine of the Trinity came into being in the 4th Century, at the Council of Nicea, and we speak the resulting profession of faith every week in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God.”  “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… of one Being with the Father.” “We believe in the Holy Spirit” who “proceeds from the Father and the Son” and who “with the Father and the Son … is worshipped and glorified.”  About 100 years later came slightly different trinitarian language in the Athanasian Creed (which we, thankfully, do not say): “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons; nor dividing the essence.”

Unfortunately, the Trinity as a doctrine can be incredibly boring, a chance to use impressive words with Latin and Greek roots that no one understands, like “homoousios.”

The Trinity can also be a dangerous doctrine.  In case there was any question about the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Athanasian Creed also added forebodingly, “Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”  (Maybe this is why Alyse and Oran conspired to assign me to preach today, with the risk of everlasting damnation hanging over us!)

In fact, the Trinity was cemented into doctrine because of controversy.  The Councils created these Creeds at least partially as a defense against heresies, and as a way to establish who was in and out, right and wrong.  

Heresies abound and are easy to stumble into when it comes to the Trinity.

Like Arianism - the belief that Jesus was created by God rather than being God himself and therefore is a lesser God.

And Modalism - the idea that Father, Son and Holy Spirit aren’t three distinct persons of God but rather are 3 forms in which God expresses God’s self.

And Partialism - the idea that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three parts of God that together make up one whole, rather than three distinct persons that are all equally God.

But the truth is, even if we get it right and don’t stumble into heresies, the Trinity can feel pretty remote.  It’s just not easy to get your heart around a doctrine. Especially for someone like me that tends to rebel against things I am told I should believe.

So it’s helpful to remember where it all started.  Long before heresies and church councils and creeds.

It all started as an experience of God.  

From the beginning, people experienced God as: The Creator of the universe; AND a Redeemer who lived and died and rose again; AND a Spirit who acts and breathes in and through our lives and the world around us, comforting and guiding us.
Distinct and complete, and yet one.

They didn’t know why or how all of this worked; it was a mystery — a beautiful, awe-inspiring, experiential mystery — that moved and changed and challenged them.

And so they began to develop words to capture their experience of God who is diverse and yet still One.  They wanted a way to speak about their experience of God more fully, and a way to be able to invite other people in to that experience.  And so the doctrine of the Trinity emerged.

But, unfortunately, just like calculus, the reality of the Trinity is so much more interesting, so much more joyful, so much more meaningful, than the words we use to talk about it.  We miss out when we see it as a paradoxical doctrine to be learned and believed, rather than a mysterious reality to be experienced.

And so, channeling my inner Mr. Wallace - I feel compelled to push away the desks (metaphorically speaking) and imagine what the Trinity might look and feel like.  

To me, this is what the doctrine of the Trinity as I usually hear about it looks and feels like.  A tight group of 3 that are one on their own - unreachable, unattainable, isolated from creation. Something that doesn’t have much to do with me.

But what if we see the Trinity not as a doctrine, but as a relationship? 

Maybe what the doctrine of the Trinity intends to capture is that because God is love, God cannot be self-contained and solitary.  Instead, from all eternity, God has existed as diverse, unique persons united in a love so powerful that the three persons are utterly one. Maybe the Trinity is more like a divine circle dance – without beginning or end, without hierarchy or confusion.

But what if it’s even more than that?  What if the doctrine of the Trinity is also about us?  What if it speaks to an experience that the Trinity isn’t just about who God is in God’s self, but who God is with us.  A relationship among the 3 persons of God that doesn’t end with God, but is always outstretched. God isn’t just in communion amongst God’s self – God is in our midst, longing for communion with us also.  

We are invited to enter into the divine dance - the circle breaks open and draws us in.

But what if it doesn’t even stop there!  We are created in God’s image, and therefore created for relationship.  We aren’t just invited into the dance. We are called to dance with others that are already part of the swirling motion, and to invite others in as well. Some of whom will be, undoubtedly, as unlike us as we can imagine.  Loving each other is how we participate in the triune life of God. Just like God, we aren’t meant for isolation or self-centeredness; relationship with God and each other is at the core of who we are too.   It isn’t what we “know” or “believe” about the Trinity that matters, it’s how we enact it in our lives.

I wonder what that could look like?