Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
“Two’s company, three’s a crowd”, or so goes the old adage, and we have all been warned of the awkwardness of being a “third wheel”. But, if two is company, and three is a crowd, why is it that four becomes conveniently a double date? The analytic psychotherapist, Carl Jung, believed that all triads move towards quaternity, that is that all groups of three eventually seek to “complete” themselves by adding or adopting a fourth. He saw triads as somehow deficient, and four as the archetypal number of completeness. After all, we have the four corners of the earth, four winds, in medieval medicine, four humors, and even our sacred text contains four Gospels. Understandably then, Jung believed Christianity to be somehow primitive and undeveloped in its commitment to a Trinitarian understanding of God. In fact, he believed that the Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and more specifically Roman Catholicism’s definition of the Assumption of our Lady as an article of faith, to be attempts to “square” the triangle. We see this movement towards quaternity in the Episcopal Church too. We all know of the “three-legged stool” of Anglicanism – scripture, tradition and reason. Well, how many of you have more recently heard “experience” added as the fourth “leg”? Never mind the fact that tradition encompasses experience. Equally, a family grouping of three – two parents and one child – feels instinctively incomplete. The more comfortable grouping is four – two parents and two children. The ideal grouping always seems to have a second child. At the same time, in personal relationships, we can experience triads as inherently unstable. There is always the possibility of two against one. For example, two people disagree with the third, and immediately that third is left out alone and in the cold. Alternatively two people have an argument, and a tug of war ensues as they each try to win the third to their side. A triad always carries with it the inherent possibility of loneliness for one of its members; while, on the other hand, a group of four easily can divide up into two groups of two.
All of this being considered, we Christians still affirm the reality of Trinity as the most perfect expression of the identity of God – three persons united so perfectly in love that we can still speak of a belief in one God. While, being aware of the instability and pitfalls of triadic relationships, we confess that the most perfect of relationships is in fact revealed in a triad, no matter our attempts or inclinations to square it. And in that confession we imperfectly grasp at something profound about who God is, and how God works in the world. Our confession of the Trinity is a commitment to a God who brings stability out of instability, even instability which we may believe to be inherent in a situation or relationship. Through the perfect love of each for each, no one person in the Trinity becomes a third wheel. Three is always and eternally company. Moreover, while we may believe or experience triads as inherently incomplete or deficient, in the doctrine of the Trinity we are confronted with the reality of a God who can bring all things to completion, who can bring all things to fullness and perfection, and who thus challenges our common-sense instincts. While we may experience triads as constructions which always carry with them the real possibility of alienating divisions, the life of the Trinity reveals that need not necessarily be the only way of things. Through mutual respect, acceptance and love the life of Trinity witnesses literally to a “third way”, in which none is alienated and in which each is celebrated. It reveals that the life of God in God’s self is fundamentality a life of perfect sociability and perfect equality against conventional odds.
As is so often the case with Christian truths, the doctrine of the Trinity draws us beyond conventional and comfortable thinking; draws us away from our inclination to make things tidy so that they fit within our comfort zone. Comfortably and commonsensically, two’s company and four’s a double date, but our God is revealed to us in the uncomfortable, counter-intuitive third way in which three is not a crowd, but rather perfection. And the call of the Christian life is to live out and reflect the life of God, the life of the Trinity, in the world. It is sometimes means we are called to bear in mind and even proclaim that what seems on the surface unstable, unbalanced, against the grain, may be the very place where God is revealing God’s self, may be the way in which God is working. Living out the life of the Trinity in the world means that we take seriously the truth that everyone belongs, no matter how awkward their presence makes us feel, or how much they may appear to be a “third wheel”. Living out the life of the Trinity in the world means that we are always looking for the “third way”. We move beyond simple either/or, this-or-that thinking and step into the seemingly dangerous and unstable in order to discover something altogether unexpected, and always more powerful, more life-giving, more honest.
I began by quoting an old adage and referencing Jung, both expressing a distinct mistrust of triads. I’d like to end with words from another quarter altogether, the world of musical theatre and the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, lyrics that have always somehow made me think of the Trinity – and that tells you more about me than you probably care to know – but in any case here you are: “one’s impossible, two is dreary, three is company safe and cheery, side by side by side.” Something to ponder. May God draw you and all of us into the life of the awkward Trinity, in which we trust that beyond the instabilities and imbalancies we may discern God brings all things to completion, and where we hope to find a place for us and for all of us, a sociable company – yes – “safe and cheery”.
“Two’s company, three’s a crowd”, or so goes the old adage, and we have all been warned of the awkwardness of being a “third wheel”. But, if two is company, and three is a crowd, why is it that four becomes conveniently a double date? The analytic psychotherapist, Carl Jung, believed that all triads move towards quaternity, that is that all groups of three eventually seek to “complete” themselves by adding or adopting a fourth. He saw triads as somehow deficient, and four as the archetypal number of completeness. After all, we have the four corners of the earth, four winds, in medieval medicine, four humors, and even our sacred text contains four Gospels. Understandably then, Jung believed Christianity to be somehow primitive and undeveloped in its commitment to a Trinitarian understanding of God. In fact, he believed that the Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and more specifically Roman Catholicism’s definition of the Assumption of our Lady as an article of faith, to be attempts to “square” the triangle. We see this movement towards quaternity in the Episcopal Church too. We all know of the “three-legged stool” of Anglicanism – scripture, tradition and reason. Well, how many of you have more recently heard “experience” added as the fourth “leg”? Never mind the fact that tradition encompasses experience. Equally, a family grouping of three – two parents and one child – feels instinctively incomplete. The more comfortable grouping is four – two parents and two children. The ideal grouping always seems to have a second child. At the same time, in personal relationships, we can experience triads as inherently unstable. There is always the possibility of two against one. For example, two people disagree with the third, and immediately that third is left out alone and in the cold. Alternatively two people have an argument, and a tug of war ensues as they each try to win the third to their side. A triad always carries with it the inherent possibility of loneliness for one of its members; while, on the other hand, a group of four easily can divide up into two groups of two.
All of this being considered, we Christians still affirm the reality of Trinity as the most perfect expression of the identity of God – three persons united so perfectly in love that we can still speak of a belief in one God. While, being aware of the instability and pitfalls of triadic relationships, we confess that the most perfect of relationships is in fact revealed in a triad, no matter our attempts or inclinations to square it. And in that confession we imperfectly grasp at something profound about who God is, and how God works in the world. Our confession of the Trinity is a commitment to a God who brings stability out of instability, even instability which we may believe to be inherent in a situation or relationship. Through the perfect love of each for each, no one person in the Trinity becomes a third wheel. Three is always and eternally company. Moreover, while we may believe or experience triads as inherently incomplete or deficient, in the doctrine of the Trinity we are confronted with the reality of a God who can bring all things to completion, who can bring all things to fullness and perfection, and who thus challenges our common-sense instincts. While we may experience triads as constructions which always carry with them the real possibility of alienating divisions, the life of the Trinity reveals that need not necessarily be the only way of things. Through mutual respect, acceptance and love the life of Trinity witnesses literally to a “third way”, in which none is alienated and in which each is celebrated. It reveals that the life of God in God’s self is fundamentality a life of perfect sociability and perfect equality against conventional odds.
As is so often the case with Christian truths, the doctrine of the Trinity draws us beyond conventional and comfortable thinking; draws us away from our inclination to make things tidy so that they fit within our comfort zone. Comfortably and commonsensically, two’s company and four’s a double date, but our God is revealed to us in the uncomfortable, counter-intuitive third way in which three is not a crowd, but rather perfection. And the call of the Christian life is to live out and reflect the life of God, the life of the Trinity, in the world. It is sometimes means we are called to bear in mind and even proclaim that what seems on the surface unstable, unbalanced, against the grain, may be the very place where God is revealing God’s self, may be the way in which God is working. Living out the life of the Trinity in the world means that we take seriously the truth that everyone belongs, no matter how awkward their presence makes us feel, or how much they may appear to be a “third wheel”. Living out the life of the Trinity in the world means that we are always looking for the “third way”. We move beyond simple either/or, this-or-that thinking and step into the seemingly dangerous and unstable in order to discover something altogether unexpected, and always more powerful, more life-giving, more honest.
I began by quoting an old adage and referencing Jung, both expressing a distinct mistrust of triads. I’d like to end with words from another quarter altogether, the world of musical theatre and the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, lyrics that have always somehow made me think of the Trinity – and that tells you more about me than you probably care to know – but in any case here you are: “one’s impossible, two is dreary, three is company safe and cheery, side by side by side.” Something to ponder. May God draw you and all of us into the life of the awkward Trinity, in which we trust that beyond the instabilities and imbalancies we may discern God brings all things to completion, and where we hope to find a place for us and for all of us, a sociable company – yes – “safe and cheery”.
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