Water, ice, and steam. Light and its
source, brightness, and warmth. Love, the lover, and the beloved. Over
the centuries theologians and scholars have wrestled with how to explain and
describe one of the most profound mysteries of the Christian faith: the Holy
Trinity.
As today’s readings
from Scripture attest, no one in the early church had yet fully articulated
what this teaching might mean—other than in relation to the love of the
ineffable, unapproachable God made intimately manifest in the life and person of
Jesus. Later, some theologians, like the early desert teachers, conceived of
the three persons as manifestations of light, while others like Augustine
emphasized love. More recently, theologians have spoken of God in maternal and
feminine terms, or have pointed to the Trinity’s presence in both the beauty of
creation and the careful stewardship of it.
Still another
way of meditating on God’s love—one in three, and three in one—that I thought
we might reflect on today, is through the wonder of music. For many of us,
myself included, we may not have a great deal of formal training or technical
expertise in music—but there’s something intuitively spiritual about what
happens when voices sing together, or strings resound in harmony, or the tones
of the organ dance their way into our hearts.
Whatever form it
may take, music has the power not just to display beauty, or even elicit
wonder, but actually to unite and harmonize what at first seem
like unrelated, separate notes into a compelling whole. Martin Luther spoke
repeatedly of music’s power in this way, as did another great 16th-century
spiritual teacher, Ignatius of Loyola—who described his experience of the
Trinity in prayer as the playing of three keys or strings on a musical
instrument.
Even though
Ignatius didn’t leave a specific indication of which three notes he meant, one
possible candidate is the triadic major chord, formed by the notes doh, mi, and
soh on the scale. Our choirmaster, Tim, has graciously agreed to play an
example to give us the idea…
Before I invite
Tim to play the chord one more time, listen to these words from the
contemporary musician and theologian Jeremy Begbie:
“Three distinct,
mutually enhancing (not mutually exclusive) sounds, but together occupying the
same aural space. The notes ‘sound through one another’ in an equal partnership
where no note eclipses or is eclipsed by the other.”
Again, the
chord…
What’s amazing
about this chord is that it only can exist as three and one at the same
time. It can never be one single note or even three individual notes; rather
the three are always present as harmonics that resound together. And what’s
more, in their range they form a perfect fifth—often considered a musical
representation of the divine.
Today we have
the privilege of listening to our wonderful choir and other musicians perform a
masterful work that embodies this amazing principle of music—voices,
instruments, notes, and chords all sounding together for the glory of God. And
yet, the music doesn’t stop there. The truly good news we celebrate today is
that God has chosen each of us in Christ to be instruments every bit as
resonant as those we’ll hear this morning—to be notes every bit as
harmonious as those pieced together so artfully in the compositions we’ll hear
today.
Whether we
actually sing or play an instrument or not, the larger truth we celebrate today
is that the music of the Trinity includes us as well. Like sacred
musicians, we too can allow the “instruments” God has gifted us with—the time, talents,
gifts, abilities, and resources—to resound in harmony with those of others,
sending a song of praise and glory to God.
Now, as any
musician will tell you, the truth is that this isn’t quite so easy as it
sounds. Playing and singing in creative harmony is hard work. It takes
discipline, practice, and—crucially—a perceptive, listening ear. In
other words, if we’re to fulfill our call to serve the Trinity in our own
lives, we too will need to pay careful attention to what’s going on around us.
Who are the people who are in need? What groups are being marginalized? Where
is justice and peace lacking? How am I, how are we called to respond?
These are just
some of many questions we can ask ourselves as we continue together along the
sacred journey we celebrate in a special way today—a path that, if we surrender
to it, will free us from the illusion of sounding our one note on its own, and
engender a more liminal but ultimately far more liberating vocation of harmony
and awareness.
The path is
challenging, but we’re not on it alone. We’re called together in community and
we’re blessed as beloved children, all, of the mystery and wonder of the
One in Three, and the Three in One. Amen.
