What's Under Our Language of Trinity - Jeremy Duncan

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welcome to the commons cast we're glad

to have you here we hope you find

something meaningful in our teaching

this week head to commons dot church for

more information

good morning thanks for being here come

on back in and have a seat

today we're going to start a new

conversation we've got four weeks to

talk about trinity and holy spirit and

the nature of god so look out lots to

cover here

first though let's recap where we've

been to start the year

we just finished a series called

relearning friendship

and that was fun because scott and bobby

and i all had a chance to add our voices

into that conversation that was

intentional we figured if we were going

to talk about friendship we needed to

hear from each other in that but we

covered a number of different ideas in

that series

the idea that friendship is a unique

category in our lives

one that we need to guard and protect

and celebrate the rarity of

we talked about loneliness and

expectation we talked about suffering

and the way that we can join each other

in those difficult experiences

and then last week we talked about

conflict in friendship

in particular how difficult it can be to

balance healthy good boundaries with

also making space for disagreement with

those who care about us

and sometimes we need to make hard

decisions about relationships and even

friendships those that are not healthy

for us but at the same time we don't

want hard decisions to make us hard

people in fact the reason for good

boundaries in your life

is that you want to be able to stay soft

and vulnerable and open to intimacy with

the relationships that earn that from

you

you're actually protecting your open

heart by keeping good boundaries

i actually posted a follow-up to our

youtube channel this week

looking at some of the conflict

strategies that can be helpful in

relationships some of the ones that

rachel and i infused in our marriage

if you're interested in that it's

available as a resource for you on

youtube of course that whole series is

available in the archives if you missed

any of it so check that out

today though we begin the forgotten god

no my name is jeremy i'm part of the

team here at commons and thanks for

being here uh whether you are in the

room or online today we really

appreciate your presence with us

we know we couldn't do any of this

without you

but in this new series we want to take

some time to talk about the presence of

a spirit in all of our lives

now obviously we haven't forgotten about

god right this is a church after all and

all of us got up and prepared ourselves

to be part of this worship gathering i

mean we are here specifically because we

remember god at some level

and yet

particularly in a church like commons

i think where we have intentionally

created space for an intellectual

pursuit when it comes to our faith

it can feel at times like spirit is

secondary

maybe not forgotten but perhaps asked to

stand just to the side a little bit

and i'll admit some of that is my own

story in my own baggage

i made my way to the jesus story through

the pentecostal tradition

in fact i did my undergrad at a

pentecostal bible college and before

starting comments i worked in and i was

ordained in pentecostal churches

and that charismatic spirit-filled

experience was a big part of my

formative christian journey

now over time

some of the gaps in my experience became

more evident to me

i went to grad school and i read more

widely

i started to understand that the

christianity was this long and wide

river with a lot of different streams

flowing into it

and hear me here it's okay to understand

your stream and where you feel most at

home actually that's an important part

of all of our stories

but for me

making christianity mine was also

learning to value and embrace these

traditions that i had not been exposed

to

i hear a commons we work hard to

incorporate prayers and imagery from

across the christian perspective to

remind us of just how big god is

but then

i also began to see

how at times those ecstatic experiences

of worship that i had been a part of had

been used to manipulate my emotions and

perspectives

and certainly not always intentionally

but even unintentionally

there's incredible power in communal

experience

and sometimes it can be very hard to

figure out what is spirit and what is

group think in some of those moments

i still remember being in camp meetings

at 18 years old when i was new to

christianity and everybody there was

speaking in tongues and there was a lot

of pressure about participating in that

and i did

only to be left wondering the next day

whether any of that was real

so i remember

resolving very early in my career as a

minister that pressure and coercion were

never going to be part of my repertoire

as a pastor

and that goes for spirit but it goes for

money it goes for salvation

i firmly believe that god is gentle with

all of us and yet still

i recognize that i was deeply shaped by

encounters with spirit profound

experiences of prayer and worship that i

didn't want to shake

and so when we were formulating our

values at commons jesus at the center

that's what we started with

we always had the conviction that jesus

would be the lens through which we

interpreted scripture together

but the language that we added of

intellectually honest and spiritually

passionate that was an attempt however

clumsy

for us to marry a critical academic

investigation of faith with the trust

that god still does show up in

unexpected ways for all of us and so as

a community we've tried to balance those

ideas but i think it's fair to admit

that oftentimes the power and the

presence of spirit in our lives can

sometimes be relegated behind our

intellectual pursuit at least it can for

me

and i'll admit one series of

conversations is not going to fix all of

that and awareness of divine presence is

something that each of us has to

cultivate daily

but one series of conversations

certainly isn't going to hurt so let's

start there

so today we're going to talk about

trinity

what is the nature of god and what do we

mean when we talk about god's threeness

next week we'll talk about god's spirit

in and through us in the world

we'll talk about conviction and

conscience as spirit guides us in

community and finally we'll look at

spirit as a feminine image and metaphor

for god

sometimes when we take biblical

metaphors for god and to tightly

anthropomorphize them

we can squeeze out other important vital

images to the edges and we want to do

some work in this series to reclaim some

of that territory in our imagination

so that's lots to cover but hopefully

this will be fun and let's start

together with a prayer

god

we come today confident in the presence

of your spirit here with us

and even when we lack the language or

understanding of exactly how we trust

that you are near

and so this day

as we speak together of spirit as we

remind each other of your being in and

with us we ask that you would move that

conversation not just through our

intellect but somehow deep into our

being

we long to be

fully present to you

our minds and our hearts and our bodies

but also somehow our spirits entwined

with the divine

and so for those of us who tend to live

in the world of the mind we thank you

for that unique expression of who we are

how it brings us closer to knowing you

we celebrate intellect and

thoughtfulness and how you've wired us

but we ask that in these moments you

would expand our imagination of grace

if we have heard your voice before

sensed your nearness with us and yet

struggled sometimes to offer ourselves

and healthy life-giving ways

we ask for peace to come

[Music]

flood our minds and calm anxieties to

invite us to discover you in surprising

moments

help us discern

between excitement and emotion and you

but also to embrace this full spectrum

of what it means to be human in our

ecstatic joy and crushing pain

in whatever way we need your spirit

today

we trust that you will meet us

and heal us

and enliven us with spirit's breath

in the strong name

of the risen christ we pray

amen

okay

the agenda today is trinity

and it's going to look like this we're

going to talk about communal experience

and the point of doctrine dancing around

and what is it that is underneath our

language but even to try to talk about

trinity is kind of absurd

one of my

favorite sayings of the church from an

author that is long since forgotten

is that we must speak of god is three in

one but to speak of trinity for more

than a minute means we will inevitably

slip into heresy because we probe too

deeply the mysteries of god

now that does not bode well at the start

of a 30-minute sermon but i still i like

that quote

because some things are simply

mysterious

and so today we're not going to try to

parse the doctrine of trinity

i'm really not interested in gatekeeping

theological spats

but i do want to talk about why trinity

is so important to my concept of the

divine

and i think from there that can give us

a starting point for the rest of the

series to focus in on the person of

spirit within that same triune god

first though as an entry point i want to

talk about buzzfeed

in particular an article that they

posted last week about a collection of

different prayer websites

two in particular that they listed

pray.com and hallow.com

these are sites that are set up so you

can go and post your prayers and

theoretically someone will then pray for

you

and that's not bad

we have a prayer tab on commons.life and

we do collect those prayers and we do

pass them to a prayer team so that's

cool

but

this article was about the incredible

amount of venture capital that was

flowing into these sites

40 million dollars in one investment

and that is not because venture

capitalists love prayer it's because

they love

data

you see these sites have a large user

base they are free after all

but prayer represents some uniquely

valuable information about you

i mean it might be nice to know what you

ate for lunch but imagine if advertisers

knew what you were praying for and

that's what these sites are selling

now to be clear

the investigation showed that these

sites have privacy policies that say the

contents of your prayer will not be sold

to third parties but the way they get

around that is by creating different

categories and forums to post your

prayers in

and then by combining that with your age

and location data they can mine a lot of

information about you

so

say you post a prayer in the marriage

category

and then all of a sudden you see an ad

for a divorce lawyer on facebook

or a new marriage book from an author

whose instagram post you liked once

that's where it's coming from

so first

super shady

the second i think it also kind of

reveals what's broken in our

conceptualization of prayer to begin

with

now obviously

i don't know everyone's motivation here

i don't have the data mining capability

to understand all that but

i would guess

that at least part of the appeal behind

these sites is the idea that to get your

prayers answered the best way to do it

is to get

as many people as possible praying for

you

and that's a very subtle but also a very

capitalist perspective that has worked

its way into our imagination of god and

it's something that you see a lot of

if i want god to do what i want god to

do the way to twist god's arm is to get

a lot of prayer capital behind me

and that is fundamentally a misshapen

imagination

a prayer is not a tool for us to shape

god's work in the world as much as it is

a tool that works reflexively on us

now when jesus teaches us to pray in the

lord's prayer which we've recited today

it's all about how our reflection and

our intention can align our desire and

our action with god's heart

prayer is not to change god it is meant

to change

you

okay

but then what about something like

healing should we pray for that

well absolutely we should right

in james we read is anyone among you

sick let them call the elders of the

church to pray over them anoint them

with oil in the name of the lord

the prayer offered in faith will make

the person well

the lord will raise them up and if they

have sinned they will be forgiven

therefore confess your sins to each

other and pray for each other so that

you may be healed

the prayer of a righteous person is

powerful and effective so should we pray

for each other yes shall we pray for

healing yes should we trust that god's

spirit is at work in the world of course

absolutely

but there is a lot more going on here

than just getting what we want from god

first of all

this idea james has of being made well

that's literally the word for salvation

that he uses

and he makes that clear by tying it into

the idea of being forgiven when we pray

for each other

so this is actually isn't just about

healing this isn't just about having our

prayers answered the way that we want

this is actually rooted in the hebrew

idea of shalom

being made well

and at peace the embodiment of human

flourishing in the world

now absolutely our physical health is

part of that

and james is acknowledging that but he's

also expanding it at the same time

this last phrase in the niv it says the

prayer of a righteous person is powerful

and effective but i mean that's just

wrong

the word powerful is ironically

something more like effective

it actually means it accomplishes a

great deal

and then the word effective is the word

inergo

except that's an adjectival participle

that modifies the word prayer

all that means is that the sentence

should read something more like the

working prayers of the righteous

accomplish much

in other words

james is saying if you are sick come to

the community for prayer because yeah we

believe that god is active in the world

and you might be healed but actually

the prayers of the community will do

more for you than you expect

and so when you post your prayers online

you end up with your data monetized by

capital investment firms and when you go

to community

to those who know and care about you and

you open yourself up to them not just

with your needs but with your hurts and

your failings and you trust that you

will be loved and cared for known in the

midst of that vulnerable moment you

might be healed but you will

be made well

and again

the point of prayer isn't to manipulate

god it's that we might be transformed by

god's imagination for

us

and part of what james is arguing here

is that healing is a gift but it's the

very experience of beloved community

that we fall into when we open ourselves

up to each other for prayer that's what

we need because that is shalom

which means that this is being made well

because we are experiencing the kind of

generative community that god has always

known

within god's self

so yeah we pray to be healed

but more than that what we trust is that

in shared community we are invited into

the healing wellness the presence of the

divine

and in that we are made well because we

experience the love that god

is

you see

when we say that god is love

we mean a lot more than god is loving or

even that god loves us

what we mean

is that god is an endless dance of gift

and reception give and take love alive

from before there was time

and that means

that god has never been alone

god has never felt on their own and so

of course god's love for us would

primarily take shape in the world in the

ways that we embrace each other with

that kind of community

human flourishing healing wellness at

the end of the day it is modeled on the

shape of god

and this

right here is actually why discussions

of trinity are so important to

christianity

that's why we wrestle with our language

and our dogma so intently but it's not

about gatekeeping or at least it

shouldn't be

because at the end of the day

trinitarian theology is not about

getting god right it's more about making

sure we don't miss out on any of the

beauty of god

so

here's an example of how that plays out

theologically there's an old heresy

called modalism

and the best metaphor for this might be

to say that god is like water

water can be a liquid and if you freeze

it god can be a solid and if you boil it

it can be a vapor so that's three

molecules in three different realities

just like the triune god

and that works except technically it's

heresy because it assumes that god only

acts or seems or appears in three

different ways but isn't really triune

now

is anyone ever going to be less loved by

god for finding the metaphor of water

helpful or even using it in a sermon no

absolutely not that's not the point of

our doctrine

what we're trying to protect with

doctrine

is the idea that god actually

is somehow a divine community of gift

and reception

persons in relationship not just in

appearance and that the nature of

everything what the universe is composed

of is shared communal love

now hear me

the point of doctrine is not to decide

who is right and who is wrong who's in

and who's out and i know it gets used as

a weapon for that a lot and i'm sorry

but the point of our theology our

language and our doctrine is always

simply to guide us steadily and gently

back toward the beauty of god that

welcomes all

and yeah sometimes we need to be pulled

back in

and sometimes we need to let go of

overly simplistic images and narratives

about god that's what theology does for

us

but particularly when it comes to

trinity

doctrine should do anything but close

down our imagination it should only ever

open us up to the expansive grace of the

one god that is loving community

god is the singular source of all that

is good

and god is an eternal dance of gift and

reception from before there was time

that's what we mean when we say trinity

in fact that's where the genesis of the

idea of trinity comes from

that trinity is not an explicitly

biblical idea

it's the product of biblical reflection

so tertullian was an african theologian

that lived in the late second century he

was the first christian to use the latin

term trinity to describe god

and then a couple centuries later

gregory of nazianzis one of the

cappadocian fathers

an eastern theologian from what today is

known as turkey gave us the first

orthodox image of the trinity

he coined the term perichoresis

now he's using the greek language here

but the prefix peri means around as in

perimeter or the measure around a circle

and choreo is the verb to dance as in

choreography

so the first orthodox image of the

transcendent god so

we have an imminent god that we see in

history right that's goddess creator and

redeemer and sustainer or father son and

spirit all those images we are very

familiar with the god that we know but

the first image of the orthodox

transcendent god who god is in god's

self

is literally the eternal dancing around

that's it that's what we have

and that right there is why spirit is so

important to keep in mind as we point

our imagination back toward god

because images as father and son are

beautiful they're so important to

christianity they help us imagine god is

close incomprehensible

and jesus has an embodied image of god's

way in the world guides us through our

lives but at the same time if we let

them

very particular images of the divine can

also close down our imagination far too

quickly

god is like a human god is like a man

god is like a particular man that i've

known in my life

and it's at that point that spirit

swoops in to lift our thinking back up

to the transcendent divine that we can

barely

name the eternal dancing that formed the

world in all of its complex and

beautiful diversity

see the point of spirit

in our theology is to bring us back to a

pre-rational

sub-linguistic experience of the

goodness that flows through everything

we encounter

i've been reading oprah's new book

that oprah not the other one

it's called what happened to you

conversations on trauma resilience and

healing

it's fantastic you should check it out

but it's written by oprah winfrey and dr

bruce perry who is a psychiatrist

specializing in childhood trauma and

neuroplasticity

but the book is about helping us to

understand the ways in which our

experiences

particularly traumatic experiences

hardwire themselves into our brains

the central premise is that far too

often we ask what's wrong with us

instead of what happened to us

and for someone who has lived an

incredibly privileged life it's been

eye-opening for me to see just how much

of what i take for granted in the world

has been a profound gift i was given

but what i'm fascinated with today

is the way that dr perry explains how

the first two years of our lives even

our experience in the womb shape our

perceptions of the world

as parents i think we're more aware of

this today

but still sometimes we have this idea

that we can hide things from our kids

until they have language to talk about

it or understand it

like we can argue in front of them or we

can be frustrated near them or we can

even ignore an infant or a toddler for a

time because they don't really

understand what's happening

but dr perry argues that actually

language is what helps us rationalize

our experiences

and it's part of what gives us a defense

to those types of experiences

pre-linguistic children very young

children though they are entirely at the

mercy of those experiences

all they have is emotion all they have

is intuition all they have is touch and

safety and care and concern and tone and

texture and timing to shape their

perception

so he argues that it's those

sub-rational pre-linguistic assumptions

about the world that most deeply shape

who we become in the world

now as a parent with a two-year-old

that's a lot of pressure

and i feel that

but also it's an incredible invitation

to us

both to rachel and i as partners in

raising our kids to see the best in

themselves and assume the good that's in

the world around them but also to learn

to welcome this knowledge as an

invitation to remind myself

that it's actually my pre-rational

experience of the divine

the ways that i learn to give myself

over to worship and welcome the ways i

learned to assume god's love surrounding

me always the moments when i set aside

my intellect and my theology to swim in

divine goodness

that these are actually the most

formative moments of my life not the

work that i do to study and research and

write a lot of sermons

in other words

the experiences of god that i allow

myself to have that will shape my

theology not the other way around

or as frederick buchner once wrote

a common view is that life itself

whatever life is does not care one way

or another any more than the ocean cares

about whether we swim or drown

and in all honesty and has to admit that

a great deal of the evidence supports

such a view but rightly or wrongly the

christian faith flatly contradicts this

to say that god is spirit is to say that

life

does

care that the life-giving power that

life itself comes from is not

indifferent as to whether we sing

it wants us

to swim

and my hope is

that as we begin a series of

conversations about this forgotten god

spirit that exists beneath every moment

of our lives

that we would be able to remember that

the god we grasp at with incomplete

language and theology is always for us

and that the more deeply that conviction

can undergird our thoughts and theology

and doctrine the more effectively that

god can transform our experience of

god's world

may the eternal dance of gift and

reception go with you this week

may you inhale divine love

and then breathe out anything that

happened to so doubt in your embrace

this week

the triune god that sits the center of

our faith

but also at the foundation of our

experience of the world

he shared communal love from before

there was time extended now

to us

and through us

let's pray

three in one god

who has always existed as shared love

a dance of gift and reception give and

take a breath in and out

may we understand that below our

language and theology sits this

realization

that the universe is founded in shared

love

and that our thinking our theology our

scriptures our encounters with jesus are

based on that truth

they are pre-rational experience of you

that we feel somewhere deep in the core

of our being in our bones

and we allow that to become the

experience that shapes everything we

see when we talk with a person

when we imagine ourselves

when we move the world pushing toward

the kingdom and imagination you have for

all of us

may who you are

before language

before time before theology

always guide us into love

in the strong name

of the risen christ we pray

amen