1 Come, join the dance of Trinity, before all worlds begun—
the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son.
The universe of space and time did not arise by chance,
but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.
4 Within the dance of Trinity, before all worlds begun,
we sing the praises of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son.
Let voices rise and interweave, by love and hope set free,
to shape in song this joy, this life: the dance of Trinity
Text: Richard Leach; © 2001 Selah Publishing Co., Inc.
Tune: Kingsfold
Romans 5:1-5
1Therefore, because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
3And not only that, but we also rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Reading in Romans
Today's passage from Romans refers to all three persons of the Holy Trinity as they particularly relate to human aspects of creation and human experience.
The letter to the church at Rome is the seventh and last of the apostle Paul's undisputed epistles that contain strong evidence of his authorship. We sometimes refer to Romans as Paul's systematic theology—systematics is the philosophical-style theology that presents ideas about God and creation with formal definitions, outlines, logic, and structure. Compared to the styles and standards of theologians like Karl Rahner and Karl Barth, Romans isn't particularly systematic, but it still gives us Paul's mature, well-developed theology.
Trinity Sunday…
…celebrates a doctrine or teaching rather than an event. Scripture strongly implies God as triune or three-in-one / one-in-three, but scripture never uses the word "trinity." The church didn't articulate the doctrine or teaching of God as Triune until 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicaea that gave us the Nicene Creed.
The Trinity is a mystery! Our human brains insist on trying to describe it, but most attempts ending up with the heresy of modalism. Those would include ice, water, vapor; son, friend, brother, yet they provide at least a faint clue.
Humans casually assign characteristic traits to each Person, but in reality they all participate together in every aspect of the life of the world.
Perichoresis
However, the early church used the term perichoresis or "dancing around." We know peri from peripatetic, perimeter, perigee, periscope… I found a whole lot of words starting with peri! Some are about around / surround, others – like my favorite periwinkle – maybe aren't, though one website suggested "periwinkle" may have come from entwine, so that qualifies. Dance words like choreography and choreographer relate to choresis; chord and anchor probably don't. Perichoresis pictures Trinity as dynamic mutual indwelling in unity, union, harmony, agreement, concord, consonance…
The Holy (Holy, Holy) Trinity models our interactive and cooperative lifestyles and ministries. Baptized into participation in the life of the triune God in the world, for the world, the church [us!] lives as the Image of the Trinity. The hymn sings, "Let voices rise and interweave, by love and hope set free, to shape in song this joy, this life: the dance of Trinity."
The Trinity and the Means of Grace
Jesus charges his followers – the church – to proclaim the Gospel in word and action. Jesus calls us to baptize and literally to re-member him by breaking the bread of life and offering the cup of salvation. Created, redeemed, sanctified, we reveal the triune gospel to the world when we live our daily lives as sacraments that mediate between earth and heaven. The church as community and each of us as individuals nurtured and discipled by that community take our cues and clues from the perichoresis of the Trinity.
"The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered." Philipp Melanchthon, Augsburg Confession, from Article 7
"Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists." John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 4, chapter 1, section 9.
Watch this Space!
Although we set aside one Sunday each year to celebrate the Trinity, every Sunday is Trinity Sunday, every day is Trinitarian for us as Christians. Next week we'll start counting Sundays after Pentecost as the Church moves into its own during a six-month long stretch of green and growing season of Ordinary [ordered, structured, arranged] Time. We'll continue walking the talk as we minister to worlds around us. We're not yet post-COVID, yet the pandemic has given the church more reason than usual to try out new possibilities, to be more imaginative than usual. Baptized into the Dance of Trinity, we minister to a world that meets us as the presence of the Triune God.
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