Trinity Sunday, Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, 6-12-22
A few years ago driving home from St. Joseph, La., on a Sunday afternoon I stopped at the edge of a swamp just over the Mississippi River levee that runs along the east side of Hwy 65. It was a favorite place to photograph dragonflies, and that particular day I went out on a rocky point that extended about 20 yards into an open water area of the swamp.
I was crouched near the edge of the water stalking dragonflies when something compelled me to look up. There about 40 yards out from me in the water were ‘gator eye bumps, focused on me. I assessed my situation, looking back to my car to make sure my route was clear should I need to hastily depart.
The 'gator did not move but lay in the water, eyes on me. Should I leave? I decided to stay. The 'gator appeared to just be curious. At that moment, a tiny dragonfly--one of our tiniest called eastern amberwing, that has wings like gold filagree--perched on an eye bump. I laughed out loud at the incongruity of it.
I have since seen that happen many times. What’s the attraction? Why do dragonflies perch on 'gator heads? And what does it have to do with Trinity? I'll try to make a connection later!
Today is Trinity Sunday, which means I have the impossible task of trying to make sense of our theology of Trinity—God as three in one, one in three.
Well, I can’t! But I’m also not content to just say, “it’s a mystery,” and sit down.., although you will be forgiven for wishing that I would!
I don’t remember who said it or where I read it, but a favorite quote goes like this: “If you think you have God all figured out, whatever you have figured out is no longer God. By definition, it is no longer God.”
I can’t explain Trinity, but I can share some thoughts about the God-saturated universe in which we live and move and have our being, a universe that points constantly and consistently to Divine Trinity.
One of the influences on my thinking about Trinity is Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar, who has written a book about Trinity I’m reading right now. It’s called “The Divine Dance.”
You might have noticed that I just said “Trinity” several times without putting “the” in front of it. That was quite deliberate and I got it from Rohr’s book. Trinity, he says, is how God is being God.
When you put “the” in front of any word, that word becomes a noun: the book, the desk, put the book on the desk, etc. When you take the “the” away, the noun begins to move. Even “the book” can become a verb, as in “Book him, Dano.”
So remove the “the” and liberate “Trinity.” Think dynamic relationships, a circle dance of relationships, God being God—rather than a ”thing.”
How we talk... matters. If this doesn’t make complete sense right now, or if you think I’m nuts, just try it. Try creating a few sentences that refer to “Trinity” without putting “the” in front of it and watch what happens. It just might begin to expand your thinking about God being Trinity.
Another influence on my thinking about Trinity is the many hours I have spent studying the natural world and exploring it with my camera. I kid you not, I consider many of those hours to be prayer.
So here’s two ideas I have about God that are deeply rooted in and continuously reinforced by the hours I spend interacting with creation. The first is that God loves diversity and the second is that God loves relationship.
Here’s one little story that begins to illustrate the point. Restoration Park over in West Monroe on the south side of I-20 is exactly what its name says: a park created by restoring 70 acres that had been used for various industrial purposes over many years—a gravel pit and a dump being two of them, as I recall—and returning those acres to their original, natural forest and wetland state.
In restoring it they preserved human access in the form of well-maintained trails and a boardwalk over the wetland part. It’s lovely and indeed a testimony to the fact that nature is quite resilient and given a little help from humankind, the environment will heal itself.
So... a funny/not-so-funny thing happened. The wetland portion of the park consists of two small, shallow lakes—formed by the activity of resident beavers that dammed up the streams running through the park. These small, shallow lakes have real value—a significant value being that the park serves nicely to capture run-off from the surrounding West Monroe community, slowing down the water, reducing erosion and reducing flash-flooding downstream. That’s how wetlands function and why the loss of wetlands can be so devastating.
But sometime last winter, the beavers started to chew the balustrades of the boardwalk. We don’t know why. Pressure-treated lumber is not their natural food. But they did.
And so the city of West Monroe decided to do something about the beavers so they wouldn’t have to keep repairing the boardwalk. I’m happy to report they did not kill them. They live-trapped them and moved them.
Do I need to describe what happened next? The beaver dams fell apart, the water drained out of the little lakes, and invasive plant species quickly made their move to take over. The boardwalk was safe, but who wants to walk a boardwalk over a field of dry, cracked mud and a monoculture of weeds?
The good news is that a couple members of the local chapter of Master Naturalists who live in West Monroe spotted the problem. With some advice from the restoration ecologist on the ULM biology faculty, they spent some time making like beavers, and until the beaver population recovers, we Master Naturalists will do our best to keep the park alive.
We humans have such a limited understanding of the absolute interconnectedness of nature, the myriad ways every single thing is in relationship to everything else, that we make damaging mistakes all the time. It really is true that a butterfly flaps its wings in Louisiana and the weather changes in Beijing. Tug a spider web and something moves halfway around the world.
As for diversity, it too is the norm. All you have to do is look at a drop of pond water under a microscope, or count the critters that live in your back yard—bugs included, or try to identify all of the plant species in a half mile of road ditch.., or walk into a grocery store and look at the people there, for that matter.
So… what does that have to do with Trinity? It certainly does not explain it. But maybe it gives us a toehold. Maybe thinking about diversity and relationship helps us to grasp for just a moment that diversity can be unified in relationship and unity through relationship can be expressed as diversity.
Maybe Trinity is the very epitome of diversity in relationship. Maybe the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the model for relationship in diversity for the whole planet.
The very best news is that this Trinitarian circle dance of diversity in relationship and relationship in diversity is open. Not closed, but open. And we are invited to participate.
God is love. Love keeps the dance going, but love by its very nature cannot be contained. You have heard it said that love is the one thing we can have… only by giving it away. Better yet, love is less a thing than an action verb.
I began this sermon with a story about an encounter between me, a ‘gator and a dragonfly. It had no direct bearing on Trinity. Rather, it was one of many, many moments that shows me that we live in a God-saturated universe.
The outpouring of love from God in the persons of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit meets us at every turn and draws us in. We can and do resist, always to our own detriment. But love wins and will win all in the end.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
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