The New Math of the Trinity (1+1+1=1)

Trinity Sunday (Year A)

Genesis 1.1—2.4a; Matthew 28.16-20

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Those of us of a certain age probably remember “New Math.” Even if we didn’t quite know what it meant, we heard the term a lot back in the “Dark Ages” of our youth. New Math was a dramatically different way of teaching math that was popular in the 1950s through the 1970s. A way that was, at the time, quite controversial. Many of us here probably learned math the “new” way without ever knowing it, without ever knowing there was an old way. As a kid, when I heard something on the news about New Math, I sarcastically wondered (yes, I was sarcastic even as a child) so instead of two plus two equals four, under New Math does two plus two now equal five? Or three? Or some other number that changes depending on circumstances? I only recently learned that New Math was a shift away from merely memorizing mathematical facts and procedures to trying to teach children the underlying structures and concepts of mathematics. To more fully understand how math operated as opposed to just doing it.

 

Every year when we come to Trinity Sunday, I cannot help but think of New Math. That when it comes to the Trinity, we are dealing with a New Math, of sorts. That in Trinitarian Math, while one plus one plus one equals three, it also means that one plus one plus one equals one.

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Right for the Moment

Day of Pentecost (Year A)

Acts 2.1-21; John 20.19-23

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

You have to admit . . . the Holy Spirit knows how to make an entrance. Our first reading for today, this Day of Pentecost, is the account of the first Pentecost event. Well, that is not entirely true. In more ways than one. While we recognize Pentecost as the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit and, by extension, the birthday of the Church, up until the event recorded in Acts, Pentecost was a completely different thing. Before it became the Christian celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost was a Jewish holy day.

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What's the Holdup?

Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Acts 1.6-14

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Once again, the disciples find themselves in an “in-between” time. An in-between time that we share as part of our journey through Eastertide, as we approach Pentecost in just one week’s time. The disciples have been here before. Sort of. Following Jesus’ death on Good Friday, they experienced the in-between time of waiting for the resurrection Jesus had foretold. Now, six weeks later, they are back in another, a different, in-between time. Only now, it is the time between the Risen Christ’s Ascension into heaven and the Day of Pentecost. A time of waiting for the promised sending of the Holy Spirit upon them. Unlike the first in-between time, between Good Friday and Easter, this one is qualitatively different. And, as we shall see, has a very different purpose.

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I Will Not Leave You Orphaned

Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Acts 17.22-31; John 14.15-21

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

“I will not leave you orphaned.” Jesus says these words to his disciples in the early part of his Farewell Discourse. He has already told them multiple times that he will be killed. He is sharing a final meal with those closest to him before his Passion, before his death. The disciples are obviously anxious, confused, distraught, even devastated at the mere idea of this coming to pass. In the first part of his Farewell Discourse—both in his words that we heard last week, and in the words we heard a few moments ago—Jesus is seeking to calm the disciples’ fears, and particularly their concerns about what his departure means for them. “I will not leave you orphaned.” An interesting choice of words.

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Embodying Eternal Life

Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Occasionally, someone will ask me: “So, what is heaven really like?” Presuming that, as a priest, I have some secret inside knowledge about such matters. No, we do not take a class in seminary that reveals hidden secrets. When we are ordained, we are not given a secret manual with the answers to the sacred mysteries. My response to that question is usually something along the lines of “We really don’t know. The only person to have come back from heaven didn’t give us any details.”

 

I think such questions about heaven are prompted in part by our natural curiosity about the unknown, and in part by such passages as our Gospel for today. After all, it starts off with Jesus saying, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Or, as in the King James Version, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Even though I can only afford a two-bedroom apartment in this life—in Southern California, anyway—at least I will get a mansion for all eternity.

 

While today’s Gospel reading and the imagery of a heaven filled with McMansions for all sounds appealing, and while such imagery is intended to say something about our eternal life in God’s heavenly realm, one commentator cautions that it is not about “celestial real estate.” While certainly having implications for our eternal life, the broader intent of Jesus’ image of dwelling places for all is a metaphor for relationship with God and Christ in the broadest of terms.

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