On this feast of the Holy Trinity – which teaches us that God comes in three: Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit: let me share three stories for your consideration.
Story #1
The Civil War General: Ulysses S. Grant had a terrible drinking problem. The only friend
who was really close to him was a lawyer named John Rawlins.
After Grant had become the head of all the Union forces during the war, Rawlins convinced Grant to take a pledge of sobriety. And when Grant would fall off the wagon and go back to drinking, it was John Rawlins who went to him as a friend, confronted him, and reminded him how many people were depending on him, so he had to stay sober.
If you ever go to Washington D.C. - you can go to the front of the capital building and you will see a heroic statue of General Grant on his horse. And if you leave the capital and go west down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, you will eventually find a little place called Rawlins Park. In that park is a very non-descript statue of John Rawlins, yet the truth is, literally and figuratively, the only reason General Grant stayed on his mighty horse, was because of his friend, John Rawlins - who challenged him to be his best.
Story #2
… comes from a tv movie probably few of you remember or have ever seen called: There were times, Dear.
Made in 1985 and starring Shirley Jones, the movie tells the story of a woman who had to cope with her husband’s progression into dementia. The film shows Jones watching her husband as he becomes more and more lost, becoming more forgetful and more incapable every day. She worries about waking up in the morning and finding him missing, as he often wandered off by himself. But she doesn’t keep her distance. She stays with him, cares for him, bathes him, and dresses him, every day. And she does this with the knowledge that not only will her husband never get better but there will come a time when he doesn’t even know who she is. Yet she has no thought of leaving him or putting him in an institution, because her love for him was to be in sickness and in health, till death do they part.
Story #3
Also from a movie, one a bit more popular than the last, Brian’s Song, which tells the story of two great football players: Brian Piccolo and Gayle Sayers.
Gayle was black and Brian was white, and in all of professional sports history, they were
the first black and white to share a room together while in training camp and on the road during the season. You may remember the story, Brain Piccolo gets cancer and wasn’t able to take part in the playoffs. Gayle Sayers did, and won the George Halas Award: given to the winner of the National Football Conference championship game in the National Football League. In the movie, as in real life, Sayers stood up to accept the award and said: “You flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you here and now that I accept if for Brian Piccolo. “He is a man of real courage, and he should be receiving this award. I love this man, and I’d like you to love him, too. And tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him, too.”
Why were we moved by that scene? Not just because it showed extraordinary friendship
between a black and white man, but because it said something profound about the relationship: “I love this man.”, something we men seldom get around to saying about anyone – especially each other. . .
So why these three stories on this feast? Because they each tell of a loving relationship.
Instinctively, we know that we are all at our best, our most moral, our most human, our
most divine, when we are in loving relationships. But why?
Because it is at those times that our true identity is revealed: our identity of being created in the image and likeness of God, revealed precisely as a God whose very nature is a loving relationship.
The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that our God is not solitary, like pagan gods. And our God is not cruel or vengeful, like the Greek and Roman gods. NO - our God is one in relationship: Father, Son, and Spirit, and the basis of that relationship is LOVE. AND WE ARE MADE IN THAT IMAGE!
No wonder, then, that we are godly, most divine, most happy, most fulfilled, when we, too, are in a loving relationship.
Of course, we can flip that around and say that we are least like ourselves and most
unhappy and most inhuman when we are OUT of relationship, out of sync with the Trinity in whose image we are made. That is why the worst pain we experience is when we are out of relationship. Think of the raw emotions that come with a betrayal, a separation, a divorce, the death of a spouse or child, or any severe breaking of a relationship. . . These situations hurt so much because they go against the grain of who we are.
On the other hand, the stories we just heard, resonate with us in some way, because they provide a mirror of the triune God in whose image we are made. They picture us as our godly best. They show us living in the loving pattern of the Trinity.
So maybe the next time someone says to you, “Well, so you’re a Christian, you believe in
the Trinity, what’s that all about?”, we won’t think we have to go into a long philosophical or theological discussion. We can simply say: “It’s about three persons bound in a relationship of love, AND it’s about me, because I am the reflection of that relationship.
The Trinity urges me to show in my own life through my relationships, a glimpse I have of
God’s life: Father, Son, and Spirit, in a
relationship of love.