Homily: Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – Cycle A
I love science! As a former engineer, my brain is wired for
science. What I mean by that is that it
is wired in such a way that, when I see something that I don’t understand, I
automatically begin to wonder about it and try to figure it out. Quite frankly, most of us are wired for
science in some way: usually in a very practical way.
Here’s what I mean. Say that you enter a room with which you are
unfamiliar. It’s a little bit warm in
the room and you observe that there is a ceiling fan. You know a thing or two about ceiling fans,
but you’ve never turned on this particular fan, so you set yourself to figuring
out how to turn it on. You think, “Maybe
the wall switch will turn it on”, and so you flip the wall switches. If that doesn’t work you think, “Maybe I need
to pull the chain on the fan to turn it on”, and so you reach up and pull the
chain. If that doesn’t work you think, “Maybe
there’s a combination of the wall switches and the chain that need to be
aligned to turn it on”, and so you begin to turn switches on and off, pulling
the chain at each setting. If that still
doesn’t work, we think… what? That it’s
broken… of course! We’ve observed, hypothesized,
tested each hypothesis and observed some more, and when we’ve run out of
hypotheses we draw a conclusion. That,
my friends, is science; and we do it almost every day.
As much as I love science, because I
love figuring out how to make things work, I have one big problem with it. You see, the problem with science is that it
equates perception with reality. In
other words, science makes conclusions about reality based solely on what it
can perceive. In my example above, we
concluded that the fan was broken because no switches or combination of
switches would start it spinning. We made
a conclusion about reality based solely on what we observed. The reality, however, could be that the fan
functions perfectly well, but that the switch may be broken or maybe
electricity wasn’t flowing at all to the system. In other words, there could be factors beyond
our perception that could contribute to the reality. Science does not admit these factors and so
sometimes draws incorrect conclusions about reality.
For people of faith there is no other
proof of the limitations of science than when we think about God. Imagine for a moment that you didn’t know
much about God (and let’s assume that you at least give credence to the fact
that there is a God: that is, an all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the
universe). What would you do to figure
out more about him? Well, you’d observe,
I suppose: you’d listen to what people said or wrote about him. Then you might hypothesize about what he’d be
like, followed by observing to see if you’re hypothesis was correct.
Doing that you’d find out that people
say that God is loving, kind, and merciful; that he has the power to control
everything that happens in the universe; that nothing happens without his
knowing about it and either making it happen or, at least, permitting it to
happen. Then you’d say, “Well, if that’s
the case, then things should be pretty good around me. People ought to be living in harmony with one
another and there should be peace, because a God of love and kindness, who can
control what happens in the world, would surely desire there to be love and
kindness throughout the world.” Having
formed your hypothesis, you then observe the world and what would you see? Love and kindness in many places, for sure;
but also hatred, violence, and discord in as many, if not more places. Having observed this, your conclusion might
be: “God is not who people say he is, because what I perceive does not conform
to that proposed reality.” This is the
error that many people in our society make today: they perceive a world broken
by sin and they conclude that if God was who people say that he is, he wouldn’t
allow the world to be like this. Since the
world is this way, God must not be who people say that he is; rather, he might
be nothing more than a mythical creature meant to make people feel better about
living in this broken world.
The problem with this, of course, is
that there are factors outside of one’s perception that contribute to the
reality. In other words, reality is
greater than our perception. Thinking
theoretically, we can somewhat easily come to the conclusion that there must be
a God: an all-powerful being—the uncreated creator—who created all things. In order to know that God is benevolent,
however, we would have to do a lot more work.
To see that all creation works towards the propagation of life, instead
of against it, and that this propagation is a good thing, could lead us to
conclude that God is good and has the good of creation in mind. But to know God as we know him, as loving,
kind, and merciful—or, as we celebrate him today, as a communion of persons—is something
that we can know only if he, himself, has revealed it to us.
Thankfully, this is something that he
has revealed to us; and it is not something that he has revealed by some sort
of divine declaration (even though he has done that). Rather, he has revealed this to us by his
actions. In the book of Exodus, we read
that God declared himself before Moses to be “a merciful and gracious God, slow
to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” and he proved this as time and
again he spared the Israelite people from destruction, even though they had
repeatedly offended him. So gracious and
merciful is he—and so deeply in love of his creation—that, as we read in the
Gospel, he “gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not
perish but might have eternal life.” In
doing so, he not only proved, once again, that what he said about himself is
true, but he also revealed that he is a communion of persons within himself. And how do we know that Jesus truly is the
Son of God and, thus, God himself?
Because of the works that he did: most prominently his resurrection from
the dead.
Thus, the celebration that we come to
today: the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
Today we celebrate who God is in himself: not because we somehow
perceive this with our senses, but rather because of the gift of Faith that has
been placed in our hearts and because of the works that he has worked in the
past (and continues to work today) that go beyond our ability to test
scientifically. In celebrating God as
Trinity, we not only celebrate who he is, but also what that means for us. We know that God is Love and so is a
community of persons. Because of this we
know that, when God creates, he creates in love. We know that, having created human beings to
be persons, like himself, he created us solely so that we might share in his
divine life, which is love. Finally, we
know that, when we turned away from him in sin, he did not shun us, but rather
came close to us, becoming one of us in his Son who would make atonement for
our sins and, thus, make it possible for us to share in the divine life once
again.
And so, my brothers and sisters, as we
celebrate today who God is in himself, let us rejoice also in who we are in
him: beloved sons and daughters destined to spend eternity with him; and let us
commit ourselves, therefore, to follow the admonition of Saint Paul to the
Corinthians and “mend our ways, encourage one another, agree with one another,
and live in peace” so that “the God of love and peace will be with us” and all
those scientific skeptics might begin to see the truth that we proclaim: that
the reality of God is much bigger than their perceptions, but that he
nonetheless cares about each and every one; and that he desires that each and
every one dwell with him in eternal light, happiness, and peace: the very same
light, happiness, and peace that we experience, under sacramental signs, here
at this altar.
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – June 10th & 11th,
2017
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