When the Spirit of truth comes,

he will guide you into all the truth.

John 16:13

But today - Trinity Sunday - is different. Not only is it not tied to a specific event in the life of Christ, it is the only Sunday of in the Church year given over to the celebration of a doctrine.

Yes, that's right, a doctrine. We would like to think, and we do think, indeed we believe, many of us, that God exists in three "persons" - the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to use the classical terms. (More on those shortly.) And while none of us may understand exactly how that Three-in-One relationship works, it is a foundational pillar of the Christian faith.

But here's the interesting thing. The word Trinity is not found in the Bible. Nor is the concept explicitly taught in the pages of scripture. Certainly there are plenty of references that give rise to the idea that God exists in more than one "person" or "state" - passages like the one we read today, for example.

But as is so often the case, we tend to read these passages backward through time. What I mean is, we read them with all sorts of assumptions built into them. Assumptions that reflect the meaning history has conferred on these texts.

Take this passage for example. When the Spirit of truth comes, Jesus says, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

We assume that Jesus is referring here to the Holy Spirit. And we also take it as a given that this same Spirit is the third member of the Trinity. It just seems plain as day to us.

But it wasn't always that way. Our first hymn for today - Holy, Holy, Holy - is sung to the tune "Nicaea."

And that's no accident. For it was at the Council of Nicea, some 300 years after the death of Jesus, I might point out, that the doctrine of the Trinity was finally, and formally, worked out.

Now, I generally did pretty well in school, but when we began to study this Council in our Intro to Church History class in seminary, it was like my brain just completely locked up. As I recall, the details sort of befuddled most of us.

Some guy named Arius apparently caused a major uproar when he suggested that Jesus was created by God. According to Arius, Christ was God's first creation, but still a creation, which implied that Jesus was not himself divine.

About 400 hours of debate later, not to mention heaven knows how many charges of heresy and motions to excommunicate brother so-and-so for such-and-such offense against scripture, this gathering of Bishops finally settled the matter with a vote.

Jesus, as they put it, and as we will say later in the Nicene creed, was God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. "

Now, as you might predict, this vote did not necessarily end the controversy. Nor did it really do much to help people understand what any of those words mean. Begotten, not made, of one substance with theFather . . . debate around what all that meant continued to rage for a good long while.

But generally speaking, church historians agree that the issue of the Trinity was settled at Nicea. The subsequent debate around meaning of its specific terms finally petered out by the fifth century, and the Trinity has never again been at the center of any serious controversy.

Until recently.

Philip Melanchthon, one of the early church reformers and not one too shy from esoteric theological debate, said once that it's better to love the mysteries of God rather than to investigate them.

However wise that counsel may be, it appears to be too simple for us, or not enough, especially when it comes to the Trinity. For at the General Assembly in 2004, our own denomination, the PC(USA), commissioned a working group to draft a theological statement on the doctrine of the Trinity.

The paper was released at this year's GA and, not unlike the Council of Nicea, chaos ensued. First you have to know that the document, entitled, "The Trinity: God's Love Overflowing" was some 31 pages long.

Now, it's not entirely unreasonable to suppose that 31 pages of reflection on the nature of the Trinity is a pointless exercise in theological navel gazing, an act of self-indulgence with absolutely no consequences in the real world.

But that would be wrong.

I was sitting in a kind of waiting room not too long ago, and I struck up a conversation with a lady who seemed perfectly nice, and was perfectly nice.

She asked what I did, so I told her I was a minister and added that I was the pastor here, at the WW Presbyterian Church. As soon as she heard that word - Presbyterian - she immediately expressed her shock and indignation at what the denomination had done with, or done to, her own cherished doctrine of the Trinity.

"Is it true that you all have abandoned the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for the Mother, the Child and the Holy Womb?" she asked incredulously.

Well no, not exactly. Unfortunately I didn't happen to have a copy of the Trinity paper with me at the time, so I couldn't respond to her in specific terms. But I was certain the document was much more thoughtful and careful than she made it seem. I was quite sure the committee who drafted the paper hadn't abandoned anything, especially not anything so sacred as "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Instead, I was fairly sure that what the committee had done was to study scripture to see if there were other ways we might understand the reality, the truth, the experience, of the Trinity in ways that were not so male-centric.

And sure enough that is what happened. If you take the time to actually read the paper you'll find that it's quite a fine piece of theological reflection. You'll find that it's thoughtful. And faithful. And interesting. And helpful. And verifiably biblical.

And for some of our closest Presbyterian friends, it's also heretical. Along with their concerns about ordination standards, not a few churches right here in our Presbytery have cited this paper as further cause for alarm as to the wayward nature of our denomination.

I have to believe that most of these people have not taken the time to read the document itself, and have contented themselves to read only the ways that its critics are misrepresenting it, as the nice lady I spoke to earlier seemed to have done.

Listen to what the paper actually says, to the different ways it suggests we think about the Trinity…

As we seek God's grace and wholeness, acknowledging the . . . brokenness in us, in our communities and in the whole creation, the triune God is our Rainbow of Promise, our Ark of Salvation, and our Dove of Peace.

As we read, proclaim, hear and live out the message of scripture, the triune God is known to us as Speaker, Word and Breath.

In baptism, the triune God is for us Overflowing Font, Living Water and Flowing River.

Or this one, so approspo of our celebration of the success of our capital campaign, As we offer ourselves, our resources and our gratitude in stewardship and Eucharist-- that is, stewardship and thanksgiving-- the triune God is Giver, Gift and Giving.

And, yes, as we are born anew by water and the Spirit, the triune God is Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-Giving Womb.

Now, I admit that at least some of these new ways of thinking about the Trinity likely will not resonate with a good number of faithful, church-going folk.

If you don't like thinking of God as Speaker, Word and Breath, or as Overflowing Font, Living Water and Flowing River, that's absolutely fine. If you prefer Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that's all well and good. That historic formulation will always be one of the pillars upon which the church's creeds rest, and I don't know anyone who wants to knock that pillar down.

But to suggest that these new formulations are unfaithful and heretical is just plain wrong, if not actually mean.

But what it really is, is sad. I hate that doctrine divides church folk. I hate that some people are so closed to new ways of thinking about God that they won't even read 31 relatively short pages, because if they would do that, they would find beautiful treasures buried in these words.

So if doctrine divides us, why not just give up? As Melenchthon proposed, why not just adore the mysteries of God and not investigate them.

It's certainly tempting. For there is a sense in which the reality behind the doctrine of the Trinity is very, very easy to understand; very, very simple to articulate.

It's just God being God; which is to say, it's God going beyond our human constructs and language.

The Trinity is just our way of admitting that is bigger than we can imagine. Whether you prefer Father, Son and Holy Spirit or Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-Giving Womb, all of these names are just our way of admitting that we can't begin to capture or express the nature of God in our itty-bitty finite language.

'Cause, as someone said, if you think you understand God, then it's not God.

What's so funny about all of this to me as that in my view one of the oldest means of describing the Trinity is still the best. In the 8th century, the monk John of Damascus coined the term " perichorisis " to describe the Trinity. Essentially that word means "inter-penetrating" love.

What it really means is that love is the foundation of the Divine life. That even God exists somehow in community, in the relationship between "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" or "Mother, Child and Womb."

It means that God's own life consists of a relationship in which the members cannot be separated; that are all equal, and that they all depend on this relationship, on Love itself, for their very existence.

Amen and may it be so for us!