Sermon

Ladders and Circles

by The Rev. Dr. Michael Johnston, Scholar-in-Residence

We are climbing Jacob's ladder,
We are climbing Jacob's ladder,
We are climbing Jacob's ladder,
Soldiers of the cross.

Every round goes higher, higher,
Every round goes higher, higher,
Every round goes higher, higher,
Soldiers of the cross!

Sing it with me; you all know it from Sunday School.
Now try it this way:

We are dancing Sarah's circle,
We are dancing Sarah's circle,
We are dancing Sarah's circle,
Sisters, brothers, all!

Every ring gets fuller, fuller,
Every ring gets fuller, fuller,
Every ring gets fuller, fuller,
Sisters, brothers, all!
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Matthew Fox, a former Dominican monk, now an Episcopal priest, wrote a lovely little book a couple of decades ago called A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Village.  In his book, Fox talks of the difference between the two spiritualities symbolized by the climbing song and the dancing song.  The ladder song is about a spirituality which is vertical and hierarchic, escalated from bottom to top, a spirituality based on an ascending scale.  It is just a trifle macho, and, you can argue, even a little violent:  "soldiers of the cross."

It's about hanging on to the Up/Down idea of the way the universe is made: God is Up; we are Down.  Someone is ahead of me--higher up--on the Ladder. And I dare not let go of my own rung, lest I lose my grip, and fall from my place in the pecking order.

This view of Creation also leads to a piety in which the Altar (Latin for "high place") is always UP and the People are always DOWN -- in the odious "Pews."  Thus God is safely at the top of the ladder, and our relation to God will be one of adoring His Majesty, His Strength, His Glory, and sharing in His superiority over the weakness of those below.  This is hardly an adequate metaphor for the Holy Trinity, which teaches the mutuality and companionability of a Deity manifestly in love with the cosmos through creating, redeeming, and sustaining.

When I was growing up, in those old, unreformed Anglo-catholic days, we used to trot out the Creed of Saint Athanasius and chant it in procession on Trinity Sunday.  Quite a lifeless exercise, actually.  Which may be one of the reasons you now find poor old Athanasius stuffed behind the Catechism, in a basement corner of the current Prayer Book, in a section called Historical Documents.

But maybe we ought to trot him out again and dust him off.  Because Athanasius is quite clear that the relationship among the three persons of the Trinity are neither linear nor vertical.  "And in this Trinity," it says, "none is afore, or after, another; none is greater, or lesser, than another.  But the whole three Persons are co‑eternal and together and co-equal."

Even our icon of the Holy Trinity seems to have forgotten Athanasius. It is, I will give you, an equilateral triangle.  But one corner of the triangle is always pointed upward, suggesting position of the Father.  However, that location made, we're not sure where the other two points should be, or which is Son and which is Holy Spirit.  Imagine the appropriate ambiguity if the triangle were placed slightly askew of the vertical axis!  Or better yet, imagine the triangle spinning in space!  In any case, over and against angularity of image or spin, consider what is brought to mind by a Sarah's circle of spirituality.

God, here, is a dance coach, not a drill sergeant, who teaches pirouettes and pas de trois, not bumps and bruises.  The spirituality of Sarah's Circle is a spirituality of In and Out, not Up and Down; of Sharing, not competition; of Welcome, not restriction; of Strength, not violence; of Gentleness, not weakness; of Inter-dependence, not independence.  It is a ballet, not a battle.

"Let us make humankind in our Image," said God in Genesis this morning.  "Male and female created He them."  Anthropocentric theology has consistently read this text as outlining humankind as the pinnacle of God's creative activity.  After all, the story goes on, he has given us dominion over all things.  But I would like to call your attention to the fact that on the Sixth Day, God also made the cattle as well as the wild beasts of the fields.  Not just women and men on that sixth day, but wildebeests and zebras, cockroaches and creepy crawlies, and things that go bump in the night.  We're part of that circle of Creation, a bundle of life, an inter-dependent set of relationships.  And the doctrine of the Trinity is meant to call that to mind.

Saint Francis and Saint Clare clearly had it in mind.  They saw that the birds and beasts -- even the rocks and the winds -- are our sisters and brothers, too.  And the Prayer Book gets the point as well.  The Song of the Three Young Men, appointed for Morning Prayer, does teach us the invocation of the saints: "Glorify the Lord, O spirits and souls of the righteous."  But it also teaches us the invocation of the whales!

"Glorify the Lord, O springs of water, seas and streams,
       O whales and all that move in the waters.
All birds of the air, glorify the Lord,
       praise him and highly exalt him forever."

The canticle is a long one, because it rehearses the entire Creation story of Genesis -- from the sun and the moon to the ice and the sleet to the holy and humble of heart.  Accordingly, it is appointed to be read on Saturdays, celebrating as it does the completion of all God's work on that last sixth day, the day before God rested.  And that too is what the Holy Trinity calls to mind.

God in three persons, no wallflower, moved over the face of the deep.  God danced and blessed, and breathed and rested.  So our universe is not a ladder but a carousel, which we are invited to ride for awhile until we leap for the golden ring.  The Feast of the Holy Trinity should inspire us to dance, not dogmatize.  The Trinity is a way of talking about the Authors of a Universe who do not say, "Don't touch.  This is copyrighted."

Instead, God says, "Take this world, and see what you can make of it; just don't break it.  Here are some ideas and some stuff to work with.  Fool around with what I've given you, and enjoy!  Run with the ball!  Enlist the wind and the sail!  I'll be around to give you some hints from time to time.  Try to keep the whooping crane alive; she was fun to make and is a hoot to watch.  Look after every living thing in this circle of life, and it will look after you. 

Then try organizing your human family -- as the Son and the Spirit and I are organized -- so as to be at one with the rest of the creatures, including the whales.  And greet each other with a Shalom, a Salaam, and a holy kiss."

A holy kiss of peace, says St. Paul, in his letter this morning.  Paul is forever reminding us that he was a dogged hard worker, with a certain access to the judging authority of Christ.  But he gives us, at the conclusion to this text, a Sarah's circle of a blessing:  "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ...".  Paul starts at the place in the Circle of God where its brokenness got mended -- the charis of Jesus -- and then he goes on to "The Love of God...".  Not the Majesty, the Power, or the Triumphalism, but the agape of God.  And he finishes with the Fellowship, the community, the koinoinia, of the Holy Spirit.

We are dancing Sarah's circle,
Sisters, brothers, all!  
Every ring gets fuller, fuller,
Sisters, brothers, all!

I invite you, therefore, to consider Sarah's Circle as the Song of the Holy Trinity.  Hum it as you think about your relationships with your brothers and sisters.  And imagine that the three persons of the Trinity are singing it to one another while spinning through cosmos.

© Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedralstrong>