ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Trinity Sunday, 7th June 2009
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at Solemn Evensong and Benediction

Readings: Ezekiel 1. 4-10, 22-28a; Revelation 4

Everywhere you look it seems at the moment someone or something is having an anniversary. Here we celebrate 150 years of worship and service in this church. Selfridges in Oxford Street is marking its centenary. Marks & Sparks is 125. Its 65 years since D-Day. In the musical world its 250 years since the death of Handel, 200 since the death of Haydn and 200 years since the birth of Mendelssohn. It's also 400 years since the birth of the Reformer, Jean Calvin (1509-1564). Love him or loathe him you can't ignore Calvin. So this evening something of a rarity at All Saints Margaret Street: a sermon about Calvin, Calvin and the Trinity.

Calvin was born in and educated in France. He was destined for the catholic priesthood but a profound spiritual experience put paid to that. He joined Luther and the Reformers. Opposed by the Catholic Church in France he fled to Switzerland where Geneva became his home. His abiding literary legacy is the Institutes (The Institutes of the Christian Religion). The first edition appeared in Latin in 1536 and he revised it throughout his life. It is one of the Reformation's most important books.

The Institutes is based on the Apostle's Creed. Calvin considers in three sections the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The last includes Calvin's doctrines of the church and the sacraments. For us in the Catholic tradition the early chapters are uncontroversial. The trouble comes later. For many Calvin is an extremist. When I was an undergraduate reading theology I remember my church history lecturer (who was an Anglo-Catholic) saying that if you want to see what the Reformation meant go to Geneva Cathedral. Many years later, I did.

The mediaeval cathedral stands in the heart of the old city. Outside, the building is unremarkable but when you enter the effect is startling. Instead of being full of altars and statues and stained glass the interior is bare except for seats and a great pulpit. Light floods the interior through clear glass windows.

But Calvin was a moderate when it came to talking about God. A cornerstone of Reformation thought was sola scriptura: the bible alone should be the only guide for Christian life and faith. For some radicals this meant that the Trinity should be abandoned: after all the word 'Trinity' doesn't appear in the bible. They said that the complex questions about the relationships between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were inventions of Greek philosophers. The Trinity had served to create a caste system in the church separating 'learned' priests from 'ignorant' laity. It also distanced Christians from Jews and Muslims who also believe in only one God. A leader in what we might now call Unitarianism was Michael Servetus (1511-1553). Michael Servetus was two years younger than Calvin. He grew up in Spain with its Jewish and Muslim heritage. He became one of the great intellectuals of his day. He wrote on a wide range of subjects. He was the first European to describe the way in which the heart pumps blood around the body. He travelled and began to publish. In Strasbourg in 1531 he met Martin Bucer, another important Reformer. After moving to Paris Michael Servetus published several books on theology two of which denied the Trinity.

Michael Servetus and Calvin corresponded. Their letters became increasingly heated and acrimonious. Hounded by Catholics and mainstream Reformers alike, Michael Servetus changed his name and continued to travel and teach. In 1553 he arrived in Geneva and heard Calvin preach. He was recognised at the service, arrested and finally executed for heresy. Calvin wanted him to be treated mercifully. By 'mercifully' Calvin thought that he should be beheaded. Calvin was ignored. Michael Servetus was burnt alive at the stake. So Calvin wasn't an extremist as far as the as the sixteenth century went.

In Book I, Chapter XIII of the Institutes Calvin explains what the Trinity is and defends it on the basis of scripture. He writes 'against false accusers' (like Michael Servetus)who claim to be Christians but do not confess Christ to be God. Although the terms of the doctrine of the Trinity are not found in the bible (he admits) they can be used as a test to 'tear off the mask of [the] turncoat'. To construct a doctrinal test, Calvin explains the primary affirmations and distinctions of the Trinity.

God is one in essence. Yet in God there are three hypostases, or persons. Each is God, yet there remains only one God. Although he acknowledges the subtle differences between the Eastern and Western understandings, he chooses not to be 'such a stickler as to battle doggedly over mere words'. He appeals to what he calls St Augustine's 'more moderate and courteous' approach. This allows for diverse speech within a basic agreement. Calvin says that amid the necessary distinctions between essence and persons, the 'natural names' of Father, Son, and Spirit are the most important.

For the remainder of the chapter, Calvin defends from scripture the confession that God is both one essence and three persons. The Son is shown to be present at creation. Christ appears as the divine angel throughout the Old Testament. The witness of the apostlesand the work of Christ confirm his divinity. The divinity of the Spirit is also confirmed from scripture; so is the principle of unity and distinction, Calvin claims.

Trained in Greek and Latin and well-read in the early Fathers Calvin realized that the controversies between East and West leading to the Great Schism (1054) were partly a failure of language. God is transcendent. God speaks to us of himself in ways that cannot be straightforward. Calvin asks rhetorically: 'For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to lisp in speaking to us?' God lisps in speaking to us. The Greek and Latin languages are lisps. So the Eastern and Western Churches went in different directions.

The use of the word person by the Greeks lead them to the world of icons in which the Trinity is indicated (albeit indirectly) by three angels seated around a communion table; whereas the West with its emphasis on essence was drawn to a more legalistic idea. Eastern theology is anthropological: Western theology is abstract. Both sides taken to extremes lose sight of the mystery. Calvin was trying to avoid past controversies while countering new ones on the basis of scripture. Scripture was followed by tradition. Tradition was full of 'errors' like altars and statues but tradition has given a correct understanding of God, one to which Michael Servetus should have paidheed. So, do these Reformation controversies have anything to do with us? It would be nice to think that the past was the past and that we could move on. However, having been on the National Pilgrimage to Walsingham the other week and berated yet again by the Protestant Truth Society it would appear that the past hasn't lain down and died completely. But I suspect that the sixteenth century speaks to us more powerfully about the relationship of the tradition to the left wing of the church rather than to the right wing.

Feminist theologians question the Trinity. It's not difficult to see why. Father, Son and Holy Spirit sounds like a male-only club. Some feminists would like to see something more gender-neutral: 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' recast as 'Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.'

I have some sympathy with this but the problem is that in terms of our worship (and it's from worship that most of us imbibe our theology), if we designate the persons of the Trinity as functionaries (creator, redeemer and sanctifier) we end up with a rather mechanical view of God. God becomes like one of those great Victorian engines that draws up water, puffs out steam and goes 'toot-toot' all at the same time. If we only use 'Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier' we will lose our grip on the God who at heart is all about relationship. 'Father/Son' carries all sorts of resonances that are difficult to rewrite in only two words. (I'll leave the 'motherhood' of God for another time!)

Calvin understood God in Trinitarian terms. Indeed, he understood it so well that he believed that in order for God to go on being believed-in in this way, for belief to be possible for future generations there had to be something tangible and accessible that could guarantee it. For Calvin in the sixteenth century with a Catholic Church that was so worldly, so corrupt and so remote the bible, the people's bible in the people's language seemed the natural successor. Sadly, you could also argue from the armchair of the twenty-first century that Calvin didn't understand it at all given that he was content to see people killed for disagreeing with him.

For us, four hundred years later with four hundred years more of church history and two hundred years of biblical scholarship Calvin's strategy is simplistic. If the scriptures are about anything they are surely about a religious vision, a vision that is refracted in a variety of ways. This evening's readings from Ezekiel and Revelation show just how strange the bible can sound to us. Yet even in these bizarre and ancient texts the 'holy, holy, holy' sounds out.

It is worth marking Calvin's anniversary not only as a cautionary tale but also to celebrate what Christians have in common: the Trinity. Of course, what Christians have in common is usually better sung than said. Doctrine is like music. As the pianist Artur Schnabel said 'Great music is music that is better than it can ever be played'. The same is true of belief. So, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn: 'Take It Away'.