The following meditation is a personal exercise. I am neither an ordained minister nor licensed to preach in any denomination of Christianity, nor do I have any formal theological education. My opinions are my own, and, while I am happy to answer any questions posed, the best option for serious doubts is always guidance from a qualified spiritual counselor or local church.
A meditation on the readings of Holy Scripture from Daily Prayer according to the use of the Episcopal Church, of the Wednesday of the week of the Third Sunday of Easter, being the seventeenth day of April in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four
Texts: Psalm 119:25-48; Exodus 19:16-25; Colossians 1:15-23
I love when Paul gets wacky. This Jewish mystic has fallen in love with a man he’s never met, and suddenly all his thoughts of monotheism fall out the window. Granted that this is more typical than you’d think for first-century Jewish mysticism – and, more importantly, that Paul probably didn’t write this letter – nevertheless, these early Christian texts, where theology flies out the window in the face of the sheer love of Jesus – Ah! O Lord, “your judgments are good”!
Pseudo-Paul begins this passage by calling Jesus “the firstborn of all creation”. This phrase has become so well-known, so liked, that we forget that wars, literal wars, have been fought over the wording of phrases just like this – wars we can forget, because we are on the winning side. Following the meditation in the Episcopal service of Evening Prayer (that is to say, immmediately aftec, I, in my folly and pride, imagine you reading this meditation), we are directed to confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed. In that creed, the relationship of God the Son to God the Father is defined as “begotten, not made.” Our Trinitarian faith, and teaching of the Church which have come to refer to as Orthodox, contradicts, explicitly, this passage of Holy Scripture – because, in this passage, when pseudo-Paul calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation,” I fear we must interpret them as meaning “the first creation of God.”
I anticipate that thoughtful Trinitarian readers will be skeptical of this interpretation of the text. The author calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” Is this not what we mean when we say “begotten, not made”? When the text says “creation,” it must be merely some universalizing metaphor, some free way of saying “all things.” This, I mean to say, is eisegesis.
Now, I don’t think it will be news that thoughtful readers of Scripture, who are constantly warned and warning against eisegesizing, often stumble when it comes to the idea that the authors of the Bible might not be entirely Orthodox in their beliefs. I assume that if you (a) have gotten past the part were I said Paul is not the author of all of the letters attributed to him, and (b) are reading with attention a scriptural meditation written by a gay furry in the first place, that this is not a new or controversial idea to you. We are used to criticizing conservative readings of the Bible for reading in homophobia or misogyny that isn’t there in the text – to criticizing our opponents for ignoring the text’s real meaning when it contradicts the received interpretation. Isn’t it likely that we are doing the same here?
“Well, maybe,” I hear my strawman respond, “But why so much about the interpretation of one line of Colossians? Are we really relitigating the First Council of Nicea in the year of our Lord 2024? Haven’t we moved past this?”
The Trinity, though, is sticky on this point precisely because it seems, at the surface, to be so irrelevant, and so uncontroversial. We all agree on this, don’t we?
I am shouting from my balcony directly into your ear: No! No, we really, really do not!
Recently, I made a new friend – a rare pleasure, in my crappy excuse for a life. What makes this friend rarer by far, though, is that this friend not only has the forbearance and patience necessary to talk with me about theology, but has, in fact, done so multiple times. Can you imagine?
This friend grew up in a Latter-Day Saints church, and is still strongly influenced by their theology – one aspect of which, I was interested to discover, is a notable non-Trinitarianism. I can’t go too deep into Mormon theology here (I remind you, I’m unqualified to discuss even the kind of theology I actually believe in), but there's nothing to disabuse you of the notion that the Trinity is a reasonable interpretation of the internal nature of God like discussing it with someone very smart who also happens to entirely disagree with you.
Not soon after starting to have these conversations, I started to ruminate how much anyone understands what we’re saying. One minute I’m lovingly pondering the Trinity, that Holy Mystery, numinous and luminous, and the next, I’m embarrassingly back-counting the number of signs of the cross I made with semi-conscious pride at the Eucharist last Sunday. Do we really sound like that? I think. Do we really say ‘Three is One and One is Three and stop asking questions, there are just some things you can’t know.’
I have to say, it doesn’t take long growing up as a little gay Texan to realize that “stop asking questions” is how the grownups say “this is how we exercise our power over you, this is how we teach you that your pain doesn’t matter.” If the Trinity can be a Holy Mystery, an exercise in suspension of disbelief, maybe Holy and Unknowable, too, can be the ways that you, but none of your friends, can be called to celibacy, can be excluded from the full power of human love, can be ostracized from your own body.
But the worst part? Suddenly, after talking to my friend, it hit me that I was the one teaching Sunday School last year, and I was the one who told all those kids about the Trinity, and what if this doctrine that I thought was beautiful is just a thought-terminating cliché, a tool for oppression, and —
You know, maybe God was right when they said mortals shouldn’t climb up Mount Sinai.
If I were in communion with Rome or Constantinople, this would be an easy solution. Holy Tradition says Trinity, therefore Trinity. Bam. Let's go home. Unfortunately, I’m a bit too gay for Holy Tradition, and, doubly unfortunately, the very smart people say I’m allowed to disregard the parts of Holy Tradition I find abhorrent also say that the New Testament Epistles don’t necessarily agree with the parts of it I find beautiful. Paul’s image of God is not necessarily the God we confess in the creeds, and this is something that we, if we are to read Scripture and not just hear it, have to confront every time it comes across in the lectionary. Where does that leave us, then? Are we stuck here at the base of Sinai, living in ignorance of God’s true nature?
...I mean, probably? Yes? Are you seriously going to sit here and tell me you have true knowledge of not just God, but God’s internal nature? If you do, teach me! I want to learn! I want to know God better!
But, I think, even here at the base of the mountain, looking up at the storm clouds that Moses tells me are God, and confused as I am as to how pseudo-Paul begins, I take comfort from how they continue: “you, who were once estranged and hostile in mind...he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death.” I love being reminded of what is important – and, as you tell the kids in Sunday School, the important answer is always “Jesus.”
Pseudo-Paul is not making abstract statements on the internal economy of the Eternal, they are telling us about the man they have fallen in love with. What they are telling about the nature of God is not about Procession and Begetting and Hypostases, but that it is to Love, and that that love is reflected in not only their love for their Son, but their Son's love for us. This is what I must believe to go on – this is the gospel I have to proclaim, and this is where I see the illumination of the Holy Spirit in this scripture.
Have I stopped believing in the Trinity? No. Have I fully examined this belief? Also no. But, if you say the Nicene Creed today, I ask you, beg you, to not let that be the end of the story. It’s only a thought-terminating cliché if you let it stop you from thinking. I have come to God, come to my limited and feeble understanding of the Love that underlies the universe, through the doctrine of Trinity – the Trinity, still, is the best way I know to explain God's love for me, even if that explanation is different than Paul’s – and I have to say that, even if I believe that I am disagreeing with Paul himself. “Take from me the way of lying,” God, “Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law!”
It’s not scary for me to say that Paul was a homophobe. Somehow I have compartmentalized this away in my mind. But if I say that he was a non-Trinitarian, it suddenly becomes scary. It feels bad to think that your religion is a construction of human hands – it feels bad to say that someone, someone holy, could have been wrong. But I think, in some cases, this is the only thing to do.