Trinity: Week 1
Take Your Place at the Table
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
In Genesis we see the divine dance in an early enigmatic story (18:1-8). “The Lord” appears to Abraham as “three men.” Abraham and Sarah seem to see the Holy One in the presence of these three, and they bow before them and call them “my lord” (18:2-3 Jerusalem Bible). Their first instinct is one of invitation and hospitality—to create a space of food and drink for their guests. Here we have humanity feeding God; it will take a long time to turn that around in the human imagination. “Surely, we ourselves are not invited to this divine table,” the hosts presume.
There are three primary colors in Rublev’s icon, each illustrating a facet of the Holy One:
Gold: “the Father”—perfection, fullness, wholeness, the ultimate Source
Blue: “the Incarnate Christ”—both sea and sky mirroring one another (In the icon, Christ wears blue and holds up two fingers, telling us he has put spirit and matter, divinity and humanity, together within himself. The blue of creation is brilliantly undergirded with the necessary red of suffering.)
Green: “the Spirit”—the divine photosynthesis that grows everything from within by transforming light into itself (Hildegard of Bingen called this viriditas, or the greening of all things.)
The icon shows the Holy One in the form of Three, eating and drinking, in infinite hospitality and utter enjoyment between themselves. If we take the depiction of God in The Trinity seriously, we have to say, “In the beginning was the Relationship.” The gaze between the Three shows the deep respect between them as they all share from a common bowl. Notice the Spirit’s hand points toward the open and fourth place at the table. Is the Holy Spirit inviting, offering, and clearing space? I think so! And if so, for what, and for whom?
At the front of the table there appears to be a little rectangular hole. Most people pass right over it, but some art historians believe the remaining glue on the original icon indicates that there was perhaps once a mirror glued to the front of the table. It’s stunning when you think about it—there was room at this table for a fourth.
The observer.
You!
Yes, you—and all of creation—are invited to sit at the divine table. You are called “to consciously participate in the divine dance of loving and being loved,” as Wm Paul Young, the best selling author of The Shack, writes. [1]
The mirror seems to have been lost over the centuries, both in the icon and in our on-the-ground understanding of who God is—and, therefore, who we are too!
Gateway to Silence:
Come, sit at the table.
Reference:
[1] Wm Paul Young in his foreword to The Divine Dance, 22.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016); and
The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity, disc 1 (CAC: 2004), CD, MP3 download.
