AND NOW A WORD
FROM OUR SPONSOR
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for Trinity Sunday is, “And Now A Word From Our Sponsor.”
God!
God is our sponsor.
God sponsors us. God dreamed us up. God imagined us. God created us – with a little help from our parents. God keeps us in existence – with a little help from our heart and lungs – and ourselves.
God!
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity.
Preachers stand before this feast – before our God – before Father, Son and Holy Spirit – like standing before Mount Everest – or the World Trade Center – after September 11 – and say, “Where do I begin?”
What does one begin to say about God?
What does one begin to say about God – when told God is a Trinity of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
KATAPHATIC OR APOPHATIC
In theology there are two approaches when it comes to talking about God: the kataphatic or the apophatic approach.
These two words are not in the Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary – which is on my desk, but they are two words that appear in theology and spirituality literature.
Kataphatic means “with words, with images – with descriptions.” “Kata” – K A T A – is the Greek prefix for “with” and “phatic” P H A T I C – means “to say”. So to say God is a like a mountain, or the ocean, like a Father or a Mother, like fire, like wind, like Father and a Son and the Spirit of love between them – is to be kataphatic.
Apophatic means silence. “Apo” A P O – the Greek prefix means “away from”, “separated” “detached”, and once more “phatic” means “to say”. We know words with "apo" up front. Apology means to move away from something that was said or done. Apostrophe is a tiny turned away mark that indicates letters are missing.
So to be apophatic is to say nothing about God, to be silent, to move away from saying anything about God.
Some call God Light; some call God "Darkness". In fact, I have a whole book entitled, “The Darkness of God.” (1)
So in this homily I'm probing how we see God. I'm talking out loud about two approaches to God: kataphatic or apophatic.
So when it comes to God – to speak or not to speak – that is the question.
And I'm trying to say there's something to say - paradoxically about either approach - more or less.
And the crowd at Mass screamed apophaticaly, “Enough already. Don’t say anything – or at least shorten thy homily.”
At a funeral we try to say something about the person who died – and sometimes someone says, “You got her! You captured him. You knew him.” Or sometimes we say, “Nope, you didn’t know him!” Or when John F. Kennedy died, who said, “Johnny we hardly knew you!”?
When it comes to God, I see the Bible is more kataphatic than apophatic – yet the command stands right there: "I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.”
What about you, when it comes to God?
Which is more you?
What about how you pray? There is kataphatic prayer – and there is apophatic prayer – words and silence.
What about churches you've been in? Do you like a lot in them or just sheer simplicity.
When it comes to images, statues, sculptures of God – the scriptures and the history of religions have people making statues and people knocking statues off their pedestals. Some thought statues are a good way to worship God; others thought you're moving into possible idolatry. You might be promoting false religion.
I’m sure we’ve heard somewhere along the line about Iconoclasm – the destruction of icons.
With the changes in the Church in the past 50 years, I’m sure we’ve all gone into churches other than Catholic churches. I’m sure some of you here probably have gone into Jewish synagogues – and maybe a mosque or two. When we were in Catholic grammar school we were told by the nuns and priests we can’t go into a Protestant church. I’ve also heard that Protestant kids were told they couldn’t go into Catholic churches. Yet every year on a certain day we headed for a Lutheran church to get free ice cream – and enjoyed every lick of Protestant ice cream.
In our travels – vacations – trips here and there – we’ve all been in churches. What were your observations about the insides of different churches. I didn't do any research on this, but I assume that in the past there were more obvious differences between some Protestant churches compared to some Catholic churches.
What do folks who are not Catholic see, taste, touch with their eyes – when they drop into Saint Mary’s Church here on Duke of Gloucester Street, Annapolis, Maryland.
I’m sure we remember hearing in history classes about the Reformation in England when the Puritans dissolved and destroyed monasteries and shrines, pictures and paintings. In 1643 there were laws declaring the destruction of superstitious images – including crucifixes, pictures of the Virgin and the Holy Trinity and the Saints. (2)
There is something in religion where these two instincts appear – to paint on walls and to white wash walls.
Remember a few years back when there were TV news reports about the Taliban shooting shells and then dynamiting two great statues of the Buddha in Central Afghanistan. There was uproar from many. I remember thinking, “Are they crazy? If you want tourism down the line, you need religious places to bus people to – and then there is the trickle down economy of restaurants, motels and bus travel."
QUESTION
Where are you with these two instincts?
In this church there are three types of stained glass windows.
The ones up here in the sanctuary are the oldest – and there is one remaining of this same type in the back on your right. They go back to the church renovation of 1885. There was also a plan to put a round window up there in center above the altar. I understand there is an outline of brick work up there somewhere.
Then there are these 8 Mary windows along the sides – I think they are Munich stained glass windows. They were put in there in the renovation of 1917.
And then there are newer stained glass windows in the back – that extend up to the choir loft. They were put up in 1979.
What’s your take on these windows? Would you like clear glass and see the real sky? I believe that’s what the original church had. The 1885 windows seem faded to me.However, I wouldn’t lose sleep if new windows took their place. I’m sure the Annapolis Historic Society would scream. I personally like these middle Marian windows – and I don’t like the 1979 windows in the back at all. (3)
So if you're still with me, I'm probing, what’s your take on religious art? If you were an artist how would you sculpt, paint, picture God? If you were a poet, how would you put God into words?
If you are apophatic – silent, would your favorite scripture text from the psalms be, “Be still and know that I am God?”
Would your favorite classic spiritual reading book be, “The Cloud of Unknowing” by an unknown English spiritual writer from the middle ages – where God is the Great Unknown. We’ve been in airplanes looking out the window and seeing everything – and looking out the window and seeing only clouds. In this book, God is in the Cloud of Unknowing.
Would your favorite theology book be, “The God I Don’t Believe In?” – which gives a long list of ideas about God that the author doesn’t believe in. (4)
I have my list of images and ideas about God that I like and I also have my list of ideas and images of about God that I don’t accept in any shape or form?
CONCLUSION: TRINITY SUNDAY
I’m much more kataphatic than apophatic.
The title of this homily was, "And Now a Word from Our Sponsor."
Calling God a sponsor is kataphatic. It's an image.
Let me close with an image of the Trinity that has energy.
Today is Trinity Sunday. The other day at breakfast or lunch a few of us were talking about how tough it is to preach about the Trinity – with Trinity Sunday coming up.
I said to Fathers John Kingsbury, John Harrison and Blas Caceres, “Could I use the three of you as props or visual aids for my homily? I’d have the 3 of you come dancing down the aisle in unison.”
There was a great laugh and then Father Jack Kingsbury said, “Okay, but you’d have to let the three of us wear black tights.”
I said that because the dance – is a great image of God – and it's used at times in theology. In Greek Orthodox literature, the dance of the Trinity is called the “PERICHORESIS”. Literally it means the going around and around and around – as in the 3 persons in the Trinity are different but indwell in each other – like 3 persons dancing.
It’s a kataphatic image of God. We get it. We’re at a wedding and we see a newly married couple dancing their first dance and we pray that they will get to dance at their 25th and 50th weddings and their children and their children’s children’s weddings – and each dance is even more powerful.
We’ve also been at weddings where they did the chicken dance. There is a long line of dancers pulling people onto the dance floor – and all are one – many persons are one. It says to me that two people can be one. It also says, Trinities are possible . Family is possible. Community is possible.
Heaven – one of the images of what heaven will be like is that of the great dance – laughter, music, celebration, joy, God – at play as we heard in that first reading today -and God upon seeing us playing together has great joy. Amen.
Picture on top is the ceiling of the Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki Finland, 2010. That's a copper ceiling.
(1)
The Darkness of God, Negativity in Christian Mysticism, by Denys Turner, 1995, Cambridge University Press
(2) 1992 - Book:
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, by Eamon Duffy
(3) For more information about St. Mary's Church read,
St. Mary's Church in Annapolis, Maryland, A Sesquicentennial History, 1853-2003, by Robert L. Worden, 2003
(4)
The God I Don't Believe In, by Juan Arias -Abbey Press, 1974
