The 4th Person

Trinity Sunday, 2009.

Matthew 28: 16-20

16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’


Most small children go through a stage where they prefer their mother to their father. Mom hands the child to Dad to hold while she completes a task and the child starts screaming and reaching for Mom. It’s disconcerting for Dad and for Mom it’s flattering but annoying. She also feels a bit embarrassed for her husband who is feeling a little put out. Yesterday his child adored him; today she will have nothing to do with him. It’s just a stage but an uncomfortable one.

As we get older we discover we prefer to share our thoughts and feelings with one parent over the other. Quite often it is with our mothers but not necessarily. I know many women who feel their dads are much more sympathetic to them than their moms are and, of course, many women don’t relate well to either of their parents! It mostly has to do with the meshing of personalities, but these preferences can still create within us mild to strong feelings of guilt that we feel so much more comfortable with one parent over another or don’t feel comfortable with either of them.

Parent/child relationships are complex things with so many issues influencing the outcomes of those relationships. It’s no wonder that when we go to relate to God all the familial wounds we carry from our own childhoods and past and present relationships with our parents are projected onto our relationship with him.

So, it’s a very common and natural to feel guilty about the fact that we have a strong preference as to which member of the Trinity we address when we pray. If one’s natural father was distant and cold or harsh and demanding when one was growing up, there is a tendency to shy away from God the Father, feeling that he might be the same kind of father. That is a common projection in the spiritual life but definitely not the only one. There are as many projections about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as many comfort levels with each member of the Trinity as there are Christians. We each bring our own parental relationship baggage to our relationship with the Lord.

It is difficult to get away from projecting onto God all the minor and major complexities of human relationships and there is often a lingering sense of guilt for paying attention to one and ignoring the other two members of the trinity as if the other two could be hurt by our preference for the one we feel most comfortable with.

The truth is there is no hurt or resentment within God when we pray and relate more to one person of the Trinity over another. Human relationships are made complex and difficult by one thing: broken egos. Ego (Latin for “I”) is the inner sense of self-esteem and self-identity and our human egos are constantly searching for evidence that we are worthwhile and valuable in the eyes of others. When we witness that others prefer someone else over ourselves, it is extremely hard on our egos. There is very little that we do in this life that is not somehow influenced by the needs of our wounded and fragile egos. Much of what we do is saying, “Please love me. Please appreciate me. Please realize my value.”

It is terribly difficult for us to understand that the Trinity does not possess a broken ego. God is completely at home with himself. He does not need our love, worship, adoration and obedience to complete or add to his self-image and sense of self worth. We are so wrapped up in the needs of our own egos that we can hardly comprehend a God who does not operate out of ego.

We all know that God is Pure Love. We all know that Pure Love’s nature is self-giving, not self-serving. It is no wonder, then, that out of Pure Love’s total nature of giving and sharing and creating came the three persons of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a circle of creative service and mutual joy, each one unified with the other in completely selfless openness to one another and to us. When one of them receives love from one of us, the whole Trinity shares that love in a flow of undiluted selfless giving and receiving. To be in relationship with any one of them is to be integrated into their unbroken circle of joy.

If God ever did say, “Please love me. Please appreciate me. Please realize my value.” It would not be because he needs our recognition; it would be because he yearns for us to become part of this circle of joy. His whole nature is to share with us the outrageous beauty of being in relationship with a Trinity of pure love. The Trinity is not a closed circle. The Circle of Three is eternally open to a Fourth: you.

Don’t attribute to the Lord of Life, Light and Love the heavy, dark and coarse nature of human ego. The Trinity calls out to you, “Come and swim in our Circle of Life! Come and be part of the joy. Take off your ego clothes and jump into the waters of Love. Bring others with you. Bring them all to the waters of Baptism and immerse them in the awesome joy in the name of Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And remember...we are with you ‘til the end."

Once in the Circle, always in the Circle! Sure, you can walk away, but the Trinity never will.

P.S. Here is an amazingly beautiful Scriptural description of the nature of the Trinity from 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient; Love is kind; Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.