Form and Function

Trinity Sunday
Trinity Parish of Newton Centre
June 12, 2022

In the evolution of technology, one tension that has been considered, in modern history, is the tension, or at least the interplay, between form and function.  In architecture, or computer science, or nearly any type of innovation, technology users might ask two important questions: is this device, or structure or idea, useful? Is it functional, does it provide a benefit, or some type of assistance? And second, is this same device or structure or idea creatively designed, is it elegant, or aesthetically pleasing?  Some designers might suggest that form and function, that usefulness and beauty are intimately connected, and that maybe you can’t have one without the other, you can’t have a truly elegant design that is not also useful.  One of the canonical examples of this tension is the old standoff between the devotees of Apple products, iPhones and Macs, and, well, every other computer user, who might have the gall to use a Samsung Galaxy, or worse a Microsoft Windows enabled PC.  The old critique is that Apple was able to achieve both form and function, by elegantly designing devises that were both useful and pleasing to use, and conversely that PCs are clumsy and ugly and generally unenlightened computers that sacrificed any type of aesthetic beauty for some type of very basic functionality.  I do confess that I am a hopeless PC user.  If my computer mouse can’t right click and left click, I am completely lost.  Tech preferences aside, I do find this type of exploration to be useful, the consideration of form and function, this exploration of the connection between beauty and purpose, between aesthetic pleasure and functional utility.

This morning on Trinity Sunday as we embark on this very type of exploration, as we take a step back and consider the very dynamics of the the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity, we might even consider the Trinity’s form and its function.  We might ask, what is the purpose and what are the aesthetic principals of the Trinity?  Is the Trinity merely a catechetical devise, a utilitarian teaching tool that we can use to educate, and to explain the nature and the substance of God?  The Trinity is certainly useful in instruction: the Trinity as a theological idea can help us wrap our minds around the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, one divine substance, one singular, monotheistic being.  We might also ask, does it contain beauty, is the Trinity elegant and complex and mysterious?  The Trinity is nuanced, and dynamic, the Trinity challenges us and maybe dares us to comprehend a God who is both ancient and eternal, a God who is unchanging and also becoming, a God who was manifest on earth in human flesh, and a God who blows like the wind, as a spirit who is always with us.  The Trinity can do both of these things; the Trinity can offer us a religious vocabulary so we can talk about God, and describe God, and understand God; and the Trinity might inspire some type of aesthetic awe, like seeing a beautiful painting, or hearing a transcendent piece of music, the Trinity might bring us to that sublime place, where form and function fit perfectly together, where the beauty and purpose of God enter into each of our lives.

Trinity Sunday, also provides an opportunity to remember that the Trinity is not only an external concept, a theological idea to be observed or contemplated.  The Trinity does not only attempt to describe the divine, the Trinity is also intimately linked to each one of our lives.  Not only because we believe in a benevolent God who loves us, but because we believe that God is within us, we believe that the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells in each of our bodies, in our hearts and in our souls.  We can reflect on the Trinity, we can work to understand the Trinity, the Trinity might even evoke aesthetic awe in some of us, but we also actively participate in the Trinity, we participate in the Holy Communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and when we go out into the world to bring the peace and love of God to our neighbors, we bring the Trinity with us.  In the earliest editions of the Prayer Book, Thomas Cranmer included this petition in the prayer of humble access: “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.”  That we may dwell in the Trinity, and that the Trinity may dwell in us.  God’s people, you and I, are part of the form and the function of the Trinity, we are part of the beauty, and the purpose.

This morning, on Trinity Sunday, we observe one of the seven principal feasts of the liturgical year.  The other six feasts all memorialize the events and the people of redemptive history.  Christmas Day and the Feast of the Epiphany memorialize the manifestation of God as a human being.  Easter Day and the Feast of the Ascension recall the resurrection and that day when Jesus ascended and returned to heaven.  The Day of Pentecost recalls that day when God sent us the Holy Spirit to sustain us and encourage us.  In the Church, we sometimes reflect that the Feast of the Trinity is the only feast day that memorializes a theological idea, that the Feast of the Trinity is the only feast day that is dedicated to a particular doctrine of the Church.  It’s true, the Trinity is a theological concept, a theological idea, but it is also dynamic.  The Trinity gathers up and encompasses all of the other feast days.  The Incarnation, the Epiphany, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost and All Saints are all critical, essential elements of the Trinity; so instead of the Feast of the Trinity being the quirky feast day that memorializes a theological idea, we might consider that Trinity Sunday provides us an opportunity to gather up all of the climactic moments in the New Testament and all of the climactic moments in each of our lives and to reflect, to ask ourselves, what does biblical history, what does the history of redemption, what do our own faith journeys tell us about who God is, about God’s nature and being, about God’s purpose and God’s beauty?  We might remember that the Trinity is not only a theological formula, but an understanding of God, one that reminds us that God is near to us, even within us, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit God draws us into the beauty and the purpose of the Trinity, to bring the peace and love the dwells within each of us out into the world.  Amen.