The Quattrinity

Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

Whenever I hear today’s gospel, in my head I hear it in four-part harmony sung to the beautiful music of Thomas Tallis. Being such a musical congregation, I bet some of you have had this same experience.  So for the past few days I’ve been walking around with the Tallis piece playing over and over again in my head.  But I wasn’t meditating on Jesus’ words, I was trying to figure out when exactly the altos came in. You see, the piece starts in unison with all four parts singing If you love me keep my commandments. The sopranos continue, And I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter. The tenors come in a couple of notes after the sopranos singing the same words.
Then several notes later the altos come in, again with the same words. And finally, just one
note after the altos begin, the basses join in. The motet is exquisite with the parallel voices magnifying the words of Jesus. But it wasn’t until Thursday that I realized the words Thomas Tallis used in his beautiful composition are not the same words we heard today from the New Revised Standard Version of the gospels.  In fact, the theology is entirely different. Listen: If you love me keep my commandments. And, If you love me you will keep my commandments.

In the first instance, which is the King James translation and the words Tallis used, If you love me keep my commandments sounds like a command – a threat almost, where behaving according to Jesus’ commandments is motivated by an external authority.  In contrast, the words you will have been included in the translation we heard today.  If you love me you will keep my commandments.

Here, I would argue, Jesus’ is declaring that when our love for him is so complete that it saturates our being, we can’t help but keep his commandments; it becomes our desire to do his will.

Jesus isn’t known for laying down the law, so what exactly are the commandments he’s talking about?  Today’s reading from the Gospel of John is a short seven verses excerpted from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse to his disciples.   It’s a bit confusing because we’ve already celebrated Easter, but the lectionary writers want us to go back again to the last supper and pay close attention to what Jesus said to his followers the night before he died.  Naturally, the disciples are distressed and grief stricken upon hearing the news that they will soon be separated from Jesus. And Jesus is faced with the tall order of both comforting the disciples and making clear the message he wants to leave them. 

The four gospel books are packed with Jesus’ teachings and commandments. But in the gospel of John, the sum of Jesus’ teachings are synthesized in one explicit command, the New Commandment: to love one another as Jesus loved us.  How we love one another – the neighbors we see daily, the strangers we pass on the street, our families with whom we live – how we love others is the yardstick by which our love for Jesus is measured. To be clear, the love Jesus wants us to model isn’t warm, fuzzy and sentimental:  Jesus doesn’t command emotions. He doesn’t want our feelings. Rather, the commandment is to love so deeply that the wellbeing of others, seen and unseen, is considered in our every behavior. Sometimes that means having the courage to speak hard truths.  Sometimes it means changing soiled sheets for a friend who is too sick to do it himself. Often it requires no speaking or action at all, just the willingness to put aside what we think is important to simply be present. Our love for Jesus, God and God’s creation is manifested everyday in how we live our lives.

Jesus said to his disciples, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. Certainly Jesus understood that this New Commandment would be much more difficult to keep than the Great Commandment – to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  So Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit.  St. John tells us that this Spirit of truth, this Advocate, will abide with us and teach us. And the Holy Spirit will remind us of everything that Jesus has taught. 

The promise of the Holy Spirit turns the tragic news of Jesus imminent departure into good news for the disciples and for us. While Jesus was alive, his ministry was limited – being human, he could only be in one place at one time. The Holy Spirit has no such bounds. Jesus asked God to send the Spirit to dwell with his bereft followers, thus allowing believers having never witnessed the historical Jesus equal access to the Spirit of Truth. God sent the Holy Spirit, another Advocate, the Comforter to dwell with all of us, everywhere, now.

Have you noticed that I’ve talked about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit but haven’t once used the word trinity? For the record, I struggle with the doctrine of the Trinity; I think the Trinity is lacking a fourth constituent. I’m eternally relieved that Christopher Evans has agreed to tackle that concept on Trinity Sunday - June 19^th, a sermon not to be missed.

Now, I’m going to demonstrate my open-mindedness by borrowing from the theology of a Texan Baptist – the Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles. Clark-Soles has coined the term Quattrinity. She asserts that the intimate relationship that exists between Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit also includes us, the believers. The believer does not stand by admiring the majesty of the Trinity; rather, we are an equal part of it.  Several repetitive words and phrases in John’s gospel reinforce this idea - the language of “abiding with” and “being in” one another is one such example.  In chapter 17, knowing he will soon die, Jesus is praying to God for his disciples; the emphasis of this prayer is the unity of the disciples with God and Jesus.  Jesus says to God,

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me.

In today’s first lesson, Paul also affirms this intimate union with God in his speech to the Athenians, he says - "In him we live and move and have our being.”

I’m not suggesting we abandon the doctrine of the Trinity.  I am, however, encouraging us to reconsider our role in the actions of God.  And I wonder if the Tallis motet with its four-part harmony might be an apt representation of our relationship with God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Remember, the piece starts in unison. With all four parts singing the same line, we hear one sound.  The one sound then breaks into parts one after another, layer upon layer until we hear all four distinct parts at once.  Inherent in the sound is unity, but the parts sung together create a beautiful harmony.  The voices dance together then move apart, the bass keeps the whole grounded while the alto links the soprano and tenor. It doesn’t matter what part of this motet represents Jesus and what part is the Holy Spirit. (Though I can imagine the sopranos might claim to be God.)  In this arrangement, no one part is more important than another.  All four parts are absolutely necessary to create the exquisite music. And all four parts are singing the promise Jesus made to us on the night before he died; the good news that is ours to share with the world:

And He shall give you another Comforter; that He may abide with you forever, in the spirit of truth, in the spirit of truth.

Amen.

Easter VI, Year A