A grassroots movement in recent years has been helpful undertaking of better understanding; people sharing theirs on the Zoom screens or as introductions are made at meetings. Some companies have pronounced at the bottom of emails a signature option of one’s pronouns. When you only know a “Chris” from their email, you likely don’t know how to address a reply or the context of a conversation. In many families, companies, and churches, we have a variety of pronouns. On the name tags we have for church, which many made last week, there is room for a sticker to clarify one’s pronouns. He/him and she/her are common and mostly clarifying or commonly understood.
As we enter into June or Pride month, there is also the “they/ them” pronoun. They/ them are intentionally gender neutral pronouns used by non-binary people who do not associate themselves with the genders of girl or boy, man or woman. Often gender neutral or transgender individuals think, operate, and see life outside of any norms or common binaries. As such, non-binary, gender-neutral, misgendered, and ambiguous genders are left in often politicized, judged, and maligned bodies which God has uniquely gifted them and sometimes left with unmerited human judgements. And more than ever, we need those of faith to stand with love, understanding, and solidarity.
I, personally, found myself first linguistically and professionally challenged to ensure proper respect and grammar when a former Bishop utilized gender neutral pronouns. The English language is not as strongly gendered a language as some, languages such as the German – for instance. In English have few options in the singular form for a neutral gender, and then we are forced into a plural form of grammar.
For what seems to be a relatively recent trend in the English language of various pronoun usage and identification, I was surprised lengthy history of the they/ them pronoun. Singular “they” actually predates modern gender theory by centuries. It has been a natural part of the English language since the 14th century, used whenever someone’s gender is unknown, irrelevant, or intentionally concealed.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the singular use the pronoun “they” back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. Grammarians through out the centuries including in modern style books have been divided on parsing “they/them”.
Today, there are many stickers circulating and much written about God being “the original they/them.” God transcends gender because God is neither a man nor a woman. But God: the original they/them, is not a new, or even radical idea. Our festival day on the calendar today, Holy Trinity Sunday, the day we celebrate the great mystery of God, three in one and one in three, even if we don’t fully understand what it means. The whole doctrine discussion about God as three persons, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” yet one God, has been one to challenge the paradigm of thinking and make everyone a bit questioning and uncomfortable with neat boxes of how we might understand God.
The festival of the Holy Trinity celebrates the wonder of the relationship with God while leaving us distinctly dissatisfied with our limitations in defining or describing God. While guarding against the idolatry of language, we pray for God to inspire fresh, innovative ideas of God’s power and constant nature.
Today’s gospel contains one of the few references in the Bible to the trinitarian formula. As the eleven are commissioned to make disciples, baptize, and teach, we are invited to consider our calling to influence the world with the good news of God’s love. The text from Second Corinthians also includes a kind of naming of the Holy Trinity in an affectionate sign-off of a personal letter. The Psalm praises God, the creator and sustainer of all creation, and Genesis chapter one relates the first of two creation stories, this one an ancient liturgy celebrating God as a divine plural.
That God that is beyond our understanding may be both troubling and comforting. One mistake that we often make is that we refer to God as someone in the sky, Jesus as that person down here in human flesh, and the Spirit as the one who is everywhere. But that’s heresy, because God is all three, not just the being up in the sky. The Triune God– they are God the creator, whom Jesus intimately called Father, and they are God the Son, who was named Jesus, and they are God the Holy Spirit. Three in one. One in three. Divine mystery.
And this divine mystery has been with us since the very beginning of creation. In Genesis 1, God the Creator, God the powerful Word, and God the life-giving Spirit form the earth and its inhabitants. The scripture says, “Let us create humankind in our image, according to our likeness.
The idea of Trinity casts a vision of God as deeply relational: the one God is made up of three ongoing relationships, intimately interwoven and connected. Theologians Jürgen Moltmann uses the word perichoresis to describe the dance of the Holy Trinity, where all three members move in unity, drawing each of us into the steps and song. And if we take Genesis 1 seriously, and human beings are created in the image of God, then in our own way, we must be fundamentally relational too.
In our world that is too often dominated by individualism, loneliness, racism, patriarchy, and other forms of division, we must continually strive to build relationships with God and one another that involves empathy, communication, various roles and greater understanding. God, who is up there, down here, and everywhere – even in the shadows of grief and violence, calls all of us toward justice and love. And Trinity reminds us that relationships – even and especially relationships across differences – aren’t just something we do. Relationships are who we are.
In “Contemplating the Trinity for Lent” (Journal of Lutheran Ethics, March 1, 2010), Victor Thasiah writes, “Just close your eyes or stare into space and imagine what God must be like based on what God does as Father, Son, and Spirit, as creator, healer, and peacemaker.” Then he encourages us to contemplate belonging within the holy Trinity by drawing inspiration from Mechthild of Magdeburg. A medieval mystic, Mechthild envisions a conversation between members of the Trinity and describes aspects of God’s character as sweetness, generosity, and fieriness.
John Donne, in the 16th century, wrote poetry that envisions the paradox of being drawn into the Trinity and held by their love. This mutual plural community within the Trinity and humanity’s role to accompany God in the mending of creation. I close with Donne’s poem:
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
