Rublev's Philoxenia

Texts:  Genesis 1.1-2.4; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13.11-13; Matthew 28.16-20

Today is Trinity Sunday, and that excites me a great deal.  You may find that surprising.  To the modern heart and mind, and even those of Christians, the Trinity can sound like an anachronistic formula from the mystical and magical past.  One might fairly ask questions about both the intellectual integrity and the social relevance of the doctrine.  Does the idea that the one God is really three make any sense?  And even if it did make sense, what difference would that make to anything important?  Would it stop Aboriginal deaths in custody, for example?  Or the war in Yemen?

I could spend the next fifteen minutes trying to answer those questions.  I could tell you that theologians of every confessional standpoint have rehabilitated the Trinity as perhaps the most important of Christian symbols, a symbol which mirrors and represents the whole history of God's identity and mission.  I could tell how the post-modern imagination has been drawn to the Trinity as a quintessential icon of the reality in which we live, composed as it is of that splendid interplay between identity and difference.  I could tell you how political and liberation theologians have found in the Trinity a model for re-making both church and world in the image of a God who is, first of all, an egalitarian community of love . . .   But I'm not going to go on with all that.  There's no need.  Because it is all present in this wonderful painting from 15^th century Russia.  It is all contained in Andrei Rublev's marvellous icon, know as the Philoxenia.

Why don't you look at it for a moment?  Take your time.  What do you notice? 

There are three figures in the painting, sitting at a round table.  Each wears a cloak and bears a staff, indicating that they are resting a while in the midst of a long journey.  The figures have androgynous features, that is, we can't be certain if they are men or women.  But we do know that they represent the three persons of the Trinity. The figure in the middle is Christ.  He is looking to the figure on the left, which is the Father; the Father appears to be gazing at both Christ and the Spirit, who is the third figure; the Spirit seems to be looking at both the Father and the chalice of wine which sits in the middle of the table.  There is only one cup of wine, which is apparently being shared by all three.  But if you look carefully, you will notice that the shapes of the Father and the Spirit form the silhouette of a larger chalice, which actually surrounds and contains Christ.  Finally, note that in the background of the picture are three objects:  a house or temple, an oak three, and a mountain.  You yourself, as you look at the picture, are in the foreground.

What does all this mean?  Many things, but I have time only to mention a few.  First, the seating arrangement of the three speaks of an equality between them.  There is none who is more important than the others.  There is none who sits at the head of the table, because the table is round.  God, you see, is more like a circle than a pyramid.  No one is the boss because all three are the boss.  They make their decisions together, and there is no room for hierarchy or for lording it over another.  Second, the three gaze at each other as if they are in love.  There is an uncanny knowing between them which can only be described with words like respect, deference, trust, hospitality, communion, peace.  The word communion is reinforced by their use of a single chalice of wine.  It is, of course, the Eucharistic cup, which stands for love poured out by a profound sacrifice of the one for another.  This sign of Christ’s crucifixion therefore says that at the centre of the relations between Father, Son and Spirit is a mutual self-giving for the other, a laying down of life that the others might be made alive. God, then, is a circle-dance of love where each is constantly being enlivened by the sacrifice of another.  In this view, God continues to be God only by a never-ending movement of mutual hospitality and giving.

Third, the painting invites its observers—that's you and me—to take our place at the table with Father, Christ, and Spirit.  There is a space spare, and its shape is a chalice filled with Jesus.  Here Rublev, who is from the Orthodox tradition, wants us to understand that we, too, may become part of the divine community:  if only we will accept the grace of God which overflows into the world in the shape of Christ crucified; if only we will take the cup of sacrifice and receive from it the renewing life of God;  if only we will accept the cruciform mission of the Trinity, to lay down our own lives for the sake of another.   The message is clear.  We may all become children of God if we will walk the way of the Christ; if, in baptism, we are willing to put aside the life of self-aggrandizement, and embrace a new existence controlled by Christ’s neighbour-directed compassion and mercy.  There's something in there, I think, about changing the world, about becoming involved in a revolution of radical hospitality.  Perhaps if Christians were to take that seriously, then the bloodshed in Australian holding cells could indeed be stopped?  Perhaps we could put aside our differences as Roman or non-Roman Christians, and share at the Eucharist together?

But what of those objects in the background of the icon?  The house of God, which is the church?  The tree of life, which is at the end of our journeys?  The mountain of revelation, where we meet the Lord and hear his word?   Each is there to remind us that God is forever present, to be encountered in any number of places along the way.  The trick is to make one's way with eyes and ears open and expectant.  Otherwise a house might just be a house, and a tree just a tree, and a mountain just a mountain.  It is the life of daily prayer, prayer immersed in the stories of God in the bible, which enables us to recognise God in all the business of life.  How is your prayer life going?  Have anyone ever taught you to pray?

Finally, Rublev's icon remind us of the Trinitarian form of that ritual we call the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion.  He wants to show us that wherever or whenever the supper is taken, the Trinitarian God is present and active in both church and world.  Have you ever noticed that the classical Communion prayer, sometimes known as the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, has three key elements?  The first is a prayer of thanksgiving to the Father-Creator (eucharistia) for everything that he has done to save us from our sins and make us whole once more.  The second is a remembering of Christ (anamnesis) and his sacrifice for the sake of the world.  This part culminates in the narrative of the last supper which Jesus shared with his disciples.  The final part invokes the creativity of the Holy Spirit (epiclesis), to make real the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, and make that presence real and effective in the mission and discipleship of the people of God, who go out from the feast as the newly constituted body of Christ.

A picture paints a thousand words.  But I hope this icon will inspire us to move beyond words and into an active communion with the Trinity of love.  Use it in prayer.  Allow God to draw you into the divine community, there to experience its grace and its love.  Allow God to send you out into the world, there to serve the poor and despised as Christ did; there to make your sacrifices for the sake of love and of peace.

Glory be to God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit­ - as in the beginning, so now and for ever, world without end. Amen.