by Bob Flanagan
How many are your works, O Lord? In wisdom You have
made them all. The earth is full of your riches. -- Psalm 104
What is the power that drives human beings to care for the earth and all its creatures? There can be many sources of power, many motivations, that impel such care and concern. For Orthodox Christians the source of such power arises from the very nature of God as Trinity, and from the way in which God as Trinity has created men and women.
A way of seeing that Source, a way of relating to it can be found in the icon of the Trinity of St. Andrei Rublev, trying to see in it both the power that enables us to care for creation, and a model for how that caring might be accomplished. The icon shows us the Trinity as it is manifested in the story of the Lord's appearance to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre:
And the Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth and said, "My Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under a tree, while I fetch a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on - since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes." And Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. (Genesis 18: 1-8)
The icon shows the three angelic figures seated at a table. Abraham is not present in the icon in a physical way. It might be said that his energy is present since the result of his running around is there, on the table, in the cup of food given to the strangers. What is more important, the three strangers are strangers no more; they are now guests, Abraham's guests. This transformation from stranger to guest is important -- for the three men by the oaks of Mamre in their relationship to Abraham and for us in our relationship to the Trinity.
"He lifted up his eyes and behold, three men stood in front of him." We can see the icon as the central element in a three part movement: the Abraham event first, the icon of the Trinity second, and then, the third element, the person who prays before the icon. Abraham, the Trinity, us. There is a succession of events here to which we need to be attuned. In the Genesis story three strangers are transformed into guests; in the icon the guests, Abraham now being absent, become hosts themselves. When we pray before the icon we are the strangers-becoming-guests. The Trinity becomes the host to the one who stands before the icon and we, strangers at first because of sin, are, if we are willing, transformed into guests of the Trinity. The Trinity's openness is expressed in how the icon is written: the three persons arranged so that there is an opening at the front of the table for the one who stands before the icon.
What is the power that transforms us from strangers into guests? What is the power that transforms the "three men" into the Trinity? It is love, the very being of God. In God, love is not one of many qualities that describe who he is. We could not say "God is a loving person" in the same way we might say the same thing about a favorite aunt. In God, love is of the essence. Love, the fullness of trinitarian and personal communion, is the very being of God. And in the life of the Trinity, God the Father freely and out of his very being as love, begets the Son, and this begetting causes the Holy Spirit to proceed. All of this is essential to God's nature and because of that it is done from eternity. Since God's being is love, his begetting of the Son, his act of communion, is his being. His causing the Holy Spirit to proceed is his being.
For the same reason, that God's very being is the fullness of personal communion, his very being is love, the act of creation is an act of God's love, an act of his being, not just some whim or act of kindly disposition. This act of generosity is essential to the being of the Trinity. "The Mystery is always and everywhere giving itself." This is an act of personal communion, of love. That means that in the act of creation God, by his very being, is giving himself. This generosity constitutes God's being. He can be no other!
So, in the Trinity icon, this essential love and generosity of God takes the form of hospitality. We are taken up into the hospitality of God. This is a gift he cannot withhold, because it is of his essence. God has no choice about loving. He is unable not to love.
So the viewer of the icon, acknowledging the offer, says, as the three visitors said to Abraham, "Do as you have said" or "Do what you are" that is, "Love." And we are loved. We are invited into the hospitality of God, into the love of God, and, since God is love, God's very being is love, we are invited to share in the very being of God. What are we given? We are given rest under a tree, a chance to wash our weary feet, cakes of fine meal, the fatted calf (which reminds us of the story of the Prodigal Son and the generosity/hospitality shown by the Father there), curds and milk -- in a word, refreshed.
But there is a catch. We are also given a responsibility: we must grant hospitality in return, thereby completing our own movement from stranger to guest to host -- strangers to the love of God; guests of the love that is God; godly hosts to others by virtue of our sharing in the love that is God. In the realization of the communion of the very being of God with us, his sharing his essential nature of love with us, comes the companion realization that now we have no choice either. The love of God is now part of us and we have no choice about loving, we are unable not to love. As Abraham offers hospitality to the strangers in the Old Testament story, so the Trinity, in turn, offers us hospitality in the icon. Then it becomes our turn.
We must offer hospitality to those around us, to persons, to the world. St. John of Kronstadt mourns the frequency with which we neglect each other, passing by opportunities to help. He also points out that everywhere we see ugliness and neglect in "man, animals, birds, fish, insects" we see the work of the evil one. "But all of creation is perfect, pure, beautiful useful," St. John says. It is the offering of hospitality to all of creation that allows us to share his vision of ourselves.
Even more: When we realize our divine inability not to love, we know that we are called to be merciful.
What is a merciful heart? A heart which burns for all creation, for men and birds and animals and demons, and for every creature. As he calls them to mind and contemplates them, his eyes fill with tears. From the great and powerful compassion that grips the heart and from long endurance his heart diminishes, and cannot bear to hear or see any injury or any tiny sorrow in creation. This is why he constantly offers prayer with tears for dumb beasts, and for the enemies of truth, and for those that hurt him, that they may be protected and shown mercy; likewise he prays for the race of creeping things, through the great compassion which fills his heart, immeasurably, after the likeness of God. -- St. Isaac of Syria
So it is the mystery of the Trinity as illuminated in the story of Abraham and the icon of St. Andrew Rublev that shows us the way to be connected to all of creation, that empowers us to live a life of unmitigated compassion, that lets us do no other.
Bob Flanagan is active in the Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross in Medford, New Jersey, and a librarian by profession. He wrote on "The Mingling of Creator and Creation" in IC2. His essay is re-printed from Jacob's Well, the OCA publication for the Diocese of New York and New Jersey.
reprinted from the Theophany / January 1997 In Communion
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