For Trinity Sunday, “Out in Scripture” this week offers a refreshing new look at the nature of the Trinity, which has far too often been grossly oversimplified to at patriarchal model of “Father, Son and Holy Ghost”. Instead, they place the emphasis on the centrality here of the “Holy Spirit”, and specifically on the Spirit as wisdom, even “womanly wisdom”, as it is expressed in the reading from Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31:

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.
The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.
On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.
The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.

Note the pronouns.

The discussion reminds us that the setting for Proverbs is patriarchal - but wisdom, here clearly female, breaks free. This concern with wisdom continues in the New Testament readings, where Paul (who elsewhere identifies Christ with the wisdom of God ) writes that he Spirit will sustain believers in the midst of suffering. Jesus himself advises the disciples that the Spirit will guide them after His departure.

Often the “historical mediation” of the Spirit is lost when coupled with the Trinitarian concept of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” One reason for this is the devaluation of the female identity of Spirit in a traditionally patriarchal construct of “Father and Son.” But like hochma, the Spirit speaks with a loud voice in these passages for today. Elizabeth Johnson has indicated that the Spirit manifests in history anytime a “community resists its own destruction or works for its own renewal; when structural changes serve the liberation of oppressed peoples; when law subverts sexism, racism, poverty and militarism … wherever diversity is sustained in koinonia; wherever justice and peace and freedom gain a transformative foothold” (She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, p. 126).

I see two useful lessons here for gay an lesbian Christians in a hostile Church - the importance of remembering that the holy Spirit is always at work, and that wisdom will prevail; and also the importance of moving beyond the simplistic, gendered image of the Trinity that we ingested in school or Catechism class. One excellent counter to that I have shared before, as I now do again: the extraordinary, gender -bending early Christian hymn of praise in the Odes of Solomon, “The Father Who Was Milked“:

A cup of milk was offered to me,
and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord’s kindness.

The Son is the cup,
and the father is he who was milked;
and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him;

Because his breasts were full,
and it was undesirable that his milk should be ineffectually released.

The Holy Spirit opened her bosom,
and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father.

Then She gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing,
and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.

The womb of the Virgin took [it],
and she received conception and gave birth.

So the Virgin became a mother with great mercies.

And she labored and bore the Son but without pain,
because it did not occur without purpose.

And she did not require a midwife,
because He caused her to give life.

She brought forth like a strong man with desire,
and she bore according to the manifestation,
and she acquired according to the Great Power.

And she loved with redemption,
and guarded with kindness,
and declared with grandeur.

Hallelujah

Read the full, text, and other Odes translated by James Chattlesworth, here.