The Unholy Trinity Heresy
Eighteenth Sunday Scripture Readings
Friday morning, as I was meditating on today’s gospel reading, I was practically swept off my feet as I began to see and appreciate the incredibly powerful insight that Jesus hid within this seemingly simple and straightforward parable. It was like looking through a telescope for the first time and seeing the immensity of the universe, shattering the illusion of the importance of our little planet. What I saw clearly in a new light was how the world of our humanity, the world we take utterly for granted, is permeated with a deadly heresy.
We’ve all heard of heresy, and we have a general understanding of its consequences. I’ve studied the famous heresies of the early Christian Church, movements with strange and obscure names. They dealt with the nature of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, their personhoods, and the relationships between them. Some dealt with Christ’s union of the human and divine in one person. Others dealt with how Christ could be present in the Eucharist and the other sacraments. People were burned at the stake over these things, and bloody wars were fought in their defense. Right or wrong, pro or con, those who fought those battles were clearly mistaken, because nothing was ever solved. Nothing was ever achieved. The only lesson we can learn from all this squabbling and fighting to the death—and from today’s gospel—is what we might call the Heresy of the Unholy Trinity. That is the real heresy that underlies and empowers all the others…and all the responses to them as well. What is the “unholy trinity”? It’s the pursuit of wealth, power, and prestige.
We’ve seen these before. They’re present in the three temptations of Christ; they make up the temptations of the Church; they show themselves in the temptations of the state; they’re there in all of our own temptations. At the same time, let me say clearly that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of them. On the contrary, wealth, power, and prestige form the building blocks of human life. Let’s see how each of them contributes to making human life worthwhile.
The first element of the unholy trinity is wealth. Wealth is never sought for itself. Nobody wants to take a bath in gold coins or dollar bills. The true goal of wealth is the security it provides. That’s not a bad thing. It enables us to procure the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, health, and safety. Without these things, the pursuit of a meaningful human existence is impossible. Destitution is the reduction of human life to a struggle for survival, and under those conditions, nothing truly human, like society, culture, or learning, is possible. The destitute are also powerless.
The second element of the trinity is power. Once again, power in itself is never the final goal. Power is only useful so far as it gives its owner control over their environment of persons, places, and things. The goal of power, therefore, is control. Control, also, isn’t a bad thing in itself. In fact, it’s a necessity of human life. We see it as personal autonomy—the freedom to become our truest selves. If destitution is the bane of human existence, being deprived of the freedom of thought, word, and deed is no less so.
The third and final element of this trinity is prestige. Prestige is what we use to establish and recognize our dignity as human persons. That dignity—and its recognition—is also essential to human life. The violation of people’s human dignity is, perhaps, the worst of all deprivations, because it leads inexorably to the deprivation of personal autonomy and, from there, to deprivation of the necessities of human life. Violation of human dignity forms the basis for the continual instances of “man’s inhumanity to man,” and it’s at the root of genocide.
Seen in this light, wealth, power, and prestige are all essential to a rich, full human life. So, how have they become the “unholy trinity”? It’s a very small step from the pursuit of these basic elements to the idolatry of them. What do I mean by idolatry? It means, first of all, the recognition as God—the source of all good gifts—something that is not God and that cannot provide them with what they need. Secondly, it means worship, the offering of sacrifice to that god in hopes of receiving what it cannot give.
This is how the pursuit of something good leads to evil. Scripture says, “Love of money is the root of all evil,” [1 Timothy 6:10] but it’s not just money. It’s the love of wealth, power, and prestige together that spawns moral evil. When people sacrifice to the god of wealth, they steal the basic necessities of life from others, leaving them in poverty and disease, suffering, and death. When they sacrifice to the god of power, they trample on others’ autonomy, leaving them in terror, bondage, servitude, or prison. When they sacrifice to the god of prestige, they crush others’ humanity, leaving them ignored, despised, discriminated against, or exterminated.
Look around. You’ll see everywhere the destruction wrought by the worship of wealth, power, and prestige. At the same time, you’ll see people—good, well-meaning people—grasping at these same three tools in the name of counteracting them in others. If we can only raise enough money… If we can only win more elections… If we can only get the right influencers to promote our cause… Then what? What happens when people use the tools of wealth, power, and prestige to fight the forces of wealth, power, and prestige? They create more poverty, bondage, and inhumanity, only under a different flag.
Where’s the Christian Church in all this? The Heresy of the Unholy Trinity has distorted and crippled it throughout the ages, and it keeps it blind and ineffective to this day. It’s not that we don’t pray for deliverance. We pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Yet this is the very temptation the Lord had in mind…the temptation for the Church to use its wealth, power, and prestige to fight fire with fire. And we pray, “Deliver us from evil.” That’s not just the evils of poverty, bondage, and inhumanity inflicted on us, but the poverty, bondage, and inhumanity we’re prepared to inflict on others in the name of our cause.
Isn’t there a way out? Albert Einstein probably described the situation best when he said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We can’t use heresy to counteract heresy. We have to go deeper. Untouched at the center of this mayhem caused by so many people worshipping at the altar of the unholy trinity lies the reign of God. Jesus told his disciples that the reign of God is in you. That’s the plural “you.” It’s both within us and in our midst. The reign of God—that kingdom we pray to come—rejects the false promises of the idols of wealth, power, and prestige. It’s a counterculture beyond anything most people have imagined. Our society came closest to it in the counterculture of the sixties, but they couldn’t sustain their commitment to peace, love, and community because their roots were too shallow.
The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. The only antidote to the culture of the great heresy is a spiritual counterculture, focused on and rooted in a radical trust of God. It’s a spirituality that recognizes basic necessities, basic freedom, and basic human dignity in itself and others, but refuses to weaponize these things. Look up at the crucifix. If we see it as just a religious symbol, we’re missing the point. It’s our reminder of the spiritual counterculture Jesus has called us to when he called us to follow him. He didn’t seek, nor did he use wealth, power, and prestige to advance himself or his ends. Instead, he lived in acceptance of both his richness and his poverty, in surrender to the will of his Father, and in gratitude for the love he was privileged to receive and to share. Those are the things that count. Those are the things that last. Those are the things that make all the difference.
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