Trinity Sunday Sermon

There’s always a bit of awkwardness when writing this sermon for Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. And the awkwardness comes – not from the difficulty of the doctrine – but from the fact that the scripture readings assigned for this day are never overtly trinitarian. There’s nothing about them that screams, “Trinity.”

And if you haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, let me back up a little bit.

In the tradition of the Christian faith, we’ve devised a theology about God called “Trinity.” But it’s not actually a term that appears anywhere in scripture. It’s a later development that was formulated in the 4^th century. Which is great. Not the 4^th century bit, necessarily, but the basic notion that thinking about God takes time. Arriving at a place of substantial wisdom about God takes time. And many voices.

It took time for the church to find language that could hold the paradox of, “How can there be just one God (the one God our forefathers worshiped and whom we worship still, the one God who is the creator and sustainer of all things) How can there be just one God while also believing in the divinity of Christ; while also believing in the divinity of the Holy Spirit?”

And the language we found – through the witness of scripture and the attentiveness of faithful, thinking people – was “Trinity.” God is one. And God is three.

And, by devising this language, the church wasn’t merely solving some little riddle from seemingly contradictory Bible passages. What the language and concept of Trinity accomplishes, in fact (at least from our human vantage point – which, after all, is all we’ve got, but it’s worth noting our limits)… what it accomplishes is the revelation of the very nature of God. God is a community of being: vastly complex and pure in its unity. God is. God is both singular and plural.

And what makes this language of Trinity so wise, so trustworthy and soul-satisfying is that it taps into a deep, universal reality – one that our souls already know. As God is Trinity, so are we.

After all, we humans are the offspring of this Creator. As is everything else under the sun. God is our source of being, which means (in our true essence), we resemble this God, just as a child resembles its parents. And if we were living out our true identity as God’s children, we would relate to God – and to one another, and to the rest of creation – in that same spirit of Trinity. I could be Eric, in my particularity, and equally Eric as one with each of you and all of you. I would like that. Very much.

But it is the plural part of our existence that is broken. It’s what we call sin. Sin divides.

But our oneness is not entirely broken. Wherever love exists, it is that Trinity of being that exists. For God is love. And love is, of its very nature, the bond between us.

And even where love does not exist in any realized way, even our yearnings for love, give voice to what we know must be… what must be true for me, for each of us, for this life, for this world.

It is our yearnings that can convince us there is far more to our existence than our individual particularity and its barriers for protection. Everything within us yearns for connection: to belong to, to be part of, to exist within. I imagine for most people, we’re most in touch with this yearning through our desires for romantic relationships and marriage. Whether you’re happily married or miserably married or single or divorced or widowed, remember deeply into your soul: What did you dream of being with the other? What is the core of that sought-after relationship? It is union. It is the elemental experience – the Trinitarian experience – of “being one.”

I remember the elderly woman at her husband’s bedside. He was dying. She climbed up into his bed, curving her body to his own, weeping for that tangible place being taken from her: her place. Her most sacred place of belonging in the universe was right there – body and soul – in harmony with him.

Whether we’ve known such love or not, our souls have always sought such a place of belonging, such a way of being. We are made to be one: one within ourselves, one with one another, one with God.

This is the paradox that holds both the dignity of our personhood … and the richness of our humanity because we are made in the image of God.

This is the heart of Trinity. This is what we say is perfectly true of God. And it is with such a God that we are invited to find our own sense of being. That is the gift of faith. Regardless of how broken our lives may be – our world may be – where our yearning for oneness are so often compromised or unmet, God is un-compromised. The holiness of God remains forever un-broken… as is the invitation of God. It is always there, always available: Come, and be one, with me. And we may. Beyond piety or disciplines. Beyond doctrines. Beyond performance or success. “Come. Be one with me – with us – the unbroken God, Who Is.” This is the God in whom we live and move and have our being.

God is either real, or not. God is either loving, or not. And I choose to hope that God is and that God is love. And if that is true, then God is safe. And so am I, in God. This is the gift of faith, and of prayer, especially. The essence of prayer, for me, is returning my spirit to that place of being with God.

And it is from that place of welcome and being that we find our strength and resolve to seek such loving, peaceful union in, and with, this world. If this is who God is, and this is who we are – made in God’s image – then what else would we want, then to experience such loving union with everyone!? with every-thing!? What else could we desire, but to participate in what God is doing… in who God is.

Imagine a world….

Imagine a world of utter harmony where we believed and understood that our relationships with one another were as true an extension of our own identity – of our own person – as each limb is an extension of our one body.

Imagine a world where neighbors love and bless one another, such that sharing our tools or extra produce from a Costco shopping trip were as natural a thing to do as sharing it with our own family, or even with ourselves, because we saw no difference in caring for the other as caring for the self.

Imagine a world, where the first priority in our budgets (as households, as churches, as governments) was to provide for those whose basic needs for survival were in jeopardy.

Imagine a world whose elections and political systems were populated only by citizens with a shared sense of duty to function as public servants, willfully giving their time and energy to dream and create societal structures committed to the welfare and flourishing of everyone they’re called to serve, because it would never cross their mind to bend the system to their own advantage.

Imagine a world where our relationship with the rest of creation was seen – not as one of exploitation or hoarding – but as a mutual participation of being one, enormous, healthy organism.

It’s all a daydream, I know. But it’s a daydream we’re able to dream because, built within us, is the belief that it is true. It is utterly recognizable as the preferable way of living, the right way of living, because – clearly – this world is designed to function as one, every creature and system dependent on the health and vitality of the other.

And, we can do more than dream. We can live – and choose to live – into that dream… which is, in the end, the only reality that matters. Jesus did it, and it’s why we love him. And we are his disciples. So we choose love. And we will choose love. What is broken we rebuild. What is sinful, we forgive. What is holy, we delight in.

This is the heart of our faith. And it is our joy. It is this in which we are baptized: oneness with God and the shared life of God. It is no accident (it is quite deliberate, in fact), that our covenant of baptism is rooted in two things:

It starts with a series of questions, anchored in this elemental understanding of God as Trinity: Do you believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? And with that belief, how then will you live? Will you live in this world, loving this world as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are loving this world?

And we reply: “I believe. I believe. I believe.” And “I will. I will. And I will. With God’s help.” This is our pledge of who we will be in this life, in our person.

And in its parallel sacrament, the Eucharist, we are nourished again and again, as we seek this union of being and purpose. There are times when I hold the wafer in my hand – that small, round disc – hardly significant enough to be called bread. But Jesus, who is one with everything, tells me that he is one with this, too, such that it can become his body. And then that bread, now seen as Christ’s body, becomes every other thing in which God in Christ also resides, so that the bread becomes as the disc – the sphere – of this entire world, this entire cosmos, right there in my hand. And I eat it. I ingest God and the whole world, such that it – quite literally – becomes a part of me, my very body.

I in God, and God in me. And you in God and God in you. And you and I and every other thing are one, with the God who is one.

And so that Trinity of being: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, grows and grows, without end. In every generation, in every birth, in every baptism, the God who is continues to be the Great I AM, with us and in us. So we believe. And so we will live, this day and forever.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.