This week’s readings can be found here.
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It is on this day that the church acknowledges the beauty of the one God who is also three persons. You can see why this day fits in the church calendar. It is after Easter, where we have explored the interchange between Father and Son, seen the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the Passion week and on Easter Sunday. Christ has ascended. And then, we have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh at Pentecost.
The doctrine of the Trinity is precise. Christians affirm one God revealed in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This cannot be separated from the content of the Nicene Creed. The Son is begotten of the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The doctrine is not a mystery. We confess it. This is what we believe. What does it mean? We have no idea. The doctrine is clear, but the reality is beyond what we could understand.
Rowan Williams says Trinity is the “’least worst’ explanation we have found for talking about something very disturbing and inexhaustible.1 But Williams also says, "today we celebrate the fact that we have been plunged into a mystery beyond any depths we could imagine, and that this mystery is life and health and joy for us, and make no mistake about it, because, God the Son has come into our midst.”2
To know that God is a community of One is to know that relationship and love are at the core of who God is. Our God is always one who leans towards, who is self-giving. This means that God is love, but not some general kind of love where we can project whatever we want onto Him. God is the specific kind of love that is expressed in the Triune community.
This is expressed in our Old Testament reading, the story of creation, (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), where God speaks. By creating light, God reveals, and further orders (rather than dominates like other ancient creation myths) the chaos. God creates human beings in his image, an inherent calling to reflect his self-giving nature to his good world, further calling them as stewards of the world. So often our tendency is to control, to dominate, to manipulate our world. The practice of Sabbath, reminds God’s people that God is the Creator, and we are called into his rest.
In our epistle reading (2 Corinthians 13:11-13), we hear instructions to a church facing all kinds of difficulties. They are challenged to seek out restoration, to move towards one another, even in the midst of their conflict. The source of this is the grace which is shown in Jesus Christ, God’s great love, and the fellowship they all share in the Holy Spirit.
God is relational, but God is not just “relational” in the abstract. We see what relational means by looking ultimately at God’s revelation in Jesus. The persons of the Trinity are not mere individuals. Our idea of an individual in our world is that they are separate. Even the word “individual” for us tends to mean separate. In our world, identity is formed by competition, separateness. If I am this, I am not this. Our God is one who is distinct in personhood, but also completely unified. The members of the Trinity are not in competition with one another.
If God is self-giving at God’s core, this means that mercy is not something that God does reluctantly, but it is part of who God is. God is one who is love, a communion of One at God’s very essence.
I want my congregation to know this week that they follow the God who is relational, who is real—the God who is expressed as Father who gives His only Son, and who receives the Son’s prayer and adoration. The Son who gives His life back to the Father, and who receives authority. The Spirit who is given by the Son and Father and carries this authority. And One who draws us into relationship with God.
For our us and for our congregations: God knows your situation, your brokenness, your sin, and he loves you and wants to heal you.
Our gospel reading (Matthew 28:16-20) is all too familiar. Yet, we tend to read it as a “to do list.” Without thinking, we place ourselves in the position of the apostles, as the ones sent. Yet, we first must remember that we are the ones to whom the disciples were sent. This means that we must first be willing to be receivers, listeners, learners. The call from this reading is to be baptized! To receive the good news!
The church is invited to host God’s party in the world, not because we are good enough, but by His grace. Our God is dynamic, active, working in the world. Our God is inviting us to step into the life of the Triune God of grace.
If we see God this way, it should change how we treat “the other” in our lives.
Who is “the other” for you? How are we living in such a way that we point them to the Triune God of Grace? Are you looking to, deferring to, and inviting the other?
As Christians, this is a wonderful time, as we step next week into the season of “Ordinary Time,” to simply walk with the Spirit.
As we approach Eucharist, in this moment, we see the life of the Triune God. Here we take the words of Christ on our lips. We pray his prayer. We invoke the Spirit, We call on our Heavenly Father and the life of God the Son comes alive in us.