Sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 4, 2023

Genesis 1:1-2:4a+Canticle 13+2 Corinthians 13:11-13+Matthew 28:16-20

The Shield of the Trinity

Because of the way we tell our story, that old, old story of Jesus and his love, we tend to understand the three persons of the Trinity as three distinct beings who came into existence at three distinct times. We know that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1), and we know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem “while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” at least according to Luke (2:2), and that on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit suddenly blew through the people gathered in Jerusalem in a rush of a mighty wind. And because this is the way we hear our story as it spans our Church year, it is understandable that we would think that we are talking about different things coming into being at different times.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the only principal feast day in the Church calendar that recognizes a doctrine rather than an event. Christmas is Jesus’s birth, Easter is his resurrection, Epiphany is the coming of the magi, and so on. But Trinity Sunday? Whose idea was that?

A Sunday devoted to the Trinity is a rather late addition, historically, but the debates over the co-eternity of Father, Son, and Spirit raged during the early centuries of the Church. One of the ancient creeds was written to affirm the equality of the three persons of the Trinity, and this is the position that quashed the heresies and that has come down to us today. (You can find the Athanasian Creed in the historical documents section of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 864).

Last week on Pentecost, I spoke a bit about the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit, how she moved over the waters of creation and how her sudden appearance on Pentecost was not at all sudden. As for Jesus, at the beginning of John’s gospel in what we call the prologue, we hear those magnificent words,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

What John is doing is affirming that this one who came as Jesus is one with God and was God from the beginning of time, a creative and lifegiving being, just as we understand God to be. Because the Word is God in the flesh.

It is an interesting thing to hear the first creation account in light of Trinity Sunday. As Christians, we might read God saying “Let us make humankind in our image” (Genesis 1:26) as a reference to the three-person Trinity. That is not what is means in its original context, and as Christians, we need to be careful about reading our traditions backwards into the Hebrew scriptures. However, I am often guilty of going overboard in the other direction, into looking at only what the texts meant to those who were writing or hearing them. This is not what the Church has done from the earliest days, however. Even the authors of the Gospels and Epistles looked to their own traditional Hebrew texts and found pointers toward the Messiah, believing that Jesus was the one who had been promised. So even though the first chapter of Genesis does not specifically reference the Trinity, that does not mean that we can’t read it to gain a fuller understanding of the generative relationship between God, Christ, and Spirit that brought all things into being and continues to move in our world today.

It is that same Trinity that invites us to this table and sends us out into the world to love and serve God and our neighbor. But that isn’t all. Jesus’s final words before ascending into heaven were instructions to make disciples, to baptize in the name of that Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and reminding us that he is with us through that same power of the Holy Spirit.

We Episcopalians have always been a bit squeamish about that disciples-making part. The Church certainly abused the privilege of colonial power to forcibly evangelize and baptize the conquered. That’s one way to make disciples. But we have tended to err in the other direction, not sharing the Good News of our salvation at all. And if you want to know how the state of the Episcopal Church reached the critical point we are in, I think that’s a big clue.

There is, however, a great middle way – that’s another thing we Anglicans are known for – between forcing baptism and inviting folks in by sharing God’s love with them. As writer Madeleine L’Engle said, “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”[1]

While the doctrine of the Trinity may be incomprehensible and seemingly irrelevant, it is by its work in the world that we live and move and have our being. The eternal Source, the incarnate Word, and the life-giving Spirit – that endless relationship, joined in a divine dance – this is who we are and how we call ourselves followers of the Way of Love.

In 1987, Welsh composer William Mathias was commissioned to write an anthem for St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to be sung for Her Majesty the Queen. He selected as his text words of the 14th c. English mystic, Julian of Norwich. I think that sometimes the Trinity can only be understood in acknowledging the mystery, something that poetry does well. These are the words of Julian as set in the anthem As Truly as God Is our Father”

 As truly as God is our Father,
So just as truly is God our Mother.
In our Father, God Almighty,
We have our being;
In our merciful Mother
We are re-made and restored.

Our fragmented lives are knit together;
And by giving and yielding ourselves
Through grace, to the holy spirit
We are made whole.

It is I, the strength and goodness of Fatherhood.
It is I, the wisdom of Motherhood.
It is I, the light and grace of holy love.
It is I, the Trinity, it is I, the unity.

I am the sovereign goodness in all things.
It is I who teach you to love.
It is I who teach you to desire.
It is I who am the reward of all true desiring.

All shall be well,
And all shall be well,
And all manner of thing shall be well.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. Amen.

[1] Source unknown.