Experiencing God in three ways

Homily, Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the church year which celebrates what is generally described as a doctrine. It’s not a Sunday about a saint, or an event in the life of Jesus.

It’s not one of those many Sundays after Pentecost. I guess when I grew up my first awareness of Trinity was that we had so many Sundays after Trinity in the old one year Prayer Book lectionary.

Now we use the Feast of Pentecost, as the beginning of this long season, so the Trinity is limited to this Sunday observance which goes back to the ninth century, and the Monks who helped the church survive the period often called the dark ages.

Our readings are vastly different, from the first of two creation stories in Genesis, to the grace in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, to the great commission, in which Jesus sends his disciples out to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing in the name of the father son and holy spirit.

If someone asked you to explain the Trinity, what would you say.

Of course this has been a great matter of debate among Bishops and theologians ever since the fourth century councils of the church.

But perhaps it isn’t important that we have a carefully articulated answer.

Instead we can see the Trinity as the way we encounter the divine—through the grace of Christ, the love of God and communion with the Holy Spirit.

One group of monks who helped us understand the Trinity were called Cappadocians. They described God in terms of three persons, in relationship to each other, inseparable, but in relationship to each other.

So instead of one God, remote and inaccessible, we have God who is creator of all, but who sent his son to be among us, and the holy spirit to care for us.

Through Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine, we have a place in the Divine life, as creatures made in the image of God.

I like this description by one writer of our faith in the Trinitarian God: “I believe in God, the creator and sustainer of all life, in Jesus Christ, in whom we see God at work for the flourishing of life; and in the spirit, who works in us so that we might live from, toward and with God.”

Seen in this light, the Trinity doesn’t have to be viewed as a difficult theological concept.

It’s simply a way to under God, which is unique to Christians. Other faiths have one God, or many Gods, but we believe in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, three persons, but one God.

And the most important thing about that is that the three persons are in relationship not only with each other,within the Godhead, but with us.