Living in the Gift of the Trinity
Readings:
Psalm - Psalm 8
First Reading - Genesis 1:1 – 2:4
Second Reading - 2 Cor 13:11-13
Gospel - Matt 28:16-20
What I want to say:
I want to explore how Trinity Sunday is a gift inviting us to reflect on our understanding of God and how that shapes our response to God’s actions in our lives, the world, and all creation
What I want to happen:
To ask, as we leave the Covid-19 restrictions, what is the gift of Trinity Sunday and who might we live that out in level one and beyond?
First Reading - Genesis 1:1 – 2:4
Second Reading - 2 Cor 13:11-13
Gospel - Matt 28:16-20
What I want to say:
I want to explore how Trinity Sunday is a gift inviting us to reflect on our understanding of God and how that shapes our response to God’s actions in our lives, the world, and all creation
What I want to happen:
To ask, as we leave the Covid-19 restrictions, what is the gift of Trinity Sunday and who might we live that out in level one and beyond?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Happy Trinity Sunday.
A lot of people are a little ambivalent about this Sunday. It is big. It is hard to talk about the Trinity. There are a lot of pages written, millions of words, and yet we are trying to describe the indescribable, the unknowable, the mystery of God. So, in many ways what we are trying to do is mission impossible.
And there is this sense of “so what?”. What does it matter if we do not understand the Trinity? I remember a few years ago preaching at another church and using the example of “The Grace” which we just heard from 2 Corinthians. I asked if that was Trinitarian – which it is not. Lots of people said it was, and I pointed out that Paul was pre-Trinitarian – it took us a few hundred years before our understanding of the Trinity got close to where we are today. (If Paul had said “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit…” then it would have been closer to Trinitarian. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Paul is talking about God, as well as Jesus and Holy Spirit – 3 Gods?). And this lovely women in the music group said, “what does it matter John?” At one level it does not make much difference. And that is one of the problems with Trinity Sunday.
A lot of people are a little ambivalent about this Sunday. It is big. It is hard to talk about the Trinity. There are a lot of pages written, millions of words, and yet we are trying to describe the indescribable, the unknowable, the mystery of God. So, in many ways what we are trying to do is mission impossible.
And there is this sense of “so what?”. What does it matter if we do not understand the Trinity? I remember a few years ago preaching at another church and using the example of “The Grace” which we just heard from 2 Corinthians. I asked if that was Trinitarian – which it is not. Lots of people said it was, and I pointed out that Paul was pre-Trinitarian – it took us a few hundred years before our understanding of the Trinity got close to where we are today. (If Paul had said “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit…” then it would have been closer to Trinitarian. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Paul is talking about God, as well as Jesus and Holy Spirit – 3 Gods?). And this lovely women in the music group said, “what does it matter John?” At one level it does not make much difference. And that is one of the problems with Trinity Sunday.
2. Trinity Sunday as a gift
I want to suggest that there is a “so what?” about all this, and that Trinity Sunday offers us an opportunity to reflect on our understanding of God and how that shapes our response to God’s actions in our lives, the world, and all creation.
One of our problems with theology in general and with the Trinity in particular, is that we often think of it as a dry and crusty exercise dreamed by academics who lived their lives in ivory towers divorced from real life. We forget that for much of the first 1,000 years at least theology was always done by priests and bishops, pastors. They lived immersed in real life; immersed in their communities and in the life of their churches; which for the first 300 years was living under intense persecution. For these people, the pastoral concern was always first and foremost. Theology was not done out of academic interest, but because it helped people live facing this persecution. Much of the groundwork for our theology today was forged in this environment and with this pastoral intent.
When we read the New Testament, we need to note that none of these writers were Trinitarian. That does not mean they would not be Trinitarian, but that they had not got to that place yet. They were still grappling with how God could be one, and yet Jesus was fully human and fully divine. What did that mean? And how does the Holy Spirit fit into all this. That theology was forged during the first 300 years of the life of the church. So, when Paul and the gospel writers were writing, they and all the church were still grappling with all this. They were pre-Trinitarian. They were still trying to make sense of what they had experienced. How did all this hold together? How to understand God in light of all those ideas?
While all this was happening, the people who were struggling with this were also living under intense persecution. Some of the leading thinkers/bishops/pastors were martyred. So, their thinking about the Trinity was not just a nice idea but was at the heart of how they were grappling with all that was happening to them. It was their way of thinking about why they were being persecuted and who was this God found in Jesus and found in the world where they were being persecuted, and how do they respond to that God? So, the growing ideas around Trinity were at the centre of their struggle to understand what it meant to be followers of Jesus, followers of the way of Jesus in their incredibly difficult situation. Questions like, who is this God we are following, who are we as followers of this God, what is salvation, what is eternal life?
Then the situation changed, and they went from being persecuted outsiders, to very much insiders, with the emperor Constantine wanting to use Christianity as the unifying force is his very disparate empire. And under that pressure Christianity fractured. What did it mean then to be followers of the way across so many languages and cultures, and who was the God that called us to follow?
So out of those kinds of pressures come our understanding of the Trinity today. Not as a dry academic idea but at the core of the pastoral response to some very difficult situations.
One of our problems with theology in general and with the Trinity in particular, is that we often think of it as a dry and crusty exercise dreamed by academics who lived their lives in ivory towers divorced from real life. We forget that for much of the first 1,000 years at least theology was always done by priests and bishops, pastors. They lived immersed in real life; immersed in their communities and in the life of their churches; which for the first 300 years was living under intense persecution. For these people, the pastoral concern was always first and foremost. Theology was not done out of academic interest, but because it helped people live facing this persecution. Much of the groundwork for our theology today was forged in this environment and with this pastoral intent.
When we read the New Testament, we need to note that none of these writers were Trinitarian. That does not mean they would not be Trinitarian, but that they had not got to that place yet. They were still grappling with how God could be one, and yet Jesus was fully human and fully divine. What did that mean? And how does the Holy Spirit fit into all this. That theology was forged during the first 300 years of the life of the church. So, when Paul and the gospel writers were writing, they and all the church were still grappling with all this. They were pre-Trinitarian. They were still trying to make sense of what they had experienced. How did all this hold together? How to understand God in light of all those ideas?
While all this was happening, the people who were struggling with this were also living under intense persecution. Some of the leading thinkers/bishops/pastors were martyred. So, their thinking about the Trinity was not just a nice idea but was at the heart of how they were grappling with all that was happening to them. It was their way of thinking about why they were being persecuted and who was this God found in Jesus and found in the world where they were being persecuted, and how do they respond to that God? So, the growing ideas around Trinity were at the centre of their struggle to understand what it meant to be followers of Jesus, followers of the way of Jesus in their incredibly difficult situation. Questions like, who is this God we are following, who are we as followers of this God, what is salvation, what is eternal life?
Then the situation changed, and they went from being persecuted outsiders, to very much insiders, with the emperor Constantine wanting to use Christianity as the unifying force is his very disparate empire. And under that pressure Christianity fractured. What did it mean then to be followers of the way across so many languages and cultures, and who was the God that called us to follow?
So out of those kinds of pressures come our understanding of the Trinity today. Not as a dry academic idea but at the core of the pastoral response to some very difficult situations.
3. Where to start?
So where do we start in talking about the Trinity? For a long time, we have started with the 3 persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have talked about who each of the persons are, how they are distinct, what their work is and what holds them together. Latterly, an increasing number of people have wanted to start with the relationship between the three persons.
One starting point for that discussion has been Rublev’s icon of the Trinity, which is a Trinitarian interpretation of Gen 18:1-16, the episode in which “three men” visit Abram and Sarai and promise them a son. In that icon we have the three strangers seated around a table. When we look at that icon, we are drawn into the heart of the relationship that existed between the three of them. As an icon of the Trinity it draws into the relationship that exists at the heart of God. When we sit that alongside what scripture says about that relationship, then there are a whole lot of words that can also be used to describe that relationship.
In the icon there is sense of mutuality; there is no one person who is more important than the others, it is non-hierarchical; it is mutually respectful; a mutual caring for each. And if we lay what the gospel writers say about God in the life of Jesus, we can add words like generous, there is a deep generosity at the heart of God within and between the persons of the Trinity; compassion towards each person and out to creation, seen in the child born to Abram and Sarai. There is completeness and wholeness, all things are held together and completed within God the Trinity. We might describe this relationship as love, as shalom, as aroha. We could apply a whole lot more words to that relationship.
But when we look at that relationship, and the nature of that relationship, we get a glimpse into the heart of God.
In the icon there is sense of mutuality; there is no one person who is more important than the others, it is non-hierarchical; it is mutually respectful; a mutual caring for each. And if we lay what the gospel writers say about God in the life of Jesus, we can add words like generous, there is a deep generosity at the heart of God within and between the persons of the Trinity; compassion towards each person and out to creation, seen in the child born to Abram and Sarai. There is completeness and wholeness, all things are held together and completed within God the Trinity. We might describe this relationship as love, as shalom, as aroha. We could apply a whole lot more words to that relationship.
But when we look at that relationship, and the nature of that relationship, we get a glimpse into the heart of God.
4. Creation
In our reading from Genesis we hear that it was this God that created all things. Out of this non-hierarchical relationship of mutuality, generosity, compassion, completeness, and wholeness, love, shalom, and aroha comes the world we live in and all who live in this world, including us. We often think of creation as separate from God, with God far away up there somewhere. But Genesis 1 teaches that we come from and are held in the heart of God. And that heart is relationship. We are held in that relationship. We are invited into that relationship.
God being first and foremost relational means that we discover God in our relationships – in our relationships with ourselves, with our fellow church goers, with our families, our friends, and our community. We discover this God in our relationship with creation. And when we do that, we discover a God of mutuality, generosity, compassion, completeness and wholeness, love, shalom, aroha.
It is this understanding of the Trinity that shapes my life and my response to God. And I seek to let this shape my response to other people and the world in which I live.
God being first and foremost relational means that we discover God in our relationships – in our relationships with ourselves, with our fellow church goers, with our families, our friends, and our community. We discover this God in our relationship with creation. And when we do that, we discover a God of mutuality, generosity, compassion, completeness and wholeness, love, shalom, aroha.
It is this understanding of the Trinity that shapes my life and my response to God. And I seek to let this shape my response to other people and the world in which I live.
5. The Gift of Trinity Sunday.
The gift of Trinity Sunday is to think about what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches about the nature of God. And it gives us an opportunity to reflect on our understanding of God and how that shapes our response to God’s actions in our lives, the world, and all creation
Who we believe God to be is very important. As we look over the history of the church all the splits have been about the nature of God. There may have been other presenting issues. But even in the issues around the place of LGBTI+ people in the life of our church over the last many years, that has really been about who we believe God to be. Trinity Sunday gives us an opportunity to focus on that question, who is God for us?
So in this country, as we sit on the edge of hopefully going into level 1, and all that offers, leaving all that we have been through over the last 3 months, what is the gift of Trinity Sunday for you? Who is it that God invites you to see this Trinity Sunday?
And as we look tentatively ahead to Monday’s announcement, how might we live that out in our new normal and beyond?
How do we carry the gift of that into what lies ahead?
Who we believe God to be is very important. As we look over the history of the church all the splits have been about the nature of God. There may have been other presenting issues. But even in the issues around the place of LGBTI+ people in the life of our church over the last many years, that has really been about who we believe God to be. Trinity Sunday gives us an opportunity to focus on that question, who is God for us?
So in this country, as we sit on the edge of hopefully going into level 1, and all that offers, leaving all that we have been through over the last 3 months, what is the gift of Trinity Sunday for you? Who is it that God invites you to see this Trinity Sunday?
And as we look tentatively ahead to Monday’s announcement, how might we live that out in our new normal and beyond?
How do we carry the gift of that into what lies ahead?
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