The Sunday of the Holy Trinity ---- 31 May 2015

We believe in one God, the Father, the

Almighty…

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God…

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,

the giver of life…

·        Trinity Sunday is an odd Sunday to preach on. Other festivals celebrate an event found in the Scripture or the life and faith of a certain person or persons in the history of the Church. Some Sundays are given over to causes like immigrants or missionary work or Christian Unity.

·        Not so with Trinity Sunday. This is the only Sunday that celebrates a Church doctrine. There is no “Inspiration of Scripture Sunday” or “Salvation by Grace Sunday.” Yet we have “Trinity Sunday.”

·        I am not going to try to explain the Trinity. I couldn’t possibly do that. I do know that the celebration of Trinity Sunday goes very far back in the Church’s history. This is seen in the formula for Baptism with make reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a formula so old that it can be seen in the Gospels.

·        I can try to say that the Church proclaims and celebrates the events that are formative in the life of the Church; hence our celebration of Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, and Reformation among others.

·        Trinity – a revelation of the very nature of God - is something that is formative in the life of the Church; it is just something that is not explainable.

·        I could use examples, both ancient and modern, that illustrate the Trinity, like the apple where the skin, the meat, and the seeds of the fruit are all present and make up the entire apple without one being either of the other two. I could use the three-leaved clover – the Shamrock – to illustrate the Trinity. After all, it’s supposed to have worked for Patrick, hadn’t it? As pretty as those examples are, they really don't work well.

·        Neither of those illustrations explain the Trinity. There are theological arguments that go ‘round and ‘round on what the Trinity is and how the “Hypostasis” or “Perichoresis” is achieved. (Those are not diseases, but the theological terms for what the Trinity is in itself. Pretty dry stuff and not a lot of use in preaching.)

·        Let’s look at it another way. We talk about the Trinity as a “mystery.” In our society a mystery is something we don’t understand or comprehend YET… with a great accent on the “yet.” We see mysteries as things to be cleared up, unraveled, or solved

·        Still, there are things all around us that we don’t comprehend yet we do them, believe them, and celebrate them all the time. I imagine that many of us could come up with pages of example, but here’s a few that remain mysteries to me.

·        I’d often wondered why my cousin’s husband (now deceased) who was a teacher, coach, life-guard, and United States Marine combat veteran enjoyed riding the merry-go-round and only the merry-go-round.

·        How do you know when to plant a certain crop?

·        How do you know when green apples are ripe?

·        Why do dogs make a circle when they’re going to lay down?

·        At what temperature should you add the sour cream to the hot broth when making Chicken Paprikash?

·        Who here can smell the rain when it’s going to storm?

·        Who here can smell the snow when it’s on the way?

·        What makes us like what we like?

·        How do you know when someone loves you?

·        How do you know when you love someone?

·        Some of these are greater mysteries than others. Some of these might also be skills to be learned and developed, but they often look like mysterious behavior to many who are not able to do such things and don’t understand. Many of these must be experienced rather than comprehended. In fact, they are quite often better when experienced rather than understood? For example, would you rather understand love or know love?

·        It is the same way with the Trinity. We can study it until we drop and we’ll never understand it. Yet we can experience the Trinity, proclaim the Trinity, and live our lives with the Trinity.

·        All in all, the Trinity is a glimpse of the life of God. The Trinity is not an aspect of God, like power and might and omniscience; the Trinity simply is God. This is not a reality that we can claim to believe. It is a truth that we receive by faith through the Spirit as gift from God.