Today is a rare festival in the church year when we don’t celebrate an event in Jesus’ life. Rather, we celebrate a doctrine, a teaching: the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons. Here’s the question I am drawn to focus on today: what practical difference does the doctrine of the Holy Trinity make for our life and times right now in our crazy world? Or to put it more bluntly: so what?
The Trinity is an abstract teaching that we cannot wrap our minds around. Listen to this excerpt from the Athanasian Creed which is arguably the clearest articulation of what is meant by the Trinity: “We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty…. Thus the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God: and yet there are not three gods, but one God.” Got that?
Again, practically speaking, what difference does this understanding of God make in the concrete, troubled circumstances of our lives? To respond to this question, I am moved to explore insights from today’s readings appointed for Trinity Sunday. Each reading hints at the Trinity even as the doctrine of one God in three persons is a concept that emerged after the books of the Bible were written. Still, I believe today’s readings nonetheless shed light on what our Trinitarian understanding of God, implicit in scripture, means for our lives today. So, let’s jump in.
In the first reading, we heard the first of two creation stories in the book of Genesis.
Here’s a main point about this creation story: the three-personed God’s creative work in the beginning was the antidote to the earth being complete chaos while darkness covered the face of the deep. God the Father spoke the Word who is Christ while the Spirit of God swept over the face of the watery abyss. That’s how creation happened. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.”
Think about it: the crucial thing in this creation story is that God brought order out of chaos, and light out of the darkness that was at the beginning. A dark, chaotic, formless void was given light and order. This is a welcome word in our time of increasing chaos when darkness again covers the abysses of our lives and times. The God who brought order out of chaos continues this creative work in the mission of the church today. The God who created light still shines that light into the darkness of our lives and time. And it’s still good – good news. Amen? Thanks be to God.
Let’s turn next to God creating human beings. Here’s what it says in Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness…” Here’s the beautiful thing: God in three persons, implied by the us, created human beings in the image and likeness of our Trinitarian God. Our original state as humans before the fall, before sin, was that we were mirror images of God. We bore the likeness of God. What an astonishing and beautiful reality! And when Christ, the word of God made flesh, was sent to us, to die and rise again for us, our original state of having been created in the image and likeness of God was graciously restored.
What does this mean for us in our day? Each of us without exception bears the sacred image of God. This is good news when people today fail to see and to acknowledge and to honor the likeness and image of God in other people. Alas, we see this destructive failure all over the place when people on the right dehumanize and even demonize people on the left, and people on the left do the same disfavor to people on the right. Seeing each other as created in God’s image and likeness is the foundation for healing what is tearing our world apart. Thanks be to God.
Now let’s turn to the words of Paul in today’s second reading. These words are very familiar to you because they begin each Sunday liturgy: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”
What meaning do we distill from this? The God of the Trinity is all about relationship and community – three persons, the family of God. This is good news indeed in an age of individualist isolationism. Moreover, the divine relationship which we share in community is not marked by mercilessness, or hatred, or disunity, so characteristic of our age. No, not at all. The trinitarian divine relationship made known and real to us in Christian community is all about grace and love and communion. Truly, a Holy Communion, for we know this grace, love and communion when we gather together at this sacramental table to commune with the fullness of our God in Trinity through the presence of Christ made known in the breaking of the bread. Still more good, life-giving news. Right?
Now, let’s move on to today’s Gospel reading. As we heard in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus Christ, speaking in concert with the Father and the Spirit, sends us on a mission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” This mission has been going on for two thousand years, each generation renewing the mission while generating new faithful believers. We baptize and then the baptized are sent out to disciple and baptize more people who themselves are sent among all the nations of the world to do the same. Now there are about two and half billion Christians throughout the world in virtually every nation.
This is good news when people are forlorn without a sense of purpose, without a sense of mission in their lives. Indeed, one of the causes of depression and what can lead to suicide is a sense that life is without meaning and purpose. But God gives us work to do. We are sent on a mission. Our lives of faith thus have meaning. We have a holy purpose. And this is a rare gift in a world where so many struggle with a sense of purposelessness and seeming meaninglessness.
Finally, our sharing in the life of the Trinitarian Godhead, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit – all of this makes for bearing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and among us in Christian community for the sake of our mission in the world. Listen again to the apostle Paul from today’s second reading where he describes the ideal qualities of our life together: “Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.”
What a gift to the world in contrast to so much of the bad news in the headlines….. Restoration, not degradation and alienation. Holy listening to each other, not ignoring each other. Agreement and unity, not argument and division. Peace, not strife and warfare. Love, not hate. A holy kiss, rather than flipping others off. All of this marks the qualities of our share with each other in the Trinitarian life of God. All of this defines the qualities of our mission in serving neighbors in love and seeking God’s justice here and abroad.
So, you see, today’s readings reveal that our God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not a mere, abstract idea, but a reality that is made known to the world through the church’s ongoing mission, a reality that makes for the healing of the whole world, and indeed, the whole cosmos.
Thus, we give praise, honor and worship to the Holy Trinity, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
