Speak to you in the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Today is a unique feast, a day of the church. We don't celebrate an event like we did last
week at Pentecost. We don't get to hear the events of the life of a particularly holy
saint today. We don't even really get a special event of Jesus's life, or a parable, or some
of his teaching or healing. No, today we're celebrating something entirely different.
And in a way, the beauty of Trinity Sunday is that we just get to marvel at God. And
particularly this day, to marvel at the relationship that is active within God. Because it's hard
to talk about the idea of the Trinity as anything but relationship. It sort of needs to be part
of our conversation today. And though you won't find that word as you open your Bible,
Trinity is not there. We are heavily leaning on the witness of Scripture with how God is
revealed in so many places, in the stories of prayers that have come to life across centuries
of our tradition, in the many hymns that we will sing today, even in your life and mine.
For centuries, we have come to a place in Christian theology where it is almost impossible
to talk about the one God of Israel without mentioning the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. And it's something that every year it makes us consider, because friends, the
Trinity is not some heady side quest in our personal devotion. No, it is something we
have to take joyfully and seriously in all of our life of prayer, because the Trinity
is the basis of God's very identity. And anything that you can see and touch and feel has its
root in the heart of who God is, which means that the language we use around God is exceptionally
important. Much has and will continue to be said about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
but when we speak of them, we often have to speak of them together, working as one, instead
of the way that we often speak of them, which is like different departments of a big company
that are found on different floors, that somewhere near the top of the building is
the creation floor, so the Creator lives up there somewhere, and then maybe in middle
management is the Redeemer, and you might find Him there, and then in like storage room
7B on the basement is the poor Holy Spirit. Nowhere to be found, but somehow sustaining
all of this. Friends, that's not how it works. And if you have heard an analogy about the
Trinity this week, or if you have heard it anywhere else, it's probably not quite getting
the job done. It's hard to say concrete things about ineffable divine things, and so instead
we rely heavily on the things we can claim, the things we can say with confidence and
with faith, things that have been revealed to us, and the things that we claim in our
language today, like in the closing hymn that we'll sing all seven verses of, you're welcome,
that it is the whole Trinity of whom we speak, the whole Trinity of whom all nature hath
creation, not just one of them. It's in the things that we will pray today that there
is unity in the glory of God as revealed in the Trinity. It's things that we have to remember
today, of all days and all days, that this God is co-eternal, present before and beyond
all things. These truths, these things that have been revealed will confound and gladden
the hearts of any who approach them, and have done for centuries. This is heavy sledding
theologically, but again, we then rely on the things we can say for sure. That the love
of God that exists within and through and because of the Holy Trinity isn't just good,
or isn't just deep, or isn't just meaningful, it is perfect. Excellent. What a cue, on cue
just that the angels started singing from a cell phone. It is perfect, it is fearless,
it is full, and as has been revealed in other places, St. Paul among them, it hopes and
endures all things, it never fails. All of this is only possible because this God is
of one being, with one another in their divinity. They are not each other, but if we remember
anything today, we might remember they are of one another. And it is in that image, that
complex and muddy and beautiful image, that you and I have been made. Which means at some
point all of these things that we've just said have sort of been downloaded into us,
have been imprinted in the people that we are, made in this complex image. Many of those
same things, if we were to shift from God to people, could also be said about humanity,
could they not? Are we not of one another in our humanity? Are we not the same in nature?
Do we not have the same essence that we share, dwelling within us? Do we not look across
our pews or our families, or even much wider than that? Do we not look across cultures
that are different, people that believe different things, proclaim different things, or know
things at all, and still see that person made in the image of God? Do we not then say, bone
of my bone and flesh of my flesh? Like, yes, sometimes. Sometimes we actually do. Sometimes
we look and have those wonderfully human moments, where we might not even share the same language,
but we share the same idiosyncrasies. The weird little things that we notice, smiles
and glances and things we do with our eyebrows. If you've had the privilege of traveling far
away from the place where you grow up, you know this is true. I've had that privilege.
And from Guatemala to Greenwich, people are people. From Kansas to Pennsylvania to Idaho,
people are people. There is something about them that remains the same, especially when
we see the image of God in each of them. But I said sometimes. Sometimes we see this,
and sometimes we actively don't want to. Sometimes our willingness to see the image of God that
other people are also made in falters. So instead of seeing God, we might only be looking
for the things that we recognize in ourselves, in other people, and find them wanting. It's
then our tendency only to look for our own traits. Only to look for the things that we
like. And very quickly we can reject the humanity of someone else, and our love won't be full.
Our love won't be perfect. Sometimes it will fail to endure. When it does, the thing that
we have to do is return to this language of the Holy Trinity. To come back in prayer,
to repent of the times we haven't seen the full humanity in someone else's life. Because
there is no circumstance in which the relationship with the Trinity will ever do the same thing.
Can you imagine the Son of God insisting that the Spirit be more like Him? Can you imagine
God the Father being envious of the Holy Spirit? No. It's like squaring a circle. It doesn't
make sense. That's the thing we have to rely on. When we look to our own relationships
and see where they are either strong or less so, we might then quickly decide, well what
does the relationship of God look like within itself? Can I live in such a way that mimics
that? I trust that we can, but I also trust it's our inclination not to. Because God has
made us each unique, truly. But like all things that we might find to be true in our lives,
there's like a little bit of vice and a little bit of virtue to that. Yes, we have all been
given unique spiritual gifts, but if it's the only thing we remember, we'll never be
able to see the image of something different in our neighbor. We'll only look for ourselves.
We'll only pray for the people that we recognize. We might only try to love the people that
we find agreeable. We might reject the humanity of those we simply do not understand. Now
on a day like today we might admit very quickly that our humanity falls apart when we strive
to be so unlike any other human being. But thanks be to God that our humanity, our very
selves, the things in which we base in God can thrive when we do the hard work, the faithful
work of recognizing that image in everyone we encounter, friend or stranger alike. There
will be many of those encounters. Today our encounters are with God and one another and
that is true of every day. As we are especially called today into this deeper love of God
and into this proximity of God's Holy Trinity, may the claims we make today, like being bound
to the strong name of the Trinity, help us take on the characteristics of God, the relationship
of God within the Trinity, the love of God that indeed hopes and endures all things.
May we also be bound to others with that same tenacity, with that same fire, with that same
strength. May the feast day today remind us that things on earth can be as things in heaven
are and bonds between people can be as they are within God.