Today is Trinity Sunday, considered the only major Christian feast day primarily based on a doctrine and not on a biblical event. It is the day when the preacher may attempt to explain the concept of the Trinity: God is Three in One; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; the Lover, the Beloved, and Love Itself.
Today this preacher will not attempt to explain the theology of any of that. Instead, I would like us to explore together our personal relationship with the three persons of the Trinity, and how we might open ourselves and be ready for God to be a more integral and deeply satisfying part of our life.
As you may or may not know, I was raised in the Episcopal Church. As a child the Sunday services could not hold my attention, but we children were expected to sit quietly. What to do? What to do? Well, the Prayer Book was right there in the pew rack and reading was always acceptable behavior, so I opened up the Prayer Book to see what might be interesting inside. Have you ever done that? Have you discovered what interesting stuff there is in the back of the book? You never know what you might learn from a book.
First, there is a Table and Rules to Find Easter Day. The table covers 1900 to 2089, but the rule shows you how to find Easter Day for any year. Then I found An Outline of the Faith, Commonly Called the Catechism, which can keep one engaged for a very long time. Next, I found the Articles of Religion, established in 1801 and preserved in the language of 1801. Here I read about things that were fascinating to me: purgatory, speaking in tongues, the marriage of priests, predestination – all the things that made me and my faith different from the faith of my Protestant and Catholic friends. But listed first in the Articles is Of Faith is the Holy Trinity.
“There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
I took it to heart. I took all the articles of faith to heart, and I held on to them.
Now, you go along in life, and you hold on to this faith of yours, you grip it in your hand, but there are distractions. It’s hard to find time for God, for prayer, for remembering why you are striving to do good works. And the grip of your hand loosens. You open your hand and you wonder, where is my faith?
The paths we take on our faith journey are as different and complex as each one of us. The path is smooth or rough at different places. The stumbling blocks for each of us are found here or there. The mountains, valleys, and oases are at different places along the way. If you stop and be still, or if you turn and look around, you can discover that God is with you, delighted to be on the path with you.
There is another book I want to open up with you. It is entitled Mysteries of Faith by Mark McIntoch. He was a professor of systematic theology and spirituality at Loyola University, Chicago, and an Episcopal priest until his death in 2021. The book is part of the New Church’s Teaching Series and it was part of my fourth year of local study in Education for Ministry.
Before reading this book, my connection was with the individual persons of the Trinity. Maybe this is true for you on your path. As a child, I connected with God the Creator who made himself known to the Hebrew people. How did that happen? How did that first human hear God’s voice or feel God’s presence? It is a mystery. But then that human shared their experience, shared their story with someone else, and shared the story with someone else, and shared the story with someone else, and shared the story with me and you.
Jesus (I childishly called him Mr. Perfect) set the bar high. He always knew the right thing to say, the right thing to do. The little we know about his schooling, he was a star pupil. Rather than dismiss any connection with Jesus, a connection can be made with awe when we realize that our sins are forgiven, and we can, in thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice, strive to follow his good example in this broken world. And when I was old enough to hear and understand that the Holy Spirit is our Advocate and Comforter, then I was open to that connection and welcomed it gladly.
You go along in life and you hold onto this faith of yours. And then, something new is placed in your hand to help you better connect to God. Perhaps it is Mysteries of Faith. Fr. McIntoch systematically writes about the three persons of the Trinity, but always in light of the three persons together as one.
Why do we think of them as persons? It sounds so human and anthropomorphic. Our word “person” comes from the Greek prosopon, pros meaning toward and opos meaning face. So, these three persons are facing toward each other, as in the Andrei Rublev icon on your bulletin cover. The icon shows their relationship that they have to one another. Here they sit in conversation, in relationship. McIntoch writes: “The Spirit is God as relationship, as the love who draws Jesus to the Father and the Father to Jesus … we too are drawn into Jesus’ life of relationship with the Father.” He continues: “Not only are we invited into the conversation, but we turn out to be … part of the very subject matter of the conversation. We are what God is talking about.” Jesus says: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.”
God loves us, God delights in us, God desires us to be part of the conversation and desires us to be a part of the relationship of the Holy Trinity. We are not merely listening and learning; we are invited to participate.
I was greatly moved by this book and the invitation I found to join the Oneness of the Trinity. It came for me when the path of my faith journey was methodical. I cannot predict what reaction you might have to reading it. But God is placing gifts in front of you, on your path, gifts to discover, to open, and to share in mutual delight.
The path we each take on our faith journey is uniquely ours. You may read the Articles of Religion and say, I believe. You may look at this icon and be drawn into the conversation. You may find yourself wanting to be part of what is referred to as the Dance, where you turn, turn in delight in a flowing movement with God. You may seek comfort and find yourself nestled and enfolded into the Three, where your breathing joins in rhythmic unity to the Breath of God. It is your path.
At the end of the service the deacon sends you out into the world. This is what I charge you to do today. Open your hand, open your heart, open your mind, and be ready for a fuller embrace of our Trinitarian God; the Lover, the Beloved, and Love itself. Amen.
