Trinity

Sermon Notes 4th June 2023
Geoff Vidal

We are in white today but next week the liturgical colour goes green. Green (which represents growing) is the colour for “ordinary time” or the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost. 

These green times are bracketed by special days. The Sundays after Epiphany are between our celebrations of the Baptism of the Lord and Transfiguration. The Sundays after Pentecost lie between Trinity Sunday and Christ the King. When this pattern for the Church’s Liturgical calendar was developed, the intention was for Trinity Sunday to represent a summing up of all the divine activity church people have celebrated since the beginning of Advent.  

The idea was that, in celebrating The Trinity, we would also be reminded of everything that God has done in creation. That is why we heard those first verses from Genesis today. They are a reminder of God’s ongoing work with everything created. As Jenny read the creation story to us, we were reminded that God says it is “good”; (we humans are “very good”). The fact that God created everything (including the stars billions of light years away), and God is pleased with it all, is the key point. It doesn’t really matter how it was created but it does matter why. We should spend time talking and thinking about the “why” of creation. 

So, today we are set the task of dealing with the Trinity. That’s a tough job! Our Christian God, The Holy Trinity, God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is a great mystery. Boldly, we humans try to describe this elusive mystery, which we recognize as God, in words. 

However, we have a bit of a spiritual problem when we let ourselves be trapped by trying to find words to describe the mystery of the Trinity. Rather than trying to describe the Trinity, perhaps we should just be open to the mystery itself.

And it is a mystery! How can there be three persons and one God? It’s not entirely satisfactory to talk of ice, water and steam being one substance. Or three leafed clovers. Something you might discuss with our musician, Ros Sharp, is that in music you have more than one thing happening at a time. It is important in music that each note be sounded clearly and distinctly, yet we enjoy hearing a mass of different notes all played at once. Multiple notes become a beautiful single harmonic sound in music. Harmony does not make a big deal of individual notes but rather rejoices in their interesting relationships, contrasts, and contributions to one another.  

Although we can’t adequately describe it, it is this Trinitarian nature of our God that really sets us apart from other religions. I am sure each one of us has had the experience of being in a conversation where the topic of religious differences has come up and someone has said “Well, the Christians and Muslims and Jews shouldn’t be squabbling. They all worship the same God, don’t they?” 

Can you imagine someone answering, “No! Christians do not believe in some solitary, generic, vague, easily managed, and inoffensive god, Christians believe that God is Trinity.”  Perhaps there is a really sincere intent to be inclusive and peaceable when someone says, “Christians and Muslims worship the same God,” or when some scholars speak of Jews, Muslims, and Christians as members of the “Abrahamic faiths,” (saying that changes Jews and Christians into less offensive “Judeo-Christians”). People might say these things because they have a genuine desire to bring unity and harmony. However, we can’t escape the reality that, like it or not, this challenging and mysterious Holy Trinity of the Christian Church makes us unlike any other religion. Because God the Holy Trinity is so different from every other idea of God, we try very hard to avoid talking about Trinity. We know that we will end up in strife if we have something to say. 

We just don’t have language, which is adequate enough to describe this Holy Trinity, let alone explain why we believe that is what God really is. Even carefully and sincerely (without being defensive or argumentative) trying to define the Trinity can be really unhelpful. One of the problems we have as humans is that our greatest gift, language, is also our greatest danger. We can destroy ourselves by our words. 

In our Gospel reading today, Matthew tells us about the final meeting of the disciples with the risen Lord Jesus. There is a lot of significance in the setting. The risen Jesus is back in Galilee; this remote and despised area where he began his teaching is where Jesus now concludes his teaching.  And Matthew says that it takes place on a mountain (that’s where Jesus is tempted by Satan - that’s where Jesus speaks his most famous sermon – Jesus goes off alone to pray on a mountain - the transfiguration of Jesus occurs on a high mountain). Now the ending comes on a mountain.  Also, there’s a reminder of Old Testament mountains that were places of divine work and revelation. So, Matthew’s mention of a mountain here creates a level of expectation.  

Matthew tells us that, here on the mountain, Jesus who had refused Satan’s offer of “all the kingdoms in the world”, now says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  

Sometimes these last few verses of Matthew are used to “prove” the Holy Trinity because, in them, Jesus told his followers to baptize new disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. But this isn’t meant to be a lesson from Jesus on the Holy Trinity. When the risen Lord Jesus appears to his followers, we are told that “they worshipped him; but some doubted.” That’s me too! Most of us are a mixture of belief and doubt as individuals, as Anglicans, and also as a congregation. 

Again, I think there’s a language problem. Here, “doubt” does not mean disbelief or rejection. Doubt means hesitancy or uncertainty. Jesus risen presence did not instantly change people of little faith with a faltering understanding into spiritual giants. We hesitate to believe. But even though we are hesitant to believe and we feel a bit uncomfortable saying the Creed, there is a flame in our doubting that can be fanned into life. 

We should actually be encouraged because Jesus doesn’t rebuke the doubters! Jesus simply gives his final instructions. He says, “Go and make disciples of all nations”. That’s why we end our services with the instruction “Go …. to love and serve the Lord” Each week we are being reminded to “Go and make disciples”. The Roman Catholic expression “Mass” has its origin in the Latin word they heard at the end of the service meaning “Go now!”. All followers of Jesus are sent out into the community to love and serve and to be makers of disciples.

The word translated here in Matthew as “Go” is a continual verb in Greek grammar which more accurately means “Go always” or “keep on going”. So, this final chapter of Matthew’s Gospel hasn’t ended; it is still being written today in the mission and teaching of Jesus’ disciples. 

And the God who has given us this instruction (this mission) to make disciples is impossible to define. Even without difficulty of the Trinity, you can’t define God. You are not able to put God in your pocket. There is no “Connect with God” app available for our iPhones and iPads.  

For nearly 2000 years, countless millions of Christians have found life with God is an adventure, a journey, a leap into the unknown. How often have you come to church, fairly confident that you are on the right path in your Christian living, rather firm in your faith, only to be surprised by something you heard in the Bible reading?  How often have you been unsettled by what was said in a sermon? Have you been really challenged by the comments of some fellow Christian?  

Maybe that’s God working to stir up our brains. But, here’s another mystery; no matter how much we learn, there is still more to learn. This is not a drag: it’s actually exciting to discover something new. We are in deep strife if we ever think that we have no more to learn. We need to be open and willing to change our mind. 

Here are a couple of helpful quotes. There’s an English proverb which says, “Wise men change their minds, fools never.” Jonathan Swift (who wrote Gulliver’s travels and was an Anglican Priest; Dean of the Cathedral in Dublin) said “Never be ashamed to admit that you have been wrong, 'tis only saying that you are wiser today than you were yesterday.” There is always an opportunity and a need to be ready to change our minds. This means that people who have been churchgoers all their lives are no further advanced than the brand-new Christian getting involved with “Church” for the first time. 

Perhaps the point is not to try to understand the Trinitarian God, but to simply love God.  To be at peace in the knowledge that “Jesus loves me” To rejoice in the knowledge that God loves us so much he gave his Son so that we will not perish but may have Eternal Life.  

Matthew ends with Jesus saying “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” What a wonderful promise! There are no conditions for us to meet. There is nothing we must believe. Whether we recognise it or not, Jesus Christ is always with us.