Know you are loved. A Trinity Sunday reflection

Today is Trinity Sunday!

The day when preachers across the church will stand up in front of their congregations and attempt to describe what the essence of what the Trinity truly is.

Just what do we mean when we say we believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

How do we connect the dots from saying we believe in one God to believing in one God in three parts?

How does three equal one?

So, to set definitions we start with the Trinity being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but only one God.

The Trinity is like water and how you can find water in 3 different forms, liquid, gas, and ice, a solid.

Well, not quite, that’s Modalism.

Modalism is a heresy that says God is three different forms of one single thing.

Now, if God was all parts water, then God would not reveal God’s self in three different persons, the father, son, and Holy Spirit, but three different forms of the same thing.

But God is three distinct persons and is not three forms of the same thing; God is not the different forms that water can take on.

Ok, fine, a heresy.

So, what then is the Trinity?

Maybe it’s like the Sun where it is a star and it also emits light and heat.

Three things of the same being.

But this analogy too describes a heresy.

If light and heat were to derive from the Sun, then applying the analogy to the Trinity would mean Christ derives from the Father.

And yet, as we hear often in John’s gospel, Christ is coeternal with God.

God did not appear first and was then followed by Jesus, no, they are both eternal from the beginning.

This heresy is called Arianism.

Okay, let’s try the analogy of a three leafed clover.

We have three parts, the leaves and they are equal parts.

Perfect right?

And yet, that analogy too would be a heresy called partialism, meaning that God the Father, Christ the son, and the Holy Spirit would be three parts of one thing.

And that’s not how it works.

Instead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three separate and distinct beings, not three leaves of the same stem, forming one union.

Three parts.

Equal.

Separate.

One God.

Or, to sum up, we have the Athanasian Creed found in the back of your prayerbooks which reads,

…we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,

     neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.

For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory

     equal, the Majesty co-eternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost

     incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.

And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.

As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and

     one incomprehensible.

So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty.

And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.

There.

Did you get all that?

Perhaps not, because honestly?

I’m kinda lost.

I’m lost and so I form my own analogies as to how to understand just what the Trinity is.

Perhaps I’ve created my own heresy?

I’m not sure.

Because when I think of the Trinity, I imagine a circle and I see ourselves, as one body or individually, in the center of that circle and all around us, spinning around us, and even within us, is God.

We are witness to one thing, God, yet in that orbit are three things, all of whom we have a relationship with.

God the Father.

God the Son.

God the Holy Spirit.

Think of the Big Bang.

How it started with two atoms swirling and exploding into the known universe.

Next, think of the Trinity swirling around us, always three parts as one observable thing, and within that thing is us.

So what do we call that thing?

We call it God.

Now, I understand none of this might make sense to you and that is okay, that is the incomprehensibleness of what forms the Trinity.

That is the mystery.

And if it doesn’t make sense, I would ask: What is God?

What is the essence of God?

And what is God, but love?

When we look for evidence of God in this world, I’m going to look for the simple stuff.

A couple in love.

A child’s hand in their parents’ hand.

Even letting someone go first at a four-way intersection.

That is love.

That is caring for each other and to recognize God is to see love in all things and in all things, we are loved.

And that ultimately, love is a mystery.

Are we not undeserving of God’s love?

Do we not sin and run afoul from God’s laws?

Our greatest commandment is to love God and love one another as God loves us.

Who can honestly say that when love becomes difficult, we love our neighbor as God loves us?

That is the mystery.

So, to explain the Trinity in terms other than a mystery is going to place limitations on what the nature of God is, be they heresies or just bad analogies about circles and space.

There are no limits to God and that is a part of the incomprehensibility of it all.

Because just as we cannot conceive of a complete love that includes all of God’s people, even the most sinful around us, love still exists.

It is not up to us to understand, but we must have faith that love is all and love conquers all and God is love.

And so when we read in John about Jesus preparing his disciples and the world for his departure, he is speaking from a place of love.

We will not be abandoned, we will still be taken care of.

God’s love will not leave us.

God’s love remains.

In planning for this sermon, one of my resources was the aptly titled book, “Planning for Rites and Rituals.”

In it there is a very helpful paragraph:

Please do not try to explain the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. Many have tried, and all have failed. That’s because the Trinity is as mysterious a relationship as any and it doesn’t stand up to explanation. To preach about the Trinity, we have to live the Trinity as well as we live in any relationship. The piece that makes this attainable is the Trinity wants to know us. The Cappadocians described the Trinity as a circle dance, using the Greek work Perichoresis. They were theologians who danced along with the Trinity, learning their steps as they were led by the relationship of the Three. Maybe this is a good Sunday to stop explaining and just dance.

And so I will take the queue from my planning guide.

No more explanations.

Just know that as you leave this church, you are loved by our one holy and triune God.

And that when you share that love, you share God in all of God’s mystery and in all of God’s wonder and wonderful incomprehensibility.

There is no greater message I can utter than week after week finding a new way to say that you are loved, that through God you are fully and completely loved, and that God, the very essence of God no matter how you understand God, is love.

You are loved.

You are loved.

You are loved.