In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

On this first Sunday after Pentecost, we are invited to reflect on the paradox of the immanence and the transcendence of God. We dare to ponder and to respond to the source of all being, the mystery of God- Karl Barth’s “Wholly Other”.

Today we are celebrating Trinity Sunday. And for those of us who live our lives within the rhythm of the liturgical year, this is the only day that calls us to ponder a teaching of the church rather than a teaching of Jesus.
So where to begin?

Should we assume that Jesus’ instruction to the disciples to be “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” proves the existence of the Trinity? No, I don’t think so, first of all Jesus was a Jew and would not have thought of God in such terms. Better to concede that the Gospel writer most likely lifted the formula from a first century liturgy used in the early Christian community.

But the scriptural readings for the day are carefully chosen to reflect the three-in-one doctrine: God as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. The scriptures provide a biblical foundation for the non scriptural word “Trinity.”

Now the great German theologian Karl Rahner once said “all Christian mysteries can be reduced to three, the Incarnation, Grace and the Trinity. And this mystery of God revealed in three ways is one of the core doctrines of Christianity. I started this sermon in the name of the Trinity; the Apostles Creed which we used is organized along Trinitarian lines. Kaya was baptized in the name of the Trinity. 
And yet as Christians, who believe in one God, we do linguistic and theological somersaults complete trying to explain to others that we do not believe in three gods. I had this experience a few years ago when I was completing my oral comprehensive exam in systematic theology for my master’s degree. The examination was an hour in length with three professors examining me each for twenty minutes on a variety of theological topics.

The last professor took me into Trinitarian theology and I spent the final twenty minutes of the exam slaloming around the various persons and relations of the Trinity trying to avoid crashing into numerous heresies. Fortunately, the twenty minutes was up before the professor had completed his examination or I am afraid I might have been transferring to the Ontario Truck Driving school.

Perhaps I should have taken a lesson from my wife. Kate said that when she was a counselor at Camp Kintail she would explain the Trinity to her young campers using an apple. The apple is composed of the flesh, the skin and the core. Three different parts making up one apple. Another analogy is water in three different forms-water, ice and steam. Three forms, one substance. Amazing eh!

However within the church these days, the doctrine of the Trinity is called many things other than amazing. Some call it archaic and obsolete. Others follow the philosopher Immanuel Kant and consider it to be obscure and remote from the common human experience. And probably many Christians today would discover that they are Unitarians rather than Trinitarians if examined on their beliefs.

And yet how important is it to explain the mystery of God revealed to us in three distinct ways? Mysteries explained cease to be mysteries don’t they. Perhaps the doctrine of the Trinity challenges our secret wish to know God fully and eliminate all mystery. For in our modern understanding to know something is to control it, to dominate it for our own use. Maybe instead of trying to explain away the Trinity, we must try to do what the doctrine was originally formulated to do: give words to faith.

For when the early church fathers developed this doctrine, they spoke of knowledge as knowing something not in order to control it but rather to know something in a spirit of awe and wonder, something that they experienced in their everyday lives.

And by looking at the Trinity we see three “persons” united in one substance. But at the same time we relationships, we see a divine community. The doctrine is a way of saying that the God in which we believe is relational and personal rather than self sufficient up in the starry heavens above. 

And our readings help shed some light on this mystery of the Trinity, on this essence that evokes both awe and wonder. And we can see relationships of all kinds emanating from our readings. In our reading from Matthew’s gospel, the intimate relationship is there as well. All three persons of the Trinity are mentioned.  The disciples are to go and build community in the name of the Trinity whose essence is community.

In each of our readings we see God reflecting his divine essence by entering into relationships and calling the whole world into community through Christ. In fact the doctrine of the Trinity speaks to the very real modern problem of human alienation, from each other and from our world. This alienation is the result of the greatest heresy of our time-the myth of the primacy of the sovereign individual.

In our culture we are so isolated from one another that if the doorbell rings unexpectedly, we perceive it as a threat. Our own homes have become the castle keep, our alarm systems the moat. And yet in the end we have people alienated from others and ultimately alienated from God. Clinging to a false sense of independence.

But God does not allow that to be the end of the story for God invites us today, God loves us today, God suffers with us today, God calls us into relationship with one another, into community with one another for in building and nurturing community we reflect and glorify the very nature of God.

For the Trinity is not a mathematical equation but rather a way of speaking about God. In the end, all human language is imprecise and limited as we are limited. We cannot penetrate the mystery that is God but the doctrine helps us to understand that God seeks to be in relationship with us.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit existing in community and calling us into community rooted not in logic but in love humility and compassion.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.