A sermon preached by Bill Beaver at St Mary’s, Iffley on 4th June 2023

This is Trinity Sunday

when congregations watch their preacher get tied in knots trying to explain the Trinity itself and leave everyone baffled.

Yes God is mysterious, his wonders to perform

But at the same time he gives us the Trinity

to make himself known to us,

ever deeper, in a way we can understand

no matter our age or circumstances.

Drawing primarily from the gospel of John,

latest of the gospels, the thinker and writer, Theophilus,

first used trias as a concept in the second century.

And the idea of emphasising three in one and one in three reached Turtullian Africanus in the third century

when his explanation of the Trinity deeply influenced the writings of the three Capadocians, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa, so by the fourth century the Christian notion of God was known as three ‘persons’ but singular in the nature of what He does.

Naturally, anything to do with the reality of God was fascinating and so speculation and thinking and writing about God in three persons, our Triune God, grew over the ages into increasingly complex speculation of one form or another, all too often, the product of fevered minds into higher Trinitarian mathematics on a grand scale. Indeed, each thinker, each author attempting to catch sight of the mystery of God, seeking to discover the essence of the creator, for good or ill, reminding us of Icarus, son of Daedalus, making wings out of feather and wax. So, by the 13 hundreds, whole wars and massacres were fought out through Europe over the exact nature of the ‘persons’ and the real or supposed heresies thereof.

Such was the interest in discovering the essence of God

that soon from the corners of the increasingly Christian world, celebrating God as three persons became part of the formal liturgy when Pope John 22 made it a feast in 1334, the first time the Church authorised celebrating a dogma instead of a salvation event.

Such was the interest in discovering the essence of God

that soon from the corners of the increasingly Christian world, celebrating God as three persons became part of the formal liturgy when Pope John 22 made it a feast in 1334,

the first time the Church authorised celebrating a dogma

instead of a salvation event.

In short, the Trinity is a mechanic from God and by God which should, note the ‘should’ provide you and me with an understanding of how we can enter into a relationship with him

in a way which gives us reassurance that He is real

and desires a profitable contact with each of us. It is the biggest gift in the world and our choice to accept it or not.

And when, if, we reach out to the Almighty in prayer,

Remember that he taught his Son, Jesus the Christ,

to teach us about the Trinity; the tool he uses to make his reality known to us, the avenue for our engaging with him in a meaningful way. It has been and is a way He reveals himself

over the centuries, to be seminal in deepening our understanding the Eternal, if we will but employ our eyes to see and ears to hear.

All too often we forget why God got Jesus to talk about the Father, his role as Son and the Holy Spirit.It was pure and simply so that we can grow closer to God and God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is an unbreakable loop.

And it is this mutual relationship which is at the heart of the Trinity: the regard God has for us so much that he used extraordinary measures to explain himself and show his love for us. As we heard from Isaiah today:

Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles

Run and not be weary, walk and not faint

And does the Psalmist marvel how God considers us little lower than the angels?

God yearns for a relationship with us, this the one true God of the New Testament who is not concerned with himself but with his relationship with us, with each of us, you, me

as individuals and as members of this community,

this community of which we who have become involved

in the cause of Jesus Christ and his message of hope for a fulfilled life.

It is through the Trinity we can reassure ourselves that God is real and in his three-fold nature comes to us all.

As St Patrick’s Breastplate makes crystal clear:

I bind unto myself the Name,

the strong Name of the Trinity,

by invocation of the same,

the Three in One and One in Three.

By Whom all nature hath creation,

eternal Father, Spirit, Word:

praise to the Lord of my salvation,

salvation is of Christ the Lord. Amen.

So be we by ourselves or in community as we are now

We have the Trinity to give us strength, purpose, compassion, commitment and love to live in peace with one another

because we know that is what God wants and would have us be. As St Matthew recalls the man-God saying to the disciples in today’s gospel: I am with you always to the end of the age.

AMEN