Matthew 28: 16-20
“Beyond Our Imagining”
June 4, 2023 Trinity Sunday
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Usually said much faster but that was the way every meal began, the entry into every Mass with a few fingertips dipped into holy water, every prayer said at CCD classes, and every start of the saying of the rosary after dinner at my best friend Sue’s house and so many other places.
The sign of the cross – honoring the 3 parts of God – was instilled in me before I was school age.
It was used as a way to center us.
It could be used as an entrée into the sacred.
And occasionally was just what was needed to get a bunch of rowdy kids to shut up and settle down into the serious business of beckoning God.
Trinity – the concept is certainly one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith.
Just try, and I have, to give an explanation that makes sense in the worldly way to someone who is not Christian, and you will soon find how inadequate our words are in making sense of this concept.
How is it that God the Father is his own Son?
Jesus often talks to God in the Gospels – is he talking to himself?
Is the Holy Spirit the spirit of Jesus or God or some other spirit?
What is it about these 3 identities of God that get us tied up in knots?
It could just be that we humans can’t bear to not understand something, that there must be an explanation for everything and so all of the wondering and thinking and trying to make sense of it can leave us more confused rather than less.
Barbara Brown Taylor noted that one writer said “when human beings try to describe God we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. We simply do not have the equipment to understand something so utterly beyond us, but that has never stopped us from trying.” (Home by Another Way, 154-5)
In spite of much of humankind over the course of millennia trying to describe God with words, the best we can do is to talk about our own experience of God – what God sounds like or how it makes us feel or what we are reminded of in thinking about God.
And then the challenge is that every day our experiences of the Divine are different from those of every other day and then you try to reconcile that with every other person going through their experience of God and then we all try to cobble together coherent words and no wonder we come up short.
Can we dwell in mystery?
Are we able to let go of the need for an explanation?
I know there are so many things that are not a mystery that we could unravel – how we take the abundance we have on earth and ensure that no one goes hungry.
We know so much about medicine and health – how do we ensure that all people can benefit from this knowledge.
God knows we know that kindness and compassion are the key to loving our neighbors as ourselves – can we relearn that lesson every day by practicing it?
A quote I saw this week has stuck with me:
“God is mostly mystery, and all love.” (Steve Garnaas-Holmes)
Perhaps the lesson from the concept of Trinity is that we are only privy, each of us, to a small part of the greatness of God.
Some of us are drawn more deeply to the concept of God as parent figure while others find strength in the human yet divine nature of Jesus and while still others lean into an ever-present, always working sense of Spirit found in and with us.
Or from the same imagination as the mostly mystery/all love God says:
“The Trinity lets God be Not What You Think,
All Of The Above, and Other. All at once.”
If it’s any comfort, we are not alone in our effort to understand this concept of one God/three in one.
Early Christians, those who even knew Jesus personally, sought to make sense of it.
Jesus himself encountered God both as distinct from who he was such as when he prayed to God or referenced being sent by God.
Jesus also spoke about the Spirit as separate from himself and God to whom he prayed.
The Gospel writers and so many since were looking for clues in ancient texts like Genesis.
Ultimately, the Trinity is about God.
The God who is here with us in the living of our days.
Still teaching, guiding, and empowering us.
And this Trinity Sunday, we get also to come to the table, remembering the table that Jesus sat at, the one where the Holy Spirit was present and at which Jesus asked God’s blessing.
It is not such a bad thing to spend time immersing ourselves in the mystery that is God.
It is, after all, just love.
Let us dwell in the mystery of it all with this prayer from the Rev. Ted Crass:
Holy One,
On this day, we are thankful for ancestors who helped us to understand you through the interpretation of the Trinity.
You invite us in – to a place at the table –
Father/Mother God of love, we are loved and valued.
Redeemer Christ, we are forgiven.
Holy Spirit, our friend and companion, we are not alone.
Remind us that as we respond and live out of this mystery of you,
We can be used by you in amazing ways we may not even understand.
We are here.
Amen.