Trinity Sunday
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Readings: Isaiah 40: 12-17 and 27-end; Matthew 28: 16-end
It’s said that preachers dislike Trinity Sunday, finding it difficult to explain the doctrine of the Holy and Undivided Trinity; three persons and one God, et cetera. In fact, that little phrase, three persons and one God, comes from the Prayer Book Litany, and I remember one preacher recalling that when he first heard the phrase, three persons and one God, he thought ‘that makes four.’ But let’s not complicate things.
Explaining the doctrine of the Trinity needn’t, in my opinion, be complicated. Several religions believe that God is one – so do we. We also believe in Jesus, the person who was called Emmanuel – God is with us. We also believe in the reality of God’s Holy Spirit. The Trinity is just a way of trying to explain the relationship between these expressions of God. One writer says that the Trinity is really a doctrine about Jesus; it safeguards the reality of his human-ness, as the true and final revelation of the one true God. It unites him with, and distinguishes him from, on the one hand the unseen source of all, God the Father; and on the other, the breath of life that sustains us now, the Spirit.
Relationship and connectedness are at the heart of the Trinity. I was thinking about this when hearing about Pope Leo’s encyclical, or teaching document – Magnifica humanitas – released recently, about AI. In it he states the paramount need to safeguard human dignity. Humans are created in the image and likeness of God. But the pressure of what he calls ‘new ideologies or certain powerful interests’ reduce the human person to ‘a resource to be used and exploited. The fundamental dignity of each person, he says, is neither acquired or earned, nor does it need to be justified. One of the five principles of the social doctrines of the Church is the common good, which the Pope defines as ‘the social expression of the dignity recognized in every person.’
I was pleased that the Pope has spoken about all this. The advance of AI is rapid, and beginning to have an effect on so much of daily life. As I’m sure you are aware, there is a great fear of many jobs being lost as AI makes much human involvement unnecessary. The Pope says that technology can alleviate humanity’s sufferings and open new possibilities, but it must not deny the essence of humanity, which is our capacity for relationship and love.
I won’t go much further into the Pope’s document – you can find it for yourself online, of course, it’s called Magnifica humanitas. But he does emphasize the dignity of work. AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, but it forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work. Technology can certainly free human beings from burdensome or repetitive tasks, he says, but it must not lead to unemployment in the name of reducing costs and increasing profit.
All this might seem a long way from our study of the Holy Trinity, but as we were saying earlier, the doctrine of the Trinity is about relationship. Of course, it is difficult to have a picture of Trinity in our minds, so we use images. A lay reader colleague back in Kent once brought in a three-legged stool on Trinity Sunday; perhaps you know the image of the three hares chasing each other in a circle. Each hare has two ears, but only three ears are shown. One writer sees the Trinity as a circle in which each figure is only illuminated by the light of the torches that the others are holding. Each wants us to see and love the others. What these torches reveal is both how much these three figures love each other and how alike they are, with a deep family resemblance that makes us look from one to the other with a sense of true recognition.
Today is also a day in which to acknowledge the way we invoke the Trinity so often in Christian worship. Incidentally have you noticed how ‘three’ seems to be one of those special numbers that we can’t get away from. Many everyday expressions contain threes. Time is divided into three: past, present and future. Three is known as the number of perfection or completion; the number expressing harmony, wisdom and understanding.
In worship, how many times we say ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ The formula is first found in the closing verses of St Matthew’s gospel, that we just heard. St Paul, who probably wrote 2 Corinthians before Matthew’s gospel was set down, uses another formula embodying the idea of the Trinity: what we call ‘The grace’ in our prayers: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Now Jesus’ instruction to the disciples at the end of the gospel is known as ‘the Great Commission’: he orders them to make disciples, to baptise, to teach and to obey God’s commandments. Notice that baptism is to be given in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We use that same formula at every baptism.
Ask people what their idea of God is, and not a few will point to the beauty of creation – or to the very fact of creation itself. In the closing verses of Isaiah chapter 40, the writer expresses supreme confidence in God the creator. He was writing to a people in exile; they are tired and bewildered. They needed reminding about the inexhaustible majesty of God and his unending energy. In this morning’s passage he starts with a series of questions: Who did the Lord consult for his enlightenment; who taught him the path of justice; who showed him knowledge? The answer is – well, no-one. This gives Isaiah the cue to affirm ‘the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” No Artificial Intelligence here: just pure loving creation. At the heart of all the bible tells us about God is that he is both sovereign and free, and at the same time utterly committed to us. But, of course, the people to whom Isaiah was writing knew nothing of Jesus.
In the creation of the world; in the sending of Jesus to the world; in the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, we see God at work, drawing us into his life.
We are invited to join the life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The early Christians came to see this. After the resurrection of Jesus, he ascended, raising our human nature to heaven, and made way for the Spirit of God to come to us.
No wonder, then, that in his Great Commission, Jesus urges the twelve to go out and make disciples of all the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, because that is where life in all its fullness comes from.
Maybe there are two things we can do to go on celebrating the Holy Trinity. One is to continue living a life of inclusion. God invites us into his life; baptism is a sign of that. Everyone is invited. Where is the Church still exclusive? Sadly many people feel they are excluded from the wider Church’s ministry. We are not called to divide and exclude, but to unite and reconcile.
A second challenge is to recognise the life of God in other people when we see it, and give thanks. God the Trinity is here and out there and all around us. May we open our eyes and see what God is doing, and build a loving community of people who want to be drawn closer into the very life of God – loving and creative and inclusive. If we are to live in the image of God, we too must live in loving relationships with others – valuing differences between people in a spirit of generosity; giving to others as well as accepting from them, and finding that transforming power that comes from worshipping Father, Son and Holy Spirit.