Creator, Redeemer, and Life-giving Spirit

Today is Trinity Sunday.  It is a festival day celebrating the Triune God. Trinity expresses the concept that God is one Being involving three distinct Persons who exist in co-equal essence and co-eternal communion as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   Does this sound confusing?  It is for many people.  There are three things I choose to express about the Trinity.  They have to do with mystery, with belief, and with action.

In our Eucharist this morning we include a Proper Preface before the prayer of Great Thanksgiving. The Preface for Trinity Sunday is found on page 380 in the Book of Common Prayer.  It says, “For with your co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit, you are one God, one Lord, in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being: and we celebrate the one and equal glory of you, O Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The point is that God is One; there are no other gods.  The language of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while used separately, always refers to the Unity and Eternal Being of God.  In some ways our understanding of the Trinity is difficult to comprehend.  Its origin as a doctrine dates to the Middle Ages while the three-fold statement of faith as we have it in the Nicene Creed is much earlier, dating to 325 AD.

The purpose of the Trinity is to draw us into the mystery of God.  Our knowledge of God is beyond our understanding.  No words are adequate to describe God; we can only be drawn into an awesome silence before God.  It is our worship before the Divine Presence, the Creator and author of all that is yesterday, today, and forever.  When we gather as a congregation our best worship draws us into an awesome presence of this tremendous mystery named God.  It is the God who is the Creator Father of all, Redeemer anointed Son who reconciles what is broken or divided, and the life-sustaining power of the Holy Spirit.

What I want to stress for all of us is that our comprehension of the Triune God is not only a matter of belief.  What we affirm as Christians relates to what we do with our lives.  In giving our hearts to God, in our loyalty and trust of God, we carry out our ministries of compassion and care for one another and for others according to their need.

Our scripture readings today are important guideposts for what we do.  In the Book of Genesis we heard the story of creation:  “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good…. [When]  God finished the work that he had done, he rested on the seventh day…. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.”

Our responsibility is to care for the creation that God has made.  This involves everything from keeping the air and water clean, maintaining our ecosystems and honoring all that we discover through scientific research.

To this latter point Charles Blow, writing in last Monday’s edition of the New York Times said, “I am both shocked and fascinated by Americans religious literalism.  One Gallup report issued last week found that 42 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.  Even among people who said that they were very familiar with the theory of evolution, a third still believed that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.” 

My response to this is that what we have learned through our understanding of evolution, the discovery of DNA, and the human genome project has to do with our growing understanding of God’s creation.  Creation is not a once-and-for-all proposition; it is ongoing and dynamic.  What we know today is far more than what we knew when the Bible was written, and far more than what we knew 50 years ago.  I cannot imagine what we will know in the next generation or in the next 50 years.

In Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians we heard Paul admonishing his readers to “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.”  Paul’s desire was and is that the Church continues to work for reconciliation to bring all people into “unity with God and each other in Christ.”   There are divisions between religious traditions, and divisions exist among nations and races.  The work of reconciliation, the end of war and violence are constant struggles.  Being ambassadors of reconciliation, to use another of Paul’s phrases, is what we are called to be and do.  It is our belief realized in action.

Finally, Matthew at the end of his gospel tells us that Jesus said to his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

In our baptism we vow to work for the spread of God’s kingdom and to respect the dignity of every human being.  We do this by living into Christ’s ministry to all in need, offering hospitality and compassionate care to everyone.  So let us on this festival day celebrating the Trinity, the Unity of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, maintain a sharp focus on our ministry fulfilling God’s command to love God and our neighbor as we love ourselves.  Our assurance in how we live and what we do is in knowing what Jesus said to his disciples, ”Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."  Amen.