11 th June: Trinity Sunday

Life is full of mystery. So often we long for certainty. Mystery and certainty, the first surrounds us, the second beckons us.

Think for a moment about that which appears mysterious to us, people are so strange, for example, ‘what do they see in each other?’ Physics might be another example with talk of quarks and string theory. E equals mc squared? I’m sure it does relatively speaking!

We all know the old saying about death and taxes being the only certainties in life but we so easily long for certainty. We love those people who are dependable, and betrayal hurts exactly because ‘we trusted them’. We feel enticed by the certainty of a ‘solid investment’ or a ‘cast-iron guarantee’, or we feel the lure of that speaker who is so convincing and persuasive.

Mystery and certainty, our way in to these texts for Trinity Sunday. They are all rich passages, containing great themes: Creation, Communion, and Commission. They are Trinitarian texts which offer food for thought, encouragement, and direction for the Christian walk.

On this Sunday, from these texts we explore the mystery of ‘One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’, seeking to discover what certainties are encapsulated in this Trinitarian God and these three Lectionary readings.

‘In the beginning’, the opening words of the whole Bible followed by the six days—no, make that seven days—that unfold through this chapter into the next. It is a long reading to listen to but there is the pattern of the days to help us follow, with the refrain, ‘and there was evening and there was morning, the first/second/third etc. day’. We could also catch recurring phrases such as ‘…and God said’, ‘and God saw’, ‘that it was good’, etc., etc.

The constraints of a sermon do not permit anything approaching a worthy exposition of these verses, we merely offer thoughts from our chosen way in: that of mystery and certainty. Mystery abounds: to take one example look at the problem of how to translate and interpret the opening verse. A glance at the footnotes of your preferred version of the Bible will alert you to that difficulty.

This point is merely made (and not developed) as a warning against the type of false certainty that is all too often offered in polemical attacks on ‘Science’ in the name of ‘Religion’, which are sometimes proffered with regard to this first account of Creation. The text itself has clues warning us to be cautious. One example is the refrain to each of the ‘days’, ‘there was evening and there was morning’—this is a Jewish account, which has something to say about the Sabbath or seventh day, which we are told God ‘blessed and hallowed’.

What certainties are on offer then? ‘God is’, ‘God creates’, all that God creates is ‘good’,

And humans are made ‘in the image of God’.

God simply ‘is’—no introduction, no explanation; if we paused to think about it, this is the great mystery of this passage, of Genesis, of the whole Bible, of life itself one might add.

God is and God does—how? we might ask. Explanation is give—through speech, through action. God ‘said’, God ‘made’—but the mystery remains, as surely this must. Yet alongside the mystery there is that certainty, God is, God does.

We need to tear ourselves away from this fascinating passage and move on to consider the two New Testament readings, which are both explicitly Trinitarian. The ‘grace’ and the ‘great commission’, or communion and mission, both of which are creative. One God in Trinity, creative in communion, creative in mission.

On this of all Sundays in the Church year it is possible for Christians to think along the following lines, ‘Trinity Sunday and I’m none the wiser’. Or ‘I’m more confused than ever, but I’ll go on believing in this mystery for another year’. ‘Oh for a bit of certainty!’

If there is any truth in these possible reactions, it is a pity when God in Trinity, as Trinity is something dynamic, creative, and based on experience: of Jesus. That is the foundation of both the doctrine and Christian experience, more explicitly of the aliveness of Jesus communicated by both our New Testament passages.

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the Resurrection is the context for ‘the Great Commission’ given by the risen Lord to his disciples. The Resurrection is the bedrock of Christianity, yet consider for a moment. Why do we believe it? What does it mean? Is not the answer to both questions the aliveness of Jesus?

Christians are sometimes offered the idea that if the trustworthiness of the gospel accounts were established beyond doubt, (i.e., certainty), then people would be convinced that God did indeed raise Jesus from the dead. This is to put the cart before the horse. The gospels certainly bear witness to the Resurrection, but they do not, and cannot, prove it. Mystery remains. As Hauerwas writes, ‘the Resurrection, of course, is not a “knockdown sign” that establishes that Jesus is the Son of God’. ³

If it is not a ‘knockdown sign’ or a ‘dead cert’, perhaps mystery will provide a more fruitful path to follow. The mystery of the aliveness of Jesus is communicated through the mystery of the Trinity. Consider those who have been baptised into the threefold name, (whether as infants or believers). Having had the opportunity to experience the grace of the Lord Jesus, they then are surrounded by the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, through the life and worship of the Church. This is at least the ideal. That was the desire of the Apostle Paul expressed in his closing words to the Church at Corinth: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you’. Life in the Christian church is Trinitarian, at once both a certainty and a mystery. If it seems a mystery to our heads in terms of understanding, it should be a certainty in our experience (or in our hearts as we often say).

Thus on this Sunday we consider the Trinitarian nature of both Christian mission (Matthew) and Christian communion (2 Corinthians 13). According to Matthew the Risen Lord commissions his disciples in terms of four active verbs:—‘go’, ’make disciples’, ‘baptize’, and ‘teach’. Go into the world created by God, be creative as you make disciples, be Trinitarian as you incorporate those disciples into the community (and communion) of the church—in the threefold name. ‘Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember I am with you always to the end of the age’.

If we then ask how is Jesus with his followers, we would say something like, through the Holy Spirit (or the way in which Jesus is present, and has been present throughout the ages). This experience links to the Apostle Paul’s closing words to the Corinthians already referred to.

Mission is creative, it is God’s—not us imposing our doctrines and propositions on others. It centres on Jesus Christ the Son of God—especially on his Cross and Resurrection. It is creative when someone is introduced to Jesus and welcomed into the disparate band of his followers. Mission is empowered, enabled and communicated by the Holy Spirit. This process of mission is a certainty—for we ourselves have been ‘missioned’ into this congregation today. It is also a mystery, especially when we look around us—until at least we realise that other people are just as puzzled about us! Today, we are reminded that mission is Trinitarian. In other words, it is not just an obtuse, esoteric doctrine; the Trinity is dynamic and active in the church and the world.

Today we celebrate a mystery which can also be seen as a certainty because as our lectionary readings remind us, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’, we are convinced of the aliveness of Jesus, and we are blessed by that sense of communion, community—one with another—and with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A poet has spoken of the bee, the butterfly, and the breeze, a thought to tide us over, for us to mull over, until next Trinity Sunday.