Trinity Sunday 

Opening Verse of Scripture 1 Corinthians Chapter 13:12--13

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity: keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit ,one God, now and for ever.

Holy God, faithful and unchanging: enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth, and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

First Bible Reading Isaiah 40.12–17,27–31

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counsellor has instructed him?
Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
Lebanon would not provide fuel enough, nor are its animals enough for a burnt-offering. All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Second Reading 2 Corinthians 13.11–13

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. 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. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Gospel Reading  Matthew 28.16–20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

Post Communion Prayer

Almighty and eternal God, you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and live and reign in the perfect unity of love: hold us firm in this faith, that we may know you in all your ways and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory, who are three Persons yet one God, now and for ever.

Commentary  The Trinity

 I said that I wanted St Mark’s to be a church where ‘People who found believing difficult, could find belonging easy.’  Well today is Trinity Sunday, the day upon which the church has decided told us we should all believe something which everybody should find very difficult. We worship God who is three in one, a complete impossibility in terms of human logic . It is a doctrine which many outside the church find incomprehensible and the church has to hold its collective hand up and say, we know it doesn’t make sense but it describes the way in which God has been revealed to us. Quite often after a Trinity Sunday service somebody will give me a clever illustration which helps them come to terms with it, I can honestly say that I have probably heard them all and every one represents a kind of heresy which has at different times in the church history caused somebody to be put to death. The word Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible but God is seen as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so Trinity is the name given to us to describe what we currently know about God, there will be much more to be revealed which as yet we do not know. If you don’t find it difficult to comprehend the meaning of the Trinity then perhaps you are just not thinking hard enough! It is just one of many aspects of our faith which is profoundly difficult and in a sense it is proof of the honesty of our faith, because if it was not a truthful and honest attempt to describe how God has been revealed we would surely not have made it up.

A man came to Jesus who had a son who had some kind of epilepsy, falling to the ground and foaming at the mouth. The father asked Jesus if he could heal his child and Jesus said anything is possible if you believe. The man responded to Jesus ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ and Jesus healed the boy. (Mark 9) I suppose that we are all like that Father is some ways, we are a mixture of things which we know to be true and things which we do not understand. True faith, honest faith is always incomplete, always imperfect and accompanied by doubt. I want us to also think this morning about those words spoken by Jesus to his disciples in our Gospel reading this morning. The account of the ascension in Matthew is very different from the other Gospels. The 11 disciples go with Jesus to a mountain but there is no disappearing he just tells them that they must take on his mission to the world. He tells them to go across the world to every nation spreading his teaching and he promises to be with them to the end of time. That command is not one restricted to those 11 disciples it is passed on to you and me, like a baton passed in a relay race. We are to bring the teaching of Jesus to bear upon our time, making Jesus relevant today in our community. This means speaking the things which Jesus would say, and doing the things which Jesus would do.

In 1896 the Kansas Congregational minister Charles Sheldon published a novel called, ‘In His Steps: What would Jesus do?’

It was about a town where Christians pledged themselves for a year, not to do anything without first asking the question, 'What would Jesus do?'". It sold over 30 million copies one of the world best ever selling books, sadly he never copyrighted it.  A US youth leader called Janie Tinklenberg in Michigan told her youth group about it and made bracelets with the initials for What Would Jesus Do - WWJD. They caught on and millions of those have been made, again she never trademarked it, but its took the world by storm.  (I managed to persuade a lady at a rental car company in Las Vegas that it meant ‘What Would Jesus Drive’ and manged to get a significant upgrade on account of being a reverend.) Wearing that kind of wristband was a good way of belonging, in the same way as wearing a fish badge, it shows you are a part of a bigger community.

It is unusual for a slogan to take the form of a question. You may be able to think of some. I remember the Conservative party billboards in the 2005 General Election which asked "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" WWJD should really have that question mark after it. Because it is a question. Jesus tells his disciples to go and teach everyone to do what he wants them to do, but in truth we don’t always know what Jesus would say and do in any given situation. There is something of a paradox that this very popular sologan WWJD emerged from the very restrictive culture of evangelicalism in the Untied States of America, a location which you would not necessarily connect with open-minded questioning. Perhaps the reason why the question mark is missing is because the church leaders had already decided what Jesus would do and all you had to do was to do as you were told. It is a bit like the Alpha Course which has a giant question mark logo. I think that question mark is helpful in suggesting that we all have questions. It seems to me that perhaps the Alpha Course doesn’t leave enough room for doubts it tells you what you need to sign up to in quite clear and unambiguous terms.

When the Occupy Movement put up a banner proclaiming WWJ, the Archbishop of Canterbury said it was not that simple to know WWJD because while it was a always a good question there was no simple path set out to truth  This is the difficulty which Jesus set his disciples. Take the way I have spoken and the way in which I have lived and make that real in the different places where you will go. I am sure that Jesus knew that such a task was not easy and there has been success and failure in equal measure. If I see a child in the middle of the road with a bus heading towards it I know Jesus would have me save the child If only all decisions were so easy to make.

• In the area of ethics what would Jesus do about life and death decisions such allocating limited NHS budgets and prioritising who gets treatment and who does not ?
• Would Jesus stop the boats?
• What does Jesus think about trans rights ?
• In Russia Bishop Kirill tells soldiers that Christ would have them fight Ukraine. IN the west we believe differently, but every Christian army tells its soldiers that they are fighting the forces of evil. Putin has just brought the Rublev icon to Moscow as a way of consecrating his war. 

On some of the most divisive issues in our society we have to try and work out from the way of love by which Jesus called us to live, what is the right response. There is at the end of that sentence a question mark. Because in truth we are searching. What Would Jesus Do is not a new question it is one which Christians have asked ever since that first command by Jesus. One of the most widely read and most translated Christians book after the Bible is called in Latin ‘The Imitatio Christi’ ‘The Imitation of Christ’ Probably written around 1420 by Thomas à Kempis. It is an exhortation to live like Christ not just in terms of ethical behaviour but in our spiritual lives. Following Jesus in prayer and thinking spiritually rather that in materialist terms are the basis upon which to be Christs presence in the world. It is a book of huge influence from such diverse saints as Ignatius of Loyal the founder of the Jesuits to John Wesley the founder of Methodism. The Imitation is about belonging and perhaps one of the reasons why Wesley thought it so important that Methodists should take communion frequently was because The Imitation teaches that this is an important way in which our faith is strengthened. As we seek to live out the presence of Jesus in the world may we receive his divine strength and presence to know that he us with us to the end of the age.  Charles Royden

Meditation

The picture above is a very famous icon painted by a Russian monk called Andrew Rublev in the fifteenth century. It is often called Rublev’s icon of the Trinity. The figure on the left is the Father, robed in gold and majesty. He gestures with a blessing towards the Son at the top, who is clothed in the red of his passion. By indicating towards the chalice on the table, he makes reference to his role as the sacrificial lamb, whose blood will be shed for the salvation of the world. The Spirit, sits to the right, wearing the green robes that speak of the Spirit’s role in giving growth to the people of God. Their oneness or unity is indicated by the way their head incline one to the other, making the outline of circle. This shows how they are bound together into one by the common will and mutual love that unites them. People have said that as they place themselves in front of the icon in prayer, they experience a gentle invitation to participate in the intimate conversation that is taking place among the three divine angels and to join them around the table. We can become a part of that movement from the Father toward the Son and the movement of both Son and Spirit toward the Father. So are we joined and held together in the love of the Triune God.

Note: The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around." to express the ever vital, ever moving, ever interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Hymns

• Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty (Tune Nicea)
• In a world where people walk in darkness Hail! Holy, holy, holy Lord! (Tune Lucius) 
• Sing of a God in majestic divinity (Tune Was Lebet)
• All people that on earth do dwell (Tune Old 100th)
• Thou whose almighty word.
• Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
• Angel voices 

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

1. God as Creator

As Christians we cannot believe that the world was the work of anybody other than our God. We look at it and it is marvellous and we believe that God made it. But it is more than a belief in some thing which we read. When we look at creation we feel God and his creating power. Today we give thanks to God

Thank you God that you have made all things and made them well

That you have given to us all things richly to enjoy

For the beauty and the bounty of this fair earth and for the creating power alive in this universe which make all things new.

For this we thank you God

But forgive us when in pride, or selfishness or anger we misuse your gifts

2. God as Jesus who died for us

We read about Jesus but when we read the story it isn’t just a story, it comes across to us as powerfully as if it happened yesterday. We read that Jesus lived and walked this earth, we remember the history of his birth, but there is more than that, we feel the life of Christ today, we seek daily to bear his cross and to live his risen life - 

Thank you Jesus for your redeeming power.

That you loved us and gave yourself for us:

That you gave your life a ransom for many, a ransom for us.

That you were obedient to death, even the death of the cross.

We thank you O Christ

Forgive us if we treat your love lightly as a little thing, and if we ever fail to try to love you as you love us

3. God as the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit calls us to be God’s people, joins us together as one body in the name of Jesus. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives that we know God. It is the Holy Spirit who draws us on in the Christian life.

Thank you Holy Spirit for the guidance you have given to us. 

For the knowledge you have brought to us. 

For your continual upholding, strengthening, protecting power

We thank you Holy Spirit of God

Forgive us when we try to live the Christian life alone and have failed to seek the divine help which we might have had from you.

Father, you sent your Word to bring us truth and your Spirit to make us holy. Through them we come to know the mystery of your life. Help us to worship you, one God in three Persons, by proclaiming and living our faith in you. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Most exalted Trinity, divinity above all knowledge, whose goodness passes understanding, who guides Christians to divine wisdom; direct our way to the summit of your mystical oracles, most incomprehensible, most lucid and most exalted, where the simple and pure and unchangeable mysteries of theology are revealed in the darkness, clearer than light; a darkness that shines brighter than light, that invisibly and intangibly illuminates with splendours of inconceivable beauty the soul that sees not. Let this be my prayer. Denys (Dionysius) the pseudo-Areopagite (c500)

Additional Material

Commentary

His understanding no one can fathom.' Isaiah Chapter 40 

I wonder if you have seen the Aviva Insurance TV Advert? A rather intimidating insurance woman is interrogating poor homeowner as to whether his door locks meet BS 3621 standards. Even though the homeowner has lived in his house years, he’s unable to answer the insurer’s question. He simply does not know – would you? Presuming he’s lying, the interrogator presses further. Finally, the man cracks: “I don’t know!” he cries. “Nobody knows!” I suspect that if many of us were questioned about the Trinity we would try all sorts of simple explanations to try and explain how God can be three and one at the same time. The Trinity is like water, liquid, vapor, and ice? Or a tree, the roots, the trunk, and the branches. Or an egg, the shell, the eggwhite, and the yolk. Or a triangle. Or St. Patrick’s shamrock: three petals, one clover. The problem is that they are all inadequate and when unpacked express varying degrees of heresy for which people over the centuries have died or been executed. When pushed by an interrogator to explain the Trinity we should all just cry out like the man in the Aviva advert and say ‘I don’t know, nobody knows!’

Such an admission of the limited understanding which we have of God is uncomfortable for many Christians. There is a safety in not thinking too deeply and being satisfied with very simple black and white truths. However Jesus did not fob the disciples off with simplistic truths and neither should we be tempted to be satisfied with superficial attempts to place God into a small box where we can safely contain the challenging truths which disturb and test our faith. Nobody who has wrestled with the problems of evil and suffering or the fate of those thousands who die every day through preventable causes, could ever claim to understand God. Humanity has been dealt a reality check with the Coronavirus epidemic as we struggle to come to terms with the fact that we don’t comprehend even a simple virus and it can shut down the planet. 

Trinity Sunday is an opportunity for us to stand together with one another and affirm that the very reason why we call Christianity a faith is because we don’t have all the answers. There is much more that we don’t know about God than we do know. This really should not come as a surprise for us and it should be a cause for rejoicing, but instead we often rush to try and make sense of a God who defies our attempts to contain the divine in a human grasp. There is a need for us as Christians to display humility in this regard, for our God has not provided us with an easy faith. The truth about God is bigger than us and so we need to be very careful assuming that we have the monopoly on truth. The Trinity reminds us that our expression of faith is just one attempt to make sense of something we will never understand. As Christians we would never have invented the idea of the Trinity, we would have had something which was more easily explained. However this is what God has revealed to us and we cannot make up something more comprehensible. The Trinity is a timely reminder that we are created in God’s image, God is not created in ours. 

So we begin our celebration of Trinity Sunday with the humble acknowledgement that we are out of our depth. We begin in fear and trembling, rejecting our own arrogance, and recognizing that when it comes to comprehending God, we are wholly dependent on divine revelation. I find all of this quite liberating because it allows us to expose ourselves to people with views and ideas which are different to our own. The worst history of the Christian church has occurred at those times when one group or another believed that their portion of the truth was bigger and more important than that of somebody else and that their truth was of such importance that everybody else had to bow down and worship it. On Trinity Sunday we are challenged that we should never get too big for our boots. It is only as we are exposed to the wider truths of God that we discover how shallow we are on our. This is difficult for us because we don’t like to move beyond the safety of our own familiar waters. Surely the message of the protests around the world at the present time surrounding racism and the death George Floyd have come about because of our insecurity with engaging more closely with people from communities beyond our comfort zone. Footballs supporters throw bananas at black football players because they have never moved beyond their white tribe to discover the humanity in skin which is a different colour from their own. In exactly the same way Protestants caricature the spirituality of a Roman Catholic because they have never understood that God can be discovered in faith expressed in ways not appreciated in their own spiritual ghetto. Charles Royden 

Commentary

I am with those who suggest that generally the more that we find out about life - the less we seem to know. Many things, especially really important things are best seen not in simplistic terms of black and white, but rather in complex shades of grey. I am always wary of Christians who know all the answers and can tell me everything about God. Equally whilst this is true for those with fundamentalist beliefs about God, I believe that it is also true for those who deny the existence of God. I treat confident atheists with the same level of suspicion as confident Christians. Its not that we cannot be confident about some things, however there are limits to what we know and it is a sign of intelligence not weakness to admit that we are still learning and might continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

Just as there are Christians who disagree about all manner of faith issues, so also scientists hold very conflicting views about what science can tell us about the origin of the universe. Some scientists will see behind creation a creator God and some will not. What is important to recognise is that they all hold these views as a matter of personal faith. The writings of the atheist Stephen Hawking are clearly extremely clever but his explanation that the universe came about by ‘spontaneous creation’ from nothingness requires a huge level of faith. Even if it is possible that the wonder of creation came about by a spontaneous accident from nothing, it requires a huge leap of faith to state that the nothingness positively did not come from God. One of the quotes from Stephen Hawking which I do like is this

 “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.

Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist”

This is very good advice on Trinity Sunday which is a special time to think about God and our own place in this remarkable world. We should do so from a position of humility, recognising with Saint Augustine that it is no more possible for us to fully understand God than to put the ocean into a bucket. God into the human mind will thankfully not fit and as St Paul said, what we see of God is only a dim reflection, like through obscured glass.

The lack of knowledge which have as Christians to speak about God is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in the doctrine of the Trinity. Trinity Sunday is a day in which we celebrate God and who God is. For two thousand years we have been trying to explain and understand who God is and we have used the word Trinity. The word as we know isn’t in the Bible, Jesus didn’t use it and yet now it is the touchstone of orthodoxy. It establishes what it means to be Christian. The doctrine of the Trinity is not emphatically stated in the scriptures. Yet, by implication, it is stated many times. The early Christians soon discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which God was revealed to them. This does not mean that there are three Gods. It means that there is one God who has been shown in three ways: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The word "trinity" is a term used to denote the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of the persons is distinct from the other, yet related in essence. Each is divine in nature, but each is not the totality of the Godhead. Each has a will, loves, and says "I", and "You" when speaking. The Father is not the same person as the Son who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit who is not the same person as the Father. Each is divine, yet there are not three gods, but one God. There are three persons individual subsistences, or persons. The word "subsistence" means something that has a real existence. The word "person" denotes individuality and self awareness. Included in the doctrine of the Trinity is a strict monotheism which is the teaching that there exists in all the universe a single being known as God who is self-existent and unchangeable (Isaiah 43:10; 44:6,8).

Clearly this teaching is absurd from the point of human logic, it makes no human sense! All of the clever illustrations (Clover leaf, the sun as heat, light and energy etc. ) which we have heard since Sunday School, they all fall short of explaining how logically God can be three and yet one. Indeed some of the best illustrations used in sermons serve only to illustrate serious heresies such as modalism! If we are honest it is something which is more clearly explained in terms of that great Christian word, mystery. It is a mystery of our faith. We know why we use the term because it expresses our experience of a God who can be present in Jesus, whilst at the same time, the voice of God is heard to speak from heaven and the Spirit descend as a dove. It is clearly a mystery. The Trinity does not actually attempt to explain God. It only explains what we know about God, that which he has revealed to us in a very elementary way. We describe the Trinity in the same way we might describe the tip of an iceberg above the water, which is not to describe the entire iceberg. Christians affirm the Trinity, not as an explanation of God, but simply as a way of describing what we currently know about God.

In 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 it says

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Please note - Knowledge will pass away. Human knowledge will be revealed to be a lot less important than some might care to believe. There are three things which are considered important, faith, hope and love. – thank God we do not have to understand! This message is frightening to many I know. How can the Christian gospel be communicated in a state of confusion and mixed messages? Many preachers devote themselves to black and white because it is so much easier to communicate, nevertheless it is wrong, it is intellectually and morally dishonest, it is ultimately bound to be found out and exposed as shallow. It is a short term fix but it merely confirms the sentiment of Augustine that there are many sheep outside the church and many wolves within. As Christians we need to have the honesty to say that our knowledge of God is imperfect, we know in part and the rest is guesswork. Moreover we will never know many of the answers until we see God face to face.

It must be recognised that the disciples found themselves confused after the resurrection. They were still confused after Jesus had been around for some time. There is a lot about Jesus which is confusing. Not just how he can be God and man at the same time, or how he can die and get back up again, or how he can have a body which eats fish and passes through walls. They were understandably intellectually confused. In one commentary on today’s passage it says the disciples were in ‘a situation of cognitive dissonance par excellence’ Walsh and Keesmaat. In other words they were mixed up! They were confused. They did not pretend to have all the answers. They were unsure, they were human!  Jesus gave the disciples the sacrament of the Holy Communion because he knew how difficult faith was and how it needed to be nurtured and sustained. The fluctuation between worship and confused indecision is the struggle of every Christian. This is a common psychological experience. So can our ministry as a church go forward into mission when we admit our weakness in understanding and theology and doctrine? Can we dare to compete with the dogma of those who can give the complete ‘God in a box?’ Well yes! I believe the answer is that it is only when we are honest and truthful that real faith can be communicated. Mystery and Mission are words which do easily fit together. We can speak of the mystery of God instead of simply producing another ‘God for Dummies’ book.

The two words 'Mystery and Mission' can be considered contradictory, because what people like is easy answers. However, we do not have easy answers unless we compromise the integrity of our faith, which is more complex than human mind can know. The whole point about a mystery is that we do not understand it. It is not to be understood with the mind, but rather embraced with the heart. That is why religious experience can be a powerful thing and we need to think through this more clearly.  Icons are windows through which the faith of the human heart can rise to God. Music helps lift the soul in a way that defies the logic of the mind. When we are open to the mystery of God we are motivated not by a need for answers to our human questions. This is about reverence and awe. The stripping of the beauty of our churches and religion by various reforming movements, has often left people adrift without reverence and awe. We need faith not facts, because God is ‘Thou who art beyond the farthest mortal eye can scan,’

When Jesus speaks of ‘going out to make disciples,’ he is not speaking of quick fix conversions, he is encouraging the disciples to go and nurture others into the experience of discipleship. When we think about God we are not supposed to pretend that we know everything. We are supposed to proclaim with the hymn ‘O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder….’ That awe is what worship is about.

Charles Royden

Bishop of London, Bishop Richard Chartres, writing on the Holy Trinity,

"You can't have a God. If you have, possess a God, if you talk about my God, my own little possession that helps me, my asset, then what you have is not the true and living God, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but an Idol, a God made in our own image. And, brothers and sisters, much of the history of religion, even in the Christian Religion, is an attempt to make Gods of ourselves, by launching ego-projections into the middle distance - plop - and then having an affair with that ego-projection. That's what religion has been, so very often." Amen

Commentary

Trinity Sunday is a time when we think about God and how God has been revealed to us. When we consider our own earth formed hundreds of millions of years ago, when we consider the world with its incredible creations and ponder its vast unknown and unknowable parts how can we not join the psalmist and say,

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19

When we look beyond the beauty of this world and look heavenward we are even more challenged. Psalm 8 tells of the majesty of God and our praise of him. 

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I cannot begin to understand how big space is. I am told that it is so big that light from some parts of it will never reach earth in my lifetime. So who knows what is out there? How many other kinds of creatures might exist. 

The psalmist looks at the stars and the moon, and these days we could go further and add the galaxies and planets of the universe, and he can only conclude that these must be the work of a great God. Maybe you have done the same. You looked at the magnificent colours of a sunset, the intricate structure of a beautiful flower, the mountains, and you have said, 

"There, that's proof that there is a God. Anyone who wants to see evidence of God's existence doesn't need to look any further."

The prophet Isaiah talks about the mystery of God when he says,

"'To whom then will you liken me? Who is my equal?' says the Holy One.... His understanding is unsearchable" (Isaiah 40:25a, 28). 

There's a song we sing or say at every Eucharist. It's called the Sanctus from the first word of the Latin version which means Holy . Here's how it goes:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

It has echoes from Isaiah in which God is high and lifted up, beyond us, beyond our understanding. But of course this is all Old Testament stuff. The truth is that we do know a lot more about God. God is not only high lifted up, 'Holy Holy Holy', God is also a God who has walked in our shoes. He is more than the God of nature. There is another side to God other than his greatness and awesomeness. In Jesus God reveals himself as a God who cares, a personal God who wants to have a relationship with his people. When we ask the question, "Who died on the cross?" we answer "God died on the cross!" He did the unthinkable – he allowed himself to fall into the hands of sinful people, be treated cruelly, laughed at, and then nailed to a cross. We say that in theory this is not possible. God who is majestic and awesome cannot do this. But he did. This is part of the mystery of God.

Last week we celebrated Pentecost – the pouring of the Holy Spirit on his disciples and the church. Jesus said that he and the Father would send the Spirit to remind us of the truth of God's promises, to guide us, to encourage us and sustain us when the going gets tough. There is nothing more personal than the Spirit of God.

The doctrine of the trinity does not explain God, or unravel the mystery of God, it simply describes the mystery of the fact that God is at least all these things, creator, redeemer and sustainer.

• Who is God? Our heavenly Father who made us, takes cares of us and calls us his dear children.
• Who is God? Jesus who gave his life on the cross and reveals to us that God loves his creation with an unending love 
• Who is God? God is the Spirit in you giving you faith in God and guiding you in your daily walk as a Christian.

On this Sunday festival of the Holy Trinity. We confess as Christians that we believe in one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The very nature of God is relationship both within the Godhead and with the world. God did not need to create the world but did so. God did not need to create humanity in the image of God, but wanted to.

"Then god said, 'let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female, he created them."

We are created out of relationship and for relationship - just as we create children ourselves.

God said "Let us make Adam in our image." The word Adam comes from the word Adamah ––the ground. Adam is a man made from mud. We are created on the same day as the beasts of the field and the creeping things––we are part of the earth––but we are also created in the very image of the Triune God.

The Gospel lesson for this Sunday tells of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching in the Triune Name. No one is excluded from God's good news because all have been created by God and redeemed by the Son of God. All are welcome into the Kingdom of God. Look at the animals and birds, the fish and the creeping things––all are part of God's good creation. Every woman and man and child of whatever race or colour, creed or background, orientation or ability or talent is made by God and welcome to follow the Lord. Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote,

"Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love." Charles Royden 

Commentary

None of our readings today use the word ‘Trinity,’ yet God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is central to them. Indeed the word ‘Trinity’ is not used by Jesus, it is not found in the Bible at all, yet faith in the Holy Trinity is the touchstone of what it means to be a Christian. Those who do not believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit cannot use the term Christian to describe themselves—Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians etc. 

Trinity Sunday is a special Sunday because we think about who God is—the Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. Even the most committed Christians find this hard because we all know that something cannot be individually three and also completely one. But this Sunday expresses and celebrates the fact that we encounter God in contradictory ways. 

In our world there are some certain simple truths, like - ‘water is generally wet.’ But when we start to speak about things which really matter - like God, then we soon find out that we run out of words. Human language and thoughts simply fail to work. Truth is no more easily reduced to trite slogans than the scientific explanation of the creation of this wonderful world can be reduced to two chapters of Genesis. Through history we can see times when people have imagined that they did possess understanding and knowledge of God. But, actually this is an illusion, faith is not built upon the measure of the human mind. 

As Christians we need to be honest about our inability to explain God. It would be wonderful to be able to speak of God in certain and simple truths, but if we are honest, certainty is the property of fools, not the learned. Those who are more intellectually secure will usually admit that the more that we find out - the less we seem to know. Issues are only seen in simple terms of black and white by the simplistic and those who seek to lead them. 

Does this make our task of speaking about God more difficult? I think not, it is a fact that people cannot be argued into belief. They can be attracted, they can be welcomed and embraced but they cannot be argued. People most usually come to believe through faith not through facts. Preachers will often preach the certainty, the black and white. However, truth is much more often grey. The more we learn the more we realise that the less we know. This is not to say that we should stop the task of learning, but we must be more prepared to recognise that God is too big for us. It is human sin and pride aspire to lift us to God, humility sees that God into the human mind will not go. It is no more possible for us to understand God than to put the ocean into a bucket.

Whilst the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, the belief which it expresses is stated many times. The early Christians soon discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which he had revealed himself to them. This does not mean that there are three Gods. It means that there is one God who has shown himself in three ways: God the Father, God the Son or Jesus, and Holy Spirit of God who came to them and made God alive in them.

Clearly this teaching is absurd from the point of human logic, it makes no human sense! All of the clever illustrations (Clover leaf, the sun as heat, light and energy etc.) which we have heard since Sunday School, they all fall short of explaining how logically God can be totally three and yet totally one. Indeed some of the best illustrations used in sermons serve only to illustrate serious heresies such as modalism! If we are honest it is something which is more clearly explained in terms of that great Christian word, mystery. It is a mystery of our faith. We know why we use the term ‘Trinity’ because it expresses our experience of a God who can be present in Jesus, whilst at the same time, the voice of God is heard to speak from heaven and the Spirit descend as a dove. But nevertheless it is a mystery. 

It is important to remember that the Trinity does not actually attempt to explain God. It only explains what we know about God, that which he has revealed to us in a very elementary way. So we Christians affirm the Trinity, not as an explanation of God, but simply as a way of describing what we currently know about God. This is honest and it should not make us frightened. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 it says 

where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; 

Knowledge will pass away. Human knowledge will be revealed to be a lot less important than some might care to believe. As Christians we need to have the honesty to say that we see but a poor reflection of God as in a mirror, we see through a glass darkly. Our knowledge of God is imperfect, we know in part and the rest is guesswork. Moreover we will never know all the answers until we see God face to face. Charles Royden 

Bishop Richard Chartres, writing on the Holy Trinity

"You can't have a God. If you have, possess a God, if you talk about My God, my own little possession that helps me, my asset, then what you have is not the true and living God, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but an Idol, a God made in our own image. And, brothers and sisters, much of the history of religion, even in the Christian Religion, is an attempt to make Gods of ourselves, by launching ego-projections into the middle distance - plop - and then having an affair with that ego-projection. That's what religion has been, so very often."

Commentary

Trinity Sunday is a special time in the church year when we remember who God is, Father Son and Holy Spirit, The Holy Trinity. This is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian and yet it is very difficult to believe that God can be one and three. Of course it is beyond human understanding, God is a mystery to us and it would be a remarkable thing if we were able to capture God within the measure of our human mind. The Christian teaching about the Trinity is not mean to be an explanation of God, rather it is a way of describing what we know about God, even though we know that humanly speaking it is beyond our reason. 

Trinity Sunday is a special Sunday in the church year, it has been celebrated since 1334 when Pope John XXII fixed it as the Sunday after Pentecost. It is a Sunday which is not tied to any special event. We don't have to remember any special events or rituals. Instead it is about a day when we remember just God himself, it is a day to focus our hearts and minds on him. It is a bit like a birthday when all we do is celebrate a particular person and their presence with us.

The Doctrine is:

• God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• Each person is fully God.
• There is one God. 

Confusing? The Bible never uses the word Trinity, it is something that we have invented to explain they way in which we think of God. It isn’t really an Old Testament problem, not surprisingly the Jews have never had a doctrine of the Trinity or Binity or anything else. There is not a great deal of convincing evidence for a doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Some people quote passages such as Genesis ‘Let us make man in our own image’ Gen 1:26. I am not sure that this should be taken as such a key passage, how often do we talk to ourselves or say things like ‘we are a grandmother’ Was Margaret Thatcher a multiple personality? But in the New Testament the problem of speaking of God in the traditional terms as ‘one God’ becomes obvious. Perhaps the best illustration of the difficulty our minds have is seen in the episode of Jesus baptism. When Jesus was baptised, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased’ So we have Father, Son and Holy Spirit all in one episode!

So Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit who comes to Him from God? How can God be God the Father, and Jesus God the Son, and also God the Holy Spirit? The doctrine of the Trinity is one of those subjects which leaves everybody feeling confused but we use it simply to describe how amazing God is. God is so big, so wonderful that he is so far beyond our imaginations that to our minds he really doesn’t seem to make sense! So if somebody comes up to you and says, ‘go on then you're a Christian, explain the Trinity’ - then you're response could be simply to say ‘The Trinity is a way of us saying as Christians that God is much bigger and more complicated than we will ever know.... you can’t put him in your pocket’

If you ever wanted proof of the truth of Christianity then the doctrine of the Trinity is it. Which human being would ever invent a religion which didn’t make sense?! Christians have always struggled, trying to piece together the information which God has given to us. Fortunately being a Christian is about belonging as much as understanding, faith rather than facts. That faith is caught and not taught as we see Christ in others. Charles Royden

Commentary

'His understanding No one can fathom’ Isaiah Chapter 40 

None of our readings today use the word ‘Trinity,’ yet God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is central to them. Indeed the word ‘Trinity’ is not used by Jesus, it is not found in the Bible at all, yet faith in the Holy Trinity is the touchstone of what it means to be a Christian. Those who do not believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit cannot use the term Christian to describe themselves - hence Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians etc. Trinity Sunday is a special Sunday because we think about who God is—the Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. Even the most committed Christians find this hard because we all know that something cannot be individually three and also completely one. But this Sunday expresses and celebrates the fact that we encounter God in contradictory ways, as a mystery.

In our world there are some certain simple truths, like - ‘water is generally wet.’ But when we start to speak about things which really matter - like God, then we soon find out that we run out of words. Human language and thoughts simply fail to work. Truth is no more easily reduced to trite slogans than the scientific explanation of the creation of this wonderful world can be reduced to two chapters of Genesis. As Christians we need to be honest about our inability to explain God. It would be wonderful to be able to speak of God in certain and simple truths, but if we are honest, certainty is the property of fools. Those who are more intellectually secure will usually admit that the more that we find out - the less we seem to know. Issues are only seen in simple terms of black and white by the simplistic and those who seek to lead them. The more we learn the more we realise that the less we know. This is not to say that we should stop the task of learning, but we must be more prepared to recognise that God is too big for us. It is no more possible for us to understand God than to put the ocean into a bucket.

Whilst the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, the belief which it expresses is stated many times. The early Christians soon discovered that they simply could not speak of God without speaking of the three ways in which he had revealed himself to them. This does not mean that there are three Gods. It means that there is one God who has shown himself in three ways: God the Father, God the Son or Jesus, and Holy Spirit of God who came to them and made God alive in them.

Clearly this teaching is absurd from the point of human logic, it makes no human sense! All of the clever illustrations (Clover leaf, the sun as heat, light and energy etc.) which we have heard since Sunday School, they all fall short of explaining how logically God can be totally three and yet totally one. Indeed some of the best illustrations used in sermons serve only to illustrate serious heresies such as modalism! If we are honest it is something which is more clearly explained in terms of that great Christian word, mystery. It is a mystery of our faith. We know why we use the term ‘Trinity’ because it expresses our experience of a God who can be present in Jesus, whilst at the same time, the voice of God is heard to speak from heaven and the Spirit descend as a dove. But nevertheless it is a mystery. 

Knowledge will pass away. Human knowledge will be revealed to be a lot less important than some might care to believe. As Christians we need to have the honesty to say that we see but a poor reflection of God as in a mirror, we see through a glass darkly. Our knowledge of God is imperfect, we know in part and the rest is guesswork. Moreover we will never know all the answers until we see God face to face. Charles Royden

Trinity Prayer  

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty,

who is and who was and who is to come.

Let us praise and exalt him above all for ever.

Worthy are you, O Lord our God, to receive praise, glory, honour and blessing.

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and divinity,

wisdom and strength, honour, glory and blessing.

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

Let us bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

All the works of the Lord, now bless the Lord,

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

Praise God, all of you his servants, and you that fear him, both small and great.

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

Let heaven and earth praise his glory,

and every creature that is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth.

Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

Glory to the father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen. (St Francis) 

You may find these prayers about the Trinity helpful to take home and use

To God, our ability is less important than our availability. Our ability can even get in the way if it obscures God's role in our achievement. Let us remember God the Father in Creation

Let us remember God the Father in Creation

0 God, the Father, we thank you for your creating power. That you have made all things and made them well; That you have given us all things richly to enjoy; For the beauty and the bounty of this fair earth; And for the creating power which can make all things new: We thank you. 0 Father.

Forgive us if in pride and selfishness and in anger we have misused your gifts, and have used for death that which was meant for life.

Let us remember God the Son in Redemption

O Lord Jesus Christ the Son, we thank you for your redeeming power. That you loved us and gave yourself for us; That you gave your life a ransom for many, a ransom for us. That you were obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross: We thank you, 0 Christ.

Forgive us if we have treated your love lightly as a little thing, and if we have never even begun to love you as you have first loved us.

Let us remember God the Spirit in Providence

0 Holy Spirit of God, we thank you for your keeping power. For the guidance you have given us, For the knowledge you have brought us; For your continual upholding, strengthening, protecting power: We thank you, O Spirit of God.

Forgive us if we have tried to live life alone, and have despoiled ourselves of the divine help we might have had from you.

And may the blessing of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Three in One, be on us now and stay with each one of us always. Amen.

Prayers by William Barclay