Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday
4th June 2023
Matthew 28: 16-20 & 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Here are the points I want us to hit this morning…
Talking about God
Revealed
Purpose
Paradox
Relations
Cry of Faith
Culture
Koinonia
Incorporated
In recent weeks we’ve reflected on what it means to talk about who God is.
We’ve thought about the name ‘King’ for God.
And the name ‘Father’.
We recognise these are metaphors for who God is, and what God is like.
We recognise that talking about God is something we do together, along with Christians everywhere.
Moses asked how to talk about God, and was told
“I am who I am”.
Jesus talked to God as ‘Abba’.
Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, Lord, Immanuel.
They all attempt to affirm that which is beautifully immanent, and yet transcendent.
Anything we know about God can only be by God’s choice to reveal it.
We cannot decipher our way to work out the mystery of God.
We cannot discover anything about God under our own steam.
Christian faith is a revelation.
God has chosen to reveal enough to us.
We trace God’s self-revelation across the Big Story of the Bible.
Self-revelation with Abraham and Sarah,
then with Moses and Isaiah,
blazing gloriously in Jesus,
and bursting open on the day of Pentecost, shared with the whole Christian community.
The early Christians started to sum up the essential elements of the revelation.
Their understanding was articulated in the now familiar words: Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.
This enabled them to know God and talk about God.
This understanding also gave them purpose.
They shared in the mission of Jesus as he had declared it:
19 “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”
This threefold self-revelation by God is treasured by Christians.
One God in three Persons, blessed Trinity;
God: a community of love.
They knew the difficulty this understanding of God as three and one.
This is a paradox.
A holy paradox, …but still a very real paradox.
But they HAD to express what had been revealed; to express their shared understanding.
Importantly, they expressed that the three persons of the Trinity are not separate units, but are what they are as a product of their relations with one another.
To put it another way: their relationships make them real.
God was made known to them as the great nurturing Father of Christ,
and as the saving Son Jesus,
and as the ever-present and inspiring Holy Spirit, who makes known the Father and the Son.
They refused to let go of these ways in which God been revealed.
And in a moment I’ll explain the meaning they saw for their own lives as they recognise God this way: as a community of relationship.
So, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity describes what God has revealed: One God in three Persons.
Although we call it a ‘doctrine’, we recognise it was the cry of faith issuing from the experience of the early Church.
To talk about God as Trinity, it is a mistake to imagine that we have captured and domesticated the character of God – that we know all that we need to know.
Strictly speaking, the Trinity is not a definition of God.
In fact, this way of talking about who God is may only be a millionth part of the total glory of God.
But we still treasure these revelations.
They make all the difference to the way we live with God, and for God.
We stand with our early Christian siblings in celebrating the nurturing “Abbaness” of God,
the redeeming “Jesusness” of God,
and the enabling “Spiritedness” of God.
One God, three Persons.
Let’s come back to the genuine difficulty (the paradox) talking about God as three and one.
If we consider the culture in which our two readings today were written, doesn’t it seem possible (likely) that the idea of three and one made more sense than our own culture – which is so tilted toward individualism?
Maybe for us self-sufficient people of today, what can feel to be illogical theological nonsense was eminently sensible to those early Christians, whose sense of community identity was stronger than their individual identity.
They knew that belonging to a community did not lesson personality but enhanced it.
The early Christians understood the delight and joy of the fellowship they shared.
They had a special name for it; the Greek word: koinonia
As well as fellowship, it can mean ‘communion’.
Sharing is at the heart of this way they lived.
They recognised the sharing in marriage,
sharing in a meal,
sharing forgiveness and reconciliation,
sharing in an adventure.
One Minister suggests a helpful understanding of what koinonia is like, is the experience of shareholders – like in a business.
In baptism we become shareholders in the Church; the Body of Christ.
We are ‘invested’.
Our well-being and prosperity rises and falls with these in whom we are ‘incorporated’.
If fellowship is revealed as essential to the very nature of God, then when we are incorporated into the Church, we are sharing in something of the true nature of God. (repeat)
We experience something much richer than the impoverished confines of hyper-individualism.
We overcome petty differences, as Paul urged the church in Corinth to do – by living in the unity they have in God.
In God, three-in-one, we are connected to one another,
sharing life together as members of the one body.
Rather than keep the paradox of the Trinity at arm’s length,
might I suggest we embrace it?
Dare we trust ourselves to the faith that says our lives are actually sharing in the life of the Trinity –
…in the community of God’s own being?
Don’t we sometimes experience moments when our sense of communal identity is truly beautiful and precious?
There can be something that is more real than our individuality.
I experience precious moments of koinonia (fellowship/Communion/shareholding) together with YOU ALL worshipping, praying, singing, eating,
at Whanau Night, and serving alongside one another.
And serving together is something we are really encouraging as we embrace the Vision God has given us.
We explore and share the gospel with our dynamic neighbourhood. We create safe spaces to be, to belong, and to navigate the tough stuff. Getting to know God is a team sport – that’s why we do this together, not alone.
In this way, and many others, we experience living in the love of God as Trinity.
Can I let go of my egocentricity
(can YOU let go of your egocentricity)
and share in the fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
Can we allow this mysterious experience to open us up to deeper fellowship with those around us in the church?
Can we imagine that by truly sharing in the joys and sorrows of those around us, it enhances our fellowship with God?
Our understanding of God as Trinity may pose a problem in explaining ourselves to the world.
But shouldn’t it always be an adventure to try witnessing to the God who is the ultimate, loving Mystery?
Shouldn’t talking about God always give us a life-defining sense of purpose?
Our commission remains the same in this age as in any other:
19 “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.”
Thanks be to God!
Amen.