The Holy Trinity

A Sermon preached on Trinity Sunday 2000
by Reverend Martin Henwood

A father once said to his son I want an explanation and I want the truth. Make up your mind said the son: you can't have both. I feel like that this morning with the Doctrine of the Trinity. You can have an explanation of The Trinity, but I doubt whether that would be the truth. Or, you can have the truth about the Trinity: that it is a mystery, but that does not give you much of an explanation.

I think that the first thing to be said about the Feast Day of The Holy Trinity is that it is as important as Christmas and Easter but we do not realise it. And we do not realise the significance of the Holy Trinity because there is no story to tell. Christmas has shepherds, wise men, babies, angels and a town, Bethlehem, where an event happened: the Birth of Jesus. Easter has betrayal, gardens, governors and a city, Jerusalem, where a man was crucified and rose from the dead. But where is the story about the Holy Trinity? Where did Holy Trinity take place? And what was the event: Once there were three Gods: Father, Son and Holy Spirit who, one day, bumped into each other and thought: Although we are different to look at, inside we are very alike so let us become One God, a sort of unity in diversity. They did and all the angels clapped!

No, for the feast of The Holy Trinity there is no story, you cannot find it in the Bible or in Tradition and yet this feast day is as important as Christmas and Easter, so why do I say that? We are celebrating a doctrine, a belief, a statement of truth, that this is how things are. At Christmas and at Easter we also celebrate doctrines, but the truths can get lost in the telling of the stories.

At Christmas the Doctrine is of The Incarnation: The belief that the world was created by a God who has not left it to its own devices but decided to become a part of it. As a result human beings have a choice: either to seek out the maker and be guided by his values or to make up their own and see where that leads them. But not only them, because the Doctrine of The Incarnation means that whatever happens to Human beings will also happen to God. He has placed himself in human hands to do with as we will.

At Easter the Doctrine is that no matter what happens to God, He will be here at the end. Not only has God placed Himself on this planet and is subject to each of its turns, He will be there at the end of its journey, and at the end of its story. Some believe that He will hold out His arms to all the inhabitants of our shaken planet as did the father in the story of the Prodigal son. Others believe that He will consign to the scrap-heap those who did not listen to Him. The truth of Easter is that our end is not The End. No matter what, God will be here when all this ends.

So what is the doctrine of today's feast day, The Holy Trinity? two things, first the truth claim, second the story:
The truth claim: well it matters what sort of God this Creator God is. Is He the kind of Father depicted in the prodigal son story, or is He the absentee landlord who returns to give out judgements on what people have done with their talents. If it is the latter then we may well question whether we want to be subject to Him. If it is the former then we ask who or what is this God and we want to know more. And this is where the Doctrine of the Trinity has its proper context. The doctrine of the Trinity says that God is first and foremost a God of love. I could stop there and that would be sufficient. This God who has created the World and entered into its creation, goes along with it at each and every turn, will be here at the end to rescue us. But theologians have wrestled with what the nature of love consists of, because it is important to know what kind of God we are dealing with.
Not a love that says: I would love to have that ice-cream
Not a love that says: I will do what is just
Not a love that says I will serve others
Although all those aspects are represented; But a love which primarily loves out of a relationship of delight.

The feast of the Holy Trinity deals with the nature of God: Who is He, what is He like? And the Christian Truth Claim is this: That He is a God who first and foremost lives in a relationship of love and this love is not to mistaken for the kind of love which exists between two people, it is the kind of perfect love that exists between three people. Not one dimensional I love you, you love me but a growing developing kind of love with a dynamic which is not exhaustive but creative. You will have heard the phrase: Two's company, Three's a crowd. But that, which is uncomfortable for us, is held together in God in perfect unity Held together but uncontainable and out of that uncontainable love were we all created. We might call it A Big Bang of Love.

Scientist may wonder about the One who created the World, but a Christian knows that it was this Trinitarian love. "And God looked at the World and saw that it was good" Hence the delight, the thrill, the love that Christians believe is at the centre of everything.
But there is no story on which to hang this doctrine, except that there is our story: A local story in which the two's company three's a crowd philosophy is turned on its head and we give ourselves to His way of living.

That is why I say that today's feast-day, The Holy Trinity, takes priority over Christmas and Easter: Because the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the basis upon which Christmas and Easter are founded. This love of God of three persons living in union with each other. And I throw out a challenge to you: Enter into this relationship with God which turns on it's head two's company three's a crowd. Because this perfect unity of God welcomes you. This is the truth, the doctrine that the church represents to you. No other institution makes this it's business. You, whoever you are, are welcome because God made you and loves you.

Amen