The Feast of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity by Fr Jack

Isaiah 40.12-17,27-end
St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians 13.11-end
St Matthew’s Gospel 28.16-end

I remember the wonderful and somewhat eccentric Mrs Cowley in my curacy parish. A very old-fashioned Church of England choir-singing, parish-history-writing retired teacher. She surprised me greatly one day when we were talking about The Blessed Virgin Mary. A subject that I rather prejudicially though probably wasn’t ‘her bag’ in all sorts of ways. And she said something like ‘Mariology! Don’t give me Mariology!’ ‘Ah yes I thought. That sounds likely’. ‘It’s not an ‘ology! It’s a relationship!’

‘It’s not an ‘ology! It’s a relationship!’

Wisdom indeed from Mrs Cowley. Wisdom that extends far beyond our relationship with the Mother of Jesus, to theology of every kind, and certainly our consideration the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity today on Trinity Sunday. Because it isn’t an ‘ology, a kink for bookish types, or a mind Rubik’s cube for those who like that kind of thing. The Trinity is the relationship, the life, the being and purpose, the pattern and unity, at the heart of everything. 

It isn’t a thought-experiment, it is the source, substance and destination of life itself. The Trinity. Of course there is the old joke that Roman Catholics think Mary is the fourth person of the trinity. When, of course, actually the fourth person of the trinity is a woman called Julie; as in the hymn ‘firmly I believe and truly, God is three and God is one, and I next acknowledge Julie (duly)’. Anyway…

The outpouring of this life that is the Holy Trinity is not only visible all around us, not only revealed in Holy Scripture and the living tradition of the Church, but also the pattern and reality we see everywhere. That’s what I want to wallow in together today.

Not an ‘ology. But a relationship: the relationship between the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, at the heart of everything, that we are invited into, here, now, always.

A first outworking we might notice is one that pops up when I’m doing Q&A sessions with secondary school groups here and St Paul’s Cathedral, which I do quite a lot. The groups are often populated with lots of young muslim Londoners. And they just cannot get their head around a God who is One, who reveals God’s self in three persons. One mysterious unity revealed because God chooses to, as three persons.

But I tell them, as I tell you, that it is essential. Not least because of The Cross.

If Jesus is not God, then God watches a man die on the cross. A display of protest against injustice? Could be. An act of solidarity? Yes. A sacrifice? Of sorts. But a man dies on behalf of other humans. But if Jesus is the God-man, the one who shares our humanity (as Son of Mary), and possesses the Divine nature and therefore God Himself (that’s what we mean by saying He is the Son of God); then God places God’s self on the cross. In order to answer death, with life, God gives Himself on the cross, not someone else.

The Son, is God. The Father is God. And last week we celebrated that the Holy Spirit who is with us now, is God. God is alive and active and in our midst.

And it’s all about relationship. Because the Godhead is not only the perfect and eternal unity, that authors the very idea of unity, but also the living, loving relationship of the three persons of this unity. This means that relationship is the heart of the universe; what is of God, and reflected also in our nature. Which makes sense: the created bears the fingerprints of the creator. It’s true of carpentry and cookery, its also true of existence. 

I said weeks ago in a Sunday sermon that we have slipped into using the word ‘believe’ to mean a few propositions I consciously assent to in my head. And just how anaemic a definition of belief that is. It is not an ‘ology, but a relationship.

Our Christian faith is a relationship with God, a belonging with each other in God. It isn’t simply things I think about God, but is a reflection of the pattern of relationship that is God, the Holy Trinity, at the heart of the universe.

The Trinity is reflected in our gathering around God’s altars across the world as the primary act of our faith. This is life reflecting the pattern of God’s being, at the heart of existence.

The loveliness of holding the hand of someone who’s hand your want to hold: a child, a lover, a parent.

The delight of a random connection with someone in the street, when they help you, or you help them, or you laugh at the same thing, or notice something - those random moments of human connection that just spark life. 

The intimacy and life that is the gift of laughter, or shared sadness, or falling in love, or a hug.

The importance of meal-sharing, team sports and a million different things. 

These powerful realities of connection and relationship are expressions of our humanity. They are very significant. Yes, they provide evolutionary advantage, build alliances against potential predators and things like that, but their power is perhaps also an expression of something even more fundamental. They reflect the truth of something - or rather, Someone - that is the the sacred pattern of being itself. These patterns of connection and relationship speak (imperfectly and falteringly) of the perfect and eternal nature of the Trinity at the heart of everything: the perfect relationship, connection and unity.

I suppose all this is the say: We are, because God is. The life of the Trinity into which we have been baptized, is who we are. It is our source, substance and destination.

That’s what Isaiah is saying today in the first lesson: we are, because God is. 

We are they way we are, because of who God is. And how blessed are we to have a way on Trinity Sunday of celebrating this reality, of recommitting ourselves to living this Way of God on purpose, and with love. And to live this pattern in such a way that we and those around us can be more and more free from all that would mask or anaesthetise this glorious truth at the heart of life, and instead (just as St Paul writes to the Corinthians today), to be more and more free to live it with courage and joy. Not an ‘ology, but a relationship.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and shall be forever. Amen.