St Andrew's Church, Chesterton
Cambridge. Diocese of Ely

The Trinity

22nd May 2005, Parish Communion, Trinity Sunday

Isa 40:12-17, 27-31,

2 Cor 13:11-13

Matt 28:16-20

1. The belief in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one of the key pieces of Christian doctrine. In our family we enjoy playing Jenga, that game where you make a high tower of bricks and then pull them out to see how many you can take away before the edifice topples. The art is in judging which pieces carry the weight. Christian life can have all sorts of parts to it but many of them can be pulled out, and laid aside, without the whole tower collapsing. (for the sermon group- which beliefs/practices are less central?) The Trinity is not one of those pieces. Without it, all falls down. Miriam will be baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as mentioned at the end of Matthew’s gospel (today’s reading Matt 28:16-20). At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel we read of Jesus’ baptism when he heard the words of the Father, ‘This is my beloved son’, and the Spirit descended on him like a dove (Matt 3:16-17. Baptism is the sign that Miriam is united with Christ, receives the Spirit and is a beloved child of God. What we do reflects the very early practice of the church. Justin Martyr describes immersing the candidates three times.(He lived from 100-165) Do you believe in the Father? down you go, etc, etc. Most of our creeds have been developed from those baptismal statements of faith, so are Trinitarian. Later on this morning when we share the eucharist, we give thanks to God, we partake of the body of Christ, and we worship in the Spirit. To believe in, know and worship God as Trinity is a fundamental part of being a Christian.

2. But what does it mean? From the beginning Christianity carried within its bosom two convictions: that there was only one God and that Jesus is divine... these two convictions had to be reconciled. Centuries of scholarly debate demonstrate the linguistic and philosophical challenges posed by explaining the paradox of the trinity. The argument and analysis can become very arid so you’ll be relieved to know I am not going to summarise them in this sermon. Instead, I think it is more fruitful to take the approach of using imagery to enter into the meaning of the Trinity (equally traditional). Our family leave next week for Iona, and last time we were there Michael painted this stone. He liked the symbolism of the intertwining shapes, in this case three made from one continuous line. It’s a Celtic visual image of the Trinity. A traditional Celtic poem says

Three folds of the cloth, yet only one napkin is there,

Three joints of the finger, yet only one finger fair,

Three leaves of the shamrock, yet only one shamrock to wear,

Frost, snowflake and ice, all in water their origin share,

Three persons in God, yet to one God alone we make prayer.

These are ways of understanding the three in one. We want to go a little further and to say where are we in the picture?

James gave us a 3D sculpture of the Trinity in his sermon last week where two children came out to be God the Father and God the Son. Each held the end of a string which represented the love between them, the Holy Spirit. The Son was sent to the people, but still held on to the string, died, rose and went back to the Father. Then the new people of God, were drawn inside the string, into the loving relationship of the Father and the Son. In the icon of the Trinity painted by Andrei Rublev (fifteenth century Orthodox), another very helpful image to some; the Trinity is depicted as three figures at a table, with space for another to join. There is a place for us within the love of God, the nature of whose very being is giving and receiving love.

3. How can we live with God who is Trinity?

We want Miriam to learn to live consciously in God’s presence. She will not know her earthly parents unless she talks to them and spends time with them. So we can let our lives be permeated by the awareness of God’s presence. Two traditions I have mentioned were very Trinitarian in their prayers. For example an evening prayer from the Orthodox church goes The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my protection. Holy Trinity glory to you. A Gaelic prayer goes;

The Gaelic Christians were not only Trinitarian in their prayers but very comprehensive, with prayers for sweeping the hearth, for milking cows, for going out in boats and many other circumstances. Perhaps to increase our consciousness of God at all times in our lives we need to compose prayers like theirs. I was struck by this one from someone who works in an office with a computer as so many of us do. I create this report in the name of the Father, I save this report in the name of the Son, I edit this report in the name of the Spirit. Amen. It’s a little quirky but we need to know God in our everyday routines.

To conclude, the Trinitarian nature of God is important, and we understand it as we become part of it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with Miriam and her family on this special day and with all of us as we seek the face of God.

‘Rather than Trinitarian theology being a kind of higher mathematics for the theologically initiated, it is more like the lowest common denominator for believers. It is simply talking about the God to whom we speak when we pray in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Spirit.’ Christopher Cocksworth p. 10 of Holy, Holy, Holy