Sermon Thoughts on a Non-preaching Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday, and pastors everywhere are grappling with this often neglected doctrine of the Church. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. The Trinity is one of those Christian ideas that gets a lot of lip service but, it seems to me, not much thought during most of the year. A lot of people, even a lot of pastors, seem to view it as a doctrine we'd be fine without.

But I can't imagine faith without it. While the doctrine evades complete comprehension, I find that a good thing. Surely God is beyond my comprehension, and so it seems appropriate that a doctrine about God's nature would be a little hard to get your mind around. Also, the notion of the Trinity keeps at bay some popular misconceptions about God. God created humans because God would be lonely without us? Not according to the Trinity. Relationship already is a part of God. You like to picture God as one who makes simple rules, and then rewards and punishes according how well people keep them? Not according to the Trinity. If Jesus is truly God, then all those words about loving neighbor and forgiving and praying for your enemy are actually God's words. Think God is simply the Father? Not according to the Trinity. The Father is God, but Father no more defines and says all there is to say about God than does Son or Spirit. It isn't "Father-God" and a couple of junior partners who joined the game late.

The only complaint I have with the Trinity, and with Trinity Sunday, is the way we pastors drag out trite little formulas and analogies that try to make the Trinity "understandable." I think we'd do better to claim its mystery and recognize that it expresses something beyond understanding.

Happy Trinity Sunday!