Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Brothers and sisters, I don’t know you well enough to know what you are thinking right now.  I do think I know what many congregations will be thinking, as their preacher starts the sermon today. ‘Blimey!’ they’ll be thinking. ‘Blimey, the Trinity is a hard enough subject to preach on. How one earth to combine that with some meaningful reflections on the Jubilee long weekend?’

If that is what you are asking yourselves, sisters and brothers, then you don’t know me! I do not intend to preach on the Jubilee. Yes, we will sing the National Anthem later. After all, it is basically a prayer for someone’s salvation, and no one is obliged to sing the ‘victorious’ or ‘long to reign over us’ bits, if they don’t want to. Yes, it is right to mark the Jubilee. Of course, one can be a loyal Anglican and a republican. But even such a person can admire sixty years of dedicated service, not only to our country and Commonwealth, but also all in the name of God. Her Majesty (who was not only crowned but also anointed) has said some very strong things about faith and the Church. And yes, any way, it can be good to celebrate as a nation, once in a while.

Yes, but! All of this is true. But these truths are to develop (nuance) in another time and place. For today’s festival must not share the limelight with anything else. The Feast of the Most Holy, Most Blessed, Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity. As I’ve already implied, it is traditional to imagine this is a difficult theme. We know all the jokes, such as the one about the preacher who stood up, and, finding this theme just impossible to expound upon, said: ‘The Trinity… the Trinity is a mystery. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ – and sat down.

And I am going to say this: that’s not me either. I don’t think for one minute think it’s impossible to preach on the Trinity. There is a difficulty. But it can be spelled out easily enough. We believe that God is one. There is only one God. We also believe that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So God is three – but three what? There is not a word in English that can fit this. We don’t believe that God is three persons as we are persons - three individuals with their own personalities and tastes, who might remember things differently and fall out. That would be three gods. Yet we also don’t believe that God makes the divine nature known just in three different modes or styles or contexts. That would be the one God just pretending to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So how to describe the three? We say that God is three ‘Persons’, but we use the capital ‘P’ to indicate we are using the word ‘Person’ in a unique way. It’s not neat. But it’s not impossible to describe.

So, yes, it is difficult to speak adequately and easily on the Trinity. But my question is: compared to what? Just what part of the story of God and human beings is simple to describe? Don’t we always end up using words in a special way (using analogies, metaphors, evocation, myths, negative language and so on)? I mean: it is notoriously hard to say that ‘God exists’. This is because definitions of existence involve something taking up space and lasting out over time. Yet God is outside of space and time. Or again: ‘God acts in the world’. How? It is not easy to see how God, being outside of space and time, can also be a participant within the world, within history, alongside the rest of us. How can God do that, and not, as it were, obliterate the normal laws of nature? Or again: How can we recognise where God does and does not do this?

I am not at all saying these are questions which leave Christians stumped. I am just saying they not easy ones. If we are using human language to describe God, we are always but always going to be struggling, and stretching language. My point is that this is the case, whether we are talking about the case for God over against atheism, about God’s actions… or about God as Holy Trinity.

There was a time here in the West when many Christians thought that the Trinity was (to put it kindly) at the abstract end of Christian doctrine. It didn’t have any real impact on Christian living. It was just a way of drawing together all the loose ends of our claims. Mercifully (I’d say), those days are passing or have passed, and there’s a new sense. One way of describing it is that we have remembered that, for Christians, Holy Trinity, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is nothing other than the Name of God. (It’s not a name like you and I have names – but remember that we’re always stretching language, and so God’s Name is going to be different from other names.) We name God this way, because this is how God reveals God’s very self in revelation, in the story of Jesus. Jesus Christ is God the Word. He prays to God-long-known-as-the-God-and-Father-of-Israel. He promises another Comforter who leads us to new things. Since it is God we meet, and since God is never not personal, and since God, when meeting us, does not pretend, God is these three.

And/but we also name God this way for another reason, which is no less important. The Church was worshipping God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit before it laid down all the doctrines in its creeds. It was worshipping, adoring, praising, giving thanks to, seeking salvation from Father, Son and Holy Spirit.... and eventually it had to reflect on this. When it did so reflect, in the great Councils of the first five centuries, it found it could not do otherwise.

The Holy Trinity is the Name of God, because the story of God we have in the Bible we take seriously as just that - the story of God. And, while we don’t find the doctrine in the New Testament as such, we find a story of divine inter-relationship which is always going to be brought together as something like Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Holy Trinity is the name of God because we believe it is right to adore Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Three in One and One in Three.

We don’t have to be always starchy-solemn about this. My favourite way of thinking of how natural it is to praise God as Holy Trinity is the song known as ‘The Seven Joys of Mary’. You may know it as a Christmas carol, because it’s first verse refers to the birth of Jesus. (But actually only the first.) Do you know it? I’ll finish with it. After all, it’s not wrong to remember our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth at other points this weekend. But, forgive me… ‘our Lady’ is first and foremost, Mary the Mother of God.

The first good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of one;
To see the blessed Jesus Christ,
When he was first her Son.
When he was first her Son, Good Lord;
And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity.

And we do. Amen.

* 

Appendix: The Seven Joys of Mary

The first good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of one;
To see the blessed Jesus Christ, When he was first her Son.
When he was first her Son, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of two;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ, Making the lame to go.
Making the lame to go, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of three;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ, Making the blind to see.
Making the blind to see, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of four;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ Reading the Bible o'er.
Reading the Bible o'er, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of five;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ, Raising the dead to life.
Raising the dead to life, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of six;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ Upon the Crucifix.
Upon the Crucifix, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To all eternity.

The next good joy that Mary had, It was the joy of seven;
To see her own Son Jesus Christ Ascending into Heaven.
Ascending into Heaven, Good Lord; And happy may we be;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To all eternity.