Today in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday and for some who are preaching this day brings great angst and fear. We are tasked with preaching on the Holy Trinity without slipping into heresy. Just how is it that the One Holy God is also three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit? I don’t know. And, despite what some might claim, neither does any one else really. This is beyond our human comprehension. But that doesn’t mean we can’t believe it and live it. Because that’s the purpose of belief, living our life in the manner for which our Trinitarian God created us to live it, as Beloved Children who are to share God’s Love with the world here and now.
This is the good news message we are to proclaim with our actions and words: that God created us in God’s image, that God made us good and with the creation of us humans, God called all of Creation Very Good. And even as we chose our own way over and over and over through the course of human history, God remained faithful to us, pursuing us not to condemn us but to remind us that God made us by love, in love, for love, and to love. God loves us in such a manner that God became human and lived among us to show us in flesh and blood how to live this Love Life.
In our reading from the Good News according to Matthew this morning, Jesus gives us what has become known as the Great Commission. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. Making disciples isn’t book learning. It’s life learning. Disciples follow their rabbi in order to live just as the rabbi lives, to become as much like the rabbi as possible. Yes, there’s lessons involved but it is experiential, it is the modeling of the rabbi in words and behaviors and the development of the disciple. And, spoiler alert, none of us stop being disciples of Jesus. It’s a life long journey of becoming. There’s so much grace in knowing that. We don’t have to get it perfect. We don’t have to get it right. We can mess it all up horribly and God loves us still and invites us back into the journey over and over and over again.
The two other parts of the Great Commission are to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit and to teach others to obey what Jesus has commanded. Baptism is our ritual of inclusion into the Family of God, a commitment to live life here and now with our hearts open to the transformation of discipleship. Jesus’ main command is this: to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. He also commanded us to love our enemies, feed the hungry, supply the needs of those who have less than us, and to work towards the kind of justice that eliminates suffering not just alleviate it. Jesus doesn’t command us to be theologians but to live Love.
We can spend so much energy trying to get the explanation of who God is correct that we get distracted from what God really asks of us, to Love well. For those of us called to serve as priests and preachers our purpose is to guide us all in following Jesus, not to prove how much we know but to show we are always teachable, with hearts open to the continuous transformation of the power of God’s Love. As Jesus’ Followers we are to all live in such a way that invites others in. Not just those we pick or those like us but everyone. The entry into God’s Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven isn’t exclusive. It is an open invitation of Good News for all.
The concept of the Trinity being three in one doesn’t add up because it’s not supposed to. Life isn’t a neat and tidy equation. Life as we are made to live it isn’t a transaction: God loving us because we are good or perfect or God gives us something we want because we did or said the right thing. God loves us because God is Love. Life as we are made to live it is relational. It is a lifelong journey of always becoming who and Whose we are, beloved children made in the Image of our Holy Loving God.
So, in the name of the Trinity, may we all go love well and teach others by our words and behaviors how to Love in the Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven. Amen.
Mother Nancy's Coffee Thoughts 