In the name of our Trinity Family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday given over to a concept or idea, rather than a person or an event. The Trinity is always irksome for to squish God into our vocabulary is impossible.
There is a story of how St. Augustine had a dream the night before he was supposed to speak about the Trinity. In the dream, he was walking on a beach, and saw a young boy digging a hole in the sand. The boy would grab a seashell, fill it up from the waves, and then pour it into the hole. Augustine approached the boy and asked him what he was doing. “I’m trying to empty the ocean into my hole,” the boy replied. When Augustine responded that that was impossible, the boy answered, “Not as impossible as you trying to explain the Holy Trinity.”
It’s probably easier to say what the Trinity is not rather than explain what the Trinity is.
We could say that God is not evil, not hateful, not vengeful or spiteful; but that still leaves us with a gawping vacuum of exactly what He really is.
There are various images and parables that go a goodly way to being helpful for us but inevitably, if you push the image too far and try to take it too literally, then it must fall over.
One classic image, is that the Trinity is like water. It can be found in three forms; vapor, ice and liquid. All are water and yet all are different, with unique properties. One is not somehow better or more important than the other, they do not compete against each other and one seems to quickly transition from one to another.
However, we don’t put God the water into the kettle to boil Him up and produce steam and have nice cup of tea with a chocolate muffin. Nor do we drop God the ice into a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon.
So with that caveat, the image that I want to dabble with is that of the Trinity as a family.
The Father, the Son and Holy Spirit live in complete harmony one with another. They understand and communicate perfectly with each other. The Son is obedient to the Father and He is empowered by the Holy Spirit to do what is asked of Him. No-one is more important than the other and each are absolutely essential to the life of other two. They are the perfect family living in stability and consummate unity, each pointing to and embracing the other two in pure love.
So far so good; let’s push the parable of family a little further. One of the things that people cherish and frequently have on display, are family photos. They are there as reminders to those who live in the family home, but also as a witness to those who visit. God the Father sent his Son as a kind of photo so that we know what God is like. Compassionate, a servant, loving, sacrificial and yes, sometimes rebuking when we get it wrong and are not the person we are called to be.
We glimpse this family unity and we experience the Trinity in a unique way when we gather around the altar as a family. We hear our family stories, we partake of Holy food and we offer all that is upon our hearts. The grist of daily family life is shared, offered, sanctified and made holy. It becomes the stuff of God. Our pain, our joy, our suffering, our tears, our giggles are His, are ours.
And we will glimpse the Trinity at another table later on this morning when some of us toddle off to a café at Tarrington. As always, with a shared meal together, nothing happens and yet everything happens. There will be catching up, there will be a fresh learning of where we are up to. There will probably be smirks and burps and laughter and listening. There will be coffee and wine and yummy food. All this will be thoroughly enjoyable and it is absolutely essential for the life of our parish family together. No wonder the master chose the image of a wedding feast to describe the party of Heaven.
And maybe in the car on the way home, we might realize that in some way, some how, in the banter and jocularity… somewhere between entrees and the last desert, the smiles and listening, we have sensed something of the Trinity. A unity so enjoyable that we did not know how hungry we were for Him. And perhaps by the time we get home and maybe have a little snooze or a walk around the Lake, we will come to realize that we have been fed in that sublime way that matters most to us. We will know that our souls will have been nourished and sustained and now replenished, we can walk along little further, closer to the party where the wine is always of exceptional quality, where we never get indigestion, where the laughter is voluminous and we can dance in a way that knows no embarrassment, because everybody else in our Trinity family will be dancing with that same ecstatic bliss.
In the name of our Trinity Family, Father Son and Holy Spirit.