A young curate sought the advice of a wise old priest renowned for his preaching and asked him: “What should I preach about?” The old man replied, “about God and about ten minutes.”

Today, being Trinity Sunday, that is wise advice because like no other Sunday, this day is about God.

Throughout the Church Year we are led to think about God in different ways as we are given glimpses of God’s activity and nature.  In Advent we think of the Father’s creative activity and how he worked in the lives of Old Testament people.  During the Christmas season we think about the Incarnation in the birth of Jesus; In Lent we take the journey of faith leading to Christ’s Passion in Holy Week and Christ’s self-giving on Calvary. At Easter we reflect on God’s glory revealed in the Resurrection. At Pentecost we think of the Holy Spirit’s activity empowering the Church and in the Trinity season we see the Spirit’s power at work in the Church informed by our Lord’s teaching applied to our own lives.  Throughout the year we learn how God has worked in the lives of the holy men and women we know as Saints who are given to us as an inspiration.  All this builds up our understanding of God and helps us to develop a living relationship with him but, today, on Trinity Sunday we are given the BIG PICTURE.  It’s as if God is answering the Schoolboy, who once wrote to the Church of England at Church House Westminster and said,

“Dear Sir,
this term in RE we are doing God. Please send me full details.”

That is what Trinity is – the full details.

They can easily be found in the Gospel because Jesus was always at prayer, referring his ministry, life and witness back to His Father; and as the time of His Passion drew near, he introduced His disciples to the Holy Spirit which would come upon them at Pentecost, to lead them into all truth.   In today’s Gospel passage from St. Matthew, the Risen Christ gives his followers their mandate to be the Christian Church – with His authority to preach the Good News so that all nations would be His disciples. That discipleship was to be sealed through Christian Baptism with its Trinitarian formula.

When, later this morning, we shall baptize three infants, each one will become a Christian as we pour water over them and we say the same words which Jesus said to the disciples. They will be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  But what are we Baptizing them into? and what is this relationship between the Three persons of the Trinity and ourselves?  I suspect that, mostly, we accept the Trinity as a Doctrine or teaching of faith without giving it much thought.  If you were asked by an enquirer what you understand by a God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, how would you describe your belief?

One of the things I discover when talking to people is that they have a particular relationship with either the Father or with Jesus or with the Holy Spirit.  Pentecostals, for example, must place a greater emphasis on the Spirit whereas Creationists would be more likely to opt for the Father.   Jesus is even more tricky because there are what you might call Jesus people and Christ people. Some would concentrate on Jesus the teacher of Galilee and relate to him as a Man – even THE Man, whereas others would relate better to him as the Lord of the Universe, the Risen God whose Resurrection completes God’s glory. 

To the outsider this may seem perplexing. As it was for the Japanese convert from Shintoism who remarked, God the Father, him I understand; God the Son, him also I understand, but please tell me, who is this Honourable Bird?

This emphasis on one Person of the Trinity or another is, in part, defined by what aspect of God’s Nature speaks to us at a particular time and also which was predominant in our own awakening of faith.  If you came to faith through an experience of the Spirit you would naturally see the Holy Spirit as central to your own Christian life.   If, on the other hand, your faith was awakened by discovering a relationship with Jesus then, obviously He will predominate.  I came to real faith through an experience of God the Father so, for a time, I related more to this aspect of God’s nature more than the others.  Of course, mostly, we don’t stay in one place and I have found that at different times I am more attracted to one Person of the Trinity than the others and this keeps shifting.  One of the advantages of the Church Year is that it allows us to emphasise one aspect of God at one time of the year and another at other times.  The genius which created the Church Year and Lectionary is that it helps us to develop our relation with our Trinitarian God in all His manifestations.  One of the ways of developing this relationship which I have found particularly helpful is to think of God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

God as Creator emphasises the Father’s work in making all that there is – the Creator of everything in the Universe, who pours His very Being into all matter and who, as the poem which begins the Book of Genesis insists, saw everything that he had made and, indeed, it was very good.  Creation is an act of Love – an outpouring of the very essence of God’s nature which is pure Love.  Creation is so precious to Him because it expresses who He is.  You can look at yourself a bit to get some understanding of what this means. 

We are at our most creative when we are at our most loving. Our love for people, for nature, for anything is an expression of our inner being. We are shaped into the people we are by love (and sometimes, sadly, by lack of it) and when we do the most good we are at our most loving – just as when we don’t do good we are far from love.

Sin has been described as acts of unloving but saintliness, holiness is forged in love.

God creates and shapes His Creation through Love.  Isaiah said in today’s Old Testament reading that God never grows weary and what that means is that God’s creative action goes on pouring love into the world despite the way we misuse this, and He will never stop doing so because He understands what we have always to go on discovering that only Love turns the world around towards its source which is Himself.  The Celtic Christians were fond of saying that God did not make the world – He is making it . Creation isn’t a once and for all event. It is a continuous process and it is God’s process. It is a commitment He makes out of his freedom to Love because he can do no other but Love – that is who He is.

Jane Williams (Rowan’s wife and a Theologian in her own right) says:

That God is both sovereign and free and at the same time utterly committed to us is at the heart of all that the Bible tells us about God.

We can see it throughout the Bible as God continually deals with us – we fail, he forgives- we sin, he loves,- we fall down and he raises us up.  We are of infinite worth to him which is why he loves us despite ourselves and our own failures to love.

So committed is He to us that he finds a way of Redeeming us – of freeing us from all that enslaves us and prevents our progress in love towards His Kingdom.  So God is Redeemer and this is the nature of God we see in Jesus.  In Jesus, God is doing something totally radical. He is saving us from within. It’s an ingenious plan!  Not only is God continually involved in His Creation, he re-makes Creation by becoming human and showing us what true humanity is – what we can become.  Jesus is the embodiment – the enfleshment- of God’s love. No longer an abstract concept but a Person.  Everything that Jesus does is shot through with Love and the ultimate statement of that is the Cross – the ultimate Victory of Love over sin and over everything that stands in the way of God’s Kingdom of Love.  What stands in the way, mostly, is the human heart so God conquers those hearts – our hearts – by showing us just how much He is prepared to Love us.  Through the Crucifixion our humanity is redeemed – turned round –opened up – we are given the potential to become like Jesus Christ – to become utterly loving people as He is – and when we are, we are redeemed.  Of course, we are not able to achieve this on our own. Like the people of Isaiah’s day we get dispirited by things around us – the way of the world, the way of life, the temptations which beset us, the failures in relationships which litter our lives. We know we can be better. we know, probably, that God really does love us; we know that Jesus is the model of humanity we should aspire to – but we keep getting bogged down.  So God’s ingenious plan comes to our rescue once again. God finds a way to Sustain us on our earthly pilgrimage and this is where the Spirit comes in.  Jesus knew that the way of life he was asking from us needed even more of God’s love so the Spirit was released on the Church and the World.  This is the breath of God poured out upon us to sustains and enthuse us – making us, literally, enthusiastic for God and for his love.

What is the mark of a Spirit-filled person or Church? – the way they are open and loving to both God and others.  The Spirit comforts, challenges, leads and empowers us. We are led to do things we never dreamt was possible but most of all to love with a renewed energy.  With the breath of God in us we are both sustained and renewed. With the breath of God in us we speak to the world of new hope and of dreams that can be fulfilled – (including, appropriately, dreams of developing our Church building for renewed mission and ministry. Well, I was bound to get that in, wasn’t I!)  Most of all, with the breath of God in us our horizon is limitless – bound only by the Kingdom of God which is defined by the limitless and eternal love of God.

So you see, being Created, Redeemed, Sustained all need different aspects of God but, of course, they are one aspect – the common link is Love and what the Trinity is about is how Love flows, not only between the Three Persons of God – that is taken as read – but also towards us, drawing us into a Loving relationship with Love Himself. That is the heart of the Trinity.

A little boy was drawing a picture and his father asked him what he was drawing.
“God” said the little boy.
“You can’t draw God” his father said, “No one knows what he looks like.”
“They will soon,” said the boy, “I’m nearly finished.”

If we draw the picture of God in our lives, in all his glory, then the world will know just what Love is – Who God is.  So get on with it. Draw that big picture with your lives and make sure it’s ABOUT GOD: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.