Trinity Sunday: Living in Relationship

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

Today we are remembering Trinity Sunday. This is, of course, the first Sunday after Pentecost and we are meant to celebrate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three-person Godhead. Celebrating foundational Christian doctrine might not sound all that exciting, but it is!

The church year now opens up and rolls along until Advent as the big festivals are now complete. It is good, I think, to remind ourselves about the essence of our Christian faith after the events and activities of Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. 

It has been good to remind myself of this after the events of this week at Gatwick with the crash of Air India 171. Where does our hope and help come from? 

Psalm 8 is set for today which we just sung (St Nicholas); read at Emmanuel. 

O Lord, our governor,
    how glorious is your name in all the world!

Your majesty above the heavens is praised;

2 Out of the mouths of babes at the breast. 

you have founded a stronghold against your foes, That you might still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have ordained,

4 what is man, that you should be mindful of him; The son of man, that you should seek him out? 

5 You have made him little lower than the angels, and crown him with glory and honour.

6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

7 all sheep and oxen, even the wild beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, And whatsoever moves in the paths of the sea.

9 O Lord, our governor,
    how glorious is your name in all the world!

Sadly for many people, the name of God is not exalted. Quite the opposite. Psalm 8 reminds us to consider the heavens, lift our eyes from our own small lives and issues, joys and sorrows. Consider the work of the moon and the stars, the work of God’s fingers. It is not a coincidence that Psalm 8 is the first hymn of praise in the Psalter (the book of Psalms).  

Even in the deepest trauma and tragedy, we can praise God. When we are confused and lack understanding – praise God. Consider his works. To understand the Trinity, praise is a right place to start. 

The Church has marked Trinity Sunday since the mid 800’s. It was instituted to speak against the heresies of the early church as they worked out how to understand the concept of one God in three elements. Three does in fact equal one! 

Reference to the Trinity is woven through our services, every time I or we say ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the entire Christian story is retold in the Eucharist prayer before Communion, we repeat it each week in the Creeds. 

Central to the Christian faith that God is Father, Son and Spirit; all in one. It is difficult to understand and at some point needs to be believed as part of the mystery of God. But don’t simply jump to that conclusion as tempting as it is!

In our Gospel reading this week, Jesus tells his disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Read and understand this sentence with the utmost kindness and patience from Jesus. He knows what we do and do not understand. The Spirit was sent to guide us slowly, in forbearance to come to understand the deeper truth of all that Jesus said. 

This is a safe place to start. God never burdens us with more than we can understand nor does He push us into belief or faith. The Spirit was sent to guide us as long as we are wanting to be led in seeking the truth. 

The late Pope Francis wrote, “The Holy Spirit will never tell you that on your journey everything is going just fine. He will never tell you this, because it isn’t true. No, he corrects you; he makes you weep for your sins; he pushes you to change, to fight against your lies and deceptions, even when that calls for hard work, interior struggle and sacrifice… The Holy Spirit, correcting you along the way, never leaves you lying on the ground: He takes you by the hand, comforts you and constantly encourages you.”

In the work of the Trinity, we see that God is fluid, dynamic, never sitting still. Many people, young and old, believe and live like God is some distant and dusty old Man sitting on a cloud or living in a box or in a church building. There is something comforting in the idea that God is sitting still, containable but yet desperately boring. 

God is on the move, always surprising and wanting us to join in with what he is doing. Unity is at the heart of the Trinity, but unity does not mean rigidity. Many Christians get it so wrong with holding on to ideas that God is mean or distant or it is just about the rules or even worse – irrelevant to life in this time and season. 

God is diverse and thankfully not limited to our imaginations. We are all created in the image of God yet express ourselves differently. It follows then that God’s nature is diverse too. Jesus is the beloved Son, born of Mary and sent to us in human form. He consistently points to the Father who sent him to be with us. We see that the Holy Spirit was sent to journey with us, move with us every day and in every way.   

Finally, we see that God is communal. We were made for relationships, for community. We were not hatched from eggs, like separate entities. We were born into families (for better or for worse), hopefully we have made friends along the way, got married or not, had children or not and have found community along the way and built relationships.

For those of you who are or have been married, imagine for a moment that after your marriage service, you went off on your separate ways. 

You would still be married but you would never know the fullness of your marriage relationship while apart. If you want a full relationship with your spouse, then you need to be together, live in community with each other. The same goes for God, if you want a full relationship then you need to live together with him, He needs to be invited in. God also comes with roommates, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is a full and glorious house.

St Paul wrote his letter to the Romans before he ever visited Rome. In this letter, Paul laid out the basic elements of Christian teaching. Paul had a dramatic encounter with Jesus after the resurrection and was blinded for a time. Through his blindness he came to see the Risen Jesus and was forever changed. Paul wants the Christians in Rome to know and believe they have everything they need in the grace and love of God through the Holy Spirit. 

Endure, Paul says, go the distance, it is worth it. Often endurance means we need to forgo the right of convenience, the right to give up when it gets too much. At the centre of this endurance is love. God is love. At the heart of the Trinity is love; deep, unflinching, unfaltering, life-long and life-giving love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is extended to us. 

Do not worry about what you cannot bear right now. Work at understanding that you are simply loved by God as you are. The Trinity tells us that there is more love and life to come, we are part of a bigger story. We are children of the Trinity, always invited and deeply loved. The power of the Trinity will change our lives, lead and guide us to become the people we were created to be, guide us to unity and community. May our lives reflect the beauty and truth of the Trinity.   

Pentecost! Come Holy Spirit!

6/8/25
Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17, 25-27


Creator God, as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation, pour out your Spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence. Amen.

Today is a day of celebration in the Church! What an exciting day! After Jesus’ resurrection at Easter, he told the disciples to tell other people about what they had seen. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to be with them once he left. At this point, the disciples are confused, sad, nothing seems to be happening, I bet they had lots of questions – when? How? What?

Then, in the quietness, they heard a new sound, like a strong wind, God’s presence was with them; like nothing they had ever experienced before. The Holy Spirit is the part of God and Jesus that is active in the world today. The Spirit was sent to help us and guide us along in our lives.

At Pentecost we are celebrating four things that all begin with P.

Party
We know that something astonishing is happening in Acts 2; barriers of culture and language are being broken down as the Spirit falls on those gathered that day. Luke, in his writing, is struggling to find the language to describe what is going on; things ‘seem like’ and ‘sound like’ which indicates he has never seen anything like what he is seeing before.

After all the trauma of Jesus’ death, the working out and waiting for what was to come next, the arrival of the Holy Spirit was a wave of relief. The mood of the people made others think they were drunk. I imagine it in that happy, celebratory drunk kind of way. They were hearing, Luke tells us, God’s deeds of power in their own languages.

This is what we are celebrating today – God’s power that brought about the birthday of the church. From this point, the people who gathered that day went out to tell the Good News of Jesus. If those who were there on that first Pentecost had just gone home after – none of us would be here today.

Punctuality
The timing of Pentecost is important. God was using a long-standing appointment on the kingdom calendar of the Jewish people. This is why Jerusalem was so crowded with Jewish people from across the known world. The Feast of Pentecost was meant to pour out the ‘old’ spirit in a ‘new and powerful way’.

For centuries, before the first Pentecost, the Jews had been celebrating the Feast of Weeks which happened 50 days after their Passover. The number 50 points to fullness, ripeness, to a time that is ready for something to happen.

At the Feast of Weeks, the Jews had to do three things. Firstly, remember the promises God had made and kept in the past and be thankful. Sometimes memories can be short during tough times.

Secondly, they had to be generous. The Jews were not allowed to come to the feast without a gift to say thank you to God. Thirdly, they were to celebrate the harvest, the first fruits. The people were to bring the first of the harvest as an offering to God. The best of the harvest and present it joyfully to the Lord. No rotten apples or mouldy wheat with a bad attitude would do.

Promises
The third thing to celebrate today is promises.

Who here is good at keeping promises? Ever break one? Or has someone made a promise to you and then broken it? Big or small, when a promise is broken, it breaks trust and can cause much grief. When we break promises we have to live with guilt or embarrassment and work to rebuild trust.

We sometimes get it right and sometimes not so much.

Do we believe in the promises of God? Do we take them seriously? It might take a long time for those promises to come through; often longer than we want. God’s promises might look different to what we think the promise should be. And God is faithful; far more faithful than we ever can be. Jesus promised that he would never leave us alone. That the Advocate, the Holy Spirit would come.

The other promise we see in Pentecost is found in Acts 2:21, ‘then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ This is the biggest and best promise of all. Salvation. This is what Jesus offers, gave his life for – that we could be saved for eternity with God.

People
Pentecost is about people experiencing God in new ways. You all look pretty good to me, nice, respectable people. I can see you from the outside and as I get to know you more and better, I get glimpses of the inside. I can hope and pray that the person you are on the inside matches the outside presentation.
Jesus came to save us, to heal us and change us from the inside out. We are not meant to be the same once we have met with Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads and guides us, it brings joy and peace beyond what we can imagine even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Abundant life is what Jesus came to bring. Not just a little but or enough but big and abundant.

In the Gospel reading, the disciples and Jesus are together for the last time at the Last Supper. They are still unsure of what is to come. Philip has an easy suggestion for Jesus, ‘just show us the Father!’ Come on already! It seems an easy solution; who does not want an easy answer to a difficult question?

Jesus rarely offers an easy solution. He says to his disciples, ‘if you love me, you will keep my commandments.’ Our love for God and the people around us should be a reflection of the love we have for God. We do not have to love under our own steam. It is the Holy Spirit that helps us – keeps our troubles hearts at rest and brings peace.

On this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate the party, the punctuality, the promises and the people. We thank God for all that he has done in the past and will do for us in the future; do not forget that! Especially when life is hard. Remember that He first loved us; our love is a response to that. We show our thanks for what He has done by being generous to others and to the church.

We take a moment to give thanks and ask for the Spirit to fill us again.