Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18
After a week of continued pandemic
and streets filled with protest
it is tempting, when faced with Trinity Sunday,
which always seems to terrify preachers anyway,
to simply throw up one’s hands
and switch the topic to something more relevant,
something readily applicable to what is on people’s minds,
something that might provide us with the tools
to fix what is wrong with the world.
But the Trinity is God as revealed in the Gospel,
and God and the Gospel are always relevant,
even if we cannot turn them into tools
for immediately fixing what is wrong with the world.
Paul writes to the Corinthians:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with all of you.”
Grace, love, and communion
sums up what the doctrine of the Trinity is about.
God the Father timelessly brings forth the Son in love,
and the Son, with a gracious generosity
that holds nothing back,
timelessly returns that love to the Father,
and from this gracious exchange of love
the Spirit of communion is timelessly breathed forth.
The doctrine of the Trinity has been
much elaborated and complexified over the centuries,
keeping us theologians occupied, if not always employed,
but at its heart it is simply the claim that God
is the mystery of timeless grace, love, and communion.
But that is not really all
that the doctrine of the Trinity is about.
For if we believe that God is the mystery
of timeless grace, love, and communion
then we should also believe
that the world God creates
is what we might call the mystery
of time-full grace, love, and communion.
The play of gift and response,
binding lovers together,
is what is most true about our world
because it is what is most true about God.
It is subtly woven into
the very fabric of reality.
As Pope Benedict said in 2009,
“The ‘name’ of the Most Holy Trinity
is in a certain way
impressed upon everything that exists,
because everything that exists,
down to the least particle,
is a being in relation,
and thus God-in-relation shines forth,
ultimately creative Love shines forth.”
But if this is true
why do we not see it more clearly?
If the world is the mystery
of time-full grace, love, and communion,
why does it seem more often characterized
by selfishness, hatred, and conflict?
The simple fact is that sin has alienated us
from the mystery of God;
sin has warped the image of God in us;
grace, love, and communion
have fallen into tragic disrepair.
This has been pretty apparent this week,
though, if you are paying attention,
it’s apparent most weeks, sad to say.
But the good news on this Trinity Sunday
for this world that has fallen into disrepair
is that “God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
might not perish
but might have eternal life.”
We believe that in Jesus we have been invited
to share again in God’s own eternal life
through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We have been invited back into
the timeless grace, love, and communion
that underlies all reality.
This invitation is also a commission,
and this is perhaps where we find
the “relevance” of the Trinity.
Paul exhorts the Christians at Corinth,
separated by ethnicity and social status:
“Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.”
The grace, love, and communion
that Christ restores to us
is something that we are called
to embody with each other by living in peace,
and to bring to a world still mired
in selfishness, hatred, and conflict.
This week in particular, however,
we should remember that
the task of living in peace
is not simply one of avoiding conflict,
though we might like to think it so.
We should remember the protest
of the prophet Jeremiah:
“They have treated lightly
the injury to my people:
‘Peace, peace!’ they say,
though there is no peace.”
We should remember that Jesus,
the incarnation in time
of timeless grace, love, and communion
was murdered by the powers of this world
for being a disturber of the peace.
For what the world calls peace
is typically simply conflict hidden by power
so as to be better controlled and managed.
What the world calls peace
is often violence channeled toward
the weakest or most vulnerable,
from whom we can easily shield our eyes.
The true peace of God
must disturb that peace
so that the divine trinitarian mystery
of grace, love, and communion
may reign in time as it does in eternity.
This is no quick fix for the ruined world
of selfishness, hatred, and conflict,
but it does sustain us as we journey
toward God’s restoration of all things.
So may we encourage one another
in these difficult days;
may we live in the true peace of God,
the peace that springs from justice;
and may God have mercy on us all.
