Trinity Sunday recognizes and celebrates the three-in-one God. St. Patrick allegedly used a shamrock to illustrate the Trinity. Others have used the three sides of a triangle: water in its different forms of clouds, ice and liquid: the wooden roots, trunk and branches of a tree…all wood of the same tree but with a different function…. as metaphors for the distinction and the unity of the trinity. 

In our liturgies we have traditionally used the language of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” to identify the three or, more recently, (and less gendered) “Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier” stressing their roles. 

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Scripture has frequent references to God’s different self-expressions. The first two verses of Genesis, part of this morning’s first reading, (Genesis 1:1-2:4) illustrate that: At the beginning of God’s creating of heaven and earth…the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water…

In the second reading (2 Corinthians 13:11-13) from Paul’s final blessing to the Corinthians, he ‘updates’ Genesis to include Jesus Christ in a Trinitarian blessing: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

The gospel for Trinity Sunday (Matt 28:16-20) features this statement from Jesus when he instructed the disciples to… Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It was the only place in the gospels where the three persons were grouped together, though Jesus had referred to them individually many times.

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It took until 325 AD before the Council of Nicaea came up with the doctrine of the trinity: of three co-equal persons in one God. The Council fathers (they were all men) did this to settle disputes between some who argued that Jesus was created by the Father and therefore subordinate to him. Others argued about whether the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father or from both the Father and the son. 

The dispute was not settled at Nicaea. Instead it continued to bubble until the question of who proceeds from whom became a leading reason for the breakup of the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054 over the question of from whom the Spirit proceeded. (Issues about the authority of the Pope over the patriarchs also played a role.)  

People who struggle with the idea of Trinity should know that they are in the company of many who have been vexed by the question for millennia. (In the green Book of Alternative Services we Anglicans get to have it both ways. On page 188 in one version of the Nicene Creed we say, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father”. But on the page 234 version of the Nicene Creed we say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.) 

Despite these competing understandings, one of the most significant features about the trinity is its collective unity as One God… It remains a mystery. 

Another feature is the self-giving nature of the God in Creation, in the person of the Son, Jesus Christ the redeemer and in the Holy Spirit who remains with us. Regardless of how we imagine the trinity, these characteristics remain. 

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But before the councils and the split of the church the emphasis was on the gospels and Jesus. This morning’s whole gospel (Matthew 28:16-20)… including the reference to the Father, Son and Spirit… goes like this.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

A number of notable phrases pop out of this gospel. From the top: 

The eleven disciples went to Galilee…where Jesus’ ministry had begun. He did not give the great commission in Jerusalem the home of the temple but on a nameless mountain to a small group of his closest followers….not even to the seventy-two he had sent out to teach and heal. These eleven had seen the highs, lows, and finally, Jesus’ triumphal resurrection and Jesus would commission them as a small group. 

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. (Some translations of this passage read but some doubted.) The only other time Matthew used this specific Greek verb which we translate as “doubted” was when Peter was walking on the water towards Jesus (Matt 14:28-30) and he hesitated, became afraid, lost his nerve, paused, or was terrified…depending on different translations of the Greek. These other verbs shade the meaning from an intellectual doubt towards a more visceral fear. One wonders if they doubted that he had truly risen from the dead. It could be that they feared the sight of a dead person. Perhaps their doubt arose after he told them that they were to make disciples of all nations.  Maybe they were afraid of what might happen when he left. Possibly they doubted that he would be with them always. Their doubting is a strange phrase that is open to interpretation.

…make disciples of all nations. This was an almost unimaginably large task, a seemingly impossible “ask”. They were fishers and tax collectors from a backwater province of a troublesome region of the Roman empire. They had no credibility, financial power or military capability. They didn’t know the languages or customs or even the way to all nations. How could they accomplish it! 

…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you...The disciples were to do more than perform a ritual of baptism, but they were to take the time to teach everything that I have commanded. This detail made their task even larger. 

I am with you always… Early in his gospel Matthew wrote, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matt 1:23). At the very end of Matthew’s gospel Jesus Christ restated this promise that he would be constantly present as God with us.

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  • Why do you think some of the disciples doubted? If we read this gospel sequentially, their doubt or hesitation occurred when they first saw Jesus. But if we make the doubt an umbrella over the whole passage one can imagine that Jesus’ commission was so daunting that they had serious reservations about their ability to accomplish it. How would you explain their doubt? 
  • Put yourself in the place of the disciples as they heard the commission to Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Consider all of the personal, theological, financial and logistic challenges of moving from this place in Galilee to all nations. Do you consider this commission to be part of your personal call? 
  • How do you understand I am with you always…? Is it something you have to remind yourself of from time to time? (“Let us recall that we are in the presence of God.”) Does this affect how you proceed through your day? Is Christ’s presence supportive? Is it part of a continuing conversation? Is his presence like a police officer, making sure you don’t break a law?  

Peace

Michael