Sermon: Holy Trinity Sunday, Matthew 28:16-20, June 4, 2023Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Sermon: Holy Trinity Sunday, Matthew 28:16-20, June 4, 2023

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

I need a volunteer – somebody to come up here and explain to everyone in a few words the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that there is one God, but three distinct persons of that one God. Any takers?

Most pastors dread preaching on Trinity Sunday. I’m not one of those pastors, but I will spare you a sermon about trying to explain the the Holy Trinity. It’s too much to try to take in in one sermon.

For my thoughts on the Trinity, I direct you to my pastoral message from this past week, musings on the Holy Trinity, if you’ve not yet had occasion to read that.

And then, too, after the sermon and the hymn, Pam, our assisting minister, and I will recite in your presence the Athanasian Creed which goes on and on with language that seeks to express what Christians believe about one God in three persons.

Today in my preaching, I’m content to let the Trinity remain a mystery to us. When my son was younger, he would sometimes ask why we cannot see God. I’d try to explain to him that while we cannot see God, we can indeed perceive and recognize the effects of God’s presence. It’s like the wind – you can’t see the wind, but you can witness the wind’s effects in the swaying of the branches of trees….

So, too, in parallel fashion with the Trinity. While we may not be able to comprehend the teaching of the Trinity, that God is one, but in three distinct persons, we can recognize the effects of our Trinitarian God as recorded in the scriptures, with special attention today on this festival’s three main readings.

My explorations are grounded in an understanding of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as being a dynamic, relational reality and not a static, lifeless idea. Indeed, the energy of the relations between and among the Father and the Son and the Spirit cannot stay among themselves. Rather, this energy is generative and creative, and flows into the world as we know it.

Look at what this divine energy does in the creation story from Genesis. As God created the heavens and the earth, a wind from God – the Spirit of God – swept over the chaos and the darkness. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus, the Son of God, was present at creation and shared in responsibility for creation.

In today’s story in Genesis, this Trinitarian energy created order from chaos and light from darkness, and the sun and the stars, and separated out the constituent elements of creation – day and night, the sky, the earth and seas – and it brought forth vegetation, and waters with living creatures, and earth with living creatures, and ultimately human beings whom God made in the divine image and likeness.

All of this creative energy was so powerful that even God needed to rest on the seventh day.

And creation didn’t stop with creation. These energies of creation continue even now in the cycles of birth and death, dormancy and regeneration that we witness every day and seasonally. All of the natural systems all around us are the fruit, ultimately, we confess, of the creative work of the God whom we confess is the Holy Trinity.

Then consider today’s reading from 2 Corinthians where the Trinitarian moment in this passage, and the reason why it was appointed on Trinity Sunday, centers on the verse which we know as the greeting that begins our liturgy every Sunday: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Paul coined this beloved, familiar, pleasing phrase to conclude his second letter to the church at Corinth.

But again, think of the effects of the Trinitarian Godhead in generating grace and love and communion, qualities by which our God is known. Grace and love and communion, or intimate togetherness, are what our God is all about.

Grace and love and communion are also energies which our God in Trinity generates among us and for us even today. In our life together at Faith-La Fe we regularly experience this grace and love and communion when we are assembled in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Grace and love and communion are communicated to us in the teaching of the word of the grace-full, loving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which birthed the community known as church. Grace and love and communion are given to us in preaching law and gospel, revealing to us our sin but also the good news of our salvation, countering the forces of a broken world. We know these qualities of grace and love and communion in the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. We know grace and love and communion in confession and forgiveness. And we know grace and love and communion in our life together as a congregation when we’re at our best.

All of this grace and love and communion have their ultimate source in the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and are the ongoing effects of the Trinity even now.

Finally, let’s turn to the gospel passage from Matthew where the Trinitarian theme is found in the command of Jesus, the Great Commission, to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These are the same words we use at every baptism.

Here, the generative energy, the divine effects of our Trinitarian God, center on the authority given to Jesus by the Father to send us out in the power of the Spirit on a mission, commissioning us to continue the ministry he began on earth two thousand some years ago, namely, to go, and make disciples, and baptize, and teach, and advocate for obedience to all of Jesus’ commands.

The effects of this divine command from Jesus persist and are evident even today in the mission and ministry of the church here at Faith-La Fe and in churches throughout the world. The church here and everywhere lives and breathes and serves by virtue of the energies of God in continuing to send us into the world to live out grace and love and communion in both word and deed.

And one of the greatest gifts of the generative, creative energies of the Trinity is the perpetuation for us of Jesus’ presence among us and in the world: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” This loving energy of Jesus’ presence, which ultimately is the presence of the Trinity, is eternal. It’s perpetual motion. It doesn’t diminish, it’s never depleted, it never runs out.

When our energies run low and even fail, the divine Trinitarian energy is all around us in creation and in our life together to replenish our batteries, to put the wind back in our sails, to get us moving again.

For Jesus’ ongoing presence among us, a presence sent from God via the Spirit, is a presence known to us in the word and breaking of the bread and more. And this presence also has the effect of generating and regenerating our faith, our trust in the mystery of our Trinitarian God.

And these en-Spirited energies of faith are what set in motion our own creative energies in serving God’s world, the world God loves so much, in word and deed, in ministries of service and justice that seek to communicate and embody grace and love and communion in a world too often graceless, hateful, and bitterly divided.

So, you see, when it’s all said and done, the Trinity is anything but an abstract idea. No, the Trinity is the loving energy of God evident all around us that gives life and healing, and keeps us going to the promised fulfillment. Thanks be to God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.