Trinity Sunday

This is Trinity Sunday. God in three persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is an ancient story about St. Augustine. One day he took a break from writing about the Trinity to walk along the seashore.

He came across a child with a little pail, intently scooping up a pail full of water out of the ocean, walking up the beach and dumping it out into the sand, then going back down to scoop out another pail of water to pour into the sand.

Augustine asked the child what he was doing, and the child explained that he was "emptying the sea out into the sand." When the Bishop tried to gently point out the absurd impossibility of this task, the child replied, "Ah, but I'll drain the sea before you understand the Trinity."

So, there you have it! And we’re in the same boat. The Trinity is an old and mysterious doctrine, and it took the church nearly 400 years to wrap its head around it and try to define it somewhat understandably in the statement of faith called the Nicene Creed.  

The Trinity is one of those doctrines that can make even seasoned Christians feel like they’re trying to hold water in their hands. Three and one, one and three — it sounds like math that doesn’t add up. But maybe the Trinity isn’t meant to be solved. Maybe it’s meant to be lived.

What Scripture gives us is not a diagram but a pattern: God creates, Christ walks among us, the Spirit breathes life into what feels empty. The Trinity is the story of a God who refuses to stay singular and distant; a God who keeps moving toward relationship — within God’s own life and with us.

If we look at our first long reading from the Book of Genesis, it tells us that in the beginning, when God was still speaking light out of darkness, the Spirit hovered over the deep like a mother bird guarding a fragile new world. Creation began not with force, but with presence — a God who breathes, blesses, and calls everything good.

And today, on Trinity Sunday, we meet that same God again on a Galilean mountain, where the risen Christ gathers a fearful and bewildered community and sends them out with a promise: ‘I am with you always.’ From the first dawn of creation to the unsteady faith of disciples who aren’t sure they believe enough, the Triune God keeps choosing to be with us, to create with us, to send us into a world God still loves into being.

Perhaps we can better understand the Trinity is we recognize that what it shows us is that God is not isolated. God is in relationship — creating, redeeming, sustaining — a holy flow of giving and receiving. And that matters for us, because we live in a world that keeps telling us to go it alone, to protect ourselves, to stay self‑contained, even to isolate and distance ourselves from those who differ from us.

But from the first chapter of Genesis, God shows us another way. Creation itself is communal: God speaks, the Word creates, the Spirit hovers and nurtures. And in Matthew, Jesus gathers a community that is far from perfect — some worship, some doubt — and still he sends them together, not as lone heroes but, two by two, in relationship,  as a shared body with a shared mission.

The Trinity invites us into that same example. Not to understand God as a math problem, but to recognize that God’s very life is collaboration, connection, mutuality. When we practice community — when we listen deeply, share burdens, celebrate joys, and refuse to let anyone stand alone — we are participating in the life of the Triune God, a God who models for us intimate relationship.

The world you and I will step back into this week is a world still unfinished, still aching, still waiting for light. Remember the pattern in our Scripture readings woven from Genesis to Matthew: God creates. Christ calls. The Spirit empowers.

Perhaps the larger question is does God really live in that narrow, isolated place where everything is either black or white and where we have all the answers about everything?

Or does God prefer to hang out in the kind of place that fosters growth, renewal, amazement and surprise and where we can view everything in brilliant living color?  Beyond that, what does one dare to say about the Trinity that has not already been argued, theologized, wondered, dissected and preached for centuries?

We pray at the beginning of every Eucharist in the name of the Trinity, One who shaped the world in goodness, the One who meets us on the mountain of our doubts, and the One who breathes strength into our weary lungs. Take comfort in that holy presence — Creator, Christ, and Spirit — who will be with us always, even to the end of the age. 

This is the God who breathes, blesses, and calls everything good.