May 31, 2026

 

John 16:12-15

 

+When I was a new priest, the commonadvice to a new priest for preaching on Trinity Sunday was this:

 

Let your curate or deacon preachinstead.

 

I don’t have a curate.

 

And Deacon John, though always willingto preach, shouldn’t have to do my dirty work for me.

 

But, the reality is that no preacherlikes preaching about the Trinity.

 

I think because there’s a temptationevery Trinity Sunday to somehow explain the Trinity.

 

Preachers reach for tired analogies.

 

(and I have done every single one ofthese)

 

Water, ice, and steam.

 

The shamrock of St. Patrick.

 

Three candles, one flame.

 

Three notes, one chord.

 

Or remember this one?

 

Perichorisis—the divine dance.

 

Lord!

 

As someone who taught systematictheology for ten years, I also used did this quite often.

 

I think the anxiety is based on a fearof somehow preaching something heretical.

 

Well. . . Father Jamie ain’t a newpriest anymore.

 

And you know what I think aboutheresy?

 

I just don’t care about heresy.

 

And I know few of you do either.

 

How many times has someone called me aheretic?

 

As some point, you just startembracing it all, while at the same time thanking God they don’t don’t burnpeople like me at the take for it anymore.

 

At least not yet.

 

The problem really comes down tobelieving that the doctrine of the Trinity is some kind of puzzle that needs tobe solved.

 

It is not a theological math problem.

 

And, as one of my favorite memes sosuccinctly puts it: the Trinity is not two men and a bird.

 

The Trinity is not an answer to aquestion.

 

So then, what is the Trinity.

 

Well. . .

 

I don’t know.

 

I’ve never known.

 

And I probably will never know.

 

And I’ll even be more honest with you:

 

I don’t spend a whole lot of timethinking about it or pondering it.

 

Because the more I do, the moreevasive it all becomes.

 

But what I do think what the doctrineof the Trinity actually does attempt to convey is something we all consider andstruggle with on occasion:

 

The mystery of God.

 

For me, the Mystery of God is the morecompelling thing about this Sunday.

 

I wish this Sunday was Mystery of GodSunday.

 

I think it would be less dreaded.

 

Because that’s really what all of thisis about.

 

The first Christians experienced Godin multiple ways.

 

They experienced God in Jesus.

 

They encountered God working in therisen Christ and found themselves transformed by this encounter.

 

Then, after Jesus' ascension, theyexperienced the Spirit of God still moving among them—guiding them, comfortingthem, challenging, them and inspiring them.

 

And through it all, they remainedconvinced that there was only one God.

 

But they were experiencing this oneGod in such a variety of ways.

 

In ways that transformed language andbasic rational thought.

 

So, being humans, they tried to takethe Mystery of God and quantify it and definite it and pinpoint it.

 

They tried to confine it with languageand words and rational thinking.

 

But the Mystery of God is so much morethan our strange, limited understanding of anything.

 

And perhaps that should tell ussomething important.

 

The deepest truths in life are oftenthe ones we cannot completely explain.

 

In mystery.

 

Can you explain love?

 

Not define it.

 Just e

xplain it.

 

Can you explain why one piece of musicor poetry moves you to tears?

 

Can you explain beauty?

 

Can you explain why certain memoriesstay with us for decades while others vanish almost immediately?

 

Some realities are larger than ourability to describe them.

 

God is one of those realities.

 

In today's Gospel Jesus says, "Istill have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

 

I find those words comforting.

 

The disciples do not get everything atonce.

 

They are not handed a complete andperfect systematic theology.

 

They are not given all the answers.

 

Instead, Jesus promises that theSpirit will continue leading them into truth.

 

Notice that truth is not presented asa destination but as a journey.

 

The Spirit guides.

 

The Spirit leads.

 

The Spirit accompanies.

 

Faith is not about arriving.

 

Faith is about following.

 

The Trinitarian Mystery of God, as Ilike to call it, reminds us that God is dynamic rather than static.

 

God is relationship.

 

God is movement.

 

God is communion.

 

From all eternity, God is love givenand received.

 

Long before creation, before stars orgalaxies or human beings, God was already love.

 

At the heart of reality isrelationship.

 

At the heart of reality is communion.

 

At the heart of reality is love.

 

And if human beings are created in theimage of God, perhaps this tells us something about ourselves as well.

 

We become most fully human not inisolation but in relationship.

 

We need each another.

 

We belong to each another.

 

Our lives are woven together in wayswe sometimes fail to see.

 

We like to think we are self-madeindividuals.

 

The Trinitarian Mystery of God  tells a different story.

 

The Trinitarian Mystery of God tellsus that relationship isn’t weakness.

 

Dependence isn’t failure.

 

Community isn’t optional.

 

Love is written into the verystructure of reality itself.

 

And perhaps this is why Christianshave struggled with the Trinitarian Mystery of God for nearly two thousandyears.

 

Not because it’s easy to understand.

 

But because it points toward somethingtrue.

 

Something we glimpse whenever peoplecare for one another.

 

Something we glimpse wheneverforgiveness triumphs over resentment.

 

Something we glimpse whenever acommunity gathers around a table and discovers that they belong to one another.

 

The Trinitarian Mystery of God remindsus that God's deepest nature is not power.

 

Not domination.

 

Not control.

 

But love.

 

Love shared.

 

Love given.

 

Love received.

 

Love flowing endlessly among eternal,amazing Mystery.

 

And the astonishing claim of theGospel is that we are invited into that life.

 

Not merely to believe in it.

 

Not merely to admire it.

 

But to truly participate in it.

 

To be drawn into the divine lifeitself.

 

To be drawn into the Mystery.

 

That is what happens at this table.

 

That is what happens in prayer.

 

That is what happens whenever wepractice mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

 

We are being drawn deeper into themystery of God.

 

Not a mystery to be solved.

 

But a mystery to be lived.

 

And perhaps that’s enough.

 

In a world that demands certainty, theMystery of God invites wonder.

 

In a world obsessed with answers, the Mysteryof God teaches humility.

 

In a world fractured by division, the Mysteryof God reveals true communion.

 

And in a world hungry for love, the Mysteryof God reminds us that love is, as we all know, the deepest truth of all.

 

Amen.