A New Awareness of the Trinity. June 4, 2023. The Reverend Kathleen M. Sturges

Genesis 1:1-2:4a, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20

Several years ago, Paul “Bear” Vasquez saw something in the back of his Yosemite home. It was a double rainbow and it was amazing. So amazing that he starting videoing it on his phone in hopes of capturing the experience. Although later he said it didn’t really do justice to the vibrancy of the color and the actual feeling of the light. Nonetheless, the video went viral not so much because of the image of the rainbow but Paul Bear’s reaction to it. So here’s a 30 second audio clip of Paul Bear. (Full version found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI) 

As you can hear, the man is overwhelmed to the point of tears. So why did I play that clip for you? Isn’t it obvious? It’s because today is Trinity Sunday. Make sense? Well maybe not, but hopefully it will. It’s understandable if you aren’t making the connection yet because typically Trinity Sunday ranks as one of the most boring Sundays of the year. And I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret. Most preachers dread this Sunday. They dread it because who wants to preach on, let alone listen to, a lecture on church doctrine. The doctrine which, in a nutshell, is the belief in one God who exists as three equally divine persons, often referred to as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, three persons. There you have it, the doctrine of the Trinity.

And that doctrine is essential to the Christian faith, however, it’s noteworthy that the doctrine itself wasn’t actually nailed down until roughly 300 years after Jesus’ death when a whole bunch of bishops got together for a council at Nicaea and came up with the Nicene Creed - you know, the creed that we recite every Sunday after the sermon. But before those guys got together the Trinity existed, not as a dry doctrine but as a rich experience. A mysterious experience of God being both three and one. Our scripture bears witness to this - how the disciples’ experience of Jesus somehow felt like a direct encounter with God. And for those who believed after Jesus’ time on earth, they too had a similar feeling when encountering the Spirit in their lives. There was a sense that in some hard-to-explain way God was clearly one but also three. The apostle Paul attempts to put this into words in our reading from 2 Corinthians as he speaks about the [one] God of love but also the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. There’s both a threeness and a oneness at the same time. (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6)

Have you fallen asleep on me yet? If you have, I don’t blame you because talking about the Trinity is so flat compared to experiencing the Trinity. At its best the doctrine of the Trinity, instead of putting us to sleep, should wake us up and excite us because it points to the reality of our God who is dynamic, living, and active in our lives right now. The three-in-one God who is absolutely relational to the core and, therefore, who is always seeking relationship with us. Because true religion is not primarily about doctrine or ritual or behavior. True religion, the heart of faith, is rooted in experience: the experience of God’s love, the experience of the risen Christ, the experience of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Experiencing God who is Trinity is what it means to be Christian, but not only that experiencing God who is Trinity is at the core of what it means to be human.

Which brings me back to where I began, with Paul Bear and the double rainbow. Whether he named it as such or not, what was overwhelming him was that he was experiencing God. In the glory of that double rainbow was the living presence of the Triune God who created heaven and earth. Now maybe some of us have had similar experiences, but most of us haven’t. Nonetheless I bet that everyone here has felt “it” at one time or another. And by “it” I mean a sense of presence, of beauty, of goodness that resonates deep in the soul. An experience of feeling connected and loved at the deepest level. A sensation of a peace, a calm, a joy that is beyond words. “It” doesn’t have to be something so remarkable, so amazing to be an experience of God. In fact, if we think we have to have our socks blown off every time we experience God then we will miss so much.

Because God experiences are actually very common - sometimes our socks are blown off, but most of the time the socks stay on. That’s because our Trinity God shows up all the time in the  ordinariness of our daily lives. In fact that seems to be God’s specialty. We miss it because all too often there is a disconnect. We don’t recognize God because we are tuned out or too busy or just misunderstand how simple divine presence can be.

But if you’re curious and want to experience more of God in daily life the good news is that it’s not about doing more - it’s not about adding one more thing to your to-do list. Rather keep doing what you are doing, but do it in a new way with a new awareness, a new expectation. Whether you’re making your bed or doing the laundry or looking after a neighbor or even sitting here in church - wherever you are, whatever you are doing, take a breath, pay attention, expect God to reveal himself to you. Maybe it will be in the kindness of a stranger or in the beauty of nature or in the forgiveness of another. Truth is, there are an infinite number of ways that we can and do experience God in our lives and in this world. All we need to do is remember to be open to it. Just like Jesus tells us in our reading from Matthew, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

But how do we really know if it’s God who is with us or if we are just fooling ourselves? It’s really rather simple. The answer is by its fruit. In both the gospel of Matthew (7:15-20) and Luke (6:43-45), Jesus talks about judging a tree by its fruit. We can know that we are experiencing God when the fruit is love. Anything that fills us with love and moves us to love more is from God - who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Instead of Trinity Sunday, what we celebrate today is Trinity lives. So here’s my charge to you: Go forth, be open to the Trinity, and experience God!