Trinity Sunday
The Church calendar is a funny thing. All year long we commemorate and celebrate certain things. We celebrate events: the birth of Christ at Christmas, the resurrection of Christ on Easter, the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and the like. And we celebrate people: St. Francis of Assisi, the Blessed Virgin Mary, our patron, Saint Peter.
But on one very interesting Sunday, we celebrate neither an event, nor a person. We celebrate a theological concept: the Trinity.
In lots of places, Trinity Sunday is referred to as "Associate Rector Sunday," because all the rector's schlep off the preaching duty to their associates, because they don't want to have to preach on such a challenging concept as the nature of God in three persons. I have several clergy friends (including my wife) who are associates at churches around the country who will be preaching this Sunday.
But I don't mind it. And here's why.
While the way God can be One and also Three is a mystery beyond our comprehension (and don't let anyone tell you it makes perfect sense to them, because they're lying), it is also a source of tremendous comfort. God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit means that God is inherently, within Godself, a community. God is, within Godself, both a giver and recipient of love.
One of the major challenges to the modern Christian faith is the disgruntlement with the institutional Church, and the way many people have abandoned organized Christian communities to practice their faith individually, or at least, independent of a church. But when we ponder that God is Three, that God is a community, that God cannot exist without reciprocal love and affection, then we are reminded that it really is impossible for any of us to go without community ourselves.
Churches aren't important because, as the Roman Church has long taught, "salvation is impossible outside of the Church." No, churches are important because when they live up to their calling, to the ideal, to the way they are meant to be, they become communities where we experience love and affection, grace and mercy, just like God does within Godself.
Think about it: if God can't be without a community, why would we think we can?
