June 15 2025 Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31    Psalm 8    Romans 5:1-5     John 16:12-15

Psalm 8 certainly has some challenging words for us as it tells us that Yahweh has made us ‘little less than a god crowned with glory and splendour’, and Proverbs declares how Wisdom permeates the earth and the earth is shaped in such a way as to manifest the presence of God.  But what does that mean for us in our lives today. As followers of Christ,  Easter and Pentecost challenge us to live out our faith so that we shine a light in the darkness that is around us.  And the Spirit of Wisdom – She who is Fire and Breath and Wind, calls us to listen into that darkness while still being aware of the light. 

Some years ago, Japanese scientists researched mirco-organisms and found that 10% of the mirco-organisms around us are negative, 10% are positive and the remaining 80% are neutral.  And those 80% observe which of the 10%’s are becoming stronger, and then they migrate toward the stronger.

And this provides a powerful message for us as Christians.  We are to be the positive 10% in a world of darkness, and shine our light so brightly that we will draw others to our light.  We can be agents of transformation and new life.  This is what the message of Easter tells us and what Pentecost empowers us to live out in reality.  It is Wisdom – the Spirit of God – who calls us to see deeper than the darkness so that we will recogise that, even in the heart of chaos, God lives, permeating our reality and calling us to remain intense and authentic.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that ‘there is always hope’, as he tells us ‘suffering brings patience, patience brings perseverance, perseverance brings hope’, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.   But that does not mean it is easy to be hopeful, as Jesus tells the disciples, it is ‘too much for you now’, but when the ‘Spirit of truth comes, She will lead you into complete truth’.  Maybe that truth is about just ‘hanging on’ with our fragile faith because we do not want to let go of that tiny, but intense, light that comes to us in an on-going Pentecostal event.

Today is Trinity Sunday and it is not easy for us to wrap our heads around the concept of the Trinity. How do we explain God is one, yet God is also three.  We may try with things like water – liquid, vapor and ice; or a tree – roots, trunk, leaves; or an egg – shell, eggwhite and yolk; or a triangle, or three-leaf clover, or a human family – father, mother, child.  But these all fall short of really explaining how God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, all at the same time, yet also at different times just one.

This week we commence the long period of ‘Ordinary Time’, and it is in this ordinary time that we experience the promised ‘much more’ from Jesus. 

The ’threeness’ of God is just one of those things Jesus told the disciples he still had for them but they were not yet ready to hear.  And you know what is really awesome about Jesus’ comment to the disciples that they still have much to learn, it means that it takes the pressure off us.  If the disciples, after spending every day for three years with Jesus still don’t have all the answers, what makes us think that we are supposed to have them. We, like the disciples, are dependent on the Spirit, and dependent on each other, because the Spirit often speaks to us through those around us.  We have been promised, and do receive the ‘Spirit of truth’, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of ongoing revelation.  This Spirit slowly guided the disciples, as she also guides us, into a fuller knowledge and comprehension of everything Jesus left unsaid.

Paul tells us that it is precisely because we have the peace of God through justification that we can endure almost anything, and we will not just endure it, but we will grow stronger and find hope.  Justification is the promise that we are accepted by God ‘just as we are’.  Not because of what we have done, or what we have promised to do, not because of who we are or who we might become, God accepts you, accepts me, because that is who God is, and what God does – God justifies the ungodly so that we may know peace and turn in love to extend that same grace, mercy and acceptance to others.

Being part of a Trinitarian community means we look outwards not inwards.  We are not called to just survive, but to bear witness to the peace of God in Christ that responds to the needs of our neighbour.  God does not need our good works, our neighbour does.  When we are able to look outward and extend the peace of God and transform suffering into endurance, character and hope because we have experienced God’s love, then the Spirit of Christ is surely present.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t understand the Trinity, it doesn’t matter if we struggle to get our heads around it, we don’t have to find that ‘perfect’ analogy or metaphor to explain the ‘three-ness’ of God.  The Spirit is a great and holy mystery, and the only thing I am asked to do is to stand in humility before it.  To explore the nature of this ‘threeness’ is to come to the end of what human language can illuminate.  It is to become speechless, to fall on my knees and admit ‘I cannot explain this’, all I can do is seek the truth with all my heart, and trust that Jesus’ promise holds.  All we can do is wait for the Spirit to come and reveal God’s truth to us ‘in God’s time’.

I would like to finish with a poem by Edwina Gately in Soul Whispers.

Why is the world so messed up?

I asked God,

So much anger, violence, poverty,

And everywhere I look

I see fear and doubt and loneliness.

Where, in all this sadness,

Is your light –

Your grace-

Your touch?

Take your boots off,

said God.