Story

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
May 30, 2021

Trinity Sunday 

          Both Don’s parents and mine were born in the midst of the Great Depression and were children during World War 2.  They all had stories to tell about those years.  My mother’s father was a pharmacist and was often paid in chickens and tomatoes.  Mom remembered having an ice box, with ice delivered to the house.  My dad told stories about ration booklets for everything from sugar to car tires, and black out curtains that made New York City go completely dark at night.  Don’s mom told stories about growing up in Colorado without electricity or toilet paper.  And Don’s dad, the great storyteller, still tells stories about growing up in Arkansas during the depression and the war.  But for all of the stories about hardship, there were also stories about how neighbors came together to share what they had, about the creative use of the resources they did have, about a time when one thought nothing of hitchhiking as a reliable and safe means of transportation, and of the joy of finally having electricity or a refrigerator.

          As I wrote in my June Communicant article, I have been wondering about the stories we will tell years from now about life during a global pandemic.  There will obviously be stories of grief and loss, frustration and shortages.  There will be stories of holidays, whether birthdays or graduations, Christmas, Easter, or Memorial Day, that could not be celebrated in the usual ways.  But I think, I hope, we will also tell stories about how we found new ways to gather, how we learned to appreciate a slower life, about how we learned to find and experience God in new ways and places, what we learned about essential workers, and how we learned to take a lot less for granted.  Our stories, whether of good times, hard times, or a combination of both, help shape who we are and give us part of our identity. 

          Today is Trinity Sunday, the day we celebrate the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  If we had scripture readings this morning that explained the Trinity, that explained how one God can be in three persons without being three gods, that would be lovely.  But there are no such scripture readings to be had.  Yes, there are places in scripture that name all three persons of the Trinity, such as the ending of Matthew’s gospel where the disciples are sent by Jesus into the world to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  But nowhere in scripture are we told how, exactly, one God can be three persons.

What we do have in scripture are stories.  We have stories of the way God is experienced as Father, or Creator, such as the reading from Isaiah where the prophet experiences the magnificence of God and is sent by God to deliver difficult news to God’s people about the consequences of their sin.  The gospels tells stories of how people like Nicodemus experienced God the Son, as Jesus went about preaching, teaching, and healing, and as he was crucified, then resurrected.  The book of Acts is full of stories of people being led by the Spirit.  Paul talks about that very Spirit in the reading from Romans this morning-the Spirit that leads us and bears witness within us that we are children of God.  And scripture has stories of people who served God faithfully and stories of people who were less than faithful.  From all of these stories, Christian theologians developed the understanding that our one God is in three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  One God.  Three persons.  Each fully God but each distinct.

          In the first chapter of Genesis, scripture tells us that we are made in the image of God.  The question I wrestle with every Trinity Sunday is not how God can be three persons yet one God, but what it means that we are made in the image of the Trinity.  What does it mean that humans are made in the image of one God who is simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

          The honest answer to that question should be “I don’t know.”  But I do have some thoughts.  First, we are made in the image of God who has always been in relationship.  Not only has God always been in relationship, God’s very being is relationship.  So, we are made to be in relationship both with God and each other, relationships that are lifegiving the way the Trinity is life giving, relationships that complement each other and allow for differences, and yet remind us that we humans are one as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one.  In John’s gospel, Jesus’ prayer for the disciples was not that they would always agree or always be right, but that they would be one as he and the Father are one.  That we are one is actually a fact, whether we live as one is the question.

          Secondly, the God in whose image we are made may be one God in three persons, but this is not a closed community.  In the gospel reading this morning, we heard that God gave God’s only son, gave him, that the world might be saved through him.  God sent Jesus, and then God sent the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, into the world.  We are made in the image of the One who is sent into the world, so we, too, are sent into the world, as Robin said last week in her sermon.  We are sent so that the world may know the love of God and experience God at work in the stories of their own lives.

          The Trinity is the story of God in a word.  We are made in the image of that story, and that story is our story.  We gather here to be nourished by the story of God, and to experience our connection with God and each other.  Then we are sent by the story out into the world, to bring the story to life and be the love of God for the whole human family.

                                                                             Amen.