Trinity Sunday: Does it make any difference?

5/22/16

a table for Trinity Sunday

So what’s new this week? …I attended an Andrew Goodman Foundation update …They currently have ambassadors, IE on 41campuses (https://andrewgoodman.org/ve-ambassadors-directory/)…they are working on registration…especially important in a day where the bright to vote is begin rolled back and challenged every day…In Louisiana, for example, there is a new law requiring photo ids to register. Over  100,000 students have ids with no photo… that’s enough votes to turn an election..

I did two weddings in the park on Friday. It was filled with  tourists.…It was warm, perfect weather… There were at least 3 couples getting married…Back at the church, Dion was on the steps selling his collection of stuffed animals …

Dion and the stuffed animals

I had long conversation with a member, talking about concerns very dear to me.. I began remembering what I enjoy about this work…we are on the very  cusp of summer….

Yesterday…even in the midst of a performance by Broadway Bound Kids, we did our annual tours as part of the Landmarks Conservancy Sacred Sites Open House Tour day.   I love telling our story, the archi-theo-social history of this very special place. (http://www.nylandmarks.org/events/sacred_sites_open_house/)

Today is Trinity Sunday…41 years ago, this day marked the occasion of my first sermon…at St.Paul’s, New Haven..This day is a pause before launching  into the long green season…of Sundays after Pentecost, of ordinary time…which ends with our only other theological theme Sunday…Christ the King..

The question to keep in the back of your mind…does it make any difference?

Russ’ bulletin cover

gives us another Trinity.. racism, materialism, militarism.. (from Martin Luther King Jr’s speech at Riverside Church…) those three up against the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is  like a 3 on 3 streetball game…..

This concept has troubled me since I was a kid …I got in trouble in Sunday school asking questions…there were of course those cool diagrams…is/is not…all of that …

traditional Trinity diagram

and of course the Celtic trinity’s 

Celtic Trinity

with all thee all interconnected circles and lines…

I can give you all the standard  explanations but….

Historically, Thomas Becket (1118–70) was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost (Whitsun), and his first act was to ordain that the day of his consecration should be held as a new festival in honor of the Holy Trinity. This observance spread from Canterbury throughout the whole of western Christendom.

Anglo-Catholic parishes observe Corpus Christi on the following Thursday, or in some cases the following Sunday.

John XXII (1316–1334) ordered the feast for the entire Church on the first Sunday after Pentecost. A new Office had been made by the Franciscan John Peckham, Canon of Lyons, later Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1292). The feast ranked as a double of the second class but was raised to the dignity of a primary of the first class, 24 July 1911, by Pius X (Acta Ap. Sedis, III, 351). Since it was after the first great Pentecost that the doctrine of the Trinity was proclaimed to the world, the feast becomingly follows that of Pentecost. (from Wikipedia..)

The key quote…the only one in the Gospels is Matthew 28: 19

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

 Notice it took nearly 400 years to be established as a doctrine..

The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature".^[4] In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.^[5][6][7]

The Fourth Lateran Council declared, "it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds")

“Whitsunday”….simply means ”white”…the color we use today….

What difference does it make?

The Father (or Creator)  …..leads us to respect for/care for “creation”…ongoing partners with the creator in the ongoing work of creation…

Son (or Human One)….leads us to see the sacredness of our lives…seeing the  face of God (and Christ) in all people

Holy Spirit (or Wisdom?) is what flows through and sustains us…informs and supports our friends and community…

They are different ways for being for us, all ways of being a community of faithful believers…but all the same substance of the Holy One who is our God…

And so we go out…to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…

AMEN