For Sunday
Trinity Sunday
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Preachers all over the world have a tall order this week. They don’t just have the Good News to preach, but they must also make sense of the doctrine of the Trinity. Which continues to mystify and confuse the faithful.
Our gospel reading isn’t the most obvious place to start, but it does offer an interesting touchstone for the greater project.
Nicodemus, one of the most powerful and learned people in Jerusalem, comes to Jesus for guidance. And even he is stuck in literalistic thinking, distracted by factualities, and missing the bigger picture Jesus is trying to communicate.
Sounds like our obsession with understanding the Trinity as a literal, physical, material matter to be diagramed and “solved” like a math problem. How else might we try to figure out how something can be three and one at the same time?
Of course, math isn’t the subject. And it isn’t the only tool for comprehending a divine mystery. It is but one part of a greater whole. One persona, perhaps, for our own sense of common self—how we learn about ourselves, our world, and all that is around us.