Most of you know that I grew up the United Methodist Church.  My first meaningful exposure to the Episcopal Church came through an ecumenical mission trip led by the Episcopal Campus minister at my university.  We spent a semester being shaped by Episcopal liturgies, and the community in the rural Honduran village we served was primarily Roman Catholic by tradition.  On one dark night, as we closed a long, physically demanding day in prayer with our team and village members, I watched as a large portion of those gathered crossed themselves at the words, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  My weary, dirty, displaced self suddenly felt the urge to cross myself too.  The urge to cross myself was a longing – a longing that brought up the guilt of what my Methodist teammates might think of me suddenly doing something that was decidedly not Methodist – but also a longing for a physical, tangible way to grab onto God – to feel intimately connected and related to God.  I am not even sure I understood what crossing oneself meant, but there was an aching deep in my chest for an action that could make me feel not only related to the trinitarian God we were all worshiping, but also to the hodgepodge collection of people of faith who had gathered.

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday – the only Sunday in the whole church year focused on a Christian doctrine as opposed to an event or a piece of scripture.  Each of the three years in the lectionary focused on Trinity Sunday attempts to utilize a piece of scripture that somehow relates to the persons of the Trinity, but because the concept of the Trinity is not explicitly articulated in Holy Scripture, each year we just get a taste of this strange doctrine we all profess, even though most of us, even theologians and scholars over the centuries, struggle to articulate.[i]

Given the lack of a “Trinity 101” text in scripture, I am grateful we get this passage from John’s gospel today.  We are still in the Farewell Address of Jesus – that very long speech in John’s gospel that Jesus makes as the disciples gather for their last supper with Jesus that we have been reading from for weeks.  We know this is the long address that is often circular and convoluted in nature.  In this particular piece of Jesus’ address, he is telling them again about the coming of the Holy Spirit, or the Advocate.  Jesus explains how the coming Holy Spirit will share Jesus’ truth, which is, in fact, truth from God.  In this circular explanation of how the disciples will still experience relationship with God, we see something deeply relational between and among the persons of the Trinity. 

As scholar Debie Thomas explains of this text, we “…see that God is communal.  It’s one thing to say that God values community.  Or that God thinks community is good for us.  It’s altogether another to say that God is community.  That God is relationship, intimacy, connection, and communion.  …God is Relationship, and it is only in relationship that we’ll experience God’s fullness.”[ii]  Perhaps that is what I was longing for that dark night in that rural village – relationship.  I was longing for a deeper relationship with God – but equally profoundly, a relationship with fellow people of faith.  Sure, maybe making the sign of the cross is just a gesture.  But in that moment, the gesture was a physical manifestation of the relationship found in the triune God, and found in Christian community.

When we can see that the triune God is community, relationship, intimacy, and connection, something about that convoluted explanation of Jesus begins to click not only about the Trinity, but also about our everyday lives.  If the very nature of God is communal and relational, then our invitation is for our lives to also reflect that triune nature.  That means, when we are here, gathered across differences, across divides, and across diversions, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.  That means when we are out in our community, caring for those in need, using our God-given gifts in our vocations, and loving stranger and loved-one alike, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.  And that means when we following the news to learn more about civic life outside these walls, when we are engaging our political representatives in honest dialogue, and when we are praying for the peace this world needs, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.

That is the beauty of honoring the Trinity today.  Jesus teaches us today that the very nature of God is relational – a relationship that is accessible vertically through our relationship with God.  Jesus also teaches us today that the sacred relationship found among the Trinity is also accessible horizontally through all those made in God’s image – in other words, through every human being God has gifted to us.  Our invitation today is to let that crossing of vertical and horizontal create in us a vehicle of God’s love and grace.[iii]  That longing for relationship is fed here so that you can feed that longing in others.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[i] David Lose, “Resurrecting the Trinity,” May 23, 2010, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/resurrecting-the-trinity on June 13, 2025.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “The Trinity: So What?” June 9, 2019, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2251-the-trinity-so-what on June 13, 2025.

[iii] David Lose, “Trinity C:  Don’t Mention the Trinity!” May 17, 2019, as found at https://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/ on June 13, 2025.