Trinity — The First Sunday after Pentecost
May 31, 2026
Good morning, everyone and welcome to the Sunday when we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity,
When did you first hear about the Trinity? Was it in Sunday school? Or a sermon from a particular minister? I’ll tell you about the time I heard about it was from the Dominican nuns who taught me on Saturday mornings at CCD classes. (CCD stands for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, rather heavy for a little eight-year old boy.) Quoting from the Baltimore catechism, Lesson Three “on the Unity and Trinity of God,” page eight to be exact:
Is there only one God?
Yes, there is only one God.
How many persons are there in God?
In God there are the three Divine persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity?
By the Blessed Trinity we mean one and the same God in three Divine persons.
In order to illustrate this core doctrine of Christianity, the nuns would also repeat this story, that according to legend, when St. Patrick, a former Roman slave, was evangelizing in Ireland, he held a shamrock in his hand with three leaves and he explained the Trinity to the locals that a single shamrock has three distinct leaves united by one stem, that God is three distinct co-equal persons, like a shamrock. Then the nuns would add, “Don’t think about it.”
It’s always a bit risky to preach on the Trinity. I leaned heavily on Fr. Richard Rohr’s book, “The Divine Dance” in preparing this morning’s sermon. As Deborah Sokolove warned me when I volunteered to preach on Trinity Sunday, whatever you say about the Trinity is very likely to be interpreted as heresy. So please, don’t burn me at the stake this morning!
Karl Rahner, one of the most important theologians who worked behind the scenes at the Second Vatican Council said that if Christians dropped the belief in the Trinity, nothing would change in the practice of their faith. I’d have to say that yes, earlier in my Christian journey, I would have agreed. Many followers of Jesus regard it as a nice doctrinal antique. Hiding in plain sight, in the corner of my dining room, I have a very pretty antique silver tea service that was my grandmother’s. I have never used it. But it looks good tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of my home. Maybe you’ve also sort of regarded the doctrine of the Trinity as a pretty antique of our Christian tradition, hiding in plain sight. But after preparing this sermon, I’ve re-discovered the Blessed Trinity and I’ve just started to scratch the surface of its richness.
Yes, the Trinity is a beautiful thing. Sometimes I think we don’t really dig into its inner meaning. Some have said the concept of the Trinity is like water which can have three manifestations: liquid, ice or steam. Some have jokingly called it two men and a bird. But seriously, I’ve really been fascinated about how meditating on the Trinity can reveal, at least for me, a better, more beautiful awe-inspiring reality of who God is for us. There’s much good news as we reflect on the Blessed Trinity.
So here we go. Are you still with me?
I don’t want to be smug about how a lot of us first learned about the Trinity. For me and others, our first years are when we build the container of our lives. We ordered our lives, some with faith, family, school, sports and community. Then came the disorder, as we became adults and encountered crises and confusion. What some have called “adulting.” Then came the reordering of our lives and our faith, which while I don’t know all of your faith stories today, I know some of you landed here at Seekers Church as you were deconstructing and re-ordering your faith.
That’s the context in which I will share with you some of my reflections of the Trinity. I believe that if we want to really reorder, or reconstruct our faith, re-examining the Trinity, a core doctrine of the Christian faith, should be a prerequisite because it will expand our sacred horizons.
Sometimes we refer to the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. The word “person” has its roots in the Greek word for mask. In ancient times, when Greeks were performing in outdoor amphitheaters, obviously they didn’t have microphones. Actors wore a type of mask that functioned like a megaphone, to help project their voices when they performed specific roles in Greek theatrical plays.
The law of three is the inherent dynamic embodied in the Trinity. It is made in order to undermine the law of two. The law of two is competitive, us versus them. It is oppositional, combative, dualistic and tends to choose sides. North versus the South; the Dallas Cowboys versus the Washington Commanders; Protestants versus Catholics; liberals versus conservatives; Northern Californians versus Southern Californians. It’s obsessed with who doesn’t belong.
But the law of three, as exemplified in my belief in the Blessed Trinity is dynamic, the first pours love into the second, who pours love into the third, who pours love back into the first. It is a divine love flow, this divine love flow that is like a waterwheel that you often see in old flour mills. The Trinity for me is a waterwheel of divine love. The water wheel works by one bucket pouring water into a second bucket and while the third bucket is dipping into the stream to fill up its bucket into the first. So, the wheel keeps turning to create the energy to move the millstone to grind the wheat into flour. The creator pours love into the redeemer who pours love into the spirit, who pours and empties love back into creator.
You see the difference? I used to regard the idea of the Trinity as a monarchy with God the Father the King, God the Son the crown prince, Jesus, at the right hand of the Father, and God the Holy Ghost as this mysterious court jester. Now I see each person of the Trinity as revealed in sacred scripture pouring out their love into the other person of the trinity creating the divine flow. There’s no hierarchy in this interpretation of the Trinity. No one is the boss, the CEO, the king or the queen.
We’re hard-wired, I think at least sometimes, to analyze things in terms of a hierarchy. We’re trained to think hierarchically, if that’s even a word. We have presidents of universities, principals of high schools, coaches of football teams, commanders-in-chief of armed forces, monarchs, kings and queens. So, it’s understandable to think about the Trinity as a hierarchy. I think it was St. Bonaventure, another great Franciscan who first came up with the metaphor of the Blessed Trinity as a waterwheel of love. Each person of the Blessed Trinity pouring and emptying out love into the other person of the Trinity for all eternity. Once we start embracing the Trinity as the divine waterwheel, we see God as self-emptying. God pouring out grace and love into our lives. There’s no room for divine wrath in Trinitarian theology.
The principle of one is lonely; the principle of two is oppositional and moves us to making a preference: we have to choose sides, but the principle of three is inherently moving, dynamic and generative. The Trinity is circular, spiral, not hierarchical. The good news is that to experience the Trinity, we are called to experience it as a divine flow of love.
Last Sunday, I scattered my sister Mary’s ashes in the York River, which native peoples had named the Pamunkey River, across from my late parents’ riverfront home where she and I spent our teenage years. When her ashes fell into the river, it completed a cycle of life. Where she and I played on its banks, her remains returned and fell to the river bottom, where they were absorbed into the river’s ecosystem. Sure, it was a sad moment but beautiful at the same time. It revealed to me the divine flow, the cycle of life the same way the Blessed Trinity is a divine cycle, one life pouring itself into another’s in this case the many lives nurtured by the river.
I conclude with this poem from Richard of St. Victor who lived in the 12th century.
For God to be truth, God had to be one.
For God to be love, God had to be two.
For God to be joy, God had to be three.
Amen.