Father Riley's homily for June 7, 2020

TRINITY SUNDAY             A - 20 - Gen. 1.1-2.3, 2 Cor. 13.11-13, Matt. 28.16-20

Today the Church celebrates the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Our liturgy is filled with references to the Triune God we believe in and worship. We begin each Eucharistic service with “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” We conclude each service with a blessing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our statement of belief in God, the Creed, is one that professes the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Belief in the three persons of God identifies us as Trinitarians. Jesus taught that the Father is spirit and that we are to worship Him in spirit and truth for such the Father seeks to worship Him.

Jesus, the Son of God, ascended into heaven and is no longer physically present among us, yet He is, “whenever two or three gather in my name, I am in the midst of them.” On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, the gift of the Father for those who believe to enable us to carry out the work we have been given to do, to make God known.

The Holy Trinity, one God in three persons, is a mystery. I for one would have it no other way. If I were able to totally comprehend and understand all there is to know about God with my finite mind He would no longer be the infinite God I love and worship and seek to serve.

Do we have to totally understand God in order to worship Him? “My ways are not your ways, says the Lord. Neither or my thoughts your thoughts.” (Is. 55.8) That puts things in a proper perspective. To demystify God is to dethrone God.

Reason alone will never bring us to God. We come to Him by faith. Faith bridges the gap between what we can know and understand about God and enables us to place our Hope and Trust in Him.

Yet there are those today who like to think that they can and have unraveled the mystery of God. They existed in the time of Jesus as well. They thought they knew all about God. Our Lord, Jesus corrected as many as would open their hearts and minds to His teaching.

The Samaritan women at the well, whom Jesus taught that God was Spirit; the Jew Zacchaeus, who climbed the tree to get a look at Jesus and learned from his encounter with Christ that God was a forgiving God; the Pharisee Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night and was enlightened by the concept of the Holy Spirit and of new birth, to mention a few.

Each had their own view of God and the ways of God which Jesus set aright. Christ taught if you want to know God, what God is like, look at me, and know me. I and the Father are one. Yet the mystery that is God continues to baffle those who seek to know Him strictly from an intellectual view.

The Holy Trinity is revealed in both the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament the Trinity is revealed in subtle ways. In our first lesson from Genesis, the Trinity is evident in the creation of the world and mankind.  “Let us make man in our own image, in accordance with our likeness.”

In the New Testament, the Trinity is revealed fully and plainly beginning with the baptism of Jesus.  St. Paul concludes our Epistle reading this morning with a Trinitarian blessing evidence of the early church’s belief in the Triune God.

Our gospel reading concludes St. Matthew’s gospel with Jesus delivering the Great Commission. We are to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus our baptismal formula is in the name of the Triune God.

The Holy Trinity is one God in three persons. They are one God because they are one in essence or nature. The Father is the unbegotten fountainhead of deity. The Son is equally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the Helper and the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father. They operate out of complete unity out of one divine nature.

How the world, how our nation, how our society would be different today if we could all see something of God in each other, recognize it and acknowledge it, and live our lives accordingly. Or do we perhaps see Him? This we are promised.

For now we walk by faith, not by sight. Sight will come when the words of St. John are fulfilled: “Beloved, we are God’s children; but it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

The Holy Trinity is a community of love. Love manifests God, for God is love. God so loved the world that he sent his son to redeem it from sin and death by his sacrifice on the cross. Jesus taught that if we are to be his disciples we must learn to love one another as he loves us.

As we look at our society today there is not much love being shown. Rather, the opposite. We must assume that of all those people violently protesting in our nation’s streets that some must be professed Christians. Their actions, however, do not manifest love. There are even some church leaders who are allowing their politics to override their Christian faith by their words and actions.

If we truly love as Christ loves us, he promised that He and the Father would come and live in our hearts. If God lives in our hearts there can be no room for hate. Love manifests God. The Holy Spirit was sent by the Father to lead us and to guide us into all truth; to unite us in love to the Father and the Son and to one another regardless of race or politics.

What makes us one is more than a doctrine, more than a creed; it is God, in all of God’s fullness, power, and love. God shall be with you and in you Jesus said as he promised to send the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday we celebrated the anniversary of the Spirit’s descent upon the Church.

Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we enjoy a personal association and fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Spirit brings about our fellowship with Christ by establishing a mystic union. God is mystery. He is Spirit and He is Love.

In Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we who have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity have been called to live in communion with Him who is eternal - with God the Father who created us; with Jesus Christ who redeemed us, and with the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us.

The concept of the Holy Trinity remains a mystery. Our finite minds cannot take it all in. Yet, as St. Peter wrote in his first letter (3.8) “although we have not seen Him, we love Him. And even though we do not see Him now, we believe in Him.” This is the faith of baptism and the faith of eternal life, a faith based on love.

May God continue to give us the grace by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of His divine Majesty to worship the Unity.

And may He keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see Him in His one and eternal glory; O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. AMEN+