Trinity Sunday 2017

This week there’s been a fair amount of talk about chaos. We’ve had various rugby analysts discussing the merits or otherwise of chaos rugby and of course we’ve had the chaos of the general election and the uncertainty that has brought about in the country…

Today we commemorate Trinity Sunday and we reflect on God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we think of chaos we often think of uncertainty in a very negative sense… Some would think of our consideration of the Trinity as chaotic and confusing and in some ways of course the ways of God are unpredictable - but God can always be trusted… 

Our church calendar over recent times has shown this as we have reflected on the time when Jesus took his disciples to Jerusalem, a place where they all knew he would face arrest, and sure enough, he was arrested and killed… And if that was the end of the story then trusting God would be pointless and we would not be in this church today, but of course it wasn’t. 

Jesus was raised from the dead, appeared to the disciples and many others… These had been an incredible few days – a few days that highlighted the ever present love and power of God for each one of us… 

But the events took another dramatic turn as Jesus ascended into heaven and then the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to his followers. Adding to the love and power shown to us, we were now given responsibility and privilege – the privilege of serving and proclaiming God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

There’s a story about a girl in school one day – the teacher approached her and asked what she was drawing and the little girl replied, ‘I am drawing God’. ‘But’ said the teacher, ‘nobody knows what God looks like’ to which the child replied, ‘Well they will in a minute !’

For us, we have the huge challenge but incredible privilege of making sense of this loving and powerful God and sharing his love with others but we don’t do it alone… As the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said about mission, it ‘is finding out what God is doing and joining in with it.’

Our journey with God is a lifetime journey of discovery – discovering more about God and his love for us, discovering more about the power that he offers to us to live as he wants us to live, and discovering more about how we can share that message and that love with others…. 

One of the challenges facing the church today is change – most people don’t like change, but it’s inevitable – the church today, as the world today is a very different place from what it was even relatively recently.

Did you know that it was not until 1850 that our world reached the one billion population mark? But by 1930 we reached two billion, and it took only thirty more years for the world's population to reach three billion. We have now arrived at seven billion !

And did you know that until 1800 the top speed was twenty miles an hour as people travelled on horseback. With the arrival of the railways, almost overnight it jumped to 100 miles per hour. By 1952 the first passenger jet could travel 500 miles an hour. By 1979Concorde cruised at more than 1,200 miles an hour.

Change has been enormous in the world and to believe that many of our churches can look and act as they did 50 years ago is not realistic. And change can seem very good as well -  A man had lived out in the country all his life and one day went to a city where he saw a lift for the first time – he watched as an old, haggard woman hobbled on, and the doors closed. A few minutes later the doors opened and a young, attractive woman marched smartly off. Amazed at the transformation the father shouted to his son, "Billy, go and get your mother."

But anyway back to change, and there are certain unchanging principles that the church must be built on. We can trust God – he is in control, and he knows all about us, and loves us and wants to strengthen and inspire us. 

The Church must always be positive because we’re not in control ourselves – but we’re in God’s care, and that will never let us down. 

And apart from trust we learn another lesson from these readings today and that is to be a united and loving church. Churches are notorious places for moans and groans and gossiping and talking behind one another’s backs, and it seems it’s always been this way. 

Paul, when writing his second letter to the Corinthians (13:11-13) was appealing for the church to get together and to live in peace, so that it may be God’s love that shines out from the church and not anything else. Paul wrote some 2000 years ago, but his message remains as crucial now as it was then. 

The Church is a family united under God – a family that will be very different and will not always agree with each other, but a family bound together by the most powerful love imaginable – the love of God. 

And it is that love that Jesus appeals to us to go out and proclaim through our words and our actions in the gospel reading (Matt. 28:16-20). The ‘great commission’ as Jesus’ words have become known was an instruction to his early followers and to every follower since to go out and share the gospel message. 

And yet proclamation, speaking out about our faith, sharing good news with others is not something we find easy. There’s a story about a church treasurer who was ecstatic one day. “Look at this,” he yelled. 

“We just got a cheque here for £200,000.” 

“Who is it from?” asked the minister.
“Oh. Wait a minute,” said the treasurer, taking another look at the cheque. “It says, ‘You will notice that I have not signed the cheque, since I wish to remain anonymous.’”

Knowing Jesus is a gift worth far more than money can ever bring, and yet we so often choose to be quietly anonymous in our faith. We will justify it by saying that faith is a private thing, we will justify it by saying how we live is what’s really important, we will justify it by saying that we’re not good enough, that we won’t be able to say the right words, we will justify it in all kinds of ways….  But we can’t keep good news to ourselves, Jesus never gave us that option, and good news needs to be celebrated.

And that’s how it was with Jesus and his disciples. These men, commissioned by Jesus, were not scholars, they weren’t even particularly Godly in the traditional sense. They were normal workers, fisherman, tax collectors and so on, who responded to an incredible call. 

The rabbis of Jesus’ time sat and taught, but Jesus was a very different kind of teacher. He used words certainly, very powerfully, but he also went about doing things - not just talking about good news, but actually being good news. 

And as he continued this work, with his disciples there with him, he commissioned them to join him. And so these disciples were sent out. They’d talked with Jesus, they’d watched Jesus, but now they had to go and be Jesus.  

They were chosen, they were called… and we are chosen and we are called to be the church today. A church concerned with sharing the unchanging message of God’s love and salvation with all. 

And so we give thanks that amidst the chaos of the world today we can rely on the unchanging love and power of God who is in control… We give thanks to God the Father, for creation and for our part within it. We give thanks to God the Son for his work of salvation for us completed by the cross and his resurrection, and we give thanks for the Holy Spirit, and pray that we may be filled with that Spirit, so that with knowledge, faith, courage, joy and love we may know and share God’s transforming love and peace everywhere. AMEN