You know, every Holy Trinity Sunday comes, and the words of Jesus cut to the quick, because there’s a small part of me that gets imposter syndrome this weekend. If you’re not familiar, this is the Sunday where we recognize and celebrate the nature of God as God in three persons, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And most pastors I know have at least a little trouble explaining what it means that God is Triune. I mean, we all know it has something to do with relationships – between God and people and in the nature of God Godself. But getting in to the weeds gives me two problems; first, some things truly are contained in the realm of divine mystery, and simple mathematics don’t work to explain how one plus one plus one can equal one, and every analogy that people have come up with from the beginning of Christianity falls a little short, and second, even if I could explain the Holy Trinity well, I’m not nearly charismatic enough to make this especially interesting.
So Jesus’ words to Nicodemus that we hear today sound as if they could be spoken to me as well, because Sundays like this give me just a little imposter syndrome. Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Substitute “teacher of Israel” with “certified Master of Divinity,” and you’ve got me pegged. Because to understand the divine is beyond our humanity, and truth be told, when you know you’ll never completely understand, there’s a temptation to simply throw up our hands and say, “well, it’s a mystery, so might as well just accept it and move on.” But this mystery has a point. The fact that we have come to recognize God revealed in these three different expressions matters. Because even if we don’t fully understand the nature of the Trinity, what has been revealed to us tells us so much about who God is, and who we are as God’s beloved children.
And the first thing to know about the Trinity is that the Holy Trinity is all about relationships. As we are in relationship with each other, so God is in relationship with God – which is a confusing thing to say. But we know this to be true because Jesus – true God – also reveals himself as the Son of God, who prays to the Father, and who sends the Holy Spirit to be among the faithful. And in this way, we are reminded that relationship is at the very center of who God is, which makes the following truth all the more important. Just as God is in relationship with God, God seeks relationship with us, who God the Father made in the image of God. When we were made in the image of God, God declared us very good, and we were invited into the fullness of relationship with God. In fact, as God created us and loves us, the Trinity is evidence of how much God truly, deeply seeks relationship with us.
From the beginning of creation, as humanity began to realize it had been set apart from the rest of creation, God reveals God’s creating power as God the Father. And in God’s authority as the Father, God seeks to remind people of who created them, and what they are created for. And as God calls people into relationship with their creator, God reveals there is more than just authority and might – there is also deep, abiding love. And that is how man of us experience the Son of God, Jesus Christ, sent down to live among us. God loves us so deeply that God sends Jesus to walk alongside us and show us true obedience and love, and in his dying shares the deepness of the relationship of love that God has to offer all of us. And then, as Jesus was God who loves us come down to Earth, the Holy Spirit, the one who binds us together in relationship and helps us to see God in one another comes and guides us. It is through this Holy Spirit that our community deepens. It is the Holy Spirit that seeks to reveal God’s love to us. And in these things being revealed we more fully understand just a little bit of who God is.
Now, at this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “All well and good, Pastor Chris – but we know God created and loves us. Why does it matter how exactly that happens?” It matters because to know how deeply God loves us gives us a glimpse of how we are called to love one another. Because as we know we are deeply loved – so much so that all of who God is seeks to be in relationship with us – we know that God also loves our neighbor in that same way. And if God loves our neighbor, so we too are called to love that neighbor as well. Even when we don’t especially like them very much.
So that makes me ask the question – how do we try to live into deeper relationship with the people in our lives? How do we encounter people who aren’t like us and still know them for who they are, and see them as beloved children of God? I think it starts with a willingness to be curious – to be willing to be with people and simply walk alongside them. Jesus spent a lot of time with people who were curious. Nicodemus was curious. His disciples were curious. And while Nicodemus came at night to ask the hard questions – and Jesus was open to answering them – the disciples simply followed and learned from him. There are times and places for both approaches. But the key, I think, is to always seek to know who somebody is more deeply. And in knowing the neighbor more deeply, we may begin to witness a corner of the divine we never expected to find. Because we who are made in God’s image are indeed invited to see God in our neighbor. And when we seek God in the unexpected places of our neighbor who doesn’t look or act the same as us, we may find that we experience some of the depth of the relationship that God seeks in us – through the blessing of the divine dance of the Trinity, who loves us, and seeks us out, and teaches us to love and seek one another.