Clergy from left, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Rector, Trinity on the Hill, Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired; Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com
By Pastor Nicolé Raddu Ferry
Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church
Happy Holy Trinity Sunday! Wait. What? Pastor Deb Beloved shared last week that many of our churches were celebrating Pentecost, and we focused on being under the influence of the Spirit. Holy Spirit, that is 😊. And to continue the theme of being bewildered this week, many of our churches will focus on the Holy Trinity.
The concept of the Trinity is the belief that the one God—described in ancient texts that we hold as the Bible—eternally exists in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With this, we believe that these three are one God, co-equal and co-eternal, having precisely the same nature and attributes. All three worthy of precisely the same worship, confidence, and obedience.
And yet, dear ones, to think we will ever fully understand the Trinity is to make the mistake of thinking God is fully understandable. Au contraire! God is infinite. God is beyond us. Trying to “fully understand” God is like a 2‑year‑old trying to fully “understand” the complexities of relationships, marriage, and parenting. Good luck with that! Those of us with full frontal cortexes still struggle with those complexities.
There will always be some level of mystery to the Trinity, but when you talk about the being/nature/essence as “God” and the persons/expressions as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”, I think we get at least a little bit closer to beginning a comprehension of something we can never truly comprehend.
Believe it or not, the fact that God is too immense for our finite minds should be comforting, not discouraging! After all, as I have said many times (to myself as much as to others!) … God is big. Really big. God is a mystery we will not “solve”. God is God, and I am not. This does not mean we need to check our brains at any door of worship that we enter. Instead, it invites us to give ourselves grace when we cannot understand all of the mysteries of God.
The image that I kept thinking about this week with the Holy Trinity has two aspects of our understanding of the mystery of God in faith: the relations of the persons of the Trinity, and their unity of being. Relationship and Unity of being. Honestly, I think that is what many of us strive for in community. Is it perfect? Nope. Do we agree each and every time? Not at all.
And yet, we gather in our churches. We gather to study this ancient scripture that often has words which resonate so strongly with our collective life together TODAY. We gather to share from what we have been given in abundance to those whose life journey does not have that abundance. We gather to pray, knowing that prayers may be answered differently than we think or expect, AND YET those for whom we pray know they are not alone. They are in relationship. They are being held in a mysterious way. We gather to worship this mysterious God whom we can name as a triad of love. A going out in love. A return in love. And thus, ever more, love itself.
So, join us in mysterious and wonderful ways. Come and be curious. Come to learn about relationships (in all their many ways), and come to learn about God’s love.
Amen and amen.
Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a column written by local women clergy including ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org); Pastor Deb Church, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com) and The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Rector, Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church (momaryannhill@gmail.com).
