The Trinity: Kooky or True?

Sermon 397 St. Martin’s 152 6/15/25

Canticle 13

Song of the Three Young Men, 29-34

Glory to you, Lord God of our fathers; you are worthy of praise; glory to you.

Glory to you for the radiance of your holy Name; we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Glory to you in the splendor of your temple; on the throne of your majesty, glory to you.

Glory to you, seated between the Cherubim; we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Glory to you, beholding the depths; in the high vault of heaven, glory to you.

Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.

Mormon Classroom

Back in high school, I was like every teenager who was searching to make faith their own. I was grateful for the faith handed down to me by my parents, but I went on a journey of testing the core Christian beliefs and looking into other religions.

One morning, I decided to go early to school to attend a small group meeting, hosted by the Latter-Day Saints. A buddy of mine, who was LDS, had been inviting me for weeks, and I finally gave in.

There were only a few kids in the classroom when I got there (all of whom were Mormon), along with an adult volunteer. I don’t remember much of what was said that morning, but I do remember the confused expression on all the students’ faces when the teacher asked them to explain what Mormons believe about souls before people are born.

The room fell silent. The teacher said, “You all know this. Come on, someone speak up.” The students still looked puzzled, and I was bewildered.

She then said, “Now remember, as Latter-Day Saints, we believe we were spirit-children before we were born on earth. We were like balls of light that have always existed, and we now live in these temporary bodies.”

And with a stern look on her face, she said, “Y’all need to remember this, it’s an important part of our faith.”

The kids around me weren’t nodding in agreement; they had absolutely no idea what their church taught, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t buying it. If I had taken a poll right then and there, they might’ve all agreed with me that “being a ball of light” sounded a bit kooky.

Now, I’m a bit afraid that if we got a small group of Christians together and asked them to describe the Trinity, we’d likely have a good number of people with a confused expression on their faces, not knowing where to begin.

It’s one thing to look at other belief systems and comment on how strange they are; it’s another thing to dig into what we as Christians believe and feel confident that it is true.

Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday, and there are plenty of people who think that we are pretty kooky for claiming that God is One and yet somehow Three.

What Christians claim about the nature of God seems not only implausible but downright silly. It is illogical to say something is three and yet one—clearly, Christians haven’t mastered the simple art of addition. 1+1+1 does not equal 1.

But today, I want us to walk out of this place confident in what we proclaim to be true, and for that to happen, we sometimes need to be reminded of what it actually means to be a monotheist and a Trinitarian.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have used images and metaphors to help describe the Trinity. St. Patrick taught the Irish by showing them how a shamrock had three leaves and yet was one.

Others have likened the Trinity’s unity and multiplicity to a tree’s root, trunk, and branch, which are separate, yet made of one substance. St. Augustine described the Trinity as the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love that binds them.

I’ve done a lot of research for this sermon and read some really deep, philosophical books. None more complex than Will I be Fat in Heaven? And other Curious Questions…(I mean, will we be fat in heaven? It’s a good question.)

The author helps explain the Trinity this way: “God is one in what he is but three in who he is.” Of course, the math doesn’t line up if we try to say the Trinity is 1+1+1=1. It’s more like 1x1x1=1. They are three and yet one. One and yet three. 

We are better off spending our time with poets, theologians, and philosophers when talking about the Trinity than with mathematicians.

All of these examples can be helpful, but each of them has its limits. When we begin speaking of the One True God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are at the very edge of our human comprehension. We can see the ledge, and past it, faith rather than reason is our primary guide, because ultimately, the Trinity is a holy mystery.

And we aren’t using the word “mystery” as a get-out-of-jail-free card when we can’t explain something. We use this term to show that humanity’s knowledge only goes so far. When considering that which is eternal and holy, our finite minds are grasping at something far beyond ourselves.

For Christians throughout the centuries, the mystery of the Trinity is not to be explained away, but rather it is something to be invited into. It leads us deeper into the nature of God, who is so Wholly Other.

We cannot—and we dare not—explain away the glory and majesty and wonder of God, who created all things, sustains all things, and, as the Bible says, shrouds himself in thick darkness and inaccessible light.[2]

As the Canticle we just read reminds us, there is a radiance to God’s holy Name, and from the majesty of the eternal throne, he beholds the depths and the high vault of heaven.[3]

If God created this complex world where even scientists and doctors many times scratch their heads at its unfathomable complexity, why on earth would we think the inner workings of God would be simple or self-evident?

People will push back against the validity of the Trinity because it is hard for them to understand. “It can’t possibly be true if you can’t easily explain it,” some have said. But get experts talking about the universe on a micro or macro scale, and they start grasping for words and images, like any Sunday school teacher talking about the Trinity.

As Paul wrote, “We see through a mirror dimly.” With a major emphasis on dimly, but we can see—our eyes have been opened to something: we know it’s there because it has been revealed to us, though we cannot fully grasp the immensity of it.

For us who believe that there is more to life than what meets the eye, there is an important difference between something that is kooky compared to a mystery that is true. The way we discern the difference is through revelation (not the book but the act of revelation). What has God revealed about himself through Scripture and, most importantly, through Jesus?

For people of faith, we cannot stand on firmer ground than that. Though the word “Trinity” cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, the three persons of the Trinity are everywhere.

We see God the Father on almost every page of the Bible. We see God the Son walking among his people, living and even dying as one of us (and then rising for us), and all the while, he prays to his “Father who art in heaven.” He prays that we may be one as he and the Father are one.

And then we saw last week, God the Spirit descend on the disciples. Jesus promised that he would send the Advocate once he was gone. The promise was fulfilled, and we are now Temples of the Holy Spirit, and forever linked to the life of the Godhead.

The whole story of salvation has a Trinitarian shape to it. In all things, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at work together, in unison of will, purpose, and action. We so often focus on their three-ness that we lose the importance of their one-ness. They are a Tri-unity after all.

They are not three separate individuals or agents, and we dare not say they are three gods. They do not possess character traits or distinct personalities on their own, and they do not have an existence outside of the Divine Life of the Trinity. 

We, as feeble creatures trying to grasp our infinite Creator, appropriate distinct roles and properties to the Eternal Persons—we see the Trinity from the outside, and try to describe them as best we can, as clearly as they have revealed themselves to us, but we are still left grasping for words and images that are at best, approximations of the infinitely holy.[4]   

One scholar put it this way, “[The people of God] worship a God who is Personal, Bounded, and Concrete and who is Invisible, Imageless, and Holy Immaterial. The task of a dogma of the Holy Trinity is to attempt to think this thought, the Bounded Infinite Living God.”[5]

The Bounded Infinite Living God. As I said, we are in the world of theologians, philosophers, and poets as we try to grasp this God who is three and yet one; hidden and yet, for our sake, has chosen to be revealed to that which he created.

Belief in the Holy Trinity is only kooky if we don’t hold Scripture to be authoritative. What the Bible has shown, and what Jesus has said, gives us confidence that this divine mystery is, in fact, true, and from them pours forth pure and unadulterated goodness, beauty, and truth.

But what do we do with this knowledge, this revelation of God?

Augustine

There’s a story about St. Augustine, who was trying to wrap his mind around this baffling idea. He desperately wanted to understand this doctrine so that he could explain it logically to others. If he could just explain it plainly, then more people would accept it as true, he thought.

One day, he was walking along the seashore reflecting on this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little child alone on the shore. She had made a hole in the sand and was running to the ocean with a little cup; she’d fill it with water and run back to pour it into the hole.

Back and forth she went, filling and emptying, filling and emptying. Finally, Augustine went up to her and said, “Child, what are you doing?”

She replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.”

“How do you think that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?” he asked her.  

She answered back, “And you, how do you suppose that with your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?” And with that, the little girl ran off.

Conclusion Like Augustine, we’re left speechless, somewhat ill-equipped as we reckon with the truth that we are finite beings trying to grapple with the infinite. Or better yet, we have small heads and a big God. 

And so, the first order of business for a Christian is simply to bask in the glory of One who is infinitely greater than us. There is nothing for us to do other than behold that which is Wholly Other.  

The second order of business is to recognize that this Eternal God has acted in time and space, not only to create us but to go as far as to save us from ourselves.

He has entered the story he wrote, and become the great hero through the death, resurrection, and ascension of the second person of the Trinity. This God is intimately close, and he has acted in such a bold manner because of his great love for us.

There is so much we don’t know, but what we do know is that God is love and his actions are motivated by his endless supply of love.

As 1st John says, “Love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”[6]

We are witnesses to God’s actions in this world, we are beneficiaries of his love, and so, the only appropriate response after beholding his Holy Otherness, yet also seeing how he acts on behalf of his creation, is for us to worship him as the holy-loving God he is. If there was anything or anyone worthy of our adoration, our heart, our soul, our everything, it is the Triune God. 

I think St. Augustine would agree with me that this immense reality that we cannot fully grasp should lead us to worship with joy and gladness because we at least know we are loved by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

They have shared their divine love with us, and we are caught up in their eternal love story. We partake in this mode of being most perfectly while we actively worship, because it is here, in this place, among these people, that we learn who we are by discovering whom we worship.

My friends, there is nothing left for us to do but worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.[7] O come, let us adore him.

[1] Will I Be Fat in Heaven? J. John pg. 44

[2] Psalm 18:11; Psalm 104:2.

[3] Canticle 13, Song of the Three Men, 29-34

[4] Based on Systematic Theology V. 2 Katherine Sonderegger

[5] Systematic Theology V. 2 Katherine Sonderegger p. 540

[6] 1 John 4:7-10

[7] Psalm 96:9