Date: June 9th & 12th
Preacher: Pastor Ashley Rosa-Ruggieri
First Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalmody: Psalm 8
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-5
Gospel: John 16:12-15
We are going to start today with a little bit of congregational participation. And for those joining at home over the live stream, you can still participate I just cannot see you! So, I am going to name some items, and if you know what that item is AND understand it enough to fully explain it, raise your hand. Okay, here are the items: a three-leaf clover, water, a triangle, an egg, a person who has multiple types of relationships (parent, sibling, etc.), Neapolitan ice cream, okay, and the last one, the Holy Trinity.
Those items that I just listed before are all ways that humanity has attempted to understand the Holy Trinity through human concepts. Many of those who came up with these explanations in the early church were dismissed in these thoughts, going so far as to make many of them heresies when it comes to how we describe the Trinity. This all means that today, we really recognize that the Trinity itself is a concept beyond human description or full recognition. It is a divine mystery that we can find ways of explaining only as much as we also acknowledge that whatever example we give can never be a perfect explanation. In current day, we do not dismiss people as easily as heretics when they are trying to explain such a mysterious and difficult concept, and so today, I am going to use my favorite way to talk about and explain the Trinity. My favorite is: Neapolitan ice cream.
So, picture a tub of Neapolitan ice cream. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. If I take a spoon, and dig out a scoop of the ice cream, what ice cream do I have a scoop of? Who said Neapolitan? Okay…now, what if I said that the spoon ONLY dipped into the chocolate section? What ice cream do I have a scoop of? Who said Neapolitan? Who says chocolate? Okay, now we are going to say the Neapolitan is the Holy Trinity, chocolate is God the Father, Strawberry is God the Son, and Vanilla is God the Holy Spirit. Okay? Still with me?
So, in this same way as a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream can be both considered Neapolitan and chocolate, when we talk about the love of God or about God walking with us, we are both talking about the triune God, three-in-one, and about whatever person of the Trinity we are talking about. God the Father walks with us, God the Son walks with us, God the Holy Spirit walks with us, and three-in-one, the Trinity walks with us. All parts Neapolitan ice cream but also individual essences in their flavors.
Okay, now going through that explanation of the Trinity was fun, but perhaps some of you are asking yourselves, why are we even talking about this? Why does the Trinity matter? The word Trinity is not in our Bibles, though we certainly have places mention the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so what does this concept have to do with our faith? To answer that, I would say that the theological belief that we share as Christians about the Trinity was established by the early church, through many years and councils and conversations. And so, in some ways, acknowledging the Trinity in our faith today, we are joining with our forebearers of Christianity.
Though the Trinity may be confusing and mysterious, there is an aspect of connecting with the saints who have gone before us when we discuss topics that the church spent YEARS talking about amongst themselves. Our reading today from Romans reminds us that it is through Jesus that we have received grace, and so whether we understand or believe everything just right or not, nothing can take away the grace that has been gifted to us through God. Our faith does not depend on understanding the Trinity. Still, our faith can be enhanced by the communal belief that comes from acknowledging and talking about the Trinity.
The Trinity will almost certainly never be a concept that is easy to understand or explain. And although we have this special Sunday each year to remember the mysteries and sacredness of the Holy Trinity, it is Good News to know that our salvation is not based on our ability to comprehend the Trinity. Though a part of the historical church and an acknowledgement of how complex our God truly is, the Trinity is never something that can get in the way of how each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—loves and accompanies us. What we do with that love and grace poured out on us by the Trinity is our call to the Gospel in the world.
Today after worship we will have our first Trinity Ice Cream Sundae event downstairs, something I am hoping can become an annual event. Though this event is fun because of our congregation being Trinity and it being Trinity Sunday, along with an ice cream sundae, so there is fun wordplay, and there will be Neapolitan ice cream to remind us of one way to try and comprehend the Trinity, these are not the only reasons this event is a great opportunity to be together as the church. All of these are great parts of this event, but the event is also about recognizing a need in our community and supporting it as Christ’s followers in this world. This year donations gifted during this event will go to Marc, helping with medical and living expenses, and if we do this event every year, there are so many possibilities for how we can impact our community in a way that recognizes the face of God, the face of the Trinity, in our neighbor. And so, I urge you not to forget that today. As we contemplate the Trinity, as we share ice cream together and gather donations to support our neighbor, may we remember that no matter how good of an understanding we have of the Trinity, the love, grace, and mercy of God has been abundantly shared with us already, and urges us to do the same with our neighbor. May we follow God in this journey, seizing all our opportunities to serve our neighbor and support our community. Thanks be to God, the Holy Trinity, three-in-one.