Trinity Sunday

GOD PRAYING THROUGH ME

Trinity Sunday 4 June, 2023

St Bene’t’s and Corpus Christi College 8am and 10am

The Reverend Matthew Bullimore, Chaplain, Corpus Christi College

2 Cor 13.11–13; Matthew 28.16–20

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Think of some of the groups you are in. What societies, clubs, communions, companies you are in.

I can say I am in the Bullimore family. I am in the Church of England. I am in the Fellowship of Corpus. Which is not quite Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, unless it’s the ringing of the dinner bell. That gets them moving.

There are groups we find ourselves in. And you will have noticed me belabouring the word ‘in’.

We heard earlier the great commission: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And we have an ‘in’ there – baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Which doesn’t have the sense of on behalf of. As in open up in the name of the law. There is something more inclusive about this ‘in’; a gathering ‘in’. Which is the case in most of the New Testament.

As in – we are ‘in Christ’ or we do things ‘in the Spirit’. There is a sense of belonging, of incorporation.

The baptism formula – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – is perhaps the earliest Trinitarian formula. Right from the outset it is about relationship. That God is somehow one and yet is also relationship – and at baptism we are drawn into that relationship. We are both given a name at baptism – our Christian name – and yet also drawn into a name, the name of a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A name, of course, designates a who – and who God is, is nothing other than a communion in which we encounter three whos who are yet indivisible and one.

And it’s quite a communion to join in with. For Paul this is the God of love and peace – both the giver of love and peace – but this also the very nature of three who-ed God. He is love. Is peace. And it is into this God that we find ourselves drawn. So there’s no better benediction, that Paul can find, than to say to his friends:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

But let’s go slowly, because too much Trinitarian theology too quickly begins to make us feel like we’ve had too much cheese before bedtime.

What does this incorporation look like? And for that let’s turn to Paul again but, this time, in his letter to the Romans, where we hear how the Spirit prays in us, prays through us. First, Paul notes that when we’re able to call God ‘Father’ as does Jesus, then it is God’s Spirit working in us with our spirit:

When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God (8.15–16).

And then Paul, knowing the frailty of our prayers, reminds us that the Spirit is praying through us, searching our hearts, speaking to the Father for us in a whisper too profound to hear:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (8.26–27).

And what’s so remarkable about this is that God is praying to Godself in you. The Spirit searches the hearts of those who are called to be members of the body of Christ. The Spirit prays what we need to pray even when we cannot. The Spirit gathers up our innermost prayers. The Spirit responds to the Father through the body of the Son, which is us.

Which is to say that the eternal prayer of those three whos, their call and response, their giving, receiving and giving back, is all at work in you. Right now.

God is answering Godself and making us part of the answer.

The Father gives all he has and all that he is to the Son. The Son is a perfect image of the Father. And the Son’s loving response is to offer it all back to the Father in thanksgiving. And yet both the Father and the Son offer one another the gift of another who, the Spirit, who opens up this conversation as the third. God is not some eternal double act – like putting a mirror in front of a mirror, but something more open, dynamic, creative – because it is now a communion of three whos. Imagine moving those two mirrors outward and seeing an infinite number of images.

But who you are and who I am, and who we are, is to be found in that relationship.

At Pentecost the Spirit who was sent to rest upon Jesus during his ministry now continues to rest upon his body, the Church. And the Spirit prays through the Church; prays in us, with us.

So as Jesus makes his loving response to the Father through the Spirit we find that somehow we have become part of the response. We are members of Christ’s body, through whom the Spirit prays.

Which means the voice of Jesus, through the Spirit, includes your voice too and my voice. Isn’t that amazing? We truly are in the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – drawn up, even in our frailty – into that eternal relationship. God is answering Godself and making us part of the answer.

Which is why we can, with Jesus, pray to Our Father, all our voices in all their difference becoming One.

So what that looks like is a people, in Jesus, and living in the power of the Spirit – praying Our Father. A people who live in this world hallowing God’s name, who seek the coming of the Kingdom, who desire to see God’s will done, who joyfully and thankfully receive all that is needful, who forgive and receive forgiveness, who deliver their neighbours from evil. We have become Good News because we are in God and God is in us.

The Trinity, if you like, is God answering God and making us part of the answer. And he makes us part of the answer even as we dwell in the world – making us, amazingly and astonishingly – Good News for a needy world.

Amen.

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