The God of Relationship Sends Us into the World

 Readings

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16 - 20.

Introduction: The Annual Terror of Trinity Sunday

There is a little joke among clergy that Trinity Sunday is the Sunday when preachers secretly hope for a power cut just before the sermon.

Because every year, someone expects us to explain the Trinity clearly in ten minutes, something theologians have struggled with for nearly two thousand years!

One priest once tried to explain the Trinity to children using an apple.
He said, “You see, God is like an apple: the skin, the flesh, and the core.”

A little girl raised her hand and said,
“So God is a fruit?”

Another priest tried water: ice, liquid, and steam.
After the service a retired chemistry teacher said,
“Father, that’s not the Trinity. That’s a change of states.”

Then there was the brave curate who preached for twenty-five minutes about the Trinity and proudly asked his churchwarden afterwards,
“Well, did it make sense?”

The churchwarden replied,
“Absolutely not. But it sounded very holy.”

And perhaps that is our difficulty today.
The Trinity is not a puzzle to be solved like a crossword.
It is not a mathematical problem where one plus one plus one equals one.

The Trinity is the Church’s attempt to describe the mystery of the God we have encountered:

• God above us, creating us,
• God beside us, saving us,
• God within us, sustaining us.

The Trinity is not about abstract theory.
It is about relationship, love, and mission.

And that leads us beautifully into today’s Gospel.

 Simplified Exegesis of the Texts

The Gospel: Matthew 28:16–20

This passage is often called The Great Commission.
It is the final scene in Matthew’s Gospel.

The disciples go to a mountain in Galilee where Jesus told them to meet him. In the Bible, mountains are often places where people encounter God:

• Moses received the Law on a mountain,
• Elijah heard God on a mountain,
• Jesus was transfigured on a mountain.

Now the risen Christ gathers his disciples on a mountain for one final moment.

Matthew tells us something very honest and human:

“When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.”

That sentence comforts me enormously.

These are not atheists.
These are disciples who have walked with Jesus for years.
They have seen miracles.
They have seen the resurrection.

And still some doubted.

Matthew reminds us that faith and doubt often sit together in the same heart.
You can worship and still have questions.
You can believe and still struggle.

And what does Jesus do with doubting disciples?

He sends them anyway.

He does not say,
“Come back when your theology is perfect.”

He says:

“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.”

This is one of the clearest Trinitarian moments in the New Testament.

Then Jesus gives the Church its mission:

• Go,
• make disciples,
• baptize,
• teach,
• and remember his presence.

And the final promise is beautiful:

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Trinity is not distant theology.
The Trinity is the living God who comes near.

 1 Corinthians 13:11–13 — A Trinitarian Blessing

Paul ends his letter with words we use so often in church:

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

Many scholars believe this is one of the earliest Trinitarian formulas in Christian worship.

Notice how practical it is:

• Grace,
• love,
• fellowship.

Not abstract speculation.

The Trinity is experienced in Christian life:

• the grace we receive from Christ,
• the love we know from the Father,
• the fellowship created by the Spirit.

 Early Trinitarian Confessions and the Creeds

Long before the Church wrote detailed theology books, Christians were already worshipping in Trinitarian language.

The earliest believers were baptised:

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The early Church prayed to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit.

Very quickly the Church realised something important:
if we get God wrong, we eventually get discipleship wrong too.

That is why the early creeds matter.

The Apostles’ Creed and later the Nicene Creed were not written to make worship complicated.
They were written to protect the truth of the Gospel.

Today, when we recite the Creed in church, we are joining our voices with Christians across centuries and continents:

• persecuted believers,
• saints,
• martyrs,
• ordinary worshippers.

The Creed reminds us that Christianity is not something we invent for ourselves.
We receive it faithfully from generation to generation.

Application to Mallorca

Now what does all this mean for us here in Mallorca?

We live in a remarkable place.

People come to Mallorca searching for many things:

• sunshine,
• rest,
• beauty,
• escape,
• healing,
• perhaps even a new beginning.

Some arrive exhausted from busy lives.
Some are lonely despite living in paradise.
Some carry grief quietly behind holiday smiles.

And into this world the Trinity sends the Church.

The Father calls us to care for creation in this beautiful island home.

The Son sends us outward in hospitality and compassion.

The Holy Spirit creates fellowship among people from many nations, languages, and cultures gathered here in Palma.

Our Anglican Chaplaincy itself is a small sign of the Trinity:
many people,
many stories,
yet one body in Christ.

The Trinity reminds us that life’s deepest reality is relationship:

• relationship with God,
• relationship with one another,
• relationship with creation.

Jesus still says to the Church:

“Go.”

Not necessarily across the world.
Sometimes simply across the street.

And he still promises:

“I am with you always.”

 

Conclusion

So on this Trinity Sunday, we do not gather to solve God like a puzzle.

We gather to worship the mystery of divine love:

• Father,
• Son,
• and Holy Spirit.

The God who creates us,
redeems us,
and walks with us still.

And this God sends us into the world,  even with our doubts, weaknesses, and questions,  to live as witnesses of grace, love, and fellowship.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.