A short homily for Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday, possibly the day that is least looked forward to by any preacher... How to explain something which is by definition a mystery? I'll keep my words brief this morning – one analogy, and one detail.

The analogy – consider the performance of a piece of music, where there is the composer of the music; there is the conductor of the music; and there are the musicians.

The composer is the Father, the one from whom all things come, the source of the music, the Creator.

The conductor is the Spirit, the one which animates and directs, prompts and provokes.

The musician is the Son, the embodiment of the music, the note made audible, the word made flesh.

We might say that God is the performed music, within which the composer the conductor and the musician are all related. And this is the detail: the crucial thing to understand about the Trinity is that it is a relationship – it is something experienced before it is understood. In just the same way as we are all formed by a relationship, with parents and friends, so too is God approached and understood through a relationship.

The doctrine of the trinity was developed fairly late on in the early church – a good few hundred years after the life of Jesus – because it was the only way to account for the experience of the early church itself in its life and worship. The relationship came first, and the doctrine is always playing catch-up.

So let me bring those two things together – the analogy and the detail.

The life and worship that we are called to is one in which we participate in the music – Christ is the embodiment of the music, the notes made audible – but we too are the Body of Christ, we are, you might say, the orchestra, and we all have different parts to play which contribute to the whole. We need to be in tune with the lead violin; we need to follow the promptings of the conductor; we need to pay close attention to the page. Our role might be to play different instruments; then again, it might be dancing to the music; or, it might simply be contemplating and appreciating the music.

The crucial thing is that we share in the relationship – it is when we do this, when we allow the music of God to direct our lives, that we enter into our inheritance as children of God and find the peace which the world cannot give, or, perhaps, the music that the world cannot play.

Amen