Sermon 7 July 2023 in three persons, coequal, coeternal, consubstantial, all alike in dignity

and each eternal, yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.”
Matthew 28:16-20
28:16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to And Jesus said, “You what?”
which Jesus had directed them.
28:17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. If you follow the church calendar, you’ll know that last Sunday, the
28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in Sunday following Pentecost, was Trinity Sunday. It’s a day when,
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, traditionally, the curate of the church, or some other gullible numpty is
28:20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded given the job of preaching, because the vicar doesn’t want to be burnt
you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." at the stake for saying something heretical about the Trinity. Which is
pretty much guaranteed, whatever you say.

Now we don’t follow the lectionary readings in the Sunday services, so

Loving Lord,
[Andrew] is safe from being called the church numpty. But we do follow
May my spoken words
the lectionary on the Wednesdays. And today we have the readings for
illuminate your written word
Trinity Sunday. And they’ve asked me to preach. I leave you to draw
and bring us to your living word,
your own conclusions.
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. Now I’m telling right off the bat that I’m not going to speak about the
Trinity today. I’m not going to try to explain the unexplainable, that’s
way above my paygrade. And I’m certainly not going to try some
If Peter’s other name had been Athanasius, instead of Simon illustration like ice, water and steam, being different and yet still all
H2O.
Jesus asked his disciples, “Whom do people say that I am?”
Apart from the fact that there is also plasma, a fourth state of matter,
And they answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from
which completely banjxes Trinity, the ice, water, steam analogy also
the dead; others say Elijah, or another of the prophets.”
borders on tritheism or some other heresy and in fact, hark, do I can
And Jesus said, “But whom do you say that I am?” hear people stacking bundles of wood in the car park right now?

And Simon answered him saying, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of God. And to make matters worse, there’s also a fifth state of matter, the
And by God I mean God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. For the Father is Bose-Einstein Condensate which, to be frank, I don’t understand at all.
God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not But that’s OK. The fact that I can’t explain it doesn’t stop it being true.
three Gods, but one God, one in essence, and indivisible, yet revealed
As the great Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning Physicist, is widely
quoted as saying, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics,
you don't understand quantum mechanics." I have sat through many And so the disciples go. And so they see. But just as with the
hours of undergrad physics lectures and I can safely say that I don’t resurrection appearances by the tomb, on the road to Emmaus, at the
understand quantum mechanics. But my phone, which requires beach, in the room, some of the people who encounter Jesus have a
quantum tunnelling to work, seems to function perfectly well despite little difficulty getting their heads round it. “They worshiped him”, says
my inability to explain how. Ditto my computer, TV, washing machine, Matthew, “but some doubted.” It’s an interesting word, doubt. It
car, clock, or any of the hundred devices in my home and yours which occurs a few times in the New Testament and there are different words
have transistors in. for it.

If one accepts the weirdness of quantum mechanics, all those handy In Luke 24, just after the road to Emmaus episode, “Jesus himself stood
devices work properly. If I were to reject quantum mechanics on the among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled
basis that it won’t fit inside my tiny brain, then a) that’s a really bad and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And Jesus said to them,
reason for rejecting something, making my intellect the arbiter of all “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”
truth, and b) my phone would stop working, which would be a pain. Doubts there is διαλογισμός-dialogismos - intellectual doubts. Some in
The fact that I can’t explain quantum tunnelling doesn’t stop it being the room were not convinced it was actually Jesus. They thought they
true. were seeing a ghost, perhaps.

And just as quantum mechanics is invisible in our macro world, yet is But that’s not what Matthew is talking about in our passage. It wasn’t
the underlying cause of how things work, so it is with Trinity. The that some worshipped but some had intellectual concerns about who
sainted Ian Paul, former Dean of Studies at St John’s Theological this was. They knew it was Jesus. But they were perhaps unsure what to
College, said of Trinity that it is “not so much taught in Scripture … but do about it. The word for doubt that Matthew uses is διστάζω-distazo.
the doctrine underlying all of Scripture, without which Scripture does It means to waver, to be in two minds, to hop from one foot to the
not make sense.” other, unsure which way to go. Matthew uses it here and in chapter 14,
when Peter walks in the water: “Jesus immediately reached out his
The fact that I can’t explain Trinity doesn’t stop it being true. So I’m not hand and took hold of Peter, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why
going to attempt to reduce God to a clover leaf, or three out of the five did you doubt?” Peter was doing fine while he kept his eyes on Jesus.
known states of matter, or me as mum and daughter and sister. In fact, But when he looked at the water and the waves, he ἐδίστασας-
I’m quitting this topic now before they stack the kindling in the car edistasas. He wavered. He was in two minds. He wasn’t sure what to
park any higher. do. And he sank.

And so to our passage. It was like that time when Peter was up another mountain, with James
and John, and again, he had trouble getting his head round things. The
Matthew chapter 28 starts with the resurrection. “After the Sabbath, at blinding glory probably didn’t help. Peter wasn’t sure what to do. He
dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary offered to build Portacabins for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Bless him.
went to look at the tomb.” And most of the chapter is taken up with Always blurting out the first thing that came into his head. It was all a
their to-ings and fro-ings and Jesus telling them, “Do not be afraid. Go bit confusing, really.
and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
And so back to chapter 28. Jesus has been buried, but has come back to And then he says, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of
life and told his disciples to meet him in the Galilean hills. They went the age,” and I’m back on the first foot again. Oh well, I suppose if you
and they worshipped, but some δίστασαν-distasan. They wavered. put it like that, I can’t really turn down such an offer, can I?
They hesitated. They didn’t know what to do about this. It was all a bit
confusing, really. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe. They just didn’t Can I? That foot. No, no I can’t. This foot.
know what to do with that belief. What was Jesus expecting of them?
So that’s me, wavering. Not wavering in belief - I’m sure and trust in
This wasn’t like the previous three years. That had been fine: Rabbi, Jesus - but wavering about myself. What is it God wants me to do? How
disciples. They knew where they were with that. He walked and taught, am I supposed to make disciples of all nations? “Go therefore …” Go
they followed and listened. All well and good. Standard way for a nice where?
Jewish boy to learn.
Perhaps I can get a clue from one of the other gospel writers. Luke
But what now? Jesus wasn’t carrying on with his teaching and healing fleshes out Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when
ministry. It wasn’t like that anymore. But the disciples weren’t going the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in
back to life before they’d met Jesus. It wasn’t like that either. There Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
was, to use a phrase from lockdown, a New Normal, and they weren’t
sure what it was. So they wavered, they hopped from one foot to the We start in Jerusalem. We start where we are. We live lives to God’s
other, unsure which way to go. glory in our everyday. ‘Bloom where you are planted,’ they say, or in
Peter’s words, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though
Jesus’ next words didn’t help much. “All authority in heaven and on they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and
earth has been given to me,” he said, “Therefore go.”
glorify God on the day he visits us.” 1 Peter 2:12
I don’t know about you, but these last words of the earthly Jesus make
But we look beyond our borders too. To Judea, people like us. And
me διστάζω-distazo a bit, they make me waver. The first part is fine.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” he said, Samaria, people not like us, and the ends of the earth. I don’t know
and I nod and go, Yes, yes. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on what Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth look like for you. It’s not
earth. Great. Firmly on this foot. my business to tell you what to do. That’s between you and God.

Then he says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” and I’m But this call, this Great Commission, is for all of us, for we are part of
a bit, Oh. You want me to go and make disciples? How exactly? Shift to that long chain of disciples stretching right back to the original 11, and
other foot. “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son we are part of the chain reaching into the future, and Jesus is with us
and of the Holy Spirit,” OK, I get that bit. First foot again. “… and always, to the very end of the age.
teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Amen.
Goodness, that’s a huge responsibility. I think you might want someone
better qualified. Other foot.