This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. I can just hear some people in our church snidely saying, “Shouldn’t every Sunday be Trinity Sunday?” Well, yes, but this is a day to focus specifically on the Trinity, or as I prefer to think of it, Triunity. Per our Episcopal Dictionary1,

Celebration of Trinity Sunday was approved for the western church by Pope John XXII in 1334. This feast is associated with Thomas Becket (c. 1118-1170), who was consecrated bishop on Trinity Sunday, 1162. His martyrdom may have influenced the popularity of the feast in England and the custom of naming the remaining Sundays of the church year “Sundays after Trinity.” The Sarum Missal and editions of the Prayer Book through the 1928 BCP named these Sundays the Sundays after Trinity. The 1979 BCP identifies this portion of the church year as the season after Pentecost, and names these Sundays the Sundays after Pentecost (see BCP, p. 32).

Well I was sure wrong. I thought it was a more recent (by recent I mean in the last 300 years) development, almost like a Hallmark holiday. But its development has a history, one strengthened by what happened to Thomas Becket at the Canterbury Cathedral (I hate to share more vacation pictures like the one’s in my St. Augustine post, but I do have them of the altar where he was martyred and happy to share).

The texts for Sunday are: Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, and Matthew 28:16-20.

I typically don’t spend much time on the Genesis text in my sermon for this day since it requires more explanation (and not too many people want to hear a grammar lesson) than time permits in a sermon. The “Let us . . .” in Genesis 1 is viewed by some that God means by “us” the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Other scholars reason that God is speaking of the heavenly court and its inhabitants rather than the Trinity. And some commentators think it is a “royal we,”used by the author, referring to we in the grammatical sense of a “plural majesty.” There are other interpretations, but these are the primary ones I remember from seminary. I’m not sure that it makes a big difference, as the Trinity, though not a word used in the Bible, is found throughout it. The other texts for Sunday are examples of that.

In Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 13:11-13) he ends his letter with a Trinitarian blessing: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (I love that Paul used the Oxford comma :)) His blessing is a fitting end to the letter since much of it addressed some relationship issues within the Corinthian church. Perhaps Paul wants the triunity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be the last thing they hear from him about how they were to live in that same kind of unity/community with each other.

The text from Matthew’s gospel is also at the end, in chapter 28. Jesus met with the disciples one last time after his resurrection to authorize and commission them to do the work of the church—to go into all the world making disciples by baptizing them and teaching them to follow what Jesus said and did. The Trinitarian reference here is in how he called them to baptize, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew, like Paul in his second letter to the church at Corinth, wanted his audience to read and hear those words as they finished his gospel, emphasizing the importance of baptizing people into the communion of God; as members of that community forever.

This year, I’ll do more of a homily using all the texts, perhaps even the psalm, which I did not address here in this post.

How will you prepare to preach or hear these texts this Sunday?

O Lord our God, who by your Son Jesus Christ called your servant Augustine to preach the Gospel to the English people: We pray that all whom you call and send may do your will, bide your time, and see your glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

When I visited Canterbury last summer (I shared a few of my pictures below), I did some reading about its history, which would not have been nearly as significant without the arrival of St. Augustine. Sent by Pope Gregory I to convert the Anglo-Saxons in England to Christianity, Augustine—a monk and prior of his monastery—landed in Kent in 597.

One of the first things he did was send messengers to King Æthelberht to announce his arrival and seek a meeting with him. Augustine and the forty or so monks who accompanied him then made a procession toward the king. Henry Offley Wakeman, in An Introduction to the History of the Church of England, described it this way:

At its (the procession’s) head was carried a large silver cross, and by the side of the cross a picture of Christ Crucified, painted on wood. Behind, with ordered step, came the band of missionaries, singing litanies as they walked. At the end of the procession the noble form of Augustine himself towered over his companions, and marked him out to the eye as their leader and chief.

Wakeman also quotes an English writer’s account of Augustine’s speech to the king, given while he stood with the cross and image, stating, “He told how the tender-hearted Jesus by his own throes had redeemed the sinful world, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”1

Augustine found favor with the king, even though Æthelberht had no interest in Christianity at the time. However, the king’s wife, Bertha, had converted to Christianity across the Channel before Augustine’s arrival and is thought to have exerted at least a little pressure on him to convert. It wasn’t long before King Æthelberht was baptized.

From then on, Christianity began to spread rapidly in England—though it should be noted that some Celtic Christians were already present in the western parts of the country when Augustine arrived. With the rapid growth, Augustine soon became bishop.

There is definitely much more to say about St. Augustine and his impact on England and beyond, but, on this his feast day, I wanted to share a little of what I learned2—and vacation pictures!— about his work of starting the English Church and about Canterbury Cathedral while I was there.

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John’s account (John 20:19–23) of Jesus breathing on the disciples is one of my favorite reports of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. A lot happened in that room—not to mention the whole entering the room part. The disciples were holed up in a kind of safe house, hiding from some of their own people and from the Roman soldiers who had just arrested and crucified Jesus. As his closest followers, how could they not think they might be next to be interrogated and put on a cross? They were not only afraid but still in that stage of shock that follows witnessing such horrible violence. Denial—the first stage of grief—was not yet possible for them because they could not get what they had seen out of their minds.

It was there and then that Jesus entered the house, stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” He showed them the fresh wounds in his side and hands. John says the disciples were filled with joy, but I can only imagine the other emotions they first felt as they saw him appear out of nowhere and heard his voice. Jesus did not chit-chat or even try to explain the resurrection. He told them what they most needed to hear: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He did not want them hiding from the world in a safe place; he called them to get moving with his work of love, just as he had been sent into the world.

Then he gave them what they needed—what he had recently promised them—the Holy Spirit, to carry out the mission he had given them. This giving of the Holy Spirit came before Pentecost in Acts, and it happened without shaking walls or flaming tongues of fire. Jesus simply breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, just as God breathed life into creation in the beginning. What Jesus gave the disciples was new life, flowing from the newness of his resurrected life, so that they might be sent into the world just as he had been sent. As he breathed into them, he animated them as newly created people for a whole new world.

As Pentecost arrives tomorrow, we are invited to remember what this breath—or rushing wind—can do in and through us when we receive it: filling us with new life and moving us outward on mission in the world today.

Then there was the time I decided to place a large bowl of fire at the bottom of the chancel so everyone could see it and draw deep spiritual reflection from watching it, imagining those flaming tongues of fire.

That didn’t happen.

The sand I filled the bowl with soaked up the petroleum starter I was using to keep the fire going and turned the whole thing into something more like a bonfire, quickly getting out of control. Thankfully, some helpful ushers (who, for some reason, seemed rather anxious) assisted me in getting it out of the nave before anyone got hurt—or before it became the second fire to burn down the church. There were some people speaking in tongues, but at me, and not the kind that edified.

As I’ve become more mild in my approach, the theatrics of holy days have toned down. In recent years—really, ever since the flaming bowl incident—I’ve decorated the nave with flames (paper ones) on the pew ends and hanging from the ceiling. No pew removal. No petroleum gel igniter. Just a few harmless decorations.

I recently learned that someone had donated a flamethrower to our thrift store. I couldn’t help but think it was meant for me—that God was giving me a vision of another powerful demonstration of holy fire. Before I could even see it, however, one of the powers that be (the same one who had to put all those pews back and fasten them to the floor) quickly found a buyer, and it disappeared.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for Pentecost this Sunday, but I’m starting to get some ideas.

The texts for this Sunday provide rich material for a sermon—and maybe even a few theatrics. They are: Acts 2:1–21, Psalm 104:25–35, 37, 1 Corinthians 12:3b–13, and John 20:19–23.

More on these in my next post.

and here on Apple Podcasts :

Triune God, Father and Mother to us all, who showed your servant Julian revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all. Amen.

Today we commemorate Julian of Norwich, a mystic, theologian, and anchoress whose Revelations of Divine Love is the earliest known book in English by a woman. Her vivid visions of Christ during a grave illness brought profound theological insight into God’s mercy, grace, and maternal care. Her reflections, such as “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” continue to offer comfort and challenge across centuries. Julian bore witness to a God of infinite compassion. (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/julian-of-norwich/)

“Who showed your servant Julian revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love.” #Episcopal

Learn more about her in this article by Hannah Matis in Living Church:
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/julian-of-norwich-patron-saint-of-the-anxious/