Sunday, June 7, 2020

Trinity Sunday

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8:1-9
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Gospel Reading: Matthew 28:16-20

The liturgical color for the day is: White

With the Day of Pentecost last Sunday, we now encounter another liturgical feast day—Trinity Sunday.  It is the last festival day prior to Christ the King Sunday in November. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is a human construct.  It is an attempt to describe the indescribable.  God is always beyond.  God is way more—well beyond our considerations, imaginations, boundaries, more…

And so, the texts point us to consider the intersection between this awesome, yet fully indescribable, God and our reality.

In Genesis we look to the very creation itself and hear that truth from the beginning—that God’s handiwork and image are written onto the creation itself.  The very image of God—look, see, behold—it is good, even very good.

In Psalm 8 we sing of the glory of the Lord not only in earthly tones but with a chorus of the whole cosmos, and yet “what are human beings that you are mindful of them?”  The Sovereign One reaches all the way out and all the way down to the likes of us—ah, take that in with a breath.

It is the practical intersection of 2 Corinthians 13 that touches us so aptly in this moment of COVID-19, systemic racism, and deep challenge.  It is the imperatives there that call out to us as the way we honor God and welcome God’s peace: “Put things in order,” “Agree with one another,” and “Live in peace.”

And Matthew’s words send us forward in the triune name baptizing and teaching and all along the way holding the confidence to remember, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Rev. Dr. Daris Bultena
General Presbyter and Stated Clerk