Blessed Trinity

The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill (Dean of the Chapel) preaches a sermon on John 16:12–15 entitled “Blessed Trinity.” The Marsh Chapel Choir performs “Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas” by Tomás Luis de Victoria and “Let all the world in every corner sing” by Kenneth Leighton.

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Blessed Trinity
Lectionary Texts (Psalm 8, Romans 5, John 16)
June 15, 2025
Marsh Chapel
Robert Allan Hill

I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers. We have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth.

The gathering storm clouds, deeply darkening since January 20, 2025, have now this week and weekend burst forth across America, supported by the calumny of the Republican Party, once but no longer the party of Lincoln, in its mendacity, its cruelty, and its predation, measured by its unwillingness and incapacity to speak truth to their current contemporary and temporary Presidential incumbent and White House resident. Those Republicans of conscience, a Senator in Maine, a Governor in New Hampshire, Congress people in New York and Pennsylvania, now need for their own lasting sake, their own name in history, to jettison the name Republican, as do any and many others so clothed, near and far. It is direct and simple: become, at least for the time being, an Independent, independent in principle, in heart, and in voice from the cruelty, national and international, of the current Presidential and Congressional leadership. We increasingly face today, as has been already pronounced from this pulpit through these last four months, what the Confessing Church in Germany faced in the 1930’s. These are not normal times, nor are these leaders, duly and tragically elected, normal American leadership, let alone leaders adherent to Christian teaching and faith.

Tragically, in Minnesota, yesterday, a graduate of our own beloved Boston University, class of 1991, a BU political science major, a distinguished Democrat, Melissa Hortman, mother of two, and a leader in the Minnesota State Legislature, was with her husband shot dead, shot dead, summarily executed at 3am in their home in a suburb of Minneapolis. This comes in part from the top. The fish rots from the head down. The chaos, daily, the conflict, endlessly, the dystopian distemper internationally, the spirit of all opposite and apposite to the inherited American love in the land of the free and the home of the brave, continuously, from our current presidential leader, the aforementioned incumbent, has its consequences. In Los Angeles. In Iran. In Ukraine. In Gaza. On farms, in restaurants, in hotels. In cities and towns across all fifty states. And yet. So far, there has been no honest criticism from leaders in the party of Lincoln who know better, far better. Nor hardly any written letters of objection, calls to representatives, active opposition to this hypocrisy and nascent tyranny, from voting Republicans, in homes near and far. Nor, in must be added, hardly anywhere near enough sermons, near or far, calling this time to account. Our Holy Scripture today demands otherwise. Our Holy Scripture this day leaves no alternative.

Triune God

For this Sunday our lessons evoke a Triune God, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers. We have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth. Nature, Church, Life.

My friend attended another, here unnamed, but nearby, divinity school, which at the time was blown about by many if not every wind of doctrine, so much so that my friend, with a bit of whimsy and humor, described their theology thus: ‘God in seven persons, blessed heptopoly’.

Here, today, we shall limit ourselves to three, the three persons of the traditional Godhead. Psalm 8 evokes God as Creator. Romans 5 evokes God as Redeemer. John 16 evokes God as Sustainer. Father, Son, Spirit. These are choice, endlessly lovely passages, any one of which, and any verse from any one of which should deserve 22 minutes of preaching attention and acclamation. Memorize them. And take them not only as comfort, but also as shield into the unforeseen American future.

The Christian doctrine of Trinity is of course a deeply mysterious matter, out of reach of most of us most of the time. How can God be, both one and three? Faith we must guess involves more than math. Not less than math, but more than math. If nothing else, about the Trinity, we remember this: God is relational, on this teaching. At the heart of the divine there is relationship, of First to Second to Third to Second to First. This is what the early church found in Jesus: the God to whom Jesus prayed, the God who guided and inspired Jesus, and the God in Jesus. This is what the early church found in the Scripture: Psalm 8, Romans 5, John 16. This is what the early church found in Life: the rush of creativity, the joy of love, the breath of spirit. In our Gospel today, the Scripture goes even further, in a way giving privilege, at least here, to Spirit that guides into truth. Once the creation has emerged; once redemption has been offered; then it is a matter of spirit, Spirit, wind, breath, gusting Spirit of God.

We preach and pray at the crossroads of faith and culture. This is true for every congregation, pulpit and place, but especially and keenly so right now in America, and at Marsh Chapel. In a new, perhaps conflicted way, across the country, we may be listening this summer for words of grace, out of our holy scripture, out of our traditions, out of our sacred history, and wondering, hoping, perhaps doubting but still hoping, that these as preached may help us make some sense of what is becoming of us, as a people and as a country, in our time. What is becoming of America, the land we love?

We desire a faith amenable to culture, and a culture amenable to faith. For what good is a baptized cleansing if we are simply thrown back into the mire? Personal and social holiness are married to one another. Loving faith expects and requires loving culture.

For all the attention we—rightly—give to politics and economics, it is really the cultural realities that have most impact on individual lives, over time. When an 8 year old bursts through the back door, crying, saying that her school friend, from Mexico, will be deported, hers is a culturally inflicted wound; when an 87 year old woman, in a nursing home, rues the collapse of her life long party, and surveys its demise and damages with the word ‘dismaying’, hers is a cultural assessment; when a candidate, given to insulting and degrading others, (as I remember on Father’s day my Dad said, ‘its one thing to be tough, but its another to be mean’), we suffer a cultural decline; when only 24% of 17-24 year olds are eligible to seek admission into armed forces (the other 76% ineligible due to obesity, lack of a high school diploma, drug use, criminal record, failure of physical exam or other), here we trace cultural influence; when forms of worship, meant for enchantment, give way over two generations to a pseudo-worship aimed at entertainment, with direct connections to features of Reality TV, professional wrestling, and beauty contests—the same social expressions now driving political selection and debate–we face a cultural deficit; in short, when a culture, like ours, has a mirror held up to it, as has happened this calendar year, and as has happened this week, and the image is more appalling than appealing, then, then…some among us may begin to return to, revert to, a reconsideration of our more ancient repositories of wisdom: scripture, history, thought, and scrutinized experience. In an age of broad cultural malaise, some may seek more steadily the reassurance, peace, insight, and resolve to be found in moments of truth, goodness, beauty—and ordered worship. Those of us in the pulpits across this country have our work cut out for us. How shall we invoke and evoke faith fit for culture and culture fit for faith? How will we address incivility in a civil way? How do we oppose demagoguery with democracy? How do we contrast buffoonery with beauty? How does one supplant cultural disorder with liturgical order? How do we combat fear with faith? We have our cultural work cut out for us. Economics is downstream from politics. Politics is downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from religion. Maybe to begin we can commit weekly to Sunday morning worship, once every seven days.

Thank goodness we are not alone! Blessed Trinity blesses us, especially as Trinity leans to Spirit.

There is a self-correcting Spirit of Truth loose in the Universe, leading us. For next week you shall begin hearing, from Galatians, chapter by chapter, speaking of spirit and truth, speaking of relationship, speaking of the new creation. The Trinity leans toward Galatians, on this Trinity Sunday. Here is your invitation and reference for the Holy Scripture in the coming weeks, your shake-down cruise for the trip to Galatia, your introduction to Paul, Freedom, Spirit and New Creation, and the Magna Charta of Christian freedom. Such beautiful verses: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefor and do not be enslaved again. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness, self-discipline. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. In these verses is the story, the harmony behind the Epistle lessons you will hear through June.

Hear good news. Upon this Trinity Sunday, God is calling into existence a new community of faith working through love. There is your identity. Not what is natural but what is heavenly about us forms our primary identity. That is, the Bible itself, from the vantage point of the great scriptural high passages, opens the way for an understanding of identity that is not just nature or creation, but new creation. This is the community of faith working through love. Here, there is a place where God may be doing something new, revealing something new. And, most strangely, it may be those who are not so easily confined by the creational categories of male and female, those who are both or neither, who are on the edge of the new creation. God is doing something new, which includes all in the community of faith working through love.
This morning, we worship on Trinity Sunday. The Triune God summons us to relationship and complexity and courage to seek the truth. The Spirit of God leads us into all truth: Come Trinity Sunday we recall that there is, by God’s triune grace, a self-correcting spirit of Truth loose in the universe. There is, by God’s triune grace, a self-correcting spirit of Truth loose in the universe.

That is, in this tumultuous time, we might do well to bow before, and ruminate before, the Blessed Trinity. The God of creation did not create only one country, or only one solar system for that matter. Creation expands, and ought daily to expand our sense of purpose, place, sense and self. Our country needs to hear this, at this time. The God of Redemption is the marrow of the church, the recognition that we fall miserably short, and could do so much better. Our country needs to hear this at this time. The God spiritual presence is the heart of daily life. As Peter Berger, one of our BU spiritual fathers, of blessed memory, taught us in his book ‘A Rumor of Angels’, there is in life a spiritual presence known in order, play, hope, justice, and in humor. Our country needs to hear this, at this time. Nature, Church, Life. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

God in three persons, blessed Trinity. I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers. We have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth.