Oh, great! Just wonderful. It’s Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday of the year when we celebrate a theological doctrine. I’ll bet you woke up this morning and said to yourself, "Oh, boy, I can’t wait to get to church to hear a sermon about a theological doctrine! That’s what really floats my boat."

Well, your sentiment is shared by preachers around the world. I don’t know a single preacher who is just delighted to preach about the Trinity, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t want to hear the sermon. And what’s with the lectionary? On Trinity Sunday, we read the Great Commission, Jesus telling the disciples and us, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Well, there’s the Trinitarian formula all right, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it seems to be a bitter irony to suggest that we can go make disciples, bring new people to the faith, armed with this arcane, confusing, perplexing doctrine which we inherited from the fourth century.

Allow me to illustrate [spoken quickly]: the doctrine of the Trinity says that we believe that God is one; we do not worship three Gods. But God also exists in three "persons" (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) or, in the languages of the raging debates during the fourth century, we believe in three "prosopons" in Greek, or three "persona" in Latin.

Now, these "persons" — or "prosopons," or "persona" — are separate enough to be different centers of consciousness, but also always part of the whole so that when you experience any of the three persons, you get all of the Godhead. So we’re not talking about completely separate centers of consciousness like when we use the word "person" in everyday language to refer to you and me.

That, you see, would be too easy.

Well, of course, this is all reflected in the Nicene Creed as we state that Christ is "of one being" with the Father, or, in the older language, "of one substance." That statement reflects the resolution of a longstanding and hard-fought debate over whether the term (in the Greek, of course) should be "homoiousia," meaning "of similar substance" (which gave rise to fears of polytheism) or "homoousia," meaning "of the same substance," which finally won the day.

So there you have it. Don’t you think that a discussion of the Trinity is a marvelous tool for bringing new people into the faith? Can’t you see us living the Great Commission, going to make new disciples, by sitting down with someone eager to know God and saying, "All right, let me tell you about my faith. First, you need to know the difference between homoiousia and homoousia." Then you can launch into a discussion of the fourth century debate. And be sure to work in prosopon and persona; you don’t want to miss any opportunities for evangelism.

Yeah, that’ll work. NOT! I suppose it might actually have a chance, however slim, of working if you’ve chained the person down somehow or drugged them in some way. But other than that, I doubt many disciples have been made by a discussion of fourth century concepts laced with Greek and Latin. That just won’t sell.

So let’s look at the Trinity another way, a modern way. The Trinity arose out of people asking the question, "What does the incarnation of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit tell us about God’s character, God’s inner life?" Let’s translate that very difficult fourth century answer into more modern language we can understand. Let’s say that the Father is the creative part of God; the Son is the expressive part of God; the Holy Spirit is the active part of God. Now, that sounds a little bit like you and me. We have a creative part, an expressive part, and an active part. We generate ideas, speak them, and act on them. But here’s a problem, a big problem, with us — we don’t do that in perfect harmony, do we? I mean, we don’t always express the idea we’ve thought (which might be embarrassing or shameful), and we don’t always act the way we’ve said we would, or we might act inconsistently with our high principles. In other words, isn’t it true that sometimes one or more of our parts that create, express, and act are out of harmony with our true identity?

Well, don’t feel too bad; I think that’s been true of every single human being ever born — except one. Except the one who was also God, come to show us how to do this "being human" business right.

In our more modern thought, the Trinity leads us to three basic truths about God’s character: First: the parts of God that create, express, and act are always in complete harmony with one another and always perfectly reflect God’s identity. This means that God’s very being is perfect relationship which always reflects God’s true identity.

Second: God’s identity is love itself.

Third: This God of loving relationship longs to be in loving relationship with each one of us.

You need to remember these, so I’ll go over them again: (1) God is perfect relationship reflecting God’s identity; (2) God’s identity is love, and (3) this God of loving relationship longs to be in loving relationship with you.

Now, that will sell. When you encounter someone who wants to know God, tell them not about your knowledge of Greek or Latin words or fourth century church history. Tell them about your faith in, your relationship with our Trinitarian God who is loving relationship, who longs to be in loving relationship with you and with them. Then go, and make disciples!