Falling Forward Into Mystery, The Rev. Dustin K. Barrows St. Stephen’s Episcopal, San Antonio, TX

Today is Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the Church year dedicated to a doctrine. Not an event like Christmas or Easter, not a person like a saint or prophet, but the Holy Trinity. It is a Sunday when countless sermons will be preached full of heresy. Not because the preacher wants to lead you in a false direction, but because, like so many things regarding your faith, the Trinity is not something that is easy to explain.

We are going to embark on something bold. We are going to try and know everything we need to know about the Trinity.
Yes, today, we will attempt the impossible. The Trinity will be made clear.

As we start out, I will warn you that we might not succeed. At least not in the way you think of success.

People have been trying to explain the Trinity for centuries, and even our best attempts fall short. That’s not a failure of theology; it is a sign of God’s majesty.

Still, we reach for metaphors:

• The Trinity is like water. You know it is liquid, ice, and steam.
• The Trinity is like a person who is simultaneously a father, a son, and a friend.
• Or like a three-leaf clover: three parts, one whole.

Each one helps for a moment, then breaks down.

• Water can’t be all three forms at once.
• No one person is father, son, and friend to the same person.
• A clover loses its wholeness when one leaf is removed.

In fact, many well-intentioned analogies end up accidentally supporting ancient heresies such as modalism, when God switches between roles, or partialism, the idea of God being made of parts. The Church rejected these not because people didn’t try, but because they were incomplete. And that’s okay. Analogies are just tools; they are not always meant to be definitions.

So maybe it’s more faithful to admit: the Trinity is beyond analogy. It is not something that was meant to be put in a tight little package and explained on a Post-it note.  Maybe it is more accurate to view the Trinity as something to ponder, something to experience, something to connect you to the real presence of God in three persons.

And isn’t that a very Episcopal thing? To ask questions, to seek understanding, and still find a way to know in our hearts the truth. To say, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” We embrace wonder even when certainty escapes us.

In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom cries out, calling all who will listen. Wisdom, whom the early Church often saw as the pre-incarnate Christ, is described as being with God from the very beginning. Before the mountains were shaped, before the waters were placed in their boundaries, Wisdom was there! Delighting in humanity and rejoicing in creation, Wisdom is with God from the very beginning.

In Romans, Paul tells us that through Christ, we have peace with God. And through the Holy Spirit, God’s love is poured into our hearts. Not sprinkled. Not trickled. It is poured lavishly. Generously. Even when we are suffering.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

Jesus doesn’t demand instant understanding. He offers patient grace. He promises that the Spirit will keep teaching, guiding, and revealing.

So maybe the Trinity isn’t a math problem to solve.
It’s a relationship to live in.
A God who creates us, redeems us, sustains us.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We often speak of the Trinity in church, but we also live it. Every time we pray, we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Every time we baptize, we do so in the name of the Trinity. We are welcoming someone not just into a local congregation, but into the life of God.

When we gather for Eucharist, we lift up our hearts to the Father, remember the saving work of the Son, and call upon the Holy Spirit to sanctify the bread, the wine, and all of us gathered.

Even in community, friendship, service, and reconciliation, we reflect God’s image in the Trinity. God, as Trinity, is not a solitary being but a divine communion of love. That means we were created not for isolation but for relationship, belonging, and mutual care.

And when words fail us, when we don’t know how to pray, how to lift up our lives to God, Paul says the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. The Son prays for us. The Father listens.

The Trinity is not distant.
The Trinity is as close as our next breath.

And yet, we still long to understand. We still want clarity. But again and again, God invites us not into clarity, but into trust.

Scripture is filled with stories of people who don’t understand. People who might not see the whole picture yet believe.

Mary, visited by an angel, asked, “How can this be?” And still she said, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Standing at the edge of the Red Sea, Moses lifted his staff not because he understood how the water would part but because God told him to act in faith.

A young boy handed over five loaves and two fish, knowing this was not a solution for feeding a crowd. But Jesus blessed it and fed five thousand.

David stood before Goliath with five stones and no armor. Not because he understood the odds, but because he trusted God.

The disciples often misunderstood Jesus. They argued. They doubted. They fled. And yet they returned. They stayed. They became the Church.

And we do the same every time we come to the Eucharist. We proclaim that in bread and wine, Christ is truly present.

Do we fully understand it? No, but we trust it, experience it, and live it.

Faith is not the absence of questions.
It’s the courage to trust in the presence of mystery.

The early Church used the word perichoresis to describe the Trinity. It means “to dance around.” The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal, loving motion. They are not three gods competing, not one God wearing different masks, but one God in perfect communion, inviting us into the divine dance.

This is what we were made for!  We are not made just to worship God, but to live with God, and even in God, as God lives in us.

That’s not just theology. That’s our daily life.

There is something in all of this for our smaller churches to remember: this divine mystery is not reserved for only the biggest of our congregations. The presence of the Trinity doesn’t depend on size, budget, or numbers in the pews. It depends only on love.

In a small church, you know each other. You carry each other’s burdens. You celebrate and grieve side by side. That kind of community, grounded in faith, hope, and love, is the image of the Trinity. You reflect God’s own being every time you serve one another, listen to one another, or gather in prayer.

You don’t have to understand everything to live faithfully. You don’t have to be big to matter to God. You just have to say yes.

Our Collect for today reminds us of this grace. We pray:

“Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

This isn’t about having perfect theology. It’s about grace. God gives us grace to confess and strength to worship. It’s not about certainty. It’s about participation. We worship the Unity, and we live in the mystery.

Some of us may be like Mary, saying yes even with questions.
Some of us may be like Moses, walking forward even when the path is unclear.
Some of us may be like the boy with the loaves, offering a small gift in faith.
All of us are invited.

So, if we have found out everything we need to know about the Trinity, I hope it is this:

• It’s okay to question.
• It’s okay to wonder.
• It’s okay to not have all the answers and allow ourselves to still fall forward into belief.
• It’s okay to say, “I don’t know how it works” while saying simultaneously, “I trust the One who does.”

The Trinity meets you exactly where you are today.
Whether you are rejoicing, struggling, full of faith, or barely hanging on.

And the voice of Wisdom still calls out at the crossroads, inviting you to walk not by sight, but by faith.

So come and bring your questions.
Come and allow your wonder to run free.
Come and bring your longing to understand.

And fall forward into the arms of the One who made you, who redeems you, and who breathes life into you even now.

One God, in three persons.
Blessed Trinity.

Amen.