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The beginning of summer always reminds me of big family gatherings at my aunt and uncle’s cabin in rural Oklahoma. In mid-life, my law-practicing uncle transformed himself into a very accomplished home chef. I love long, lazy weekends spent with them, drinking coffee, walking dogs, and relaxing.
Late afternoon always rolls into Happy Hour with music and laughter followed by the dinner show. My aunt and uncle remodeled an old log cabin in retirement with a big open kitchen and living space perfect for entertaining. There is nothing better than pulling up a barstool to the counter and telling stories while watching the Kitchen Dinner Dance.
The Kitchen Dinner Dance is mostly my uncle orchestrating an incredible meal with family members moving in and out to chop vegetables, stir sauces, set the table, and occasionally yell at the dogs to get out of the kitchen. The organic choreography of the Dinner Dance includes these magical moments when family members move together in such harmony that it feels alive and beautiful.
The same thing happens up here at the altar as we serve communion. The vergers, eucharistic ministers, acolytes, and clergy move together in a harmonized dance to ensure every single person receives the bread and wine, or a blessing, in a manner that is calm, reverential, and holy.
When that kind of connection happens, it feels like more than efficiency. It feels like joy. Like mutual delight. Like love moving between people. I think Trinity Sunday is trying to give us a glimpse of something like that.
The Sunday after Pentecost is known as Trinity Sunday. And this is when the rector typically assigns the seminary intern or associate clergy person to preach. I get it. I did the same when I was a rector.
This is when the preacher sometimes uses sock puppets or dives into complex theological principles in an attempt to explain the Trinity. Spoiler alert: I’m not going to do that.
But I am going to share an insight I had about the Trinity at our recent clergy conference. At a session on liturgy, we were discussing various prayers and a contemporary effort to name the Trinity as “creator, redeemer, and sanctifier” rather than “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Of course God creates. Of course Christ redeems. Of course the Spirit sanctifies.
But the Trinity is more than a divine division of labor. As Bishop Phil said, “the Holy Trinity isn’t about job descriptions, it’s about relationship.”
The doctrine of the Trinity is not primarily about what God does. It is about who God is. At the center of Christian faith is the claim that God’s very being is relational.
As a way of exploring the relational aspects of the Trinity, I want to use a famous icon. The icon on the cover of your bulletin and up here on the shelf is the famous 14th century icon by Andrei Rublev. While it is actually an image depicting the Hospitality of Abraham when the three angels visited Abraham and Sarah, it is known for its commentary on the Trinity.
When you look closely, you see they are in conversation. Their bodies lean toward one another. Their eyes meet. Their gestures flow in a circle of attention and love. The figures are equal in size and shape and arranged in a perfect circle.
But the detail I want to focus on today is the open space in front. That is the space through which we are invited to enter.
In this image, we see a Divine Dance. There is a stillness that somehow feels alive, an energy and flow which beckons us to enter. The icon does not explain the Trinity. It invites us to contemplate it.
Richard Rohr describes the Trinity as “a great movement, a cosmic dance.” And suddenly the Trinity becomes less like a theological equation and more like relationship — mutual love, shared delight, endless giving and receiving.
The early church used the word perichoresis — literally a kind of “dancing around.” The Trinity is mutual indwelling. A life of love so open and dynamic that we are drawn into it.
In the reading from Proverbs, we have an image of holy Wisdom dancing beside God at creation. Wisdom says, “I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
In this we see the universe created not out of loneliness or violence, but born from delight. And we, human beings, are created in the image of this playful, relational God.
This stands in stark contrast to our modern culture which cultivates autonomy, self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, and isolation. We were made for so much more – for delight, joy, and hope. We are starving for connection because we were made for communion.
The tyranny of empire wants to commodify our attention, enslave us to screens, and isolate us from one another. But it will fail because we were made for communion- communion with one another and communion with Christ.
As Doyt wrote in his letter this past week, this is not the moment to hunker down into comfortable familiarity, but to step into the irreplaceable gift of actual human community. That is exactly what the Holy Trinity invites us into.
Take another look at the icon. The open space is for each and every one of us. We are part of this Divine Dance.
Jesus tells his followers, “Go therefore and make disciples… baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve kind of been on a roll with this lately. Eight people have already been baptized this year and at least that many are being planned for future dates. People of all ages are coming to us asking to be baptized.
And even more interesting is the fact that about half of those asking to be baptized are adults. Baptisms are to celebrated regardless of a person’s age, but it is remarkable that older children, teens and adults are initiating this for themselves.
Their desire to be baptized is evidence that baptism is not merely institutional membership. It is participation in divine life.
Christianity is not simply believing certain things about God. It is being drawn into the life of God, being drawn into this divine dance.
I watched this happen last Sunday afternoon as we gathered in Dinny Polson’s backyard on the shore of Lake Washington. The uncurated community gathered on the lawn singing and praying. The sun was shining. Reed stood there with friends beside him, stepping into relationship with God and this community in a new way.
Doyt, Reed, and I waded out in water up to our necks, and baptized him in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is what discipleship looks like. It is entering the Divine Dance through worship, through baptism, through the sharing of communion.
At Epiphany we understand something important: belonging often comes before believing. You don’t have to pass a test or believe every single word of the Nicene Creed. You just have to show up.
Jesus doesn’t wait for perfect certainty before inviting the disciples into the work of making disciples. And we do the same here at Epiphany. If you are uncertain, spiritually tired, or carrying doubt, but longing to belong, come. The invitation still stands.
Entering this divine life changes us. Through it, we learn, slowly, how to love as God loves.
Epiphany is also an icon of the Trinity. We are a community gathered around a table with the Holy Trinity, leaving space to invite others in. There isn’t a waiting list. You don’t have to be sponsored for membership. Just come and bring your friends.
The Trinity tells us that relationship is not secondary to spiritual life. Relationship is spiritual life. For in the Kingdom of God, relationship is primary.
Every time we gather at this table, we practice making room for one another.
The open space at the table is about the love shared between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It opens outward.
And who is invited?
The doubting disciples are invited. The weary people. Lonely people. Grieving people. Everyone is invited.
The Trinity is not a problem to solve. It is a relationship to enter. (Pause
There is room at the table. There always has been.