Trinity Sunday (B)
by William J. Bausch

Matthew 28: 1- 20

I have a question that is entirely reasonable to ask in church. And the question is this: do you know the difference between heaven and hell? Well, I recently heard that heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss. Hell, on the other hand, is where the English are the cooks, the Germans are the police, the French are the mechanics, the Swiss are the lovers, and everything is organized by the Italians!

I mention this because that's about the image we have of today's feast of the Holy Trinity. Everything's backward, out of order, and unintelligible: three-in one, nature and person, Father, Son, and Spirit. What does it all mean and what does it really have to do with us? Like our story, it's a heavenly feast with a hellish twist. To answer that, I'd like to share with you three quick stories and then we'll see what they have in common that sheds light on the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

So, there are my three stories. What do these stories have in common? What these three stories have in common is their testimony to every human being's greatest drive, greatest urge, and greatest need: and that is union, togetherness, even if it is with a frog. To put it simply, to be whole, people need union. To be whole, people need relationships. To be whole, people need to have someone in their lives. That is self-evident. Think for a moment. Think of the most satisfying moments of your life. Now think deeply. Such moments, I guarantee you, were when you sat on your mother's lap, when you were held, when you were hugged, when you were embraced, when you were loved, when you were affirmed, when you were simply in the silent presence of someone who loved you, when you had someone in your life.

By the same token, think of the worst moments of your life: when you were rejected, when you were divorced, when you peered out the window watching couples hand in hand going out while you sat alone, when you were cut off from family and friends, when you ached for a hug and it was not forthcoming, when you were scared and wanted someone to hold you and no one was there for you, when you were betrayed by a friend, when you felt isolated. We don't even like to go to the movies or out to dinner by ourselves, do we? Why is solitary confinement such a horrible form of punishment?

You see what I'm saying? You see what the bottom line is? It's that we human beings are in desperate need of union - even promiscuous sex at bottom is such a misguided search-in such a need for togetherness, for communion, that our whole life is one large search for love. Our hearts are made for one another and for God. Rejection is such an intolerable hurt because we need desperately to be connected. But my question is why? Why this existential, driving need for union? Why do the young flock to malls and singles bars? Why those best moments when union occurs and the worst when it is absent? Why?

The answer, simply and profoundly, is in today's feast. We are made in the image and likeness of God and God is communion. That's it. God's image is writ large into our very natures, imprinted on our neurons, coded on our brain cells, and burned into our hearts. The feast of the Holy Trinity says that God is communion, is relationship, and therefore, so are we. God's own inner self is to "be with," to be in connection, to be family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. what makes God God is intimate relationship and no wonder we can't help it if we have to be the same way. We have no choice. That's why the apostle says that God is Love and that we are most God-like when we are in love, give love, and receive love.

Every striving of our souls for union, every reach out for companionship, every urge for a hug and an embrace, every act of love gives indirect testimony to the Trinity. The Trinity says that God is community and so we seek. The Trinity says that God is relationship and so we search. The Trinity says that God is love and so we love. We can't help ourselves. We're made to that image and likeness. We mirror our origins. We are who we are because God is who God is.

So this is what we're celebrating today. In very simple terms, this profound feast tells us why we are what we are, why we are who we are, how we are who we are, and makes ever more real those famous words of St. Augustine, who knew a thing or two about love, "You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you." Indeed, the Trinity is a mystery all right, but it's a mystery about us too, a mystery of love and our quest for it, a mystery of the Triune community we shall both recognize and enjoy in heaven.

(From Storytelling the Word, pp. 253 - 256. Copyright 1996 by William J. Bausch. Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT. [This resource, as well as many others, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center. If you enjoyed this homily, you might consider purchasing the BAUSCH TREASURY, a complete set of his homiletic books, including his new ones The Yellow Brick Road, The Word In And Out Of Season and A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers, as well as all of his previous homiletic publications:

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