First reading: Deuteronomy 4:32-34,39-40
Psalm: Ps 33:4-6,9,18-20,22
Epistle: Romans 8:14-17
Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.

We don’t know.

Let’s not try today. Let’s not venture into intricate descriptions of the Holy Trinity, all for the sake of proving how unknowing we are, how limited our grasp of God is.

Often times we spend Trinity Sunday listening to a pastor quote from the stories of saints who had attempted to understand the Holy Trinity. These quaint stories are all part of an effort at explaining what we believe; but is it necessary?

I would rather start by stating the obvious: We are nowhere near understanding God. We cannot know Him through intellectual exercise, through stories, or through complex theological diagrams which attempt to describe His Triune being.

What do we know?

We don’t know God by our power of intellect. We cannot grasp Him on our own or by ourselves. There is little to nothing we can do to explain Him. Yet we do have knowledge of God.

Our knowledge of God comes from His self-revelation. God started with the patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets, and finally He, Himself, came to us to tell us everything we are to know.

Looking at the process of revelation we find one key element. God doesn’t make Himself complex and unknowable. He reveals Himself, first through the veiled understanding of the patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets and finally through obvious self-revelation.

What do we know? That God is love! That God desires us! That God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! That God wishes us to live as the Holy Trinity lives, in love and unity. That God would sacrifice Himself in order to accomplish the loving relationship He desires.

Love, live sacrificially, be one, live in the image of God. That’s what God wants for us. That’s His revelation. That’s what we know. Not complex, not intricate, but rather simple and in simplicity great.

A process.

Reading the Bible is an interesting adventure. I would liken it to trying to pin the tail on God.

Sometimes we see God as a moving and changing target. We want to pin Him down, and find we can’t. We keep missing the target. Looking at scripture we get the notion that somehow God has changed over time. It is not so.

If we believe that God is God, that He is perfection; then we acknowledge that there is no need for change in God. In fact, as Christians, we call God unchanging. One thing about God is that he is consistent. We however are not.

As we read through scripture, as we experience God, we are faced with a process that is, in effect, a development of understanding. As time passes we grow in our understanding of God’s revealed self, what He actually said, what He actually wants of us.

If we were to stop along the path we might see God as the God who demands animal sacrifices. Of course that was what man understood of God, not necessarily what God wanted. We might see God as the God who is mighty in battle, winning victories for His friends. Of course that was what man understood of God, not necessarily what God is.

Over and over God attempted to re-focus His people. When the prophets told the Jews about God’s way, about God’s reality, they stoned them. The prophets were stoned because God’s way infringed upon what and who the people understood God to be. In effect they said, ‘don’t tell me about this love and change of heart stuff, I want to go on sacrificing sheep and charging a hefty fee for it.’

Those who do listen to God, who do accept His word and His self-revelation, hear the truth. Those who listen to God’s self-revelation get beyond what they know and enter into a process of greater-and-greater understanding. It comes down to Jesus’ words (John 14:15):

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.—

In listening we come to know God’s self-revelation and we learn to keep His commandments which demand that we live the life God has modeled for us.

Where are we headed?

We could engage in a great theological debate today. We could try to grasp the Trinity with our minds. Where we need to be headed, however, is the grasp of the Trinity with our hearts. We are called to enter into the process of knowing God more and more through our listening and by the work and effort we put forward.

That work and effort, that journey, leads us to our destination. The work and effort —“ easy: prayer, kindness, living sacrificially, being one, living in the image of God, and living with great love. Our destination – one: Eternal life with God in heaven.

We’re getting there.

We are on that road my friends. We have entered into the faith, and under the guidance of our Holy Polish National Catholic Church we grow ever more aware of God’s reality. Our knowledge of God and our understanding of Him begins here at Holy Mass and from here, from the roots that were planted in our baptism, that knowledge and understanding grows. That knowledge and understanding grows throughout our lives. We start here, hearing God’s word, God’s self-revelation. We start here, receiving Christ into our bodies so as to become more like Him. We start here, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to know, love, and serve God more and more.

Leaving here God’s reality takes shape in our lives. We begin to see Him in the unity we have within our community, our neighborhood, with our co-workers, our families, even those who persecute and hate us for our faith. We see Him in the love we bear, in the sacrifices we make, big and small. God’s reality, His self-revelation takes shape in the lives of all who call themselves Christian — that’s us. No intricate descriptions of the Trinity are necessary if we live the life of the Trinity.

Keeping it simple.

Leaving here today we will be strengthened. We will walk away with another aspect of our knowledge of God strengthened. Another door will have been opened to us, showing us the way to live in unity, live in love, live like God. If we keep it simple, if we focus on what God has said, what He has taught, the messages He has revealed, we will have joy. We will have knowledge that surpasses quaint stories and theological treatises.

Keeping it real and alive.

I began with a quote from today’s reading from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 4:39):

This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.

That is as simple as it gets. If we live in the reality that God is God, that there is none other, and that life’s requirement is to know and love Him more and more, then we will have life. Loving and knowing Him means to live life as real Christians, as a people alive and active in the reality God has taught.

We must move beyond the notion that God’s revelation is God showing up and saying: ‘This is how it is!— only to walk away. Then He would have treated us as slaves, only to follow and obey. Rather, He let us know how it is so that we might be His brothers and sisters, so that we might live in His body, so that we would live the life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; a life of prayer, kindness, sacrifice, unity, and great love (John 15:15).

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

Amen.