Reflection on the Feast of the Holy Trinity

A gypsy man stopped at a well in a town square for a drink. After he drank he continued gazing into the well as if he was looking down at someone at the bottom of the well.

A little boy saw him, and though the man was big and tall and rough and ruddy, he had a kindly face, and so the little boy approached him.

“Who lives down there?” the little boy asked.

And the gypsy man answers him, “God lives down there. God does.”

And the little boy says, “Can I see him, too?”

“Of course, you can,” said the gentle gypsy man. And he picks him up in his arms and he leans him over the well.

And the little boy looks down deep into the well, but all he could see was his own pale reflection in the water below. Disappointed, he turned to the gypsy man.

“But all I can see is me,” he said. “All I can see is me.”

“Ah,” said the gypsy man, looking into his eyes. “Now you know where God lives.” And he picks the little boy up and puts him on the ground, and he looks into his eyes and he says, “God lives in you.”

Today we celebrate the Trinity. The idea of the Trinity goes back to Jesus talking about his Father and sending the Spirit. He showed that God is in a relationship within God’s self. God’s essence is grounded in relationship – God the Father, Jesus the Christ and the Spirit of love, who binds them all together. Jesus has told us that God is love. 

Imagine a time when there was nothing but God who was somehow not alone but in that internal triple relationship. So God is there, doing God’s thing, but not satisfied with such a tiny community. The love in that relationship spills over into matter as the universe explodes into existence. Scientists tell us that all of creation is made up of particles that are in relationship with each other. Slowly, over billions of years that love relationship from the Holy One continues to fill and shape matter, to gently pull it upward into a higher consciousness until gradually there are more intelligent beings developing into persons who can reflect on themselves and their purpose, environment and creator. Like nature, they build relationships in order to survive and try to live together peacefully. Unlike nature, that lesson didn’t stick too well. God sent Jesus to teach people how to love as God loves. Their ability to do so  is far from perfect as any human being on earth knows. But there is that hope that as we move forward, guided by the Spirit, a time will come when humans will learn that living in harmony and equality is the better way although it may take 1 or 2 billion years.

Creation is the out-growth of God’s love, it is God’s desire to be in relationship with more than God’s self. We know from current scientific research that matter is in relationship, cell to cell, operating with energy that never dies or decreases. Without that energy, matter would be nothing, it couldn’t exist. Where does the energy come from? It has to come from the Creator, Incarnate Word and Spirit of Love. It is their love that empowers all matter, every single cell, and don’t forget, we are made of those cells. God has chosen to share God’s love with all of creation in an enormous relationship with the whole universe and everything in it. God’s love resides in you and me. God is right here. Like the little boy in the parable, if you look at your face in the mirror and you will see love. You will see God.