Trinity Sunday
Texts: Matthew 28:16-20;
Gen 1:1-2:4a; 2 Cor 13:11-13
YouTube: https://youtu.be/FiTyphUQ0gw
Sermon Take-Home Notes
Excerpt Page from N.T. Wright
GOING FULL PENTECOST, PART 2
Tomorrow begins LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Today is Trinity Sunday. We might begin by observing that God’s pronouns are they, them, theirs. Why have followers of Jesus — who was himself a faithful Jew, and his initial followers all faithful Jews — why did they tweak their monotheism into Trinitarianism? Why go from proclaiming one true God, the Creator of the universe in Genesis 1, to proclaiming one God in three persons? While the New Testament doesn’t yet use the word Trinity, our readings this morning show how they were well on their way. St. Paul uses the trinitarian formula in closing his letter to the Corinthians: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” And Jesus commands them to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Were they wrong to do so? No, they weren’t wrong to do so, Christians have insisted throughout the ages.
Last week, in a sermon I titled “Going Full Pentecost, Part 1,” I argued from N.T. Wright’s new book that Christians did begin to get something wrong a couple centuries after Jesus and the Apostles. The story in the Jewish scriptures clearly is about God coming home to the creation more fully to bring true power and justice to fix the things which human sin has messed up. Under the influence of the prominent Greek philosopher Plato, whose philosophy was still dominant in the Roman empire, Christians began to change the story in their own scriptures. What we’ve inherited after seventeen or so centuries under Platonic influence is that Jesus came to fundamentally change the Jewish story of God’s homecoming, reversing it to be about our going home to be with God in heaven after we die.
But I have, over the past twenty-five years or so, become convinced that N.T. Wright is correct to say, ‘No! The Christian scriptures do not change the story in the Jewish scriptures of God’s homecoming. To the contrary, they portray Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish Messiah, as fulfilling that Jewish story, not changing it. They present Jesus of Nazareth as the Word made Flesh, God coming to dwell on earth with us for a while, living God’s power of love and God’s healing justice as a human being right in our midst.
The Gospels and Christian scriptures then present sinful human beings reacting to God’s presence in their midst by brandishing our own brand of violent power and justice by crucifying the Lord on Good Friday. God raises Jesus on Easter, launching the next phase of God’s homecoming, but it’s not yet for God to stay in human form in our midst through Jesus. No, Jesus ascends back into heaven to make space for the next phase of God’s homecoming, namely, Pentecost, the poring out of God’s spirit on all of us that we might begin to live God’s power of love and healing justice in the world. It’s the pouring out of God’s Spirit on Pentecost which continues the story of God’s homecoming by doing the work of making the creation ready for its completion, its fulfillment. God needs us to join that work.
To be clear, once more: Our commissioning to make other disciples across the world is not about giving others a ticket to heaven. No, it’s about inviting others to join the work of God’s spirit to ready the Creation for God’s final and complete homecoming. The story right here and now is about Pentecost. It’s about God’s spirit poured out on us so that we might join the work of making ready for God’s power and justice coming back more fully into the world, transforming our flawed, sinful versions of power and justice. We are invited, and we are inviting others, to go full Pentecost. To, in other words, to do the work of advancing God’s reign in the world. We are to advocate for God’s power and justice in our human politics in order to make ready for the full coming of God’s reign, the Creator’s homecoming.
So, here on Trinity Sunday, I simply want to take a few minutes to finish that argument about how extremely urgent it is to get the Bible’s story right! The rise of authoritarianism in this world right now brings the occasion for us to get things right. The rise of authoritarianism, you see, is a reassertion of our sinful, violent brand of human power and justice in the world, the precise kind of power and justice that crucified God in the cross of Jesus. It is the kind of power that we are called to witness against by living God’s very different power of love and healing justice in the world. God’s broken world needs us as much or more than ever to get the story of God’s homecoming right and to act with true power and justice in the world. What the world needs is for a movement of folks, like you and me, to go full Pentecost, to open our lives to God’s spirit and to act. So this morning we are going full Pentecost, Part 2.
And the Part 2 happens to involve the Trinity. To recap where we began: Christians have been deadly wrong to change the story from God’s homecoming to our going home to heaven when we die — opening the door for authoritarian leaders to downplay politics in the here and now by turning our gaze again and again to heaven. But Christians were not wrong about tweaking Jewish monotheism into a trinitarian shape. Why? Because strict monotheism lends itself to easily to the deadly misfortunes of human authoritarianism. We tend to see God as holding the kind of violent power and punishing justice as human kings and emperors.
We are currently finding out, in fact, that even in a 250-year-old democracy, the temptation is still there to support a President who can wield the age-old kind of nationalistic power and justice that put Jesus on the cross. Precisely as Trinitarian Christians, we are called to resist this temptation with our very lives. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost so that we might experience God’s power and justice not like our human authoritarian leaders. We are invited to experience God not the One but, with the spirit poured out on many, as the One-from-Many. E pluribus unum. One from Many. Democracy is on the right track, as long as we remain steadfast in staying away from the temptation to install authoritarian leaders. God on Pentecost shows us God’s way of pouring out the spirit on many.
We see this in the Creation story this morning, too. Every single human being is created in God’s image, male and female. We’re created equal. In other cultures, their creation stories tell the story of inequality. In India, for example, the Hindu story of creation tells how the primal human being is carved up, with the head being made into the ruling class set above the others, and the feet being made into the servant class called the untouchables. Well, our creation story is told in a different way, that every person is made in God’s image to be a steward of God’s creation. God created every human being as of equal value, with an equal calling to live as faithful stewards of each other and of the earth. God is not only the One-from-Many but the three in one. Within God’s own self, God is a community of persons collaborating together for the good of the whole human family and for the good of the earth.
So that’s it for Going Full Pentecost, Part 2. If I had to choose an illustration for what we’ve talked about this morning, I would again choose Minneapolis this past January. Masked federal agents terrorizing the citizens of Minneapolis is what authoritarian power and justice run amok looks like. The citizens of Minneapolis rising up against it in great n umbers, seeking to protect one another and caring for one another, is what Pentecost power looks like.
Siblings in Christ, as the threat of authoritarianism still looms large, it is what we are called to do and be as church community, Beloved Community, as followers of the Trinitarian God, the One-from-Many, who stand against such violent human power and divisive justice in order to protect the most vulnerable and care for one another. So let us continue to do things like Thread-by-Thread Ministry, clothing our most vulnerable neighbors. Let’s continue to visit the sick and come to one another at our times of need. But in these extraordinary times, my Friends, I firmly believe we are called to do more. Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, May 31, 2026
YouTube: https://youtu.be/FiTyphUQ0gw
Sermon Take-Home Notes
Excerpt Page from N. T. Wright
