"Holy Trinity and Christian Liturgy" - Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 5-31-26

† The alphabetically-adjacent theologians David Fagerberg and Austin Farrer have something to say about the Trinity. Most Christian theologians would agree that the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is a society of Love spilling outward to create the cosmos and us. That the Trinity invites us to ascend into this love, and in order to do this, the Son descended to Earth and Hell to take us back to heaven with him. That through Baptism, the Holy Spirit energizes us to choose to participate in this divine union the Trinity invites us into. Unsurprisingly, both Farrer the Anglo-Catholic and Fagerberg Roman Catholic express our participation in this Trinitarian relationship in terms of sacramental Christian liturgy and prayer: just what we choose to do today.

Farrer writes, “Every time I worship or pray or make the least motion of the heart toward God, I stand with the divine Son in the face of the divine Father, the mantle of sonship spread around me, and the love of the Father overflowing from him to me in the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And Fagerberg agrees, “The Trinity’s circulation of love turns itself outward, and in humility the Son and the Spirit work the Father’s good pleasure for all creation, which is to invite our ascent to participate in this very life of God; however,” Fagerberg concludes, “this cannot be forced, it must be done with our cooperation.”

In other words, God, who is Love, always chooses to love us. And in that love, God gives us the will to choose to love God back, or not.

I would not go so far as to say that people who do not participate in Christian liturgy do not love God. God is not constrained by human belief, ritual, or practice. People show that they love God, wittingly or not, in the love and care they show toward others and for creation – all of which is made by God and loved by God. In this way the atheist who would deny God, and the agnostic who isn’t sure; the nominally religious who absently ticks a box on a survey form, and the deeply devout who regularly observes the tenets of their faith tradition; all of us have a love of God in common. Tell this to your favorite atheist, and see what happens!

Yet, for Christians, as it is expressed through our Christian liturgy and prayer, we believe, or at least hope to believe, we want to believe, that what we have chosen to do here today, right now, makes a difference … I expect it does.

There is something greater here than even what is good out in the world – the decently-pleasurable events and activities that distract us, or the necessary family or work obligations that must draw us away. If these are good, then God, and God’s love, may well be found in them. God may well be in the beauty the golf course, or the soccer pitch, or the baseball diamond. And God may well be in the patient waiting of tables at Sunday brunch, or in scanning barcodes in the grocery store checkout line, or in the piles of wash at the laundromat because that’s the only time you can find all week to get caught up. The aim of Christian liturgy isn’t to engender guilt or sanction shame when you miss by suggesting that you love God less. Its purpose isn’t to suggest God is angry when you choose something else on Sunday.

But I believe, along with Fagerberg and Farrer, that the surest sign and most faithful expression of God’s love is given to us by God – both by outward signs and by inward grace – in the liturgies, rituals, and practices of Christ’s Church.

Some people’s life circumstances make regular worship an easy choice. Either they have the time, or they are able to choose to make this time a priority. Other people’s life circumstances ask a hard choice. Sometimes they can join us; other times duty defeats desire and they miss.

But, of course, when the choice is yours, I invite you to choose to participate in Christian liturgy. There is nothing else in all creation like it. Let the grace of the Son’s Word and Sacraments, and the Father’s Love, and the Holy Spirit’s abiding communion of fellowship among the faithful be with you.

And remember that God loves you. And trust that anytime you do good to anyone or anything in God’s creation, you show that you love God. †

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Trinity Sunday A – May 31, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Holy Trinity and Christian Liturgy”