Trinity Sunday 7 June 2020

A sermon by Canon Henry Whyte

You can hear an audio recording of this sermon here

Mrs Patir, Mr Huios and Ms Pneuma

Ephesians 3. 14-21.

As usual this sermon will be a short one. But I hope I have time to introduce you to three Christian people, all of whom have Greek names. As we meet them I invite you to ask yourself which one is most like you.

The first Christian we meet is Mrs Patir. She is someone who has always seen herself as a Christian believer. She comes from a church going family and  has always sensed the presence of God with her. He is  with her every day. She prays to Him and  she is aware of His goodness and protection in her life. She is also  aware of God’s concern for every human being He has created and she sees all men and women as His children.
Mrs Patir  believes in the 10 commandments as a basis for life and she wants to follow them. She sees that God speaks to her through them. But she also hears God speaking through the wonderful world of nature and the created world is very important to her. She is very troubled by climate change and continuing damage to the environment and she actively campaigns about these matters. She is also active in her concerns about  hunger, poverty and racism wherever it is found. She prays that she will help to make the world a better place in which to live and is glad to work with all those who think in the same way.

That’s Mrs Patir and now we meet Mr Huios who did not grow up in a Christian home. However, when he was in his 20s, he was invited by others to take part in an Alpha Course about the basics of the Christian faith. He found that he was hearing things he had never previously considered and he was meeting with people  for whom their Christian faith was a vital part of their lives. Some time later he made his own commitment to the Saviour and Lord of whom he had been hearing.  This had a transforming effect in his life. He joined a church and Bible study group and was eager to share his new found faith with others. Over the years his desire to do this may have waned a bit but his prayers have continued that as many as possible will come to the faith in Jesus Christ that is so central in his life.

Now let’s meet Ms Pneuma and she, like the other two, is an active church member. She wants to live out her faith and the all important thing in her Christian life is that God’s Spirit is with her. She often speaks of the Holy Spirit within her as being like living water and and blowing like the wind to lead her along. She likes freedom in worship, fellowship with other Christians who share her spirituality and she values all of God’s gifts which build up His church. She prays regularly about all these matters and that Christian people all round the world will be renewed and freshly empowered by the Holy Spirit. One of her favourite books in the Bible is the Book of Acts.

Now I guess that some of you will already know that in the Greek language Patir means Father, Huios means Son and Pneuma means Spirit. So these three Christians are three people whose  spirituality majors on one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Mrs Patir is much taken up with God as Father, Mr Hious majors on Jesus Christ His Son and Ms Pneuma has a particular focus on the Holy Spirit. The same thing can be true of many Christian people today so that we may emphasise one person of the Holy Trinity whilst paying less attention to the other two.

So its worth asking ourselves on Trinity Sunday about our own personal understanding and experience of God.  He is not some complicated mathematical problem about three in one and one in three which we somehow have to solve like some puzzle in a weekend newspaper. No, God the Holy Trinity is the living God with whom we are to have a growing relationship as  our Loving Heavenly Father, as our Saviour and  Lord and as His indwelling divine Spirit to help and strengthen us day by day. There is always more that we can know about Him and there are always fresh ways that we can encounter Him as we continue on life’s journey. After all in every good and long term relationship it is something that develops and grows and deepens over the years.

Now that is exactly what St. Paul was praying for those Ephesian Christians to whom he was writing and his words have come down to us so that we can make his prayer our own, both personally and for our fellow Christians as well. When you think of it our relationship with God is actually the most important relationship of all because it has an eternal dimension to it. So, as Paul prays in our reading,  may each one of us grow in our relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May we continue to do so all our lives here on earth  until the day when we will meet Him face to face.  Then we will know Him fully even as we are already known by Him. Amen.