John 16:12-15
“I still have many things to tell to you, but you cannot bear them now,” Jesus said to the disciples. Things like crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension … for sure. Things that would bring with them unbearable confusion rooted in rejection and denial, fear and doubt, and even the perceived absence of God. But the concept of the Trinity was one of those things Jesus started to explain.
He began with the pieces … his Parent, himself, and the Advocate – the Spirit of truth – who would soon come to them. Then he sketched out how they relate to each other. The Parent has all that belongs to the Son. The Son has all that belongs to the Parent. And the Spirit takes what belongs to the Son and declares it to the disciples.
But the concept of the Trinity, which we celebrate today, is confusing for many … Indeed … Even today theologians argue about what it really means. And many preachers I know avoid it, searching eagerly in the texts assigned for today for some other biblical kernel to expand upon, or if fortunate enough, assign this Sunday to a junior member of their staff. But I find the concept of the Trinity reassuring, more reassuring, perhaps, than most other theological concepts. I find it more reassuring because it explodes the limits of God, lest I ever be tempted
to think too small.
God is the Creator
… the Parent of all living things … From the tiniest microbe to flowers and three-toed sloths and purring kittens and cockroaches … and us. God who chooses not to be alone. God wrapped in images of birthing and mothering … nurturing and worrying and loving … non-stop.
God is Jesus
… God in human form … living as we live. Jesus is God who wants to be known, engaged with, not distant. God who is not too big to feel joy and sorrow, fatigue and pain, yearning and satisfaction. God who is not too small to ever give up hope.
And God is the Spirit
… God always with us. God is the playful Spirit of Wisdom and Truth, as we hear in Proverbs. God is the Spirit who rejoices in the world and delights in the human race. God is the Spirit who encourages, and comforts … and weeps. God is the Spirit in constant communication with us, speaking the truth until surely we will hear and understand … and follow.
But is that enough to say about God? Is that enough for us to begin to understand God … or more importantly … for us to have a relationship with God? Isn’t there more to know about God?
Created in the image of God
For a long time the early Christian church forbade the depiction of God in art … and maybe that was a good idea. When that code was first broken, it was simply the Hand of God emerging mysteriously from a cloud. But by the 15th and 16th centuries, God the Father had become the recognized image, most notably painted by Michaelangelo in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: a full bodied, old white man, complete with white hair and a white beard. And the image has stuck, especially with the western church.
But … on the sixth day of creation, God said, ‘Let us’ … ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness …. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.i
Are humans only old, and white, with white hair and white beards. Of course not. Humans are white, and black, and brown. We’re old and middle-aged and teenagers. We’re tall and short, thin and stocky. We have straight hair and curly hair, fine hair and coarse hair … or no hair at all. Some of us are descended from a single ethnic backgrounds … many are a mix of several. And yet … we were all … we were all made in the image of God, in the likeness of God. Even the image of just the Hand of God emerging from a distant cloud would be difficult to depict accurately, wouldn’t it?
But isn’t there even more to God? More than just God’s outward appearance?
More to God
We are told that on the sixth day of creation, God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.ii
In a recent article in The Christian Century magazine iii, biblical scholar Julie Faith Parker speaks of merisms in the Bible. A merism is a literary devise that names two ends of a spectrum, implicitly including all that lies in
between.
For example, to explain that someone searched everywhere, we say they searched high and low. What about searching in the middle? It’s implied. In the Bible, the Israelites longed for a land flowing with milk and honey: that which spoils quickly (milk) and that which lasts forever (honey) … and all the resources that have a shelf life somewhere in between. Or the psalmist speaking to God in Psalm 139 – v2: You know when I sit down and when I rise up” affirms God’s full knowledge of each of us … not just when we are in those two physical positions. Or the assertion in Revelation that the authority of God is the Alpha and the Omega … God at the beginning of time and at the end of time … and over all the time that lies between.
So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God he created them; male and female God created them.
Parker sees another merism here, too – one defining the full human spectrum. Male … female … and all that lies in between. Could that “in-between” include … cisgender, transgender, nonbinary? L-G-B-T-Q … plus … Are we not all created by God? In the image of God, God created us. Male … and female … and surely all that lies in between?
God knows each of us
God’s desire above all else is to be in relationship with each of us. God doesn’t just know each of us. God identifies deeply with each of us. God understands what it is to look like each of us, feel like each of us … hurt and love and fear like each of us. There isn’t an artist’s rendering of God that can capture all that God is. There is no written description of God that can capture all that God is. There is no theological principle or sermon about God that can capture all that God is. For God is too big, too all-inclusive for that to ever be possible.
i NRSV – Genesis 1:26, 27
ii NRSV – Genesis 1:27
iii The Christian Century, June 2025, “In the Bible, gender is not binary,” pp. 54 – 57