“And There Is More”
Holy Trinity Sunday — May 31, 2026
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Every year on Trinity Sunday, pastors everywhere face the same problem.
How do you explain the Trinity?
How do you explain one God in three persons:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
And honestly…
most attempts end badly.
At some point it usually starts sounding like a bad math problem.
One plus one plus one equals one.
And people politely nod…
while secretly thinking,
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
And …it’s not uncommon for people to fall asleep soon thereafter…
But maybe Trinity Sunday is not really about explaining God.
Maybe it is about realizing that God is bigger
than any one way we experience God.
And maybe Trinity Sunday
invites us deeper into the fullness of who God is.
When I think about the Trinity,
I think about the three Bible camps where I worked when I was much younger.
Each one emphasized a different experience of God.
The first was Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp in Iowa.
The camp was small – from the camp center you could pretty much see the entire camp
In the center was chapel and campfire hill with a big white cross standing at the top….
There the focus was very much on your personal relationship with Jesus.
Prayer.
Bible study.
Grace.
Forgiveness.
A close walk with Christ.
And for many Christians,
that is where faith comes alive.
With a Jesus who is personal.
Not just an idea.
Not just doctrine.
But someone who walks with you.
Someone who walks alongside you
Some of you know God most deeply that way.
You know what it means to pray through hard nights.
You know what it means to lean on Jesus when life falls apart.
You know the comfort of hearing:
your sins are forgiven.
But then there was another camp in my life
EWALU.
That was short for eastern iowa lutheran…
That camp had over 500 acres
Where everything was spread out in the woods
There the focus was much more on creation.
We spent enormous amounts of time outdoors.
Camping.
Hiking.
Immersed in nature.
And the older you got,
the deeper into creation you went.
the programs were designed to immerse kids
more deeply as they grew in years…
And something happens to people out there.
You sit under a sky full of stars.
You hear the wind in the trees.
And suddenly Psalm 8 makes sense:
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them?”
You realize how small you are.
And at the very same time,
how loved you are.
And how blessed a place you have
Right in the center of this glorious creation
Some people know God most deeply that way.
Not first through doctrine,
but through wonder.
Beauty.
Awe.
Creation.
And then there was Sky Ranch in Colorado.
High up in the colorado rockies
Just outside of rocky mountain national park
focused on the person and work of the holy spirit
in the mess world we live in today….
That camp director had one foot permanently planted in the protest movements of the 1960s.
Each week one night we had what they called a hunger meal.
The campers were divided into groups representing the world.
A tiny group got more food than they could possibly eat.
A middle group got enough.
And most people got a little bowl of rice.
It was uncomfortable.
And it was supposed to be uncomfortable.
The point was to awaken what they called holy discontent.
to awaken the stirrings of the holy spirit…
To realize:
this world is not yet what God intends it to be.
That God cares about suffering.
Justice.
Hunger.
Human dignity.
Some people know God most deeply there.
They encounter God when serving others.
Advocating for justice.
Helping heal the world.
And somewhere along the way,
a bishop in the Rocky Mountain Synod
came up to sky ranch
and talked about congregations
falling into similar categories.
One church focused mostly on taking care of their own people.
Another focused mostly on personal salvation.
Another focused mostly on changing the world.
And he said healthy congregations somehow hold all three together.
In tension with each other.
And honestly,
that may not be bad Trinitarian theology.
Because here is what Trinity Sunday reminds us:
The moment we think we have God figured out…
there is more.
Some of us gravitate toward Jesus and personal faith.
Some of us encounter God most deeply in creation and wonder.
Some of us feel most alive when working for healing and justice in the world.
And Trinity Sunday says:
yes.
Yes to all of that.
But also:
there is more.
The Creator says:
This world matters.
The Son says:
You matter.
The Spirit says:
Your neighbor matters too.
And somehow these are not three different gods.
One love.
One mission.
One God continually drawing us deeper.
I think that is part of why I love this line from Matthew’s Gospel so much.
The disciples see the risen Jesus and Matthew says:
“They worshiped him, but they doubted.”
That may be one of the most honest lines in the entire Bible.
They worshiped.
And they doubted.
At the same time.
They did not fully understand.
And Jesus still sent them.
Jesus did not say:
“Once you completely understand God,
then you may begin following me.”
No.
Instead he promised:
“I am with you always.”
Maybe that is the real gift of Trinity Sunday.
Not that we finally explain God.
But that we discover God is still bigger,
still deeper,
still more beautiful,
still more loving,
than we imagined before.
And maybe faith is simply remaining open to the possibility
that God still has more to show us.
More grace.
More wonder.
More compassion.
More truth.
More love.
The early church sometimes described the Trinity as a dance—
Father, Son, and Spirit moving together in perfect love.
And maybe the invitation of faith
is not to stand frozen in one corner of the dance floor.
But to let God keep drawing us deeper into the music.
Amen.
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