Most ministers I know avoid Trinity Sunday like a plague of Egyptian locusts. A couple of years back I decided it was time to stop the avoidance and engage with the challenge; for the most part people seem to appreciated it. One of the challenges, irrespective of the age of your congregation, is finding suitable illustrations, well, assuming of course you want to go that way of course. Many of those I found on a quick web trawl are familiar - the shamrock leaf, the three states of water, the dreaded trifle (which I'd never heard of until I began training as a minister and its badness has stuck firmly in my brain) and this time I found eggs, apples and even jaffa cakes! The problem with these images is that they slip into modalism - three modes or functions of God - three people rather than the three personae. Trouble is, the more theologically orthodox concepts are utterly impossible to explain or illustrate, which is why I suspect we live with the modalism.
Evidently St Patrick held up his shamrock/clover leaf and said "is it three-in-one or one-in-three?" His hearers allegedly said 'both,' which is about as good, and non-modal, as you're going to get.
So, I'm back to mulling over what I'll do for the "all together" part of our service and thinking the shamrock is a pretty good contender, all things considered. Perhaps we over-rationalise mystery, perhaps we stetch metaphors to breaking point, and perhaps we're either too fearful or too ignorant of heresy to find creative means of exploring the wonder of a triune God?
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One illustration i have often used is that of a Chord - is it one sound or 3? Is it as rich and full when we only play one or two notes of the chord compared to playing all three notes. Can then be illustrated using a piano/keyboard. But whatever you do it will be nothing as compared to the wonderful mystery and beauty of the dance of God that is the Trinity.
Brian Haymes's comment to the students as they prepared to preach on Sunday was that it was the most glorious Sunday of the year, since it was the Sunday when a) they knew that they were to delve into the riches of the being of God - and b) they knew above all that whatever they said, it would be wrong. It has got me through many a Trinity Sunday sermon; talk about God in as much fulness as possible, all the time knowing the language and our thinking are too small. That in itself sometimes forms my sermon.....
sing he's got the whole world in his hands - what are God's two hands - they are the Son and the Spirit .... God creates, sustains and redeems the world through the Son and the Holy Spirit
Once upon a time, there were three little rabbits, called Mopsy, Flopsy and Cottontail. They were very naughty and went to explore Mr MacGregor's cabbage patch. Unfortunately, Mr MacGregor saw them, shot them and took them home. Mrs MacGregor made a lovely rabbit pie for tea.
3 rabbits, 1 pie
(sorry, I know its a bit warped, but I think it's quite funny)
ROTFL yes helen it's warped but very funny. I hope my veggie and under 8 readers will forgive me!
Maybe there's a variation on The Tale of Two Bad Mice i hrer somewhere?