This year for the first time ever I am preaching on Trinity Sunday. It has tended to be one I take off because the big outreach events of Pentecost leave me fit for not a lot and as it is usually nearer June than May it's a good weekend to have off - apart from avoiding the perils of preaching it!
Thinking back over more than 30 years of regular church going, most years of which I have been in church on Trinity Sunday I have never, ever heard anyone preach on the Trinity - not in a Baptist church, a Methodist church, a URC, C of E or even RC - and I've been in all of these at least once on said Sunday.
So it is proving a good challenge beginning, albeit later than usual, to think about hymns and songs to accompany some of the lectionary readings to to ponder how I might get my good people to begin to engage a little with the concept.
I am contemplating beginning by asking them for the metaphors and analogies they know of (and dreading the inevitable answers) and then seeing if they actually know that the doctrine is not explicitly in the Bible (shock, horror!). Not that there aren't threefold references in the Bible, before anyone accuses me of total heresy, but the neat tidy concept itself just isn't there. I might well them go on to use Rublev's famous icon and Mattisse's dance to tease around some ideas of community/relationship and even playfulness within the Godhead. Whether I survive after showing images of naked 'ladies' on a Sunday remains to be seen! After all, even my middle aged knees are a bit too risque for some of my congregation...
In the meantime I'm trying to find some more inspiring than 'Holy, holy. holy,' 'Father we love you' and 'Father we adore you' by way of explicitly trinitarian hymns and songs.
PS the worst ever metaphor for the Trinity I have encountered is...'the trinity is like a trifle, there are three layers but one pudding' Aaaaaaaargh!