Today is a Day in our Church Year together completely unlike any other - the Principal Feasts and Major Holy Days are all based on, first and foremost, historical fact - something or other that happened in the history of humanity, some event, majestic and powerful and undeniable, and yes, usually very beloved and heartbreaking real, of God at work, doing something for us, with us, among us , here and now, on this very Earth. Christmas, Easter, the Last Supper. Of course, they two are as deeply theological as today, the doctrine of the Incarnation and the doctrine of the Atonement and the foundational moment of a Sacramental Life of Grace are not child's play, but they are so solidly and safely based on a moment, an image, based on events that are much-loved by children and adults, appreciated and enjoyed by all of us, simple, brilliant, or most likely in-between.

Today, on the other hand, we make a vaguer or at least less obvious less paintable, remembrance and reassurance. A statement that is breathtaking in its ambition and intent and point and purpose. Breathtaking. This Day, this Sunday, this Trinity Sunday, each year, is the time that we present and recall and focus on and sing about a Doctrine, purely and only a doctrine, a doctrinal understanding that depend on, and surely grew out of our Salvation history together, but not, itself, based on one, given, glorious original occurrence of something or other. Trinity Sunday, vague and floating perhaps, but oh my, so deeply loved by most Episcopalians, Partly I suspect, because of "Holy, Holy, Holy" - so treasured by so many and one of the few hymns so lustily sung by most, but for all that, a day unlike any others, and a day that is staggering in its assertion. And that is that we have a doctrine, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and it is an important doctrine. It is the most adequate expression possible, in admittedly inadequate human language, to express, to articulate the nature of God.

It is how we name God, and describe his being. That is not as presumptuous an endeavor as it might seem - To describe the mystery, to give shape to the divine reality. To name God.

We have to name it, conceive it, picture it, imagine it, articulate it, we have to name God to enable a relationship that is even remotely like the one he intends.

Some nameless, vague, surpassingly ineffable, supremely inexpressible divinity is not what I am going to suddenly and fiercely cry out to when I am terrified or my heart is breaking, or I feel that I could just die.

There has to be name that I can use. And it must refer to someone who cares.

I do not deny the existence of all sorts of elemental forces in our universe that work on us mightily and irresistibly - I do not deny their effect on me, I do not deny the power and reality of those forces, but they do not care, do not see, do not notice, do not love or grieve. I don't deny the reality of the effect, irresistible of say, Gravity on me, but I can't imagine Gravity cares if I fall. And so I don't, wouldn't, you know, pray to it.

But today we make an even more startling assertion about power and care in this Universe, an assertion we know well and could all doubtless quote: We worship one God in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Substance. Ultimate reality and Primary moving Force of all Reality. But he cares, cares for me, for you. And I can and do pray to this God, not fully knowing probably which "one" of them I pray to. Nor do we need to know. We surely appreciate (how could we not!) that talk of "Unity of Substance" is a complicated thing and an exalted philosophical concept. It means certainly more than I can understand, but it means at least that there are not three individual and distinct Gods. And I need not now, or ever choose right, when I choose which one to address for this or that particular issue - the Father for one sort of prayer, the Son covering other concerns, the Holy Spirit specializing in yet another. There are three Persons, but there is only one Substance, one Being. One Reality. Without any division. But above all, one love, loving us, the God who created all things, sustains them, cares for us, loves us, and invites, actually it seems, wants us to pray to him. Amazing. Literally, and I can well understand how Christians though all the ages, wanted, still want, will very want, to make some sense of all this, find a way to understand, a little, express a bit, a feel overwhelmingly what sort of God this is. What he is like, really like. Not a thing in our lives as important as that. Not so unusual, I guess that we would have a Trinity Sunday - couldn't very well do without it, could we? "Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!