On our liturgical calendars, Sunday, May 30, is designated as Trinity Sunday, and as we look forward to re-gathering for our in-person services, the doctrine of the Trinity helps us in understanding the value of community.
Indeed, if in the Divine Community there is (as Trinitarian doctrine teaches us) no above and below, no superior or inferior, but only a society of equals who are different from each other but live together in mutual openness, respect, and self-giving love, then any true human community should also mutually embrace people who are different in race, different in gender, different in socio-economic levels, different in political understanding, different in religious beliefs. If the deity of God is fulfilled in the community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (as Trinitarian doctrine teaches us), then a faithful gathering of people created in the image of God is realized only in community, not in isolation from others or in resistance to others. If there is equality between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the Divine Community (as Trinitarian doctrine teaches us), then in a truly human community and in the church, there is no place whatsoever for authoritarianism by any individual, gender, racial group, political stance, or religion. There can only be the quest for a human society that reflects the free, open, egalitarian kind of society that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have with each other and will for the world.
Therefore, as we re-assemble in our sanctuary for worship, let us model and demonstrate the virtues of a Trinitarian community.
—tom