Sermon Brainwave 1086: Holy Trinity - May 31, 2026  🔗 **Source:** [Sermon Brainwave 1086: Holy Trinity - May 31, 2026](https://share.snipd.com/episode/0574dff4-056e-4acd-bbbe-4aa08d9cb3dd) ## Highlights - **Trinity Is Scripture's Imprint Not A Biblical Quote** - The doctrine of the Trinity is a church-shaped language that Scripture imprints rather than directly quotes. - Matt Skinner suggests preaching how acts of mercy and communal practices form a Trinitarian consciousness more than abstract theology. Transcript: Matt Skinner What I said. Karoline Lewis Yeah, you did. Matt Skinner I stand by it. But that's more than just a like idle theological reflection. I think that that's an important way of asking, how does the witness of scripture imprint a kind of Trinitarian consciousness on the Christian life and Christian faith? And that's not so much through sitting in the library, thinking about it, and more through the acts of mercy and grace. Anyway, go on. You were talking about me. That's something I wrote. ([Time 0:01:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b3e7d930-b69b-4e7e-869d-9a851b5ec23c)) - **Sent To Serve While Still Doubting** - Matthew's Great Commission sends disciples out while they still 'worshiped him, but they doubted,' validating ministry amid uncertainty. - Cody Sanders highlights that Jesus commissions them to baptize and teach even before doctrinal doubts are resolved. Transcript: Cody Sanders Of those conundra, I think it's a really helpful phrase here to lift up. They worshiped him, but they doubted. And especially when we come to a kind of theological doctrine like the Trinity, which is probably kind of hard for a lot of people to get their head around in terms of like what this actually Means in a life of faith. I love that this puts worship and doubt side by side, and it is not problematic. Jesus comes and says to them, you know, all authority to heaven and earth is given to me, and he sends them out, not after they've resolved this tension between worship and doubt, but In the midst of their worshiping him and they doubted, and now they're being sent to baptize. I think that is probably the location of many of our congregants between worship and doubt or worship and uncertainty or worship and really deep questions about the life of faith, which Gets sort of validated, I think, by this portrayal of the disciples. ([Time 0:03:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c604d16e-9ace-461f-ba19-d7bf45dfdf1f)) - **Make Theology A Cooperative Local Question** - Invite congregations into practical theologizing by asking who God is for them and what Jesus commands them to do in their local context. - Matt Skinner recommends cooperative reflection tying theology to concrete actions and upcoming Matthew readings. Transcript: Matt Skinner Now you're going to have, what, five months of learning what Jesus commanded in the gospel of Matthew. Karoline Lewis But they don't do that. Obedience and the following the commands are with that presence of the Spirit. So there's a promise in that. And then also that I remember I'm with you always to the end of the age, you know, connected back to a name of Jesus himself, Emmanuel, God with us. And so the way in which even an insight into the Trinity for people could be, this is the way that the church is trying to language. How is it that God is with us? How does God manifest God's self in being with us, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, that the fundamental, you know, the fundamental characteristic of God that's being embodied in the Trinity Is God's need to be present with us? Could be, oh, like one little Trinitarian direction one could take. Matt Skinner I like to remind people in congregations that they're all theologians because people hear theology and they think stuffy, academic, conceptual things. And so here's a Sunday where you can invite people into that. Like, how do you participate in theologizing? And you do that in part by reflecting on what has Jesus commanded you to do, to obey? What kind of life has he set before you, as here's where you participate in my work. We'll get to that in the upcoming weeks in Matthew when he sends out his followers very soon. And so part of theology is just simply reflecting on that. Who is God for me now? What would God have me do in this corner of this world right now, right today? ([Time 0:05:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b26b4869-0e66-4db5-906f-efaffefe78d5)) - **Creation As Ordering Not Creation From Nothing** - Genesis 1 presents a transcendent God bringing order to preexisting formlessness rather than creating from nothing. - The speakers note the Spirit's presence over chaos and that 'light' as first act reframes chaos as a setting, not mere enemy. Transcript: Matt Skinner Yeah, let's do it. I think this is always, obviously, once every three years. You get this a lot. Trinity Sunday, you'll get texts that really push you toward the transcendence of God. I mean, on the one hand, this is probably selected because God says, let us make humankind in our image. Right. Some people want to read that as a kind of Trinitarian sneak preview. I'm not so sure that's the best way of reading it. Karoline Lewis Yeah. Matt Skinner But this is certainly, if you want a passage of divine transcendence, here you go, of a God who speaks order into chaos and eventually raises up a sustainable world in the midst of what Appears to have been, again, chaos, formlessness prior to that. But here's my question. This might be just kind of an esoteric question, but how would Trinity Sunday be different if they chose Genesis 2 instead? If they chose a more earthy deity who's making things out of clay and walking through the garden and talking to the created beings. Karoline Lewis Yeah. Matt Skinner See what I mean? There's an interesting, maybe we're thinking about in terms of as we think about God as transcendent, as mysterious. You've got two really different creation accounts that really have different theologies embedded in them that aren't necessarily at war with each other, but both deserve to be heard. Cody Sanders The piece I really love about this, especially if we're seeing this in a Trinitarian kind of framework, which we have to bring to this text, but the wind from God swept over the face of The waters that were the complete chaos, that the spirit of God is present in the chaos, that it wasn't like the chaos was necessarily antithetical to God. And I think, and I could be wrong about this, I think it was Bonhoeffer in one of his lectures on Genesis talk, he portrays, if I remember correctly, he portrays the chaos not as the thing Against which God is creating, but as almost the first act of creation. It's just the setting, not something to be talked about in a pejorative term. It is just the context over which the wind from God swept, and then God says, let there be light. I think that sort of reframes this text a little bit and also helps us reframe what role chaos might play in our own lives and where we can perceive the presence of God, the presence of the Spirit engaging with chaos to bring something good and life-sustaining out of it in some ways. Something you can do with that piece of chaos, I think, if we don't just treat it as the thing against which God is acting. Matt Skinner Yeah, there's nothing that has to be destroyed in this creation account. Karoline Lewis And I think also the emphasis on that that's what God did, that God brings order into formlessness and chaos. And this is not creation out of nothing. Matt Skinner It's not? I mean, the chaos is not a nothing. Karoline Lewis Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, the chaos is not a nothing. I ([Time 0:08:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/97698e65-91c5-4ee1-ad45-3427ccbf45d3)) - **Dominion Reinterpreted As Skilled Stewardship** - Traditional readings of 'dominion' in Genesis have fueled extractive human exceptionalism, but retranslation sees skilled stewardship and care. - Cody Lewis and Cody Sanders reference Ellen Davis's translation emphasizing preservation and skilled mastery among creatures. Transcript: Cody Sanders And that has been so terribly interpreted in the history of the Christian tradition that it does promote a sense of human supremacy, human exceptionalism over the larger web of life, Which can be our resources and not our companions in the earth. And I really hope that preachers will land on that to help people reinterpret that text for a context in which the earth and our relationship to life on earth is on the brink. Ellen Davis is a really important person to help us do that, I think, particularly in the way I looked back at some notes I had from her and how she reinterpreted, well, really retranslates This notion of dominion, saying instead of dominion, that it means so that they may exercise skilled mastery among the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. And it is about, you know, the provision of food. She then sort of retranslates to 15 where this shows up again, and she translates that as to work and to serve it, the earth, to preserve and observe it. ([Time 0:12:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/133195e6-c90e-4de3-944b-cbff891e4b17)) - **Preach Sabbath As Holy Portable Time** - Preach Sabbath as holy time, not just a place-based sacred site, to restore a sense of the holy amid commodified time. - Matt Skinner urges reclaiming Sabbath's portability and sanctity in modern life drained by time scarcity. Transcript: Matt Skinner Think we've lost a lot of a sense of the holy. I mean, you ask people about holy places or holy activities and the answers are sometimes either nothing or everything, um, or the beach. Uh, but time also has holy, right? Sabbath is, is, um, is holy time. And so to think about time as being sanctified, sanctifiable, uh, especially when time has become such a commodity in so much of Western industrialized society. And we all feel short of it. I don't know what that has to do with the Trinity. ([Time 0:15:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/030c7aa4-17e5-4d63-b86c-c8cf37442598)) - **Preach Grace Love And Communion As A Three Point Sermon** - Use 2 Corinthians 13:13 as a Trinitarian sermon frame: preach on grace, love, and communion as shaping communal life. - Karoline Lewis suggests a three-point sermon paired with Psalm 8 and a poem for liturgical texture. Transcript: Karoline Lewis Yes. So verse 13 is very familiar, of course, to many, many preachers as a liturgical greeting from the beginning of a service. However, I think if you're looking for sermon ideas, preachers, this would be a great Trinitarian sermon. Just like, okay, so what if this were like a you know this is a trinitarian statement uh the grace of the lord jesus christ and the commentary does this a little bit love of god and the communion Of the holy spirit just to like just preach on that verse grace is grace and jesus love of god and communion of the holy spirit three part it's easy three part three-point sermon and then Find a poem the psalm you got the psalm you got the psalm oh see It's perfect. So a three-point sermon and a psalm. Matt Skinner All of my notes point against that, but go ahead. It's all good. People don't come to the podcast to get just one idea. Go ahead. Karoline Lewis That's exactly right, but that's what I would do. Matt Skinner I was actually going to affirm that. I'm happy to be outvoted. I ([Time 0:19:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/811f66ab-5cb4-4d74-9d50-93672399dac4)) - **Root Benedictions In Community Reconciliation** - Ground Trinitarian benedictions in lived reconciliation rather than abstract doctrine by emphasizing tangible community repair. - Matt Skinner points to Paul's use of the blessing to heal fractured Corinthians and imprint God's gifts into congregational life. Transcript: Matt Skinner And so I wrote here, these are my notes, right? That verse 13 risks being purely esoteric and conceptual. Were it not about making God's gifts and power present within the Corinthians themselves? And I'm not going to say that your sermon idea is wrong. If you're telling me I'm preaching this in two hours, that's where I would go. I would say that we can talk about the Trinitarian language. We can talk about the Trinitarian, all these great theological words, but at the end of the day, Paul cites this because he's trying to, I used to say imprint again earlier on, but trying To imprint this into the lives and the common life of the Corinthian believers. And so Trinitarian theology is pretty useless, I would say, unless it has a kind of lived application or a kind of lived reality. Otherwise it's just to me, a kind of thing you memorize and get a gold star by your name or a, and I'm not saying that's what you were saying with your sermon. I'm just saying it seems really important to me that we talk about the, Paul pulls this out at a time where he's trying to heal the fractured group. ([Time 0:21:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4b7cab06-fffc-4bb4-9364-95d9e89655e4))