Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost, is the only Sunday in the Christian calendar that celebrates a doctrine of the church.
It's also one of those occasions some in larger churches sometimes jokingly refer to as "let the associate pastor preach Sunday." Such Sundays often include the Second Sunday of Easter ("Low Sunday" because so many fewer are usually in attendance than on Easter Sunday), and the Sunday after Christmas (so the senior pastor can get some vacation time after Christmas Eve). For Trinity Sunday, the associate preaches so the senior pastor doesn't have to try to address the complexities of the doctrine of the Trinity. (Yes, I served as an associate in a larger church, so I speak from experience!).
All joking aside, Trinity Sunday is not a day to try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. It is instead a day to celebrate its truth for us and for our salvation.
United Methodists have good reason to celebrate this day.
And second, because "God is love" is at the center of center of all United Methodist theology and practice.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, expressed in the Nicene Creed, underscores that the relationality of Father, Son and Holy Spirit lies within the very essence of God and has always done so. There has never been a time when God was not relational to the core.
The United Methodist emphasis that God is love flows from and is supported by that underlying, essential and eternal relationality of God. For without relationships, love cannot exist. Love is the relationship between lover and beloved. There must always be both. The love through which God made all things, sustains all things, and is making all things new flows from the love at the heart of the relationships that comprise God's very being.
John Wesley is widely remembered for a statement that first appeared in the preface of "Hymns and Sacred Poems" (1739), the first and principal hymnal he and his brother Charles developed for use by Methodist societies: "The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection."
What John Wesley meant by this is that individualism, or "solitary religion" as he called it, has no place anywhere in Christian theology or practice. This is because God is love, and love only happens in relationship. We are not made for ourselves, but for each other and for our God. So we also must not imagine our God as a solitary individual, but rather as the divine community in perfect unity, each working for the good of the other, and so do likewise among ourselves. We are our siblings' keepers.
Observing Trinity Sunday calls United Methodists to join with other Christians not only in celebrating this hallmark of Christian doctrine shared with Christians everywhere, but also in remembering and offering to others the most significant theological and practical hallmarks of Methodism itself. God is love. Therefore, United Methodists can and do watch over one another in love to cultivate perfection in love in this life.
Burton Edwards is lead for Ask The UMC, the information service of United Methodist Communications.
