“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28: 16-20)
When I was a kid, our family would go on what can only be described as epic road trips. We had family in the United States and family in Mexico, so we would frequently pack up and drive the long, dusty distances to maintain those connections. Most of the time, these journeys involved car camping along the way. If you’ve ever been car camping with a large family, you know it isn’t just a trip; it’s a logistical feat involving a mountain of equipment, sleeping bags, and supplies that had to be puzzled into every spare inch of the vehicle.
We were a pretty big family, and so we had to load up in some of the very first vans that were available at the time. Our first one was the classic VW van. To look at it today, you’d think we should’ve hung beads in the window and worn tie-dye, but we were a “respectable” family, so we always looked, well, like ordinary kids.
I’ll be honest with you: I hated these trips. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the destination. I loved the hugs from aunts and the laughter of cousins. But getting there was another story. I have always been miserably car-sick, and that VW van had a very specific smell—likely from the heater—that to this day makes me feel a bit nauseous when I even think about it.
There were also four of us kids cooped up together in a small, metal box. That environment was a recipe for escalated, epic arguments and the occasional piece of flying camping equipment. Often, the chaos would devolve to a point where my Dad would emphatically yell from the front seat, “Don’t make me pull over!” Of course, about two kilometers further down the road, the “unity” would fracture again, Dad would pull the car over, and he would turn around and give us the “glare.” That usually secured an uneasy truce for about another hour.
The truth about families is that often the kids bicker and are unreasonable, and the parents have to take detours on life’s road trips to bring everything back to a place of equilibrium. You’d think that by the time we all grew up, developed functioning frontal lobes, and learned the ability to “keep our hands to ourselves,” things would change. But they don’t. In fact, our “backseat battles” in the church often get much more sophisticated and, unfortunately, much more divisive.
This brings me to Trinity Sunday. In the liturgical calendar, this is the day we grapple with one of the most complex “family” structures of all: God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Frequently, we treat the Trinity like a math problem to be solved or a narrow definition to be defended. We use it as a boundary marker—a way to decide who is “in” the car and who is “out.”
In 1975, five major Christian churches in Canada reached an agreement recognizing the validity of each other’s baptisms. Decades later, this mutual recognition by the Presbyterian, Lutheran, United, Roman Catholic, and Anglican (PLURA) churches stands as a historic milestone. Part of this recognition involves using very specific Trinitarian language: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
When I perform baptisms, I use this formula. I do it out of a deep respect for our ecumenical partners so that we can all “see” and recognize one another. However, in my personal practice and in broader worship, I often use more expansive, non-gendered language—words like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. I have many reasons for this, primarily because I believe our language for God should always be reaching for something larger, not smaller.
The trouble is that when we turn the Trinity into a “formula” or a gatekeeping mechanism, we end up like bickering kids in the back of a VW van. We start arguing over who has the right “smell” or who is sitting in the right spot. We leave out our Baptist and Pentecostal siblings who might focus on a personal profession of faith rather than an infant ritual. When people are left out, it leads to fights. Everyone wants to be included, and everyone wants to get things “right” where God is concerned.
But here is the beautiful thing about the Holy Trinity: it was never meant to be a reductive cage for God. It was meant to be an expansive invitation.
When Jesus stood on that mountain in Galilee and told the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he wasn’t handing them a narrow creed to use as a weapon. He was describing a God who is fundamentally relational. To speak of the Trinity is to say that God is, in God’s very essence, a community of love. It tells us that God isn’t a stagnant, distant monarch sitting alone on a throne, but a dynamic, flowing movement of love that is constantly reaching outward.
Trinity Sunday reminds us that God is expansive enough to be the Creator who holds the stars, the Brother who walks the dusty roads with us, and the Breath that sustains us when we can’t breathe on our own. When we try to reduce the Trinity to a single set of gendered words or a rigid doctrinal “correctness,” we are essentially trying to tell God to “sit still in the backseat.” But God doesn’t sit still. God is always pulling the car over, not to glare at us, but to invite us out of our petty arguments and into the vastness of the Great Commission.
The passage says to “make disciples of all nations” first. The inclusion into the family is the priority. The “all are welcome” is the starting point. We aren’t commanded to be “more right” than the church down the road. We are commanded to teach everyone to love one another.
The Trinity is the ultimate “everyone is included” story. It suggests that there is room for everyone in the circle of God’s life. If God is a relationship, then our primary job isn’t to define that relationship with perfect accuracy, but to participate in it. We participate by loving our neighbors, by seeking justice, and by recognizing the image of the Divine in the person we’d rather throw camping equipment at.
So, as we move through this season, let’s try to stop the “backseat bickering” over who has the best theology. Let’s remember that the Trinity is an open door, not a locked gate. God is expansive. God is more than our words can capture. And most importantly, God is Love—a love that first loved us, and a love that loves all of us most.
Blessings today, my dear Bethel friends. You really are Loved, in every name and every way.
~Rev. Lynne
Audio File: https://audio.com/lynne-gardiner/audio/trinity-sunday-1