Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2026: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20; Psalm 8
Today is Trinity Sunday, when the church focuses on the mystery of God, three in one. Our readings start with the creation, and end with Jesus’ Great Commission.
The first of the two Genesis creation stories repeatedly reminds us of God’s creative work, and God repeatedly emphasizes that “it is good”. The psalm retells the creation, but with human wonder:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?
It is important to know where we are from. Where we are from shapes us, for good — and sometimes ill. One of the reason it is often so easy to fall in step with people we knew in school is that they know where we are from: we don’t need to explain ourselves. Whatever has happened in the interim, we know the starting point.
Just as our backstory is crucial for understanding the present, the goodness of creation is the starting point for our relationship with God. It’s where it all started. It is as much our origin story as that of where we grew up and our various family stories.
It is that origin story that gives us strength to respond to Jesus’ final words in the Gospel of Matthew, the so-called Great Commission. Jesus claims his position: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. God created the world, Jesus has power.
Instead of using his power to condemn or punish, Jesus gives tasks, a final “to do” list. 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.
But there is not just a commandment. There is help. Jesus tells the disciples that I am with you always, to the end of the age.
We know our origin story, the story of creation. We know the story of Jesus, and his commandments to love God and our neighbor. We have a commandment to make disciples. But we are never alone.
It is that we know and see God’s wondrous creation, and Jesus’ promise, that we can carry out his commandment. We never do God’s work on our own.
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