The Mystery of the Fatherless Father’s Day

Sermon for Trinity Sunday – 15 June 2025 – St Mary’s Playford and All Saints Kesgrave

Text: John 16.12-15

‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

God give you peace my sisters and brothers.

When Thomas Cranmer compiled the Book of Common Prayer many, many centuries ago he broke the mould of liturgy and the traditional names that were used for God.  Not too radically, after all you didn’t want to lose your head over what might be seen as just semantics, and he didn’t change the name for God frequently either.  In fact on only one Sunday a year, today, Trinity Sunday.

The rubric for the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer reads:

         *These words [Holy Father] must be omitted on Trinity Sunday

Today, on Father’s Day, we may not use the phrase ‘Holy Father’ in the service of Holy Communion.  Thomas Cranmer has provided us with a ‘Fatherless Fathers Day!’

Admittedly he goes on to use the names for all three members of the Trinity in the Proper Preface (which also may only be used today);

Upon the Feast of Trinity only.
WHO art one God, one Lord;  not one only Person, but three Persons in one Substance.  For that which we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality.  Therefore with Angels, &c.

Today we are faced with the conundrum of a ‘Fatherless Father’s Day’.  However as we try to unravel the Mystery of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, this ‘Fatherless Father’s Day’ might help us come to a deeper understanding of the nature and the mission of the God we worship?

In our everyday world we all too frequently proclaim special days; Mother’s Day, Grandparents Day, Secretaries Day, and my personal favourite, International Buy a Priest a Beer Day (it’s on 9 September if you would like to make a note in your diary…).  We do this so that family members and hard-working community servants, who may be easily taken for granted, are given some recognition, rest, chocolates and perhaps even a pint of ale…

Today however, our lectionary tells us, on Father’s Day, to not look at the Father.  To not give a special focus on one person of the Trinity over the other.  

To not proclaim that one of them is more important than the other.  

To do this neither in the work they do, nor in the way they add to our redemption, nor the amount of love, care, and provision they bestow upon the whole of creation.

There remain two lessons we learn from the three persons of the Holy Trinity that we are called to imitate in our lives and in our churches – equality and diversity.

In the Trinity there is no room for the ‘me first’ Christian or even the false modesty of the ‘me last’ very ‘umbleness of the Uriah Heeps of this world.  There is only the joy of the dance of an equal love and care for the whole of creation.  

The Godhead knows no hierarchy.  In a similar way as that of the ‘First Speaker’ in Isaac Asimov’s epic tale of the Foundation, the Father may have the first word in the act of creation but this word is primus inter pares, (first amongst equals) with the words of the Word made Flesh, and the gentle whispers of the Holy Spirit carrying the same weight and purpose.

This is so different to our workaday world that all too easily polarises equality and wants to set one valuable group of people against another group of people who are just as valuable but have a different role in the community.  How many times have you heard the cry, in recognition given to the often hidden work, love, and sacrifice of women on International Women’s Day on 8 March, of ‘What about ‘International Men’s Day’?  Not knowing that there has been one on 19 November each year for the last three decades…

Within the Godhead there is no competition but only the harmony that comes with unity.  

Would that the Church the Holy Trinity founded would heed the words of today’s Gospel reading and learn that the Spirit speaks only of that which the Son has received from the Father?  

Would that the Church would learn to be guided by the gentle whispering of the truth-bearing Spirit instead of the urgent cries of the ‘Listen to me’ brigade that have populated pulpits from Acts Chapter 15 onwards!

The Trinity majors on equality, not one person of the Godhead steps forward before the other as if of right or entitlement, but each speaks only in harmony with the others and all of them make love their aim.

Yet in the middle of this harmony there is not an obsessive uniformity of identity but instead a grand diversity of purpose.

God knows, literally and figuratively, that each of us is created in God’s own image yet each of us is unique.  

I thank God that in my journey of faith thus far I can point to definite times when God being like a loving caring Father was what held me close to the faith.  

There have been times when the rushing wind of the Spirit of Pentecost has blown through my life and called me onwards to say ‘yes’ despite my fears for the future and my failings of the past.  

And each day as ‘I walk with Him and I talk with Him’, as the old Sunday School song taught me, alongside my brother Jesus He reminds me to follow His way, regardless of the diversions and lay-bys of life.  

This is the diversity of the Godhead and this is the way in which we are all called to walk. 

In the middle of our confusion and despair God comes to us not once with only one voice but three times speaking in a celestial harmony.  

God comes to us with the gentle words of The One who Made us and knows our purpose and calls us to cherish the creation in which we have been placed.

God comes to us with the sympathy of The One who Redeems, knows our frailty, and holds us safe in nail-scarred hands.

God comes to us with the empowerment of The One who Enables us to fulfil our destiny as people made in the image and likeness of the Living God and live lives of joyful service.

The Godhead, overflowing with equality and diversity, is able to meet our every need for all the seasons of our life, and calls us to be a church and a people who imitate The One we worship, The One who redeemed us, and The One who Guides us on the journey homeward.  

Proclaiming that the Holy Trinity  is ‘Equal and Diverse’ demands that we be an equal and diverse church.  This is as much a Creed as the lengthy doctrinal statement composed by St Athanasius which, as faithful members of this Church of England, we will (of course) read before we lay ourselves to rest this night on this Fatherless Father’s Day…

Rejoice my sisters and brothers, that today we celebrate the joy of the Holy Trinity in which the Godhead refuses to value one Person more than another and recognises that the fullness of love requires more than one partner in the dance of life.

Rejoice my sisters and brothers, that today we celebrate that our God is an intimate God who comes to us as Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer, ever calling us toward the light and love of the life after life.

Rejoice my sisters and brothers, that today we celebrate that we have been given a share in the mission of the Holy and Undivided Trinity as we commit ourselves to live lives that welcome everyone and exclude no one and so build a church wherein all are welcome within the great love of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Alleluia!  Amen!

 [This blog ‘The Mystery of the Fatherless Father’s Day’ is an edited version of a previous blog published in 2029.  Thie version is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025.]