Trinity All-Age Sermon

Trinity Sunday, 30.5.2010
Romans 5.1-5

Pre-sermon activities:-
• Hands up if you are (or have recently been) a mum, a brother, a church council member, a teacher, a driver, a patient, etc
• Suitcase articles – Passport, T10, My Baptism certificate + one random object?

• Trinity Sunday! Romans 5.1-5 a suitably dense/complicated piece of scripture.

• I was trying to read it this week as a non Christian might - how alien this kind of language is to neighbours outside the Church. “Justification by faith” … “standing in grace” … “rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God” … “rejoicing in our sufferings” … “having love poured into us by the Holy Spirit”.

• These phrases are all made up of English words, but would mean little to most people. It might as well be written in Greek – which of course the original was!

Actually the main point of the reading is quite simple, summed up in the word ACCESS.

Examples of what access means:-
• The Access card
• Access education
• Access all areas press pass
• Access for wheelchair users
• Who is most important/famous person in Spain? Do you have access?

According to our reading, the TRINITY means we all have ACCESS to God – wow!

Actually says access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

“Standing in grace” is a bit like this – two captains picking teams for football in the playground. Great to be picked but feels awful if you’re not – God’s team is different because nobody is last to be chosen, everybody is equally loved and valued!

How do we gain access into this grace (God’s team)? By FAITH…

Faith involves a DECISION to trust someone completely which involves some risk in order to gain amazing benefits and possibilities… like getting married (eg Billie and I … we talked, planned, dreamed for ages and eventually took the step of faith. Same with God – until we take that step of faith we don’t discover how great being in God’s team is!)

The amazing possibility of being in God’s grace, part of God’s team, is that even bad experiences become positive. Our lives have purpose and meaning and the potential for showing the love and power of God to the world.

(Children now hand round three green leaves with pens for everyone to write their names on – during this I briefly explain the Trinity in my own words!!)

Back to our opening “hands up” exercise – we are all “different people” in the different roles we play, but there ought to be consistency and integrity between the way I live as say a husband, an office worker, a friend…

The three persons of God are absolutely consistent and integrated – and all are involved in giving us access to God’s family, God’s team.

NB being in God’s “team” is not just a matter of standing around looking good in the right uniform; its about playing for God, working for God, pursuing God’s goals.

Finally, I assemble the shamrock leaves onto the stem/way in which is FAITH.

End with a prayer based on Romans 5.1-5