Fairhaven Sermon 5-31-2026
Summary
In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson explores the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity through the joyful metaphor of a wedding dance. Moving beyond confusing doctrines and historical debates, the sermon introduces the concept of *perichoresis*—the idea that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a dynamic, rhythmic relationship where each person makes space for the other. This "divine dance" serves as the ultimate model for community and perfect relationship.
The message further connects this Trinitarian movement to the creation story in Genesis, where God’s collaborative nature is revealed from the very beginning. As humans created in the image of a relational God, we are called not to be mere spectators on the edge of the dance floor, but active participants in God's work of love, care, and creation. Through the life and example of Jesus, we are invited to learn the "steps" of faith—learning to make room for others through service and grace—until we are finally united with Christ in the eternal celebration to come.
Transcript
If you've been to a wedding reception, which pretty much everybody has at some point in their lives, you know the moment when the energy of the thing shifts. The ceremony's done, dinner's over, you've managed to slog through all the trappings and traditions, you know, the cliched maid of honor speech, right? For those of you who don't know me, I'm the bride's sister, best for whatever. And then the sometimes moving dances with the bride and groom and their parents. Various other speeches, right? The cakes happened, probably. And then knowing that it's time to shift gears, the DJ plays one perfectly targeted song to try to get everybody going. These days, maybe it's the Cupid Shuffle or the Wobble, right? 20 years ago, it might have and the electric slide. Changes generationally. But the evening with this song has moved into its final act, the one that everyone's been waiting for patiently. The dance floor starts to fill up, which is the whole goal right here. People who hadn't moved all night, who were starting to maybe drift off, get up out of their chairs. And there is this collective sense of joy and rhythm that takes over. There's this collective flow, this shared movement of community.
And now you might perceive me as graceful and elegant, which I appreciate, but I am not myself much of a dancer. Still, by this point in the reception, even people like me, with a glass or two of wedding champagne, can usually get into the flow of the wedding dancing, maybe the Macarena, right? But even if you are sitting on the perimeter of the room or you stay in your chair, there is something that's really joyful, that really catches you about watching this crowded room swirl and step and laugh in alignment. You know, the line dances are cool to watch, even if people aren't good at it. And this is an image that the early church used to describe one of the deepest mysteries of faith, and that's the Holy Trinity. It's Trinity Sunday. I don't like Trinity Sunday because I don't want to talk to you about doctrine for 20 minutes, but dance makes it a little bit different.
The ancient Greek theologians used a specific word to describe the way all the persons of the Trinity related to each other, and that word was perichoresis. And if you break that word down literally, what that means is to make space around. There's this idea that each person of the Trinity is active and dynamic, and each one of them moves to make room for the other one to move. And the word is related to choreo, you know, the root word of choreography, you know, planning a dance, right? And so whenever the early church theologians looked at God, they didn't see an equation or something they had to write out as a proof. We get this image instead of this ballroom dance of flowing where everybody knows all the steps, everything just flows perfectly. Each footstep, each movement of the hands is organic and natural, but precise. And these early theologians argued that God existing as three in one, three equals who comprise one God, is perfect relationship. That's what perfection and community looks and like.
But if you're like most Christians, if someone were to come up to you after church and ask you to explain the Holy Trinity, you would find yourself feeling very uncomfortable. And I think pretty much every pastor would tell you the same thing. I told you I dread Trinity Sunday. And whenever we get questions about the Trinity, you know, how is it that God can be both three and one? How could the Son have been there from the beginning when Jesus wasn't born until 2,000 years ago. What exactly is the Holy Spirit? All that stuff. We start to sweat a little bit. And there's a joke among preachers and theologians that Trinity Sunday or really any kind of discussion about Trinity in general, always dangerous because you're always skirting the edges of accidentally saying something heretical by trying to make this mystery explainable. And the moment we try to break it down into a nice little analogy, you know, a children's sermon kind of thing, we usually end up accidentally repeating some ancient heresy that a church council condemned over a thousand years ago, right? Oh, the Trinity is like ice, liquid water, and steam. Nope. Modalism, condemned by the Council of Rome in 382 AD. Not like that.
And there has been so much wrestling and fighting about this throughout the history of the church with good reason. This is what's important. Because is there a whole lot more important for faith than knowing who we're worshiping? And the early church, recognizing that God had taken on flesh in Christ, and that God is one being in three persons, they had all these mind-blasting puzzles to try to get a handle on. And they hashed it out over the centuries, with dozens of bishops and theologians wrestling over it via letters, going back and forth across the Mediterranean. They'd have councils where the church leaders from across the whole world would gather to figure it out. And it took centuries to arrive at consensus, and a lot of the time this could get literally violent. There's a famous story about Nicholas of Myra at the Council of Nicaea, who slapped a rival in the face for arguing that the son was created by the father. Nicholas of Myra, this guy who slapped him, was later made a saint, Saint Nicholas, who became known later as Santa Claus. So the story is literally that Santa Claus once literally punched a guy at a church business meeting over the doctrine of the Trinity.
And later, the Roman Catholic Church's addition of one little line in the Nicene Creed has been this key factor in keeping us out of communion with the Eastern churches for over a thousand years. And this notorious phrase known as the filioque, we heard it in one of our hymns earlier, but in the Western church, we say that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, proceeds from the Father and the Son. And in the Eastern church, they leave out that and the Son. And that's been enough to keep the church split in half for a thousand years. That's how important this is, because so much of what we understand and worship about God comes out of who God is, and especially in the way in which not just the Father, and also the Son and the Spirit are also God.
And it can seem silly, but this is why they've spent thousands, hundreds of years hashing this out. But some of these minute details probably don't feel all that immediately relevant to you, do they? To the Christian who's not teaching and preaching, let alone to the Christian who is. And yet so many people, and so many people do wonder, so what on Trinity Sunday? Eyes glaze over. Why would a historical debate over a single Latin word ever possibly matter to your life? And the key is exactly what we see in Genesis 1. That the Trinity is not some external abstract concept, it's God. It's not a philosophical discussion, even as we get bogged down in the words of the creeds or defining what it is and what it isn't. It's a relationship, that old cliche, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. Well, Trinity literally is. God is community. God is outpouring love.
And today our scripture shows us that from the beginning of time, human beings were never just meant to stand on the edge of the dance floor and watch, right? We are products of God's love. We were always created to be pulled into it. And so, to help us understand what that means today, we look at Genesis 1, this description of the very beginning of creation. And believe me, I racked my brain to try to figure out how to shorten it, but what was I going to do? Skip days two to four? But right from the opening, from the opening notes of the universe, this of love is already happening. In this chapter, God is referred to by the title Elohim, which in Hebrew is plural. Not singular, but plural. And We, always this we, God begins to create the heavens and the earth. And God's wind, which is the same word as God's spirit, sweeps across the dark waters. So we already see the Father and the Spirit here. And the words from God's mouth, Let there be light are spoken, and there's light. Creation starts.
And there's this sense of just collaboration here from these very first verses. All one God, all working together, and yet distinct. You know, you have the Spirit hovering over the water, the Word is spoken and is there, and the Father is the one speaking the Word. And over and over again, for seven days, we see this cycle. Elohim, God creates the sky and the waters, then the earth, then the plants, then the sun and the moon and the stars, then the birds and the fish and the sea monsters, and then land creatures, livestock, bugs, and then us, humanity. Listen to verse 26. God says, let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take<|turn>
