Sermon for the 20th of August, 2011, 9th Sunday after Trinity.  
Readings: Isaiah 51. 1-6, Romans 12.1-8, Matthew 16.13-20.

Who do you say that I am? Now you don’t have to answer that question, in fact I’m a bit fearful of what you might say. When I started thinking about this sermon a couple of weeks ago, that question rolled round in my mind time and again. As we’ve just heard, Jesus asked this to his disciples-“Who do you say that I am?” It seems a bit of an odd question to ask to friends, people you’ve spent any length of time with, as Jesus did to his disciples. 

Tonight I will send a postcard to my university teacher in Systematic Theology at Halle University in Germany.  I might choose a postcard showing Rublev’s so called icon of the Trinity, just because I was advised by a priest not to mention this all too famous icon this morning because everyone mentions it on Trinity Sunday.  I will write this postcard because I remember him telling us, send me a postcard whenever you really preach a sermon on the Trinity, and today I am doing just that.  For my professor the Trinity was just a hybrid concept, a theological construct.  He couldn’t see how the doctrine of the Trinity could connect with any experience of the Christian faith.