In the name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.

Bishop LaBelle has released a pastoral letter on this Trinity Sunday, and he has asked that we read it at all our Sunday services. In the letter, Bishop +Phil offers some theological reflection on the Trinitarian mystery as it relates to a recent decision by our government regarding immigration. His letter is about five minutes long, so I will keep my reflections complimentary and brief.

First, two stories. When I was the Rector of St. Andrew’s Church in the Green Lake neighborhood, we took a group of teens to the San Diego-Tijuana border to learn more about immigration and the concerns of migrants. The most powerful experience I had during that trip was spending a night in a migrant shelter in Tijuana with people from all over the world who hoped to find a new home in the United States. My heart was moved by their stories, and I was astounded by their diversity and, at the same time, their similarity to me, their brother in the human family. We all wanted to live in a place of safety where we could provide for ourselves and our families. I felt a sense of unity in diversity as we shared meals together in a large dining hall. Because of that experience, immigration ceased to be a political issue for me. It became a human rights issue.

The next morning, we visited a huge urban farm where the migrants would work while they waited for their immigration interviews. The farmer was so proud of the large garden that was built over a reclaimed dump. He invited us to walk through the garden, to touch things, and notice. After some time in silent reflection, he announced, “Diversity is life. Without diversity, nothing survives.”

When I was being interviewed for a leadership position at the Providence-Swedish healthcare system, I was asked numerous times to “describe a time when you promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion in your workplace.” I answered several times. Then I was asked to explain my understanding of health equity. I said that I believed healthcare is a fundamental human right and that health equity is achieved when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being. I must have answered correctly. I got the job.

DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion. At one time, DEI was a hallmark of life in corporate America, now it seems to be a dirty acronym. The winds have changed due to federal executive orders, changes in legislation, and corporate retrenchment. People throw around the term DEI, but rarely say the words, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Why wouldn’t anyone want diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workplace or for their fellow human beings?

I bring this up not to make a political commentary but to speak of the nature of God on this Trinity Sunday. Our readings today and our beliefs about the Holy Trinity teach us that the nature of God is community and relationship. God is a community of persons bound together in love. Our Trinitarian God is a unity of three persons who are defined by their diversity from each other – a diversity defined by their mutual relationships to one another. God is defined by relationships of innate diversity.

The Holy Trinity is also equitable. No person of the Trinity takes precedence over the other. All the persons are co-eternal and co-equal. They have different relationships to one another, but they are all the one true God. If you’d like to read a nice reflection on this, visit the Creed of Saint Athanasius in the Historical Documents section of your Book of Common Prayer (pages 864-865)¹. Athanasius makes it quite clear that God is a community of co-equal persons.

God is inclusion. The nature of God is to include. Everything that God created is destined for union with God. God was entirely complete within Godself from before time began. But our creation story tells us that God created us out of love. God didn’t need us, but God loved us into existence. The incredible love that binds the three divine persons together spills out in creative action. Some say, God wanted something outside of Godself to love. And that love is creative and entirely inclusive. God loves all that God created. Nothing is excluded. All is destined for union with God.

To my mind, diversity, equity, and inclusion are attributes of the divine nature. They are the pattern of our existence and found naturally in all of creation. So, we can ignore and work against DEI or we can accept what really is. We can embrace God, or work against God. Our Genesis reading makes it abundantly clear that humans have been created in the image of God. What a gift! We are the image of God in the world, the imago Dei. The imago DEI.² On this Trinity Sunday we pray together, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with” us all evermore. Amen.