Reflection for the website, 7th June 2026, The First Sunday after Trinity
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12:1-5)
This being Trinity Sunday, one of our readings is the short passage above from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, one of the relatively few places in the Bible where all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned alongside each other, in words still often used in our services today. This is a long way from the more developed doctrines of the Trinity which were to be developed and argued about in the following centuries – the Bible doesn’t use the term “Trinity” at all – but it indicates to us that even in the early years after Jesus’ life, Christians were thinking in terms of one God in three Persons, and seeing that concept as something distinctive and important for their faith. .
Some of us will probably soon be heading off for summer breaks – we may already be making bookings, sorting out travel arrangements and deciding what we need to take with us for our trips. Not all journeys, though, are as organised as that – some people find themselves called onto an unexpected and unplanned journey, unsure just where they’re going or how they’ll get there; some may undergo a deep inner journey alongside their physical travels, which changes them on a profound level. Such journeys – pilgrimages, we sometimes call them – can intrigue and fascinate us, as we learn the stories of people who respond to the prompting to set out on a journey which proves transformative of their whole life. One such journey was that undertaken by Abram in our reading from Genesis.
Abram, we’re told, was 75 years old when he received God’s command to uproot his whole life and family and set off to “the land that I will show you”. No map, or satnav to show the way, not even entirely sure of where he’d end up – and the promises that went with the God’s instructions were themselves hard to believe – that, with he and Sarai both being so elderly and having been unable to have a child in their many years together, they would now become the founders of a great nation and a blessing to others in their new home.
Yet Abram set out on his long journey, not knowing all the details, but trusting in God enough to take one step at a time along the road. Sometimes, it’s like that for us, too, in our journeys of faith – we may feel that God is calling us to do something for him, yet not see how it’s all going to work out or be possible. And we to
o may just need to take the first step in trust, and see what happens, and how God leads us on from there.
The journey undertaken by Abram may feel a very long way from our intended summer excursions. But we too are called by God into a deeper faith and a fuller response, even if our callings don’t involve arduous physical journeys or the hardships and dangers faced by these men. God has a calling for each one of us, to share in his work in the world in whatever way he has prepared for us – can we, like Abram, respond in trust, even if we cannot see very far ahead, and take the first few steps in faith, allowing God to guide us along the way, and to show us how he wants us to share his love with those in need. Let us pray that we may follow Abram’s example of great faith as we respond to God’s call to us.
Heavenly Father, thank You for the lesson of faith that I can learn from Abraham – who believed God without knowing the whole story and was prepared to leave all that he had and place his future into Your hands entirely. Thank You that You are a faithful God and that Your promises are steadfast and sure. Increase my faith, I pray, for I desire to trust You in all things. This I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.