“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16

Trinity Sunday, that day in the year when we reflect upon the doctrine of God being three persons and one God, that Sunday when we might become lost in the history of the early church and its wranglings over how God should be defined in words; Trinity Sunday, and we have a Gospel reading that cuts through all the debates, all the arguments, all the schisms that were so much part of Christian history.

Jesus expresses the Good News in a single sentence and if we think about one word in that sentence, we see there is no need to become mired in doctrinal differences. In our translation the word is “everyone”, in the King James Version the word is “whosoever”, whichever word we use, it tells us much about God; it tells us much about the Church; and it tells us much about ourselves.

“Everyone”, you, me, the man in the street, the lady on the bus, the most unlikely, the most ungodly, God will relate to any of us directly. When we think about God it maybe as a powerful, terrifying figure, the God of whom we sing in the Trinity Sunday hymns, but he is also a God who is immanent, a God present, a God there, at all times in all places. “Everyone” is a statement that this is an accessible God, that this is an approachable God. “Everyone” is a statement that God does not discriminate: whoever responds to God, God will respond to them. The story of Jesus is the story of God being present to anyone who chose to listen to him, “everyone who believes” has God alongside them.

If “everyone” tells us about a God who is near and who is prepared to be a close friend, it tells us about what the church should be like and what it shouldn’t be like. The first Christians had trouble with this idea of “everyone”, they were Jews and they expected anyone who wished to join them to become Jews. “Everyone” was not an idea that fitted in with their Law, they were the chosen people and as far as they were concerned membership of God’s people was not open to “everyone”. Paul has to write to the early churches a number of times to make the point that they couldn’t carry on with their old attitudes.

What we see as the centuries passed is that the church became about doctrine rather than being about Jesus. To have a hope of a place in heaven you had to be subject to the rule of the church, you had to receive the sacraments, you had to accept everything the hierarchy said. If you refused, it wasn’t just a religious matter, it was against the law of the land and you could end up being burned at the stake for heresy. So much for Jesus saying that everyone who believed would have eternal life.

The church’s official teaching was that outside of the church there was no salvation. In times when people lived in daily fear of death, the idea that you would face eternal damnation if you were not on good terms with the church was a very powerful threat. It made the Church very influential and very, very rich. Jesus did not say that the way of salvation was controlled by the church. Jesus said, “everyone who believes in him”. Jesus didn’t expect everyone to believe obscure philosophical doctrines

Saint John Chapter 3 Verse 16 asks us a question, is being a Christian open to everyone who believes? Or is being a Christian a matter of accepting all the rules and regulations of the church and accepting the authority of church teaching in every part of your life, is it about personal faith or written doctrines? Jesus says being a Christian is open to everyone who believes.

“Everyone” tells us about God. “Everyone” tells us about the church. “Everyone” tells us about ourselves. Being a Christian is not about belonging to the church; it is about our own personal faith in this God who takes on our flesh and walks among us and dies and rises again. “Everyone” does not refer to the church, “everyone” refers to individual people. “Everyone” tells us that we are responsible for our own decisions.

When we talk about faith, let’s talk about what we believe, not what the church says, let’s recover Jesus’ words to his disciples. “Everyone” is a challenging word to us.

“Everyone” is also a troubling word in a society where the church has been used to handing down its verdict on anything and everything and having people accept that verdict. For so long church teaching was accepted without question. Morality was whatever the church said was moral. Authority was not challenged. Now it’s all changed, the church is just one voice among many and people must choose for themselves.

The problem is that being a Christian has meant to most people being a church member, not what Jesus expected. Jesus looked for people who took their own decisions, who responded to him and who lived their life in the light of their faith in him.

“Everyone” is a statement that God recognises our dignity as individual people. “Everyone” is a sign that God. respects our right to make our own decisions. “Everyone” is an indication that we are going to be called to account for our own lives.

When we talk about faith, “everyone” is a word to remember; it means we can talk about faith, and not about the church, not about obscure doctrines that are still being debated

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

“Everyone” is a word that makes things different.