This Sunday is 'Trinity Sunday', the Sunday that fills all preachers with fear as they are tasked with expounding this most fundamental doctrine of our faith because, as Bishop Helen-Ann put it in her notes this week, 'the perils of committing heresy on this particular Sunday are rife!'.  This is one of those Sundays that asks us to try and wrap our poor little human-sized brains, and petty mortal imaginings around the very substance of the eternal and infinite God, source of all being and life, beginning and end - the one who is before all, through all, and after all...  The readings are Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31 and John 14:8-17, but instead I want to talk for a moment about sandwiches.

Earlier today I was trying to buy some lunch.  I'd successfully navigated the stairwells and corridors of a hospital to find the food court, and having made a decision on which sandwiches to buy had a slightly peculiar conversation with the lady serving behind the counter.  I opened with, "Can I have a ham, brie, and cranberry and...", and was going to carry on with '... and a tuna and cucumber baguette please?"  but got cut short by the question, "Do you want that warm, love?"

Not phased by the interruption, I calmly embraced this new direction, "No thank you," and then moved to get us back on track, "and a ..."

"Paying card or cash?"  This next question, I will admit, threw me slightly.   Not because I didn't know the answer (card), but because I wasn't really expecting it halfway through my order.  

"Um, card, - but could I also..."

"And do you want it warm?"  This next interruption delivered as she seamlessly turned her back to me to turn on the oven, and began rearranging the shelves inside.  I was caught slightly off guard by this motif reappearing so soon, and by the very slight possibility that she was offering to heat my credit card.  I quickly decided she was still talking about the first baguette, so only hesitated momentarily before replying, "No thank you, it's fine how it is, and..."

"OK," she said, turning back to the counter, "card or cash?"  

Perhaps it was rude to ignore this question, but, I thought, that subject has already been addressed, unlike the second sandwich, which did need a mention, so instead I came back with, "and could I get a tuna and cucumber baguette too please?"  Or at least I tried to, but I'm embarrassed to admit that the slightly befuddled nature of the conversation to this point left me flailing for a moment for the word 'cucumber'.  It was nearly my undoing.

In that moment of mental-blank she triumphantly scooped up the ham, brie, and cranberry sandwich and proceeded to lift it into the oven...

"No thank you," I managed, just in time, "I don't want it warmed, and," I plunged on as she paused, clearly puzzled, in mid load, "could I get a tuna and cucumber baguette as well please?"

She turned back, she bagged the sandwiches, she handed them to me.  Then she asked, "card or cash?"

I realised as I'd walked away with my hard-won prizes that I'd clearly committed two canteen faux pas.  The first was that I'd tried to order two sandwiches in a place where you clearly only ever ordered one (in my defence, I will say they weren't both for me); the second, I'd got the answer wrong - when you're asked 'do you want it warm, love?' turns out the only correct choice is 'yes'.  I had been working to a very different script to the dear lady trying to serve me.  

As we move through life all of us work to certain scripts, and narratives that we've built up over the years - comprised from a gestalt of events and experiences - some repeated over and over again, some only ever known once - that our subconscious is constantly accessing without our attention, and using to make decisions for us about the world we inhabit.  This mish-mash of everything we've ever done, and how we access it, is necessary - it's a vital part of what makes us human, and how we process the world; it's the bit that informs our 'gut choices'; it's the bit that means we can make decisions about things even when we've never experienced them before; and it's the bit that lets us respond to threats and dangers even before we've rationally recognised them...  

But it doesn't always work in our favour.  The same mechanism that means you can quickly and efficiently serve 100 sandwiches an hour, will also automatically, and without thinking, despite being told not more than once, put one of them into the oven when it doesn't want heating.  The same mechanism means we will sometimes respond to things simply because that's how they've always been responded to; means we will sometimes hold onto beliefs and practices simply because they're what we've always done; or means we'll run away from 'dangers' that turn out not be there at all (have you ever leapt away from a spider, before realising it was a piece of wool?)

So perhaps, occasionally, it's good just to stop and take stock - to figure out what are the narratives and scripts that I'm living to, and working to?  What are the beliefs and ways of being that underpin who I am?  And am I happy about them?  Do they help me to become the best person I can be, the person God creates me to be?

And perhaps that's why whether or not we can quite grasp the doctrine of the Trinity might not be the most important thing about this Sunday.  Perhaps what is important this Sunday is simply that we stop for a moment and try.  That we deliberately bring front and centre the narrative that underpins everything we do and say as believers.  That we take the time to think with some degree of depth and earnestness about what we profess as Christians.  That we engage consciously, rather than subconsciously, with the words and beliefs we speak out every week - and take the time to ask ourselves whether they truly are the narratives from which we live our lives on a day by day basis.  And, if they're not - do we want them to be?

Pause for prayer: You may find this easier with a bit of paper to catch you thoughts.  Take a moment to quieten yourself, and collect yourself to the presence of God, ask Him that he might be with you, and guide you with his wisdom and insight.  When you are ready spend some time with the concepts of 'me', 'God', and 'the World'.  For each see if you can bring to mind a single central belief, or narrative, that defines what it is for you.  It may take a while, don't force it, but let it surface gently - you might find several suggest themselves, or none at all.  Take the time to see if you can boil each down to a single sentence or image - for each you find ask 'why this?' and see if there is another beneath it - it might be useful to put this on paper.  Try to find what you actually believe at the very heart - not what you think you should believe, they might not be the same, and you might not like the answers you do discover.  That's OK, and perfectly normal.  Now for each ask yourself how do I, or don't I, live this out?  Again it's OK if you don't find all the answers comfortable.  Now is the time, remembering that God is with you here in this moment of honesty, to ask yourself what you want those answers to be.  Does anything you've discovered point to any changes that might need to happen?  If it does, do you need to find someone to help you walk that journey?