Good Morning Friends,
Today is Trinity Sunday and the devotion I offered, is a celebration of the doctrine in the hope it might in time prompt a collective action in us for those who are oppressed. For today is also a celebration that we were made in God’s image designed to see and experience relationships with greater complexity in the light of service. So, today’s message is ultimately a witness of God’s great act of compassion and diversity and creation being played out in our lives. It is as a trinity in the way our brains work, and our cultures work and of how nature works in relationships. If you like you can think of the Trinity as like bees (queens, drones and workers) living in community in wonderful diversity and unity but also pollinating the world for the benefit of us all. But of course, God is so much more. So, I do hope in reading the devotion today that the mystery of the Trinity is revealed to you enough in the metaphors to keep you engaged but not so much as to diminish the awesome experience of whom we cannot really understand but can with faith believe in and trust. So, Are You Experiencing A Cultural Transformation In Your Relationship With The Trinity?
Scripture: Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSV)
“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. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18 (NRSV)
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:20-26 (NRSV)
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV)
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.” The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9 (NRSV)
Message: Today is Trinity Sunday and we look for the Creator, Sustainer and the Redeemer in scripture and in our daily life in the communities in which we live and work, and in the hope of being of one accord. We see this hope of unity perhaps most clearly through the commandment of Christ that we love one another. But first we may need to learn how to love ourselves. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Pentecost gives us the clear communication of the hope for unity that we be made into one as the Trinity is one. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 was the basis of the message. But our examples of a human unity on a personal and collective basis seem so imperfect in comparison. And our efforts to describe the Trinity typically are miserable failures. Even paintings like Blake’s sketch of the Trinity, attached as a bonus for you to contemplate only scratches the surface. The Trinity, however, is a divine unity, the one and only perfect unity, of how three distinct Persons are together as One. There is a deeper message here that should be helpful in us understanding how we are to be of one mind, though it is difficult to describe effectively. Now most would like to simplify the explanation of the Trinity, but that really does not cut it. Our experience of God is more complicated than a walk on the beach at sunset or even living the Golden Rule. There is a vast ocean of experiences awaiting us and we need help in navigating them. That help comes in a better understanding of how life is woven together with a more complete understanding of the Trinity. Even though we recite the creed almost every week that states our belief in the Trinity we too often deny the process. It is however a very practical chart for our course based on scripture and the experiences of thousands of people who have come before. Thinking about our voyage, through the eyes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be helpful in our relationships. So today we think about the Trinity as a model for community…of men and women and children in relationship on a ship. Paul who had experience with shipwrecks, tells us how we come into alignment with God and stay off the rocks. It is through Christ’s grace that we can stand before God the Father as justified. It is through the Holy Spirit, that this grace is applied into our lives and perhaps most vividly when as Christians we fight for justice and for human rights, for a compassionate and caring society. When we do that, we are acting in the name of the Trinity. Here faith in the Trinitarian God, in the God of personal interrelationship and shared love, commits us to struggle with all our strength against poverty, exploitation, oppression and disease. Precisely because we know that God is three-in-one, we cannot remain indifferent to any suffering, by any humans, in any part of the world. In community, we learn the divine nature, that the Father does nothing by Himself in which the Son does not take part, and that the Son does not act separately in anything without the Spirit; but every activity
in community that extends from God to the creation. . . starts from the Father and goes forth through the Son and is completed in the Holy Spirit. The transformation of human communities into a life of Trinitarian mutuality, communion, collaboration and collective impact is very difficult. God’s grace is needed in abundance, to be sure, yet even then the challenge is daunting. We need good servant leaders who know the waters and the chart as well as a willing crew. Then human communities begin to be transformed into the likeness of the Holy Trinity.
Modern thinkers say to have true happiness we need three things. We need to have something to do, someone to love and a future to look forward to. Maybe it is a cognitive bias but in the western world we are ruled by threes. Three-oriented phrases are everywhere. So, whether you are going down for the third time or the third time is the charm, you will find a phrase for your situation. Most of us even have three names. And we imagine it on the world as well. We say there where three kings bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, though scripture does not give us a number. The importance of three though is throughout the Bible. Interestingly its importance is not in all cultures. For the American Indian it is four and for the Chinese, I think it is five. But for those of us reading this it is three. Three men appeared to Abraham. Peter denied Christ three times and was forgiven three times. There were three crosses on Calvary. Jesus cried three times in the Bible. There are the three parables of the lost sheep, coin and son. Things come in threes. There is faith, hope and love. There is the past, present and future. And the trinity of God, well it is just about everywhere, and its doctrine is wrapped up very nicely in Paul’s letter to the Romans found in today’s scripture. I think it is there for a purpose.
And So, seeing through the eyes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be helpful. You see, the best of relationships is formed in threes: you, me and Jesus…in the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Here God is the good foundation for the future. So, the answer to today’s question about our sanctification and the Trinity is going to be based on the power of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives working to reveal the mystery to us. The whole idea is complicated on the one hand and simple on the other. It is mission but also the strategy for life that is beyond integrating the expectations of our family and community with our own desires. It is love but also theology. In the context of the body of believers, it is about being sent by Jesus to carry the implication of Jesus to others with an effective plan of how to share the Good News. Here the Father is more than a patriarch. Jesus is more than an obedient son and the Holy Spirit is more than a dove or atmospheric condition. At a time when people are more concerned about making it through the day than making it into heaven, we have our work cut out to live God’s plan for our lives. So, here is the deal, we must get better at this work. The Gospel is clear that this is a job for all of us, so we need to all learn the necessary skills to spread the message if only in small ways that affirm our relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And yes, the truth about God can be a little problematic for those living in the world, for it requires of us our body, mind and soul…it requires us to grow in a love not of this world. It requires a healthy relationship that sanctifies us for a purpose. Still it seems much of life we cannot nail down and the Trinity is one of them, for God is not really like this or that or any one thing. Still there are ripples from things unseen. God will be God. Like the diversity of the Gospel stories, the Trinity of God and the communities in which we live, we can either accept the differences with love or reject them out of fear. Still God unites us to Himself through the Holy Spirit. And so, we are like the six blind men touching different parts of the same elephant and coming to very different conclusions, all wrong, on the nature of what an elephant really is. As we explore the nature of God from the different facets we perceive, hopefully we will see God beyond us and beside us and even within us. But ultimately, we are like the blind persons feeling the elephant and knowing there is an elephant and also realizing that we have a very limited understanding. Friends, there have been many attempts to try to bring this mystery into our level of understanding. With all things considered, none of these analogies or metaphors or symbols or whatever it is you want to call them is an accurate illustration. Still symbols and metaphors and sometimes acts of kindness, justice and mercy are what we have. Hopefully it is enough to begin a process that the Holy Spirit can finish.
Pray we worship in the living faith of the unity of the eternal Trinity being alive in us now and forever. Pray the glory and the power of God’s divine majesty strengthen us in becoming servants of grace. Pray our logic, our hearts and our actions are in unity and pure with God’s will. Pray our knowledge, memories and emotions all point to God. Pray we be a Body of believers in whose consciousness we live, move and have our very being. Pray we get to know and to trust in God’s Spirit as our guide on the journey. Pray we see clearly and as a whole. Pray we recognize that God navigates our life in measure of what we can handle. Pray we recognize the divine presence in three dimensions. Pray we surrender to the hidden purposes of the divine. Pray we realize that we are useless unless we are going somewhere. Pray we realize that we are dependent on the winds of the Spirit and a Captain to steer, and a crew to properly set the sails. Pray we realize that the Captain of the ship keeps a log. Pray we see beyond the Spirit in the Sails, the Maker in the Ship and Christ in the Captain. Pray we see the Three as One and the One as Three in the communities in which we live as revealed with power to God’s glory and as an example of God’s Sovereignty.
Blessings,
John Lawson
The Painting: William Blake’s, ‘The Sketch of the Trinity’. God the Father, under the wings of the dove-like Holy Ghost, accepts the Son’s offer to give his life for man. The figure of Satan hovers below the clouds. Image taken from Notebook of William Blake. Originally published/produced in England; circa 1787-1818
Daily Devotionals 