Today is Trinity Sunday, when the church tries to describe the indescribable; to point to the character and action of the Divine that is always dynamic and evolving. The early teachers of the church came to describe God as Trinity – three equal ‘persons’ or expressions of God, Father, Son and Spirit – or in the beautiful and more inclusive language of Julian of Norwich, the Maker, the Lover and the Keeper. It is a picture of God as a community of equality. That in itself is of immense importance in a world where inequality and autocracy tend to rise up as we have seen this week in the United States. The picture of God as Trinity shows us how God’s very being and nature is about relationship and love. How might this picture of God as Trinity help us in these days of change and challenge across our world?...
Pictures perhaps help most. I sometimes think of our world as being like a dry desert, thirsty for the Living Water of which Jesus speaks. Where does that water come from? It wells up from what the theologian Paul Tillich called the Ground of Being, the ultimate mystery of God in Godself. When we are anxious, distracted and afraid we need to attend to this deep mystery, grounding ourselves once more as we find our connection again to that deep inner spring of truth and justice.
That living water bubbled up and was made manifest in Jesus the Christ. The character, purpose and action of God were all revealed in his life and work, his dying and rising. The living water flowed out in his words and actions, bringing healing and hope, refreshment and joy. In Jesus we see the lived manifestation of God, like a vast river of living water flowing out and nourishing the land – and even as it does so replenishing the Ground from which it springs in a continuous flow of love. But it does not end there.
As the risen Christ says in Matthew 28:20 ‘remember, I am with you to the end of the age.’ The action of the Spirit, the Keeper, carries that living water out and on into the world, continuing the mission of God in every place and time. The contemplative theologian Cynthia Bourgeault compares the action of God as Trinity to a paddle steamer on the Mississipi, the living water continually being given and received between the different paddles in a dynamic flow of energy. We are called into this dynamic action of God, that brings the living waters of truth and justice to our lives and world.
So on this Trinity Sunday, as we contemplate the mystery, the manifestation and the mission that is God, may we recognize that this is a dynamic of loving relationship in which we too have a part to play, and may we find in this picture of non-hierarchical community an antidote to the false exercise of power. Amen.
by Penny Jones, for Trinity Sunday, 7 June 2020
That living water bubbled up and was made manifest in Jesus the Christ. The character, purpose and action of God were all revealed in his life and work, his dying and rising. The living water flowed out in his words and actions, bringing healing and hope, refreshment and joy. In Jesus we see the lived manifestation of God, like a vast river of living water flowing out and nourishing the land – and even as it does so replenishing the Ground from which it springs in a continuous flow of love. But it does not end there.
As the risen Christ says in Matthew 28:20 ‘remember, I am with you to the end of the age.’ The action of the Spirit, the Keeper, carries that living water out and on into the world, continuing the mission of God in every place and time. The contemplative theologian Cynthia Bourgeault compares the action of God as Trinity to a paddle steamer on the Mississipi, the living water continually being given and received between the different paddles in a dynamic flow of energy. We are called into this dynamic action of God, that brings the living waters of truth and justice to our lives and world.
So on this Trinity Sunday, as we contemplate the mystery, the manifestation and the mission that is God, may we recognize that this is a dynamic of loving relationship in which we too have a part to play, and may we find in this picture of non-hierarchical community an antidote to the false exercise of power. Amen.
by Penny Jones, for Trinity Sunday, 7 June 2020
RSS Feed