Posts Tagged ‘vulnerablity’

Life-giving, all-embracing Trinity

May 26, 2018

Trinity Sunday – 2018

John 3:1-17 (The gospel set for the day – not the starting point for this reflection)

Marian Free

In the name of the Trinity – boundless and abundant love, creative and life-giving force, all-giving and endlessly welcoming. Amen.

I have just started reading the novel, Gone Girl. The story seems to be about the disappearance of a young woman who has reluctantly moved with her new husband from New York to an uninspiring town in the mid-west. The novel is written from the point of view of the young woman, Amy, and her husband, Nick. Amy and Nick each have an opportunity to tell their side of the story. This means that while the readers are engaged in the investigation into Amy’s disappearance they are, at the same time, given a glimpse into the unraveling of what had appeared to be a perfect relationship – brought about by differing expectations and by different experiences of family.

Human relationships can be messy, complex and destructive, threatened by insecurity, damaged by carelessness and undermined by unrealistic expectations. The inability of some to form mutually respectful relationships is exposed not only in families, but also in communities, nations and the world as a whole. It is only too obvious that our world is not an harmonious place in which people rejoice in difference and seek the well-being of others. Our fractured and broken world is a place in which competition rules and in which suspicion and fear cause people to look inwards, protecting what is theirs and creating boundaries between themselves and those whom they believe threaten our security and our comforts.

Richard Rohr suggests that the Trinity provides the answer to the problem of relationships with each other, within communities and between the nations of the world. A greater understanding of the relational nature of God – Father Son and Spirit, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier might, he suggests, help us to relate better to God and more importantly to one another. He points out that the Trinity is a much-neglected aspect of our theology. The concept is difficult to explain, and most clergy are grateful for the fact that the Trinity is celebrated only once a year rather than on every Sunday of every year. Rohr quotes Karl Rahner who states: “Christians are, in their practical lives, almost mere ‘monotheists’. We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.”

When I first read that quote, I thought that Rahner was right. I wondered how many of us would be truly distressed if we discovered that God was one and not three at all. We might even be relieved to learn that we no longer had to struggle with the conundrum of a threefold God.

On reflection though, it seemed to me that while we may not be able to articulate the meaning, most of us do relate to God who is three but is also one. God as Trinity is something we know intuitively. Over the course of a lifetime the Trinitarian God becomes part of our DNA. Though we tend to use shorthand when we pray – God, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, we simply assume that when we pray to one we pray to all, when we relate to one we relate to all.

The problem – if there is a problem – is that because we take for granted the threefold nature of God, we may not take the time to reflect on the meaning of the Trinity and to consider what it really means to engage with God who is Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver and we (and perhaps the world) are the poorer for this. Perhaps, if we make an effort to struggle with the relational nature of the threefold God, we will be better equipped to share that mystery with others. If we really grasp what it means to worship a threefold God we might discover that the Trinitarian God is a model for all relationships and a solution to all the problems of our fragmented world.

Last year on this day, I read you the poem that is in the Foreword of Richard Rohr’s book The Divine Dance. I confess that I haven’t read the book to its end, but what I have read has been life-changing and faith-renewing. Rohr has helped me to know God in a new way and my faith is enriched by that knowing. In fact, I don’t think that I am over stating it if I say that I feel that I have found my way to the heart of the Trinitarian God. Rohr has helped me come to grips with the Trinity in a way in which all my academic study did not – indeed could not.

I have come to see that God who is three is relational. God relates to Jesus who relates to the Spirit who relates to God, who relates to the Spirit who relates to Jesus, who relates to God in an outpouring of love that flows from one to another and back again. A constant stream of love that in turn creates an atmosphere of love that cannot help but flow outward from the threefold God to the world – drawing the whole world into a loving and welcoming embrace. The love that each person of the Trinity has for the others is complete and without reserve. Nothing is held back, each person of the Trinity is totally open to the other members of the Trinity. Each person of the Trinity is completely vulnerable – having given everything of themselves to the other persons.

In their love for one another, the members of the Trinity create an energy that is life-giving and dynamic, a creative force that drives and empowers all that is good in this world. God in relationship is generous, self-giving and abundant. God in relationship is not remote and disinterested, but is fully engaged and participatory. God in relationship is fully immersed in the world and invites us to fully immerse ourselves in God. God who is relational has no boundaries, but welcomes us into the very heart of the Trinity that we might be caught up and held in the stream of love that flows between the three. The threefold God is not afraid that our presence (or the presence of anyone else) will contaminate their divinity, but rather has absolute confidence that our being in relationship with God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier will serve to enhance and enrich that relationship and our relationships with one another.

The Trinity models the love that can be the salvation of the world – love that heals and sustains, love that delights in the other, love that gives itself entirely without losing anything of itself and without seeking anything in return, love that embraces difference, love that seeks the well-being of the other and love that refuses to exclude anyone from that love.

God who is one could be aloof and alone. God who is two could be self-contained – each focussed wholly on the other. God who is three is other-centred, inclusive, life-giving and welcoming. The Trinity, God who is three invites us all to be a part of this loving community, to allow ourselves to be loved and to give ourselves in love and in so doing, to contribute to the healing of the world.

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God knows!

January 30, 2016

Presentation of Christ in the Temple – 2016

Luke 2:22-39

Marian Free

 In the name of God who gives Godself to us completely and utterly. Amen.

I happened to read a women’s magazine during the week. One of the stories was of a career woman who had had no intention of having a child, but at forty-five had given birth to her first child. Like so many other public figures she said that the experience had changed her life. “I have this fierce mother instinct – it’s quite fierce and protective.” For many of us, holding a newborn is one of the most amazing experiences. The child in your arms is so vulnerable and so dependent. Even if the child is not your own, you are often overcome with the urge to protect the child and there is a sense of foreboding in regard to all of all that could go wrong – in the present and in the future. What if someone drops the child? What if they don’t hold his/her head in just the right way? Will the child be settled or unsettled? Are the new methods of wrapping, feeding, bathing really better than they way that they used to be done? All of those thoughts can go through our minds in an instant – the wonder, the joy, the fear and the anxiety together.

After the initial excitement has passed, we might begin to consider what sort of future the child might have. If the child is our own, a grandchild, a niece or nephew, most of us would be secure in the knowledge that she/he would be well loved and parented well. If not, we might have fears for the safety and well-being of the child. And the distant future – well that is purely the subject of our imagination, fuelled by our own desires and concerns our fears and anxieties. Will the child be able to escape tragedy in his/her life? Will the education system/the health system be sufficiently well-funded to ensure that the needs of the child are met? Will the child have the resilience to resist peer pressure – avoid drugs and alcohol? Will the environment be able to sustain another generation on the planet? Will we, particularly in today’s violent and unstable climate be able to protect this child from acts of terror or from war?

So many unknowns lie ahead of every child and the best parenting in the best environment is not enough to prevent tragedy or disaster – whether of the child’s own making or from external causes.

Jesus is still an infant when his parents bring him into the Temple to present him to God as demanded in the Book of Exodus (13). The Temple is a bustling place, especially the outer courts which are open to men and women of every nation and where, as we learn later, the exchange of money occurs and the animals to be used in thank offerings are sold. Into this crowd come two very ordinary people bringing with them their infant son. Somehow Simeon (who has been drawn to the Temple precincts by the Spirit) identifies this couple and knows immediately that their child is the anointed one for whom he has waited his whole life.

Without so much as a: “by your leave”, Simeon scoops the child into his arms and before his surprised parents bursts into a song of praise in which he identifies this baby as the one who is to bring glory to Israel and to be a light to the Gentiles. Perhaps Mary and Joseph are not totally surprised by this. Luke’s introduction leads us to believe that they know full well who Jesus is and what he is to become. They might be surprised to hear that not only will he save his people, but that the Gentiles will also come to faith through him, but the angel has already told them that: “he will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” It may be that they have already begun to imagine their future and that of their son – the honour and respect that might ensue once he became known for who he really was!

Imagine their shock when Simeon concludes: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” “The rising and falling”, “A sign to be opposed” –suddenly a sense of foreboding is introduced into what had been a situation of joy and hope and expectation. Simeon’s words suggest that Jesus’ future will not be all smooth sailing, not everyone will share their confidence that Jesus is the Son of God.

Simeon’s prediction includes an element of threat and a warning – Jesus’ life will not conform to expectations. It is possible that he will not be a triumphant king. that his teaching and actions will not always be positively received. Instead of glory, there is a possibility that he will experience suffering and defeat. For Mary and Joseph, the confidence of the angel’s words must have come into question. They must have wondered what they could expect of this child? What would the future really hold? We can only speculate, but I imagine that Mary and Joseph will have left the Temple with a very different and much less certain view of how Jesus’ future would play out.

In order to save humankind, to bring us to our senses, God was prepared to enter our world fully and completely, vulnerable and unprotected. In Jesus, God completely abandoned divinity becoming fully human, completely vulnerable, completely dependent and susceptible to the same dangers and difficulties as the rest of humankind. It is for this reason that Hebrews can record: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses”.

Life may not go the way that we expected for ourselves – or for our children. Not even God is able to protect us from the things that living in this world entails, but through good times and bad, disaster and triumph there is one thing of which we can be sure – that God in Jesus chose not to be shielded from the accidents of fate, the cruelties of human beings and the indifference of the planet. God, in Jesus knows that there is no certainty in this life except the certainty of God and of God’s overwhelming love for us that allowed God to immerse Godself so completely in our existence that it would be impossible for us to say: “God does not know what I am going through.”

 

(If you have taken up the challenge to explore Luke’s gospel. Note: Luke’s concern with the Temple, his determination to demonstrate continuity with Judaism – the family undergo the Jewish rites – the presence of the Spirit and the gospel for the Gentiles.)

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