Trinity Sunday (C) + That playful Trinity + 5.22.16
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| (Holy Trinity Shutterspeed from: photographyjkh.wordpress.com) |
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Proverbs
8:1–4, 22–31; Ps 8; Romans 5:1–5; St. John 16:12–15)
“Oh Lord our Governor, how exalted is your name in all the
world!”
So starts Psalm 8, and if you are like me, you begin to feel
that perhaps this means that God is above everything, like a distant ruler who
sometimes peers imperiously in our direction.
But if you have ever seen a British film, you may have heard another way of pronouncing this word, Governor—“Gov’nor.” It is a term bandied about in a friendly way and is a bit like when guys might call each other “boss” or “jefe” to show joking respect. Oh Lord our Gov’nor—this is a much friendlier image-a relatable one—we don’t have some distant monarch in the sky but a God whose whole being is about being in relationship.
But if you have ever seen a British film, you may have heard another way of pronouncing this word, Governor—“Gov’nor.” It is a term bandied about in a friendly way and is a bit like when guys might call each other “boss” or “jefe” to show joking respect. Oh Lord our Gov’nor—this is a much friendlier image-a relatable one—we don’t have some distant monarch in the sky but a God whose whole being is about being in relationship.
Because that is what we talk about today, on Trinity Sunday.
If you look up the Holy Trinity in google images, chances are you will see all
sorts of diagrams with Latin terms—“est” and “non-est” to show how the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God but none of the persons of the Trinity
are each other. They end up looking like the high math of the church, like a
sort of befuddling geometry problem. Some of the diagrams are cool for those of
us church nerds who like to see the complexity of God, but they can also overly
confuse.
Which is not to say that the Trinity is not confusing. By
nature, it very much is, because it is a mystery. But it is a mystery which
invites us in, not a befuddlement meant to leave us ignorant.
Creator, Word and Spirit; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Lover,
Loved and Love –these are all ways of envisioning the three primary aspects of
God that work together in one entity to show us about the Creator of the world,
Jesus the Christ who came into the world, and the Spirit Jesus sent and yet
that has been active as Wisdom before time, and who all work together to show
us something of the divine and all of creation. So, yes. A bit confusing. J
But there are some key points here, as we speak of Oh Lord
our Gov’nor. God thinks of us—even though we are lowly humans, the shocking
truth is that God wants to relate to us. Because God is all about relating. God
relates to God’s self and draws us into that relationship. And that
relationship is playful, like Wisdom dancing over the waters at the beginning
of creation. But in it we are called to serious play- because we are all called
to be theologians of a sort.[1]
Because if God is a relationship, and we are all in relationship,
and if God is not just over us but existing here with us, if the Holy Spirit
has been given to us, and if Wisdom delights in the human race, then we are all
theologians. We can all say something about God to each other. And we are
called to play as wisdom plays.
And as I say, this is important, vital play.
Why, you say?
Listening to an interview with Krista Tippett the other day, an unusual event when she was being interviewed by Pico Iyer, I heard a person in the audience ask if the world was changing for the better. I immediately thought of some of the contrasting examples I had seen in the world of late, particularly in the elections. But I thought it was interesting what Tippett said. She said, and I paraphrase, “It can be. We all need to get on that project.”[2]
And as I say, this is important, vital play.
Why, you say?
Listening to an interview with Krista Tippett the other day, an unusual event when she was being interviewed by Pico Iyer, I heard a person in the audience ask if the world was changing for the better. I immediately thought of some of the contrasting examples I had seen in the world of late, particularly in the elections. But I thought it was interesting what Tippett said. She said, and I paraphrase, “It can be. We all need to get on that project.”[2]
When we were at clergy conference earlier this month, we
heard two talks from Matthew Fox, a well-known and also controversial theologian.
I felt challenged by his talk because he called us to renew our sense of
mysticism in the church, which I loved, but I could not agree with his way of
understanding Jesus, even as I loved his concept of the Cosmic Christ.
But he said some very interesting things about how we must
relate to the world. He talked first of Bede Griffiths, who said that we have
mis-used science and as a result we are destroying the earth.[3]
I would say it this way: we forget that
God is the Gov’nor and just gave us stewardship of the earth for a moment, as
if handing us the reins. We are not the Gov’nor. We have turned to Mammon over
God when we have seen the earth and its resources as something to be bought and
sold.
But he calls us to a new way. Drawing on the ideas of David Korten, who speaks of re-imagining a new economy that will truly benefit all, Fox asks us to look at resources as if they are worth more than just money. This is not new to him, but rather is an ancient wisdom found in many indigenous cultures. Always we begin again.
But he calls us to a new way. Drawing on the ideas of David Korten, who speaks of re-imagining a new economy that will truly benefit all, Fox asks us to look at resources as if they are worth more than just money. This is not new to him, but rather is an ancient wisdom found in many indigenous cultures. Always we begin again.
But what this looks like is: what if each breath was a
miracle? What if we saw water as sacred and used the drought restrictions to
better value it? What if we really could not stomach buying fertilizer that is
leading to people dying of cancer in large numbers in certain towns in China?[4]
One of Mary Oliver’s poems speaks to this:
One of Mary Oliver’s poems speaks to this:
I don’t know
who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.[5]
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.[5]
If we see all of creation as full of God’s blessing—all that
God’s hands have touched is enlivened with mystery and blessing—we will know
that we must preserve it.
And we may have an inkling of how to relate to one another as
fellow humans and animals on this earth.
And in doing all that collaborative work and play, with each
other and with the earth, we may glimpse at the sacred interplay that is the
Trinity. And that’s better than any diagram I ever saw.
Amen.
[1]
Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis and Matt Skinner, “#484 – The Holy Trinity” for
May 22, 2016, https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=762.
[2]
From this interview, although the questions are not transcribed: http://www.onbeing.org/program/krista-tippett-an-inquiry-into-the-mystery-and-art-of-living/transcript/8649
(May 5, 2016).
[3]
From talks given at Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles’ Clergy Conference,
Riverside, CA May 3, 2016.
[5]
Mary Oliver, “At the River Clarion,” posted on: https://thevalueofsparrows.com/2012/06/27/poetry-at-the-river-clarion-by-mary-oliver/
(Accessed May 20, 2016).
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