June 3, 2007

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Trinity Sunday

Read John 16:12-15

Also Read Romans 5:1-11, Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth….”

                                                     --Jesus of Nazareth  (John 16:12-13a)               

      .         Trinity         .

No God-in-a-box God, He --

or She.

Notwithstanding our need

to keep things neat and tidy,

God has a way of complicating things,

messing things up.

One God? we ask. 

Then why this silly talk of Trinity?

First there’s this Command Center God

who checks the gauges and meters

and presses the right buttons

to keep the universe on course. 

Sometimes the name is Father, 

or if you want to get cute,  try

“Yaweh,” or “Lord of Sabaoth,”

whatever that means. 

Too distant and detatched for “Dad.”    

Then there’s the spatial God,

the sensate God,

occupying specific places,

like a wedding,

or on the mountainside,

or on the lake,  

or in a city slum.

Laughing,

Eating,

Hurting,

Dying.

Too human and in-the-face.

So that calls for Number Three,

The spirit God,

whose main function it is

to shuttle between

Number One and Number Two

and between you and me. 

A Go-between God,

bindng all things together.

A kind of Goldilocks God, “Just right.”

And so, notwithstanding

our need to have things

ordered and in place,

God gives us what we need:

not easily understood,

but consider the alternative.  .

So Trinity is God’s Gift --

the gift of patience

in the face of the “many things”
still to be taught,

reminding us that

God is not finished with us yet.

                                                            --- rvc

*** D I S C L A I M E R ***

The Weekly Lessons are based on the lectionary texts for the week – usually the Gospel lesson. They are not designed as a formal commentary.  Rather, they are the personal reflections and original compositions of The Relay Online editor, Rev. Robin Van Cleef, and offer a jumping off point, using the scriptures as triggers to thought, imagination, and (we hope) empowerment.  As you read them, let your own imagination play, and let the Spirit speak to you, leading you where it will.  The Gospel Lessons reflected on this site may not be copied, reproduced or otherwise manipulated elsewhere on the internet without the expressed consent of the author.

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