Readings: Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians13:11-13, Matthew 28: 16-20
Let us pray: Holy God, in the words of scripture we have
heard your word for us – may we understand it in our hearts and live it in our
daily lives we pray. Amen.
It is customary, I
believe, for preachers on Trinity Sunday to struggle (or not) to provide an
acceptable explanation for what we mean by the trinity, a subject which has
kept the theologians of the church busy for eons! I don’t do customary – but all the same I do
want to share a story from Tom Gordon that might give insight in a back to front
way –abridged somewhat – before we look at the scripture reading for today from
the letters of Paul.
There was this
man, this father in fact, who worked at a pretty hard, physical job and wasn’t
always in the best frame of mind when he got home to answer the always
difficult questions from his daughter, especially after he had eaten a big meal
and the armchair was calling him. Today
it was ‘How does fire work, daddy?’ And
he did what he swore he would never do – ‘not now darling – perhaps you could
go and ask your mother.’
So the man – let’s
call him Tom – closed his eyes and relaxed in front of the wee two barred
electric fire and gradually drifted into a pleasant sleepy state – and as he
did he pondered the question ‘how does the fire work?’ And he decided he really didn’t need to
know. All he knew was that it was
working wonders on his weary body and tired mind.
And wasn’t the
glow a sign of heat and warmth, and when he saw the light and felt the heat,
didn’t that prove that the fire was working.
Wonderful thing fire. The light,
the unseen warmth, the hidden power making it happen. Light, power, warmth. Power, warmth, light.
Not one without the other, each part of the whole. And he drifted off to sleep.
‘How does the
Trinity work?’ said the preacher on Sunday. A good question thought Tom as he
struggled to not drift off to sleep – it was warm in the church after all – but
for some reason he kept thinking about power, warmth, light…not one without the
other, each a part of the whole, three in one and one in three.
And then he knew –
if his daughter asked him that question again he knew what he would say – not
to worry, just enjoy the fact that it works.
After all, he only knew what he knew and that was enough.
The verses at the
end of the second letter to the Corinthians have been described as a rainbow
appearing in the sky after a violent and overwhelming storm. And stormy is a fair description of the
tempestuous life of the church in Corinth at the time. There have been tears,
recriminations, self-justifications as the battle for authority has raged
between Paul and the alternative leaders of the church. No punches are pulled. In Chapter 10 we hear
him accused in absentia: ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily
presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.’[1] There is deep hurt, struggles at mediation to
a congregation on the brink of imploding.
The sentence preceding the reading today is unequivocal: ‘so I write these things while I am away
from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the
authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing
down.’ Phew. And then, after all this wrangling and
division and somewhat threatening language, how come these rainbow words
suddenly appear?
‘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.’[2]
They are a sudden
change of direction, of tone. You could
say that Paul was giving up – can’t win this one, will say something nice and
come back to fight another day? Or you might wonder if he has fallen back on
easy benediction hoping that the whole conflict will sort itself in time?
It could be that
in the wording of the benediction there is a clue to the sudden change of
approach. This is the only time that
Paul, in his habitual benediction at the end of his letters, uses more than the
grace of Christ – here we find the grace of God, the love of Christ and the
communion of the Holy Spirit. Is this
his final powerful push to reach the people of Corinth – he is offering the
resources of the Trinity – determined to remind them of the depth of loving
relationship that lies behind the grace of Christ. So maybe this is not an abrupt finish – maybe
instead it is a coup de grace – a stroke of grace. Paul recognises that it is only in this
understanding of relationship within the Godhead that we find the way to be in
healthy relationship with each other.
How is that to be characterised?
Grace, love and communion. Light,
warmth, power. How do we do that?
First of all by
self examination and self improvement?
Constantly being aware of how we live and the way it fills or not the
teaching of Jesus. Trying to do
beter. Is this the way of Christ, how
might I have better responded or chosen?
It reminds me of a conversation at Assembly last year where a gentleman
said that for all his language of men and always using the male pronoun, he
really meant to include women as well.
And my response was to challenge him that conversation is not only about
what is understood in the saying but also in the receiving and that if he saw
that his words were causing a sense of exclusion, of hurt, could he still
justify continuing to use them – shouldn’t he find a better way.
Paul then exhorts
the people to listen to him, to hear the teachings of Christ and not to be led
astray by those who would bring conflict and dispute. To consider first and foremost that they are
one in Christ and allow that there will be differences of approach within
that. But to do this they need to be in
good relationship, not hurling accusations at each other. As Father, Son and Spirit are different but
one, so to should Christ’s body, the church be, not this broken, adversarial
community arguing who has authority.
Christ has authority.
But then he moves
into the crux of the matter. ‘Be of one
mind’ or ‘agree with one another’ and ‘live in peace’. If we are to live as the grace of Christ
living out the love of God in the communion of the Spirit then we are to be in
a relationship of unity and oneness. But
here is where we get side-tracked, I believe.
For some believe
that means my way or no way. Exactly
what those alternative leaders in Corinth were doing. Deciding that for them to be right others
needed to be wrong. Hence the massive fracturing of the church throughout its
life over scriptural interpretation and theological positions.
But if we
understand oneness, agreement are about us belonging to Christ, living in
relationship with the threefold God and reflecting that in our own community,
it puts a whole different perspective on what it means to be a people of the
way. Then we are living in the light,
warmth and power that is the triune God and all else will flow from that
–unity, respect, energy focussed on the kingdom here and to come.
It would be fair
to say that where there is conflict, posturing, bickering within the church to
the point where relationship is sacrificed, and reconciliation is seen as
hopeless, then we no longer belong to Christ for we have given ourselves over
to that which is not Christ.
Paul, in his
closing words, finds the light, the hope in the midst of even this though. We do not face being the community of Christ
alone but in the grace of the risen Jesus, the love of a God who will not let
us go, ever, and the communion, the communion of the Spirit who remains with us
and in us making all things possible.
And so we come to
the table, one in the presence of God, from all our walks of life and places of
faith – we come to communion with each other and with our God in the name of
the risen Christ. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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