Trinity Sunday: Divine Image & the Human Community

Kia ora koutou!

We join together in our apart-ness,

pausing to acknowledge and grow in the presence of God in our lives.

We are  meeting as part of a church community, albeit a scattered one.

We are stilling ourselves, our fears, our anxieties, and all the distracting things around us, to seek and delight in God’s life with us.

Let us worship God!

A Prayer on our Way

Holiness, Word, Power,

you reveal yourself as one God in three persons,

a mighty, creative, life-generating dancer

who invites your creation to join you.

Sing into our ears, O Spirit, the holy word of life.

Tell us who we are and to whom we belong

so that we may live with gratitude for all that

you have done.

And catch us up in your love and lead us into your world

to call others to follow you with singing and rejoicing.

Amen.

Be Still and Know that I am God

Our scripture readings for today:       

Genesis 1:1- 2:4a  The story of creation

Psalm 8

2 Corinthians 13:11–13

Matthew 28:16– 20  Commissioning of the disciples

A reflection        by Dan Spragg

As I mentioned in my midweek thoughts this week, occasionally the lectionary does well with the grouping of readings it selects for particular Sundays. This week is one of them.

More on that in a moment. Firstly though, today is Trinity Sunday – the day we pay particular attention to who God is seen as being as witnessed to in the scriptures. It’s fair to say that it has taken up quite its fair share of time as a topic of debate throughout history.

Quite often we have been left more confused about things after we’ve debated than before we started! The metaphysics of the existence of God can make for quite a few mental gymnastics. I must admit at times feeling a little like this quote suggests:

This is Trinity Sunday, but people who have cancer probably do not care. This is Trinity Sunday, but those young couples who cannot get pregnant probably do not care either. “But, this is Trinity Sunday,” proclaims the worship committee. Even so, the family dealing with the wayward teenager, the couple headed for divorce, the person who has lost a job, they do not care. Does it really matter to them that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Indeed, what does it matter if we see God as Trinity or not?

What does it matter in times of uncertainty?

What does it matter when facing unemployment?

What does it matter when indigenous people and people of colour are constantly subjected to systemic racism and violence?

I must admit to becoming less convinced of a number of proclaimed ‘certainties’ the further into this faith journey I get. I find that I am finding more ‘certainty’ in the knowing of my experiences rather than what I can or can’t get the logical part of my brain to.

Understanding how God can be one- but – three is one of those. Needing to understand the math of it is becoming less important. What is becoming     

more important is the sense of meaning which is portrayed by various descriptions, metaphors and images of God.

The late Rev Andrew Norton when reviewing the Alpine Presbytery’s mission planning project in his time as National Moderator suggested that really there was only one question we needed to ask when looking at how to shape our thoughts towards Mission, towards the what we do with our faith. The question he suggested was:

Who is God?

Answer that, he said, and that will tell you what your mission is.

If God is an abstract concept that seems quite far removed from daily life, then so too will our mission be (if there is a sense of one at all?)

If  God, however, is understood in quite relatable terms, then well, that starts to make a real difference to what our mission will be.

So what of these readings today? What do these tell us of who God is (keeping the Trinity in mind)?

Genesis 1:1- 2:4a – God is = creative, life-giving, exists in relationship, the author of goodness…

Psalm 8 – God is = majestic, protective, attentive to creation, empowering…

2 Corinthians 13:11–13 – God is = peaceful, grace-giving, loving, relational…

Matthew 28:16– 20 – God is = authoritative, mission orientated, united as one, present…

That is quite a list!

Is this true for your experience(s) of God?

If this is an accurate list of who God is, what do you think it means for how we are to be?

One of the gifts of our recent ‘lockdown’ experience for me was to be introduced to the early church theologian Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory’s big idea in his On the Making of Humanity    

was that the creation story of Adam and Eve doesn’t talk so much about the

creation of the first humans but rather it paints a picture giving meaning to the concept of the entire human race, which only in its entirety is able to reflect true divine likeness and divine beauty! In other words, to be made in the image of God could be far less of an individualistic thing than we have often made it out to be.

As if I by myself, or you by yourself could be the image of God!?

For Gregory, the image of God in the world = humanity – the entire species –

all of us  – ever!

That paints a different picture of who we are.

The human community… the ever evolving, growing, diverse, colourful, beautiful image of God in the world.

If you were to look out your window right now and see someone walking their dog down the street, they are a part of the image of God in the world… they are a part of the representation of God in the world… they are a part of God’s responsibility in the world… they are a part of God’s activity in the world…

But only a part because you are too, as is all the people you know and love as well as those who you find difficult, as is those who are seriously misguided! (which is a little challenging to swallow).

Now here’s where my brain is colliding the two ideas today – Trinity & Humanity. If God is creative, life-giving, exists in relationship, the author of goodness, majestic, protective, attentive to creation, empowering, peaceful, grace    -giving, loving, relational, authoritative, mission orientated, united as one, present…

And add to this list all of what the earlier images say to you of who God is…

And if we, all of us who have existed and all who ever will exist, together, are the representation of God in the world…Then we must be at least capable, if not possessive of the seeds and expressions of these qualities too… (without lifting ourselves to the position of being God ourselves, of course, that’d kind of be the whole point of Genesis 3 perhaps?) So I think we can take a guess at how we are to get about our living  – it might have something to do with being: creative, life-giving, relational, sowers of good, majestic, protective, attentive to creation, empowering, peaceful, grace-giving, loving, relational,

authoritative (in the right way), mission orientated, united as one, present…

If we were to do that I think we’d go a long way towards being at one with what seems to be God’s mission in the world that was what Jesus lived and told his disciples to go and do the same: Love and reconciliation, the valuing of all and the bringing of all into completion in the joy of life with God.

We can certainly identify in our world situations where humans are not valued, situations where we do not act in alignment with who God is, or with who we are, situations where love and reconciliation are not the driving forces.

George Floyd

And systemic racism

Injustice

Violence

Rears its head

And says

Peek-a-boo

I haven’t gone anywhere

And in Aotearoa

Our egalitarian values

Struggle to own

What is true for us

Here too

Isn’t it sad?

Doesn’t it make you mad?

What are we to do?

God as Trinity

And our human community

The divine image

That is what we are to do

Offering & Prayer for the Road

Collectively now at this moment as we turn our hearts and minds outwards let us be grateful for God’s ongoing gifts, the many different ways we experience the generosity of God, and be grateful that many of us can still give to the ongoing life and work of our church community in various ways and dedicate ourselves to being the image of God in our various post-lockdown spaces.

We pray,

In accord with God’s command that we hold dominion over creation,

let us pray for the church, the world and all for whom we are called to be stewards. We give you thanks, God, for our world, which you made and renewed in the power of Jesus’ resurrection. 

Make us wise and careful of your gifts as we live on Earth. 

We pray that the love which passes ceaselessly between Creator and Word,

in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit may renew and deepen the life of each Christian and draw us all into your unending life.

For the leaders of the church:

for Protestants, Roman Catholics, and the Orthodox; 

for children and young people; 

for the elderly whose wise counsel is sorely needed in all ages; 

and for all ecumenical endeavours that seek to bring us closer to each other and to you.

For Earth and all creatures and plants; for healthy water and air and soil; 

for policies and laws that regard our home in God’s universe as a precious gift. 

For our families, our households, and our communities, that your life together as three-in-one may show us the importance of each of us, and so strengthen us in your grace and truth.

For the sick and those who suffer in any way;

for those who struggle to pay rent or a mortgage; 

for those who have no home; 

for those who are neglected and abused in our communities; 

for people who long for family and are instead alone; 

for children who do not have a good guide to raise them up; 

and for whatever else you see that we need.

For all those needs still unnamed but placed before you now    

…(take a moment to offer your own concerns to God)

Into your hands we entrust all that is of concern this day,

sure that you hear our pleas, grateful that your will be done on earth as in heaven. 

We pray this in the name of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, 

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, now and forever. Amen.

Great and deep the Spirit’s purpose – Marnie Barrell (Tune, Hymn to Joy)

Great and deep the Spirit’s purpose hidden now in mystery

Nature bursts with joyful promise, ripe with what is yet to be

In a world of rich invention, still the work of art unfolds

Barely have we seen, and faintly, what God’s great salvation holds.

Great and deep the Spirit’s purpose making Jesus seen and heard

Every age of God’s creation grasps new meaning from the Word

Show us, Holy Spirit, show us your new work begun today:

Eyes and ears and hearts are open, teach us what to do and say.

Great and deep the Spirit’s purpose all God’s children brought to birth,

Freed from hunger, fear and evil every corner of the earth,

And a million million voices speak with joy the Saviour’s name;

Every face reflects his image never any two the same.

Great and deep the Spirit’s purpose, nothing shall be left to chance

All that lives will be united in the everlasting dance

All fulfilled and all perfected each uniquely loved and known,

Christ in glory unimagined once for all receives his own

A Blessing

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

— Attributed to Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226)

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the        

Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you, and with those you love (and perhaps even with those you don’t). Amen.

Kia ora koutou! We join together in our apart-ness, pausing to acknowledge and grow in the presence of God in our lives. We are meeting as part of a church community, albeit a scattered one. We are stilling ourselves, our fears, our anxieties, and all the distracting things around us, to seek and delight in God’s life with us. Let us worship God!

Lord, Holy Spirit,

You blow like the wind in a thousand paddocks,

Inside and outside the fences,

You blow where you wish to blow.

Lord, Holy Spirit,

You are the sun who shines on the little plant,

You warm him gently, you give him life,

You raise him up to become a tree with many leaves.

Lord, Holy Spirit,

You are the mother eagle with her young,

Holding them in peace under your feathers.

On the highest mountain you have built your nest,

Above the valley, above the storms of the world,

Where no hunter ever comes.

Lord, Holy Spirit,

You are the bright cloud in whom we hide,

In whom we know already that the battle has been won.

You bring us to our Brother Jesus to rest our heads upon his shoulder.

Lord, Holy Spirit,

You are the kind fire who does not cease to burn,

Consuming us with flames of love and peace,

Driving us out like sparks to set the world on fire.

Lord, Holy Spirit,

In the love of friends you are building a new house,

Heaven is with us when you are with us.

You are singing your songs in the hearts of the poor

Guide us, wound us, heal us.

Bring us to the Father.

 – James K. Baxter, ‘Song to the Holy Spirit’, in Collected Poems (ed. John Edward Weir; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 572.

The Day You Began Your Church [written by Joy Kingsbury-Aitken]

Lord on the day when your people were offering leavened loaves and lambs in thanksgiving for the harvest they were bringing in, the grain from which to bake their daily bread, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when your people were recalling the fire and the thunder of your descent on Mount Sinai when you gave them the law, commandments by which to live in community, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when your people were reciting the psalms of David, the sweet singer of Israel, who according to folklore was born on Pentecost, and remembering Ruth, his Moabite ancestor, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when your people were longing for the fulfilment of ancient prophecies promising an outpouring of your Holy Spirit, transforming both old and young into visionaries, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when your people were gathered from throughout the world to worship you, when one hundred and twenty followers of Jesus were assembled together with one accord, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when you blew into Jerusalem manifesting your presence in tongues of fire, pilgrims heard the gospel in their own languages, and three thousand believed and were baptised, on that day you began your church.

Lord on the day when your people kept Pentecost and down through the centuries ever since, your Spirit has been inspiring faithful believers to boldly proclaim your gospel of hope, as was done on that day you began your church, and that day is with us, and we thank you! Amen.

Delight & Awe

This clip is a beautiful conversation between Bono (from U2) and Eugene Peterson (author of The Message). Be warned, it is 21 minutes long but it is so compelling that I doubt you will notice! You may want to give this the time now or come back to it a bit later but it is profound and certainly worth the listen.

Bible Readings: Acts 2:1-12 & Acts 10: 1-48

A reflection by the departing Mart the Rev – Inside and outside the fences

I love the inside/outside line from Baxter’s poem: Lord, Holy Spirit/You blow like the wind in a thousand paddocks/Inside and outside the fences/You blow where you wish to blow.

On this particular Pentecost Day there seems to be a range of inside and outside themes running through everything.

The Reach of Pentecost Pentecost was an existing and important festival within the devotional rhythms of the Jewish people, as Joy Kingsbury-Aitken’s litany so ably illustrates. It was on the day of this festival that the Holy Spirit swept in, and pushed against the existing boundaries; opening the eyes of those gathered to just who was among them – faithful people from within the faith-tradition from everywhere they have settled in the known world. It was wind and fire and voice and power like they had never seen. But this was just the beginning. This wind was to blow inside and outside the fences.

The rest of the Acts of the Apostles is a testament to the reach of the Spirit – reaching even, to Saul the persecutor of the early church, and across two massive divides in the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10: Gentile and Roman Centurion. All the old boundaries left in tatters! Later, Paul will write in Galatians 3:28 ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’ It was a revolution! Even on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit came upon the gathered people, they would never have imagined this reach. The phenomenon of the Spirit that day was still within the boundaries of the tradition.

But the Spirit had other plans.

Context When New Zealand went into the Covid-19 lockdown, I began imagining when, and how, we might climb out of it. It seemed to me that this would take months and months and, possibly, for our seniors and the vulnerable among us, more than half a year before it would be safe to mingle in the community. How wrong I was! From Friday, any gatherings of up to 100 New Zealanders are permitted as long as appropriate social distancing and contact tracing measures are followed. It is an amazing achievement, in just two months and four days, to have only one active Covid case in the whole country. As I understand it, there are only a handful of countries in the world that are in such control of the virus that they can step out, as we are, with any confidence. Many others are doing the stepping out, but not from that place of confidence. It is astounding! Obviously, there are many economic challenges because of the lockdown – this is the case in every country in the world – but we are in a better position to attend to them because of the decisive leadership and the strength of the community commitment to respect the lockdown measures.

Thus, on the Day of Pentecost, 2020, nearly all the strong fences we needed to erect around ourselves have been pulled down. We are coming out! Look out!

Transitions I first encountered Baxter’s Song to the Holy Spirit poem in 1982. I was staying with a friend in Wellington, and making plans to join him in a flat in order to start at university the following year. I remember, later that night, writing the poem in my journal. 1982 was a big year for me. I candidated for the ministry and was accepted and I was making plans to leave my home city and embarking on what would be six years at university.

I remember also that there was doubt in my mind (and in the minds of others!), of my capacity to achieve and sustain the study, and, I was also moving away from some of the confined ways I had understood the faith. ‘Inside and outside the fences’ resonated with me – I was doing my own crossover, and growing to understand God’s ways being wider than my ideas of them! Can you identify a similar dramatic transition time in your life?

Over the years I have had a few of these – some have been relatively smooth; and others have been a bit turbulent! I think I am undergoing a smooth transition this time – with the edges kind of softened by the fact that I have had a few months of social isolation and distancing. It has felt like a long ease out, and somewhat surreal. That my leaving doesn’t also involve a geographical shift, means that it is not so dramatic – there is only one form of uprooting going on, I think!

Fences & Clinging I noted, in the mid-week reflections the other day, that I have been wondering if I have misspent critical aspects of the thirty-one and a half years of my pastoral ministry. Aside from the list of regrets (and there are always a few, mostly around I wish I had spent more time with this person and that person), there’s a bit of wondering about the prioritisation of the church’s energy, and my part in that, over those years. The season of my ministry career has coincided with a period of ongoing decline in the Presbyterian church. The steady decline in the numbers of people choosing to be part of it, and the ongoing loss of influence. These are changing times, and I don’t think the church is respected in the way previous generations once respected it.

Some of the change is very welcome – for the church tended to assume it had a place at the head of the table, and it could act in haughty ways. I am glad to be in this season where no such assumptions can be made, and the church has to earn its right to have a conversation. This is safer ground for us, even though it is challenging to be confident or that we will even survive! But I also think that the church hasn’t paid enough attention to what God is up to outside the fences, and in this sense the church has no one else to blame.

In survival mode, the church scrambles to ensure that things keep on going in the way it has become accustomed to. In business, the decline in bottom lines leads to one of two things, repurposing or closure. I think that the church has generally opted for a third option that is not healthy. The church I have been ordained into has tended to cling: clinging to past methodologies and styles; clinging to what once worked in a cultural setting long past; clinging to the assumption that if we are open at 10am then people will come; clinging to the notion that if we look after our own then things will be fine; and clinging to doctrines, or ways of framing the nature of God at work among us, as if we had the last word on how God could be.

For example, on that latter point, the Presbyterian Church has, for the entire time I have been ordained, persisted with putting an extraordinary amount of its time and energy into deciding whether to allow homosexual people to participate fully in the Christian life, or not. What a fence! It is like Trump wanting a wall on the entire Mexican border. Shut them out! Make everything great again! To use the over-worn metaphor, the Presbyterian Church has spent the last thirty years re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, while the ship sinks. ‘If we just sort out the ‘gays’ then God will bless the church…’ What a load of stinking codswallop!! This is the worst kind of ‘inside the fences’ behaviour, and not, I would say, the leading of the Spirit of God! It is a distraction!

In the same period of time poverty has become a sorry feature of New Zealand life, our rivers have become unswimmable, the global temperature has risen at a rate far from natural, our quality of community life has diminished, loneliness and anxiety-related problems have become commonplace, the family violence numbers continue to escalate, and the divide between the haves and have-nots has widened exponentially.

But the fixation of the church has been to elevate one or two verses from scriptures and take all the steps it can to rid the church of a handful of homosexual ministers and elders. What a shameful wasteful form of institutional blindness! (There, I have finally got that off my chest! – sorry to unload!!!) If I was to offer a bit of self-critique, I would say that over the course of my years as a minister, I have played my part in channelling too much of my energy into the ‘inside’ rather than enabling the community to seek and pursue what it means to engage with the ‘outside’. I’m about to walk into a role that could look like all my energy will be directed towards propping up the institution – but I will resist that. I do not wish to be a prop, or an encourager of a clinging mentality. The church needs to listen to the Spirit! Blowing inside and outside the fences!

It was something we all should have known, but just couldn’t see for looking. I was attracted to the notion of it in 1982, and I am reacquainting myself with it again. Now, I am a little inclined to ask – what fences? Whose idea was that there should be fences? I’m far more interested in the idea of a church without walls, and the posture of the church in the world being that of exposing, and breaking down any walls, that separate people from people, and people from God.

In the days after that Pentecost Day, in the book of Acts, Peter stands in the home of a Gentile Roman soldier (having pushed past a fence as high as a fence could be back then!), and declares, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” Peter only got there, because the Spirit was blowing outside the fences, into the life of Cornelius (despite the church’s understanding of its ministry and without the church’s permission!), and into Peter’s dreams, demanding that he must step beyond the boundary of the Law of Moses and eat what is unclean. If you go on to Acts 11, you see the initial reaction of the church, and it was not happy! How dare you cross the lines! Fortunately, the bureaucracy did not win. Back then, the church was still open to the Spirit’s wilful desire to be unregulated! Amen to that desire, and again I say, Amen!

Now and Next I have been very fortunate to serve these last 13.5 years in our church communities here at The Village, where we have at least had a go at looking and exploring outside the fences. I have loved and thrived in the ‘have a go’ attitude that the leadership have given to its ministers. Long may it continue!

The aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic now invites more of the same attitude. It really does! Things are, undoubtedly, going to get harder, but that is not an invitation to retrench, or batten down the hatches. This is only a time to do what the church has always been meant to do, to go to where the wind of the Spirit is blowing – inside and outside what we already know, and get the best of your energy out to the edges and the frontiers, which are, you may be surprised to hear, right in our neighbourhoods, and over our neighbourhood fences. I hope and pray that this willingness will continue to be a feature of The Village, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I have had to play a part in this unfolding story. Thank you for your support and encouragement over the years, it has been a privilege to serve with and alongside you.

Offering & Prayer for the Road

Collectively now at this moment as we turn our hearts and minds outwards let us be grateful for God’s ongoing gifts, the many different ways we experience the generosity of God, and be grateful that many of us can still give to the ongoing life and work of our church community in various ways and dedicate ourselves to the presence of God in our various spaces.

Loving God

We bring our gifts and resources before you now and pray that they can be used to make your love known enriching lives, easing strain and bringing life.

All these years on, we are still ‘amazed and perplexed’ by life in and with you!

Delighted and awed by the magnitude of all you have created in your great love; the world around us, the life in us, the highs, the lows, the new, and the not so the familiar, and the not so.

It’s big, all of this, sometimes too big.

Awed by the scale of it all we don’t always want to accept what we don’t know overloaded as we are by what we do know.

Sometimes we feel big, as though we are on top of it all and then so small, so insignificant to really count at all

Delighted by the wonder around us and then perplexed by those who squander it, deny it, and belittle it, by acts that suggest there isn’t enough.

Perplexed when relationships hurt us, confused when others disregard us, or believe in their idea of us without first seeking to know us God, on reflection, we know that most of our concerns come from trying to do life on our own terms, trying to see with our eyes; judging from our perspectives. Help us to let go of this way and see our world, and those in it, through your eyes, building up, not breaking down, encouraging, loving.

And to be this way in all the corners of our lives, our work, our play, our daily routines, with everyone we meet, those we laugh and grow with and even those who diminish us and who we might struggle with.

Our prayer then this morning, Lord, is that like the people in Acts we find a new fire within, that burns with love for you and for your creation. That we would play a part in your love sweeping across the planet, with courage and belief, renewing, and reconciling refreshing and re-energising so that we can all live better and healthier lives, in you, for you, with you.

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen

Go into your week confident of God’s strong arms around you, resting in the sweetness of God’s love every moment of the day and night, Amen.

Postlude – Today U2 have the last word – with their farewell lullaby to Martin Luther King – Sleep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN1B38uRBoQ

Sleep

Sleep tonight

And may your dreams

Be realized

If the thundercloud

Passes rain

So let it rain

Rain down on him