Trinity Sunday 2012
A librarian was asked by a child where to look for a book about God. The librarian asked the child what he wanted to know about God – ‘well’ said the child, ‘for a start, what does he do ?’ Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday and we recognise the work of God but inevitably as we do so, we look with eyes which judge by human standards a God who is far above anything or anyone we can ever understand…
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try – and that we shouldn’t at least recognise what we do know and see of God’s work around us – and how we should respond.
There’s a good story of a young girl in school one day – the teacher approaches her and asks what she is drawing – the child replies, ‘I am drawing God’, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like’ said the teacher, to which the child replied, ‘They will in a minute !’
In the most simple of terms God the Father is the creator of the world, God the Son is the person we know as Jesus, who came into the world to save us from sin and to offer a direct route back to God, and God the Holy Spirit is the person who helps us from within – the Holy Spirit is God acting within us to be more like him and to do his work more effectively.
And the recognition of God as those three persons and yet one God is hugely important as we seek to build a relationship with Him, and also as we prepare to share his message with others.
Perhaps its at this point that I should add that the doctrine of the Trinity – God, three persons yet one God, is a confusing one but our lack of understanding doesn’t lessen the importance. St Augustine wrote as far back as the 4th century that any God which we can understand is not God…
And John Wesley said, ‘Tell me how it is that in this room there are three candles and but one light, and I will explain to you the mode of the divine existence.’
God is confusing and all of us will at times, I’m sure, seek answers which just don’t seem to come, but too often there is a danger that we use that as an excuse not to dig deeper, and not to seek to grow closer to God – but in the Trinity God comes close to us at every moment of our lives…
The work of God the Father in creation is all around us. It’s so easy to take for granted the beauty of creation, but also the intricacies of it – who could imagine that from nothing beautiful flowers could grow, that grass could cover hillsides, who could imagine the rugged mountains and the beautiful seas and rivers, who could imagine a world created from nothing that could look like ours ?
But our inability to see such beauty sometimes can lead to dangers - dangers that we will never look to care for all that is around us… I’m not a particularly green person – I’m a bit useless at doing all I should do at times for the environment, but I should get better because one of the great developments in recent years has been this awareness that we need to care for creation – in doing so we are taking care of something entrusted to us by God.
And the care for God’s creation extends to caring for his people as well – all around us are brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow children of God, whether some choose to recognize it or not. Our role is not to judge, but to love – offering hopefully an example of the love of God to all people.
God the Father created the world and all that is in it, and he left us a responsibility to recognise it, to thank him for it, and to use it for the benefit of all….
God the Father watches over all his creation – and sees the incredible differences that we so often allow to happen – differences of wealth and material goods and attitudes and backgrounds, but as he watches, surely he judges not what we have or don’t have, but what we are and what we do…
God the Son is perhaps the most easy part of the Trinity that we can relate to – because in Jesus we see a person – a person living in a different time and place to us, but a person who still faced life with all of its ups and downs… We can look at Jesus and see the care he took of people all around him, we can look at the way he showed compassion on those who needed it most, the way he treated those who were greedy or corrupt, the way he trusted that his work was work that had to be done, and that there was nothing that would get in the way of it – even the pain of death on the cross…
As we look at Jesus we must always recognise that we are called to be Jesus to others –we are called to live out his life, to care as he cared, to share a message of hope just as he did with everyone – he didn’t withhold his message from those who abused him, he didn’t ignore those who ignored him, he didn’t criticise those who fell below the standards he thought were right – he saw people, and he offered them an invitation that could change their lives forever…
And then there is God the Holy Spirit – the power within us today to accomplish the work of God. The Holy Spirit is our inspiration, the Holy Spirit is the power that enables us to know that, in all things, God is always ultimately, in control…
It’s very easy not to trust in the Spirit – it’s very difficult to ignore the nagging doubts that we may have in the back of our minds about doing God’s work; but trusting in God, we will surely know and feel the power that moved Peter to preach at that first Pentecost, ignoring the obvious threat to his life or the power that transformed Paul from a persecutor of the Church into a great missionary for Christ, or the power that has seen so many lives completely transformed through the centuries…
That transforming power is still around today, and it is a power that wants to grab each one of us, and invite us to go further on a journey that is the most incredible one that we can ever take – a journey with God…
In the Old Testament Reading from Isaiah (6:1-8) we have the incredible story of Isaiah as he hears the call of God – ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us ?’ Isaiah responds, ‘Here am I, send me…’
We will be called in different ways for different roles, but the one role to which we are all called is to accept Jesus in our lives – and to know that through the power of the Holy Spirit our lives will be transformed continually…. The Lord calls each one of us into his service in different ways and different places, may we always respond with those incredible words of faith, ‘Here am I, send me’…
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try – and that we shouldn’t at least recognise what we do know and see of God’s work around us – and how we should respond.
There’s a good story of a young girl in school one day – the teacher approaches her and asks what she is drawing – the child replies, ‘I am drawing God’, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like’ said the teacher, to which the child replied, ‘They will in a minute !’
In the most simple of terms God the Father is the creator of the world, God the Son is the person we know as Jesus, who came into the world to save us from sin and to offer a direct route back to God, and God the Holy Spirit is the person who helps us from within – the Holy Spirit is God acting within us to be more like him and to do his work more effectively.
And the recognition of God as those three persons and yet one God is hugely important as we seek to build a relationship with Him, and also as we prepare to share his message with others.
Perhaps its at this point that I should add that the doctrine of the Trinity – God, three persons yet one God, is a confusing one but our lack of understanding doesn’t lessen the importance. St Augustine wrote as far back as the 4th century that any God which we can understand is not God…
And John Wesley said, ‘Tell me how it is that in this room there are three candles and but one light, and I will explain to you the mode of the divine existence.’
God is confusing and all of us will at times, I’m sure, seek answers which just don’t seem to come, but too often there is a danger that we use that as an excuse not to dig deeper, and not to seek to grow closer to God – but in the Trinity God comes close to us at every moment of our lives…
The work of God the Father in creation is all around us. It’s so easy to take for granted the beauty of creation, but also the intricacies of it – who could imagine that from nothing beautiful flowers could grow, that grass could cover hillsides, who could imagine the rugged mountains and the beautiful seas and rivers, who could imagine a world created from nothing that could look like ours ?
But our inability to see such beauty sometimes can lead to dangers - dangers that we will never look to care for all that is around us… I’m not a particularly green person – I’m a bit useless at doing all I should do at times for the environment, but I should get better because one of the great developments in recent years has been this awareness that we need to care for creation – in doing so we are taking care of something entrusted to us by God.
And the care for God’s creation extends to caring for his people as well – all around us are brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow children of God, whether some choose to recognize it or not. Our role is not to judge, but to love – offering hopefully an example of the love of God to all people.
God the Father created the world and all that is in it, and he left us a responsibility to recognise it, to thank him for it, and to use it for the benefit of all….
God the Father watches over all his creation – and sees the incredible differences that we so often allow to happen – differences of wealth and material goods and attitudes and backgrounds, but as he watches, surely he judges not what we have or don’t have, but what we are and what we do…
God the Son is perhaps the most easy part of the Trinity that we can relate to – because in Jesus we see a person – a person living in a different time and place to us, but a person who still faced life with all of its ups and downs… We can look at Jesus and see the care he took of people all around him, we can look at the way he showed compassion on those who needed it most, the way he treated those who were greedy or corrupt, the way he trusted that his work was work that had to be done, and that there was nothing that would get in the way of it – even the pain of death on the cross…
As we look at Jesus we must always recognise that we are called to be Jesus to others –we are called to live out his life, to care as he cared, to share a message of hope just as he did with everyone – he didn’t withhold his message from those who abused him, he didn’t ignore those who ignored him, he didn’t criticise those who fell below the standards he thought were right – he saw people, and he offered them an invitation that could change their lives forever…
And then there is God the Holy Spirit – the power within us today to accomplish the work of God. The Holy Spirit is our inspiration, the Holy Spirit is the power that enables us to know that, in all things, God is always ultimately, in control…
It’s very easy not to trust in the Spirit – it’s very difficult to ignore the nagging doubts that we may have in the back of our minds about doing God’s work; but trusting in God, we will surely know and feel the power that moved Peter to preach at that first Pentecost, ignoring the obvious threat to his life or the power that transformed Paul from a persecutor of the Church into a great missionary for Christ, or the power that has seen so many lives completely transformed through the centuries…
That transforming power is still around today, and it is a power that wants to grab each one of us, and invite us to go further on a journey that is the most incredible one that we can ever take – a journey with God…
In the Old Testament Reading from Isaiah (6:1-8) we have the incredible story of Isaiah as he hears the call of God – ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us ?’ Isaiah responds, ‘Here am I, send me…’
We will be called in different ways for different roles, but the one role to which we are all called is to accept Jesus in our lives – and to know that through the power of the Holy Spirit our lives will be transformed continually…. The Lord calls each one of us into his service in different ways and different places, may we always respond with those incredible words of faith, ‘Here am I, send me’…
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