Romans 8:14-17a
Those who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s children. The Spirit doesn’t make us slaves who are afraid. Instead, we become God’s children and call God our Loving Parent. God’s Spirit makes us sure that we are God’s children. The Spirit lets us know that together with Christ we will be given what God has promised.
Today is Trinity Sunday, a day of formal recognition of the three-persons of God: God as Parent, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Very few of us could claim that we actually understand this trinity of being.
I’d probably be a little suspicious of anyone who tried to claim that they really got it all – instead, we simply accept that God at some points interacts with us in different ways – sometimes as a Parent — the one who brought us into being; sometimes as Jesus, the human form God took to live among us and to interact more fully with us; and sometimes as the unseen Spirit who lives in and with us, guiding us and moving us through our lives. We can go this far, and the rest we shrug off as “mystery.”
Unfortunately, this leaves us with something that sounds like three separate pieces somehow glued together into something different. I prefer to express this as the Trinity being all about the relationship among these three facets of God. Read scripture carefully and we see the love flowing among these three, We are told at the very beginning of scripture that we are created in the image of God. If God is, in fact, relational, then it follows that we, created in God’s image, are relational beings ourselves.
A piece recently made the rounds on facebook, among clergy-types, at least. It appears to be a quote from a pastor of a large Brooklyn church, Rich Villodas, about whom I know nothing accept this quote which consists of five major points:
1) The Bible is more communal than individual. Even when it seems to deal with an individual, the effects of that individual’s interaction with God end up affecting all of us.
2) Jesus teaches us to pray “our Father” not “my Father.” Our Father, father to us all – again, not an individual act.
3) Paul uses the phrase “our Lord” 53 times, and “my Lord” only once. Same as the second point. God is not my God, or your God.
4) The commonly used phrase “Jesus is my personal Savior” is not found anywhere in Holy Scripture. Everything we are shown in scripture shows us a people knowing God together and acting in God’s name together. It is never about me, me, me.
5) We are the people of God; we belong to each other. There is an unfortunate thing that has happened in our country over the centuries, as we have grow more and more stable, more comfortable. This is a largely unspoken and usually unacknowledged idea that we who are the lucky ones, the comfortable ones are responsible for the less comfortable, the less well-off. That’s a good beginning, but it is not the whole package. Because, if we truly do all belong to each other, then the less well-off are equally required to care for the rest of us.
I’m not talking here about money or material goods – I’m talking about love and spiritual care – which requires that we lucky ones acknowledge that those we might see as having little to give may very well have something we desperately need. Belonging to each other is not a one-way street. In God’s eyes there is no “us” and “them.”
Our faith is not a “Jesus and me” faith. It is not about me—or you—getting to heaven. It is about “us” — all of us, caring for each other, helping each other, so that we all live within the reign of God — and no one – no one -- gets left out or left behind.
I read a comment somewhere—don’t know where or by whom—to the effect that while taking a class in biblical Greek, the person discovered that the Greek word usually translated into English as “you” should actually be “you all” — a plural you. Ever since then, this person has read the New Testament with a Southern drawl and a lot of y’all’s. Imaging St. Paul, giving his intense messages with a drawl and addressing the Greeks, and Syrians, and Romans as y’all.
There is a beautiful saying by teacher Ram Dass -- ”We’re all just walking each other home.” I’ve always loved that saying since I first heard it. Whatever it is we are doing here, our God is a relational God and we are a relational people, y’all. If we are going somewhere, we should be going there together – no one left behind.
I’d probably be a little suspicious of anyone who tried to claim that they really got it all – instead, we simply accept that God at some points interacts with us in different ways – sometimes as a Parent — the one who brought us into being; sometimes as Jesus, the human form God took to live among us and to interact more fully with us; and sometimes as the unseen Spirit who lives in and with us, guiding us and moving us through our lives. We can go this far, and the rest we shrug off as “mystery.”
Unfortunately, this leaves us with something that sounds like three separate pieces somehow glued together into something different. I prefer to express this as the Trinity being all about the relationship among these three facets of God. Read scripture carefully and we see the love flowing among these three, We are told at the very beginning of scripture that we are created in the image of God. If God is, in fact, relational, then it follows that we, created in God’s image, are relational beings ourselves.
A piece recently made the rounds on facebook, among clergy-types, at least. It appears to be a quote from a pastor of a large Brooklyn church, Rich Villodas, about whom I know nothing accept this quote which consists of five major points:
1) The Bible is more communal than individual. Even when it seems to deal with an individual, the effects of that individual’s interaction with God end up affecting all of us.
2) Jesus teaches us to pray “our Father” not “my Father.” Our Father, father to us all – again, not an individual act.
3) Paul uses the phrase “our Lord” 53 times, and “my Lord” only once. Same as the second point. God is not my God, or your God.
4) The commonly used phrase “Jesus is my personal Savior” is not found anywhere in Holy Scripture. Everything we are shown in scripture shows us a people knowing God together and acting in God’s name together. It is never about me, me, me.
5) We are the people of God; we belong to each other. There is an unfortunate thing that has happened in our country over the centuries, as we have grow more and more stable, more comfortable. This is a largely unspoken and usually unacknowledged idea that we who are the lucky ones, the comfortable ones are responsible for the less comfortable, the less well-off. That’s a good beginning, but it is not the whole package. Because, if we truly do all belong to each other, then the less well-off are equally required to care for the rest of us.
I’m not talking here about money or material goods – I’m talking about love and spiritual care – which requires that we lucky ones acknowledge that those we might see as having little to give may very well have something we desperately need. Belonging to each other is not a one-way street. In God’s eyes there is no “us” and “them.”
Our faith is not a “Jesus and me” faith. It is not about me—or you—getting to heaven. It is about “us” — all of us, caring for each other, helping each other, so that we all live within the reign of God — and no one – no one -- gets left out or left behind.
I read a comment somewhere—don’t know where or by whom—to the effect that while taking a class in biblical Greek, the person discovered that the Greek word usually translated into English as “you” should actually be “you all” — a plural you. Ever since then, this person has read the New Testament with a Southern drawl and a lot of y’all’s. Imaging St. Paul, giving his intense messages with a drawl and addressing the Greeks, and Syrians, and Romans as y’all.
There is a beautiful saying by teacher Ram Dass -- ”We’re all just walking each other home.” I’ve always loved that saying since I first heard it. Whatever it is we are doing here, our God is a relational God and we are a relational people, y’all. If we are going somewhere, we should be going there together – no one left behind.
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