A Wonder of Community

From the earliest days, the followers of Jesus wondered about the relationship between God, Jesus and the Spirit. As things got more formal and they began to be “the church,” there were questions and thoughts about how to understand that relationship and, of course, there was a point at which they felt it was important to be able to clearly state how it was to be understood. So in the 4th century, a worldwide gathering of the church (it was a smaller world then), decided on The Trinity.

The term “trinity” doesn’t appear in the bible at all, but is a part of the church doctrine (teaching) that has become dogma (teaching that the church considers to have been divinely revealed in the Word and therefore becomes part of faith). There’s lots of both, but the Trinity is the concept that God is three persons, classically represented as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This concept is revealed in Christian scripture, church leaders said, that there is one God and that God is, in essence, three persons, so intimately connected that they are one.

Remember, though, that they are speaking to the understanding of personhood in their time, when it meant both the individual and the sense of that individual existing in the context of community. The wholeness of being unique and, at the same time, part of something greater. Individual, but not separate; unique, but not alone; separate, but of the same essence. The three “persons” of the Trinity exist with each other, but are not each other.

In contemporary society, more weight now seems to be put to the individual, that the “I” of our personal rights is greater than the community. That makes it more difficult to see the relationship of the three within one.

So is God one or three? Yes, is the answer, God is both “Three in One and One in Three” so the old hymn goes. Okay, so then how does that work, exactly? It’s a mystery, the church said. It just is.

That sure didn’t stop people from trying to explain it. After all, in our modern minds, mysteries need to be solved. How do the three relate as one? What’re the mechanics of the relationship? Who’s in charge? What’s the structure look like? We even came up with other, more contemporary, ways of describing the three in order to better understand how they are one: Creator, Christ and Spirit; God in the world, God among us and God within us; Parent, Child and Comforter; there are many, each representing a particular perspective, trying to articulate the wholeness that is God.

But maybe it’s not a mystery to be solved, it’s a wonder to learn from. Maybe it’s not an example of individual distinctiveness, but a model of community. Maybe it’s not about who’s who, but about the necessity of relationship. The Trinity is constantly active relationship. That’s a powerful way to understand God: in the world, in relationship and in action.

The idea of the Trinity is a wonder, to be wondered at and wonder about so that we might find the wonderful in a relationship with God who is the very model of relationship, to live in community with God who is the very model of community, and to live out that love, not alone, but with the world around us.

It's Been There All Along

It seems to me that it’s the one time the disciples actually knew what was going to happen. And believed it, too.

After his death and resurrection Jesus told the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait. The Holy Spirit was coming and they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” Jesus leaves (ascends to heaven) and off they go to Jerusalem where they wait patiently (or impatiently maybe, I don’t know). While they’re waiting they pick Mathias to replace Judas and then, on Pentecost the story says, they experience the Holy Spirit.

The name Pentecost doesn’t have anything to do with the Spirit, at least not directly. “Pente” simply means fifty and it was the day of Shavuot on the Jewish calendar, a harvest festival fifty days after Passover. For Christians, Pentecost has become fifty days after Easter. The point of it being that particular day isn’t related directly to the Spirit (it kind of is - I’m coming to that), it’s significance in the story is that there was a crowd in Jerusalem that day, Jews from all over the known world. And when the disciples find themselves empowered by the Spirit, what they’re able to do is to communicate in the languages of all of those places. And those people are rightfully amazed. And perhaps moved.

That’s certainly an important piece of the story. Not just communication, but connection. Imagine being in a far off place where you might be struggling a bit with communication and unfamiliar surroundings and suddenly you hear the language of your home. That might be a message you’d want to hear, one that’s speaking to you right where you live, connecting with where you’ve come from and helping you feel, well, at home. That’s an important learning for today’s church.

But let’s get back to the waiting disciples, expecting the imminent arrival of the Spirit. And suddenly there’s a mighty wind and tongues of fire. Of course there is. What better way to describe the Spirit than with the elements? We also talk about the Spirit present in the water of baptism. And don’t forget how the Spirit is in earth, too. From the very beginning even, in the creation story, the Spirit of God created all living things. The Spirit is life.

It can be very easy to read the Pentecost story (Acts 2:1-21) as the disciples expecting something to happen to them, to hear the Spirit being some outside force acting on them. But the Spirit is already there, in all things. Maybe that’s why it’s so appropriate for it to be the day of a harvest festival. The fruits of the earth and the Spirit connecting.

I wonder if, rather than hearing a story of expecting something to be done to them, the disciples had finally had enough experience of Jesus, of faith and of the spirit, that they were open to knowing the Spirit being alive within themselves, just as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is teaching us. Instead of some outside force acting on them, perhaps they suddenly were aware of the connectedness of things. Perhaps they knew the divine was in them and in creation and instead of a force acting on them, it became something flowing out: the Spirit of life and love, the creativity and connection of the divine in all of us.

What Do You Mean?

We’re at the end of the season of Easter. It seems kind of ironic to say that, given that Easter is the season of new life and new beginnings, but here we are. The season ends, but the new life lives on. Doesn’t it?

That was in our theme for the season, “Daring to Live as an Easter People.” The idea was to share the stories of people bringing new life to the world by living “Jesus” into the world. From that, we could once again be reminded that we, too, can live “Jesus” into the world.

You’re wondering about the quotes around Jesus, aren’t you. It’s meant with respect.

See, I don’t think Jesus was trying to teach us that we can live like him, specifically, or that we can behave differently by following him, specifically, or - especially - that we can come closer to God by worshipping Jesus, specifically (I think he’d hate that). I don’t think Jesus was trying to show us a power we don’t have. I think Jesus was trying to show us that everything that is in Jesus, is in us, too. We are divine and earthly, just as Jesus is. We are, in our heart of hearts, good. We begin in life that way and it’s our experiences that will either enhance and encourage that or undermine and discourage it. Jesus is uniquely aware of the divine and in touch with the humane, that’s Jesus’ true power. Our’s is broken and seems distant from God. We’ve lost touch with the presence of the divine in our own being.

What Jesus is trying to show us is that God is in us, too, and that we are capable of all that is “Jesus” - what John, and the earliest followers called “The Way.”

Hmm. More quotes around that.

I’ve talked about this before. I like to talk about it. I even tried to call it “Jesusing,” a verb, because being Jesus is action. That didn’t really take, but the point is still true, whatever name, label or description we give it, however we know it: all that is in Jesus is in all of us, too. Jesus was trying to show us that.

That brings me back to the “Daring to Live as an Easter People” theme. The people whose stories we shared weren’t figures from scripture. They weren’t saints, they weren’t religious leaders and they weren’t the usual inspiring figures from history like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela. They were people from our communities, local people that you might know. Your neighbour, even. They were ordinary, everyday people, that would probably tell you they weren’t special, they were just doing what they felt was right and good. Some of that was showing love, kindness, care and compassion, but it was also about justice, equity and reconciliation, too. 

It’s so easy to distance ourselves from scripture, from the saints and from the famous and larger-than-life figures of history. But look around you. Jesus is alive in your neighbour, in people you know, in friends and family, in people you can talk to, touch and embrace. Jesus is alive in you.

Love is Bigger

“Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says in the Gospel of John.

That’s probably my most favourite verse in scripture. It is today, anyway. Sometimes I think the bible’s much to vast to only have one “favourite.”

Here’s the thing about that verse, though. It’s powerful in its own right. But its real power lies in how it connects us to life.

It’s way too easy to take a single line or verse out of context and say “it means this.” That meaning can very quickly become what we want it to mean and how it supports what we already think, rather than speaking for itself. That can easily disconnect us from the larger, deeper meaning of its context in the story.

But this verse connects us, first to what Jesus is saying about love in his final words to the disciples in John’s gospel. It connects us to the idea that we “abide” in the love of Jesus which is the love of God. We live in love. It’s not just something to do, a behaviour to copy or a life style to emulate. We are intimately connected in love, it is part of our being.

I also think that when Jesus talks like this, it’s like that moment earlier in John when Jesus says that he is “the way, the truth and the life.” I don’t think that he’s limiting the way to just Jesus, but rather using himself as a means to describe “the way.” The way isn’t just Jesus, Jesus lives the way. So, too, the love of Jesus and the love of God are love, however you know Jesus and God, by this name or tradition or another. The way is love.

It connects us, too, with the life of Jesus. The full life of Jesus, which is the living of love in the stories, the teaching, the preaching, the healing, the successes, the failings, the affirmations and the doubts. It’s everything. It remembers to us the wholeness of the life of Jesus.

That’s an important piece here, because I think we hear Jesus talk about love and we think he only means that one particular churchy kind of love that’s not brotherly love or romantic love or sexual love, it’s that “unconditional love of God” love. I think Jesus meant all love. How else can there be wholeness?

I think, also, that we talk about love that is compassion, grace, kindness, care, thoughtfulness, empathy - there’s a very long list before we get to justice, respect, equity and the willingness to risk to do all those things. That’s another connection here. Right after saying that we should love each other as he loves us, Jesus says that there is no greater love than to “lay down one’s life” for a friend. Sure, he could simply be foreshadowing his own death. But he uses this phrase elsewhere in John and I think it means something bigger. I wonder that Jesus means that love is risky and can be costly when love means standing up against injustice, calling for what’s right and true, fighting oppression, promoting equity and demanding respect.

Jesus was always found where love was most needed. It was sometimes risky, sometimes a struggle, sometimes refused and sometimes embraced. But it was always lived. That’s what it means to love as Jesus loves.

What we put in the way

In Christian scripture, the Book of Acts tells the stories of the earliest days of the followers of Jesus after his departure. It’s often referred to as the story of the earliest days of the church, the struggles and successes, the founding of faith communities and some of the issues they encountered.

I wonder if that’s fair, though, “the earliest days of the church.” I don’t know that it was anything like we’d call “church,” and I wonder if our trying to see it that way might mislead our thinking about it. They were finding their way, establishing communities and trying to figure out how to do things. There were struggles and conflicts as they tried to be Jesus in community, interpreting and learning what that even meant. They tried to establish criteria for being part of the community, jews and gentiles, different cultures, different status in society, genders, ages … Oh. Wait. I see it now. Yes, that does sound like church: establishing boundaries and criteria for membership. Sigh.

Except, back then, they didn’t have centuries of “tradition” to consider. Not as a “church,” anyway. There were certainly ideas, traditions, rituals to be addressed from their prior experience, but how did this fit into the teachings of Jesus, into this new thing that some were calling The People of the Way and will one day be called Christians? 

There are stories in Acts about how the spirit moved through some of these moments. There’s a story about Phillip, not the apostle, but one of seven people chosen to care for the poor. Think of him as one of the first elders or deacons. He’s later described as an evangelist - someone who proclaimed the story of Jesus. The story goes that an angel told him to go to a certain place on a road where he meets an Ethiopian official on their way home from worshipping in Jerusalem. He’s also a eunuch and head of the Ethiopian Treasury, an important position. Philip sees that they’re reading from a scroll which is the book of the prophet Isaiah. The spirt moves Philip to talk to the Ethiopian and share the story of Jesus. The Ethiopian is so moved that when they spot some water by the road, they ask “what is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip baptizes them, and they go on their way “rejoicing” while Philip is “snatched away” by the Spirit for other things (Acts 8:26-40). 

Thing is, if you’re reading this as a story of church, there’s a lot to prevent them from being baptized. Philip didn’t tell them they had to attend church for a certain number of Sundays, attend classes, take a test or pass an interview, sign a statement of faith, make a minimum donation or a financial commitment to the church. He also doesn’t engage in the not-so-well hidden prejudices of culture, gender identity, sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs, ability or economic and social circumstance. He simply does what Jesus would do: acknowledge, welcome and affirm a child of God just as they are. You know, the real point of baptism.

I wouldn’t tell a church or a faith community that they shouldn’t have any criteria for membership, you’re welcome to that. Just consider that your criteria might be a barrier and that all that’s being offered is membership in your group, not in the worldwide community which is the family of Jesus. We all already have that because we’re all children of God, just as we are. And that’s more than enough.

Home with God

I write about the 23rd psalm a lot and talk about it even more. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” begin some of the most familiar words in the Bible.

You might have heard it in church, maybe even sang it, or memorized it in Sunday School or heard it at a funeral or celebration of life. It’s so common to that last one that you probably have heard even if you’ve never been to church. It’s the go-to verse in books, movies and television for a funeral scene. So much so that it might, at times, feel like a cliché.

But it’s not. It speaks and speaks and speaks in so many ways. It talks about God’s presence and how God provides, nurtures and protects through every moment of our lives. Every moment, from green pastures to shadowy valleys, when facing and enemy to when our lives are full to overflowing, in moments of fear and moments of joy. And then, when this life is done, we find a home with God. It offers comfort, hope, surety and strength.

And because the author uses an image - the shepherd - personal to themselves and from their own time, it can also invite us to wonder about how we image God and our own relationship with God. Not just through sheep and shepherd, but in the images we travel through in the psalm. April 22nd is Earth Day, I good time to wonder about our relationship with God in creation.

Think about where God, the shepherd, leads us. The green pastures, the still waters, the valley of shadow, all these moments that we describe with the earth we know. Wherever we are in the geography of our lives, God is with us. We are restored and refreshed from our rest, lying down in the green pastures. Beside still waters we’re led down paths that are right. And even when are lives seem full of shadows, as if we are in the deepest valley, God goes there with us. Wherever we go, God’s presence leads us away from fear into the confidence of an intimate, life-giving relationship, one in which there is “goodness and mercy” that doesn’t have to be earned, only accepted. 

Living with respect, care and love must be part of our relationship with the real earth, not just the metaphor. We are connected to it as closely as we are connected to God. I hear that in the psalm’s closing words, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” Maybe that means a metaphorical house, but I like to think it can be the real thing, too: God is alive in all creation.

What if we thought of this earth as the sacred space of God’s house, the physical manifestation of God’s presence in all creation, including us. Jesus, in John’s gospel, tells the disciples that “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2) Perhaps this is just one of the many dwelling places. Perhaps we are that connected to each other, to creation and to God.

See me. Touch me. Feed me.

All the gospel stories of Jesus appearing to disciples immediately after the resurrection seem to be full of doubt. It's not just Thomas. Mary didn't, at first, recognize Jesus in the garden. The disciples who found the tomb empty didn't understand that it meant Jesus was alive, they thought someone had taken the body. When the women tell the disciples Jesus is alive and they've seen him, they don't believe it. Even on the road to Emmaus, the disciples don't recognize Jesus. How many times does Jesus have to say "hey, look, it's me?"

A lot. Every time, even. But is it really because they "doubt” Jesus? Or is it maybe that, after a seemingly unending string of amazing, miracle-filled days, there was one event that stretched them just too far. Death.

Sure, Jesus raised Lazarus and Jairus' daughter from death and he repeatedly told them that he would rise, too. But he was gone now. Who was going to do it? They were alone.

I wonder if it wasn't more than just shock and grief at their loss or fear of the authorities that caused them to hide away. I wonder if it was the greater fear that now it was up to them to carry on, teaching and healing as Jesus did, loving the outcast as he did, feeding the hungry as he did, showing everyone The Way as he did. Those were pretty big shoes to fill and now they were alone.

But then, there's Jesus, standing among them. "Peace," he says to them. In Luke, Jesus says "Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then he asks them for some food and he eats it in front of them.  (Luke 24:39-43) The author of Luke wants to be clear: Jesus is alive for real, flesh and bone and empty stomach.

Jesus, Luke says, "opened their minds to understand the scriptures" (Luke 24:45). But wasn’t that what Jesus life had been all about? It seems like Jesus is repeating himself in this new life, but with a giant exclamation point of “see, I’m alive.” Or maybe he was just saying “I told you so.” And maybe that’s because they didn’t doubt Jesus or God or the power of new life, they doubted themselves. 

Here’s Jesus saying touch my wounds, feel where I was broken. I’m hungry, feed me. What if, now, Jesus wasn’t trying to show them Jesus, but reflect ourselves, our wounds, our brokenness, our hurt and our hunger, saying what he’d always said: reach out to the broken and hurting and embrace them, heal them. Feed the hungry. You can do it.

I wonder if the resurrection story isn't about more than belief or teachings or faith, it's about the new life that's as real as an outstretched hand and a shared meal. It's as real as recognizing the presence of Jesus walking beside us in whatever guise Christ may take.