Loddon Mallee UCA Presbytery Blog
The confessional apostle
presents us with a candid view
of his struggles; of his continuing battle
with what he calls the flesh.
Aware of his failures
to the point of despair, but not quite;
he turns his pain into a celebration
of the grace revealed in his Lord.
The apostle does what so many have done
in the two millennia that have elapsed
since he wrote his letters;
he exaggerates his depravity
in order to make larger the grace,
forgetting that his Lord’s generosity
already has no limits.
I remember, in my youth, hearing stories
of people whose alcohol-plagued
and morally-degraded lives
were miraculously turned around
in testimony to the gospel;
and momentarily wishing that I, too,
could speak of such a gutter-to-glory
transformation. But grace
is proven in many ways; our humanness
is always a number of notches less than perfect,
and each one of us depends
upon the generosity of others,
including our strange God.
It is unnecessary to imagine
that we are worse than we are,
and it is foolishness to pretend
that, of ourselves, we can do nothing right.
Grace still abounds, and we should celebrate
kind and loving acts wherever we find them,
whether or not they are done consciously
in the service of God.
The child asks the question
for which his father has no answer,
save that his strange and fearsome God
will provide. And in the end, we,
along with the unquestioningly faithful man,
discover a hapless ram caught by its horns
in a thicket; providentially available
to be offered up in place of the child.
We all heave a sigh of relief,
assured that this terrifying deity
has a heart and is still worth worshipping;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the boy should be killed;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that a rampant humanity
should dominate and abuse;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that humankind, elevated to the position
of planetary supremo
should mortgage our children’s future;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the obscenely wealthy
should buy and sell the poor;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the anxious and the fearful
should trample on the rights of the foreigner,
and that the plight of the vulnerable
and the stateless should be so carelessly disregarded.
Only testing.
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/sermons/trinity/You know always in your heart that you need God more than everything; but do you not know that God needs you -- in the fullness of His eternity needs you? How would humanity be, how would you be, if God did not need humanity, did not need you? You need God, in order to be -- and God needs you, for the very meaning of your life. ... There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of human persons, of you and me.
When the human Jesus no longer
walked amidst earth’s dust,
we might have expected his influence
to wane. But it didn’t; his story was told,
his words were remembered
and his mysterious presence
continued to be felt. His inspired followers
attested to an ongoing connection,
and concluded that, without doubt,
he must have been the unique child
of the all-creating Deity, and that his Spirit
resided with them still.
Starting with the inherited, and therefore
inevitable starting point, that God is One;
they then declared the Divinity
to be Triune. This would eventually
cause considerable consternation
among the logically and mathematically inclined;
those who insist upon precise definitions
and accurate formulations.
In earnest desperation they still
scratch around for a neat analogy
from nature, science or geometry;
to elucidate that which can never
be explained. Likenesses
are always inadequate,
just as all metaphors eventually fail;
the curious God who was found to be
surprisingly present can never
be reduced to mere diagrams.
"Pentecost not only birthed the church; it begot a bureaucracy. Across the centuries, human institutions became the wine skins for Spirit led inspirations, and therein lies both the wit and the wisdom in the joke about the difference between God's vibrant kingdom and moribund human churches.
I've always like Giotto's rendition of the Pentecost, because, unlike many others, it seems to show some fairly ordinary people, just waiting and chatting amongst themselves. They seem to be in that moment just before they realise that they have been given an extraordinary gift.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
then understanding will begin
and you will know what I have said is true.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
then you will see the narrowness
of mortal truth,
you will be humbled
by the limitations of human institutions,
you will laugh at the stumbling attempts
to confine the Almighty
in neat religious boxes.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon you
you may leap and dance with joy,
you may shout in exultation;
you may beat drums,
paint rainbows,
enact mysteries,
create silences of prayer
or dare circuses of dreams.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
there is much that you will want to discard,
that, in freedom’s name,
you may witness, worship
and love.
© Ken Rookes
Much of what Jesus says in this farewell discourse is about relationship, about the relationship between Father, Son, Holy Spirit and us. It often sounds quite complex. If you took a pen and paper and tried to draw it - Father, Son, Spirit, us, and drew lines between them - you are in me and I am in you and they will be in us, and I have given to them and you gave them to me, etc. etc., you would end up with a very messy piece of paper, and you may not be any the wiser. Which is perhaps the point of it all. When we are drawn into the life of the Trinity, into the eternal dance of love that is the inner life of God, there’s not much point trying to describe it or explain it. We are drawn into the ultimate mystery, the mystery that lies at the heart of the universe, at the centre of life and meaning itself. What’s important is not that you can draw it or explain it, but that you open yourself to it. What matters is that you allow yourself to be captured up in the dance of love and drawn into the life of God.
