Last Sunday was called Trinity Sunday in the church year. It fell to me to preach on this Sunday. Not the most exciting topic to preach on, I was thinking. What will make it preach? I looked around at some other ideas, texts but no luck. I was drawn back to the texts for the day: Psalm 8, Genesis 1-2:4 and the very trinitarian verse at the end of 2 Corinthians. Psalm 8 it was. Psalm 8 is a great Psalm of creation and praise to God, the creator. It calls us to humility - puny human beings, v4. Yet, created in the image of God, we are given a care taking responsibility over creation. There is not much that suggests the trinity, however. For that, the Genesis account of creation and the 2 Corinthians text are supportive. It also demonstrates why the Trinity is such a tough topic. It is not really spelled out in Scripture. It is more inferred. It took the early church leaders hundreds of years to iron out what the Scripure taught about the Trinity. What is the essence of God? Is God one or three? Are there three distinct persons, modes of being, or essentially one, three in one. There were years of debates leading to finer tuning.
Today, among Christians, the Trinity is accepted even if not understood. It is not as important as Pentecost Sunday the week before and is no where near as popular as Easter or Christmas. We might wonder why (or not, but if not we might wonder why not). The big emphasis in more recent theology is to see in the Trinity an image of God relating. The Trinity is about relationship. God is a community of love. Love is not an attribute of a static God but Love is who God is. God lives in this circle of love which God desires to share with us. We are created in Love to be loved by God and to share God's love with others.
Creation is not a statement of what God needs but what God gives. God does not need us or anything God created. God has no religious expectations of us and surely is not waiting to see if we merit God's love. God's overflowing Trinitarian love is wholly gratuitous.
If we start from the Trinity we won't get the wrong idea that we are here to please God, or help God out, or save the world! God is not waiting for us to buck up and get it right or God will let everything go to hell. It's not up to us, nothing is. God chooses, God loves in Christ and God has already done the heavy lifting. We need to receive the gospel and live it.
Our world needs God and the gospel of God's love. And we share it by living it. It's tough going though. Unfortunately, the general perception is that Christians are rule oriented, and performance obsessed and we have a certain type in mind of what a Christian really is - and others must measure up or they are not accepted. Love is not what most people think of when they think of Christians. Most Christians need to go back to square one which is the Trinity.
Why are you mindful of us, Psalm 8, asks. We who are of the ground (humans -adamah in Hebrew). So insignificant in the universe. So uncomprehending of the person and ways of God. So flawed and failed. Not given a great mission or great task that God needs us to do or else the world goes up in flames. Simply love people and take care of what God has given to us. The Trinity: Local, Organic, Good for you and others.
