Graham Stacey

The lectionary readings for Harvest festival Year A caused me some difficulty: Deut 8:7-18 and Luke 12:16-30.  The Luke reading is the parable of the rich farmer and the exhortations not to worry.  In the end I extended the Luke reading a little, to include the reason why Jesus is telling this parable: a young man comes to him with some family troubles: access to the inheritance.  Our faith can get disabled by the complexity of life and the situations in which an easy answer is either not available or too destructive.  Disabled faith when the harvest is still wet and the ploughing is already late.  Disabled faith at home when you brother’s marriage has fallen to pieces and he doesn’t seem to care.  Disabled faith when you’re at school and you can’t work out why your still been left out! In the face of these and other complex and painful situations ‘Don’t worry’ seems to be patronising simple.

Our parable and following words of Jesus do not say, ‘poor you, let me sort it out for you’.  Instead, Jesus reminds you of some of the child-like simplicity of our faith.  A child-like simplicity that is true whatever age you are.  God loves you, the creator knows you more than you know yourself, knows where you are where you’ve been and where your going. God loves you.  In the face of a complex situation [which, lets face it are always apparent], which could easily swallow up what even large portions of faith, Jesus wants to remind us  that God love’s us.

So now we are caught!  On the on hand we have complexity of life and on the other we have simplicity of faith.  Allowing one or the other to dominate our perspective has the potential of disabling our faith and the tyranny of the ‘or’ has beaten us again.  Hidden in Luke’s advice to disciples is the glory of the ‘and’. Face life’s complexity and remember that God love’s you.

curacy, lectionary

Unlike lots, I like Trinity Sunday. More particularly I like preaching / teaching / talking on Trinity Sunday, as I am tomorrow.

Although every doctrinal statement is an interim statement, since we only know through a glass darkly, we can discern between good theology and bad theology. Good theology is harder to identify, primarily because the fruit of good theology takes longer to grow. Bad theology is much easier to recognise, if one has eyes to see and ears to hear. Unfortunately, I think the culture in which we swim has dulled our hearing and smudged our sight. Trinity Sunday is a good place to start trying to unblock and clean-up

Trinity is not a question of Maths. The problem is not 3=1. It is not something that we can think our way through and arrive at an understanding that is repeatable and teachable.

Trinity is not about substance, how are 3 things 1 thing as if the things in question are the same thing. by which I mean, it is not a question of divinity; if there is one God how can it be 3 God’s? What are apparently cultrually acceptable explanations of Trinity that involve eggs or clover leafs fall at this point. The persons of the Trinity are not bits of God like the yoke is a bit of an egg. Neither are they only part of a clover leaf! The question is not about bit, things or substances.

Jesus is a person and so perhaps rather than things it is about a person. Perhaps God is a person, who appears to us in different ways, as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This is captured by another popular trinitarian analogy: H2O. Just as water appears to us as steam, liquid and ice in different circumstances, perhaps God appears to us as the Father, the Son and the Spirit in different circumstances. This would of course mean that God talks to himself! As Jesus prays to his Father in Heaven, as the Father audibly acknowledges the Son at his baptism etc. But maybe we are happy with this idea of a God who can talk to himself - we do after all!!

No none of these popular explanations of the Trinity make any sense!

There are 3 persons, the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

The other thing we know, or say about God is that God is Love. Perhaps it is this love that has something to do with their oneness?

We say a similar thing in our culture. When two people love each other enough, they shall leave their mother and father and shall be joined together as one in marriage.

This is not a good parallel though since these statements are either going out of fashion or in fact, when it comes to it, don’t actually mean anything!! But maybe that’s the same difficultly we have with the Trinity, we can’t grasp at a Love that would mean Oneness to the extent that it is eternally faithful?

The Trinity is not a maths question, or a question about things or appearance. It is primarily about encountering persons, persons of Love, a Love that encourages us towards itself and each other.

Sunday Service, curacy, lectionary discipleship, preaching, Trinity Sunday