God's Wisdom 6/16/19 Trinity

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

GOD’S WISDOM

6/16/19  TRINITY SUNDAY  (& Father’s Day)

God, in our most basic understanding, and almost by definition, is complex and mysterious beyond our mind’s understanding.  When we try and explain how and who and what God is like using our human brains and our human words, the best we can do never really sums God up.  Inevitably, when we say God is like such and so, we are already limiting God and therefore wrong.  While it’s interesting to try and explain God on Trinity Sunday, its not really possible. We have to speak about God, though, so we do the best we can... all the while knowing it is incomplete.  God is Spirit, God is infinite; our brain cannot take in the totality of God.   So our word “Trinity” is one of those approximations, a description that explains God somewhat while still ultimately falling short.

The scripture we just read from the apostle John doesn’t use the word “Trinity,” yet in that one brief paragraph Jesus speaks of himself, the aspect of God he calls the Father, and says that the Spirit of Truth will continue to teach them.  Jesus often uses the metaphorical language of ‘son’ and ‘father’ to explain how he is of God, and one with God.  And the Spirit, which is called ‘his’ Spirit and God’s Spirit, comes upon the believers in a new way at the day of Pentecost (which we celebrated last week), and on through the book called the Acts of the Apostles.  So our scriptures speak of God with various names and functions - various “persons” as we’ve learned to say in our theology, although never do these same scriptures state a doctrine or thesis of God except to call God One.  

Theologians have used much ink and paper trying to explain this oneness of God that also seems to have this multiplicity about it.  Our faith ancestors have come up with all kinds of illustrations like the clover, the egg, the triangle, the way H2O can be solid, liquid and gas…and so on.  I tried out yet another explanation in my children’s time.

Our Jewish sisters and brothers don’t care much for our doctrine of the Trinity, yet the Old Testament contains various experiences of God, too.  God’s Spirit comes upon people when they prophecy.  There are strange verses in the book of Beginnings, Genesis, where God (plural!) says, “Let US create humanity in OUR image.” Then there are the 3 men who appear to Abraham and foretell he will have a son Isaac, who are seen as somehow a picture of God.  A dark figure wrestles with Jacob and changes his name to Israel, the patriarch of that whole tribal people - and that is seen somehow as God.  And in the scripture from Proverbs, a bit of which we read, the figure of Wisdom is developed as a female co-creator with God and a seeker of people.  Further,  if we study the words written about her, Jesus later claims them as about himself.  The word “wisdom” features often in our New Testament, although not as a personification like in Proverbs. 

Feminist theologians look at the traditional Trinity doctrine and suggest that we see God as a relational being, in relationship with Godself, in another mysterious envisioning of God as plural yet one.  They notice that this relationship within God is not hierarchical, nor is one part less valued than another.  Its this relationship of equals that is also a oneness - a oneness of will, a oneness of work, a oneness of purpose...despite seeming to have different functions.  The next logical step, in seeing humanity as created in God’s image, is to also value the relational nature of human persons, and see it as also non-hierarchical, equally valued even if differing biological functions.

This insight into human relationships fits in so well with how the apostle Paul envisions the church as the body of Christ, and how he writes about a body’s various parts all working together as one body, even with differing functions.  Being one body is a good metaphor for looking at THE Church, and our church in particular.  Each is valued, each is honored, each is respected, each is necessary; there is no hierarchy, all are important and all are worthy.   It leads us to affirm one another despite our differences of color, race, socioeconomic status, age or gender.  Its the oneness of Pentecost, the oneness in the Spirit. 

The value of healthy relationships and healthy functioning as a body, as a group, is recognized by the Vital Congregations Initiative as a “Mark” of a well-functioning church, that is lifting up one another and and striving together to fulfill what God has asked us to do.  Churches who are living into what Christ called us to be, have healthy ways of being together. In studying, serving, planning - all the functions of a vital congregation are supported by being a healthy group in healthy relationships with each other.  I’m going to be pondering all 7 marks that have been identified as Vital in our upcoming sermons, just to get us thinking a bit, stretching our understandings, and assisting us to re-envision, reimagine, how to be the Church of Christ in this new millennium. 

Like our relational God, our relationships within the church are vital.  Thanks to the social sciences, we know a lot today about what makes groups work together well, and, in the opposite, how groups can get derailed by certain known pitfalls and not work as effectively as we could. The church can use this same insight, or wisdom about group functioning, to help us do our ministry, and not get in our own way.

            So what do good relationships look like in a group?

In effective groups, each person fulfills their specific task. All people don’t all do the same task, and one person doesn’t do all the tasks.  A pitfall that derails some churches is when the church seems to think the pastor should do everything, and that their part is simply warming a pew on Sundays when its convenient. On the other hand, some pastors will overfunction and take things over. God has called EACH of those who believe, and in a healthy group, each takes responsibility for responding to their own call to follow Christ.  The pastor is basically charged with continuing to teach the word of God, and encourage people in faith to serve in the way God leads.  I like those bulletins where they list Pastor: Rev so and so; Ministers - all the people. Now that’s good theology!   Each of us here is called to serve God and have needed gifts for the ministry -   we have our function, our vision, our insight, our understanding; we have something to offer the whole.  God moves each of our hearts to see a need or long for a certain part of church work …. So a healthy group has all the members functioning in their best ways.  In the body metaphor, the toes do the toe work, the stomach does the stomach work, and so on. We’re not all eyes, and we’re not all ears. One person can’t do it all.  When we each are involved in the mission we feel called to, that’s healthy. 

            In effective groups, the group has a stated mission, which is understood by all, and all pull in th same direction.  All persons and their work aim at that purpose.  In a healthy church, all persons and all committees are pulling in the same direction.  Its good us to have a clear understanding of our mission, so we can spend our energy on things that further our purpose in Christ.  A church can derail itself if some people are working on another agenda than the rest.  If, for example, some people are interested in furthering their own power, or spending their energy in getting their opinions favored, then the purpose of the church is sidelined.  An interest in hoarding money can rebound to the detriment of a church’s God-centered program.  Adhering to cultural views on things like our country’s former civil war, or our bigotry about black people, can interfere with the message of Christ that is our primary work.  Groups, and churches, need to focus on Christ’s call and the service we have been called to do, and not be pulled in different directions. 

            Effective groups have a good immune system, like bodies.  Healthy ways of relating can be like an immune system, and will defeat various viruses or germs that try to attack its health.   However, sometimes unhealthy ways become characteristic of groups or churches, interfere with the church and its mission.  We pastors often comment on the detrimental effects of  folks not talking to the right person about a problem - but RATHER, talking about the problem to other people instead.  For example, if someone is angry at something I did, the right person to talk to is me!  That’s the healthy way to handle it.  In an unhealthy way, the person who’s angry at me will go complain about me to 5 or 6 other people, and tell them how awful I am to have done such a thing! Then 6 people will all have a one-sided version of a potential problem, and meanwhile I won’t know anything about it. This underground murmuring eventually leads to open conflict, and  hurts our church’s mission.  Another unhealthy way of handling a problem is to not tell the whole story, or to tell it in exaggerated terms, or deliberately misstate things in order to make trouble.  That’s an even worse sickness in the body.   A healthy way to act, if one is approached in a sideways fashion, is to refuse to be drawn in, and seek correct information.   

            Effective groups have good communications. There are healthy ways to seek more information so we are not talking in ignorance and spreading wrong information.  Look at the Session’s minutes, for example, to see what was actually done.  Talk to the pastor or an elder if we feel something is being overlooked.  Our Session meets to gather the work of all its committees, and makes sure we are all working towards the same mission.  One way a good immune system works in an effective group is that if someone comes to tell you some problem that doesn’t involve yourself, the healthy response is to say, “Talk to the right person.”  Or help them look up the facts.   And don’t let them bend your ear, and surely don’t pass it on. 

            In an effective and healthy group, the individuals also take care of their own health.  The apostle Paul reminds us that if a toe is hurting, the whole body aches. We know that.  A bad knee or a bad shoulder hampers all that we want to do.  Each member of the body’s health contributes to the whole body’s health.  We get glasses for our eyes and see the dentist for good teeth - healthy people are not afraid to see a counselor if we have old wounds or a temper or other personal  issues. This is a faith thing - God will show us our faults, and offer us healing in various ways, so we become better people.  If  each part of the body is healthier, the body is healthier.  

A healthy congregation is part of what enables a church to pursue the mission God has laid on our hearts, and not get in our own way, or be derailed from what God can do through us.  Our vision, then, as a vital congregation, is this healthy church, working well together, and toward the common goal in Christ Jesus.  May it be so for us - AMEN.