Trinity Sunday

Holy Trinity
June 11, 2006

"Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? (Deuteronomy 4 32-40). "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but... a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:14-17). " I am with you always...." (Mt 28: 16-20)

Moses asks a rhetorical question expressing wonder and gratitude that the Most High would invite human beings to directly experience the power and love of God. The marvelous events of the deliverance of God's people from slavery have culminated in hearing the divine voice offering a new relationship based on mutual respect. Our God is not a capricious deity out to manipulate and frighten us into submission. We no longer fear being destroyed by hearing and seeing God. This is a revolution in religious experience previewing a second creation in the Spirit.

Jesus leaves the apostles with the promise that he and his Father will always be with us in his Holy Spirit. This is the "commissioning" of the church and its leadership and authority in it. Even more, it completes the promise given through Moses of a permanent and mystical relationship with the one and only God of heaven and earth. As St. Paul says, we now have the right to call on "My Father", and as we say in Jesus' prayer, "Our Father". God is ours. Adoption has all the rights of biological birth. It has the additional advantage of being a special kind of parental choice which brings unanticipated love to both parent and child. Here we have the fulfillment of that revolution in religious experience already given to us through Moses.

I was thinking about this as I was praying last night, using "Holy Father... Holy Son... Holy Spirit" repeated rhythmically with my breathing, as a background to going back-and-forth from God to the people I love. Not asking for anything in particular, praying with as well as to God. It is distracting trying to remember every little thing which I and everyone else needs and which the Spirit already knows about anyway. Much more comforting to just allow myself to imagine being loved, and loving in return with My Father. Not to suggest that God is limited by our notions of number or gender. We probably should not get too literal about this. There is a reason why the Scriptures have so many names for God. Each of them describes a facet of the limitless "jewel" of the Most High. They are all poetic approximations of a reality beyond rational conception. I sometimes pray with my divine Mother, Sister, Brother. Whatever works! The wonder is that God, love and creation know of no limits. The wonder is that we can do this with God without being annihilated, but instead re-created, brought directly in to perfect love, truth and beauty.