15.06.03 Steve Trinity Sunday Isaiah 6: 1-8 / John 3: 1-17 Home Sweet Home
Back
Trinitarian thinking suits us –
especially when we're trying to make sense of the cosmos.
Earth, wind and fire (elemental)
Poverty, Chastity and obedience (the evangelical counsels)
Sex, drugs and rock & roll (the narcissistic counsels)
Community with God, with Creation, and with each other (Alastair McIntosh)
Daddy bear, mummy bear, baby bear (procreation)
Faith, hope and love (1 Cor 13)
Father, Son and Spirit (largely the subject of controversial agreement between bishops at the counsel of Nicea in 325AD)
The trinitarian concept of God may be a contrivance – a historically evolved flag of convenience, drawn out of the Judeao-Christian tradition, to provide us with a way of conceptualising God that is digestable. The Trinitarian concept of God suits us because not only does it fit with the great stories of God's people in scripture, but it informs us with a wholistic idea of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as represented in todays readings:
Isaiah's Holy of Holies - God transcendent
Nicodemus's encounter with Jesus – the Word (for a devout man) suddenly made flesh – God incarnate
Jesus's words about being born of the Spirit – in all its unseen power, it's unpredictability – God imminent
God transcendent, God incarnate, and
God imminent / Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Now, this is all a bit conceptual /
propositional / systematically theological for my liking. So I was
wondering what might be a useful way into thinking about how this
might inform our spirituality, - bring it 'closer to home' as it
were, and it occured to me that 'home' was an idea that Jesus
associated with the fulness of God. And so (stay with me here), I
want to propose that this wholistic trinity is the 'divine family
unit' , or 'divine community structure', in which we can make a
home for ourselves, and which then, in turn inspires us to make a
home for God.
The idea of 'home' is an evocative one, because it's built in to our humanity – transcending history and cultures – perhaps it's part of the divine-image.
When I left my hometown (genteel Milngavie) as a student, I came to this far-off land, Edinburgh, for the whole of the first term, without going home. Ten weeks is a long time when you're eighteen and living away from home for the first time. I was literally dizzy with the headiness of it all. I remember going home for the Christmas holiday, and going out for a walk to my 'old haunts' and wondering with amazement that not much had changed! - because my world had changed so utterly. I never lived there again, but there's still a bit of me is stirred when I visit my hometown – it's associated with so much of the process of my 'wonder years'.
And yet, of course, this isn't the only hometown I've had since – there have been several – and I have one now, because home isn't about places and properties. It isn't a physical place. Home is about relationship. It's where I've lived with my parents, and then with Anne and the children. It is not the geography of a place that evokes home for us (although places like Edinburgh, or the farm that Anne grew up on, are profoundly evocative as environments), it is the connection to the people of our past and present: our families; our friends; our Sunday school teachers, the now grown-up members of our youth group; our work colleagues.
I've been reading about a study that examined the effects of the World War II bombings of London on the children of that city (I'm aware there's folk present for whom the effects were felt here). The study compared those children who stayed in the city during the bombings, going into underground shelters with their parents, with other children who were taken out of London to a safe place in the country, away from the bombs, but also away from their families. Despite the very real dangers and nightmares evoked by the nightly bombing raids, the children who remained with their families in bomb shelters actually fared better (both psychologically and socially) than the children taken to the relative peace ot the countryside. The children in the city faced the very real possibility that their houses might be destroyed, but found their well-being in the fact that they were still with their parents and families. They found peace, not in external security, not even in a familiar place, but in relationships.
This reminds me of some thing Jesus said about 'home'. In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of the "many mansions" in his Heavenly father's house; he tells his disciples he is going there to prepare a home for them, a place of permanent relationship and communion with God (John 14:1-3). All of this sounds just fine to the disciples—until verse four, where Jesus adds, "And you know the way to the place where I am going." It is Thomas, always the realist, who says: "Wait a minute, Jesus. We don't know where you are going. We've never seen this home you are talking about. How can we know the way?"
Jesus responds, "I am the way" (14:6a).
We find our way home in relationship with God, through Christ. As Jesus says to Nicodemus, it's like being 'born anew' into the divine community, or the divine family – in community with god, with creation and with each other.
This theme echoes throughout Scripture:
"Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations," declares the psalmist (Psalm
90:1). It is as if we are born homesick, having come from God, and forever longing for that
place of love, of comfort, of connection, of home. "You have made us for yourself, 0
God," wrote Augustine, "and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you." Those
places that we call home here on earth are usually the places where we experience a love
and connection that give us a glimpse of God's love.
Of course, home is not a safe and connecting place for everyone. For many home is a fearful and abusive place – not because of the place, but because relationships have become fearful and abusive. Many in our society are literally without home - and part of the tragedy of homelessness is the deep alienation from relationships and community that often exacerbates the economic and physical trauma of life on the streets.
Rushing out to meet him, the father embraces the prodigal son and announces that now it's time for a real celebration because the child has come home. And in returning home, he discovers that, in his father's outlandish, prodigal love, there is still a place at the table for him.The wholeness of God, transcendent, incarnate and imminent is a home for us. And we can be sure that God is not just lounging on the couch, flicking the channels on the heavenly TV, hoping we might drop by and visit some day. Like that loving parent in Jesus' story, our God is actively searching, longing, ready to run down the street and meet us if we will allow it.
But John's gospel puts a surprise twist on this business of home. Which is that, it's not just God who is making a home for us - the reverse is also true: through the way we live our lives, we make a home for God.
In the same passage where Jesus speaks of preparing a heavenly home for us, we read last week how he turns the homecoming image around. To those who love God, he tells his disciples, he will send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will live with us, and in us (14:16-17). And a few verses later, Jesus takes it even further:
"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we
will come to them and make our home with them" (14:23).
This is a wonderful and mind-stretching thought. What does it mean for us to make a home for God—here and now? Here's a suggestion of a trinitarian answer to that question....
Firstly, (Community with God) if we make in our lives a home tor God, it's going to change us. Jesus isn't a delicate houseguest who leaves everything just the way he found it. Jesus moves in and renovates.
Think of Zacchaeus - a collaborator with the Romans, exploiting his own people and making a nice living off of it, - the "wee little man" who climbs up in a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus. And to the great chagrin of the religious leaders surrounding Jesus, he goes and has dinner with this despised tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Having made a home for Jesus in his life, Zacchaeus gives half of what he has to the poor, and offers to repay four times the amount that he has defrauded anyone. If we make a home for God, God's going to do some remodeling.
Secondly, (Community with each other) if our lives and our church are serious about making a home tor God, that will also mean making room at the table for all people—including some folk we might not expect. The Letter to the Ephesians describes a faith community that has become a dwelling place for God's Spirit (2:11-22). The images are of reconciliation, peace, inclusion. In a community where God dwells, those who were once far away are brought near, the dividing walls of hostility, misunderstanding, and fear are broken down. Divisions of race, class, sexual orientation, nationality, economics, or even theology are breached by God's love for us all. The church which makes a home for Christ also makes room for the "least of these" in whom Jesus said we would meet him. Those who once were considered foreigners and aliens, to use Paul's language, will have a place at the table next to us. And it will change us.
Finally, (Community with creation) if we make in our lives a home for God, we become partners with God in shaping this world. We take responsibility for our future (quite different from being passive consumers of God's goodness), recognising that the decisions we make every day are of great importance, for they either allow God's kingdom to be made real on earth as in heaven, or they prevent it. Alastair McIntosh would argue that we have a great deal to learn from the tradition of celtic spirituality about making a home for ourselves in God's creation, and that this pre-Western-church commitment to living in ways that honour God's creation and God's creatures, is not to be separated from the believing part of our Christianity, but an integral part of it. As well as prosecuting war on earth, we are also prosecuting war on the earth. To authenticate our homecoming we need to find new possibilities of discerning the sacred nature of our planet, and of understanding our own place within its living environment.
God transcendent, God incarnate, and God imminent / Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the 'divine family unit' , or 'divine community structure', in which we can make a home for ourselves, and which then, in turn inspires us to make a home for God.