“…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5)
The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a fresco in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, interprets a Trinitarian and Eucharistic theme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 16:12-15 (Year
C: Trinity Sunday, 16th June, 2019)
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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS
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COI
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SERMON NOTES (746 words)
Meeting the Trinity
Every Sunday is special in some way. The Liturgy never fails
to provide us with a new challenge and new opportunities for growth. This
Sunday we focus on the Holy Trinity – the unity and diversity of God as One but
diverse in a communion of Persons. Like many aspects of our shared faith
explaining the Trinity to ourselves let alone to those around us who do not
share our Christian faith is a challenge.
The Trinity in our Liturgy
Perhaps we take the Trinity for granted. After all, we pray
to the Trinity and in Trinity in the Gloria (Glory be to the Father…) several
times in morning prayer or evening prayer. The Trinity is at the centre or our
celebration of the two great Gospel sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.
Explaining the Trinity
Why is orthodox (with a small ‘o’) Christianity unique in
teaching that there can be only One God but Three Persons in the One God? Why three or even two Persons? Or, as our
ancestors believed, why not have many gods? I suggest that the answer is that
the One True God loves diversity. Not only that, He (strictly God is neither He
or She but we may follow tradition in addressing God as a He) loves the created
material world so much that he could not pass the opportunity of becoming
material, human and one of us. In that way, we were ‘divinised’ or raised up to
godliness as our sisters and brothers in the Eastern Christian traditions like
to emphasise. In short, God likes to get down and dirty in our messy and mixed
up world. Put another way, Christianity is a materialist religion in the best
sense of that term. Our God became one of us in order to raise us up and bring
us safely to our eternal home.
Listening
‘I still have many things to say to you’ says Jesus to his disciples in the passage of John’s Gospel that
we have heard. In other words, we have a lot of learning and listening to do in
life. Yes, we will find the full and complete Truth in the scriptures. However,
we need the practical help of the Holy Spirit to travel deeper into a life of
communion with one another and with God in his Oneness and Threeness. The Holy Spirit provides when our words and
thoughts fail as they must at some stage.
Jesus, the Word, came to speak love and life to everyone. Some listen;
others don’t and quite a few listen, only, to what they want to hear. But we must listen to everything that the
Holy Spirit is saying to us today.
Lifelong learning
Being open to the Holy Spirit means divesting ourselves of
useless and destructive patterns of thinking and acting. It means – in a
certain sense – being ‘empty’ and ready to be filled. We need to let go; we
need to let God act in us through his Holy Spirit. If we trust in God’s Holy
Spirit to guide us then we will find freedom to live more and more in the
present moment firm in the conviction that God will guide us, step by step, to
that place or that decision or that response which will be right at the right
time. It is not a question of receiving the whole picture or truth in one go.
The Holy Spirit leads us gradually towards the complete picture (John 16:13).
And so often we fret and worry about how we will perform or
what we will say whether in a situation of a written examination, or a very
difficult conversation with someone (e.g. breaking the news of a serious
illness) or an interview for a job. The list is endless. Each time, we can slow
down, rest in the present moment, breathe easily and let the breath of God
emerge in our thoughts and actions. As
Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel:
But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say. (Matthew 10:19)
In that moment of trial we will be given the words and means
to bear witness as we should. Trust! But we must conclude with a warning: be
alert and ready because we don’t know where the Holy Spirit leads us. We only
have the light of today and of this moment. Walk in that light.
