single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 18
Jun 00
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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-------------------------------Leave frames-----------------------------------------
A place for
you
in the picture of God
Reflections on the
lessons for Trinity Sunday
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Exodus 3:1-6 / Psalm 93
Romans 8:12-17 / John
3:1-16
I hate to admit it, but I am part of the TV Generation -- as the cable channel Nick at Nite calls me. If I ever run for president, I might truthfully campaign that I was born into a house that had no indoor plumbing and no television. But, though technically true, that's not the truth. The new plumbing was all installed within days. And there was a TV glowing in the living room before I was sleeping through the night.
Some of my earliest memories are in black-and-white. I can remember JFK's assassination only as a televised funeral. And then because it was all about 3-year-old boys like me. John, Jr's salute has a special place in my archives.
But there are less monumental memories, too. As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the meals people eat on TV. By how TV dinners are different from real life. I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Bewitched, the Brady Bunch, the Waltons -- they all ate dinner together in show after show, but they always on sat around three sides of the table, no matter how many people, no matter how crowded the table. It doesn't fascinate me now the way it did when I was a kid. But I still notice it every time.
Of course, it's so the camera can get in and see everybody's face. But it also always made me feel sort of like part of the group. Sort of like I was the silent guest on my side of the table. I was the one who fit into their open circle. It may sound pitiful, but I thought that way. Even though my parents did actually feed me at the real kitchen table. And even though I didn't spend my entire youth glued to the tube.
I think I'll raise the artistic tone here for a minute. And go from reruns to icons, those very traditional religious paintings much loved in the Eastern Church -- Russia, Greece, etc. Chances are if you can call to mind one famous icon, it might be a Russian one called The Trinity. It was painted by a master iconographer named Rublyov in St. Petersburg in the 1400s. The picture blends the idea of God as three-in-one with the story of three angels who visited Abraham and enjoyed his hospitality in a story from Genesis. The one where the angels drop in and Abraham makes a feast for them. And now -- because of that story -- we tell people to be nice to strangers because you never know when you may be entertaining angels unawares.
In the picture, there's a ring of trees in the background. And then a round table in the foreground. And seated around the table -- only around the back and sides as seen on TV! -- are these three figures -- all young looking -- Father, Son, and Spirit. All about the same age. They look a lot alike, like triplets. And they're all eating and talking together. But the figures on either side of the open spot where you look into the picture are making little gestures -- their hands kind of out toward you, some food pushed your way -- that kind of invite you in, to take the empty spot and join in. To plug into the circle. To bring the Trinity into Life, and Life into the Trinity.
Every year on Trinity Sunday -- since this became an official holy day of the church about 1000 years ago -- preachers try to do what theologians (Christian ones, at least) started trying to do in the early 300s. We try to explain something about God in as clear a way as possible. God cannot be clearly understood. Cannot be fully explained. But the attempt to do the best humanly possible job of it has been a draw for millennia.
Usually, on Trinity Sunday you'll hear something about how God is fundamentally a community of persons, not just a monolithic single solitary thing. Sometimes you'll hear about how God can be one thing to one person while quite another thing to someone else -- depending on your point of view. But theologians will stop you on that one. They'll tell you that God is God. And what God IS is not changed in the least by how people happen to see God.
Theologians who have had the biggest impact on Christian understanding of God -- as a Trinity of persons and a unity of being, as they say in school -- are the ones who decided that God could be called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In their day, that would have been the epitome of safety and security. A perfect kind of divine royal family with the right sort of leaders at the helm.
But then, that sort of paled for people. The Father, Son, Spirit picture didn't seem quite so safe and sound and fulfilling to later generations -- especially our own. And maybe even the notion that the best thing about God is an offer of the ultimate in safety and security began to seem a little stale. The safety-net God may have been one of humankind's passing phases. Certainly the Old Testament God we heard about in the first lesson wasn't very warm and cuddly. Rather, hot and blazing in the burning bush.
People seem to me often now to cling to conventional ideas of God while at the same time not really believing in them. And I don't know why. And I can't tell you why now. But I don't think anyone -- least of all those who invest in their faith deeply and sincerely -- thinks of God as a Super Dad, but bearing no resemblance to any actual human parent anyone has ever seen.
But the image of God as a Trinity is very old. The idea of God as a paradox of unity and community is older still. And, if well-renovated and refurbished, the old familiar picture will probably find a whole new millennium of good solid service. But it really does have to be overhauled. The stern insistence on what God IS and what God IS NOT and how HE is Father, Son and Holy Spirit no more and no less was the creation of an age in which the big concern was that people would meet God in the WRONG WAY. It was presumed, in a pre-modern age of faith that virtually everyone would be unwaveringly focused on how to meet God. But not so today. Now the problem is that so many people aren't concerned with meeting God AT ALL.
Probably the old style Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that was strictly taught in catechism classes and seminaries for many centuries won't be with us too much longer -- not in exactly the same ways at least. Something new will emerge. And that new something will probably be no more and no less impressive to God than people's last big attempt to say who God is and how God works.
But, when all the dust has settled. And when everyone is satisfied that we have explained God in fresh new ways that will be ever so much better for generations to come -- God will still be who God has always been from the foundation of the universe. And whatever our new picture will look like, there will still be an opening in the divine circle where anyone at all can fit in, from wherever she or he may be looking.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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