Sun 31 May - Trinity Sunday

Welcome.
First, some notices, and thereafter a reflection and prayer...

Church notices

Sun 7 June, 10:30am: Service of Holy Communion - we join together this coming Sunday to share in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It is an open table, for Jesus is the host and he welcomes all.

Tues 9 June, 10:30am: the funeral of Mrs Morag Forrest will be held in the church at Abington, and thereafter, the committal will be at Roberton Cemetery. Please do keep the family in your prayers at this time. 

Clydesdale foodbank month: over the month of June, we will be collecting items to deliver to the food bank. If you would like to donate but can't get to church, you can send an online donation HERE

Reflection for Trinity Sunday

In the church calendar, the Sunday following Pentecost is known as 'Trinity' Sunday. It's a time in the year where preachers and theologians can come a little unstuck, trying to explain what is essentially, really rather inexplicable:
God as One yet Three, but Three yet One.
We try, in our limited way to describe the limitless God, who is so much more than the sum or our words and stretches of imagination can fathom. 

Back in the day, the early Christians, trying to distil the essentials of the faith into a handy 'catch all' to help teach people the basics about God, put together Creeds. One of these was the Athenasian Creed and you can almost hear the writers of this sighing just a little as they struggled to describe the God who is more than we can fully comprehend:
God the Father: incomprehensible;
God the Son: incomprehensible;
God the Holy Spirit: incomprehensible.
Bless them, I love them for trying to do the impossible.
However, mystery is not always a bad thing and I suspect that we'll cope if we haven't got the answer to every single question about God this side of heaven.
This, I say, because what we do know of God is what we see in Jesus. And while it is always  absolutely right to ponder and ask questions, and wrestle with this matter of what it is to be God’s people, and while theology is important, the most important starting place for theology is to remember that, for all our attempts to try to explain God, God can’t be put into a box –
and, when humans tried to do that to Jesus, he simply rose from death itself and out of the box we’d tried to put him in.

One way that I find helpful to try and get my head around this One in Three and Three in Oneness of God, is by thinking of God within the terms of relationship. Augustine, a 5th century African theologian who I have a lot of time for, used this idea of relationship to help understand the nature of God, and also, how that sat within the nature of what it is to be human.
He used love as his building blocks: God as One and then as Three seen in:
God as the one who loves,
God as the one who is beloved,
and God as love itself.
The very core of God being love and energised by love: a love that looks to the other, looks out, that is generous, giving, sharing, and spreading that love beyond just the circle of relationship within that perfect community of love which is God. 

And what of us?
Jesus is love made into flesh and blood and bone showing us what love looks like: not a private solitary thing – but something that is lived within community, joyfully, creatively. If we want to know what God looks like – what God thinks, and feels, and wishes, we look to Jesus who points us to love – for love is at the heart of who God and the reason why God does anything.
So, mirroring that relationship of God we, who are created in God’s image, might use a day like Trinity Sunday to ask:
How do we love?
Who do we love?
What is the impact of that love on others?
For, if love is the very heart and motivation of God, then as his creatures, so love should be at the heart of our lives, as we navigate this life of faith.

The priest and poet, Malcolm Guite, wrote the following sonnet for Trinity Sunday, which I leave you with (you can find this, and other sonnets in his collection 'Sounding the Seasons', published by Canterbury Press - do check his work out, he's excellent).

In the Beginning, not in time or space, 

But in the quick before both space and time, 

In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace, 

In three in one and one in three, in rhyme, 

In music, in the whole creation story, 

In His own image, His imagination, 

The Triune Poet makes us for His glory, 

And makes us each the other’s inspiration. 

He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance, 

To improvise a music of our own, 

To sing the chord that calls us to the dance, 

Three notes resounding from a single tone, 

To sing the End in whom we all begin; 

Our God beyond, beside us and within.
                                  Malcolm Guite

Prayer
God, Creator, for your glory shining forth in sky and sea, 

in the changing light on the hills, 

in the flight of birds, 

in the plants of the field 

for the gift of life in all its fullness, 

we thank you. 

Jesus, Redeemer, 

for blessing children, 

healing the sick, 

raising up the lowly, 

suffering the brokenness of the world 

in your own body that we might have fullness of life, 

we thank you. 

Holy Spirit, Comforter, 

for breathing new hope and strength into our lives,

breaking down barriers,  

drawing human beings together in love, 

resisting all that diminishes fullness of life, 

we thank you. 

Holy Trinity, 

in all that we do and say and are, 

may we always choose life, 

for ourselves, and for our neighbours. 

Amen.

As you move into a new week, may you know God walking with you through the moments and the days.
God bless

Nikki