This weekend is “Trinity” Sunday. I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve never experienced a Trinity Sunday; it simply wasn’t part of my upbringing. I was raised in a church culture which held a stated belief in the Threeness and the Oneness of God, but I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon about the Trinity. I don’t remember hearing much conversation about why it might matter that God is imagined as Tri-une.
As a kid, I kind of got the impression that God revealing Godself as “multiplicity” and simultaneously “oneness” was way too mysterious to wrap our hearts and minds around, so it would be better to engage more practical matters. It was almost as though the idea of God being Triune was irrelevant to everyday life… today I see this completely differently.
I have come to embrace the Trinity as the key to human thriving. I see the being of God as the key to discovering and practicing love, the key to learning how to welcome and receive others, the key to reimagining power and relationships, the key to understanding what it is to be a person in community… and so much more.
In our tradition we claim that human beings are created in the image and likeness of our Creator. So if there is real difference within Godself – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – then diversity finds it origin within God. Difference is not a problem solve. Rather, difference reveals something of the wonder, vastness, and majesty of our Creator. Diversity is a prerequisite for unity. Love, unity, and oneness only find meaning if real difference is already present. This is such good news!
We live in a world marked by fear of the other, xenophobia, and divisions of all kinds. Yet the Christian story invites us to welcome the stranger and to love our neighbor. “Otherness” is God’s gift through which we can experience the kind of love that is the inner life of the Divine.
Again, difference is not a problem. We don’t need to make “them” like “us,” believe like “us,” or act like “us.” Rather, the existence of real difference is God’s invitation to discover and practice the kind of love we see Jesus embody with the Father and the Spirit. Otherness is our opportunity to open up to an even more expansive practice of unity.
As we see in Jesus, the practice of love is a daring act of humble strength and intention. Sometimes such love looks like welcoming and playing with kids when others want to send them away. Sometimes Christ-like love looks like hugging the very ones the people in power condemn as unclean, and sometimes Christ-like love looks like flipping over their tables to awaken people up to the violence being perpetuated. Working toward unity and love when fragmentation, separation, or division is the norm is the Spirit’s mission in our world.
So, when you as an individual grow in awareness of the presence of any difference, your awareness may be the Spirit of God inviting you open to a new expression of love. Or when we as a faith community grow in awareness of the presence of difference, our collective awareness is likely the Spirit’s invitation to explore even more robust practices of holistic hospitality.
Diversity is good. God created difference and called it good… very good. God created diversity because God is diverse. Three & One. What is love, but difference relating together as we were created to relate with one another.
Friend, if your life is anything like mine, then you encounter “otherness,” or “difference” on a regular basis. Together, let’s spur one another on in letting such encounters serve as a nudge to grow in Christ-like love. Where have you encountered difference lately? How might God use your encounter to open your heart even wider?
Peace, dwight
