Trinity Sunday 18.5.08 Trinity and Unity
There are so many special days in the year. Volunteer Day, Secretaries Day, Nurses Day, Environment Day, etc....
Is it not reasonable to have God’s Day? Today’s feast is just that. It is a day to contemplate the nature and identity of God Himself.
One God, three Persons – it is hard for us to understand because in our dealings with everyone else it is only one person at a time.
The plurality of Persons does not in any way introduce discord. This is the perfect religious community. There are no arguments among the Three Divine Persons.
In our experience of community we cannot imagine that much harmony. To have threee persons at anything there would have fighting. It is bad enough with just two persons, and even if they love each other they still can fight like cat and dog.
We discover in the Blessed Trinity that human conflict is not natural. It may be common but it is not natural.
Our human nature was created from God’s nature. We come from Him, we are established in Him. Only our fallen human nature makes us want to fight.
Fallen human nature is capable of great violence, hatred, as we see daily. But St James teaches us that only good things come from the hand of God. (Epistle StJames, 1)
To find out how things are meant to run, we go back to the maker. And we find that God Himself achieves this feat of living in perfect harmony with three Persons.
So much are they one , that they are not just like a good team, but actually one identity.
Each of them is fully God without in any way detracting from the others. Three people normally would have to share things around, but in God’s case each has all, without taking from the other two!
And to this union we are called. Union with God (Salvation), union in every way, heart, mind, body will etc. This is our task, quest, pathway to eternal life. Union with God and necessarily with each other. There are no fights in heaven. We would not get into heaven if we were going to pick a fight.
We rejoice in this unity of God. Yet unity is not narrowing of God in sense that there is less of Him. Unity takes nothing away from the glory of His variety, His many ways of manifesting Himself, His attributes, such as Creator, Saviour, Sanctifier...
One of the objections to religion is that it would take away our individuality. Actually, it enhances our individuality, as we are now purified of all fault, developing our own greatness.
Not in a worldly way where we win at the expense of others, but now all can be winners.
Nor do we just declare that everyone is wonderful, sins and all. No, purified of sin we really will be wonderful by the time God has finished with us.
What is the key for us to reach this? Recognition of the good, being drawn by the beauty of God, the irresistible attraction.
As we worship the Trinity and the Unity, we are being formed into one people, one with God with ourselves and each other.
This is not some ‘new age’ thing, not just a pleasant feeling, but an actual unity.
God will engineer it and guide it. He clearly wants it (Ut unum sint -that they may all be one).
In every way this is good for us, developing our personal identity and enhancing everyone else’s; creating true peace on earth, and even in the home!
All glory to the Trinity.
