God's Human Presence: With Us To Serve, To Help?

 

17 October 2021: Trinity 20, Year of Mark

 

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45

Reflection (Sermon)

 

Sometimes the gospel passage we are given is complicated. Then we have to spend a fair bit of time trying to work out what it might be saying. Not always. And not so today. Today the message is, I suggest, simple. Plain and simple.

 

James and John come to Jesus, with a request. Can they sit at his right and left side? Can they, in other words, share in his status, power, and glory – more than all the rest, more than the other disciples? Jesus says No. But he says more. He says that they came to ask that, because their way of thinking was wrong. They need to change, but the change isn’t a gentle nudge. It is a complete turnaround in how they think. How they think about such things as status, power, and glory.

 

So far, so bad, at least for James and John. But it doesn’t get any easier when Jesus addresses the disciples as a whole. He tells them – and so he tells us – three things:

1.     You have to serve one another (be each other’s servant).

2.     You have to be slave of all people.

3.     This, because Jesus himself came not to be served, but to serve. To help others, and not to have others wait on him.

 

Jesus says we are not only to be servants (where a comfortable-enough life is at least thinkable), but slaves (and it’s hard to think of a comfortable slave). But here I can bring a little morsel of good news: the Greek is actually not as strong as the English. The word here translated as slave [doulos] can also be another word for servant.

 

But! But, even allowing for that:

1.     You have to serve one another.

2.     You have to be servants or slaves to all people.

3.     Because that is what Jesus himself did.

A simple message. Not an easy message. But easy to summarise, in its sharp challenge.

 

When the message comes to us as straightforward - as if straightforward - there is something we can always do. This: we can ask ourselves if we believe it. 

No, really, we can either talk it through with others, or just sit with the question, of whether we believe this simple, sharp shock of a challenge. Remember, when we ask ourselves this question, it’s not necessarily a Yes or a No. It’s perfectly possible, and often right, to answer (say): I feel I am coming to believe this.

 

We are here to help one another. I think at one level we all know that. There are two aspects to this. One is that pretty much every worldview says as much. It’s a message heard and known the world over. If we are here (and here we are), it is because some people helped us grow up from helpless baby to adult. And we can now care for others in turn. The other truth is that a life dedicated to simple selfishness may sound exciting. But the evidence is that it can soon turn into something dull, tedious, and strangely frustrating. What makes life worthwhile is a rich pattern of links with others, links that are made naturally, and become strong, when we help each other.

 

So far, so normal. I say again: that we are made to help each other is a claim made by every religion or school of thought, worth its salt. It is said by evolutionary biologists, for that matter.

And we try.

Often we try.

Sometimes we try…

It’s not always easy. In our lives it is easier to ricochet between 

really exerting ourselves to help those around us, 

and 

falling back into selfishness, greed, and resenting others for not serving us up with what we think we want.

This is natural. This is natural, and God knows our natural selves, and can and does forgive us those lapses into selfishness.

 

But there is more to Jesus message. So we need to ask ourselves if we believe something more too. Do we believe that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve”?

 

Do we believe that God’s human presence in the world came not to have others serve him, serve him delicacies on some golden throne, but to get his hands and feet dirty, helping others out, helping out those in need, those in bitter need, those who may feel helpless, despairing, and lost?

 

Now, that is not something that every worldview says. And it’s not a natural idea. God’s human presence in the world as one who serves, who helps out, who goes out to the forgotten. It is hard to find words to show how shocking this idea is. (I am not saying it is unique to Christianity. I am saying it is shocking for all people, Christian or not.) No doubt I have failed to shock you. But I will dare to ask you again:

 

Do you believe it? That God’s human presence is there to help others?

 

Well, to work out if you believe it, you may well ask the Why question. Why is it, that God’s human presence is there to help others? And here different answers are possible. The most obvious answer is: God does this, because there is so much need in the world. But I think that doesn’t really work.

 

It is quite possible to imagine God’s human presence in the world being waited upon, and from his throne giving orders about how his subjects are to obey him by caring for one another. And from his throne he could threaten us all with terrible, terrible things, if we don’t put the world right by our efforts. With clear enough divine instructions, and promises and threats, would we still be astray? It’s a question we can’t necessarily answer, but we may feel it might work.

 

But that is not what God’s human presence does. 

And, as for why God’s human presence is here to help… funnily enough, the deepest Christian answer is really this: it is 

because that’s what God wanted to do. 

That’s it. God, in other words, is so keen, so eager, so desperate-as-it-were to be with us, that God will be with us in the way that works best for us.

 

God wants our company. God sees our need.

God sees our need. God wants our company.

God, who loves us and who is Love, brings the two together.

(How would Love not?)

So God comes to us and meets us in our need.

And then, then we are really freed to meet others in their need.

It is shocking. (I stand by that.)

But it’s also the greatest comfort we might have.

Now... do we believe it?

Amen.

One Sent From Gd...

 

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 13.12.20

Advent 3: Gaudete (Year B)

John 1.6-8, 19-28

Today’s Gospel is full of negatives and absences. What a way to begin! I really don’t wish to lower the mood – the Gaudete mood. I know we all need comfort and hope, and a reliable supply of both and more, in these days. And there are, of course, good things in today’s Gospel. But, at a rather technical level, today’s Gospel is full of negatives and absences.

Negatives.

Let’s recall John’s dialogue with those sent from Jerusalem to Bethany, across the Jordan:

J: “I am not the Messiah!”

O: “Are you Elijah?” J: “I am not.”

O: “Are you the prophet?” J: “No.”

This ever-more brutal exchange is consistent with what the Evangelist has already told us:

“He was not the Light.”

We are being led to see who John the Baptist is not, and thus already being nudged to think that there is one for whom all these negatives will fall away.

And, on cue, the Baptist says as much:

“I baptise with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

I think this is carefully crafted. I think the hearers of this tale are meant to feel intrigue, excitement. Who is this one? This one we know not, but who is already among us?

Do we feel that excitement? I think it’s unlikely. For most of us, we’ve heard – we’ve read – the story many times, from start to finish. And let me add, that is fine. The Gospels were written to be heard, over and over. If we are comfortable with the story, all is well.

Yet, where we cannot necessarily feel intrigue or excitement, we may yet wonder - wonder if there isn’t here an invitation to hear the story anew. We know the name of the one who is already among us. His name is Jesus. We know him, know aspects of him. He is no stranger. We need not pretend he is. And yet, do we know him as well as we could? Is he not in many ways still strange to us? Might we as-it-were start again: begin a new journey of getting to know

·        the one who changes everything, who is already among us;

·        the one who is already among us, who changes everything?  

*

And so, from the negative to the absence. I suspect you have already sensed that today’s Gospel reading is a real cut-and-paste-and-cut-and-paste job. If you look at the chapter and verses, this is confirmed, What we have are two separate excerpts taken out of the opening of John’s Gospel. And we may well have at the back of our minds the texts in that opening which are absent today. Here are some of them:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd…

In [this one] was life, and the life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…”

That’s all rather different from the tale of intrigue. This isn’t a story of people pointing to people. This is a grander-scale narrative, a panorama, a view of everything, of all that this. The themes are creation, and the nature of Gd. And it is not prose, but poetry.  

How then does it all fit together? Is it meant to? Or did the writer, or some later scribe, make a mistake? I am confident that they are meant to fit together. We hear of the origins of the universe and the nature of Gd. But before we have any chance to fool ourselves we’ve taken it seriously in, we change focus. And this too is carefully crafted. Intentionally, we are led from the telescope to the microscope.

“There came a person, sent from Gd; John, his name.”

What do we learn from this? I will put it slightly challengingly: we learn that Gd does not care about humanity! I mean: Gd does not care about “humanity” in the abstract. Gd cares only for human beings in particular.

·        For you.

·        For me.

·        For the person next to you.

·        For the person impossibly distant from you, in all possible ways.

·        For the ones you love.

·        And… for the ones you can’t stand.

We human beings cannot sustain that loving attention for literally billions of people. But, then, we are not Gd. Gd is Gd. And Gd does not care for “humanity”, but for human beings. From the absence, we learn this.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, John, his name.” And, being sent from Gd, his presence makes all the difference. This one is the very herald who says the Word-made-flesh is already among us, sometimes known, sometimes (more often, perhaps) not known.

So, indeed, today is Gaudete Sunday. Today is a day of rejoicing, albeit it of gentle rejoicing. Today is our pink (or, as we are perhaps learning to say, our “Rose” day). We are in the middle of our Advent “fast” (how’s that going, brothers and sisters?)! Better put: we are in the middle of our Advent reflections and preparations, leading up to Christmas. And here we relax any restraint we’ve put ourselves under. We, in a gentle and understated way, anticipate Christmas.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, John, his name.” And, being sent from Gd, his presence makes all the difference.

Sisters and brothers, I repeat a theme I have brought before. And I make not the slightest apology for the repetition. (You may chide me, but I will not budge.) What is said of John, can be said of you. You may think of your name; I invite you to.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, their name was [Name]. And, being sent from Gd, their presence makes all the difference.”

And, today, I am not even going to set you (to set us) the task of thinking about all the ways we might be sent from Gd into the world. There is of course a time for that. Of course, being sent from Gd implicates us in a task. Yes, vocation is a task,  a burden even. Yes, further: hardship and risk and danger and sacrifice are all involved. But! But, today (anticipating Christmas) I say: even before and outside of that task, if we are in the world (and here we are), we are sent from Gd. Our very being is sent-from-Gd.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, their name was [Name]. And, being sent from Gd, their presence makes all the difference.”

Gaudete! Let us rejoice! Amen.   

Sermon. "I Believe in God!" How?

 

Sermon, St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford, 30 August 2020

Trinity 12 (Year A)

 

Matthew 16.21-28: Get behind me, Satan!

 

Last week Simon Son of Jonah named Jesus “the Messiah, the Christ”,and Jesus named Simon “Peter”. And we reflected on the meaning of names.I knew then that this week we would hear how Jesus gives Peter yet another label or name. It’s not a name that stuck. It is not hard to see why.

The name is “Satan”.

We know the story well, I suspect: Jesus says that he will suffer and be killed; Peter objects; Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan; this is all Gd’s will.” How it is Gd’s will is a big question, but all the gospels are clear that somehow Jesus’ suffering and being-killed is Gd’s will.

“Get behind me, Satan.”

Jesus’ language strikes us as so extreme that it may well be worth reflecting on what might be going on. It’s not straightforward. I’ll make three points, in growing order of importance.

 

We Christians think of Satan as being another title or name for the devil. There is, after all, a verse in Revelation [20.2] which speaks of the dragon, who is the serpent, who is the devil, who is Satan. All one.

But in fact they may have been thought of as different characters at one point.

Think of the Book of Job. Job begins with a character called ha-shatan, the satan, in dialogue. What may surprise you is that he is dialogue with Gd, and the dialogue is respectful. The satan does not speak from the bowels of hell; he seems to be part of the heavenly court. He is something like a prosecuting lawyer, taking a sceptical view on the virtues of Job. The satan in Job is a title, not a name, and just means “accuser”. We can say he is negative, cynical and hyper-critical. We can say he is bad news. But it’s much harder to say he is, in Job, the embodiment of all evil. It is just possible that Jesus’ use of the term “Satan” here means something like that.   

 

You may not be convinced by that. To be honest, neither am I. I just wanted to give you the full picture. You may say that for anyone to call anyone “Satan” must be about the harshest thing that can be said. But! But, another point: we have to understand how people argued in the ancient world. It was in fact quite rhetorically acceptable to say that your opponent was possessed by the devil and such like, when you wanted to disagree with them. It did not sting in the way it would for us. It was, frankly, quite normal. We do have a flavour of this in the New Testament. Remember in John (7.2) when Jesus says people will attack him, they respond: “You have a demon! No one is trying to kill you”. There - and I think we do sense this - “you have a demon” just means “you’re being very foolish”.   

 

Again, you may not be wholly convinced. But! Another point: we can take comfort in this. Calling  Peter “Satan” did not stick and was never intended to stick. Even as Jesus calls Peter “Satan”, he gives him a way out:

 

“Get behind me”.

 

We may think this means ”disappear”, but surely it is more likely to mean “get behind me” in the sense of “change your way of thinking and get in line; follow me again; be a true follower of mine, and stick close. Yes, your understanding of the ways of Gd has been faulty, and I have called you out in colourful language, but I still want you close by me”. So Jesus is as far from giving up on Peter – sending him away, as if he were Satan – as can be.

 

“Get behind me, Satan!”

 

We are, it is true to say, not a church that speaks a lot about Satan. I will tell you bluntly that I think that is a good thing. We are right not to.

 

True story. Back in the day, I studied Theology in Germany for a semester. I had some famous lecturers. And not only were they scholars, they were also typically ministers. One – Jurgen Moltmann, if you know your German theologians – said that any parish interviewing a minister is certain to ask them, among all their questions: “Do you believe in the devil?”. He said he always gave the same reply: “No, I believe in Gd”. It is not too hard to understand his point: it is important to keep your attention focused in the right place, on Gd. Whatever we may think about the reality and dangers of the devil/Satan, the answer lies in Gd. So keep your focus on Gd.

 

“I believe in Gd”.

 

 

We say it so often. We say it repetitively, within this very service. We may – will – find that we say it rote, without thinking about it, at least from time to time. We need not beat ourselves up for this. It is bound to happen whenever with have rituals and set forms. But it is actually a powerful thing to say. “I believe in Gd”.

 

We’ll misunderstand it, if we think it means the same as “I have worked out - come to the conclusion – discovered the fact - that Gd exists”. It isn’t about an objective fact out there. I will go so far as to say it doesn’t describe a state of affairs at all. Because it is so much closer to: “I place my trust in Gd”.

 

“I believe, trust in Gd.”

 

Some say that the English word “belief” is related to the word “beloved”. So it might almost be like saying: “I declare my love for Gd”. And they say much the same about the Latin word for belief. You will actually know the Latin for “I believe”, because it’s “credo”, which gives us our word “creed”. And there is the school of thought that says “credo” ultimately comes from “cor” and “do”. Cor – heart; do – I give. “I give my heart to.” Something similar can be said about the Greek and the Hebrew: to believe in Gd is to trust in Gd, and to act accordingly.

 

So here is an invitation to take the creed seriously, perhaps more seriously than we have done, but/and/but not as a set of propositions, a set of facts we think we have stumbled upon. We can think of the threefold pattern of the creed as saying:

“We place our trust in the Father, whose story is this…”;

“We place our trust in the Son, whose story is this…”;

“We place our trust in the Holy Spirit, whose story is this…”.

 

I am not suggesting this is easy. What it means to trust in Gd – what we actually do – is a big question. And, let’s be honest, whether we are right to trust Gd is going to be a live question for all of us at times. Believers no less than unbelievers can see the world as godforsaken, can really struggle to believe Gd is in charge of it all.

 

But what I am really saying is, all of that notwithstanding, we can come to the creed, week by week, and indeed in just a moment, seeing it each time as an invitation to consciously place our trust in Gd, in whatever ways are right for us, and, if we can hear it, even a chance to celebrate our trust in Gd. I say to myself as well as to you: consider yourself invited.

 

We believe in Gd.   

Sermon. Jesus vs Commonsense?

28 August 2016. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Trinity 14 (Year C)

Luke 14.1, 7-14

I don't very often give practical advice in sermons. That's deliberate. I tend to think it is often for each of us to work out for ourselves the practical consequences of Christian teaching. But, here I go. Can we do this...? Can we do our best to invite and bring to church, on at least one Sunday between now and the end of the year, someone who does not normally go to church or another house of prayer?

This isn't a novel idea, of course. There's a whole 'Back to Church Sunday' theme out there. This year's 'Back to Church Sunday' may be on 18 September - though interestingly, it wasn't easy to track down on the internet. But, whenever we do it, let us try to bring to church one friend, colleague or acquaintance who hasn't been to church for some time, if at all.

I'm suggesting this for two reasons. First, we might hope that it will be a good thing for them. They will realise that we Christians are not all weird – or, more realistically, no weirder than anybody else. They may, Gd willing, get a sense of what we are about, which, in case there is any doubt, is the love of Gd,

• our intimations that Gd loves each of us,
• in all our mess,
• and them in all of theirs,
• more than we/they could ever yearn for,
• more than we/they could ever imagine.

But also for a second reason. Those of us who do come to church a lot can learn from the questions of those who don't. You know:

• Why do you do that?
• What does that mean?

And especially...

• What on earth is going on in that Bible reading?

I'll say it again: those of us who do come to church a lot can easily let the Bible readings wash over us. For what it is worth, I don't think that's laziness, really. I think we sense that there are such difficult things in the biblical texts, and we feel we cannot 'do justice' to them. We feel, as they say, 'under-resourced'. That is a shame. But it is also a call to do this: with or without our non-churchy friend next to us, let us hear Bible readings as if for the first time. Let us turn our attention to Bible readings -

• expecting not some gentle waves to wash over us,
• but rather that we are entering a minefield,
• and mines may go off at any minute.

For, sisters and brothers, that is, in truth, what the Bible is like. It is like a minefield, and the mines may go off at any moment. What do I mean? Well, you'll have guessed I am suggesting there is an example of an explosive in today's readings, in particular in today's gospel.

It's a gospel passage of two halves. Jesus is dining in a Pharisee's house. The Pharisees, I'll remind you in passing, are the Jewish group probably closest to Jesus and his disciples (but that's for another sermon). Jesus gives some advice to the company.

I paraphrase: When you're invited to someone's home, think of yourself as the least important person in the room. Then, if your host wants to honour you, giving you a special place, or cup, or whatever, then that will be a real honour. Whereas if you presume you are the special one, and your host then treats someone else as more special, you'll feel humiliated, and probably look humiliated to others.

This we can, I guess, all get. It is good, practical advice. It makes sense, because it is commonsense. It is a reminder about manners. Manners work; they 'oil the wheels' of all our interactions. We'd be lost without them. Every culture throughout time says as much. Not least Jewish culture. And so we have already in Proverbs [25.6f], before Jesus:

Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence

or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, 'Come up here,'

than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

So far, so calm. Jesus expands on the point: in any circumstance, it is good to be humble, not exalted. Still calm. No explosions here.

But then! Then Jesus says... what? He says (my version again):

When you're having a party, don't invite family, friends, or neighbours or others you want to impress. Invite people who are poor, or very ill, or can't get around easily, or who are considered a problem or failures in some way. Invite them, precisely because you know they cannot repay you in any obvious way. That way, you'll get a different sort of repayment.

Now... Do you get it? Do you see how that is a mine going off before your eyes and ears. No commonsense here! Commonsense says you hold a party in order to bring friends together, and/or to impress people. Commonsense says you don't invite people you don't know, may not get on with, and are considered problem people, Commonsense says that's a recipe for disaster. If word gets around that you hold those kinds of parties, things can only get worse for you,- says commonsense.

Yet this is what Jesus calls us to do.

It's also something his disciples have said, through the centuries. Let me quote one contemporary writer (he just died in 1996). He was a European. He was a Henri-spelled-with-an-i-not-a-y. As such people often thought he was French, and so pronounced his name [French pronunciation] Henri Nouwen. But in fact he was Dutch. So his name looked like it was [English pronunciation] Henri Nouwen, and in Dutch was pronounced [same] Henri Nouwen. It's a long quotation I want to share. Here goes.

My whole life I have been surrounded by well-meaning encouragement to go 'higher up,' and the most-used argument was: 'You can do so much good there, for so many people.' But these voices calling me to upward mobility are completely absent from the Gospel. Jesus says: 'Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life' (John 12:25). He also says: 'Unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven' (Matt 18:3). Finally he says: 'You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them... this is not to happen... anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave...' (Matt 20:25-28).

This [it is still Henri Nouwen speaking] is the way of downward mobility,

the descending way of Jesus. It is the way toward the poor, the suffering, the marginal, the prisoners, the refugees, the lonely, the hungry, the dying, the tortured, the homeless - toward all who ask for compassion. What do they have to offer? Not success, popularity, or power, but the joy and peace of the children of God.

(End of quotation.)

So... invite people you don't know and have no reason to like to your parties, people who can do you no favours? And try your best to be, throughout your life, downwardly mobile? Is this the gospel message?

If it is, can we, after all, invite non-churchgoing friends to church? Are we not embarrassed and discomforted by this message which is about as far from commonsense as it is possible to be?

Maybe. And of course, how we imagine another person reacting to these commands is surely how a large part of us reacts. We too will be thinking (in part): It's just not a serious message. It sounds good, radical and challenging. Fine for a sermon, but not seriously for living. We are not meant to actually do it. But... are we?

Well, to cut a long story short, I think I can genuinely offer some reassurance. I'd say Jesus here is speaking in prophetic mode. And the prophets loved to see everything in black-and-white terms, to exaggerate, to say: 'no x, all y' when they were really talking about getting a balance in life. So in fact I do think we are allowed to have parties where we invite our friends. I also think we are allowed to be ambitious about our careers and so on; there's nothing intrinsically sinful about having ambitions and in that way being upwardly mobile.

But! But we get it wrong if we allow ourselves to shake off Jesus' message to his disciples then and now. This is saying that commonsense (including about how to behave at parties, and about how to develop your career) is just fine. But even more important is that we are ready to put commonsense aside, even if it be just for a moment, for one encounter

• when we help someone who cannot possibly help us back
• when we do so unseen, so that no one else is going to praise us
• when we do so uncomplainingly and eagerly
• when we do it even if the person we help is a thumping crook (because Jesus nowhere says we are only to help people in need who are also saints or well-behaved)
• when we do so purely and simply because we know that in such an encounter, Jesus is among us
• and (if we can here it) joy is among us too.

Amen.  

The Trinity as the Heart of Things

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels. Little Ilford. 22 May 2016

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8.1-4, 22-31

John 16.12-15

All the blessings of the Feast of the Most Holy, Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity to you!

I used to take curates to Jewish services and festivals, as part of their training. One group – I won't say from what diocese – had lovely Shabbat services, an even lovelier Shabbat meal with various families, and then a question-and-answer session with the rabbi. The rabbi had questions of his own, supremely: 'Explain the Trinity to me! Is it like me saying I am a husband, I am a father and I am a rabbi, yet I am one person?' One curate answered: 'Yes, that's pretty much it.'

What do you think?

I actually don't hold it against you for being shy on this occasion, for this is one of those times when there is a right answer and a wrong answer. The right answer is that that curate was wrong. The doctrine of the Trinity does not say that Gd is one person with three roles, with three hats on. You might be thinking: 'Whatever you say, Patrick. We'll leave that to the experts. It makes no difference to my faith or my life.' But perhaps it does.

Think about it. If Gd were really one person who just played different roles in different contexts, then when Jesus, the Son of Gd, prayed to the Father, he would have been pretending. He'd have been talking to himself. When Jesus said he had to go away to send another Comforter, he would have been lying. He'd be going away to come back again in disguise. It makes a nonsense of the gospel.

So the teaching of the Trinity insists that when Jesus prays to the Father, or promises the Spirit, he was talking about real relationships. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are in real relationship. And in fact those interrelationships are real eternally, even outside of time, outside of the universe. Why? Because, we believe, Gd is love. There is no love without relationship. Relationship must be who Gd is.

So you see,

• if any of us are to take the gospels seriously,
• if any of us are going to have faith that Gd is love,

we do have to reject that idea that the Trinity just means one Gd has three different roles.

But there is more to it. There's a strong argument for saying that the doctrine of the Trinity grew up because it made sense of people's experience of worship. Before the doctrine was formalised after some centuries, Christians already were meeting for worship, and when they gathered, what did they do?
• They praised the Father.
• They met with the Son in word and sacrament.
• They were in the Spirit.

It's not that they had different experiences of the Father, Son and Spirit. That's not how it works. But their conviction was this: you could not do the task of Christian worship unless you referred to the Persons of the Trinity. Except that it is the wrong way to put it. In worship we don't 'refer to' the Father, Son and Spirit. No, we adore and join with the Father, Son and Spirit. We enter into their interrelationships. We join in - as people often put it - their dance.

Here, if I were any good, I'd juggle, first with three balls for the Persons of the Trinity and then add a fourth for you, for us, to demonstrate the dynamic. But I have to tell you I was once at a clergy conference where for some light relief we were taught some circus skills... and I was by far the worst at them. So, please imagine juggling here.

So it is that in worship we ourselves are joining into the movement or dance of the Trinity very intimately. Intimately. Not abstractly, or at a distance. We ourselves are part of it, not onlookers, or servants in the servants-quarters. And that's another part of the teaching. With Gd it is never not personal. Never not personal. And in worship we are are personally involved.

Does it feel like that? That's a difficult question and I don't expect an answer. Except that the answer is no. For me as for you, the answer is no. It is not always the case that when we worship we feel we are being drawn in to the glorious inner life of Gd, intimately and personally. (It might be rather exhausting if we did.) But it does not depend on our feelings. The teaching says: this is simply what is the case.

So Gd is love and in worship we are drawn into that love. And also, let me add, into the glory Jesus speaks of in today's gospel. I say it, and I believe it, but it also makes me uneasy. Because all of this can be interpreted as speaking of the Church as a holy huddle. Only Christians name Gd as Father, Son and Spirit. So only Christians join in the glorious loving dance with Gd. Is that it? That's another question I don't need you to answer. For the answer is No.

We are drawn into the the love of Gd both to experience love for ourselves and to be strengthened to love others, both here in the community and out in the world. For other people are in the image of Gd too. Other people have a measure of the wisdom which is so honoured in our first reading. Other people are made to be drawn in to the same love, and need to experience that love in practical ways. So I can say: when you give to Christian Aid, or walk for Chrisitan Aid, or humiliate yourself as I expect to by coming last in a Christian Aid quiz, you truly are engaging in a Trinitarian act, and all power to you in that.

Hear this from the Orthodox Church's introduction to the creed:

[Chanted]
Priest: Peace to you all.

People: And to your spirit.

Deacon:Let us love one another, that with one mind

we may confess

People: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and undivided.

Thought that might wake you up. But do you get the point?

'Let us love one another... that we might name the Trinity of love'.

To get a sense of the Trinity, we don't in the first place need innate intelligence, nor great theological training, but we need to dare to love one another (and, by implication, all others).

So Trinitarian thinking is really an invitation

• to trust the gospels on Jesus in relationship with the Father and the Spirit
• to trust that Gd is love, and so is interrelationship
• to trust that worship does nothing less than draw us into that love
• so that we in turn can love.

Happy Feast Day. Amen.