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Monday, May 19, 2008
God of Good Surprises
Psalm 8; Matthew 28:16-20
When Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson jumped on the bus that wedding day back in 1967, they were exhilarated and filled with hope. After all, Ben had just rescued her from marrying the wrong man. Meaning -- the other guy. Now, all their way down that public transit aisle to the very last bench seat, they amused or puzzled or infuriated the other passengers. Who wouldn't wonder at them, she in her bridal gown, he all sweaty in khakis and a windbreaker jacket.
Then it happened. One or another Simon and Garfunkel song began playing as "The Graduate" came to its end. Ben and Elaine just sat there speechless, facing straight ahead, silently saying all that needed to be said, with shifting eyes and fleeting changes of expression. Thinking thoughts like...
"What in the world have we just done?"
"Who is this person next to me?"
"What will happen to us when we get to the end of the line?"
"How can I get off this [blessed] bus?!"
Not always so dramatically, life is filled with moments when you just have to step back, take a deep breath, and take stock of what's been going on. And what it might mean. And then, at last, what difference it really makes.
Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. A taking stock festival if there ever was one.
Unlike other liturgical red letter days, Trinity celebrates not an event or action in God's Plan Of Salvation, but a grand idea.
Consider... From the birth of Christ to the Wise Men's visit to Palm Sunday to the last supper to Calvary's cross to the empty tomb of Easter, all the way to Pentecost's 3-ring circus of Holy Spirit phenomena... It's one big event after another! You can't help visualizing how they happened, imagining what it felt like to be there when they happened.
And then comes Trinity. As if, exhilarated and amazed by all that's gone before, the church stepped back, breathed deep, and said, "Wow! Who'd have thought?"
What they thought so hard about was the surprising Doctrine of the Trinity. A word never found in even one verse of the Bible, by the way. But evidence, direct and otherwise, is scattered throughout the book.
The capper, of course, is Pentecost. All those dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence and power -- gale force wind, flames of fire on the disciples' heads, and fervent speech in unknown languages. The upshot: 3,000 people became Christians in one day. Woo hoo and amen.
So, one week after Pentecost, we Christians pause to make some kind of sense of it. One God now revealed as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three Gods. Not one God in three forms. Not --
Go figure.
And we do try to figure it out. Great minds go a bit mad now and then in the process. Lesser minds have tried simple analogies.
I remember Mom's 3 in 1 Oil, that she lubricated her sewing machine with when I was a kid. Aha, said my inner theologian, just like the Holy Trinity. Well, not quite, since those three oils were now blended into a whole new compound.
Some say we can take a lesson from water: one element that manifests its hydrogen/oxygen self sometimes as a liquid, other times a gas, yet again as a solid. Pretty cool, but not your Holy Trinity, whose three Persons are all God but always distinct and different from each other.
All things considered, my vote goes with the wag who warned against trying too hard to unscrew the Inscrutible!
Instead, I take delight in the many good surprises of God's grace tucked into this heady doctrine.
Take, for example, Jesus' last meeting with his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20. There he tells them -- and every disciple ever since -- to take his Good News into all the world, to teach people what he taught, and to baptize them in the (one) name of the (triune) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In that context he assures them that he owns all authority on earth and in heaven -- because he has perfectly done God's will here on earth just the way it's done in heaven. Then he guarantees to be their constant companion on the journey -- because the Holy Spirit will be with them, and that's as good as having Christ himself there.
He doesn't guarantee smooth pavement on every road, or safety from pirates, thieves, and various kinds of catastrophe. The first generation of Christians faced ostracism, Collosseum lions, and the headsman's ax. This year Trinity Sunday comes while hundreds of thousands die and nearly die in earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and stupid wars.
Thoughtful minds want to know: Where is God when these things happen? Why is God letting them happen? When will God stand up and do something?
Last week "Prince Caspian" opened in theaters, the second installment in Hollywood's new Chronicles of Narnia series. C. S. Lewis' seven adventure tales for children are allegories of Christian discipleship, of spiritual warfare in a world at odds with God. In them four English children are transported into an enchanted land, the rightful realm of the lion king Aslan, but now ruled by one or another wicked pretender. This time it's a king who has no regard for the beauties and purposes of God's creation -- things like, oh, human dignity and faithful stewardship and harmony among all of life's creatures. So the children have to fight alongside good Prince Caspian if Aslan's claim to all authority will ever be fulfilled. And fight they do, and finally they prevail. And then -- at last -- they take stock and come to understand the Big Idea behind everything they've struggled through together.
It's not coincidental that Lewis wrote the Narnia stories while World War II raged on. In a real and important way, he was doing the Trinity Sunday reflection thing. Spiritual struggle is not a sign of God's absence or indifference. It's evidence that God is right here with us in the midst of life's bad, even horrible, news. Reminding us why we're here, what we're to do, who we're to be, whose side we're to choose again and again and again. Reassuring us that God's good plan will surely be fulfilled, in large part by people like you and me remembering all of the above, and acting on it as faithfully as we know how to do. "And, lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Wow! Who'd have thought?
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:54 PM
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