You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One major cause of conflict between Christianity and other monotheistic religions has been our understanding of God as One and yet also Three; our insistence that we worship the One, True and Holy God, while simultaneously claiming that this one God incorporates three distinct persons within his (their?) One-Ness.
I don’t think any theologian set out to devise a doctrine so complex and ultimately incomprehensible to our cognitive faculties. The early thinkers of the church came to this formulation through their close reading of Jesus’ teachings handed down from those who had known him. Jesus spoke of his Father, and of the Spirit, and of himself as Son, and of all of these entities as God. Wrestling through that yielded the conclusion that this one God was also three. Both/And.
So it was on Jesus’ last night in human flesh, as he tried to reinforce for his disciples all that he had taught them during his time of ministry – and remembered that he did not have to do this alone: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”
What a relief it must have been for Jesus, coming to the end of his human mission, about to endure his suffering and death and tests of faith, to remember that he was part of a team, not a solo operator. He knew he could communicate on a human level, with words and signs and symbols – but he could not speak directly into the hearts of even his closest followers. He knew his Spirit, who would be released following his death, resurrection and ascension, would have that kind of deep access to those who loved him.
That access, as we grant it, means we have the Spirit boost too. We don’t have to grasp the truth about God’s love and mystery with our minds alone – we have the Spirit to help us. When something in the Scriptures, or about our faith as we have received it, puzzles or troubles us, we don’t have to think our way to an answer – though thinking is part of the process. We can pray, “Spirit, show me what this means. Help me understand.” We may not get enlightenment at that moment, but we will have taken the best action we can take, and can release the matter into God’s hands.
At some point, a new way of seeing that particular issue may dawn on us, and in the meantime we will have invited the Spirit of God more deeply into our hearts. That's a win/win.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label Trinity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trinity. Show all posts
5-29-23 - Trinity
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Next Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the “three-ness” of our One God. Why three? Why not two, or four, or one – which would have been so much easier to explain. Yes, we believe God is One, but Christians also assert that God is Three persons within the One Godhead. Why three?
The shortest answer is, because Jesus said so. He spoke of his Father in heaven, he spoke of himself as Son of God, and he referred in personal terms to the Holy Spirit, who would be sent when he was no longer bodily present. And there were stories, like the voice heard at his baptism, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” and the Spirit descending upon him. Early apostles and thinkers, trying to interpret collected stories and teachings, had to wrestle with these references. We might say seeing God as triune was unavoidable, given how Jesus refers to these three distinct persons as God.
Unavoidable does not mean simple. It took centuries to sort out and articulate Christian doctrine about God, and some of the process was torturous, as it is any time we try to talk about the Unity and the Trinity of God (read the Athanasian Creed sometime…) On the one Sunday each year when we highlight not an event but a doctrine, preachers twist themselves into pretzels trying to clarify a spiritual mystery. Sun, ray, beam…. Orange, peel, juice… Mother, wife, sister… Water, ice, steam…. Or the image I stumbled onto a few years ago: sea, water-fall and spray.
A good formula for the Trinity does not allocate different functions to Father, Son and Spirit, but affirms their sharing in the full life of God. It conveys distinction between persons and the unity of the whole – and so affirms the principles of differentiation and wholeness that are so important for human health and thriving. It communicates the core Christian belief that God is One and also more than One; that God is so big, God could not be contained as just One but exists in eternal relationship of persons.
We are invited to join this ongoing, active, relational life of God. The Christian life is not about assenting to a belief, but actively joining a relationship already in full swirl, and somehow richer when you and I join in. Some liken it to a dance, in which we are swept up, folded in, made whole.
What difference does understanding God as Trinity make to us? It gives us different ways to connect with God. Some relate to God as Spirit, unseen but powerful and present. Some connect better to God the Father, transcendent and holy, unknowable and yet perfect love. And some find their connection to the Son who left his heavenly home to enter our world as a human being, making God knowable to us.
Who do you find you most connect with in prayer? Have you ever consciously tried to address another Person of the Trinity just to see how you might experience God differently? You might try it today...
I will leave us with a great formulation written by my friend Willy Welch in a song for children:
God is one person, and he’s also Three. God is a person, and He’s a family.
One, he is the Father; Two, he is the Son; Three, he is the Spirit, and they’re never done.
Next Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the “three-ness” of our One God. Why three? Why not two, or four, or one – which would have been so much easier to explain. Yes, we believe God is One, but Christians also assert that God is Three persons within the One Godhead. Why three?
The shortest answer is, because Jesus said so. He spoke of his Father in heaven, he spoke of himself as Son of God, and he referred in personal terms to the Holy Spirit, who would be sent when he was no longer bodily present. And there were stories, like the voice heard at his baptism, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” and the Spirit descending upon him. Early apostles and thinkers, trying to interpret collected stories and teachings, had to wrestle with these references. We might say seeing God as triune was unavoidable, given how Jesus refers to these three distinct persons as God.
Unavoidable does not mean simple. It took centuries to sort out and articulate Christian doctrine about God, and some of the process was torturous, as it is any time we try to talk about the Unity and the Trinity of God (read the Athanasian Creed sometime…) On the one Sunday each year when we highlight not an event but a doctrine, preachers twist themselves into pretzels trying to clarify a spiritual mystery. Sun, ray, beam…. Orange, peel, juice… Mother, wife, sister… Water, ice, steam…. Or the image I stumbled onto a few years ago: sea, water-fall and spray.
A good formula for the Trinity does not allocate different functions to Father, Son and Spirit, but affirms their sharing in the full life of God. It conveys distinction between persons and the unity of the whole – and so affirms the principles of differentiation and wholeness that are so important for human health and thriving. It communicates the core Christian belief that God is One and also more than One; that God is so big, God could not be contained as just One but exists in eternal relationship of persons.
We are invited to join this ongoing, active, relational life of God. The Christian life is not about assenting to a belief, but actively joining a relationship already in full swirl, and somehow richer when you and I join in. Some liken it to a dance, in which we are swept up, folded in, made whole.
What difference does understanding God as Trinity make to us? It gives us different ways to connect with God. Some relate to God as Spirit, unseen but powerful and present. Some connect better to God the Father, transcendent and holy, unknowable and yet perfect love. And some find their connection to the Son who left his heavenly home to enter our world as a human being, making God knowable to us.
Who do you find you most connect with in prayer? Have you ever consciously tried to address another Person of the Trinity just to see how you might experience God differently? You might try it today...
I will leave us with a great formulation written by my friend Willy Welch in a song for children:
God is one person, and he’s also Three. God is a person, and He’s a family.
One, he is the Father; Two, he is the Son; Three, he is the Spirit, and they’re never done.
6-9-22 - The Sharing Economy
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus uses a lot of possessive pronouns when he describes the life of God, at least, the way John’s Gospel renders his words. He speaks of what is the Father’s, what is his, what the Spirit gives. And he indicates that all this richness shared by the three-personed God is also shared with us:
He [the Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
What has been declared to us? The future of God’s reign. The fullness of Life. All the key pieces of information and insight we sometimes feel we’re missing. God is not holding anything back for later – it’s already ours. It's just that we don’t have the capacity to receive the whole signal; our systems would crash.
So, does it do us any good if we have it but don't don’t “get it?” So often we operate out of human understanding, and make choices based on fear or self-protection rather than faith. Here’s what I think: a part of us does get it. All of it. Has received the Good News of life without end, here and in the world to come, and has been set free by that Good News. As we grow spiritually, that part of us is able more and more to share this knowing with the rest of us, until the faith-receiving self is in command, and the fear-responding self has been integrated and converted. Then we look more like Jesus. We are in a sense our own first mission field.
It’s not only God who incorporates three persons in his being; perhaps we incorporate a very different kind of trinity: our true, God-given, spiritual self; our world-shaped natural self; and the energy it takes to navigate life from that dichotomy, which can take on a life of its own.
The good news about the Good News is that what belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and what belongs to the Son has been declared to us by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings about our integration and conversion, as we allow her/him access. And as we receive the fullness of God-Life we share that God-Life with the people around us and within ourselves, and that feeds back into the Triune Life of God, an infinite loop. It is the original sharing economy, and it never, ever runs out.
Jesus uses a lot of possessive pronouns when he describes the life of God, at least, the way John’s Gospel renders his words. He speaks of what is the Father’s, what is his, what the Spirit gives. And he indicates that all this richness shared by the three-personed God is also shared with us:
He [the Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
What has been declared to us? The future of God’s reign. The fullness of Life. All the key pieces of information and insight we sometimes feel we’re missing. God is not holding anything back for later – it’s already ours. It's just that we don’t have the capacity to receive the whole signal; our systems would crash.
So, does it do us any good if we have it but don't don’t “get it?” So often we operate out of human understanding, and make choices based on fear or self-protection rather than faith. Here’s what I think: a part of us does get it. All of it. Has received the Good News of life without end, here and in the world to come, and has been set free by that Good News. As we grow spiritually, that part of us is able more and more to share this knowing with the rest of us, until the faith-receiving self is in command, and the fear-responding self has been integrated and converted. Then we look more like Jesus. We are in a sense our own first mission field.
It’s not only God who incorporates three persons in his being; perhaps we incorporate a very different kind of trinity: our true, God-given, spiritual self; our world-shaped natural self; and the energy it takes to navigate life from that dichotomy, which can take on a life of its own.
The good news about the Good News is that what belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and what belongs to the Son has been declared to us by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings about our integration and conversion, as we allow her/him access. And as we receive the fullness of God-Life we share that God-Life with the people around us and within ourselves, and that feeds back into the Triune Life of God, an infinite loop. It is the original sharing economy, and it never, ever runs out.
6-8-22 - The Gift of Three
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Trinity Sunday often inspires questions like, “Why is God three persons? Why not four or two or eight?” To which we might answer, “It’s a holy mystery!” But we could come up with better reasons: There are three because Jesus referred to a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit. No one else is mentioned.
And there are three because there are two persons in a father/son (or parent/child) relationship, and the connection - the spirit - which flows between, through, around and from them. The reason we cannot “divide” the Trinity too sharply, the reason we insist on One God in Three, is that the Spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son. We can’t take the Spirit out of the picture any more than we can lose our shadow.
Does it matter that God is triune? What does it get us, besides a headache from trying to figure it out? For me, it’s precious because it tells us from the get-go that God is about relationship and relatedness. God is not a concept – God is a being with capacity for giving and receiving, loving and being loved. So when we say we are made in God’s image, that’s where we begin.
In some sense, all our relationships have a triune quality – ourselves, the Other, and the spirit of connection that flows between us, which we might also call a third entity created by our connection. We see this with couples – we know each partner as his or her own person, say, “Mary” and “Joseph,” but we also know them as “Mary and Joseph,” whom we think of in a slightly different way than we do Mary or Joseph individually.
In the same way, there is you, and there is God, and there is “you and God,” a product of being united with Christ. All God wants from us is to help grow that relationship. That is one thing God cannot do without us. And we do not have to do it without God. Come, Holy Spirit!
Trinity Sunday often inspires questions like, “Why is God three persons? Why not four or two or eight?” To which we might answer, “It’s a holy mystery!” But we could come up with better reasons: There are three because Jesus referred to a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit. No one else is mentioned.
And there are three because there are two persons in a father/son (or parent/child) relationship, and the connection - the spirit - which flows between, through, around and from them. The reason we cannot “divide” the Trinity too sharply, the reason we insist on One God in Three, is that the Spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son. We can’t take the Spirit out of the picture any more than we can lose our shadow.
Does it matter that God is triune? What does it get us, besides a headache from trying to figure it out? For me, it’s precious because it tells us from the get-go that God is about relationship and relatedness. God is not a concept – God is a being with capacity for giving and receiving, loving and being loved. So when we say we are made in God’s image, that’s where we begin.
In some sense, all our relationships have a triune quality – ourselves, the Other, and the spirit of connection that flows between us, which we might also call a third entity created by our connection. We see this with couples – we know each partner as his or her own person, say, “Mary” and “Joseph,” but we also know them as “Mary and Joseph,” whom we think of in a slightly different way than we do Mary or Joseph individually.
In the same way, there is you, and there is God, and there is “you and God,” a product of being united with Christ. All God wants from us is to help grow that relationship. That is one thing God cannot do without us. And we do not have to do it without God. Come, Holy Spirit!
6-6-22 - The God Team
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One major cause of conflict between Christianity and other monotheistic religions has been our understanding of God as One and yet also Three; our insistence that we worship the One, True and Holy God, while simultaneously claiming that this One God incorporates three distinct persons within his One-Ness.
I don’t think any theologian set out to devise a doctrine so complex and ultimately incomprehensible to our cognitive faculties. The early thinkers of the church came to this formulation through their close reading of Jesus’ teachings handed down from those who had known him. Jesus spoke of his Father, and of the Spirit, and of himself as Son, and of all of these entities as God. Wrestling through that yielded the conclusion that this one God was also three. Both/And.
So it was on his last night in human flesh, as he tried to reinforce for his disciples all that he had taught them during his time of ministry – and remembered that he did not have to do this alone: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”
What a relief it must have been for Jesus, coming to the end of his human mission, about to endure his suffering and death and tests of faith, to remember that he was part of a team, not a solo operator. He knew he could communicate on a human level, with words and signs and symbols – but he could not speak directly into the hearts of even his closest followers. He knew his Spirit, who would be released following his death, resurrection and ascension, would have that kind of deep access to those who loved him.
That access, as we grant it, means we have the Spirit boost too. We don’t have to grasp the truth about God’s love and mystery with our minds alone – we have the Spirit to help us. When something in the Scriptures, or about our faith as we have received it, puzzles or troubles us, we don’t have to think our way to an answer – though thinking is part of the process. We can pray, “Spirit, show me what this means. Help me understand.” We may not get enlightenment at that moment, but we will have taken the best action we can take, and can release the matter into God’s hands.
At some point, a new way of seeing that particular issue may dawn on us, and in the meantime we will have invited the Spirit of God more deeply into our hearts. That's a win/win.
One major cause of conflict between Christianity and other monotheistic religions has been our understanding of God as One and yet also Three; our insistence that we worship the One, True and Holy God, while simultaneously claiming that this One God incorporates three distinct persons within his One-Ness.
I don’t think any theologian set out to devise a doctrine so complex and ultimately incomprehensible to our cognitive faculties. The early thinkers of the church came to this formulation through their close reading of Jesus’ teachings handed down from those who had known him. Jesus spoke of his Father, and of the Spirit, and of himself as Son, and of all of these entities as God. Wrestling through that yielded the conclusion that this one God was also three. Both/And.
So it was on his last night in human flesh, as he tried to reinforce for his disciples all that he had taught them during his time of ministry – and remembered that he did not have to do this alone: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”
What a relief it must have been for Jesus, coming to the end of his human mission, about to endure his suffering and death and tests of faith, to remember that he was part of a team, not a solo operator. He knew he could communicate on a human level, with words and signs and symbols – but he could not speak directly into the hearts of even his closest followers. He knew his Spirit, who would be released following his death, resurrection and ascension, would have that kind of deep access to those who loved him.
That access, as we grant it, means we have the Spirit boost too. We don’t have to grasp the truth about God’s love and mystery with our minds alone – we have the Spirit to help us. When something in the Scriptures, or about our faith as we have received it, puzzles or troubles us, we don’t have to think our way to an answer – though thinking is part of the process. We can pray, “Spirit, show me what this means. Help me understand.” We may not get enlightenment at that moment, but we will have taken the best action we can take, and can release the matter into God’s hands.
At some point, a new way of seeing that particular issue may dawn on us, and in the meantime we will have invited the Spirit of God more deeply into our hearts. That's a win/win.
5-24-21 - Interviewing Jesus
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
It feels like we’ve been here before, and recently, with Jesus and Nicodemus and their theological discussion about spirit and flesh, comprehension and new birth. Is it already time for a rerun?
So says the Lectionary. And one beauty of Scripture, if we’re open to it, is that it never says exactly the same thing, because we’re never in exactly the same space when we receive it. We could spend a year on this passage and not exhaust its meaning. So let’s have another look at this conversation, and explore how it might illuminate the mysteries of the Triune God for us.
Maybe we should start by treating it as story, not as theology. What if we enter this as a story we’ve never heard. Who are the main characters? What do we know about them?
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Okay, so we know this Nicodemus is a leader of Jews, and that he is a Pharisee. A little research tells us the Pharisees were a sect of Jews known for their fidelity to the Law and to holiness. Though we find in the Gospels many contentious encounters between Jesus and Pharisees, and Jesus is quoted as being highly critical of what he perceived to be the hypocrisy and heavy-handedness of many Pharisees, their goals were honorable: to keep God’s law in every particular and so reflect the holiness and righteousness of God.
Beyond this, we're told little about Nicodemus, but that he was a person who chose to come and see Jesus at night instead of in the broad light of day. Was he too busy during the day? Or was Jesus too surrounded by crowds by day? Or did Nicodemus not want to be seen?
And who is this Jesus he came to see? Nicodemus labels him a teacher, from God, who can do amazing miracles. (What we call miracles, John’s gospel terms “signs.”) So we can infer that he is a holy person, someone with authority, and probably pretty special to be sought out by a man of Nicodemus’ standing. Nicodemus wants to learn something: it appears that he wants to know, for himself, whether or not this strange man, so holy and powerful, yet so dismissive of religious traditions and so open to people who are sick, sinful, or both, is for real: Is he really God-sent?
Isn’t that what we’d like to know too, we who have put our faith in a man we’ve never met in flesh, in a story that we tell and re-tell because we’ve seen its power to open the human heart? Don't we want to know Jesus is for real?
Imagine you are Nicodemus. You want to find out more about this Jesus you’re pretty sure is the Real Thing. You find a time and a place where you can talk with him face to face. Set that up in your imagination - where are you?
What do you say? What does he say?
It feels like we’ve been here before, and recently, with Jesus and Nicodemus and their theological discussion about spirit and flesh, comprehension and new birth. Is it already time for a rerun?
So says the Lectionary. And one beauty of Scripture, if we’re open to it, is that it never says exactly the same thing, because we’re never in exactly the same space when we receive it. We could spend a year on this passage and not exhaust its meaning. So let’s have another look at this conversation, and explore how it might illuminate the mysteries of the Triune God for us.
Maybe we should start by treating it as story, not as theology. What if we enter this as a story we’ve never heard. Who are the main characters? What do we know about them?
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Okay, so we know this Nicodemus is a leader of Jews, and that he is a Pharisee. A little research tells us the Pharisees were a sect of Jews known for their fidelity to the Law and to holiness. Though we find in the Gospels many contentious encounters between Jesus and Pharisees, and Jesus is quoted as being highly critical of what he perceived to be the hypocrisy and heavy-handedness of many Pharisees, their goals were honorable: to keep God’s law in every particular and so reflect the holiness and righteousness of God.
Beyond this, we're told little about Nicodemus, but that he was a person who chose to come and see Jesus at night instead of in the broad light of day. Was he too busy during the day? Or was Jesus too surrounded by crowds by day? Or did Nicodemus not want to be seen?
And who is this Jesus he came to see? Nicodemus labels him a teacher, from God, who can do amazing miracles. (What we call miracles, John’s gospel terms “signs.”) So we can infer that he is a holy person, someone with authority, and probably pretty special to be sought out by a man of Nicodemus’ standing. Nicodemus wants to learn something: it appears that he wants to know, for himself, whether or not this strange man, so holy and powerful, yet so dismissive of religious traditions and so open to people who are sick, sinful, or both, is for real: Is he really God-sent?
Isn’t that what we’d like to know too, we who have put our faith in a man we’ve never met in flesh, in a story that we tell and re-tell because we’ve seen its power to open the human heart? Don't we want to know Jesus is for real?
Imagine you are Nicodemus. You want to find out more about this Jesus you’re pretty sure is the Real Thing. You find a time and a place where you can talk with him face to face. Set that up in your imagination - where are you?
What do you say? What does he say?
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