(Preached on Sunday, May 30, 2010)
“… I was right there with him, making sure everything always enjoying his company, delighted with the world of things and creature, happily celebrating the human family.” -Proverbs 8:30-31
Jenny pleaded with her father, “I’m scared in the dark, Daddy. Please come sit with me until I fall asleep.” “But Jenny, God is there with you even I the dark,” he said. “I know that, Daddy, but I want someone beside me with skin on.” Jenny expresses in her own way what we all desire in our relationship with God. We need images, a fleshing out of abstract language about God who is wholly Other, genderless, “skinless,” remote from our experience. This, believe it or not, is actually what the Christian language about the Trinitarian nature of God is trying to do.
The mystery we call God is truly beyond all our images, all our words, and all our understandings. This is true not just for Christians, but for all religions. Jewish believers maintain their awareness of the wholly other nature of God by refusing to use the name of God, or any name for God. The followers of Islam believe it to be blasphemy to create any image of Allah and precede and follow any mention of Allah with the phrase “praised be his name.” Nor is Trinitarian imagery unique to Christianity. Hinduism has a Trimurti, a three-fold understanding of divine functioning expressed through the gods of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver or maintainer, and Shiva, the destroyer or transformer. Not quite an understanding of God as Trinity, but more a Triad of Gods. For Christians, Trinity is our way of imaging the unimaginable, naming the unnamable, speaking about the ineffable; or, in Jenny’s words, of putting skin on skinless spirit.
As we have worked with this concept of trinity down through the centuries various Christian believers have attempted to put some “skin” on this concept of trinity as well. One very well-known image is an icon painted in 1425 by the Russian, Andrei Rublev. It shows the three angels who came to visit Abraham and Sarah seated at a table. Traditional understanding is the icon represents the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The arrangement of the icon is such that the viewer is invited to become the fourth member of the circle around the table. It is a visual invitation to communion with God.
Another image for the Trinity is that of a dance. The theological term to describe the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the Greek word, perichoresis which is actually describing a dance between these three persons, a graceful movement of love, attentiveness, and acute awareness of each of the others.
What we begin to understand is that Trinity is by no means a static concept but rather an audacious symbol throwing its nets of words and images over the inner life of God. The understanding this idea is trying to convey is that within God’s self, God is ever in relationship. This passage from the Book of Proverbs describes another image for the idea of God being in relationship from the very beginning of creation. Here the image is of Lady Wisdom, the first creation of God and then the guiding principal for God in all of creation. Wisdom, of course, is more than a lifelong project; it’s a relationship, something of the heart and not just the mind, because the heart knows things in a different way than our mind does. The Trinitarian formula demonstrates that the nature of God is closer to a loving community than to a lofty individuality. The highest form of existence, of personal being, is communal. God is communal. A choir singing at perfect pitch and in perfect harmony is closer to a definition of God than a lone soloist singing his heart out.
If this is the God we worship, then true greatness lies in the direction of community rather than in self-sufficient individuality. We will find the true meaning of being a person in fellowship. The church community reflects God (or should!) far better than a lone minister or priest, no matter how gifted that pastor may happen to be. Individualism is the way of limitation, diminishment, and death. Growth takes place when we give to others and receive from others; when we know we need them and they need us.
This is what Esther learned in her journey. She initially tried to react to her difficult times as an individual, separating herself from her Jewish heritage and believing she could function as a solo individual, safe within the King’s family. However, her cousin Mordecai reminded her that she was a part of that community, whether she wanted to be or not, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not, and her fate would rest with the fate of the community. He reminded her that as a member of that community she had a responsibility to do all she could for the good of the community and he pointed out that she was particularly well positioned, as the wife of the King, to possibly make a significant difference for the welfare of the Jewish people.
Once Mordecai held that mirror before Esther’s face, she knew she could not live as though she was an individual without any communal connections or responsibilities. But she also knew she could not act alone. So, she called upon the energy and support of her entire Jewish community to be with her in solidarity, to fast with her and to pray with her, seeking God’s strength and blessing, for her action. Esther demonstrates the nature of community. It takes each member doing his or her part for the community to prosper, but it also takes the collected support and energy of the community to enable each member to successfully exercise his or her own talents and gifts for the good of the community. There is a synergy and a power greater than the collective power of the members of the community at work here.
Community as a value is at the heart of the universe. It began in the very core of God’s nature and thus is normative for the best of human lifestyle, as “Lady Wisdom” shows. A powerful example of this is found in Ernest Gordon’s book To End All Wars. It is the true tale of what took place in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp made famous by the movie The Bridge over the River Kwai. The camp stood at the end of the infamous Bataan death march which brought Allied soldiers deep into the jungles of Asia. Few would survive, and everyone knew it. In order to make the best of a terrible situation they teamed up in pairs, each watching out for a buddy.
One prisoner was a strapping six-foot-three fellow built like a tower of iron. If any could come out of this alive, all felt he would. That was before his buddy got malaria. The smaller fellow was much weaker, and very likely to die. Their captors did not want to deal with sickness, so anyone who was unable to work was confined in a “hothouse” until he succumbed to heat exhaustion, dehydration, and the collapse of his bodily systems.
The sick man was locked into a hothouse and left to die. Surprisingly, he did not die, because every mealtime his strong buddy went out to him, under curses and threats from the guards, and shared his meager rations. Every night, his strong buddy sneaked from the prison barracks, braved the watchful eyes above that held guns of death, and brought his own slim blanket to cover the fevered convulsions of the sick man.
At the end of two weeks, the sick man astounded the guards by recovering well enough to be able to return to work. He even survived the entire camp experience and lived to tell about it. His buddy, however – the strong man all thought invincible – died very shortly of malaria, exposure, and dysentery. He had given his life to save his friend.
The story does not end there. When Allied troops liberated that camp at the close of the war in the Pacific, virtually every prisoner was a Christian. There was a symphony orchestra in camp, with instruments made of the crudest materials. There were worship services every Sunday, and the death toll was far lower than any expected. All this was because of the silent testimony made by a strong man toward his buddy facing death. There is much that pretends to be wise in our world, but nothing can match the profound wisdom of God-inspired community and the strength of true mercy.
God doesn’t want us to go it alone. God did not go it alone, but from the beginning, has always found community, with Lady Wisdom, with the Word, which eventually became flesh, and with human beings. God created us for community. When we seek our place in relationship to God and in relationship to one another, when we engage fully in the life of community, we will then find the strength, energy and power to live in difficult times. God wants to use us to bless others, to help others heal, and to let others see God through us. As we think this week and pray about what God is asking us to do to financially support God’s work in this church, let us remember it is all about community. God has called us here, to this particular place, for such a time as this. God is in this place with us. All we have to do is give up control and dive into God, where we will find ourselves in the middle of God’s blessings.