May 31-John 3:1-17, Rom., 8:22-7, Ps. 29, Is. 6:1-8
This year, I am not even going to attempt to give a doctrinal discussion of the doctrine of the trinity. All of our readings speak of a complex God at work in different ways/How do we encounter God,and how does God encounter us.
Is. 6:1-8, -this is a worship vision.It invokes a large God whose hem fills the temple area. (our sanctuary is larger than the temple area.Worship reaches for the ultimate, contact with the beyond.God, God is present in this place. God allows us the space to be in contact with the divine. worship is our response to a God we cannot grasp or control. We worship then a large complex god, not a small The Isaiah passage brings to light an important feature of discussion of divinity: holiness. .Holiness is distinct from the everyday, as it is in the realm of the sacred. In our time what does holiness mean in terms of separation for a special purpose?
In a related vein, how do you see the lips being touched, maybe purified by a coal from an altar. This could be a great place to discuss how we use our lips, or how we do not speak of God at all.
It brings up the related issue of transcendence, when we are in an immanent period.
The seraphim may well have been more fearsome than our domesticated imagination. William Placher bemoaned our puny religious imagination in an age when our imaginations are able to be seen with the magic of CGI in movies. “Human reason cannot figure its way to such a God, since a God we could figure out, a God fitted to the categories of our understanding, would therefore not be transcendent in an appropriately radical sense. We can know the transcendent God not as an object within our intellectual grasp..” Think of the bronze serpent with wings.
Glory has a sense of presence for me, but it also has a sense of gravity, weightiness, splendor as would befit the divine.
For Trinity Sunday, this is an image of a God who breaks all of our boundaries, a God who cannot be boxed in by our mental or emotional containers.
Psalm 29-I often sneer at people equating god with the beauty of a sunset alone, but with Ps. 19I do see the a handiwork of god in nature.
Some scholars see a link to Canaanite patterns of prayer reflected in this psalm. This shows the boldness of Hebrew worship as it was willing to use other models to proclaim a prayer.On the other hand, it shifts the image of Baal’s contest with the waters; they are mere instruments at god’s power.The storm language also resonates with the storm at Sinai before the giving of the 10 commandments. God’s power and purpose g can be glimpsed in nature.
Rom. 8:12-17 a god of interaction and sympathy with this creation, Paul says even God’s spirit cannot find words for interceding for us in our need.
John 3:1-17-new birth/life not to condemn but to save/heal. Perhaps that is a good divine image to consider. How does it affect the more punitive figure that lurks within many of us?Last week in John we read of the spirit as advocate, helper comforter.Placher spoke of a god of reckless love, who presence in the life of Jesus still confounds our capacity to fully grasp, even speak clearly about. Irt leaves Nicodemus stammering, how can this be? He is face to face with a love so divine that it is incarnate in this Jesus with his baffling words about new birth and Spirit.
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