Rahner’s rule (but ag/LaCugna) -God's mission is intertwined within and without
Pcusa God’s Love Overflowing with its emphasis on worship has a sense of
Lex orandi lex credendi (law of prayer is law of faith) got a lot of pushback in the death throes of the internal liberal and conservative struggle since the 60s.
We worship a large complex capacious God
Triple helix
Examine the elements of trinity toward the others in relationship Lose from Working Preacher-The three members of the Trinity do not -- cannot --define themselves over and against each other but in, with, and through each other. We do not define the Father as the One who is not the Son and who is not the Spirit (a typical set of binary power plays). Rather, we understand the Father in and through the Son and the Spirit. Or, even more radically, God the Father cannot be Father apart from Son and Spirit. It is Son and Spirit that give context for, make sense of, even make possible the Father. This mutual, free, and shared interdependence is a wholly different kind of relationship than those that govern our world.
God as trinitarian love see ND scholar-LaCugna-Living trinitarian faith means living God’s life: living from and for God, from and for others. ... Living trinitarian faith means living together in harmony and communion with every other creature in the common household of God... Living trinitarian faith means adhering to the gospel of healing fractured relationship-Trinity names how God is God for us. It reminds us that while we experience relationships as something that we are always either moving into or withdrawing from, God does not enter into relationships. Indeed, God does not have relationships at all; God is perfect relationship. "Moreover, if God is perfect relationship, and we are created in the image of God, then the doctrine of the Trinity is concerned with our life as well. We are called by divine God whose being is characterized by an eternal movement toward us, if you will, in redeeming love. Yet LaCugna also insisted that the Trinity names our graced movement toward God, grace to enter into that mode of loving relationship that defines God's very being.
God is love-distinct modes, aspects, of it, but still it is love.
The spirit of life
God unveiled in part in bible big complex elusive ineffable (sublime in hymn)
Holy Spirit as anonymous “person”
Use as ordination sermon
Hendry dialectic of ID and distinction
God open in relationship open to influence a la process
Tanner and Rowan Williams God not another being so can’t be compared-God not in competition with creation tanner uses non competitive power toward christian ethics
Please do not try to make it a mathematical relation of 3=1 and 1=3.
Richard Rohr seizes on a triad as involving participation and community in his Dance
Pcusa God’s Love overflowing-good on pg 10 perichoresis dance of relationships Perichoresis has gotten popular due to its dance image. It may well find its route in choreography, but more likely it comes from a sense of encompassing of making space for. If a dance, a circle dance perhaps. Bruce dancing in the dark, for in even trying to speak of God we will always fall short.
Its danger lies in imagining three people dancing, so it slides into tritheism
On the other hand we could isolate the dance itself with a couple nicely but still the danger is there, but looking at a mixture of a solo dance may work better. A Fred Astaire clip may work. Dance is movement, often a structured movement with elements of freedom. Moves with a beat, a rhythm.
It works toward the social Trinity of co-operation and mutuality, again as one is chary about separating the elements into 3 distinct, unrelated beings.
Show one of those dance clips beat, style-movement
If you are celebrating the Lord’s Supper on Trinity Sunday, this could be a great opportunity to speak of it in a Trinitarian fashion (see20-1 f God’s Love Overflowing)
Tanner and Rowan Williams- God not another being so can’t be compared-god not in competition with creation tanner uses non competitive power toward Christian ethics
Is. 6:1-8, -this is a worship vision. It invokes a large God whose hem fills the temple area. (church 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?
This could be a fine time to work with the transcendent God as a corrective to our God as buddy or instrument of our desires.
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.
Again, one could align this purification with congestion and Forgiveness in the liturgy.
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.
Brunner- “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..”
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.
The Isaiah passage brings to light an important feature of discussion of divinity: holiness. See David Willis. Notes on the Holiness of God, or the standard, Rudolph Otto’s book, The Idea of the Holy. In our time what does holiness mean in terms of separation for a purpose?
In a related vein, how do you see the lips being touched, maybe purified by a coal from an altar. Which 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.
To get a handle on holiness and clean/unlcean, boundaries could come into play.
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.
Here I am, send me. Is it always a good sign when someone is anxious to be a speaker for God?
I realize that it has not been long since we have encountered this passage, but perhaps we could consider its Trinitarian structure for Trinity Sunday.Jn 3:-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? Later in John 15,16 we read of the spirit as advocate, helper comforter. Placher spoke of a God of reckless love, whose presence in the life of Jesus still confounds our capacity to fully grasp, even speak clearly about. It 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.
John 3:16 has become a label. I am intrigued that it is selected as a Trinitarian reading, as it does include the work of God. here it goes beyond natural procreation to the divine rebirth through and in the spirit of God with all of its force beyond easy comprehension or control. We encounter aspects of God in different forms, but they are always related to each other. That is one of the foundation points for this sanctuary and our style of worship to approach the unapproachable god in ways that always realize that distance between the divine and the human
Spirit here is agent of new creation (hovering over the waters) born again/anew/from above
Compare 3:8 with Gen. 1, 2 and Ec. 11:5. Note that Jesus sees it as more free-wheeling.
Spirit as self-effacing, the go between, divine mediation -spirit points to the future and continues the sender and the Sent
One preaching wedge would be to use some prepositions God with us , for us, through us.
Rom. 8:12-17 (and extend if one wishes)-a god of interaction and sympathy with this creation, Paul later says even God’s spirit cannot find words for interceding for us in our need.
If you wish to do a doctrinal sermon, maybe one on sanctification as Trinitarian action. One could even search for a phrase that gets at its depth, as did Tillich with acceptance for justification.
We see the interaction of God’s work in this section, a weaving image may work well, as in intertwining.
We are brought within the Trinitarian orbit with this language of adoption. One could speak on the distinction of being born into something and adopted. That would fit the Reformed idea of election nicely.
Indwelling
Spirit of life
Spirit of guidance
Bearing witness with us We make a spiritual error if we insist that we can capture the ineffable one within our fragile minds and hearts.At the same time, the spirit allows us to co-operate with the purposes of God-co-operate, not fight against. Given fallen nature, one could speak of that capacity as a gift of the spirit, instead of being co-opted or in conflict with the ways of God.Abba is Aramaic for pappa. We have it on the lips of Jesus. I would guess that the Our Father, started as Abba.A term of intimacy, but it may be also a term of respect. Maybe a mixed community of Gentiles and Jews in the early Christian community is in itself a sign of harmony amid distinctions in the new community that reflects the “divine community.”
If you are looking for a lectionary reading for creation, here we are. In John 1, Jesus is the logos, the wisdom of God’s creative plan and work (see Prov. 8), and the Spirit “brooded over the waters” (Gen. 1) Ps. 29-Psalm 29 is considered to be ancient, an adaptation of a Canaanite hymn to Baal, a god of weather and fertility. Israel was bold enough in its theology to adapt a good prayer to its own use and place it in the five little books of the psalter itself. It sees nature as a vehicle for god in a display of awe-inspiring wonder.
(see NIB, p. 792)
Its global reach goes to both heavenly beings and to all peoples. One is left to wonder if these are angels, lesser gods, heavenly forces, stars. It sounds like the divine council perhaps of Job or Ps. 89.
My sense of ascribe to to offer what someone is due.
Glory is a tough one too, I tend to use it as a sense of God's holy presence. It has a sense of gravitas, of weight.
Worship here has the sense of bowing before the throne.
Voice is sometimes thunder, another sign of God's presence as in Exodus 19.
I tend toward seeing the waters mythically, as a sign of chaos, anything that opposes God's order.
Amidst all of the storms of life, God remains stable.
This has a rare use of the word flood (mabbul).
The blessing is shalom=peace, well=being, health, harmony.It has a creation/environment push for all of the world, not just the good, not just human beings, but creation.
The reflection question at 793 of the NIB is a good one on seeing creation material reminding us of our limits to power, especially technology or even fully understanding the intricacies of nature.
I often sneer at people equating god with the beauty of a sunset alone, but with Ps. 19, I do see the handiwork of God in nature. One could work with panentheism here as well as in “God in whom we live and move and have our being.”
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.
Mays is quoted from 138 of his Psalms Commentary. The linkage to baptism is appropriate. "Christology is not adequate unless is setting in cosmology is maintained. The OT doxology is necessary to the gospel." In other words, the incarnation and work of Jesus becomes the incarnation of God's glory, work, and goals.
For Trinity Sunday, one could see it as an example of worshipping a capacious god.
I assume the heavenly beings are more than angels. It reminds me of Ps. 89 or Job 1 where god is pictured as the CEO of lesser divinities. One could be bold and see this as an early entry in thoughts of divinity seen in different guises as well.
One could speak of the trinity of relation with God, each other, and with nature. See Douglas John Hall Imaging God.
Older pastors recall that Biblical studies drew a sharp contrast against linking God and nature. In an ecological age, this has changed. Indeed one could do a nice job on ecology as connections with creation.
