TRINITY SUNDAY

Matthew 28: 16-20 (Sermon 1: “Trinitarian Faith Today”)

2 Corinthians 13: 11-13 (Sermon 2: “Blessed Community”)

Genesis 1: 1 to 2: 4a

Psalm 8

PREPARATION

Welcome to worship on Trinity Sunday.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit

be with you all.

And also with you.

The Trinity is not a definition of God but a cry of faith

from the heart of the Christian experience.

A cry of trust and commitment,

a cry of love and adoration

Called by our Lord Jesus Christ,

inspired by the Holy Spirit,

blessed by an incomparable Father,

we come to worship one, holy God.

O God, our own God,

how wonderful is your name in all the earth.

Your majesty is the music of the starry skies.

yet even children of dust can sing your praises.

In the name of the Healer, the Provider and the Enabler

let your gratitude and joy be made known.

O God, our own God,

how wonderful is your name in all the earth!

PRAYER OF APPROACH

Most wonderful God, forever beyond our grasp

yet by love always within our reach

we approach you with confidence.

Most wonderful Christ, forever ahead of us in wisdom and love

yet by love always beside us,

we approach you with eagerness.

Most wonderful Spirit, forever larger than the whole universe

yet by love living in our hearts,

we approach you with delight and joy.

Please enable our worship to rise far higher than our intellect

and let our love to go much deeper than our feelings.

To your praise and glory: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God

to be ever loved, adored and served!

Amen!

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

No pretence or excuse is needed in the Presence of God; it is a relief to admit to God and to each other the part we play in either walking in evil ways our allowing it to spread without protest.

Let us pray.

Father of the lights of heaven, loving creator and sustainer of all things,

if we take you for granted or turn our backs on you,

please forgive us and save us;

and restore to us the joy of salvation.

Christ Jesus, Child of God and child of humanity,

if we neglect you or follow you timidly from a long way behind,

please forgive and save us;

and restore to us the joy of salvation.

Holy Spirit, Source of birth and rebirth, nurturer of the family of God,

if we reject your friendship to curry favour with the gods of contemporary fashion,

please forgive and save us;

and restore to us the joy of salvation.

Most loving God, origin and goal of communal love, please gather all your wandering children back to your side, restore to them their senses, and forgive their many sins. Reinforce within us the desire to do your will, and to participate in both your travail and joy as you bring nearer the fulfilment of your new creation. Through Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Amen

FORGIVENESS

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I proclaim to you the forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting!

Thanks be to God!

PSALM 8

Holy God, our most loving God,

awesome is your name in all the earth!

Your glory exceeds the universe and time,

in eternity your name is chanted with love;

yet here even infants and babies can praise you,

silencing arrogant adults and loud cynics

When I am out in the country at night,

and look up at your finger painting in the skies,

the moon, planets and the stunning Milky Way,

all of it there only because of you,

I ask myself what is it about human beings

that you have time for our worries,

what ever is it that is precious enough

for you to take such care of us?

It seems you have made us almost like gods,

crowning us with honour and responsibility.

You made us stewards of your handiwork;

the health of all creatures depends on us,

the herds of cattle and flocks of sheep,

kangaroo, emu, bilby and wombat,

eagle and blue wren, coral reef and dolphin,

and great whales that make paths in the sea.

Holy God, our loving God,

awesome is your name in all the earth!

Ó B D Prewer 2001

or see-: ‘Slightly Less than Gods’

in Australian Psalms: Ó Open Book Publishers

TRINITY

In the name of the Father

ex nihilo the big bang

hydrogen helium time and space

wondrous cosmic unfolding and shaping

leading to ants eagles dolphins and the human face.

In the name of the Son

love from the beginning

to Galilee Golgotha and Easter-where

Paul Monica Francis Theresa and Tutu

and common people in communities of loving care.

In the name of the Holy Spirit

mothering-love birth and rebirth

inflaming prophets and songsters

Pentecost overflowing and enabling

from Jerusalem, Quebec, Moscow and Perth.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

transcomsic Chorus in three voices

song of reconciliation and soaring joy

among creatures shaped from stellar dust

yet now on a crescendo which nothing can destroy.

Ó B D Prewer 2001

SERMON 1: TRINITARIAN FAITH TODAY

Matthew 28: 19

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, immersing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

God is a profound Deep, into which all our busy and clever words can fall without a sound.

In expressing myself thus, my mental picture is of myself as a boy throwing a stone down a deep well or disused mine, and savouring the time taken by that stone’s journey before I hear the distant splash. We can throw our wisest and most majestic words into the Mysterious Deep that is God, and they never touch bottom. There is no splash.

God is always a wonderful Mystery. I use “mystery’ not as a puzzle which clever minds can solve, like a detective story, but as an unchartable, indefinable Personal Reality. God the Mystery impinges on our lives but eludes our grasp. God is a Mystery who leaves us on our knees in wonder and awe.

In about the 13th century a Christian mystic, whose name we do not know, left a book about God which today is published as “The Cloud of Unknowing”. That was his, or her, way of attempting to describe the wonder of God, whose Mystery can never plumbed by mortal minds. In fact the closer we come to God, the greater is the shining darkness that confronts us and overwhelms us.

METAPHOR?

It seems to me that all our language about God is metaphor. Yahweh, Elohim, Lord; Allah, Krishna, Baiame; God the Father, God the Son. All these are human sounds and images which attempt to affirm that which is gloriously both immanent and yet transcendent. They are sounds and signs framed from within the Space/Time creation, this universe (in fact words from one small planet) to describe that which cannot be contained within space and time.

That is not to say that all these metaphors are either of no value, or that they possess equal value. Of course some words lead to more of the Truth than others!

Some of our metaphors come closer to mirroring small yet crucial aspects of the Mystery than other metaphors. For example: Father, or ‘Abba’ as Jesus called God, comes closer to mirroring the Holy Reality than does an abstraction like ‘the Uncaused Cause”, or more recently, “the No-thingness on the other side of the big bang”. Metaphors are not all of equal value. Other metaphors like Eternal Light, Peace, Joy, Friend, Lover, Brother, Sister, Counsellor, Saviour, Mother, may also carry a few ribbons of meaning for some of us.

So, appropriate humility about the words we use for God does not mean we are entirely ignorant. Metaphors can convey aspects of the truth, some carry more truth than others.

REVELATION

If what I have been trying to say “rings bells” for you, then there is immediately one consequence: revelation.

Anything we know about God can only be by God’s choice to reveal it. By ourselves we cannot unravel anything of the Mystery. Christianity, like the Jewish faith, is a religion of revelation. We have not discovered anything about God, but God has chosen to reveal elements of Divine Mystery to us.

The particular revelation that Christians hold in sacred trust is that which began with the ancient Jew Abraham, grew with Moses and Isaiah, blazed briefly but gloriously in Jesus, and burst free of the Jewish constraints on the day of Pentecost with the Christian community.

The early Christians started to sum up the essential elements of the revelation which was granted them, in the now familiar words: in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

They went out on mission as Jesus wanted them to, with the seeds of a Trinitarian God in their heads:

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, immersing them in the name

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

A little later in those early centuries, the church started to speak of the Trinity. They had come to know God as the great nurturing Father of Christ, and as the saving Son Jesus, and as the ever-present and inspiring Holy Spirit. They refused to let go of these three ways in which God been revealed. Yet being good Jews (at first, that is) they knew that God was One. Polytheism was anathema to them. Therefore the doctrine of the Holy Trinity came into being: One God in three Persons.

This was the cry of faith issuing from the soul of the early Church. It is not a definition of God. In fact these affirmations may only be a millionth part of the total glory of God. But these revelations are to be treasured, and they make all the difference to the way we live with God and for God.

It is when we use the formulae “One God in three persons” that things really get tricky for our contemporary agnostics. It appears illogical to many such people. And being ‘illogical’ is in these worldly-wise days a grievous fault, on par with a fellow still being a virgin at the age of eighteen years!

Too bad. Whether it appears illogical or, as I would claim, paradoxical, may be argued. But we stand with our early Christian sisters and brothers in celebrating the nurturing “Abbaness” of God, the redeeming “Jesusness” of God, and the enabling “Spiritedness” of God. One God, three Persons.

This may pose a problem in explaining ourselves to the world. But shouldn’t we expect a problem in trying to witness to the God who is the ultimate, loving Mystery? Our commission remains the same in this age as in any other:

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, immersing them in the name

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

INDIVIDUAL OR COMMUNAL?

Maybe, this “problem” is really a blessing. Maybe it can push us into considering whether the highest and most beautiful form of personal existence is communal rather than egocentric individuality.

For some years I have been teased by words from that lovely French, Christian mystic of the twentieth century, Teilhard de Chardin. On one occasion this Jesuit/scientist/theologian wrote about a flaw in the way the modern world saw things:

“Its mistake is one which causes it to aim in exactly the wrong direction. It is to

confuse individuality with personality.......

If we are to be fully ourselves we must

advance in the opposite direction, towards a convergence with all other beings.”

From these words of an intellectual giant to a simple personal reflection of my own. There are times when I am with my beloved Marie, maybe silently watching the sea, or lying side by side and holding hands in bed, or working beside her on some project, when our being seems more like one than two, and yet at the same time I am more truly my personal self than ever.

Is the highest form of personal life communal?

Ours is an egocentric age. When “post modern” people define themselves they do so over against everyone else. We want to do our own thing. We want to find ourselves. Others are just things to be used for our pleasure. We speak endlessly about “my rights.’ Rank individuality reigns.

In this situation are we moving closer to God or further away? Nearer to shining Reality or wandering out towards the darkening shadows like lost satellites in the universe?

Maybe Teilhard de Chardin was right; we have confused individuality with personality.

God in three Persons? Perhaps this points us to that communal personality which is the absolute Highest State of Life. Perhaps true Godliness here on earth only flowers in the communal experience. Perhaps this is the kind of joyful ongoing beyond death which we hint at when we speak of “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” Maybe “heaven” is entering far more deeply into the experience of communal love; into communal personality. And dare I say it, more and more into the communal experience of the Trinity.

SUMMARY

Let me run back over the journey I have taken in this sermon.

Launching point: God is a holy Deep, a Mystery where all our definitions and creeds fail.

First port: All language about God is metaphor; Nevertheless some metaphors are closer to

the truth than others.

Second port: The only knowledge we can have of God is that which God choses to reveal to

to humanity. Revelation is fundamental.

Third port: Christians treasure three wonders of God’s revelation: Father, Son and Holy

Spirit. God in three Persons, blessed Trinity; a community of One. This is holy paradox.

Fourth port: The paradox of the Trinity may be dimly echoed by our own experience; we can

know special times when communal personality is more beautiful and precious than

individuality.

Please do not be afraid of looking foolish in the presence of the Holy Deep whom we call God. That many can be one is a paradox. Triune God is a paradox. When speaking about God with pitifully inadequate earthbound words, paradox and metaphor will take us closer to the heart of truth than dry, clear sentences. Creator, Redeemer, Inspirer: One God, three persons, blessed Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Confess it boldly , yet confess it humbly , for when we have spoken our best, in our noblest poetry and prayer and creed, we have only touched the hem of the seamless garment of God.

*Much too long. Enough for 2 sermons. 2 briefer version follow.

SERMON 2: THE MOST BLESSED COMMUNITY

1 Corinthians 13:12-14

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all :

God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

Greet one another with a holy kiss The young church sounds like an extra special, blessed community to me.

COMMUNAL MIND?

Out in the wide, sunbrowned Australian countryside, I watch a flight of white corellas, maybe 500 to 1000 individuals in the one flock, wheeling this way and that, enjoying the very early morning sunshine on a December day. How do they know which way to turn? Is it because there is one leader whom they watch and follow with lightening reflexes? Or is it some form of elementary “group mind” which they share in this avian ballet performed above farmlands and over stands of eucalypts. If it is a group mind, then what special avian pleasure might derive from such harmony in flight?

Off the Queensland coast on a mild winter day I am snorkelling among a large school of small fish, numbering 10,000 at least. Like birds, they also move in harmony, this way and that, shallow or deep. They have no fear of me. I swim among the shining mass of blue-silver. It proves very difficult to split the school into two. When I think I have succeeded, the two streams have formed again into one body behind me. Again the question: are they following a leader or is some kind of basic group mind operating? And if it is a group mind, what piscine pleasure might they derive from this kind of harmony in movement?

I have been among a packed crowd of football followers gathered in a stadium to support their respective “tribes” in a preliminary final. My tribe was not represented at this event. There was an “esprit de corps” among those supporters which made me jealous. It was as if some kind of group mind was operating, and the shout that went up as the ball was put into play had almost a credal “Amen” to it. Later, a friend whose team was one of the finalists responded to my questioning by sheepishly confiding that the sense of unity he felt at that moment was akin to a sense of God.

What about choirs, pop groups and orchestras? When they get it all together, do they experience a sense of group mind? I have missed out on the pop group and orchestra, but at one time I did have the joy of sharing in a male voice choir. I know what it is to feel in complete harmony with a group creating the one happening. It holds a delight that exceeds an individual performance.

A few years back, one gifted young musician who played base (and sometimes oboe or clarinet) in a group, shared with me how some evenings while performing, their group would divert into a variation without any pre-planning or discernible leadership. He claimed it was the most awesome experience available to a musician.

There are some anthropologists who contend that in earlier communities (earlier than the culture that has evolved from the time of the renaissance) the sense of belonging to a tribe or group was more basic than the awareness of individuality. They suggest that it provided a sense of personal satisfaction and fulfilment which is largely absent in the me-centred lives of individuals in contemporary society. Some wonder whether there was something akin to a tribal mind in operation.

A school teacher friend of mine, who taught in a remote town in an outback aboriginal homeland, was humble enough to make himself like a student in the language and cultural activities of that community. After a few months of carefully observing him, they accepted and trusted him. He was allocated a place in the tribal family structure, many of his new sisters and brothers going out of the way to affirm him and built up his sense of belonging.

Some years later, he still mused over aspects their culture and spirituality. Among the experiences he cannot explain, is how decisions were made. If it were “men’s business, he would sit on the ground with the men in a circle. They would talk around and around the issue, for an evening; maybe successive evenings. Then suddenly without any attempt at drawing together conclusions, and certainly with no vote having been taken, they would suddenly stand up and go to implement the decision that had been made. He never know how or when they arrived at that common mind. It seemed to happen at a mental level to which he was “deaf”. Although he felt loved and respected, he would have dearly treasured being able to participate in that “common mind.” But it eluded him.

COMMUNITY

What am I getting at with these stories?

The Trinity, that’s what. The doctrine of the Trinity, assumes ultimate Community. A thrice personal God.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all

Into which the church is gathered by the work of the Spirit.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

Blessed community.

I am not claiming this idea of community was the main reason for the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The holy obsession of those early theologians was to affirm and safeguard the revelation that had been granted to those who had been with Jesus. They believed there was only one God; one ruling and integrating power in heaven and on earth. Yet that one God had been revealed itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There was no way they were prepared to shift from that treasured revelation. They celebrated both the unity of God and the revealed three Persona of the Godhead.

It is likely the people who framed the doctrine were living in a world where this sense of communal identity, or “group mind,” was still present. A world where a man or woman defined and experienced themselves as a certain family, tribe, or village, before thinking of their individuality. Therefore they may not have had our intellectual difficulties with the concept of three in one. We have become fiercely (and perhaps destructively) individualistic.

Maybe what seems to the self-sufficient men and women of today to be illogical theological nonsense (God in three Persons, Blessed Trinity. What irrational gobbledegook! How can one be three and three be one?) was eminently sensible to those early Christians whose sense of community identity was stronger than their individual identity. They knew that belonging to a comm-unity did not lesson personality but enhanced it.

Maybe the fellowship (koinonia) of the church lifted their group mindedness to another level of wonder and joy. Maybe the loftiest way they could express their worship of God, was in terms of comm-unity of a thrice personal God rather than one isolated Supreme Individual.

The word fellowship, koinonia in Greek , carried the meaning of sharing. Sharing in a marriage, sharing in a meal, sharing in medical practice, sharing in an adventure. For me, one of the most helpful usages of the word koinonia was for shareholders in a business. I like to apply that understanding to various passages.

Among the eighteen times the word koinonia is used in the New Testament, we have texts where it is a shareholding (koinonia) in Christ, a shareholding in the Spirit, and shareholding in God. For example, twice St Paul specifically speaks of our shareholding in the Spirit. The First Letter of John, chapter 1, verse 3 speaks of: “our shareholding is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Fellowship belongs to the very nature of God. When we are incorporated into the church, and we are sharing something of the true nature of God, We are delivered from the stark solitary ways of individualism. Through God, we are linked to each other, the members of the one body.

We become members of that one body, the church, which at its inception “held all things in common.”

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all.

FLASHES OF TRUE COMMUNITY

The rank individualism in our contemporary culture has infected all of us to some degree. It has sorely impaired the quality of our Christian fellowship.

We do experience flashes of the true koinonia. We have known times while singing praise together we have experience a blessed koinonia. Sometimes we experience it in prayer. Sometimes in giving aid to one another, sometimes in a combined outreach to the needy in the world around us. Yet for much of the time we live like self contained individuals who intellectually hold a belief in common, and politely greet each other once a week in a church building, before returning to our isolated lives.

Yet there is supposed to be an important interaction between our fellowship with God and with one another. We ignore it at our peril.

Whenever we let go of our egocentricity and we share in the fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it opens us up to deeper fellowship with those around us in the church. Whenever we truly enter into the joys and sorrows of our fellows, it enhances our fellowship with God.

Conversely, whenever we become preoccupied with ourselves and slide sideways from God, we become indifferent or harshly critical of others around us in the church; true fellowship withers dies. Or whenever we withdraw our real caring from those around us, we find we have also lost a sense of communion with God; fellowship withers and dies.

The doctrine of the Trinity points to a whole new way of life for those who are redeemed.

John’s first letter starkly expresses this truth in another way. “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love each other. He who does not love, remains in death.”

TRINTIY VERSUS RANK INDIVIDUALISM

Maybe the stories with which I began take some of us simple folk closer to our understanding of the Trinity than all the carefully constructed layers of intellectual argument laboriously constructed by theologians. Maybe flocks or corellas and schools of fish, or the occasional common-mind we experience at sporting events, or the unspoken, shared decisions made by those aboriginal communities that are still in touch with their spiritual heritage, point us towards the true nature of our God.

For my part, the older I become, the more I find myself distrusting the rampant individualism of Western Society, largely motivated by capitalist greed and consumerism. I believe the emphasis on the individual at the expense of community, is more a disease than a virtue. Even the shrill cries about “my rights” and “duty of care” (which in some cases have validity) too easily degrade into individualistic extremism, leading to the break up of the remaining vestiges of community.

Perhaps we have made individualism into an idol? Those who worship idols perish.

Individualism erodes the quality of life. It isolates many poor souls. Although they may be surrounded by crowds, huddled in cities, and enveloped in noisy music and the gabbling radio voices, they are chronically lonely.

Rank individualism breaks up marriages and destroys families and communities. It makes people hungry for some form of restored community. So hungry that even the ephemeral moments of togetherness experienced at a football final is the nearest thing to comm-unity which they know.

Individualism has led to the increasing fragmentation of the church. In the same era when a few older denominations have come together, either in formal union ( as in our Uniting Church in Australia) or in patterns of close working together (as in joint Anglican-Uniting parishes, or the many ecumenical Bible study groups) new sects and denominations are rising up every day. Individualism is a dangerous, and foolish, way of living life.

We need to return to our God.

To the wonderful God who is revealed to us in the Bible. To the faith that inspired in the early Christian the doctrine of the Trinity.

The fellowship of the church, in God and with each other, where koinonia is a fact- not just a pious cliché- gives us a taste of that true community which is truly is of God. It derives from the very personal nature of God. A sharing in God’s sharing. .

Echoing the fabled St Patrick, I bind unto myself this day, the strong name of the Trinity.

I bind unto myself this day

the strong name of the Trinity.

The Creator’s gifts of earth and sky,

the flowing creeks and fertile land,

the winter sun and summer moon,

the roaring sea and golden sand.

I bind unto myself this day

the Christ who wears our human clay.

The Baby sleeping in a stall,

the Healer touching our disease,

the Man of love upon the Cross,

the risen Friend who hears our pleas.

I bind unto myself this day

the Spirit who is here to stay.

The Breath that makes the broken whole,

the Truth that flows like liquid light,

the Wind that sweeps my dusty soul,

the Fire that warms the darkest night.

I bind unto myself this day

the Fellowship that’s our mainstay.

The Love that holds us all in thrall,

the Love than links us one and all,

the Peace that sweeps away our fears,

the Joy that wipes away all tears.

From now unto infinity,

The strong name of the Trinity.

(Ó B D Prewer. Inspired by St Patrick)

BRIEF SERMON 1/ : THE MOST BLESSED COMMUNITY

1 Corinthians 13:12-14

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all :

God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

Greet one another with a holy kiss The young church sounds like an extra special, blessed community to me.

COMMUNAL MIND?

Some years later, he still mused over aspects their culture and spirituality. Among the experiences he cannot explain, is how decisions were made. If it were “men’s business, he would sit on the ground with the men in a circle. They would talk around and around the issue, for an evening; maybe on successive evenings. Then suddenly without any attempt at drawing together conclusions, and certainly with no vote having been taken, they would suddenly stand up and go to implement the decision that had been made. He never know how or when they arrived at that common mind. It seemed to happen at a mental level to which he was “deaf”. Although he felt loved and respected, he would have dearly treasured being able to participate in that “common mind.” But it eluded him.

COMMUNITY

What am I getting at with these stories?

The Trinity, that’s what. The doctrine of the Trinity, assumes ultimate Community. A thrice personal God.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all

Into which the church is gathered by the work of the Spirit.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

Blessed community.

TRINTIY VERSUS RANK INDIVIDUALISM

Perhaps we have made individualism into an idol? Those who worship idols perish.

We need to return to our God.

To the wonderful God who is revealed to us in the Bible. To the faith that inspired in the early Christian the doctrine of the Trinity.

Echoing the fabled St Patrick, I bind unto myself this day, the strong name of the Trinity.

I bind unto myself this day

the strong name of the Trinity.

The Creator’s gifts of earth and sky,

the flowing creeks and fertile land,

the winter sun and summer moon,

the roaring sea and golden sand.

I bind unto myself this day

the Christ who wears our human clay.

The Baby sleeping in a stall,

the Healer touching our disease,

the Man of love upon the Cross,

the risen Friend who hears our pleas.

I bind unto myself this day

the Spirit who is here to stay.

The Breath that makes the broken whole,

the Truth that flows like liquid light,

the Wind that sweeps my dusty soul,

the Fire that warms the darkest night.

I bind unto myself this day

the Fellowship that’s our mainstay.

The Love that holds us all in thrall,

the Love than links us one and all,

the Peace that sweeps away our fears,

the Joy that wipes away all tears.

From now unto infinity,

The strong name of the Trinity.

(Ó B D Prewer. Inspired by St Patrick)

brief sermon 2. TRINITY FELLOWSHIP

1 Corinthians 13:12-14

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the saints greet you.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all :

God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

Greet one another with a holy kiss The young church sounds like an extra special, blessed community to me.

COMMUNAL MIND?

Out in the wide, sunbrowned Australian countryside, I watch a flight of white corellas, maybe 500 to 1000 individuals in the one flock, wheeling this way and that, enjoying the very early morning sunshine on a December day. How do they know which way to turn? Could it be some form of elementary “group mind” which they share? If it is a group mind, then what special avian pleasure might derive from such harmony in flight?

Among the experiences he cannot explain, is how decisions were made. If it were “men’s business, he would sit on the ground with the men in a circle. They would talk around and around the issue, maybe on successive evenings. Then suddenly without any attempt at drawing together conclusions, and certainly with no vote having been taken, they would suddenly stand up and go to implement the decision that had been made. He never know how or when they arrived at that common mind. It seemed to happen at a mental level to which he was “deaf”. Although he felt loved and respected, he would have dearly treasured being able to participate in that “common mind.” But it eluded him.

IS THAT A REFLECTION OF THE HOLY TRINITY?

I am not claiming this idea of community was the main reason for the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

We become members of that one body, the church, which at its inception “held all things in common.”

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

be with you all.

FLASHES OF TRUE COMMUNITY

The rank individualism in our contemporary culture has infected all of us to some degree. It has sorely impaired the quality of our Christian fellowship.

Yet there is supposed to be an important interaction between our fellowship with God and with one another. We ignore it at our peril.

Whenever we let go of our egocentricity and we begin to share in the fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it opens us up to deeper fellowship with those around us in the church. Whenever we truly enter into the joys and sorrows of our fellows, it enhances our fellowship with God.

Conversely, whenever we become preoccupied with ourselves and slide sideways from God, we become indifferent or harshly critical of others around us in the church; true fellowship withers and dies. Or whenever we withdraw our real caring from those around us, we find we have also lost a sense of communion with God; fellowship withers and dies.

The doctrine of the Trinity points to a whole new way of life for those who are redeemed.

John’s first letter starkly expresses this truth in another way. “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love each other. He who does not love, remains in death.”

God in three persons, blessed Trinity? Community is the best possible form of living. Stark individualism is a kind of death. If this Trinity Sunday recalls each of us to this Biblical enlightenment, then it will not have been a vain exercise in liturgical correctness.

PRAYERS FOR OTHERS

Our intercessions today centre around the theme of community.

Let us pray.

Holy Friend, for that small community we call our family, with its strengths that nurture or its faults that hurt and inhibit its unity, we ask for a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for that community we call the church universal, with its many loves and its numerous failures and even its scandals, we ask for a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for that community we call our circle of friends, with its times of harmony and mutual joy and its incidents of misunderstanding or neglect, we ask a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for those communities we call health centres, and hospitals and hospices for the dying, with their skill and compassion yet also their pride and folly, we ask a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for those communities we call schools and universities, where much knowledge is imparted but love is not on the syllabus, we ask your special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for that multi-ethnic community called our nation, with virtues that make us proud to be Australian. yet also with its prejudices and hurtful ways, we ask a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Friend, for that teeming community we call the world, rich with achievements for the good of all yet riven by greed, hatred, intolerance, injustice, arrogance, and war, we ask a special blessing.

Three-person’d God, join together your separated children.

Holy Father, thank you for sending your true Child Jesus to reconcile all things. By your Holy Spirit incite all people of faith and goodwill to strive untiringly for that communal harmony where the value of no one is denigrated, and where the gifts and successes of each person are celebrated with unstinted gratitude and joy. For your name’s sake.

Amen!

SENDING OUT

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I bless you.

Amen!

That the rich provisions of the Creator may be gratefully accepted and shared, I bless you.

Amen!

That the uncalculated love of the Redeemer may be fully trusted and shared, I bless you.

Amen!

That the undiluted fellowship of the Counsellor may be enjoyed and shared, I bless you.

Amen!

Go out from this church in peace and travel with humility and confidence.

Amen!

THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
    THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
              BY ORDERING ONLINE
    OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP

My Best Mate, (first edition 2013)

ISBN 978-1-937763-78-7: AUSTRALIA:

ISBN : 978-1-937763-79- 4: USA

Australian Prayers

Third edition May 2014

ISBN   978-1-62880-033-3 Australia

Jesus Our Future

Prayers for the Twenty First Century

Second Edition May 2014

ISBN 978-1-62880-032-6

Although this book was written with young people in mind, it has proved to be popular with Christians or seekers of all ages. Through the eyes and ears of a youth named Chip, big questions are raised and wrestled with; faith and doubt, unanswered prayers, refugees, death and grief, racism and bullying, are just a few of the varied topics confronted in these pages. Suitable as a gift to the young, and proven to be helpful when it has been used as a study book for adults.
Australian Prayers has been a valuable prayer resource for over thirty years. These prayers are suitable for both private and public use and continue to be as fresh and relevant today as ever. Also, the author encourages users to adapt geographical or historical images to suit local, current situations.

This collection of original, contemporary prayers is anchored firmly in the belief that no matter what the immediate future may hold for us, ultimately Jesus is himself both the goal and the shape of our future. He is the key certainty towards which the Spirit of God is inexorably leading us in this scientific and high-tech era. Although the first pages of this book were created for the turn of the millennium, the resources in this volume reflect the interests, concerns and needs of our post-modern world.