(By Jody)
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
There are many reasons to be glad to live in this day and age, in New Zealand.
Antibiotics
Immunisations
Heart surgeons
Sewage systems
Internet
Human rights.
But there is one reason, and probably only one (since they had it tough) to envy the early church. No doctrine of the Trinity. Imagine!
To talk of God, Father, Jesus, Lord, Son, Spirit, Wisdom, Word, without any possibility of heresy!
Paul’s not writing these few verses, the end of “Second Corinthians” in our bibles, to make a comment on “the Trinity”. If he was, he’d have egg on his face, because he hasn’t actually covered the Trinity. He talks of God, and Christ Jesus, and the Spirit. But he doesn’t mention the Father. Funnily enough I do the same thing. Using “Father” reinforces male images of God, and God is not a male, so I’ll often talk of God when “Father” would be more appropriate. Paul, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t share my concerns, but simply doesn’t feel the need to mention the Father here – and it’s totally fine. There will be no Trinity to worry about for three hundred years or so.
For all that freedom from anxiety provoked by the doctrine of the Trinity might be desirable, I don’t envy Paul at all.
He writes to a troubled context in the church at Corinth. These people have been very close to him, he has meant a lot to them, and they mean a lot to him, but the church has been scrapping among themselves, snipping at him, looking to new teachings, and generally loosing their grasp on the good news of Jesus Christ, as Paul understands it.
Paul would love see the brokenness within the church, and the brokenness between him and the church, mended.
Second Corinthians is probably two letters stuck together. Which is not important here, except to explain why I’m referring only to chapters 10 to 13, which were probably separate from chapters 1 to 12 to start with. These chapters make pretty grim reading. Here are some key words from the NIV headings:
Paul’s defence
Paul and the false apostles
Paul boasts, about his sufferings
Paul’s thorn
Paul’s concern
Final warnings.
Given all this, it’s surprising to come to end of all this and hear “Finally brothers and sisters, rejoice”!
(And perhaps this is why some translations choose “farewell” instead of “rejoice”, though apparently rejoice is the more common meaning.)
It’s an oddly optimistic end-note, given the preceding material – pain and reprimand and correction: Rejoice.
And he urges the troubled church to put things in order, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace.
How dare he? How does he have the audacity to end with rejoicing and such an idyllic vision of community, having just defended himself and his ministry, warned them about being lured by false teachers, outlined in some detail his sufferings, admitted his weakness, expressed concern about the quarrelling, jealousy, anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder among them?! Is he deluded? Does he feel compelled to close with something trite but cheerful?
He dares because he believes God is active: moving among the bumbling Christians at Corinth, transforming hearts, transforming lives, transforming relationships.
God is always moving, and anything is possible because of this.
Paul does not picture a solid block of God, sitting like a monument in their midst. Paul recognises that looking to God requires shifting from here to there to there – from Jesus Christ who came to this world, and is Lord, to God’s starting point and ending point of love, to the Spirit who connects with each person, and connects each person to others…
I’ve been thinking the last few months about how photos of kids never capture fully how fantastic they are. I see my boys in what appears to be repose and think, perfect photo! But my photos never capture the moment I experienced. Because a photo lacks movement, and even the minuscule movement of sparkly eyes changes the scene.
Israel has always had the conviction that God is a living God. They were not to make images of God, not to try and solidify or contain God. God must not be fixed in place, to display and admire.
And Paul wants to maintain the reality of a living, moving God.
This is how Paul has the audacity to evoke rejoicing. He believes God is moving, God’s people are moving, and lives and life together are being transformed.
People in community can be tedious. We’ve all known it at some stage in our lives, and Paul has known it in Corinth. But with the belief that God is living, moving, comes the belief that a difficult situation can have life breathed into it too.
Trinity is shorthand for this all this. In the claim to a Triune God we refuse to monumentalise and solidify God. We acknowledge in our language that God is experienced as movement. There is not one way, time, place, we point and say “that and that alone is God”. Even our “big” events – the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus of the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, require a sense of God here and yet here too, active in this way but in this way too.
We celebrate Easter, and Jesus’ life that leads to death that leads to life.
We celebrate Ascension, and how God is changed by Jesus.
We celebrate Pentecost, and how we are equipped to continue Christ.
And when we come Trinity Sunday, we don’t then lock it all down into a doctrine – we celebrate the many places and ways God has been and could be.
Trinitarian language is only as useful as its ability to call us back to our experiences of the liveliness of God. Our sometimes clumsy and confusing Trinitarian language keeps us alert to God’s movement.
Paul recommends his audience greet each other with a holy kiss. It made me immediately think of the Hongi – touching foreheads and sharing breath. We remember the story of how God first breathed life into humanity, and we know the living God lives among us still.
Which is at least as important as the doctrine of the Trinity.
I invite you to ponder this prayer as a meditation on how we know God through many moments and events, diverse activity and movement. (From: Gathering for Worship, 2012, p 394)
Living Love, beginning and end, giver of food and drink, clothing and warmth, love and hope: life in all its goodness
we praise and adore you.
Jesus, Wisdom and Word; lover of outcasts, friend of the poor; one of us, yet one with God; crucified and risen: life in the midst of death
we praise and adore you.
Holy Spirit, storm and breath of love; bridge-builder, eye-opener, unseen and unexpected, untameable energy of life
we praise and adore you.
Holy Trinity, forever one, whose nature is community; source of all movement, in whom we love, and meet, and know our neighbour: life in all its fullness, making all things new
we praise and adore you.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
There are many reasons to be glad to live in this day and age, in New Zealand.
Antibiotics
Immunisations
Heart surgeons
Sewage systems
Internet
Human rights.
But there is one reason, and probably only one (since they had it tough) to envy the early church. No doctrine of the Trinity. Imagine!
To talk of God, Father, Jesus, Lord, Son, Spirit, Wisdom, Word, without any possibility of heresy!
Paul’s not writing these few verses, the end of “Second Corinthians” in our bibles, to make a comment on “the Trinity”. If he was, he’d have egg on his face, because he hasn’t actually covered the Trinity. He talks of God, and Christ Jesus, and the Spirit. But he doesn’t mention the Father. Funnily enough I do the same thing. Using “Father” reinforces male images of God, and God is not a male, so I’ll often talk of God when “Father” would be more appropriate. Paul, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t share my concerns, but simply doesn’t feel the need to mention the Father here – and it’s totally fine. There will be no Trinity to worry about for three hundred years or so.
For all that freedom from anxiety provoked by the doctrine of the Trinity might be desirable, I don’t envy Paul at all.
He writes to a troubled context in the church at Corinth. These people have been very close to him, he has meant a lot to them, and they mean a lot to him, but the church has been scrapping among themselves, snipping at him, looking to new teachings, and generally loosing their grasp on the good news of Jesus Christ, as Paul understands it.
Paul would love see the brokenness within the church, and the brokenness between him and the church, mended.
Second Corinthians is probably two letters stuck together. Which is not important here, except to explain why I’m referring only to chapters 10 to 13, which were probably separate from chapters 1 to 12 to start with. These chapters make pretty grim reading. Here are some key words from the NIV headings:
Paul’s defence
Paul and the false apostles
Paul boasts, about his sufferings
Paul’s thorn
Paul’s concern
Final warnings.
Given all this, it’s surprising to come to end of all this and hear “Finally brothers and sisters, rejoice”!
(And perhaps this is why some translations choose “farewell” instead of “rejoice”, though apparently rejoice is the more common meaning.)
It’s an oddly optimistic end-note, given the preceding material – pain and reprimand and correction: Rejoice.
And he urges the troubled church to put things in order, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace.
How dare he? How does he have the audacity to end with rejoicing and such an idyllic vision of community, having just defended himself and his ministry, warned them about being lured by false teachers, outlined in some detail his sufferings, admitted his weakness, expressed concern about the quarrelling, jealousy, anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder among them?! Is he deluded? Does he feel compelled to close with something trite but cheerful?
He dares because he believes God is active: moving among the bumbling Christians at Corinth, transforming hearts, transforming lives, transforming relationships.
God is always moving, and anything is possible because of this.
Paul does not picture a solid block of God, sitting like a monument in their midst. Paul recognises that looking to God requires shifting from here to there to there – from Jesus Christ who came to this world, and is Lord, to God’s starting point and ending point of love, to the Spirit who connects with each person, and connects each person to others…
I’ve been thinking the last few months about how photos of kids never capture fully how fantastic they are. I see my boys in what appears to be repose and think, perfect photo! But my photos never capture the moment I experienced. Because a photo lacks movement, and even the minuscule movement of sparkly eyes changes the scene.
Israel has always had the conviction that God is a living God. They were not to make images of God, not to try and solidify or contain God. God must not be fixed in place, to display and admire.
And Paul wants to maintain the reality of a living, moving God.
This is how Paul has the audacity to evoke rejoicing. He believes God is moving, God’s people are moving, and lives and life together are being transformed.
People in community can be tedious. We’ve all known it at some stage in our lives, and Paul has known it in Corinth. But with the belief that God is living, moving, comes the belief that a difficult situation can have life breathed into it too.
Trinity is shorthand for this all this. In the claim to a Triune God we refuse to monumentalise and solidify God. We acknowledge in our language that God is experienced as movement. There is not one way, time, place, we point and say “that and that alone is God”. Even our “big” events – the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus of the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, require a sense of God here and yet here too, active in this way but in this way too.
We celebrate Easter, and Jesus’ life that leads to death that leads to life.
We celebrate Ascension, and how God is changed by Jesus.
We celebrate Pentecost, and how we are equipped to continue Christ.
And when we come Trinity Sunday, we don’t then lock it all down into a doctrine – we celebrate the many places and ways God has been and could be.
Trinitarian language is only as useful as its ability to call us back to our experiences of the liveliness of God. Our sometimes clumsy and confusing Trinitarian language keeps us alert to God’s movement.
Paul recommends his audience greet each other with a holy kiss. It made me immediately think of the Hongi – touching foreheads and sharing breath. We remember the story of how God first breathed life into humanity, and we know the living God lives among us still.
Which is at least as important as the doctrine of the Trinity.
I invite you to ponder this prayer as a meditation on how we know God through many moments and events, diverse activity and movement. (From: Gathering for Worship, 2012, p 394)
Living Love, beginning and end, giver of food and drink, clothing and warmth, love and hope: life in all its goodness
we praise and adore you.
Jesus, Wisdom and Word; lover of outcasts, friend of the poor; one of us, yet one with God; crucified and risen: life in the midst of death
we praise and adore you.
Holy Spirit, storm and breath of love; bridge-builder, eye-opener, unseen and unexpected, untameable energy of life
we praise and adore you.
Holy Trinity, forever one, whose nature is community; source of all movement, in whom we love, and meet, and know our neighbour: life in all its fullness, making all things new
we praise and adore you.
