Trinity, Unity, Babel, Pentecost.
In the light of the revelation of Christ, the complaint of the Jews becomes, “You God, you gave us the Law, now you’re telling us we no longer need it – you’re letting into OUR religion a load of Gentiles who’ve never had the Law, while we’ve been doing our best to keep it these last ‘000s years; IT’S NOT FAIR!”
Paul has to tell the Jews, in Romans 9, that by the same mercy bestowed on the Gentiles, the Jews too will receive salvation when they likewise are justified by faith in Christ and so find peace with God. We are fully justified when we can truly say we are no longer doing the works of God out of a sense of duty, (“Oh dear, do I really have to go and visit old so-and-so”) but instead we can say I’m doing the work of God from my heart. Only then am I fulfilling the demands of the Law as Christ enjoins us to do in the Sermon on the Mount; and we can only do it because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given us.
The Trinity is something we are, something we do; not something to be endlessly argued about! “God is love” declares St. John; it implies God has always had Someone to love, within Himself – just glance at the Rublev icon on the front of our order of service today. Do you see the gap at the front of the altar? That’s an invitation to join the unity, the Trinity of God. And; look again – do you see a wee rectangle on the front of the altar? That has been described as a mirror; what do we see in it as we approach God – yes, a child of His, warts and all!
And, whatever bits of us need His loving attention, bring them with you to the altar, the Eucharist, know for certain He is on your side and wants to give you more and more of His Spirit to enable us, in spite, no, because of our inadequacies, to carry out His work in His world. The world will see the Trinity if they see our love for them.
Is there a shadow, a dark side to this unity? Yes! Any man-made uniformity, a fake unity like communism, Nazism – or the Tower of Babel where the people all spoke 1 language. They were scattered for refusing to “go forth and multiply”, they wanted control over their own lives, thank you very much. At Pentecost, the apostles are scattered too – but under God. That made the difference.
Rev’d Bob Driver