Archives for June 2022

God is Community – Three-in-One and One-in Three
a last sermon at Church of the Ascension

The Rev’d Rhonda Waters

Today is Trinity Sunday, set aside to consider the mystery of the Trinity – three-in-one and one-in-three.  The Trinity – that great theological formulation that just gets more and more confusing the more you try to pull it apart.  

Which is the point, really.  You can’t pull apart the Trinity.  It’s not an engine, or even an organic body – you can’t disassemble it in order to see how it works: separating the Source from the Word from the Holy Spirit and tracing the tubing that connects them.  It’s not an organization that you can diagram, drawing the org chart and mapping the flow of authority and accountability and responsibility through the parts.  

The Trinity is a whole, indivisible and complete in itself.  How it works or what it is – these are the wrong questions.  The right question is why.  Why does God reveal themselves to us as Trinity, in addition to revealing themselves as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  What truth is given to us about God’s nature through this particular mystery?

And in a rather breathtaking act of hubris, I will tell you:

God is community.  It’s not just that God likes company or that they enjoy collaboration.

It is not just that God is in community.

God is community.

God is not unitary because their very nature is community – but not just any community.  They are a community of mutual love and delight and faithfulness; a community of equals that cannot be separated or ranked; a community of difference that cannot be reduced or assimilated.  

When God was all that existed, before the beginning of time, before the beginning of creation, this is what existed: this community of perfect love.  St. Augustine’s image of the Trinity remains the best: the Lover and the Beloved and the Love, each distinct and necessary to the full expression of each even while the distinctions blur in the living: the lover loves the beloved loves the lover loves the love loves the lover – and on and on in perfection.

And so it was that love poured out at creation and brought all things into being, God delighting themselves in the joyful act of bringing the world into existence and inviting all creation into community with them; into the community of God.

And it was that love that poured out into us; breathed us to life and created us in their own image.

Which means we are created to be community.  In a very real way, there can be no such thing as a solitary person.  This is why solitary confinement is such a cruel punishment; why neglect takes such a toll on children – and not only children; why loneliness can drive people to despair.  It is not good for us to be alone – because we are made in the image of God who is community.

And yet, over and over again, we turn away from our true selves and from God –in fear, in shame, in pride.  We create communities in our image instead of in God’s image and end up lost in idolatry; drawing borders and making false distinctions that reassure us of our own belonging at the expense of someone else’s. We see difference and we think it needs to be managed – or erased – rather than embraced. We see plurality and we want to make sure we are the one at the front of the line…but there is no line for the many is perfectly united in the One.

And so love poured out yet again and God came to us, sending their Son (who is still entirely God, don’t forget) to not only invite us into community but to demonstrate what that means; becoming not simply one with us but one of us even while still being one with the Father and with the Spirit.  We, by our very human nature and not in spite of it, belong to the community that is the Triune God.

And, when we dwell in that community, in that perfect love – the love pours out in acts of creation, bringing forth art, friendship, science, technology, literature, family, gardens, music, feasts – and community.  Community that seeks to reflect the image of God and so to grow, pouring love out in welcome as ever more people are gathered up into God’s perfect love, one with creation and one with God who is One with themselves.

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The above sermon and the hymn text below serve as a sort of “Rhonda’s theological key points”, offered with thanksgiving for all I have learned and all I hope I have shared with Church of the Ascension. May we always live in the Community of God.

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The Kingdom of Heaven (It is Near)
Words: Rhonda Waters (1978- )
Music: William Howard Doane (1832-1915) (To God be the Glory)

The kingdom of heaven is like a small seed,
which planted in darkness becomes a great tree.
It grows even taller its branches reach wide;
the birds of the air find their shelter inside.

It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.

The kingdom of heaven’s like yeast for the bread;
the smallest amount and then all shall be fed.
Mere flour and water take on a new form
and call us to table where we are transformed.

It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.

The kingdom of heaven, God’s glorious dream;
within us, around us, it’s here to be seen.
In small acts of kindness, in great feats of faith,
the kingdom of heaven breaks forth in this place.

It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.

Come, Holy Spirit, Come
a sermon for Pentecost

The Rev’d Rhonda Waters