The Divine dance.

Sunday 7^th June is Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a. The poetic majesty of the story of creation in Genesis affirms that God is the author of all creation – nothing exists outside of God. It also affirms the notion of “original blessing” that everything in creation is very good. The third affirmation is that humankind, male and female, were created together in the image of God which at the very least affirms our slightly elevated position in the created order.

2 Corinthians 13: 11-13. This reading and the gospel reading from Matthew are two of the very few places in the New Testament that lend themselves to supporting the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity which hadn’t yet been formulated by the church when they were written. And here the order - Christ, God, Spirit – distinguishes it from later theologising. The conundrum was that Christians believe that God is ONE and yet experienced God in three distinct ways and the Trinity is the result of their experience. In the end, the Trinity is revealed to us by God, not the result of human reason

Matthew 28: 16-20. This experience of God forms the baptismal formula at the end of Matthew’s gospel. The 11 disciples to whom Jesus was speaking were a mixture of awe and doubts and questions and this is a blessing to all of us because despite the doubts they are all included. God is experienced as the Father, also incarnated and revealed through the Son, and experienced as a  guiding force on earth through the Spirit. Traditionally described as God above, God alongside and God within. All are experienced as a presence which forms the last words of Matthew. “I am with you always to the end of the age”. It is all about relationship. We are in relationship with God who is in his very being relationship.  The Greek term that expresses this divine relationship is perichoresis which means a divine Dance. So in the words of Tess and Claudia on Strictly - Keep dancing!

Traditionally, Trinity Sunday was the day you got the curate to preach, because talking about the Trinity would inevitably tie you up in knots and probably lead people precisely nowhere it is so complex and counter-intuitive.

Still, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” and stealing myself against charges of heresy and knowing that every analogy and metaphor breaks down eventually, here goes.

Let us takes as our starting point the basic truth that the Trinity wasn’t the product of human wisdom or logic – it was slowly revealed to the church by the leading of the Spirit progressively revealing the true nature of God. As it says in John, the Spirit will lead you into all truth.

After all, the Jewish religion from which Christianity came is a fiercely monotheistic religion believing that God has no parts and of course the Islamic faith that appeared a few hundred years after Christianity made the unitary singularity of God their fundamental and central plank, and indeed accuse Christians of blasphemy – called Shirk – which is idolatry and polytheism.

But it is important to state that Christians too are monotheists. We believe in ONE God not three gods, but we have experienced God in three persons

Jesus told us that we should pray to the Father, as in “our Father who art in heaven”. But Jesus also said in John’s gospel that He and the Father were one. He also said that the Father would send another helper.

So far so confusing. One of the best ways of understanding the unity of God in three persons comes from the early church and so is a Greek word that like all Greek words is at first alien and exotic and it is perichoresis.

Perichoresis means a divine dance. What a beautiful description of the eternal being of God. God is not a lonely monad, but from all eternity God has been a community of three persons engaged in an inter-personal dance of Love.

If we say that God is relationship within his very being, this has a remarkable consequence for Christians. It means that community and love are not just nice things to have or aspire to – they are extensions of the very life of God himself.

God is love in community.

This world, this universe was an act of creative love.

This beautiful world in an awesome universe of which we are a part is an overflow of love emanating from the very being of God. God, who is in eternal relationship, created an infinite number of things to relate to in beautiful majestic complexity. Love is therefore the binding force of the universe.

The simplest and most potent description of God appears in John’s first letter and it says “God is Love”. Love is dynamic. Love is directed from one person to another person.  

In becoming a baptised member of the church, we are consciously joining in that cosmic dance of love. And as anyone who has learned to dance knows, you start awkwardly, you need discipline to learn various steps, you need to raise your level of fitness and concentration, but when it all starts to work together, when you move in unison with another to divine music it is a beautiful and joyful thing.

So that is perhaps a novel way of describing the church. We are learning to dance together in time with God, to move in unison in a choreographed way. Whether you are imagining a Waltz or a Barn dance, a Tango or interpretive free Dance at this moment, whatever moves you – my favourite was always the Waltz as it happens, we are dancing with God who is setting the Rhythm and showing us the steps.

Dancing is joyful and fulfilling. Keep Dancing!