Praying Together 15th June 2025

So the commandment is a challenge. To love those who betray you. Those who jeer. Those who wield the whips embedded with flint, hammer in the nails, pierce your side.

Meditation for Trinity 2025

Collect for Trinity Sunday

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities; for you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever.

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

John 16: 12-15

‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Three in one and one in three?

In the ranks of clergy, there is a widespread feeling that preaching on Trinity Sunday is best left to either the Bishop or the Curate. The exam question is ‘How can something be three independent entities but also be one entity – at the same time?’

People tell you it’s not actually that difficult really – we just need to understand that God is one person – but three persons. Er…

OK that doesn’t help. Try again, Michael. What does it say in today’s creed? That we ‘acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine majesty worship the Unity.’ Yes but how?

The singer John Pantry recorded a song called ‘Builder, Buyer, Occupier’ (I couldn’t find it online, unfortunately) that helps in understanding the Trinitarian Roles of God the Creator, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; and it’s theologically spot on. But in practical terms, I sometimes use the example of a kite.

In Euclidean geometry, a children’s kite is a flying quadrilateral with reflection symmetry across a diagonal, the area A of which may be calculated as half the product of the lengths of the diagonals p and q. So A=0.5 (p*q) Did that help? No, I didn’t think it would.

Much better to ask a child, who will explain patiently that a Kite is a collection of sticks, paper and string glued together that blows in the wind. Three things in one thing.

The sticks, paper, and string are created by God. The glue that puts them together is Jesus our Redeemer. But that isn’t all. For a Kite to be a kite, it has to fly – which needs wind – or, you might say, the Spirit, the breath of God.
The sticks are still sticks. The paper and string haven’t lost their properties either. The wind blows whether there is a kite or not. But when they come together, they are one. Just like a church – God’s people created as unique individuals, brought together with a common creed, and living as the body of Christ in the power of the spirit. The whole is greater than the parts – in the case of the Kite. But in the case of the Trinity, each part is great in itself, so in that case, the kite metaphor breaks down. We need a better one. Answers on a postcard, please.

p.s. just a thought – you couldn’t fly a kite inside a church building –for the Kite to fly you’d have to go into the windy street outside. Where does that place the need for the Spirit to act???