Limited Horizons

Even with your golden tongue and silky vocabulary, dear Reader, it’s impossible to speak of the Mystery of the Trinity.  Some of our holy encounters defy human words to clarify:  all we can attempt are a few similes and lame metaphors.  Of these, I’m most comfortable with St. Patrick’s display of a shamrock, with three equal petals attached to one stem.  Readings for Trinity Sunday are quite able to stand alone, and it’s the wise teacher who doesn’t pick them to death…

Nevertheless…the Old Testament lesson is the famous call of Isaiah (6:1-8), in which the prophet envisions  the throne room of Yahweh.  Realizing his humanity, he laments his “unclean lips”–but a seraph flies to him with a coal from the altar and cauterizes his profane nature.  Only then can Isaiah respond affirmatively to God’s question, “Whom shall we send?  And who will go for us?”  Until the brokenness is acknowledged, the believer’s horizons are limited.   There are those who present this text as a precognition of the Trinity:  “Holy, holy, holy Lord…”  I can’t say that this is entirely true to the Hebrew scripture OR belief…

We also continue to read from the important 8th chapter of the letter to the Romans, vv. 12-17.  Paul speaks often of the tension of living “in the flesh” but yet longing for the Spirit of God.   He avows that only this Holy Spirit can put to death the “deeds of the body” and lead us to be children of God.  In a nutshell, God is God; and we’re not!   Our actions and wills are insufficient unless sustained by the Spirit, God’s sacramental inbreaking.

Many of us have memorized some sections of the Gospel, John 3:1-17.  The whole is presented as a late-night conversation with Nicodemus, a friendly Pharisee.  One of the memorable nuggets is Jesus comment, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (v.6)  Jesus isn’t disregarding “the flesh”–as Paul is often criticized of doing–but  opens new horizons with a concept of receiving spiritual birth.  This is truly Grace, unshaped by human hands yet blowing from above as a heavenly wind.

Each of these encounters bears witness to a Spirit external to our own insulated lives:  Isaiah thought himself doomed until the angel entered his limited horizons to cleanse his speech.  Paul sees a two-floored universe where the spiritual must find footing within our humanity or we’ll perish.  And Jesus presents Nicodemus with an outside birth of the Spirit which inserts him/herself into our sweaty endeavors with the cool refreshment of a sudden wind.  Can we use a butterfly net to catch the Spirit and add to our menagerie?  Or shall we raise our sails in expectation of a breath of God to take us to amazing places?

God Bless Us, Every One

My musings WON’T be seen here next Tuesday, May 29th.  I’ll return for the following week.