Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The River and the Ocean

For some reason 2 am is when my brain best functions. Not if I wake up at 2, but if I am up till 2, hold on to your hats, because I turn into an idea machine... Not really, but some of my favorite blogs have come out of late nights of talking and thinking. The few sermons I have written were all products of 1 AM closing shifts at my last job... get home at 1:30 AM, get in bed...bing...Idea and then within 20 minutes, I am done... and the world moves on.

Last night was one of those nights. Idea comes, knocking on my brain. I think "no, I will just remember this in the morning." Idea says "know you won't." "You are right." I reply... and the next 40 minutes or so is spent jotting down ideas and madly crossing them out. I wake up to find some inane scribble and here we are.

In my recent readings on Worship and study of the subject I came across the book "Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace" by James B. Torrence. This short book goes over (in four sections) the idea that when it all comes down to it, the understanding of Trinitarian theology is the most essential aspect of our worship. If we have an understanding of the three in one - one in three, everything else will follow. It goes much deeper than that, but the basic idea of Trinitarian theology is that in worship, we need to focus on, or at lease acknowledge the Father, the Son and the Spirit and do this in the context of their specific duties of King (Father), Priest (the Son) and Prophet (the Spirit).

I was talking with a friend the other day on this topic and he said something interesting. "Well, when I say God, I mean all three." This kind of struck me, because until recently, this has been my thinking as well. And in reality, it is true. He went on to say "The idea of the trinity is cool and real, but it is hard to hold on to for people, it's kind of a weird idea and a mind boggling concept." I totally get that. In most of our views of the trinity, we are cool with God, Jesus is our friend (I have a friend in jesus!..lol) and the Spirit is like a weird uncle.

As I was thinking about this last night, a story started to develop in my brain (it was 2 am after all).

Picture a village. This small village is totally sustained by a river just a stones throw away. The river provides them with food, water, energy, play, resources and a way to get to other villages down river. Everything the villagers need is based around this river, and life is good!
Now, lets zoom out. The river is actuary a tributary of a mighty ocean. This ocean is only a few hundred yards away, but none of the villagers have ever wanted to see it. They have seen the huge fish in the ocean, captured by other villages. They have heard the crashing waves and have heard that where the water and land meet, you can see the edge of the world. How can the world just end? Where does this all come from? The idea is dumbfounding and honestly a little hard to wrap a brain around.

The villagers can live off of the tributary, so what are they missing? They have everything they need, what is the big deal? The big deal is that they are missing out on something huge. They are missing out on the beauty of a sun set ocean, the majesty of each individual wave, the power of an incoming storm front seen from miles away, the rich sustenance of an unending resource teeming with fish.... enough for one villager, enough for thousands of villages.

We can live in a singular, unitarian, God life. But what are we missing? The enrichment of the trinity, the wonder of our vast, complex, intricate, powerful triune God who still, in all his power and might, has more than enough for us individually.

The idea of a triune God is a crazy concept, but it is an integral part of a rich, vibrant and growing life of worship. In the Trinity, we have a God that is in us (Spirit), with us (Jesus) and around us (Father).

The fullness of God as Prophet, Priest and King.

1 comments:

Jason Zito said...

I like where you're going here. If I could diverge a bit...

It seems like many people have ended up taking the concept of Trinity very lightly. Like they don't realize that it's a logical impossibility. 1+1+1=1 does not make any logical sense, and requires a much less western perspective if you want to embrace it.

God simply must be a mass of contradictions and logical impossibilities and this makes people uncomfortable. A God that creates all and sustains all and loves all within a world of death and violence should confound us. And a God of 3=1 should sort of trip us out a bit. A God who commands his prophet to marry a whore just to make a point should make us uncomfortable. It seems like the world has two polarized reactions to this: Christians tend to ignore it and pretend God is simple; a tributary. The nonspiritual person sees the complexity as contradiction, filtering God-concepts through modernist categories that can only make God ugly. Both of these approaches destroy God as God should be.

But if we refuse to see only our simplified perception of God and if we refuse to use logical categories to define God, then we have a mystery on our hands. That's exactly where we're supposed to start. That's where we begin to explore all the thoughts that have been thought about God throughout history. That's where we find Jesus and thus where we find peace, love, compassion, holiness, and a life filled with the quality of eternity.

A God of the ocean should be confounding and inspiring. Our worship should reflect that. Thanks for bringing these thoughts into my head! :)