Integrity in Diversity
In the town where we used to live, I was in the school a governor; a parent; and the local Methodist Minister.
Sometimes that led to confusion – which hat was I wearing today? Though of course they were all ME! Together the parts make up the fullness of the person I am, and effect how I respond and react. I cannot separate parts of me off, the sum of the parts gives the whole picture.
So today is Trinity Sunday. A day when we look at the fullness of God, the wonder of the separate persons of the Trinity, the different ways we can experience God, and remembering that all those parts together make up God.
Trinity Icon by Andrei Rublev
To say that God is Trinity is to speak of our experience of him. To reflect on what and who he is. We know that we encounter God in three different and distinctive ways – as Father, Son and Spirit – but that they are all the same Yahweh, “I Am” – different aspects of God’s personhood.
God is at the same time, and holds within himself, the creator of the Universe; the saviour who died to release us from the things that hold us down in life; and the empowering, comforting presence with us day by day.
That’s the theology of God as Trinity, our experience of him, but what does the fact that God is Trinity mean for our everyday lives? I think it has a lot to offer us.
God is within Godself a community. God is intrinsically one, but within that oneness is a communion of Father, Son and Spirit. Those facets are bound together in relationship, together making a whole. Father, Son and Spirit are each distinctive elements, but all wholly God. Different, but the same, held together by their relationship and inseparable from the relationship between them. And so the concept of the Trinity has something to offer to us who have to live in community:
It helps us with our relationship with God, our relationship with the community, and our relationship with our fellow Christians.
- God as Trinity helps our relationship with God.
We do not have a one-dimensional God – someone who has to be found in one way and one way only. Neither do we encounter an inconsistent God – each part of the Trinity is still God.
Educational practice today is to teach one lesson in several different styles. To incorporate visual, kinesthetic, and auditory ways of understanding the same thing, so that everyone in a group can get a handle on it. We all learn differently, we all have different natural aptitudes and interests.
God is varied – no-one is excluded from knowing the one God. We are not presented with just a Father – authoritarian, one who loves us, eternal creator.
We are not shown just the Son, someone who lived showing us God’s ways, died for our sin, triumphed over evil.
We are not left with just the Spirit – that comes in power, comforts and challenges us, nudges us into action.
God is each of those things – and all of those things. We can encounter him by what we need, from where we are at this time. In a Trinitarian God, we find all three aspects, fully and completely together, but experienced at different times in different ways ~ always there when we need him to be.
If God were only one, we would experience him – some of the time. Because he is all three, and all three are truly and fully him, we encounter him in different ways in varied experiences.
That’s good news – because we are multi-faceted. We need different things at different times. God also has inner integrity – he is consistently God – however we experience him. Always there for us.
- God as Trinity also means something for our human relationships.
God’s people are one – but within that oneness there is diversity.
Because God is Trinity, he is in himself relationship lived out. Individuality is overturned. God is not an individual, neither is he three individuals. He is integrity in diversity personified.
It’s very easy to get carried away by the feeling that “what I am is normal”. Sometimes we just forget there is another possible way, and that way can get squeezed out. God as Trinity gives us the ideal of living in community.
The Trinity is made up of the three ways of God’s living. Each is distinctive, but lives not for it’s own distinctiveness, but FOR the other parts, THROUGH them, WITH them and IN them. The fact that each part is different is vital – but each part of the Trinity exists not for itself, but for the others, to bring completeness.
Distinctiveness is very important; otherwise God would be a very flat existence. God is not flat, but rich, diverse and full of surprises – there is always something new to discover and worship.
Our community also needs to be diverse – both the Christian community, and the community in which we live. We are not looking for every person to be a carbon copy of one another. If that is not how God is, why should his people be? If God can hold together distinctiveness within himself, then that is a vision for our world and lives.
To not have something that is distinctive within each one of us is to be missing something from the whole. If we do not allow each other to be fully themselves, then our life together is missing the distinctive part you bring. If we hold back something in ourselves then we keep from adding to the wholeness of the community. We need the different aspects. We each bring something distinctive that when lived in, through and with our fellows will make a beautiful whole.
To do that involves a large amount of trust and openness – and the kind of inter-relating that we see within the persons of the Trinity. As God is one, so we too are one. We are the same intrinsic beings – people of God, each with our own particular flavour. As we open up to God with all he is, we can open up to ourselves in all we are. We’re not here to try to shape each other, but to welcome the distinctiveness that each of us brings.
We don’t need to be the same as each other – I know that one of me is enough. Yes there are characteristics of being Christian that we should all show, but we also need to not just allow – but accept and welcome the diversity.
To be truly part of community is to be open – open to the diverse experiences that lead us into deeper understanding and appreciation of each other and God. It’s really risky to be open – but that’s the risk God took. As God’s people, we are called to pledge ourselves to accept the part that each of us brings – that together makes the Body of Christ as a whole.
Being together as God’s people is not just about being friends, but a pledge to be in peace and communion with even those we find difficult or different. To live as celebration of God’s richness in diversity – and not that we are all the same.
As God’s people, we are one family, but as different members and branches of the family. We share a heritage, we share a common aim, but we may each express it differently. We come each bring whatever we are with one another.
Within all that he is, God holds within himself the perfect relationship, expressing what and who he is in the different ways. Within the Christian fellowship, we too are called to live out our diverse lives together. One church, one faith, one Lord – in celebration of our uniqueness that together makes a whole.
God wants wholeness for each of us. Wholeness within ourselves and wholeness within our communities.
Trinity gives us an ultimate picture of wholeness, sharing, complementing – holding it all together in diversity and integrity. Bringing our individuality to make a whole vast rainbow of God and our experiences of him.
Jesus prays that we may be one as he and the Father are one. What a picture for the church, and for our communities – that can then be a picture for the world.
Pam's Perambulation 