Song:
All creatures of our God and King
Reading:
Isaiah 6: verses 1-8
Song:
Holy Holy Holy
Reading:
Ephesians 1: verses 3-14
Songs:
Trinity song
3 in and 1 in 3
Trinity Sunday.
Talking to David recently, he recalled a boy at school who had come from Winnipeg in Canada. He described the climate there in these terms, “It is a place where you eat you milk in winter, and drink your butter in summer!” Most of us would not associate milk as being something that you eat, nor butter as something that you drink. We have little difficulty however, of understanding the meaning that this is somewhere that is very cold in winter, and very hot in summer. Those of you old enough to remember very cold winters, and having milk delivered to your doorsteps early in the morning, may remember taking the milk in with the foil tops pushed up by the frozen cream on top of the milk.
Different though the solid “eating” milk is from what we would normally expect, it is nonetheless milk. It is chemically, and nutritionally the same. The same can be said of the “drinking” butter, it is still butter.
Many of you will be familiar with the shorthand used by chemists to describe compounds. Even though you may not know the intricacies of the system, I’m sure that most people would recognise this formula, and could name the compound if asked:
H2O
I’m sure that the majority of you would have responded “Water”. How many of you said “steam”? Or “Ice”?
Three very different substances. Each with very different properties and uses. One can be used as a building material in certain climates. We are all familiar with igloos, perhaps as a child you even attempted to build one. You may even have been lucky enough to stay in the ice hotel in Sweden.
Picture taken from Wikipedia
In its liquid form; water is essential for life; can be used for transport; and is responsible for shaping much of our landscape.
Picture taken from Wikipedia
As a gas, steam is a great source of power, and is the driving force behind our weather systems.
Picture taken from mirror.co.uk
Under normal circumstances, we are used only to encountering one of these things at once, but at certain, very special conditions of temoperature and pressure, all three can exist in equilibrium, this is known as the “triple point”. (for those who are interested, this occurs at a temperature of 0.0075 °C and a partial vapour pressure of 6.11657 mbar)
In the small town where I was brought up, my father was well known, he was a schoolteacher, town councillor, and active in one of the local churches. This meant that to many people I was known as “Albert Youdan’s lad.” Perhaps some of you had a similar experience. Later, when I started work as a schoolteacher in a different town, I became known as “Mr. Youdan, the chemistry teacher.” More recently still, many of the people near to where we live know me as “Jamie and Nathan’s dad.”
These three groups of people are extremely unlikely to meet one another; if they did, they could easily think that “Albert Youdan’s lad.”, “Mr. Youdan, the chemistry teacher.”, and “Jamie and Nathan’s dad.” were three different people, they certainly would have different recollections of these people, and their character traits.
And yet, these three disparate individuals are all the same human. In the same way as the solid milk and the liquid milk; the same way as the solid and liquid butter; the same way as the ice, water, and steam, they are made of the same stuff.
There is a story from India about blind men encountering an elephant:
A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.
You may know a poem about this story.
The men had all encountered the elephant. Undoubtedly, what they touched was an elephant, the DNA of it would have revealed that they all touched the same elephant. And yet, they all obtained a different impression of what they encountered.
Just as the different forms of milk, butter, and water; and the people known by the different people who met me; the different parts of the elephant are all “of one substance”, the phrase we use about the three persons of the Trinity.
Our reading this morning give us accounts of people who met God. They mer different persons of God, and had different understandings of who they had met, but all three are separate persons, of one substance.
Song:
Holy Holy Holy Holy
Prayer:
Your presence, O God makes heaven and all heaven’s glory is yours:
your joy, your honour, your blessedness, create, and are, heaven.
Before the glory of your presence kneel the celestial hosts, and the choirs of the whole creation dry “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”
That presence you freely and wonderfully give us;
first through him in whose glorious likeness we see, O Father, yours, your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ:
then by your Spirit poured forth without measure upon the children of your love, resting and dwelling in them with all his gifts.
Father, who ever loves and will not leave us, number us among your children who rest in your presence now, and reflect its light.
Praise the Lord, O my soul: O Lord my God, you are exceedingly glorious;
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.” Amen.
Taken from “My God, My Glory”
published by SPCK 1967
Modernised and slightly adapted.
Song:
Father we adore you
Blessing:
No comments:
Post a Comment