The Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is at the very centre of our Christian faith but remains allusive to our every day understanding and often been a source of confusion. Since Advent our focus has been largely on major events in the story of Jesus; his coming, his ministry: his suffering and triumph; and his gift of the Spirit.  Until Advent comes around again (and the way it is going it will be here before we know it)!  Our focus will largely be on what Jesus Christ taught by word and action and how to learn to live in the power of the Spirit given to us.

Today we pause a moment beyond what Jesus teaches and beyond major events to look not so much on what God does, but who God is.

Because God as Trinity appears in every aspect of our faith: the truth of the Trinity seems almost too big, for us to comprehend and appreciate.  The trinity is something like the roundness of the earth.  We appreciate that the earth is round, but we tend not to experience the earth as round.  Most of the time we behave as though the earth is flat.  To experience the earth as round requires us to have a larger perspective.  Like looking at the globe or see a photo of our planet taken from space.  Otherwise the earth is so large, and we so small that we cannot deeply appreciate the true shape of the earth.

To appreciate the truth of the Trinity we need the equivalent of a globe or a trip into space.

Another analogy in looking at the Trinity is by taking a look at our very being.  As human beings we are not just a mass of flesh.  We are made up of mind, body and spirit dwelling within a soul - three in one.

In a few moments we will be affirming our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.  We believe in God, the Father Almighty.  We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.  We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life."  Within it we proclaim our belief in the Trinity that one God exists in three persons.  The Three-in-One God of Christian doctrine.

We baptise in the name of our triune God.  We invoke blessing in the same three persons of our one God every time we make the sign of the cross.  We often begin our prayers: "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of Trinity describes the way that we, as Christians, experience God and who God is.   We know that God, as God, is revealed in the person and life of Jesus and this revelation happens by and through the Holy Spirit.

God the Father is love and therefore loves.  The Father loves the Son, totally and without reservation, and so the Father and the Son are bound together in love.

This love, which binds together the Father and the Son, is real.  This love is God the Holy Spirit -- the Lord, the giver of life, who comes from the Father and the Son.  In this way the Godhead is complete.  Three persons, each distinct, each real, all are one God. The one-ness of God is discovered in the free act of love by which the three persons of the Trinity choose to give all to each other.  This relationship is what makes God who God is.  God is what happens when the Father loves the Son in the Spirit.

On the subject of the Trinity St. Augustine says:  "love is of someone who loves, and something is loved with love. So then there are three: the lover, the beloved, and the love.”  This relationship of love, God the Holy Trinity, is the foundation, the bedrock of the universe; it is the heartbeat of all creation.  Everything that is begins here, has its purpose and its meaning here, and will find its fulfillment here.

God is not a mean old man with a beard.  God is not some unconscious force out of Star Wars.  Instead, God exists, at his heart, as a relationship of love - a God, who made us and loves us and cares for us, who calls us to a life of justice, freedom, truth, peace, and above all love.

None of our language for God is absolute or determines precisely who God is.  Our best attempts to describe, name, quantify, or qualify God are just that our best attempts.

In scripture we are told that “No one has ever seen God,”– but that does not stop us from trying, or trying to sort out things like the Trinity.  However In trying to establish and fix exactly what it means, and our determined search to understand the ineffable,  to find out the truth- to know all things – we tend to fall prey to a spiritual kind of  blindness with mere projections of what we would like God to be.

There is not one meaning of the Trinity, or one means of describing that reality there is a great wealth of meaning.  The doctrine of the Trinity, the very human idea of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all our language about God are but symbols of a greater reality.  Our thoughts and words mean nothing in themselves, if we cannot look through them, beyond them, and because of them, to something else!

Maybe all we need to know about God is that God is love and loves us enough to be watching over us all the time.

Ignatian Spirituality teaches that we come from love, we return to love, and love is all around.  If we know that, deep down inside within ourselves, such knowledge forms the core of our belovedness; knowing that it is God who loves us first; that it is God who calls us Beloved.

The Trinity is a great and sacred mystery.  Even though, from the very beginning of the church, from the very beginning of the writings of the Hebrew people, perhaps from the very beginning of time itself, people have made every effort to know and be able to describe this great and sacred mystery of God's love for us.  For Christians:

·         knowing God as Abba or Father to know God as Jesus knows God.

• to know God as the Son is to know God as Peter, Paul as Barnabas, Mary as the mother of our Lord, Mary Magdalene as all the rest of them did.
•  to know God as Spirit is to know God as all the disciples on Pentecost experienced God,and as people of all faiths have known God throughout all time, knowing God as the wind that comes from we know not where and carries us to we know not where until we return home to the heart of God's mysterious love.

Father, Son and Spirit God are all aspects of God's being.

Knowing The Father, Son, and Spirit we know we need not be afraid. It is in knowing the Love of Abba, Son, and Spirit that we can begin to think about God at all when we cry "Abba Father, it is the Spirit being witness in our spirit.

In the end hopefully our thinking and belief through the work of the Holy Spirit inevitably will lead us to want to thank and adore the God of Love, for that unconditional love and a life as God's own beloved.

Stephen Harrison, Director of Youth, Children’s and Family Ministries in the Ministry Education Commission.

(22 November 2009.   Christ the King.)

Today is Christ the King Sunday, and often on this day someone gets up in the pulpit and says that kingship is a thing of the past and that we can’t really understand it. We don’t live in a world with kings anymore.

But this is not true.  During the week I did some investigating and discovered that there are actually quite a lot of kings in Australia, even some in Queensland.

This is true – I went, not to any book of peers but to much more authoritative source - the white pages -  and I discovered a whole raft of royalty –

There was the king of knives, the kind of cakes, the king of clean, the king of rugs, I even found a king of fitness – an important king to know after you have been to the king of kegs and the king of kebabs. The question is: who made these guys king and what kind of kingdom do they rule over. I mean is there a kingdom of cakes – If there was a war between the kingdom of cakes and the kingdom of knives – who would win? I guess that’s kind of obvious.

But let’s face it – these self proclaimed kings they have no real followers, they have no one claiming allegiance to them, no one willing to fight and die for them. The have no power.

And in many ways, this is what kingship is all about: power – whether it is used for good or ill.

It is an unusual thing power. Have you ever wondered where it comes from or where it goes?

Or for that matter exactly what it is?

The word power can be traced back through French and Latin words meaning “to be able”

So power is the thing you need “to be able” to do something. I might have the power to lift a heavy weight. Or the power to sway public opinion. Or the power to make you do something that you don’t like. The thing is power has to be applied to something; it does not exist without the potential to exercise it over or against something. Power in this regard has a domain where “it is able” to get things done and outside of that it may be useless. For example Kevin Rudd may have the power to increase my taxes or to stop a dam being built – but he is powerless to make my daughters eat brussel sprouts. It is outside his domain.

Which brings us to today’s Gospel…

Because the very heart of the conversation that takes place between Jesus and Pilate is about where power comes from and the domain within which it Is able to act.

In John’s Gospel this morning, as Pilate questions Jesus, Jesus says: “My kingdom is not from this world.

And he goes on to say:

If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

What does this mean? My kingdom is not from this world.

A simple approach would be to say – well Jesus kingdom is in heaven – so it is in another place. But there is more to it than that. To think of it this way would be to imply that there is no conflict between the kingdom of the earth and the kingdom of heaven. And there is –

Both kingdoms are to share the same space.

Both kingdoms are seeking the allegiance of the same people.

But that is where the similarity ends.

Jesus coming inaugurates the kingdom of God on earth. But it is not a kingdom like the worldly ones.  Its goals, outcomes and methods are not the same.  So when Jesus says – my kingdom is not from this world – what he is saying is – the kingdom you work for and the kingdom I work for – they don’t line up, they are not headed in the same direction, they won’t end the same, they don’t work the same way and they are not competing for control over the same source of power.

 And to capture the heart of this we need to focus in on the word: “world” that is used here by Jesus – in the Greek it is kosmos.  This word kosmos simply means the created world  - but what Jesus implies by saying it is significant.  Jesus is saying – my power does not come from this world, from kosmos. I am not building a kosmos kingdom. I am not using kosmos power. But why not? What is wrong with the kosmos? Didn’t God create it?  Yes – the kosmos was made good – but now it is locked in persistent rebellion against its creator.

Most people when they want power – the power they want is kosmos power – the power brought by money, status, strength, fame – When Jesus says to Pilate: If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. He is telling Pilate – it doesn’t matter what you do to me I can’t lose my power – you can’t take it away from me – because it comes from somewhere else – and you can’t touch it.  It is greater than my life – even if you kill me – my source of power will remain.  Kosmos kingdoms are based on kosmos power – and this power comes and goes, waxes and wanes – and is as fleeting as a snowball in summer - but Jesus kingdom is not kosmos based –we see this -

Did Jesus seeks wealth – no

Did Jesus seek physical domination – no

Did Jesus seek fame – no

Did Jesus seek to set up a government - no

Not because wealth is bad, not because power is bad, not because governments are bad, not because strength is bad, not because fame is bad – but because any time they try to make themselves King of All – they overstep their mark. None of these things are meant to rule our lives…quite the opposite – they are meant to serve us…

God ordained all the powers in the world – they are to serve his purposes – but if they refuse to – if they set themselves up against him - then they are in opposition to his kingdom.  Why? Because when they set themselves up as ultimate they do not lead people to freedom and light and life- but to slavery and darkness and death.

And it is here I want to say something about young people and the biblical imperative  for us as the church to reach out to them -

In the ministry of Jesus, as he inugerates the kingdom of God, he battles the forces of darkness and death ruling in the world.  This can be observed throughout the Gospels where Jesus repeatedly disturbs the status quo through his preaching, healing and exorcisms  He launches an “all out attack on evil in all its manifestations” seeking to free captives and liberate the oppressed wherever he goes, as a sign that God’s kingdom has come.  The powers and principalities that should be under His rule and exist for the good of humanity have fallen and must be engaged as a matter of urgency. There is for us today as a result of Jesus ministry an imperative to confront any forces, structural, institutional or other that hinder individuals or communities from seeing the reality of the kingdom coming.

Young people in today’s society are a key target of forces that lead to death and destruction. They are, for instance, the focus of global consumerism. Every year in excess of $US 15 billion dollars are spent by companies marketing their products to young people. Marketing companies worldwide know that young people are a key demographic because of their vast number, disposable income and influence over family spending. It is not however just products that companies seek to sell but allegiance to a particular brand and way of life. While few people would say ‘MacDonald’s is Lord’, or ‘Nike is Lord’, the personal devotion is not dissimilar.

Young people are lured into a lifestyle of consumption which can never satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts. This way of life is in direct opposition to the kingdom of God and the way of Jesus and must be confronted by the Christian church. This is especially true because young people are most vulnerable to consumer culture because of their stage of their life which delivers them increased freedom but not the full development of critical thought.

On another level some companies deliberately seek to exploit young people by selling products which are harmful. An example of this can be witnessed in the surf shop which sought to market beer bongs, alcohol shot guns and drinking dice games before schoolies. Indirectly and directly some aspects of emerging global culture ensnare young people in personally destructive addictions. In Australia it is reported that 1 in 5 teenage girls deliberately access internet porn. In a survey of Australian high school students 44% of females and 39% of males had engaged in 3 or more binge drinking episodes in the previous two weeks. These statistics clearly point to young people engaging in behaviour that is destructive of life and freedom and therefore contrary to the kingdom of God.

We need to confront these things in our culture.  But it is not a matter of banning these things or restricting their access.  This is not the source of the problem. The source of the problem is where people’s allegiance lies.  It is no good deposing one straw king to replace it with another.  Or to depose it and replace it with nothing.

            Freedom comes when Jesus Christ is King of your life.

            This is the first domain where Jesus power must be exercised.

            In our thinking and acting - He must be king.

But it cannot stop there – as a community, the church, we must, ensure that God is King in our community and seek to live out the methods and values of that kingdom – humble loving service focussed on the wider world.

And the final domain is living that life in the world – as individuals and communities – seeking to show the world a glimpse of God’s kingdom coming – today and forever.