Hallfold 11 June 2006
A celebration of God’s love
in song, art and a few words
This hymns expresses something of the all-embracing nature of God’s love expressed through different aspects of the Trinity. It speaks of relationship within Godself and with the whole of creation
God in relationship “dance of the holy three” as Jo expresses it in Doctrine of the Trinity on Disclosing New Worlds
Focusing on Christ we sing a salvation story - love expressed through the fullness of God but revealed in Jesus. That fullness is the Trinity and so we should be careful of ideas which suggest that OT God is nasty wrathful God and Jesus reveals the nicer NT God. The love of God is revealed through the whole salvation story from the beginnings of time into future days.
The dance of the holy three in relationship with the dance of humanity?
The Spirit was not something new at Pentecost, We are reminded that Moses met with this same Spirit in the desert, that the Spirit brings Kingdom Joy, freedom from earth-bound ways and through this Spirit we are new born - time and time again.
How big is your God?
Big enough to be the creator of all things yet personal enough to be in relationship with each of us?
Big enough to create each living things and open enough to offer the freedom to each to live in their own way?
Big enough to be understood in a million different ways or so small that you understanding has to be restricted and restrictive?
To embrace Trinity can open us up to the awesome, diverse nature of the “dance of the holy three” or can restrict us to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Male, authoritarian, regimented.
Mothering God, you gave me birth
in the bright morning of this world.
Creator, source of every breath,
you are my rain, my wind, my sun.
Mothering Christ, you took my form,
offering me your food of light,
grain of new life and grape of love,
your very body for my peace.
Mothering Spirit, nurt’ring one,
in arms of patience hold me close,
so that in faith I root and grow
until I flow’r, until I know.
Julian of Norwich
Ego Sum 4, William Congdon, 1960. Christus Rex
I am - Creator, Salvation, a bird in flight
I am - created to think, create, explore,
to joyfully play, dance, sing,
to relate holy three to all humanity
She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.
Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.
A salvation story - God who lives in community with Godself, calls us to live in community with one another and to join with the dance of the holy three. God who lives in perfect love, perfect relationship, inspires us to love and to heal broken relationships.
We gather around this table to break bread, share wine, to commune with God and with all who seek the way of God.
At the heart of this salvation, this good news, this gospel is the cross and an empty tomb - a story of new life, hope, the offer to move from the past into the future - to be born again.
When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?
His dying crimson, like a robe,
spreads o’er his body on the tree;
then am I dead to all the globe,
and all the globe is dead to me.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), 1707
Christ Crucified between the Virgin and Nicodemus, Michelangelo, c 1552-54.
Take, eat; this is the body of Christ, broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of him.
This cup is the new covenant in the blood of Christ,
shed for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sin.
Drink of it, all of you, in remembrance of him.