Great Promises of God: Abraham

Gen. 17:1-8, 15-16

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

On this second Sunday in Lent, we continue what I have designed to be a sermon series on the great Biblical promises of God. Last week, we considered God’s covenant with Noah, his family, and all of creation, never again to allow God’s well-ordered creation to be unmade by the waters of chaos. By this promise, God chose to limit God’s own power to create and destroy for the sake of humanity, a choice that foreshadowed God’s condescension to becoming fully human and taking God’s own wrath upon Godself for our sake in Jesus Christ.

This morning, we read about the second great promise of God in scripture: God’s covenant with Abram. Actually, if one were reading through the book of Genesis, by the time one reached chapter 17 and this morning’s reading, one might already be tired of hearing about God’s covenant with Abram. This is by no means the first time it’s come up. God also makes promises to Abram in chapters 12, 13, 15, and 16. They’re all either about land or about progeny, and both cause Abram and his offspring considerable trouble!

When God first came to Abram in the land of Haran, he was already 75 years old. Asking Abram to leave his homeland and his family and set off—without GPS—toward a far country that he had never seen was a tall order indeed. Leaving Haran meant leaving behind not only his country and his family, but also the gods that protected them—and all in response to what might have been nothing more than a voice he heard in his head.

And yet Abram went, and his faithfulness set the stage for God’s grace to repair the broken relationship between God and humanity. That took place in chapter 12. The promise was repeated at the end of chapter 13, when Abram and his nephew, Lot, went their separate ways and began to populate the area in and around Canaan. In chapter 15, God reiterated his promise that Abram would have many descendants, after Abram points out that to that point, God had not deigned to give him a child at all and that one of his house servants was his closest heir. “No one but your very own issue shall be your heir,” God assured Abram, and he took him outside, showed him the stars in the sky, and said, “So shall your descendants be.”

In chapter 16, God made a different sort of promise. Hagar conceived, which, although orchestrated by Sarai, nonetheless made her jealous of Hagar. So Sarai expelled Hagar from Abram’s camp, leaving her to wander alone in the wilderness. But the Lord promised to Hagar, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” Not long after, Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years old, and Abram named him Ishmael, as the Lord commanded.

Now, we often disparage Sarai for the goings-on of chapter 16, and yet she really can’t be faulted for what happened. God promised Abram children, but Sarai—it is supposed—was barren. It was within Sarai’s rights to give Hagar to Abram as a proxy for her barren womb. It’s easy to condemn Sarai and Abram for quote-unquote “not trusting the Lord’s promise,” but it could be argued that they were simply seeking a level-headed solution to their difficulty conceiving. Remember, prior to this story God never promised that Sarai would bear children. God only promised that Abram would have descendants. So it was reasonable for Sarai and Abram to seek a solution to their fertility problems, and their actions frankly had nothing to do with God’s promise. In fact, so faithful was God that even though Ishmael was not the progeny that God had in mind for the covenant, God blessed him nevertheless, promising that God would make a great nation of him, too.

Which brings us to this morning’s scripture reading. 13 years have passed. When we read Genesis, this is often lost on us, even though the author points it out. When Ishmael was born, Abram was 86. In the very next sentence, Abram is 99—so 13 years have passed; Ishmael is 13 years old. Abram, Sarai, and Hagar have had 13 years to get used to the idea that Ishmael was both the product and the heir of God’s promise. Surely Ishmael must have been the heir of the promise! They had no reason to believe otherwise! Moreover, Abram hadn’t heard a word from God in those 13 years. It would appear that the promise had been fulfilled: Abram was living in Canaan and had a son who would become the patriarch of a great nation.

Then, shockingly, God showed back up and revealed quite a bit more of his will. “I am El Shaddai,” God said. That is, I am the God of the mountains. Traditionally, we translate this as “God Almighty.” This is not God’s proper name—we know this, because we know that God’s proper name will be given to Moses, many generations later. But “Almighty God” or “God of the Mountains” is more like a title or a résumé: I made the mountains, I made you, I’m going to make a nation out of you, and I’m the only God that matters.

“As for me,” God said—just as he said to Noah last week, because when you’re making a covenant with someone, this is apparently what you say—“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. In fact, you will no longer be known as ‘Exalted Father,’ but as ‘Father of Many.’ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and you will father nations and kings! And my covenant with you will pass down through the generations to all of your offspring, for an everlasting covenant. I will give them the land where you now reside as a non-citizen, and I will be their God.”

Then, according to our lectionary reading, God did something completely new with this covenant (which, while more detailed than in previous chapters, is still mostly more of the same thing): this time, he included Sarai in the promise! Previously, God had promised Abram children, but not Sarai (which is what led to the Hagar and Ishmael fiasco in the first place). This time, God says, “You shall no longer call her your princess, because she will become a true princess—the matriarch of nations, kings, and peoples—because I will give you a son by her.”

Abram—sorry, Abraham—was incredulous, and who could blame him? He had a son: Ishmael, now thirteen years old. And was Sarai—sorry, Sarah— supposed to conceive a child at the age of ninety? Abraham fell on his face and laughed at this divine silliness. “Tell you what, God Almighty, how about you pass your covenant on to Ishmael? He’s my first-born son, and besides, he’s actually alive here and now—a 13-year-old young man!”

“Nope,” said God. “It’s going to be Sarah’s kid. As for Ishmael, though, I hear you. Don’t worry, he’ll also be blessed, and will be the patriarch of a great nation with twelve princes; but my covenant will be with Sarah’s child, not Hagar’s.”

Now, the lectionary skipped over some verses, as the lectionary has been known to do, perhaps because it thinks it’s sparing pastors the embarrassment of talking about circumcision. But now that I’ve said the word anyway, I guess we might as well talk about it, right? It’s perplexing to me that the lectionary would leave the verses on circumcision out, because it is this ancient rite of middle eastern cultures that becomes analogous to Christian baptism. Chapter 17 of Genesis shows that this seemingly odd ceremonial rite, which marks a child as a member of the covenant community, is not a condition of God’s covenant, but a response to God’s faithfulness. So, too, do we Presbyterians believe that baptism does not reconcile a person to God; rather, it acknowledges that God has reconciled them to Godself already. “As for me,” said God, “I will give you land, give you offspring, and I’ll be their God forever.” This is God’s eternal covenant with the children of Abraham. “As for you,” God went on, “every male among you shall be circumcised.” Circumcision marks one as a child of the Abrahamic covenant, just as baptism marks one as a child of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. Circumcision, like baptism, is sacramental: an outward sign of the inward grace that God is working out in the life of the people of the covenant. It’s not a condition of God’s covenant; it is a sign of one’s faith in God’s faithfulness.

Faith in God’s faithfulness: that is the proper human response to the great promises of God in scripture, like the covenant between God and Abraham’s offspring. As 2 Peter tells us, “[Christ’s] divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and great promises, so that through them… you may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:3-4). Just as God promised protection and constant love to creation in his covenant with Noah, and just has God promised a blessing to all humanity through Abraham’s family, so too, in Jesus Christ, has God made a new covenant with humankind. When we gather around the Lord’s table, it is to celebrate another sacrament: another outward sign of the inward grace that God is working in the lives of his covenant people. In Jesus Christ, whose broken body and shed blood are the signs of God’s New Covenant with humanity, we partake of and celebrate God’s great promise of reconciliation.

And then, as with baptism, our response to God’s faithfulness is mindful adherence to the Way of Jesus Christ. Our faith in God’s faithfulness is expressed in the way we love one another as God first loved us; the way we love our neighbors in the same way that we love ourselves; the way that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. As Lent carries on, I encourage you to consider—and pray about—how your interactions with others reflects your faith in God’s faithfulness. And where you notice that your interactions fall short of what Jesus would want you to do, be gentle with yourself (as Christ is gentle) and then steel your resolve to do and to be better. God has promised that God’s love for us is eternal and unshakable. Thanks be to God!

Great Promises of God: Noah

Gen. 9:8-17

A rainbow appearing over Chester, WV.

The photo above is of one of the brightest, most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen, arching over the town of Chester, WV. It happened on a Wednesday evening, and our Bible study group got a late start that night, because we all stood outside marveling at how bright and distinct it was. When you see something so bright and beautiful, it gets you wondering what it would be like to bring that rainbow inside the house with us. How could any house ever contain the dazzling light or the blaze of colors?

Imagine what it would be like to have a rainbow in our church—a real, honest-to-goodness rainbow—just flashing on the walls, and shooting through the windows, and blowing open the doors, and arching over the communion table. Everything awash in colored light! What would a church look like—what would the body of Christ be like—if it shined as brightly as the dazzling colors of the rainbow?

This morning’s reading is not really about the flood, is it? Because the flood is over at this point, Noah and his family and all the animals have already disembarked. But we know this because we know the story of the flood. We know that with the flood, God un-creates the world. He reverses what he had accomplished in the creation, allowing the waters of chaos, which he had subjected to his will, to roar back over his creation, destroying everything that had the breath of life. In this morning’s reading, the narrative ends with God uttering the first covenant we find in scripture.Prior to the flood, humanity had run rough-shod over the boundaries established by God. A downward spiral of violence and idolatry led to the total corruption of God’s “very good” creation, and an increase in the very chaos that God had once brought to order. Grieving over the ruined creation, God resolved to destroy the destroyers—to drown the earth and all that breathed upon it, except one tiny remnant. God remembered and rescued a tiny, chosen few, preserved in the ark, and hoped that they would represent a clean slate.

But after the floods had receded, and the ark had landed on Ararat, and the remnant clambered out of the ark, God came to a realization: the flood hadn’t really changed anything. Chapter 8 says, “The Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done’” (8:21).

And so God made a covenant with Noah, his family, and all of creation. And one of the distinctive features of this covenant is that it is completely one-sided. God asks nothing of humanity; God asks nothing of his creation. Instead, God limits his own power for the sake of the world. God commits to a new, post-flood relationship with all animate life, wherein God would become the sworn protector of creation, even from his own wrath! Neither the flood nor God’s promise changed the world—the world had become corrupt before the flood, and it continued to be corrupt after the flood. What changed was God.

Divine retribution didn’t solve God’s problem. God’s heart was still broken, and humanity was still corrupt. But if God wanted to stay in relationship with creation—and especially with humankind, those creatures who had been created in his image—then God was the one who would have to change. I know we like to say that God is unchanging, but the only think about God that never changes is his steadfast refusal to give up on us! God’s love for humanity—that’s what never changes. Aside from that, God will do anything for the sake of his relationship with us. Anything. Therefore, God repents, turns from his wrath and chooses forgiveness, patience, and steadfast love for humanity even though he knew we would never change!

God chose to limit God’s own power for the sake of humanity. “As for me,” he said, “I will never do this again. I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And just to remind God of his own covenant, he took his war bow and placed in the clouds, aimed not at the earth, but away from it. “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” We don’t need the reminder (and we wouldn’t care if we had one)—God needed the reminder. And why? Because humanity would continue to do the wrong thing. Humanity would continue in its violence and its idolatry. But no matter how tempted God might be to wipe the slate clean, God has promised Godself and us that divine power to destroy the world would never be used again. God chose to limit God’s own power for the sake of humanity.

Is it any wonder that we read this story on the first Sunday of Lent? As we begin to contemplate Christ’s journey to the cross, we’re given an example—from the very earliest days of human existence—of God already limiting God’s own power for the sake of humanity. Philippians reminds us that “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). In Jesus Christ, God limited God’s own power for the sake of humanity, taking the form of a slave, making our sinfulness God’s problem, and suffering grief for the sake of maintaining relationship with sinful humanity.

With his unilateral covenant, God permanently binds Godself to humanity. God is no longer just our creator, but also our protector, committed to protecting us from God’s righteous wrath. By binding Godself to the fate of humanity, God became inherently invested in the fate of humanity, leaving God vulnerable (because humanity was never going to come through for God; God was never going to win this bet!). And so God, who could not simply sit back and wait for humanity to get its act together, instead had to take God’s own righteous wrath upon Godself. In a very real sense, the story of Jesus Christ’s ministry—his death, his resurrection, and his ascension—began with this first covenant between God and the world. “This is the kind of God I am,” God was proclaiming to Noah. “I am willing to limit myself, even unto death, for the sake of my love for you.”

Even the ancient Hebrews perceived that God was inherently self-giving, willing to enter into a relationship with humanity that put limits on God’s own prerogatives. That is, when it comes right down to it, the very nature of any relationship built upon genuine love, isn’t it? Parents bound in love to their children make all kinds of sacrifices for their sakes. Spouses make sacrifices for the sake of each other. Genuine friends give selflessly of themselves for the good of another.

Lent is the Church’s way of giving each of us, and all of us, an opportunity to ask ourselves whether we will repent and stop grappling for control over our own lives, or whether we will allow the cycle of violence and idolatry to continue. God was willing to sacrifice God’s freedom for us—not just on the cross, but even as far back as the covenant with Noah (though that willingness reaches its climax on Good Friday). If God, who alone has the right to despair over what humanity has become and what humanity has done to ravage God’s creation, who alone has the right to judge, the right to destroy, and yet has surrendered that divine prerogative out of a covenantal love for humanity, then might not we who have tasted this mercy look upon all people as worthwhile? Are not all people declared worthy in God’s universal covenant with creation in this morning’s passage?

Noah’s Ark is one of our favorite children’s stories in the Church, isn’t it? With the menagerie of animals, and all the colors of the rainbow, we can teach our kids so many things. Most important of all, though, is that big, beautiful rainbow—God’s promise to all of creation that God’s love for all of it, all of us, will never be shaken. What would be the harm in letting the rainbow out of our children’s Sunday School rooms and allowing it to flash down the halls, shoot through the windows, blow open the doors, and arch over the communion table?

The sixth Great End of the Church is “the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.” What could be a greater exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven than taking God’s promise of eternal love for creation so seriously that we can’t help but love creation as much as God does? What would be more transformative of the church or the world than to allow the celebration of God’s promise to remake our hearts in the image of God’s heart, or to allow our hearts to be broken wide open with grief over our own hard-heartedness and the hard-heartedness of the world and its chaos? It’s when our hearts are broken like God’s heart was broken over the sinfulness of humanity, that we become able to participate in God’s redemptive ministry of reconciliation in the world: forgiving, loving, and restoring.

God chose to limit God’s own power for the sake of humanity, being born in human likeness, humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Let us take the great promise of God’s eternal love to heart during this Lenten season and let us bring that rainbow inside our homes and inside the house of God with us!

Community Dinner

 

Exod. 12:1-4, 11-14; John 13:1–17

This week, I was proud to read and then share on social media an article published by The Business Journal titled, “’Live New Wilmington’ Unites Town with Events.” I was proud, of course, because all of the people quoted or mentioned in the article are members of this congregation: Katanya Cathcart, Wendy Farmerie, and Nicole Hunter. Of the various “First Friday” events mentioned in the article, perhaps the most novel one is the Community Dinner that takes place on Market Street. Or maybe I should say it happens in Market Street, since the giant banquet table that is spread out for any and all to come and enjoy literally stretches right down the centerline of Market Street, which is closed to traffic for the event. As Katanya explains in the article:

“We shut down a big section of Market Street and it really gives it a different ambience. People, for whatever reason, think it’s really fun to sit at a table in the middle of the street,” Cathcart says with a laugh. “They think it’s this brilliant thing.”

In those events, Cathcart and Hunter saw the area’s populations mix. Residents from Shenango on the Green, an assisted living center near Westminster College, interacted with kids during the Kids Carnival. Students from Westminster College ate with downtown business owners during the Community Dinner.

“All of these events are quirky and Katanya and Wendy [Farmerie, owner of The Silk Road] planned that on purpose. Quirk is what gets people talking, which is what this was all about,” Hunter says. “It’s contagious. Their joy is contagious when everyone’s together, especially with kids around.”

Ultimately, the goal of Live New Wilmington is getting people together, not always easy given the increasingly diverse segments of the population.

The Gospel according to John is always prepared to disrupt our understanding. Three synoptic gospels’-worth of similarities leave us with the assumption that we know what tonight is about: that as we gather around the Lord’s Table, we do so in remembrance of Jesus. Surely, this was the tradition of the Apostle Paul, handed on to us in the word of institution that Pastor John and I will speak in just a few minutes. But the author of John’s gospel is distinctly and uniquely disinterested in all that. He fails to mention bread; the disciples share no common cup. Either because the other gospels had already sufficiently covered that ground or because it was, in John’s opinion, not the point of the meal, John recounts the circumstances rather differently.

John sets the scene by stating from the outset, “Now before the festival of the Passover….” As Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Randall C. Zachman, points out,

“By framing the coming of the hour in this way, John seems to invite the reader to think of the dramatically different ways the love of God is manifested in the exodus, compared to the way the love of God is said to be completely expressed in the death of Jesus. The love of God is revealed to Israel by the way God sees the misery of God’s people in Egypt, hears their cry in their afflictions, knows their sufferings, and comes down to deliver them, to bring them to the land of promise, where they are to dwell in peace (Exod. 3:7-10). In the process, God hands over to death the enemies of God’s own people who oppress and afflict them (Exod. 15:21). Because the Israelites know that the love of God acts in this way, they can call on God in their own afflictions, confident that God will see their affliction, hear their cry, know their suffering, and come down to deliver them from death by handing those who oppress them over to death (Ps. 57:3). The faithful know that God loves them when they are freed from death and look [down] in triumph on those who oppressed them (Ps. 59:10).”

Indeed, we see this very attitude expressed by Jesus’ own disciples throughout the gospels, as they assume that Jesus’ being the messiah means that he will rise in power to overthrow their Roman oppressors. Even as late as this evening’s reading, Peter refuses the self-giving service of Jesus at table, saying, “You will never wash my feet!” because it is scandalous to him that the one who soon will be King of all he surveys should condescend to such a servile task. But Jesus explains to Peter (though Peter continues not to understand properly) that unless Peter can accept the kind of service Jesus is offering, Peter will have no place in what is coming. As Dr. Zachman continues to explain:

“The works Jesus does leading up to the hour of his death seem to express the love of God according to the pattern of the Exodus, culminating in the raising of Lazarus from the power of death, the last sign Jesus performs before entering Jerusalem. The raising of Lazarus would be an understandable expression of God’s love as it was known to the Jews from the exodus. It therefore comes as a complete and horrifying surprise, both to the disciples and to us, that Jesus in fact has a radically different understanding of love, one that does not deliver its own from the power of death, but rather one that freely, voluntarily, and completely offers itself to death….”[1]

In short, the Gospel of John, in typical fashion, tells the story of the last supper differently because for him the point of the supper is different. The Synoptic gospels emphasize the identification of Jesus as the Pascal lamb whose sacrifice will cause God’s wrath to pass over God’s people, as it had at the time of the exodus. Just as the Passover Seder is a ritualized meal that causes participants to remember the exodus, the Lord’s Supper is, in the view of the Synoptics, cause to remember Jesus’ own Pascal sacrifice. But according to John, the last supper served a different purpose. It was an occasion for Jesus to teach his disciples—through the clearest teaching and example he would ever offer—what he had been sent to do.

“After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done for you?’” That is the question that John asks us this evening: do we know what Jesus has done for us? And before you mentally answer that question, allow me to remind you that when Jesus asked this question, he was still as much as 18 hours away from his crucifixion. In other words, whatever it was that Jesus was referring to, it wasn’t his death.

As I heard Dr. Andrew Purves, Jean and Nancy Davis Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, state in a lecture in 2015, “Atonement is not the amelioration of broken laws [which Purves calls the great Western heresy]; it is the restoration of a broken relationship.” The Eastern Church — that is, the various Eastern Orthodox communions — understand this in a way that we Westerners have rather completely defaced in our rationalist pursuit of God. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and internationally celebrated author of many books of theological reflection, most recently authored The Divine Dance. Rohr outlines how Western philosophy and theology are founded on Aristotle’s notion of substance being the highest quality of being. The Western Church objectified God and sought to understand God substantially. Meanwhile, the Eastern Church understands God relationally. This relational understanding of God is not a Christian invention—it is inherited from our Jewish spiritual forbears, who do not rely upon “systematic theologies” to rationalize their faith, but relate to God, rather than seek to understand or explain God.

Richard Rohr’s plea is that the Western Church move past its obsession with defining God’s objective substance (an obsession over which wars have been fought, to say nothing of the abhorrently schismatic attitudes of Western Christians for at least the last 500 years), and recover a theology of relationship.

We speak regularly about humanity being created in the image of God; and precisely what is meant by this is a favorite topic of conversation around seminary lunch tables. But it has only been in the last five years or so that it has dawned on me that I have always conceptualized this all wrong. When we talk about God, we don’t actually think about it. God means “the Man Upstairs,” “the distant and vaguely threatening Deity up there somewhere.”

What a pitiful theology! How far removed that is from the God revealed to us in, through, and as Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit! We are not created in the image of the man upstairs! We are created in the image of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—a God whose very essence (dare I say “substance”?) is relational. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal relationship, One God. We, then, are created in this image; we are created as relational beings and for the express purpose of being in eternal and transcendent communion with the Trinity and with one another!

And that—that—is what Jesus refers to, when he asks his disciples, “Do you know what I have done for you?” The saving work of Christ, what Jesus has done and continues to do for us, is not about the cross; it is about the incarnation. “In the beginning was the Relationship,” Rohr writes in his book. While humanity has broken its relationship with God and, consequently, broken our ability to be in right relationship to one another, God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ served to restore God’s relationship to humanity—to offer us, anew, a seat at the table. And so Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment: “Love one another; as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” The foot washing of which they have all been recipients is an object lesson, a model of the kind of self-giving love God wants amongst God’s children, even as God has modeled that very self-giving love in sending his only begotten Son to be for us the Resurrection (of relationship) and the Life (in relationship).

My favorite Eastern icon is also one of the best-known in the world: Andrei Rublev’s icon called The Hospitality of Abraham, also known simply as The Trinity (see above). Seeming on the surface to depict the three strangers to whom Abraham offered hospitality in the book of Genesis, but which the author identifies as “the Lord,” Rublev seizes on the notion that God manifested as three figures, painting the three Persons of the Trinity sitting at a table. The Father, clothed in gold, and the Son, clothed in blue, gaze at one another while the Holy Spirit, clothed in green, looks to—and even gestures toward—the open space at the table: the space that the observer occupies as he or she stands in prayer before the icon. The message is clear: God invites the viewer to the table—to relationship with the God whose very essence is relationship!

But there’s even more. See the little rectangular “hole” that is painted in the front of the table? Richard Rohr reports that according to art historians,

“the remaining glue on the original icon indicates that there was perhaps once a mirror glued to the front of the table! … This might have been Rublev’s final design flourish. Or maybe it was added later—we’re not sure. But can you imagine what its meaning might be? It’s stunning when you think about it—there was room at this table for a fourth. The observer.

“You.”[2]

The Eastern church has a word for the relational nature of God: perichoresis. Choreo means “to dance,” and it’s where we get the word “choreography.” The prefix “peri” means “around.” When asked to describe the nature of God, a Western Christian says, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen… We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father… We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son….” In other words, the Western Christian tries to be rational—he tries to explain the math of how one plus one plus one equals one.

But if you ask an Eastern Christian to describe the nature of God, they use the word perichoresis. The Trinity dances around! They dance around each other like a swirling electron cloud, eternally joyful in their singular presence.

And yet.

And yet this Triunity doesn’t like to eat alone. We are invited to share in the bounty of God’s Table, and to join in the perichoresis—the divine “dancing around!” This is the nature of what our ancient forbears called “salvation.”

So come. Let us respond to God’s invitation knowing that he does not invite us to a memorial service, but to a community dinner. He has stretched the banquet table down the centerline of the very golden street that leads all in the Kingdom into God’s holy presence.

Come and eat! Come and drink! Come and dance!

 

 

[1] Randall C. Zachman, “John 13:1-17, 31b-35; Holy Thursday, Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), 273-4.

[2] Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance (New Kensington: Whitaker House, 2016), 30-1.