Two people meet at a conference.
The first person says to her new acquaintance, “So, do you believe in God?”
The reply is, “Yes.”
She says, “Me too. So are you Jewish, Muslim or Christian?”
“Christian.”
“Wow, me too! Protestant or Catholic?”
“Protestant.”
“No way, me too! What kind of Protestant?”
“Baptist.”
“Oh my gosh, me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
“Northern Baptist.”
“Me too! Northern conservative Baptist or Northern liberal Baptist?”
“Northern liberal Baptist.”
“Me too! Northern liberal Baptist council of 1879, or northern liberal Baptist council of 1912?”
Her potential new friend replies, “Northern liberal Baptist council of 1912.”
The first person yells, “Heretic!” and walks away.
It doesn’t take much, does it, to convince us that we’re wildly different from one another. We humans have an amazing ability to seize on the smallest, most minuscule amount of difference, and turn it into a threat. We are very good at denying our oneness.
Look at this week.
Another mass shooting.
One hundred years since the Tulsa massacre.
One year since the murder of George Floyd.
Violence in the Holy Land. Islamophobia and anti-Semitism here at home.
A gap that’s widening in the fight against the coronavirus— a fight being won in much of the West, and lost in many of the poorest parts of the world.
We are so easily captivated by the illusion that we’re separate from one another.
Thomas Merton said, “My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine we are not. [Our task is] to recover is our original unity. What we have to be, is what we are.”
Today is Trinity Sunday.
That’s why we have this Gospel passage that mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
It’s interesting that this Gospel tells us about the disciples, “they worshipped, but they doubted.”
That seems fitting, for Trinity Sunday. We begin and end every liturgy with “in the name of our loving God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit”… it’s a part of our worship. We worship… but we doubt… We doubt whether we can really understand this. We doubt whether it has practical meaning for our day-to-day lives.
Which is why I was trying my hardest NOT to mention Trinity Sunday today. But the more I thought about it, throughout this week, the more I realized that it IS something we need. Richard Rohr, whom many of us like to read, talks about the Trinity as a divine dance— God, Jesus, and the Spirit, and the constant flow of love between them, and among all of us.
What does this really mean?
It means the deepest truth of life is UNITY, but not UNIFORMITY.
Difference, and oneness, at the same time.
If only we could live into that! If only we could remember how much we belong to each other— and see our destiny as tied to everyone else’s— without trying to erase our differences; without insisting that everybody be like us, that we all be the same.
*
This Gospel passage begins with the disciples standing together on a mountaintop. Jesus has called them out beyond their usual places of worship, beyond the towns that were familiar to them— called them out of their comfort zone. And now they find themselves in this high place… which gives them a different perspective. They’ve gone up higher, literally— but also spiritually. They’re in a higher consciousness.
Apollo 8 was the first spacecraft with a crew to reach and orbit the moon. It was launched in 1968: the height of the Vietnam War, a year of violence and unrest at home; the year Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King were killed. On Christmas Eve, as they made their fourth pass across the moon, the Apollo 8 crew became the first people ever to look down and witness the earth emerging over the moon’s horizon. This is called “earth rise.” They looked down, and saw the green and blue ball of our planet below them. And their breath caught in their throats. Tears came to their eyes. Suddenly, the fact that things like war and racism persist became almost inconceivable. How could that be so, when it was so clear from this vantage point— that we were all traveling through this universe together?
One of the crew said later about that experience, “as I looked down at at the earth, which is about the size of your fist at an arm’s length, I [thought] – ‘this is not a very big place. Why can’t we get along?’”
From up there, the fact that there was something called “the first world” and something called “the third world” made no sense at all. Up there, you couldn’t see it any other way: there was just ONE world! The thought that poverty could split the earth— was mind-boggling.
From this point of view, there were no national borders. So things like war, nationalism, ethnic conflict— they also seemed nonsensical. There was no way to rationalize them anymore.
When Jesus says, “Go out and bring good news to all the nations,” he’s calling the disciples to that higher perspective. He’s calling them beyond loyalty to their group. It’s time to see themselves as part of a universal humanity… One family.
There are some hopeful signs that we haven’t completely lost touch with that.
In early May, close to half of our U.S. population had received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine; in low-income countries, less than 1% of people had received it. This month President Biden called for a waiver on patents, to help poorer countries gain access to them and close the gap. [1]
It’s a concrete way of saying we are our brother’s keeper. We’re our sister’s keeper.
Sometimes at Spiritus we talk about “healing the world.” Well, this is a time when we truly need to heal THE WHOLE WORLD. This pandemic won’t leave us, until we’ve addressed it everywhere. Now more than ever, we are one world. And we have one fate.
“There was a farmer who grew excellent quality wheat. Every season at the fair, he won the award for the best grown in his county. One year a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed this farmer and learned that each spring the man shared his seeds with his neighbors so that they could plant it in their own fields. The reporter asked him, “How can you afford to do that? Why do you share your winning seeds with your neighbors when they are your competition at the fair?” The farmer replied, “Well, that’s very simple. The wind picks up pollen from the crops and carries it from field to field. If my neighbors grow wheat that is sickly, that isn’t hardy, cross-pollination will steadily lower the quality of all the wheat, including mine. If I am to grow good wheat, I must help my neighbors grow good wheat’. The welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.”
Many of you are gardeners. You might have heard of a practice called companion planting. Isn’t that a lovely term? This is where a wise gardener will deliberately plant flowers of different kinds next to each other, or will mix vegetable and fruit and flower plants all together in the same plot. She might sow lavender in the midst of a vegetable patch, because it helps keep the deer away. She might grow marigolds might grow with peaches, because they like to soak in the peach trees’ shade while keeping away the aphids that eat its fruit. In many Native American cultures, corn, beans, and squash are always planted together. They’re side by side so often, they’re called “The Three Sisters.” The corn, with its tall stalks, provides the bean plants with something to climb; the bean plants provide nitrogen, which increases nutrients in the soil and makes it richer for all the plants; and the leaves of the squash plant fan out over the ground and give shade, helping to keep the soil moist and free of weeds.
Our differences are good for us.
They make us stronger.
Scientists, farmers, and gardeners all know the same thing: the greatest strength is biodiversity— many different kinds of life, together. This is how ecosystems thrive. At the same time, the greatest danger is a monoculture: a field where only one crop is planted: where everything is uniform, year by year, over and over again. This leads to depleted soil; it harms the earth, and makes it hard for anything to grow after awhile.
So the earth itself knows diversity is key to flourishing. We were always meant to be companions, standing side by side in our differences.
We are the last species to get the memo.
*
Trinity also means that life is about relationship. We’re all connected in the divine dance.
Emily Dickinson, our great poet of the natural world, prayed like this:
“In the name of the bee, and of the butterfly, and of the breeze—Amen!”
She saw that divine dance written in nature itself.
The bee is a creator— it pollinates, sustaining the deep cycles of life, keeping them going.
Like the Son, the butterfly rises from darkness, transforming into something new and beautiful in the cocoon.
The breeze blows where it will, like the Spirit. It moves between the pollen and the butterfly, and among all of us; carries new life where it will. [2]
But they’re all part of one ecosystem. One flowing relationship.
*
Today Jesus invites the disciples to see themselves as related to all people. So good news for them has to be good news for everyone. The welfare of one is bound up with the welfare of all.
*
When I lived in Boston, I used to take the subway everywhere. There was an announcement that would come on periodically over the loudspeaker as the train went along. Every few miles, this stern, automated voice would filter down from overhead, saying: “Don’t forget your belongings!”
Of course they meant, “don’t forget your stuff. Your property. Don’t leave your personal possessions on the train when you get off.”
But I had a long commute in those days. And as I rode along, through the hours, hearing this echo down the car repeatedly, it really started to resonate in my heart. I started to hear it differently— as if it wasn’t about ownership, or property, or keeping track of what’s “mine”…
I started to wonder if it might be a way of God reminding me of deeper things. “Don’t forget your belongings.” Don’t forget you belong to the earth. Don’t forget you belong to others, known and unknown to you. Don’t forget you belong to the human race.
We really do forget our belongings! We forget our interdependence, that circle of communion that we’re a part of.
Today, Jesus invites us to remember. And to live our lives accordingly.
“My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine we are not. [Our task is] to recover is our original unity. What we have to be, is what we are.”
And what are we but companions— companions in the divine dance?
0 Comments