When we are nervous about being in certain situations, like meeting someone for the first time or being interviewed for a new job, sometimes people attempt to calm us down by saying, “Just be yourself.” The idea is to relieve the pressure we put on ourselves by trying to be the person we imagine will be liked better or accepted instead of just being the true person we are.
Trinity Sunday is about just letting God be God. Christians profess that God is a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit bound together as one in selfless love. God’s love constantly reaches out to us and invites us to live lives of selfless love. Even though all this might be difficult to comprehend, it is who God is. It is God just being God.
Letting God be God is about seeing God who is revealed in the images of Scripture. In the Old Testament, God is a husband, faithful to his spouse (Hosea 2:20) and a mother who will never forget her child (Is. 49:15). God is an artist, fashioning the world and its people (Gen. 1:1). God is a legislator, making laws and wanting them to be followed (Is. 33:22), and a singer, singing and dancing in delight over us (Zeph. 3:17). In the New Testament, God is a woman sweeping her house in search of a lost coin (Lk. 15:8-10) and a shepherd searching for the one lost sheep (Lk. 15:1-7). God is a dad, welcoming back his lost son (Lk. 15:11-21) and a baker woman, kneading the dough of the Kingdom (Matt. 13:33). God is a deep sea diver, diving for the pearl of priceless love (Matt. 13:45-46) and a boss who pays his workers with lavish generosity (Matt. 20:1-16). God is a party person who cannot stand the thought of no guests at his dinner (Lk. 14:15-24).
In Jesus, God is a beautiful vine (Jn. 15:1-17) and the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). He is the good shepherd (Jn. 10:1-11), a short order cook who barbeques breakfast on the beach for his friends (Jn. 21:9-11) and the bread of life made present to us in the Eucharist (Jn. 6:35). He is the greatest love of all, who laid down his life for us, his friends, that we may live forever (Jn. 15:13).
How wonderful to just let God be God!
Together in faith,
Very Rev. Christopher Smith, Rector