Trinity, June 7, 2020

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Gospel: John 3:16–17

Theme: Jesus is God’s love made visible

John 3:16–17

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Music Meditations

Companions for the Journey

From “First Impressions”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

Barbara Brown Taylor, a scripture scholar and preacher, quotes Robert Farrar Capon, who says that when we humans try to describe God it’s like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. The mystics choose silence or exult in extravagant metaphors to describe their encounters with the Holy One. The God Moses meets on the mountains is revealed as “merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” This same God is also hidden in a cloud. Though what we say of God is woefully inadequate, the scriptures do try to name the mystery for those of us who grope in the dark—for us oysters.

Today’s gospel makes an attempt to picture God for us and so draw us into the divine mystery. Even if you are not a “chapter and verse” bible expert, chances are you will recognize today’s Gospel citation for it starts with John 3:16. If you have ever watched a football game you have seen someone hold up a sign with that verse listed on it. Just as a kicker is about to kick the ball through the uprights, when the camera is focused on the goal posts and the fans behind it, someone stands up and flashes a sign saying John 3:16 for the television viewers to see. I wonder how many people who see the sign know its reference? Perhaps even the church-goers attribute the sign waving to a fringe group of fundamentalist Christians—one of “those fanatics.” Most Christians intent on watching the game, beer in one hand, chips in the other, may even find it annoying or at least irrelevant to their lives this “John 3:16 thing.”

But in this one verse is a summary of the gospel—God is reaching out to us through Jesus, who is the full sign of God’s love for “the world.” We may not be able to define God or click off all of God’s holy attributes on this Trinity Sunday, but this much we know about God today—God is merciful, gracious and slow to anger. It is summed up for us in the Exodus reading and in our John 3:16 reference. Am I willing to let myself fall into the hands of this God, trusting the Sinai revelation? Or, no matter how I feel about myself, do I believe that John’s testimony is reliable, something to lean on—“God so loved the world...?” Not just the generic, big picture world, but little ol’ me, here on the small piece of real estate I occupy at this moment of time—God loves me.

God’s self-description to Moses as “merciful” comes from a word that describes the feeling a pregnant woman has for the child in her womb or for the children born of her womb. That’s the feeling the Trinity has for us today. That’s the deep down love God had for us that urged God to send Christ to us and enabled us to hear, see and touch that love. John tells us that we are the recipients of this love, all of us—the entire world. So, God spares nothing, no effort is too much to make the point, even going so far as to give the Son into our hands. It’s so incomprehensible, God reached into our world to be one with us and pull us out of the mess we were stuck in. This enfleshed love can come to any of us and transform us. In some strange way, no one is left out of this loving embrace of God revealed to us in Christ. To have been invited to accept love and to reject God’s outreach is to reject a saving hand reaching out to pull us out of the mire in which we find ourselves—we ignore God at our own peril. Condemnation is our own decision, for to be cut off from God is to turn away from life. As we read today’s gospel passage perhaps we are embarrassed by its seeming exclusivity, “God so loved the world that he(sic) gave his only Son, so that everyone who believers in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” We moderns count an ethnic and religious diverse group of people among our friends and business associates. What about all these good people we know, some whose good works put us to shame, who aren’t Christians? Are they going to perish if they don’t claim John 3:16 as their core belief? The passage is balanced by the clear proclamation that this love God has is for the whole world. About those people who have not accepted Christ or have not heard about him, and I am sure those who hold up the signs at football games will not agree with this, they are in the hands of the One who loves the whole world. God can figure out a loving way to include them. We believe the placard that says John 3:16, whether we join those carrying the sign or not. This is what we know about the Trinity today—God has noted all and each of us and totally gives us the divine life to live in us. “Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today's session…

God so loved the world that he gave his only son…

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today's reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • When you pray, to which person of the Blessed Trinity do you most often do so? Why?
  • Do you often invite God to “come along in your company”? Why or why not?
  • Do you treat the Trinity as an unsolvable theological puzzle or as a model for personal relationships?
  • John’s entire gospel is “God is Love”. What does this passage say to you about God’s love for you?
  • How do you explain the sentence: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life”?
  • Do you believe that “whoever does not believe has been condemned”? How do you interpret this sentence?
  • To love is to give oneself. To whom or what do you give yourself?
    St Augustine said: “Are you looking for something to give God? Give him yourself.” What do you give God (obedience, prayer, Mass attendance, good works, personal sacrifice)?
  • Father William Bausch wrote: “We are at our best, most human, most moral, most divine, when we are in loving relationships. I think of some of my relationships:” Do I give love or merely receive it, do I act lovingly towards even the most annoying people in my lie? Do I believe my loving relationships are a mirror of the loving relationship that is the Trinity?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

This was taken from Praying with Julian of Norwich, by Gloria Durka:
I saw and understood that the high might of the Trinity is our Father, and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, and the great love of the Trinity is our Lord; all these things we have in nature and in our substantial creation. Thus in our Father, God almighty, we have our being, and in our Mother of mercy we have our reforming and restoring, in whom our parts are united and all made perfect man, and through the rewards of Grace of the Holy Spirit we are fulfilled (excerpted from Julian of Norwich, Showings pp. 293, 295)

  • Reflect for a time on the image of God as our Mother with wisdom and mercy, reforming and restoring us. Does this image offer you a new way of experiencing God’s love?
  • How have you shared your wisdom and mercy lately? Bring to mind some of the ways in which you have been a wise counselor and merciful mother to people in the last week or so.
  • Think about some ways in which you have increased in your own love of God. Compare your love for God with what it was when you were a child. Thank God now for this increasing in your life.
  • Pray for awareness of how you can help someone else think of God’s love as being like a mother’s love—someone in your family, a friend who is distressed, or someone else who is in need of love and loving.
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Read the following hymn from Philippians 2:5–8:

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Do you see in Jesus a reflection of your own humanity?
Do you seek to emulate Jesus in not desiring rank and power for yourself?
Are you, like Jesus, motivated by love to act as you do?
What are you willing to endure for the sake of someone in your life whom you love? What are you willing to endure for the sake of God whom you love?

A Meditation on the Franciscan Style/Action:

Read 2 Corinthians 13:11–13. Imagine God saying these things to you: Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace…How do you see yourself concretely living out these exhortations? Where do you need some extra help from the Spirit? Pick one circumstance in your life which needs to change, or one relationship which could use improvement and talk to God about ways in which you need to change. Pick one. Do it.

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Think of someone you love. How often does she come to mind? Do you have a pet name for him, or do you have several? Does thinking about her make you smile? What do you do that you know makes him happy? How do you picture God (Do you pick one person of the Blessed Trinity, or do you pick all three symbolized by two men (one old, one young) and a bird?) How often during the day do you think of God? What do you call God? (Anne Lamott says she has a friend who calls God “Howard”, as in, “our Father Howard in heaven.”) If you don’t have a pet name for God, try to think of one—it tells you something about your relationship to God. What do you think would make God happy? Do you do it? St. Peter, when asked by Jesus if he loved him, responded in the affirmative, but used the Greek word philia instead of the Greek word agape—a more self-rewarding kind of love, which prompted Jesus to tell him that love for Jesus meant feeding Jesus’ sheep—caring for others. How often does your love for God (or for only one of the Trinity) motivate you to care for others?

Poetic Reflection:

How does this poem help us see different “persona” of God as reflected in the Trinity?

“From Narrow Places”

From narrow places
the strength of our voice
rises:

our every breath
is prayer,
the great poem of need,
a constant scattering
of praise.

Early
we reach to God
in the claim of our hearts,
while he,
our father,
mothers us
in his

—Ed Ingebretsen, S.J.

Poetic Reflection:

Read the poem "Gather the People" (from Psalms of the Still Country) by Ed Ingebretzen, S.J. Do you see in it an affirmation of God’s love for us?