a preaching journey

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This weekend is Holy Trinity. I don't like preaching on the Trinity. It's a doctrine - it's not a story. It's a doctrine that I don't understand very well, and I'm conscious that I'm getting one or another side of it wrong if I try to explain it.

And I'm not sure how interested anyone else is in that doctrine, even properly explained.

If folks in the pews had a dime for each time they've heard a preacher say: I can't explain it, but I'll try - they all could go out for brunch.

So, this week I'm approaching Trinity from a side angle. From the Romans text - "From Slaves to Heirs"

This is what I have so far:

Slaves or heirs? – Not a choice, as we usually think about it – children do not choose to be (they can choose not to be) – you find yourself in the position of heir, of son or daughter, of part of the family. You receive and identify, or you rebel and leave. Parents - can un-accept, disinherit - but that is the exception. Parents (most parents) find that love is present for the child as gift, the child as child.

The Pauline response to this is that we are 'adopted' as children, made heirs, because of God's love for us and Christ's work for us. God's love for us becomes love of a parent for a child, not merely the regard of a master for a slave.

(Interesting, most reflections on this passage are speaking of the choices of discipleship, even the Lutheran ones (!) - see the ELCA Daily Discipleship, or the stuff from Sermons.com)

My understanding, and I think it could be justified from Romans, says we are passively ushered into the state of salvation, and grow and live into it. Likewise with the language of being ‘born again’ – other traditions see that as a choice WE make. Lutherans understand it as a blessing God gives and that we receive as gift. All God, all gift, all grace.(And that's the Trinitiran connection - God the Parent is loving, God the Son is our brother, God the Wind is blows us to the direction of joy).

Here is the opening to say we can ‘leave’, we can ‘turn our faces away’ and let the powers of not-God catch our attention. What we control is our attention, our attitude, our receptivity. (?) God is constant in His love for us – we are not constant in our response to Him.

What makes this hard for me personally is that DS is choosing the away path. He is taking the way of the flesh, the hard road of choosing for himself to not cooperate with the 'systems' around him - not economic systems (doesn't want a job) nor moral (cheats, lies, smokes pot, steals) nor emotional (what his dad and I can offer) nor spiritual - 'nuff said. We adopted him, but he is in the process of un-parenting us.

And so the consequences catch up with him. The least of these is poverty. The worst - I don't want to speculate.

As a speaker I go for the promise, not to the condemnation. I see and I know the dark side of this argument.

What do I say on Sunday?
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