REFLECTION

As I write, the sun is shining, the breeze is gentle, the air is warm, and the forecast is for the day to be hot. The spring colour in the garden has largely gone now, but the lush green of new growth heralds splendour and produce to come. The sound of birdsong enters through the open windows - a sound much remarked upon even in normally busy and noisy cities. People pass by for their daily exercise and from the tv we see others have been going to the beach and other beauty spots. People, it is said are noticing nature much more, whether it is the leaves on the trees, the clouds in the sky or the birds hopping around the garden pecking away for grubs or worms. Repeatedly, the commentators remark on the reduced pollution and greenhouse gases and pose the question - the challenge even - whether we will change our habits to maintain this reduction.

I wonder if this new awareness of the natural world around us, and the changes in our environment the reduction of emissions from our restricted use of cars and aeroplanes has produced is a sign of a change in people's mindset. For the environmentalists and the Springwatch and Blue Planet nature-lovers this only underscores what they have argued for a long time. I wonder, though, if any consciously think about the Genesis creation stories as they gaze at that flower or that bird, at the detail of a leaf or the sweep of the horizon, and think of God as in their own minds they echo God's judgment 'it is good'. I wonder if they or you, in seeing this beauty in the world around us, reflects with the psalmist upon the relationship between God, humankind, and the natural world around us it highlights:

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4)

Relationship. Isn't that what these Bible readings and Trinity Sunday are about? In this most familiar Creation story of Genesis 1 the Creator God creates the heavens and the earth, the plants and the animals from the formless void. The image is more of moulding, shaping, putting together, arranging, than of producing from thin air. The repeated refrain of God's judgment on each day's 'work', 'And God saw that it was good', and the conclusion on the entirety, 'God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good', is about its being fitting, working, appropriately useful than about it's being morally or aesthetically good or bad.

Clearly implicit in this story is the relationship of the Creator and the created, and though we are prone to forgetting, human beings are created beings too. Made in the 'image' of God and given 'dominion' over the earth, is also about relationships - ours with God and with the rest of creation. Subsequent stories in Genesis expand on this relationship as human beings are pictured as gardeners, stewards tending the Garden of Eden; at first they are at ease in God's company until they break the harmony by disobedience.

The 'Great Commission' from Matthew's Gospel is also about relationships. There's the relationship of disciples and the risen Jesus. Obediently they had gone to the mountain they'd been told to go to. Seeing Jesus they worshipped him. They are not Jesus' equals, they are still disciples. Yet the master has a role for his disciples, a task for them to fulfil for him and in his name. And that task is also about the disciples' relationship with other people - 'of all nations' - as evangelists sharing the Good News, embracing within the community of believers, and teaching what they themselves have learnt from Jesus. There's also the relationship of God and the world. There's no ambiguity here, their God is not for one nation alone, for one special people of God, but for all the nations, all people. God is inclusive in his love and care for all.

Trinity Sunday and the Church's doctrine of the Trinity is also - at least in part - about relationships. In our modern, scientific ways, we are keen to classify things. Is it animal, mineral or vegetable? A cabbage is of the brassica family, a lion is of the cat family or limestone is a sedimentary rock. It's part of the way we seek to understand things. It draws out the similarities and the differences. Our use of imagery in our speech or writing is another way in which we like to say something is like this and not like that. It's a way we try to communicate important characteristics or ideas, trying to clarify and avoid confusion. But imagery in language is not as clear-cut as scientific classification - an image can convey one thing to one person and something quite different to another. Yet this is often our best way of communicating ideas, understanding, emotions, and the like. How else can we really talk about God?

The Trinity is our way of talking about God, of trying to grasp the ungraspable, and open our minds to a mind-blowing reality. Unfortunately, to speak of three 'persons' of the Trinity, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we're so often in distinction-making mode, setting them apart from each other, just as we see three brothers or sisters as separate individuals. Of course, the images of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are helpful in many ways as descriptions of our experience of God, and of our understanding of God's characteristics, but we are not talking about three distinct individuals, rather of 'personas'. What we must not forget is how these are images of the one Godhead, intimately bound together.

As we join with the psalmist in gazing in awe and wonder on the world or even a very small fraction of it, let us ask his question: 'what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?'. Let us reflect on our relationship with God and with God's creation. As we use Trinity language about God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, let us reflect on the relatedness of each 'persona' in the one Godhead. And let us give thanks. Amen.