The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
June 19, 2011
Vol. 14 no. 25
Somehow the Lectionary guys link up the very first passage of the Bible in Genesis with the very last verses of the first Gospel Matthew, ending with the only clear reference to the Trinity in the Bible. That may sound complicated and confusing, but that’s the way the Bible often works – beginning at the end and ending with another beginning.
Everyone thinks they know Genesis 1, until they read it again. Lots of little things and facts we miss and just as many we have not remembered exactly correctly. The church continues to vacillate between reading this chapter as a scientific summary on one hand, as a poetic expression of God’s creativity on the other. Most of us haven’t missed that little resolution of God in 1:26, “Let us make humanity in our image,” but that doesn’t mean we understand what and where “the image of God” is in people. Do we look and act like God, or does God look like us? Still working on that one, for the beginning has not yet reached its end.
Jesus’ last words in the Gospel of Matthew are called The Great Commission – to go out and baptize the entire world in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is not a conclusion, but a challenge to begin again a new world, and likewise we have not reached its end yet.
We still don’t understand the idea of the Trinity, God as Three In One. The math doesn’t make sense and never will, but like “In the Beginning” the Trinity is not a mathematical formula, but a poetic way of depicting the God who fits no formula. That’s why instead of using a calculator to figure out God, we sing.
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan