Gifts

Trinity Sunday – The gifts of the Spirit

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-15

Trinity Sunday seems a strange time to talk about the gifts of the Spirit, yet it gives us such an exquisite look at the three in one and one in three that it is worth delving into. The Trinity is always described as three persons united and this lectionary gives to us three unique investigates the gifts of each part of this. It helps us to see our own diversity in the church, and in our own lives to look at each of these.

First is our Proverbs reading regarding wisdom. Wisdom was regarded as coming from the Spirit. It discerned what was right, what was best, in being skillful and using your wits. It was always represented in the feminine image. This was the thought of where wisdom resided. In this introduction to Wisdom in verses 1-4 she calls to us to recognize her in our lives. In the later verses Wisdom is showing how it was a part of God from the beginning of creation. She was a co-creator present from the beginning. So, wisdom is a part of what the Trinity imparts.

It is the same with our reading from John today. The Spirit of truth is most often equated with Wisdom. A part of Jesus plans to leave with us once he is gone from the earth. The Wisdom to discern what it is we should do and where we should go. This is most often taken as Wisdom leading us.

Second Wisdom leads us into the Psalm of Creator God. The one who puts everything into place and the awe with which we are even considered. Yet God chose to create us as well. We create as well. We have been given the gift of thought which creates things, and some have been given the ability to create through art or music or design. These things reside in us as well as wisdom. They are not separate pieces of us, but gifts of the larger Spirit working together. They help bring us to and understanding of how magnificent the creation is and how miniscule we are.

God as creator is a long-time tradition. Sometimes when we think we are not creative this is not true. All of us have been given the gift of thought and through our minds we create our future hopes and dreams and the ability to recreate ourselves when we have seen a disappointment or failure come our way which takes these dreams away. We have the ability to create new ones. This is a much harder road for us to navigate and yet we can do this. So, just having creative gifts does not limit our ability to be a creative person. We can start to see how the three in one and one in three works a little with this.

Lastly, Jesus was human. Jesus walked this earth, Jesus suffered as we see in the Romans scripture. This gives us the look that suffering creates for us endurance in life and then in this endurance springs a hope. Hope is the reason we can go on when we have failures and feel as though all is lost. Hope gives us the gift of enduring many things because we can see a way to a new future or a new time. This time is only one stop in many in life. Hope is the wisdom which gives us new life and lifts us upward instead of down.

This gift only comes from being human and suffering, and to Paul, suffering as Christ did. Because Jesus did, we have a hope of eternal life. Because Jesus did, we have a hope of being transformed just as Jesus was. We are renewed through suffering. This used to be the tie which bound us as Christians. Now we claim false suffering and don’t even know what true suffering is. We bound away from it and don’t think there is a path for us of renewal and eventually, we are bound in despair and hope slips away. This is not the good news we have though.

This good news of hope in our suffering ties us to the Trinity. In wisdom and creation and in hope of what is to come. These ties reside inside us not as separate entities but always working in concert when we face the difficult times and need a spot of re-creation. Wisdom helps us be brave and leads us to co-creating our life, our job, our church and then we see the hope of what it means to become something new.

Trinity Sunday doesn’t have to take us far from the gifts we have been given inside of us. It asks us to dwell in the dance of the Triune God and come and participate in it. For us to realize we are not far from it, but inside it. So come and rejoice in it. Find your place in it and join the dance of how wonderfully we are made in this image of three-in-one and one-in-three.