What's In A Name?
Sermon
Names come and go. Around 90 years ago, the names Ada, Esme, Edith and Agnes were all popular, as were Tom, Fred, Arthur and Alfred. Around 20 years ago we had Gary, Jason, Kylie and Tracey, and now all the old fashioned names have made a comeback, so that Eugenie and Beatrice, William and Harry are popular again.
Names always used to be chosen for their meaning, so that Faith, Hope and Charity were common names during particularly religious periods in our history, and at other times Daisy, Pansy and Rose enjoyed an airing. But even though names are rarely quite so obvious these days, the meaning is still important and books are devoted to the meanings of modern Christian names.
Grace is a name with a profound meaning, a meaning which was perhaps made popular by St. Paul. Today the words of The Grace are almost as well known by Christians as the words of the Lord's Prayer, so grace is a fairly familiar word to churchgoers. But it's much less familiar outside church, and I wonder just what it means to most people today?
According to the dictionary, grace means "charm, elegance, attractiveness, especially of a delicate, slender, refined, light or unlaboured kind, a sense of what is fitting, courtesy, and the unconstrained and undeserved goodwill of God". I'm not sure that charm, elegance, attractiveness and courtesy are very usual descriptions of God, but they do open up a whole new way of thinking about God and they do therefore add considerable significance to these characteristics in human beings.
Courtesy begins to sound really important if it describes God, as do a sense of what is fitting, charm, and elegance. Immediately God begins to be seen less as a tyrant, bent on the punishment of sinful human beings, and more as concerned with making sure human beings are comfortable and well tended in a pleasant, unthreatening, background sort of way.
None of us ever understand the whole picture of God. We tend to look for those characteristics of God with which we feel comfortable and ignore the rest, but it sometimes helps to unravel "churchy" language and discover what we really understand by those words.
Because none of us understand the whole picture of God, the picture has been made three dimensional for us. St Paul is the only theologian in the Bible to bring all three dimensions together into one whole in which each dimension is equal to the other two dimensions, separate from the other two dimensions, and yet completely united with them. Thus St. Paul speaks of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Those words are so familiar to us as Christians that they trip off the tongue and perhaps we hardly notice what they mean.
What is the love of God? I can't believe God's love is a sort of sentimental over-indulgence, although at times I'd like to believe that! But I think God's love must be altogether purer, a love which doesn't flinch from confrontation when necessary, which is warm and inviting, but which always seeks the good of the person who is loved even when that means sacrifice on the part of the lover and pain on the part of the beloved. The clearest indication of this sort of love was in Jesus, God on earth. Jesus showed immense compassion for ordinary people in their ordinary circumstances of illness, misunderstandings, broken relationships, sin. But he didn't show compassion for any who pretended to be good but who hadn't understood the first thing about love. And so he was often in conflict with the Pharisees and was not only quite rude to them, but also showed them up in front of all the people. All of those acts, of compassion and conflict and the ruthless stripping away of pretensions, were acts of love.
According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit was sent to human beings as a comforter, as a source of fellowship for human beings. But the Holy Spirit isn't only a comforter, for God's Spirit is the source of power and strength for human beings. The Holy Spirit is the God within human beings, and according to Western theology, is the Spirit of both God and of Jesus.
Although St Paul was the first theologian to link God the Creator, Jesus the Word, and the Holy Spirit, the three "persons" of the Godhead weren't officially linked by the Church until the 4th century. It was at the Council of Nicea in 325 that the Doctrine of the Trinity was first agreed. The Doctrine of the Trinity is difficult for most human beings to understand, for it claims that each "person" of the Trinity is distinct and unique, but that each is fully God rather than just an aspect of God. All of God can be seen in each person of the Trinity, even though each person is different. Thus Jesus is fully divine, completely God, but also fully human. The Holy Spirit is a spirit - invisible, intangible, but fully God. So if the Holy Spirit is within human beings, then God is fully within human beings. At the same time, God the Creator or the Father, is fully God. So as well as God being within human beings, he's also "out there".
All of this is difficult for human beings to understand, and some human beings reject it altogether because they find it incomprehensible. But perhaps in the end we can think of the Doctrine of the Trinity as just a way of saying God's name, but saying it in more fullness than simply the word "God". God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit may not convey everything there is to know about God, but it does at least convey considerably more than a single word can convey. Names have meaning, and it's good to know that in God's name there is meaning for everyone. We can all take from God's name anything to which we respond, as long as we remember that we only see part of the picture.
God loves every single human being, and he's within every human being through his Spirit, as well as being "out there". How will you respond to that love within you? Will you hear the conflict as well as the compassion? Will you bear the stripping away as well as the added strength? Or will you go for comfort and only hear part of God's name and miss out on the complete experience of the excitement and wonder of life with God?
You have the choice. Do you hear the Trinitarian God, or just God?
Names always used to be chosen for their meaning, so that Faith, Hope and Charity were common names during particularly religious periods in our history, and at other times Daisy, Pansy and Rose enjoyed an airing. But even though names are rarely quite so obvious these days, the meaning is still important and books are devoted to the meanings of modern Christian names.
Grace is a name with a profound meaning, a meaning which was perhaps made popular by St. Paul. Today the words of The Grace are almost as well known by Christians as the words of the Lord's Prayer, so grace is a fairly familiar word to churchgoers. But it's much less familiar outside church, and I wonder just what it means to most people today?
According to the dictionary, grace means "charm, elegance, attractiveness, especially of a delicate, slender, refined, light or unlaboured kind, a sense of what is fitting, courtesy, and the unconstrained and undeserved goodwill of God". I'm not sure that charm, elegance, attractiveness and courtesy are very usual descriptions of God, but they do open up a whole new way of thinking about God and they do therefore add considerable significance to these characteristics in human beings.
Courtesy begins to sound really important if it describes God, as do a sense of what is fitting, charm, and elegance. Immediately God begins to be seen less as a tyrant, bent on the punishment of sinful human beings, and more as concerned with making sure human beings are comfortable and well tended in a pleasant, unthreatening, background sort of way.
None of us ever understand the whole picture of God. We tend to look for those characteristics of God with which we feel comfortable and ignore the rest, but it sometimes helps to unravel "churchy" language and discover what we really understand by those words.
Because none of us understand the whole picture of God, the picture has been made three dimensional for us. St Paul is the only theologian in the Bible to bring all three dimensions together into one whole in which each dimension is equal to the other two dimensions, separate from the other two dimensions, and yet completely united with them. Thus St. Paul speaks of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Those words are so familiar to us as Christians that they trip off the tongue and perhaps we hardly notice what they mean.
What is the love of God? I can't believe God's love is a sort of sentimental over-indulgence, although at times I'd like to believe that! But I think God's love must be altogether purer, a love which doesn't flinch from confrontation when necessary, which is warm and inviting, but which always seeks the good of the person who is loved even when that means sacrifice on the part of the lover and pain on the part of the beloved. The clearest indication of this sort of love was in Jesus, God on earth. Jesus showed immense compassion for ordinary people in their ordinary circumstances of illness, misunderstandings, broken relationships, sin. But he didn't show compassion for any who pretended to be good but who hadn't understood the first thing about love. And so he was often in conflict with the Pharisees and was not only quite rude to them, but also showed them up in front of all the people. All of those acts, of compassion and conflict and the ruthless stripping away of pretensions, were acts of love.
According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit was sent to human beings as a comforter, as a source of fellowship for human beings. But the Holy Spirit isn't only a comforter, for God's Spirit is the source of power and strength for human beings. The Holy Spirit is the God within human beings, and according to Western theology, is the Spirit of both God and of Jesus.
Although St Paul was the first theologian to link God the Creator, Jesus the Word, and the Holy Spirit, the three "persons" of the Godhead weren't officially linked by the Church until the 4th century. It was at the Council of Nicea in 325 that the Doctrine of the Trinity was first agreed. The Doctrine of the Trinity is difficult for most human beings to understand, for it claims that each "person" of the Trinity is distinct and unique, but that each is fully God rather than just an aspect of God. All of God can be seen in each person of the Trinity, even though each person is different. Thus Jesus is fully divine, completely God, but also fully human. The Holy Spirit is a spirit - invisible, intangible, but fully God. So if the Holy Spirit is within human beings, then God is fully within human beings. At the same time, God the Creator or the Father, is fully God. So as well as God being within human beings, he's also "out there".
All of this is difficult for human beings to understand, and some human beings reject it altogether because they find it incomprehensible. But perhaps in the end we can think of the Doctrine of the Trinity as just a way of saying God's name, but saying it in more fullness than simply the word "God". God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit may not convey everything there is to know about God, but it does at least convey considerably more than a single word can convey. Names have meaning, and it's good to know that in God's name there is meaning for everyone. We can all take from God's name anything to which we respond, as long as we remember that we only see part of the picture.
God loves every single human being, and he's within every human being through his Spirit, as well as being "out there". How will you respond to that love within you? Will you hear the conflict as well as the compassion? Will you bear the stripping away as well as the added strength? Or will you go for comfort and only hear part of God's name and miss out on the complete experience of the excitement and wonder of life with God?
You have the choice. Do you hear the Trinitarian God, or just God?
