Trinity Sunday - Patronal Festival

Here are sermon nuggets for tomorrow - Trinity Sunday. I'll make something from this.

• Trinity Sunday - who thought that one up? It's a bit like the BBC deciding to have a broadcasting week! Surely every Sunday is a Trinity Sunday? I don't really understand the logic of this one.
  
• I can't get my head around why preachers sweat at the thought of this topic. Surely everything we proclaim subsists in the Holy Trinity?
  
• The danger is that we treat the subject of the Trinity as an optional extra. It's not as if some bored Early Church theologians thought it up on a rainy day. We cannot jettison the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, yet sometimes we act as if we could. I mean we just dont live it enough. As a remedy I would suggest that we ban the word 'God' for a while from our vocabularly. Instead let us speak of The Father (or 'Abba'), Jesus and Holy Spirit.
  
• Another one is to ban the word 'Church' and speak of 'Body' instead. The more we speak of the 'Body of Christ' the more we might begin to act like it.
  
• The collects from the Prayer Book and Common Worship dont always scratch were it itches with me. All those adjetives sound so parsonical and impersonal. Do you remember the sketch of the school chaplain from Monty Python's film 'The Meaning of Life' ? 'Oooou God you are sooo big. We're jolly impressed down here.' Sometimes these collects sound a bit like this.
  
• Dont get wrong its not a case of God all-matey. But surely the message of the Gospel is that the image of the awesome God stands before us as Jesus? 'I call you not servants but friends'. Through the Cross we have access to the majesty of Christ. Through the incarnation we can see God among us as the infant Christ of Bethlehem. The Eucharist unveils the God of mystery as our food. God touches us with his physical sacraments. The veil of the Holy of Holies has been torn in two.
  
• We are baptised into the name of the Trinity. Anything else is repudiated by orthodox Christianity and the baptism seen as invalid. The Great Commission of Jesus at the end of Matthew's Gospel tells us to baptise the nations in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are to immerse the world into this mystery. We cant do the job if we are not spiritually immersed in the Trinity itself.
  
• I love all that stuff in The Shack about the Trinity and how the three persons explain that they live in perfect community. Human beings want to be independent of their creator and in doing so fail to be truly themselves.
  
• I appreciate in these rough notes I have not given Scripture references. Of course one of the aunt sally's that is put up is that the Trinity is not scriptural. (Some of the sects like Jehovah Witnesses make this point as does Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code.) But although the technical word 'Trinity' is not there, the relationships of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are there. Jesus for example in the last Supper Dialogue (St John) is quite clear that the Advocate is a person. Paul also speaks of the Spirit in a personal way. Since they are not speaking of an angel or the force from Star Wars, the Church has understood this as the Ruach Ha'Kodesh - the Holy Spirit.

Well I shall offer these little random thoughts to Almighty Everlasting God - Abba, in the hope that something will come together. (Not the Swedish band of Mama Mia fame).

PS Did that MP who claimed for £5 he put in the collection gift aid it. If he did at least we'd get someting extra.

Some Future Priorities for the National Church

My mind often ruminates on matters of home mission or what we now call evangelisation. Recently I have thought that the Church of England needs to change its focus. I appreciate that some of this is happening with the Mission Shaped Church agenda and Fresh Expressions. However, I wonder if all of this still too congregational its philosophy. I suspect that we need to move 90% of our energies into discipleship rather than congregational life. I would foresee three priorities for growth.

(1) Families. Here I propose we need to create a national network of Christian families. What I am about to say may sound rather exclusive but the these families are to be standard bearers. At the heart is the idea that the first church we experience is not a building or even the congregation but a Christian family. This little church - or domus is KEY to the formation of future generations. At present the Church of England does not recognise formally the family as a church. I propose that the fulness of a 'little church' is a family of two practising parents who pray daily together. To join the national network families would have to register go through a period of formation or noviate.

(2) Work. We now need urgently a recognised order for Christians in work or higher education. Members would be excluded from involvement in parish life to prevent burn out. They would follow a rule of life which must involve daily prayer. These people would be visibly Christian. I'm not sure how this is done but the order must quickly be recognised as wearing a Christian symbol. This must be accepted as valid as anyone's else religious atire, eg headscarf, turban, etc. We need so R&D which can come up with something as powerful as the prayer mat. Adoption of a five-fold daily prayer office for example would mean that employees would have to give us time to pray at work. (I have called this 'work' but in reality it could include anyone, employed, unemployed, retired, etc.)

(3) School. These are our biggest resources and we must further their Christian formation. I suggest that primary schools are formally invited to create a network of schools who admit children to holy communion. We need the Eucharist to be celebrated regularly within our primary schools.

For all three networks I suggest that three bishops are ordained to have special jurisdiction over each network. In other words each network is a Anglican equivalent of a personal prelature which operates at a provincial level. These bishops would not have diocese as we understand it but be the Ordinary for these groups. If we can have pioneer priests why not pioneer bishops?