Ordinary Time

Jan 10 2025

The Trinity—A Divine Dance

We know so little of God. When it comes to describing the Trinity, we can feel that we know even less. The Mystery of Mysteries, the God-Who-Is—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is not just a philosophical doctrine to be illustrated with clovers and candles. The Trinity is a Someone, Someone who is deeply involved in our lives.

Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (known as the Cappadocian Fathers) saw the interrelationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a dance. They described a divine give-and-take, a perichoresis (dancing together), a mystical solidarity of interdependence, a never-ending “I am here for you” and “I am constant in my care for you” within the oneness of God. That mutual love overflows to us.

In the scriptures, we see that God continually communicates as the Father who never stops seeking out wayward Israel, the Son who becomes flesh and gives up his life for us, and the Holy Spirit who is with us always.

Our Triune God so loves the world that those divine “hands” invite us: Come, join in the dance! What does that look like? Think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers—they whirl and flow across a stage together with just a nudge or a touch. Folk dancers have a similar perpetual motion of bowing and twirling and jumping. With practiced responsiveness, they move as one.

Can we join in the dance? We might choose to live as plodders who stumble through life. Or we could discover holy agility. The Holy Spirit leans toward us, gently touching and nudging us in everyday life, whispering, “Be attentive. Follow my lead!” To move within the life of the Trinity is exciting, exhilarating. God’s tender “Take my hand. I am here for you” is offered to us at all times.

Consider/Discuss

We are not God and God is not us. How does that distinction set us free to be dancing partners with the Triune God? In the Gospel (John 3:1–5), how did Jesus offer his hand to Nicodemus to join in the dance?
Sometimes we do plod. We may not sense the movement of the Spirit. Sometimes we don’t “get” the Trinity. We may wonder, how can anybody get so excited about Trinity? Think of the little nudges that you have felt. How can we trust that God is constantly at work in our lives and learn to be even more attentive and responsive?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of Trinity, you are so beautiful, so beautiful in motion! All that we see in the created world leads us to you. Holy Spirit, surround us, enthuse us, and sustain us. You are deeply within us, and yet sometimes, we are not deeply within you. We beg for your grace to grow more agile. And when you do give us those tastes of abundant life in the divine dance that surrounds us, how can we keep from singing . . . and dancing!

Jan 10 2025

Scripture Study for

Much of the book of Exodus is concerned with answering the question “Who is the Lord?” In the deliverance from Egypt, provision in the wilderness, and establishment of the covenant, God is shown to be faithful, powerful, and wise. The present scene takes place shortly after the affair of the golden calf, which nearly ends the covenant relationship. Thanks to Moses, who reminds the Lord of his fidelity, the covenant has been renewed. It is against this background that the famous phrase must be understood: The God of Israel can be angered by human infidelity, but God’s mercy, grace, kindness, and fidelity far outshine that anger. This is who the Lord is.

Throughout his second letter to them, Paul has been admonishing the Corinthians to forsake the division and lack of fidelity to the gospel way of life that he has seen among them. He warns them to examine themselves to see if they are living in faith: “Test yourselves” (13:5). Despite the severe tone, he ends by exhorting them to rejoice—they have been saved by Christ. In that joy they should recognize their fellowship and act accordingly, with mutual encouragement, agreement, and peace. Then their community will be a sign of God’s love and peace. The letter ends with an invocation of Christ, God (the Father), and the Holy Spirit, one of the clearest “trinitarian” expressions in the New Testament.

In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus has told him that “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (3:5). That is, one must be (re)born from above. This is a gift from God that can only be accepted by believing that Jesus is God’s Son, given by God—both in the sense of the incarnation of the Word and in his death on the cross—so that those who do believe might have eternal life. In John, “eternal life” refers to a “abundant life” (10:10), a quality of life that can be lived on earth and after bodily death, rather than simply a “duration” of life after death.

Jan 08 2025

Be Holy as the Lord Is Holy

When I taught high school theology, on the first day of the semester, I had a student proudly walk into my sophomore morality class with a colorfully decorated binder. She showed off to me her cover picture of Moses holding two stone tablets. On the tablets was written, “The Ten Suggestions.” She grinned at me as only a teenager can, whimsically testing, as if to ask, “What do you, teacher, think about my cleverness in re-casting the Ten Commandments?” with a shrug of the shoulder of “Who do you think you are to tell me what I should do?” Having lived with teenagers at my house for the previous twenty years, I just nodded and smiled. It was going to be an interesting semester.

In the world in which we live, what are we to do with ethical laws and commandments? Are they just “suggestions”? Are there any absolutes? Is anything always wrong? Is anything always right? Is there anyone to Whom we are accountable? Is there really a test at the end of life, or is God such a “nice guy” that no one goes to hell? Who is in charge anyway?

My fifteen-year-old student presumed a world that was kind and benevolent. She may never have experienced killing and war and infidelity and betrayal. Her parents were probably good people. Her friends may have been, too. If that were the case, then why did we need the ten “ethical suggestions”? Our access to God comes through Jesus and does not rely on our perfection, right?

Right, but the flourishing of life certainly does. Forming the heart to love and be generous and prayerful and forgiving—this bears fruit, fruit that lasts, in relationships that are solid and enduring. A holy life is a life worth living.

Consider/Discuss

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out clear principles for holy living, commanding us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Similarly, the Levitical holiness code reveals how to be holy as God is holy. What does holiness look like in your life? Why does it matter to you?
Does someone you love dismiss ethical laws as though they were just “suggestions”? What life stories could you tell to respond to that person?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, sometimes, we throw up our hands at what is happening in our world. There are so many things that we cannot control. Help us to make an impact in the small world in which we live, by living lives of holiness and goodness and prayer. With your grace, please help us. And bless all those who do not believe in you or follow you, for you send blessings on the just and the unjust. We entrust all of that to you—it is not ours, but yours. Thank you for taking this world and carrying it for us.

Jan 08 2025

Scripture Study for

Much of Leviticus focuses on God’s formative intentions for Israel by repeating often the phrase, “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” These words punctuate a section of ethical and cultic laws scholars call the Holiness Code (chapters 17–26). The command put forward in the reading this week is exemplary of the ethical commands, and it highlights that these commands are meant to form one’s “heart.” One is not to hate even secretly, or to “cherish” a grudge. Instead, Israelites are called to love one another as much as they love themselves. Thus, they will become as holy as their God.

Paul comes back to an earlier concern, which is the divisions among the Corinthians (1:10–17), the fruit of “the wisdom of this world.” Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (Peter) are not leaders of factions, but coworkers and instruments of God’s construction of a temple, the Corinthians as a whole (the “you” here is plural). Divisions form when one considers oneself part of an “in-group” and derives self

worth from that membership (“boasting about human beings”). Paul reminds the Corinthians that their worth comes not from “belonging” to human beings, but to Christ, who himself belongs to God. By virtue of this fact, everything belongs to them. So they can stop trying to gain their worth through posturing and division.

Jesus has been instructing his disciples how the Law is intended to form a certain kind of person. Now he turns to the theme of retaliation. The ancient lex talionis is meant to limit vengeance (Exodus 21:23–24; Leviticus 24:19–20). Jesus deepens this point by commanding his followers to reject vengeance altogether, and further, to respond to demands with generosity. Jesus’ command to love enemies is founded on the observable fact that God also shows kindness to the unjust and the bad (who might be considered God’s “enemies”). Just as Israel was commanded to be holy as God is holy, so Jesus’ followers are commanded to be “perfect” as God is perfect.

Jan 08 2025

Not a Law-destroyer But a Law-fulfiller

In a world of kings and emperors and governors and rulers, how can someone get access to the “big man at the top?” He has many guards. He lives in a mighty palace. You have to know the right people even to get a glimpse of him. Ordinary folks just cannot get access to the “Boss.”

In the same way, the Israelites revered God, the Holy One, as unapproachable, mighty, pure, and majestic, the “biggest (boss) at the top.” They believed that you would die if you saw God. Their reverence was rich and deep. Even Moses, who was the greatest of prophets, only saw where God had passed by. Thus they wondered, how do we get access to the Divine?

How did they solve that “access” question? If you wanted to get to Jerusalem, you followed the road to Jerusalem. If you wanted to get to the God of purity, you followed the road that led you to become pure, for the Most Holy could not look upon sin. How do you become pure? By following the laws of purity. What we may not understand from our vantage point is that observing the law meant everything to the religious people of Jesus’ day—not for the sake of “the law” itself, but because they wanted to be able to approach God. They wanted to come to God with a clean heart. The law was their way to get access to the Most High God.

Jesus understood that theology. When Jesus said that he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it, he understood their longing: they wanted access to God. That was admirable. Jesus honored that. Moving forward from the written law, he offered himself as the road to the Father: “I am the way.”

Consider/Discuss

St. Paul got into many arguments about the law. He also understood the theology that following the law granted access to the Father. After his conversion, he understood that Jesus was now the way to the Father. The law may not have passed away, but how often do we try to gain access to God’s favor through adherence to law? What does it mean to you for Jesus to be “the Way”?
Reverence for God seems to be on the wane in our culture. Purity is not reverenced much either. How does that cultural attitude affect your own spiritual and moral life? Where do you hold yourself accountable? Where do you feel that you can let yourself slack off?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you have promised us that you are the way of access to the Father. We live in that hope. Help us not to be presumptuous about purity, thinking that we can live any way we choose and you will blithely forgive us. Help us to be perfect as you are perfect, pure as you are pure. We cannot do this on our own. We come through you who are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Lead us to the One who is Unapproachable Radiance!