Years ago, decades really, when Chris and I were attending our marriage preparation course, the facilitators emphasised this simple truth: the key to a good marriage, a good relationship, is communication. This is a really simple way to say that people in relationships need to be honest with each other, share how they are feeling, and name what they need. In healthy relationships, this communication leads to compromises and sacrifices that help balance the needs and interests of each participant. In healthy relationships there are things we give up for the sake of others and they do the same for us.
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
This passage is one of the best known from the bible. There are signs and bumper stickers that simply feature John 3:16 and assume people know what it means. There is something truly comforting in the knowledge that God so loves the world, so loves us that God gave God’s Son, God’s child, a physical, tangible sign of God’s presence walking this world and teaching us about love. God came and dwelt among us, feeling as we feel, experiencing the challenges and frustrations of this imperfect world. God, through Jesus, established profound relationships with followers, and pharisees, the sick, and the outcasts, soldiers, and prisoners. In every one of these relationships there was love, there was communication, and there was sacrifice.
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’
God, who knows our needs before we ask and our ignorance in asking, sent Jesus to show us the way. God’s relationship with the world is imbued with moments of encounter. Beginning with the first encounter in the garden of Eden there have been countless efforts where God reaches out for humanity, compromising, sacrificing, out of love for us. The ways God comes to us, the person God is in these encounters, varies to suit our needs.
This is the graceful dance of the Trinity, our understanding of the nature of God as Three in One: God the Creator, whose gifts imbue life; God the Redeemer, who came and dwelled among us to show us what is made possible through love; And God the Life-Giving Spirit, who continues to engage with the world revealing how God working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. These three coexist in a powerful symmetry where each is made known and reaches out to engage in relationship with the world in ways and at times that are meaningful. There is balance and compromise and sacrifice imbedded into all the ways God reaches out to be in relationship with us. The question then becomes, how does humanity respond?
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night…
The story of Nicodemus provides an illustration of how we can respond. Because of his position as a leader, Nicodemus was risking a lot to engage in conversation with Jesus. Among the Pharisees, Jesus was a threat to their authority and their way of life. To engage in conversation, to be willing to listen and seek to understand Jesus’ message, was to be open to potentially sacrifice his own beliefs based on the testimony of this itinerant preacher. In this encounter, Nicodemus allowed himself to be challenged and opened himself to be transformed. We know from scripture that he became a follower of Jesus, although remained in secret for fear of the Jews. Still, Nicodemus contributed resources for Jesus’ burial, a powerful sign of respect.
Compromises and sacrifices go both ways in a relationship. Knowing this, understanding this, we are invited to continually contemplate the nature of our relationships with God, with the Church, with the community, and with the world. When we are reminded of this graceful dance of the Trinity, we are challenged to reflect on how we too seek to gracefully dance in our relationships. What compromises are we willing to make to support the needs of others? What are we willing to give up strengthening the relationships around us? What compromises are we expecting others to make? What are we asking others to sacrifice for us? What does this say about our commitment to the relationship?
The Triune God offers us a wonderful model for healthy relationships both within the Trinity and with the world. How do we embrace these lessons as we engage in relationship with one another, with God, and with the world? What might we do better? What do we need to perpetually seek to take risks, be open to possibilities, and engage in healthy relationships following the patterns God reveals? May we, learning from the dance of the Trinity, continually work to embody healthy relationships with God, with each other, and with the world. This we pray as we sing: (SNC) 56 Come, Join the Dance of Trinity.