14th Sunday of Year 3 July 2011

Homily for Fourteenth Sunday in ordinary Time 3 July 2011

Two weeks ago it was Trinity Sunday when the Church asked us to reflect on the very nature of God- what is God like, what kind of god is our God? We have to stretch our minds a bit when we try to understand God and to get our heads round the implications of this idea that God is Love, as St John tells us in his First Letter. Luckily, Trinity Sunday is quickly followed by the feast we celebrated Friday of the Sacred Heart and that Letter of John is read at Friday’s Mass to put into simple language for us what all this means- you remember, it contains those wonderful words “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” and again “no one has ever seen God but as long as we love one another God will live in us”. God will live in us! That is the extraordinary thing that St Paul tells us in today’s reading from his Letter to the Romans, when he says “the Spirit of God has made his home in you” and again “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you”.
You see, the great thing about the Trinity, which as you know is only our technical term for the inner life of God and nothing to do with clover leaves at all, the great thing about the Trinity is that it is the constant momentum of love, the give and take of love between the Father and the Son, and that give and take, that flow of love, that fountain of love, is the Holy Spirit, a fountain which gushes out and inundates us all. Because one of great things about God is that he is not some remote aloof deity, about whom we know nothing and who wants to be left alone on some mountain top or in some grove as the pagans thought of their gods, whom you approached at your peril. God is forever approaching us one way or another, approaching us of course in the Incarnation, taking human form, and being one of us, so to speak, so we could get a better idea of what he has destined each one of us for by looking at the life of Our Lord Jesus; but approaching us constantly too in the form of the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us from our baptism onwards and forever prompting us towards the good and helping us to steer clear of the bad, so that as St Paul says today “there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives”. We have the Spirit, forever enlightening our minds if we will let him, so that the things of God become a bit clearer. That is why in the early centuries of the Church baptism was often called simply enlightenment; the fathers thought that once you had been baptised and had the Holy Spirit living in you, you would inevitably see things a bit clearer – a bit like having your eyes fixed by laser treatment!
You know I expect that famous icon of the Trinity, by the 15th century Russian monk Andrei Rublev, which is based on the famous story in Genesis 18 of Abraham entertaining the three young men who suddenly turn up at his tent hungry and thirsty. From earliest times the Church saw in these three young men a hint if you like, a foreshadowing, of the Trinity- especially as although they are three, Abraham talks to them as if they are one, saying “My Lord, if I have found favour in your sight, do not pass by your servant” (Gen 18 iii). This is God calling on Abraham, God hungry and thirsty, God wanting something from us. This is the God we know, isn’t it, this thirsty God, this is what St Margaret Mary understood in her visions of the Sacred Heart, when she saw Jesus thirsting for our souls, and the great desire he has for our love. This is the God we know who is forever patient with us, forever waiting for some response from us, some flicker of interest, however slight! A modern French writer says “devant notre mediocrité, Dieu attend” – confronted by our mediocrity, God just waits! And of course in this story in Genesis, Abraham does respond, he prepares a meal in the shade of the oaks of Mamre for his divine guests. This icon of Rublev’s shows the three young men sitting down to their refreshment, and one of them is looking out of the picture at us- the one dressed in green. Now we use red as our liturgical colour for the Holy Spirit, don’t we, because we think of the tongues of fire at Pentecost, but our orthodox brothers and sisters use green for the Holy Spirit, the colour of growth, of the green shoots springing up that signify rebirth. So it is the Holy Spirit who is the part of the Godhead who is forever looking out at us, not snooping on us to catch us out in some sin so he can jot it down, he is not a traffic warden, no, he is just gazing out at us with a look of love, and with perhaps an invitation in his look too. I say an invitation because if you look at this icon you see that there is a space at the table where the young men are sitting, because you see the Holy Spirit is asking us to join them, come into the life of God, come and take your place at the table, come on in, make yourself at home – you know that old music hall song, “put your feet on the mantel shelf, go to the cupboard and help yourself!” Come on in, says the Holy Spirit, don’t be out there in the cold, come on in and be at home with God who wants above all to live with us!
How do we take up this pressing invitation? How do we step into the life of God and sit at God’s table, how do we enjoy the companionship of God? St John in that first Letter of his shows us the answer, and the answer is love- when we do anything from an impulse of love, when we act lovingly and kindly towards someone, especially if they are someone we don’t like or fancy or don’t approve of very much, then we are doing something godlike, and in that moment, in the doing of that act of love, we are caught up into the life of God- the more acts of love we do, the more our life is oriented to this way of loving, the closer we shall be to God – we shall be, whether we realise it or not, slap bang in the middle of the life of the Trinity, seated at the table sharing in the heavenly banquet.

Dear friends, think of St Saviour’s as the oaks of Mamre, where our hungry and thirsty God is waiting for us to greet him and to offer him our companionship. The word companion you know is from Latin words that mean “with bread”, someone you share bread with. God is waiting for our response of love tonight, he is waiting to show us his love in the breaking and sharing of bread, the bread that is the sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord. God in Three Persons, we welcome you, we say with Abraham “My Lord, if I have found favour in your sight, do not pass your servant by”. Come to us, make our home with us, live in us and let us live in you, help us to accept our place at your table, to take on our part in the outpouring of your love out into our world. “Do not pass your servant by”. Amen.