Colours of Balance
Practical Reflections on the Trinity
In the flow of the Christian calendar, there are certain celebrations that are bound to be much more exciting and inspiring than others. Christmas and Easter certainly come to mind. Pentecost, reign of Christ, any Sunday through Advent… any of these at least have that sense of anticipation that God is up to something. They help us engage in the familiar stories and really give us a sense of grounding in what our faith means, and how it matters to our life.
But not today… I have to admit that Trinity Sunday has been one of those low-water marks for me on the preaching scale. Explaining the intricacies of doctrine from the pulpit, is not exactly something that I enjoy doing… precisely because I know that listening to it is about as much fun as watching paint dry. I don’t especially relish the idea of preaching a sermon that becomes a cure for insomnia. I would rather not have the chorus raised from the congregation to be the sounds of snoring.
Let’s be honest… Church Doctrines aren’t really all that engaging. Sure they can help give us a sense of understanding about what the church believes about something… but they’re out there… for the ivory-tower types to debate… and have very little to do with our every day lives. If we are interested in it, I have a great many books that go into incredible theological depth… but even summarizing them does not make for a good sermon. They’re something that while interesting and important to our faith, it doesn’t really help us throughout the grind of the week. After all, what does a doctrine of how we understand the nature of God have to do with my personal, every-day life? I think most of us would answer “not much” –including myself.
It wasn’t until this past year that I came across something that I actually found helpful… Why? Because it wasn’t simple a dry doctrine of explaining the Trinity, but a way of to strive for balance in one’s faith and life. It has practical and personal built right into it.
Even so, only just yesterday did I get a sense as to how to at least introduce it. As most of you know, last week, Sarah, Megan and I moved into our new home in Milton. Just a few blocks away from our new home, there is a playground that has a “splash pad” as part of it. If any of you remember running through the sprinklers as children, they’re now building playgrounds with this kind of fun in mind. Yesterday, I took Megan out to the splash pad for the first time since we moved, as she had been bugging us incessantly since we moved in. Not surprisingly, she didn’t actually get all that wet, but had lots of fun running around just out of range of the water. However, as with all places that have a lot of water droplets in the air, as the sun was getting lower in the sky… Megan saw something. “Look Daddy! A rainbow!!”
Simply put, a rainbow is what happens when white light is shone through a prism… in this case, water droplets in the air. The varying frequencies contained in the white light are scattered in different directions, coming back to our eyes as a spectrum of colour. These aren’t different pieces of light, but different parts of a single continuum.
The colours of light can teach us something about God. The background for the screens today shows what this looks like. You see the colours red, green and blue. I’m not sure how many of you know this, but the way in which a TV or computer screen generates a colour image is that there are hundreds of thousands of tiny little dots arranged in a grid. On each of those dots are three smaller dots… one red, one green, one blue. If all of those dots have no intensity at all, then black is the colour… as it is the absence of light. If all of those red, green, and blue dots are of equal intensity, then what we perceive is white light. By varying the intensity of each of those three colours, one can display any colour in the spectrum. Any perceivable colour in the spectrum can be seen by simply combining these three colours of light. It’s a good metaphor to be sure, as we often associate God with light.
Of course, there is no one way to talk about the Trinity that is absolutely definitive, but that’s part of the mystery… and besides this really doesn’t have a bearing on how we live our lives from day to day… or does it?
***Show “blank” 3-colour image slide***
Well… take a close look at the image on the screen all by itself. At the centre of the image the light is white… at the very point when all three colours are in balance with each other. What if we were to associate each of the three colours with the different experiences that we have of God?
***Show Trinity 3-colour image slide***
You may hear the traditional form of the Trinity as Father, Son, Holy Spirit… God as Creator who gives life to us all, God in Jesus Christ as the one who reconciles, and God in the Holy Spirit who is nurtures us in our very experiences of life.
***Show 3-Colour revelations of God slide***
All of these are different ways that we experience God… yet when held in balance with each other they give us the most complete picture of God.
So if we associate the colours of each, they might look like this. God as creator associated with Green… God in Jesus Christ associated with Red… and God in the Holy Spirit associated with Blue… Notice at the middle of the image one the screen. At the point at which all three colours come together at the center, is white light. That’s the point at which everything is balanced. I can’t claim to have come up with this myself… NCD Pioneer Christian Schwarz has really explored this metaphor well… and has shifted my understanding of Trinity from a lofty doctrine to something far more practical.
***Show 3-Colour “God above us, among us, within us” slide***
You see, all of us tend to have leanings towards one particular colour or another. There’s something that has a greater appeal for us. It’s a matter of course, we’re human. These three colours can be extended to how we understand God acting in different areas of our life… what parts resonates the most, and even how we can strive for a sense of wholeness and balance in our own lives. This approach is far less about dry doctrine, and more about one’s way of life.
***Show blank part of slide that indicates, reason, scripture, and experience***
Even these images so far, really aren’t all that practical. So let’s move this to something more useful. When it comes to our faith, when it comes to how we reflect on our relationship with God, all of us tend to have preferences that we lean to. This is natural, we’re human. Our preferences lie with a sense of reasoning our way through our faith, seeking guidance from scripture, or relying on our experiences of God to grow in faith.
***Bring up reason, scripture, experience***
Each of these tend to fit well within one of the three colours… reason is Green. Scripture is red. Experience is blue. What I’ve been learning is that people who tend to prefer reasoning as the primary part their faith tend to identify the best with God as creator, those who prefer Scripture tend to identify best with Jesus, and those who work from experience tend to identify the most with the Holy Spirit. It’s not to say that any one of these is wrong… it’s what our preference tends to be. Yet knowing that can be helpful when it comes to nurturing and growing in faith. At its ideal, a healthy spiritual life balances these three things… reason, scripture and experience.
***Show study, action, piety***
For those of you who have been involved in the Cursillo movement in the past, you may remember talking about study, action, and piety as essential parts of Christian living. Again… Green, red, blue… it’s the balance or wholeness that matters.
***move to last slide – blank 3-colour***
What is really cool about this three-colour image is that it can help us grow in almost any aspect of our faith, because it reminds us that what is important is that sense of balance and wholeness. It’s not trying to find the mediocre middle, but to work in the areas we are not as comfortable with to try and bring them up to the same strength as what we are most comfortable with. In other words, don’t park your brain at door when it comes to either reading scripture or experiencing God. We can see the rainbow of colour that God reveals. In the fullness and wholeness of Christian life, we can bring it all together and make it work in balance. If nothing else… that’s what the Trinity teaches us about life. Our adventure in faith is discovering that deep-seated balance in our own lives, and letting ourselves grow.
Amen
Please note: the 3-colour images shown as part of the PowerPoint presentation are drawn from Color Your World with Natural Church Development by Christian A. Schwarz, as is a lot of the theory behind this practical reflection on the Trinity.
In the flow of the Christian calendar, there are certain celebrations that are bound to be much more exciting and inspiring than others. Christmas and Easter certainly come to mind. Pentecost, reign of Christ, any Sunday through Advent… any of these at least have that sense of anticipation that God is up to something. They help us engage in the familiar stories and really give us a sense of grounding in what our faith means, and how it matters to our life.
But not today… I have to admit that Trinity Sunday has been one of those low-water marks for me on the preaching scale. Explaining the intricacies of doctrine from the pulpit, is not exactly something that I enjoy doing… precisely because I know that listening to it is about as much fun as watching paint dry. I don’t especially relish the idea of preaching a sermon that becomes a cure for insomnia. I would rather not have the chorus raised from the congregation to be the sounds of snoring.
Let’s be honest… Church Doctrines aren’t really all that engaging. Sure they can help give us a sense of understanding about what the church believes about something… but they’re out there… for the ivory-tower types to debate… and have very little to do with our every day lives. If we are interested in it, I have a great many books that go into incredible theological depth… but even summarizing them does not make for a good sermon. They’re something that while interesting and important to our faith, it doesn’t really help us throughout the grind of the week. After all, what does a doctrine of how we understand the nature of God have to do with my personal, every-day life? I think most of us would answer “not much” –including myself.
It wasn’t until this past year that I came across something that I actually found helpful… Why? Because it wasn’t simple a dry doctrine of explaining the Trinity, but a way of to strive for balance in one’s faith and life. It has practical and personal built right into it.
Even so, only just yesterday did I get a sense as to how to at least introduce it. As most of you know, last week, Sarah, Megan and I moved into our new home in Milton. Just a few blocks away from our new home, there is a playground that has a “splash pad” as part of it. If any of you remember running through the sprinklers as children, they’re now building playgrounds with this kind of fun in mind. Yesterday, I took Megan out to the splash pad for the first time since we moved, as she had been bugging us incessantly since we moved in. Not surprisingly, she didn’t actually get all that wet, but had lots of fun running around just out of range of the water. However, as with all places that have a lot of water droplets in the air, as the sun was getting lower in the sky… Megan saw something. “Look Daddy! A rainbow!!”
Simply put, a rainbow is what happens when white light is shone through a prism… in this case, water droplets in the air. The varying frequencies contained in the white light are scattered in different directions, coming back to our eyes as a spectrum of colour. These aren’t different pieces of light, but different parts of a single continuum.
The colours of light can teach us something about God. The background for the screens today shows what this looks like. You see the colours red, green and blue. I’m not sure how many of you know this, but the way in which a TV or computer screen generates a colour image is that there are hundreds of thousands of tiny little dots arranged in a grid. On each of those dots are three smaller dots… one red, one green, one blue. If all of those dots have no intensity at all, then black is the colour… as it is the absence of light. If all of those red, green, and blue dots are of equal intensity, then what we perceive is white light. By varying the intensity of each of those three colours, one can display any colour in the spectrum. Any perceivable colour in the spectrum can be seen by simply combining these three colours of light. It’s a good metaphor to be sure, as we often associate God with light.
Of course, there is no one way to talk about the Trinity that is absolutely definitive, but that’s part of the mystery… and besides this really doesn’t have a bearing on how we live our lives from day to day… or does it?
***Show “blank” 3-colour image slide***
Well… take a close look at the image on the screen all by itself. At the centre of the image the light is white… at the very point when all three colours are in balance with each other. What if we were to associate each of the three colours with the different experiences that we have of God?
***Show Trinity 3-colour image slide***
You may hear the traditional form of the Trinity as Father, Son, Holy Spirit… God as Creator who gives life to us all, God in Jesus Christ as the one who reconciles, and God in the Holy Spirit who is nurtures us in our very experiences of life.
***Show 3-Colour revelations of God slide***
All of these are different ways that we experience God… yet when held in balance with each other they give us the most complete picture of God.
So if we associate the colours of each, they might look like this. God as creator associated with Green… God in Jesus Christ associated with Red… and God in the Holy Spirit associated with Blue… Notice at the middle of the image one the screen. At the point at which all three colours come together at the center, is white light. That’s the point at which everything is balanced. I can’t claim to have come up with this myself… NCD Pioneer Christian Schwarz has really explored this metaphor well… and has shifted my understanding of Trinity from a lofty doctrine to something far more practical.
***Show 3-Colour “God above us, among us, within us” slide***
You see, all of us tend to have leanings towards one particular colour or another. There’s something that has a greater appeal for us. It’s a matter of course, we’re human. These three colours can be extended to how we understand God acting in different areas of our life… what parts resonates the most, and even how we can strive for a sense of wholeness and balance in our own lives. This approach is far less about dry doctrine, and more about one’s way of life.
***Show blank part of slide that indicates, reason, scripture, and experience***
Even these images so far, really aren’t all that practical. So let’s move this to something more useful. When it comes to our faith, when it comes to how we reflect on our relationship with God, all of us tend to have preferences that we lean to. This is natural, we’re human. Our preferences lie with a sense of reasoning our way through our faith, seeking guidance from scripture, or relying on our experiences of God to grow in faith.
***Bring up reason, scripture, experience***
Each of these tend to fit well within one of the three colours… reason is Green. Scripture is red. Experience is blue. What I’ve been learning is that people who tend to prefer reasoning as the primary part their faith tend to identify the best with God as creator, those who prefer Scripture tend to identify best with Jesus, and those who work from experience tend to identify the most with the Holy Spirit. It’s not to say that any one of these is wrong… it’s what our preference tends to be. Yet knowing that can be helpful when it comes to nurturing and growing in faith. At its ideal, a healthy spiritual life balances these three things… reason, scripture and experience.
***Show study, action, piety***
For those of you who have been involved in the Cursillo movement in the past, you may remember talking about study, action, and piety as essential parts of Christian living. Again… Green, red, blue… it’s the balance or wholeness that matters.
***move to last slide – blank 3-colour***
What is really cool about this three-colour image is that it can help us grow in almost any aspect of our faith, because it reminds us that what is important is that sense of balance and wholeness. It’s not trying to find the mediocre middle, but to work in the areas we are not as comfortable with to try and bring them up to the same strength as what we are most comfortable with. In other words, don’t park your brain at door when it comes to either reading scripture or experiencing God. We can see the rainbow of colour that God reveals. In the fullness and wholeness of Christian life, we can bring it all together and make it work in balance. If nothing else… that’s what the Trinity teaches us about life. Our adventure in faith is discovering that deep-seated balance in our own lives, and letting ourselves grow.
Amen
Please note: the 3-colour images shown as part of the PowerPoint presentation are drawn from Color Your World with Natural Church Development by Christian A. Schwarz, as is a lot of the theory behind this practical reflection on the Trinity.
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