Who or what will we rely on?

 

We are blessed to be serving our God. We spend a lifetime trying to learn who God is, so we can have a meaningful relationship. The word of God tells us in Genesis: “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” God blessed us all: He gave us reason and skill so we can grow and live on this planet glorifying him: our creator. With such blessings and intelligence that God gave us, it should work right? The reality is different: we are saddened by recent events that troubled our nation. I could not help it but identify with those who are crying at this time. I could not help it but think about what these troubles say about us, our generation; our inner lives, our great nation: We have a long way to go. If God decided to create us in his image, why would we want to deny His image among ourselves? The worthy and the unworthy, the desirable and the undesirable.  It does not sound right. You see, God calls us ‘humankind’, and in other places God calls us ‘mortals’ because that’s who we are. We need remember it always not only on Ash Wednesday. We are mortals. We live and die. How we live really determines whether we have known God or not. Certainly, when we deny the image of God in other members of the humankind family, we cannot claim to know God. The truth is that God always wanted to have a relationship with us, it is our destiny to be in the hands of our creator. Sadly, we turned away from his loving open arms. Instead, we created our own systems to rely on. We engineered these systems and they seemed to work, but God was not in it. I don’t know if we ever consulted God about that. It is time we turn back to GOD as individuals and as a nation and express our regret for flat out refusing his loving embrace and putting our faith in human systems. Who will we rely on?

 Today we celebrate the Feast of Holy Trinity. I want to shy away at explaining because I can’t. Can one describe God? No words would ever be adequate! We may not be able to grasp it. It’s a mystery to us. Ps 8 says: “What is man, that you should be mindful of him? The son of man that you should seek him out.” God has cherished us from the very beginning. He made us a little lower than the angels and he adorned us with glory and honor. He put us in charge over the works of our hands and he put everything under our feet. Who should we rely on? Ourselves, our human systems or God our creator?

God cherished us to the level of even coming to earth in person, to lead us so we may understand what kind of relationship is between the Father and the Son: the oneness. Jesus told us that He had gone to the Father and that all authority in heaven and earth was given to him. 

Now since he had both the divine nature and the human nature, we now were welcome into his Father’s house. The Father’s arms of love are open and inviting. Jesus said: “I am with you always to the end of the age” reminding us of the Oneness between him and the Father and Him and us. The sad part is, that we still reject him. In our behaviors, in our ways relying on our human-made structures and systems that can never save us. Nevertheless, Jesus told his disciples to go out there and make disciples of all nations. Be the hands and feet of Jesus; bring salvation to the rest of the world. Use what God gave you! Just rely on Christ and let the Holy Spirit use you to bless others.

Paul tells Corinthians: Agree with one another, live in peace, God will be with you. His point is that agreeing with each other (or being of one mind), should be about having the mind of Christ. We have seen a lot of agreeing with each other in the past that was not helpful to humankind.

Be of one mind which is the mind of Christ Just like The Father and the Son and Holy Spirit are one.

Amen.