Improvisational Three-in-One

I must admit that after more than thirty years of preparing Trinity Sunday sermons I still feel somewhat defeated before I even begin. How do we 'splain a profound mystery which should be beyond our imagining, because this is God, after all. I have been aware that one of the biggest deals of our Christian faith falls on a sleepy, get-out-of-dodge holiday weekend when there is more emphasis on  party "2-4" than Holy Three.



I like this sonnet by Malcom Guite, a song-writer, poet, and Anglican priest. Guite was born in Nigeria to ex-pat British parents, spent some of his childhood in Canada, before returning to Britain. He looks a little like the stereotypical image of a patriarchal god, and some of his language for God is rather male, but God as improvisational "three in one" poet is magnificent.

In the Beginning, not in time or space,
But in the quick before both space and time,
In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,
In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,
In music, in the whole creation story,
In His own image, His imagination,
The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,
And makes us each the other’s inspiration.
He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,
To improvise a music of our own,
To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,
Three notes resounding from a single tone,
To sing the End in whom we all begin;
Our God beyond, beside us and within.

Malcolm Guite