By Greg Jones
What is god but Creator? What is creating but reaching out? What is reaching out but connecting beyond self? What is connecting beyond self but loving others?
Creating, reaching, connecting, loving — these are what the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all about. It’s what God is. It’s who God is. It’s how God is. It’s what God does, and why. The three-in-oneness of God is how the followers of Jesus describe what we experience about God – to describe how God creates, reaches, connects and loves us.
What Jesus teaches his followers is that by following Him under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: we will create – within and beyond; we will reach – within and beyond; we will connect – within and beyond; we will love – within and beyond, and that’s how we’ll follow Him into unity with God.
That’s how we become members, joined members, connected parts, of the one being that is God whose will is to be one in all. That’s the mystery of the faith expressed by Trinity. We mean that in God’s wholeness – in God’s own identity and self – there is an aspect of community – an aspect of family – an aspect of loving mutual relationship
Or to put it another way – in the Kingdom of God – where we are joined in loving relationships – where we are joined in gracious, merciful and committed relationships where we quite literally lose ourselves in order to find ourselves – where we become one with our neighbors and the whole world we’re living in – that’s where we are most like God.
What Jesus Christ said and did – was to say: God is like a family – and it’s an open family. God, through Christ by the power of the Spirit, has invited us into himself. Indeed – this is the heart of the Christian message since the birth of the Church.
The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones (“Greg”) became a member of Christ’s Body at St. Columba’s in Washington, D.C., and he was educated at the University of North Carolina and the General Theological Seminary, where he is on the Board. He blogs at fatherjones.com.