You can find the lectionary readings for this week’s reflection here. You can also find the poem referred to in the reflection – Start Close In by David Whyte – here.
I know that these readings are chosen for Trinity Sunday for us to recognise and be reassured that the doctrine of the Trinity, which the early church took quite a number of years to fill out and agree upon, is truly rooted and grounded in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.
But, as I sat with this text this week, I kept returning to one phrase: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. “
I think it stayed with me for a number of reasons.
It stayed because I met a friend for coffee on Tuesday morning and she told me that she was going to a funeral later that day for a colleague’s 3 year old daughter who had been admitted to hospital on Thursday feeling unwell and then she died on Friday. And I don’t know how anyone can bear that.
It stayed with me because the news from Ukraine about war crimes and torture and of cities completely devastated just gets harder and harder to hear. And I wonder how the people of Ukraine are managing not just to bear it, but to continue to resist.
It stayed because of the school and hospital shootings in the US and the madness of the story of the right to bear arms.
It stayed because of how quickly important issues that are layered and historied and need careful consideration vanish from social media and news feeds to be replaced with gossip and eye candy.
And I can’t bear how easily we forget that Black Lives Matter, that refugees are daily risking their lives and pouring across borders, and that children are starving in Yemen and now in the horn of Africa and probably in North Korea only who can know for sure…. But I think mostly it stayed with me because there is so much that I feel like I cannot bear anymore.
Or, perhaps more truly, that I wonder how will I bear all these things…how I will stay in the fire of all these things and not reach for the distracting comfort of Netflix or ice cream… how will I not be crushed by the weight of all that is happening in our world even as, if you ask me ‘how are you?’ I will be able to say that I am doing ok. I am well. I am fine. I am managing what is mine, what is landing in my patch.
But I am so aware, so mindful of what is happening ‘out there’ – of the struggle and pain of the carnage and destruction, of the anger and the despair that is rippling out over the world from so many epicentres of violence and injustice.
So as I stayed with this phrase, I began to wonder….What was it Jesus had to tell the disciples that was too much for them to bear just then? He’d already told them he was going to be betrayed and handed over and killed. He’d told them they’d be sorely troubled and distressed, that they’d desert and fail him, and still there was more that they could not yet bear.
And I began to wonder if perhaps Jesus was talking about the joy that is waiting for them on the other side of the experience of devastation – a joy which makes no sense in the context of the last supper, which would have seemed impossible and maybe even monstrous to suggest at that time.
Perhaps that is what they could not bear to hear or know at that point?
It’s not at all that the promise of joy to come makes the suffering easier to bear – because it doesn’t. It’s not that it justifies the pain in any way or makes sense of it…you had to go through this in order to get that… It’s more that suffering and pain are an integral part of being human in the same way that love and joy are.
All of us, as human beings, have to say goodbye to everyone we know. There’s no one who is exempt from the heartbreak of farewells. The disciples are in the furnace of that heartbreak as they hear these words, even though they don’t fully know it yet. And every one of us have known something of this heartbreak furnace. All of us have come up against experiences of loss… and we all know that it is so difficult to look at this close up.
It’s easier to think about something as an abstract, to put some distance between our heartbreak and loss – to try and make it less or even to discount or deny it. Or you might try to rationalise it, or reach for a bigger picture to put your deep loss into perspective – it’s not as bad as…
It takes courage to be vulnerable, and this is what is at the heart of the cross and at the centre of Christian discipleship – courage and vulnerability. It’s what is at the heart of Pentecost too, because the Spirit is a gift that is never imposed further or more fully and deeply than we are willing to receive – and receiving requires openness and openness requires vulnerability.
Courage and vulnerability are at the heart of the life of the Triune God. Because Father, Son and Spirit exist in an inter-relational dance of giving and receiving – of pouring out and letting in.
Courage and vulnerability are the power of Love as it flows in the relationships of inter-dependence of the Three in One, and in the act of creation God chose to expand that inter-dependence to us. God vulnerably allows there to be space for us as persons who are fully and freely other.
We get to choose what we will let in and what we will give away. You get to choose. At least to a point.
Because we all encounter the loss of people and of dreams and of pets and of abilities and of possibilities. But we don’t necessarily know how to let that in or how to let it go. And we all have the opportunity to encounter the delight of being known and loved, of being affirmed and accepted, of belonging, of feeling ourselves connected, and significant. But we don’t necessarily know how to bear that, and let ourselves receive it.
So here is the work for this week:
First of all, put on your radar for the moment when someone offers you a compliment, a word of appreciation or gratitude, when someone asks about your day or your preference or your opinion, when someone acknowledges you – it will happen this week.
When it does, pause.
Hold back whatever it is you usually do in those moments- whether it’s to shrug and say nothing, or to brush it off, or minimise it, or offer a bigger compliment in return – hold that back and instead in the pause, open to receive. Trust that you can, in fact, let in and bear this love.
Breathe it into your belly. And then simply say ‘thank you’.
And breathe it out. You don’t need to cling to it…there’s more where that came from.
I know that sounds easy, right? So you can do it.
And secondly, when you hear or read or otherwise encounter something sad or moving, some loss or hurt, and it will also happen this week – when it does, pause.
Hold back whatever you usually do in those moments- whether it’s to get angry with yourself or someone else, or to look for someone to blame, or to reach for something to keep busy with or to burst into tears – hold that back and instead, in the pause, open to receive it.
Trust that you can, in fact, let in and bear this sadness. And then meet it with compassion. Meet the sadness with love and tenderness.
Breathe it into your belly. And then check what that particular sadness needs…maybe you want to call up a friend to listen and hold a compassionate space for you. Maybe you want to offer a quiet prayer. Maybe you just need to take a few deep breaths as the feeling rises and moves through.
Many of us get stuck in sadness or in avoiding it, and many of us get stuck in chasing love or in shutting it out. This is how we keep ourselves from being vulnerable, and we do this out of fear. So we need to practice the pause so we can change and choose courage and openness.
These two practices are simple and at the same time they are harder than you may think. You may already have thought of some good reasons why they won’t work or they are not for you. But, if we are to grow in love, these are the first steps – letting in and letting go. This is an invitation to courageous vulnerability and an invitation to participate in the life of Love, in the flow of Love.
The invitation is for you – it is an invitation to hope and trust and wholeness. This invitation is the promise of the gospel and it takes more than an act of belief or repentance to nurture the growth into love. It takes practice and it takes community – we journey together as we grow in love.
So in the words of the poet David Whyte, let’s take the first step.
