The Diversity of God

On Sunday we talked about our God, who is a Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We discussed how this operates, and all kinds of traits that God has revealed himself about being a Trinity, and why it matters.  If you are not certain about the Trinity, I recommend your reading the sermon from Sunday again, which can be found at www.bellspringsumc.org.  Just go to Worship > Past Sermons (PDF) > August 23, 2015.  Having some understanding of Trinity will be necessary for this post to make any sense at all!

One topic we did not cover was the uniqueness and diversity within the Trinity.  Too often we simplify God, and do not fully appreciate God's fullness as being a Trinity.  Where would we be if God were only the Father, without the Son or Holy Spirit?  How much would we be at a loss if our God were only the Holy Spirit, whose role is to sustain our church and guide believers, if we did not have the Son to teach us God's truth, or the Father to prepare a place for us in heaven?  What makes God so special is that God is a Trinity, three in one and one in three, a God unlike anything else in creation, a God who defies metaphors.

God is not created; God has always existed as a Trinity, and will continue to eternally exist as a Trinity.  Therefore, God's nature is inherently diverse within himself.  The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit; while all three "Persons" of the Trinity are fully God, each one has a different role in the universe, in our world, and in our lives.  Each one relates with us differently--think about how the Son relates with us verses the Holy Spirit.  The Son came to us in flesh and blood, yet the Holy Spirit and Father do not.  

While God is fully God as a Trinity, there are some differences between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, leaving us with a God who is diverse, even within himself!  And what a beautiful God we're dealing with--the Scriptures proclaim that this is the God of salvation, eternity, and infinite wisdom. Something else really interesting for us is that he has created humankind in his own image.  In Genesis 1, we see that we worship and adore a God who has truly given us his own mark, as his children and inheritors of the divine life.  And since God is diverse within the Trinity, God has left us with a mark of diversity among ourselves.  Diversity therefore is not the mark of evil or danger, but is a gift from God by which we have been created into God's very likeness!

I hear and see too many comments on Facebook, online, and overhearing conversations where people are opposed to one another's diversity.  Diversity takes many shapes: gender, ethnicity, background and upbringing, ideology, culture, language, etc.  The list goes on, because inherently each of us is a little different, and each of us has a little different role within the Kingdom of Heaven.  But what astonishes me is how we as Christians are often those who are creating division as a result of our own diversity.  Diversity is God's own gift to us, a gift that we as Christians proclaim is one of God's greatest gifts to humankind.  The only gift that we have received greater than God's own image is the gift of God himself, of Jesus Christ who came to our world to dwell with us in solidarity, to offer himself up as a sacrifice on our behalf, to welcome us into eternity through his life, death and resurrection.

Celebrating diversity of human beings is not some tenant of a bleeding heart liberal; it is foundational and thoroughly rooted in the Scripture, in the Christian life and in God himself, because God is a Trinity, inherently and essentially diverse within himself, uncreated and eternal.  When we engage with people in this world, we will see that everyone around us is different than we are, and instead of asking them to conform to our likeness, we should note that God has already made them in his own likeness, for diversity is one of God's own trademarks.  

Questions for further consideration:

1. How should we as a church celebrate diversity?  If we though more deeply about diversity in worship, and sought its practice, how would our time in worship be different?

2. How does our society encourage conformity to a certain standard?  How can we as Christians resist this temptation and instead celebrate the uniqueness of God's children, as different as they may be?

3. In God's internal diversity, God remains to be the definition of goodness and holiness.  What is the difference between celebrating diversity yet striving to conform to God's goodness and holiness? Can we pursue holiness as a family in solidarity while retaining our diversity of gifts, graces and cultures?