The eCrozier

Have you ever heard of something called the “Butterfly Effect?” It’s a term physicists use to describe a mysterious phenomenon. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Australia, then molecules in Georgia are affected by the flapping. That’s weird, isn’t it? There is also something called the “Strange Attractor.” In this, scientists say that when one sub-atomic particle is affected it can have a corresponding affect on another sub-atomic particle. But here is the amazing thing: that other particle could be on the other side of the galaxy.

This coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday; the day we gather to offer praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When we speak of the Holy Trinity, we’re speaking of the way God has revealed God’s own self to us. The Holy Trinity describes a God who is in perfect relationship. Just as God is revealed to us in the created world, God is revealed to us in the divine nature of inextricable relationship. So, such things as the Butterfly Effect and the Strange Attractor should not be at all surprising. It seems God has created the universe to reflect the very nature of God as Trinity.

Since God is Trinity, what does that say to the Church? It says that God is by nature relational, interdependent, and collaborative. If that’s God’s nature and God has revealed that to the Church, what do you think God desires the Church’s nature to be? Yes, relational, interdependent, and collaborative. Is it any wonder then that the Bible describes the Church as the Body of Christ? St Paul describes the Church as being like a human body. The body is relational, interdependent, and collaborative. Because God is Trinity, God calls the Church to model that very nature. Have you ever wondered why God created the Church to bear his message? If God were better organized he would have used a satellite to beam his message directly into everybody’s home. We’d get the message without ever having to leave the comfort of our lazy boy recliners. We wouldn’t have to ever be in relationship with anyone else. Everybody could get the same message without ever having to be dependent on anyone else, without having to collaborate with other people.

But it’s not in God’s nature to work that way. Instead of pristine wave particles from a satellite, we have one another to bear God’s love to the world. God has so ordered the Church that instead of isolated individuals, we have to be in relationship with one another. Instead of being self-sufficient, we have to be dependent on one another. Instead of being isolated operators, we have to collaborate with one another. The Church is the extension of God’s incarnate nature on the earth. The Church is God’s way of taking take up permanent residence on the earth. The Church is not a human organization even though it’s made up of human beings. The Church isn’t an organization at all, it’s not even a religious society, but it’s an organism, a body, on which God has endowed his very nature. The Church isn’t a place to come for fellowship and goodwill, although those things occur as a result of coming together. Rather, the Church is a place where we gather in God’s name and then go out to incarnate God’s presence in the people, things, and circumstances of our lives.

+Scott