Frances Flatman reflects on the Readings for Trinity Sunday :-
What does it mean to ‘belong’? Last long weekend we experienced the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II, and many thousands joined in various ways, from those invited to events and those thronging the streets that royal processions passed through, or by joining in street parties. In some shape or form, now not clearly articulated, those experiences give people a sense of belonging, reaffirming their identity as part of a nation and Commonwealth honouring its long serving monarch and, despite our very diverse origins, class and status, it gave us a sense of corporate identity. The ancient world of the Roman Empire was an ‘Honour Society’ which defined its many people from greatest to lowliest and, foreigners or even barbarians apart, gave them a sense of belonging and identity. Indeed, no person free or servile could live in this world without allegiance and respect for this system. It gave you rights as well as obligations, as patrons and their myriads of clients from high to low knew where they were in this system, knew how to behave in relation to superiors and inferiors, from Hadrian’s Wall to Syria; and I think we can gain some understanding of our Readings through reference to this foundational experience in the lives of ancient men and women.
Our Reading from Proverbs (8:22-31) gives us a powerful picture of the supremacy of God himself, universal creator of everything that exists and of Wisdom, here described as his ‘first created thing’ but clearly distinguished from all other creations, so that we can see that Wisdom joins with the divine, partner to his creative activity. ‘I was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day by day.’ What this seems to express is the idea of the divine as corporate in some way, delight in creation being a shared experience and a joy. Certainly in this work there is no room for any idea of Father, Son and Spirit, yet we can perhaps appreciate it as a prototype as Judaism probed the very nature of the divine itself and, as we see, enjoying and involved in creation. Christian belief hundreds of years later would understand this in a radically different manner, with the coming of the divine into our world, in human form.
So just how did Greco-Romans think about themselves in relation to the gods? How did Christianity adapt this belief to their own purposes? In Romans (5:1-5) Paul speaks of ‘boasting’, here in the context of sufferings endured for the faith. Now modern people don’t like boasters, we find such people arrogant and dismiss them as idiots. But in the ancient world boasting was quite simply the norm, and part of being tied into the Honour system that held society together. First one honoured the gods, those immortals far above humans, so written dedications in stone would put Jupiter, Juno and Minerva at the start of their inscriptions, a sign of devotion and belonging, and then go on to ‘boast’ of their own public works: largesse to their city; generosity to local foundations for education in the case of Pliny and so on. One’s ancient family lineage would also be a prominent feature of such dedications. Pliny wrote a Letter to Trajan his Emperor asking permission to erect busts of the imperial line in Como his city, thereby honouring the Emperor; and as this all passed down through some form of osmosis, honouring Pliny and his house too. It was how you showed yourself to be part of the society of the time. Paul quite deliberately borrowed from this understanding of boasting to help converts to Christianity and their pagan kin to understand the way in which the new faith in Christ had both a radical new understanding of the universe and ourselves, and also still belonged to the existing society. God was their super patron, and the ties Christians had to him were through the sufferings many had to undergo, just as Christ himself had for us; but these bonds were as understandable and as critical as any of those so common in the thought world of Rome. They produced ties to the deity and to one another quite as binding as any existing patronage system, indeed possibly more binding, since they were forged under the auspices of the Holy Spirit, and joined us eternally to the Trinity, whereas for pagans death was the moment of oblivion for millions.
I think that John (16:12-15), writing from Ephesus in the 80’s CE, appreciated this too. Here he is in a passage which will go on into Jesus’ great prayer (Jn 17) for us to the Father, which is so unitive of Father, Son and Spirit – and US! But here he prepares the disciples for his departure and the specific coming of the Spirit. Jesus is, speaking of the Spirit as a unitive power, whose purpose is ‘To lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of things to come. He will glorify me….’ Clearly then we see the godhead as Trinitarian, a threesome of glory and power, and then staggeringly find that the work of the Spirit is to open the way for us to appreciate this family! We puny and fearful created beings are designed to become part of the family of God, in continual relationship with the divine. Our place in the cosmos is forever changed. Unlike Romans who saw death as the end, here through grace the believer now has his/her eternal place in the life of the Trinity, not as equals but as honoured and valued members of God’s family, sharers in the divine through the Spirit. And just think, after all the mess we make, to have this security, this knowledge and not to mess up!
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