A hot dry day, straight out of a cowboy movie, three strangers come riding into town.
A buzzard cries out in the sky.
They ride into one town, and they are greeted by a barren older couple that has no future, stuck at a dead end and have been for decades. The older couple welcomes the three strangers, the table is set. They are fed and cared for.
There is a surprise, the three strangers bless the couple, proclaiming that they will have a child and their descendents will be a mighty people who will be numbered as the stars in the sky.
The three strangers walk then into another town, but this time they are not welcomed, they are threatened, victimized, taken advantage of.
There is a surprise. The three strangers call down judgment from heaven, fire and brimstone rain down and the town is no more.
Two different stories, visitors walk into town, three visitors who are in fact angels, who are in fact God. It is a mystical confusing episode, it has a dreamlike quality to it.
Abraham and Sarah entertain angels unawares, and the dead end of their lives suddenly opens wide to fill the sky.
Sodom and Gomorrah unwittingly attacks vulnerable strangers, taking advantage of their apparent weakness, and they are consumed by fire falling from the sky.
Two different stories about relationships. Two different stories about how to be in the world.
One story receives guests as holy visitors.
The other story looks for the weak so that they may be used.
Two different ways of being in the world.
One is blessed and filled with laughter and the stars of heaven.
The other is damned and consumed, turned to ash.
One is holy, the other is not.
Relationships.
Today is Trinity Sunday, one of the ancient symbols of the Trinity is of the three visitors visiting Abraham, the image is sometimes called The Trinity and sometimes it is called The Hospitality of Abraham. The overlapping meaning of the two titles is significant.
The overlapping meaning of the visitation of the Three Personed-One God and the act of welcoming the stranger, of hospitality for those who are at risk is worth our attention. It shows us God and it shows us what it means to be the people of God in the world.
Ultimately the Triune nature of God is a mystery that leaves us confused, our language and our minds lack the capacity to signify. Ultimately this is about a mystery that we adore rather than comprehend and understand.
At the heart of this mystery that we adore and worship is the way of relationship that receives and welcomes the other as holy, holy visitors greeted with lavish hospitality, and out of this welcoming the future opens up with possibilities that outnumber the stars.
The Father welcomes the Son, the Son welcomes the Father, out of their mutual welcome the Holy Spirit welcomes both Father and Son yet again, and a dynamo of holy visitation is set loose. Out of that super abundance of divine energy creation pours out, welling up and overflowing.
The Trinity is about relationships, relationships that create possibilities and freedom, rather than the relationships that control and extort.
Two stories.
Two ways of being in the world.
Today we honor the mystery of holy visitation that reveals God and that fills the future with surprised laughter and a sky full of stars.
We are always choosing between these two stories every day.
Which will we live?
The mystery of the Trinity beckons our adoration and worship.