Image by Zoltan Matuska from Pixabay
I love a jigsaw puzzle. I love the process of sorting pieces, figuring out the shading and gradations of colors, the shapes of the knobs and slots, the fragments of the picture that carry across multiple pieces. And then there’s the satisfaction of the picture coming together one little bit at a time.
It’s especially sweet if you’re working the puzzle with other people, everyone doing the parts that they see and can do.
Trinity is like a jigsaw puzzle. We have many pieces of different shapes and, by some holy miracle, every piece has a place they fit. Without any one piece, the full picture of Trinity is incomplete.
New pieces are being added all the time and our puzzle is always expanding. Where we had a 3 dimensional puzzle that has pieces we can fit together, time adds a 4th dimension. Our Trinity puzzle has been taking shape, many shapes, since people began gathering informally for Anglican worship on a ship in the harbor. It has changed and grown many times. A time lapse photo across the last 158 years would show different sections coming together, all of them forming a big picture of who we are today. Every piece is needed to complete the picture, even as new pieces are being added and the puzzle is always expanding.
Over time, our ever-expanding Trinity jigsaw puzzle is immense. Bigger than we can take in. So big that we cannot see the edges, where it began or where it will end. And, as I say this, I’m not sure it’s flat. I suspect it has layers that relate and connect through space and time. And, because we are a community of faith, I am going to suggest a 5th dimension, a spiritual dimension that relates the whole Trinity that was and is and is to come to the Holy Spirit. I think I just blew my own mind.
In today’s Exodus reading, the people of Israel longed to put all the pieces together and understand what was happening to them. They wanted to understand the God who would call them out of slavery in Egypt to wander aimlessly in the wilderness. The God who invited them from a life where they had plenty to eat and drink out to a place where they wondered on a daily basis when they would die of starvation or dehydration. Sure, they had been enslaved and exploited, but at least they had fresh fruits and vegetables, and plenty of water. So where IS this God who promised a better life?
Trying to fill in the missing piece, the mysterious God they cannot see, they beg Aaron to make them a statue while Moses is away. Oooh, God is mad that the people didn’t trust God’s promise to take care of them!! Good thing Moses reminds God of how it will be hard to fulfill the promise to multiply the descendants of faithful Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to be like the stars in heaven if God kills them all!
Fast forward a few decades, and the people DO arrive at the Promised Land. Where they multiply, as promised, and thrive. In that moment, in the wilderness, they could only see their current time and place.
We only ever see where we are, and hopefully remember some of how the pieces fit together in the past to bring us to this place. We cannot see the full picture that includes the future. Only God can. God’s time is not our time. God’s time is all time all at once. We can only see what is right here and now.
People of the Exodus got worried about their future, worried about where God was, worried that they might not survive this trek in the wilderness. There was a promise of milk and honey - but WHEN? Even Moses didn’t know how long it would take. In the meantime, they were worried about their survival. If only the Israelites had our stewardship theme of Rooted in Abundance!
If we look at the bigger picture of their puzzle, which is history for us, we can see the abundance that was hard for them to recognize. Abundance of community (they weren’t out there alone, they had each other), manna (food, nutritious and plentiful even if it wasn’t really tasty), freedom from oppression, water (miraculously flowing out of a rock), all the wisdom and skills of crafts- and tradespeople, laborers, people with skills to cook, to care for children and elders, experienced and trusted leaders at many levels, and many levels of faith in God.
But they couldn’t see all those pieces working together to create a whole and beautiful image of their life together. In their anxiety about the future, when and where and how they would get there, they focus on what is missing. So they do something they had seen the Egyptians do in their worship of many gods. They create a shiny statue to worship. Something concrete to receive their offerings and supplications. They borrow something from a familiar culture, but not the culture of their faith, to assuage the discomfort about their current situation.
Moses reminds God, and the people, that there is a bigger picture, a bigger concept of time. God has promised to be faithful, and God keeps promises. God’s desire is for us to live and thrive.
Our puzzle that we see here and now is a small bit of God’s puzzle. And that the puzzle is incomplete without the unique shape of each of us. Our skills. Our time. Our life, offered with gratitude to the God who releases us from enslavement to idols and leads us toward fullness of life.
Sometimes it feels like the gifts we have to offer are too small, too insignificant to make a difference. So often when we hear stewardship campaigns, we take away a message that all that matters is how we share our wealth of money. In our social agreements, money does pay the utilities and salaries. It is one piece of the puzzle.
Without the offerings of wisdom and works, our puzzle has many blank spots. We all have wisdom, gathered from life, skills from work and hobbies, passions that ignite and engage us. Works are how we share that wisdom. Our time, as precious as any monetary commitment, offered to help complete the picture of God’s hope for us and for all the world to thrive and multiply in peace.
As you pray about God’s desire for Trinity and how you can be part of it, I invite you to listen with your heart and mind. Listen for the tabs (knobs, bumps, loops) and blanks (pockets, sockets, locks) of the puzzle piece that is uniquely you now. Not the you of the past, because we are always changing and growing. Not the you of the future, because we aren’t there yet. What part of God’s Trinity puzzle are you NOW?
I am excited to see how all of our pieces will bring the puzzle together, filling some empty spots, expanding new sections, and all with the energy of something we are working on with one another and with God.
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.
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