From Mark Terrell

Working to share the love and hope of Christ is best done in community. Father Benigno Beltran wrote, “Thomas Merton wrote that theology really happens in relations between people.”[1] The emphasis here is that the Gospel is experienced in and through community. The community becomes “… the sign of the coming kingdom to people searching for God—a place that [models] a ‘way of being’ that [overcomes] divisions, both natural and social…”[2] Community represents the unity that Christ called for in John 17, that all followers of Christ will be one as God the Father and God the Son are one. When this happens, not only will Christians experience Jesus in new ways, but the world will know that God exists and loves them.[3] Being in relationship or community is the way that God chooses to be experienced.

Myers explains the power and difficulties of being in community. Myers writes,

Having been made in the image of the triune God, we are meant to be in loving, self-giving relationships with one another and to be caring stewards, participating in the continuing process of creation. So, first, we need to understand that human beings, as bearers of the image of God, are intentionally placed in a system of relationships: with God, with self, with community, with those perceived as “other,” and with our environment.[4]

God created humanity to be in relationship with himself and with everything and everyone around it, but those relationships have gotten distorted. Humanity decided to step out on its own, not wanting to listen to God anymore:

Humankind, man and woman together, decided to disobey God. They acted as if they knew better than God (Gn 3). Being like God was apparently more attractive than listening to God and doing as God asked. The effect of this disobedience ensured that human identity and all dimensions of human relationships would be marred.[5]

The dimensions, mentioned here by Myers, go beyond a person’s one-on-one relationships with God and other people to include our political, economical, and religious institutions. The whole community has been affected. It must be concluded that it takes a community, in communion with the Triune God and others human beings, to transform society. Myers writes, “Transformation is the work of a community; it is not served well by lonely ‘cowboys.’ The gospel message is a way of living with Christ and each other that then enables the ministry of word, deed, and sign.”[6] Those living in poverty or who are homeless are in their life situation not solely because they are sinners, but also because all relationships are broken. “Poverty is about relationships that don’t work, that isolate, that abandon or devalue.”[7] These relationships have to be healed for each person, including the systems of the world, if people are to be who God created them to be. This societal transformation can only happen when people step into community with Triune God and each other and work to make society just for all. The best example that humanity has for what community should look like is the Trinity.

The Trinity came to the forefront of my heart and mind when Father Benigno Beltran said, “You in the West are Trinitarian in theory and Unitarian in practice because you highlight one aspect of the Trinity, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, over the others.”[8] What did Father Ben mean by this statement? He meant that Western Christianity is divided into many denominations, and each denomination highlights one person of the Trinity over the others. For example, Charismatic’s highlight the Holy Spirit; Evangelicals lift up Jesus. This difference causes contempt and disunity. The Trinity is split apart and interacts with the world as individuals instead of as the community that they are.

It wasn’t until the author’s New Testament Class at Bakke Graduate University with Dr. Jeff Kuess that the Trinity became less fuzzy. In the class, I learned of two views of the Trinity: Western and Eastern. The Western view of the Trinity “begins by affirming the unity of God’s being,” yet “is expressed in three harmonious identities.”[9] The west “uses the analogy of the roles often played by a single person.”[10] For example, an adult male can be a son, a husband, and a father. This picture of the Trinity is domineering and fortresslike. It is as if God is moving towards a person to force himself on them and engulf them in a militant fashion. By contrast, the Eastern view begins “by affirming that God exists as three concrete individuals. Yet, insists that the Three are so intimately committed to and connected with one another that they constitute a single essence.”[11] The picture that is often used is that “of the dance.” They are so in love with each other that they forget themselves. Dr. Kuess described the interaction between humanity and God as one where people are invited into the dance with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When a person enters the dance he is so enveloped by love that he loses himself and becomes who he was created to be. The Eastern description of the Trinity spoke to me; it seems to be how God works with the poor, rather than God pursuing humanity like a bounty hunter searching for a convict who has jumped bail. When the bounty hunter finds the felon, he is harsh and demands that the person obey (Western view). God is much more like a shepherd who stops at nothing to find the lost sheep and when the shepherd finds them he picks them up and carries them back to the rest of the flock (Eastern view). Although there is a determination in the shepherd, there is also a gentleness and love about him when the lost are found. Nowhere in scripture is Jesus harsh with the poor, the weak, children, or the oppressed as the Trinity is depicted in the Western view. What is in scripture, is Jesus being gentle and inviting the poor, the weak, children, and the oppressed to wholeness as the Trinity is depicted in the Eastern view.[12]