Across the Pastor’s Desk

By the Rev. Cherie Daniel, Freeborn Congregational United Church of Christ in Freeborn, Alden United Methodist Church and Grace United Methodist Church in Kiester

This week we remember the strong winds and tornadoes that tore through our neighborhoods a year ago. The devastation was terrible! The things that make our lives unique were torn from us — photos, vehicles, artwork, business records and more. Barns, grain storage facilities, garages and entire homes were leveled. Green growing things were stripped from the soil. One life was lost — many, many, many more were changed forever. We and our neighbors are strong and resilient; recovery continues with hope.

That recovery has been accomplished with team members. Even on the first days, there were all kinds of people swarming over the land: first responders from fire and ambulance services, electrical and gas line engineers, and disaster response teams from churches and the Red Cross. Neighbors appeared with food and with strong backs — to begin gathering scattered pieces of buildings that had been blown into nearby — and far away — fields and groves. People with chain saws and tractors and pickup trucks hauled away pieces of the stately trees that once graced the landscape.

Others simply sat and cried with us.

We behaved as a team. And the best teams celebrate the diverse gifts of members. In this recovery we appreciate the unique contributions offered by people young and old, friends and strangers who appeared with hearts full of compassion. Each person we encountered brought a special talent and perspective to meet changing needs.

God recognized our need for a variety of gifts to meet our changing needs. This Sunday we celebrate Trinity Sunday. It is a day to recognize God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity, the Triune God, Father/Son/Holy Ghost. Even as we know that our God is too large to fit into human language, the Trinity is one way to celebrate how immensely able God is to know us and be available to us when we call.

We know how diverse the human race is! Even in our own families — where language and skin color and basic life education are similar — we experience the diversity possible in humankind. In our reading for Sunday, we learn more about how we all came to be. “In the beginning” is the beginning of our Bible story of Creation. In that story, on the sixth day we hear these words, “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’ (Genesis 1:26a)” Even in the first chapter of our story, God reveals how impossible it is for us to pin God down with one moniker that describes all of God’s attributes.

This story also gives us a glimpse into the special place we have in God’s great story. We are made in the image of, in the spirit of, in the spirit-and-image of God. We are the spitting image of God — as multiply-gifted and colored and talented and wise and creative together as God is in the Triune body.

One way to think about humanity living on this planet is as a team. There are many ways to describe who God is and how God is. We might think of God as a team — all facets of God working together in perfect harmony to bring order out of chaos, recovery out of devastation, hope from desperation. When we contemplate our great God and our place in God’s universe, we, too, may conclude that “it is very good.”