For a recent DIY church service (such things happen when the clergy are out of season) I was asked to concoct a short homily. Now, for the barbarians, let me explain- only the clergy, the officers, can preach; the non-coms may only concoct Homilies- on pain of excommunication and bonfires, I presume. Now here was I doing it, and not knowing the difference. That’s why this item begins and ends as it does. Besides which, as Brendan Behan said, give the audience a laugh and a giggle and you can get up to all sorts of things behind their backs.
 
     What follows is of no consequence whatsoever. It is neither life-changing, nor soothing to the throat. It neither washes whiter, nor lifts and separates; it does not remove unsightly fat, moles or facial hair.It is simply the ramblings of a Grand-dad of very little brain.
     A friend chanced to remark, recently, that he had had some trouble with the Trinity .Having rubbed along quite nicely with them, I had a little trawl in their direction, in the hope of easing my troubled friend’s scanning of life’s page, as it were.
     We must start with God, of course We must first try to comprehend the size and the scope of him, the scale of his activities and creation, his forever-ness! H wasn’t spawned by superior entities; didn’t crawl from under a bush. He pre-dates any big bang theory. We say he is eternal, but do we really think about it, or understand what we are saying? ‘In the beginning…’we use that phrase, and what we really mean is- the beginning of our bit, God was already there- always had been! And another thing we have to sort out; if we are going to call him ‘God’, then we have to strip the word of all those straw dolls, clay figures of fat ladies, golden calves, top-hatted scarecrows in swamps- all those silly  little ideas that have been associated with the name. Those so-called ‘gods’ were made by men as tools to control the tribe, the populace, the country. Our God- the only one- made everything. You may think I’ve laboured the point somewhat but we needed to address the enormity of God. Now we can move into a more human scale of thought.
     That is a splendidly contrived turn of phrase, because Jesus is the human manifestation of God. I nearly said ‘human side’ but that wouldn’t be strong enough. Jesus isn’t an expression of God- he is God, but not all of God. When Jesus stands beside you, God is still in heaven. How can Jesus stand beside you? Consider how it would be if he lived next door to you. How would you perceive him? He would be your friend, confidant and advisor. You would rely on him to put a word in for you, represent you in a crisis, educate and comfort you, and you couldn’t help but try to deserve his good opinion .He would be as a brother. He is your brother. He can still do all these things for you and more, if you let him He is God making himself more approachable through his son. Guide, friend, help, support, champion, carer. He is a true brother.
     Finally we come to the Holy Spirit.; the one with whom people have the most difficulty.I think he would have had a much easier time if he hadn’t initially been called ‘the Holy Ghost’. A ghost is primarily a dead person, given to swanning around in a sheet, being a nuisance, and disturbing everyone’s sleep. Everyone knows that. Fact. And even now most people say ’spirit’ they are still thinking and feeling ‘ghost’ most of the time. And that’s a great pity because if you just roll the word ‘spirit’ around in your brain, you come up with notions like- essence, fire, refinement, purity, power, strength, principle, core, flame, burn, beacon, torch.
     Remember the old petrol ad- ‘the Tiger in your Tank’ The Holy Spirit is God’s enabling power. It’s the ‘God Franchise’. Sign up for an agency with God and you get all these gifts, advantages, abilities and opportunities. And you can always count on the full backing of the Management, plus the support of the network- The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
     So there you have it. God creates, observes, directs and controls everything from outside; Jesu walks with us, to guide, guard and encourage us, and the Holy Spirit enables, strengthens, motivates and inspires us from within.
     On the other hand, if all this seems a bit dodgy in any way- I mean fanciful, over familiar, disrespectful, illogical, hysterical, or even heretical, well- just put it down to the ramblings of a Grand-dad of very little brain.