An Image of a Playful God?

The readings for Trinity Sunday are Prv 8:22-31; Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Rom 5:1-5; and JN 16:12-15.

 Trinity Sunday homilies focus on the image of God as being a relationship of persons eternally pouring forth love. We can easily get lost in abstractions, trying to describe this relationship. It is easier, and to me, more helpful to look at some of the images given to us by the reading from Proverbs 8. These are more human in scale. We should not insist on making them an overly precise description. They are after all human images. Yet they are a glimpse of what our own loving relationships might be:

• The relationship is eternal: v22 "The LORD begot me, the first-born of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; v23 From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.
  
• The relationship is creative: v27 "When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep; v28 When he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth; v29 When he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command; v30 Then was I beside him as his craftsman,…"
  
• The relationship is delightful and playful: 30 " … and I was his delight day by day, Playing before him all the while, v31 playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the sons of men.”
  

The commentaries and homilies will all urge us to be loving and generous in our loving relationships with one another. When we listen to this we tend to regard it as serious business. It can be – love is challenging when things are not going smoothly. We need to focus on the metaphor given to us in Proverbs 8:30-31 of God as playing on the surface of the earth and taking delight in us.

The image of a playful God might be surprising, or even shocking, but there it is.