Lectionary Commentaries for June 15, 2025
Holy Trinity

Holy Trinity Sunday is an invitation to consider the mystery of God’s expansive nature as seen through the dance of the Trinity: God (Divine Parent), Jesus (Son), and Holy Spirit (Advocate). It is important to consider Holy Trinity Sunday within the context of its proximity to Pentecost, where we are introduced to the third party, the Holy Spirit. This Sunday highlights the gift of the triune God and the particularity of each entity, even as they work and operate together as one.

Trinity as an invitation to abiding community

The disciples have been an intimate group of friends, sojourners, comrades, and co-conspirators as they have journeyed along with Jesus through his adult life and ministry on earth. They have known him in the flesh—able to eat with him, laugh with him, hear his teachings, and walk alongside him and one another. To have a teacher and friend that you trust enough to lay down the life you knew and pick up one that has more questions than answers is intimate and requires a deep relationship. So, to then hear repeatedly that the one you know and love is leaving by his own declaration would kick up grief, fear, and questions about what it means to be a community beyond Jesus, especially when they have only known community around Jesus.

Throughout John, Jesus has been repeatedly telling the disciples of this departure and of the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with them. While the fullness of the story of Jesus has not yet been realized, the disciples are consistently being told that the one they love is leaving. This text is not the first time they have heard this, yet each time has its own nuance and is Jesus’ attempt to prepare them for what is to come. Here Jesus describes the Spirit as one that will “guide you into all the truth” (verse 13). The Spirit in John’s accounts is a wisdom, a guide, and a protector and defender who will journey with those Jesus has to leave behind, but who reflects the teachings and commandments of Jesus.

Jesus teaches them that community, and the work of their community, is even beyond his time here on earth; that the coming of the Spirit offers them access to what they have known and, most importantly, a guide to continue to do the work of Jesus. The gift of the Trinity as delivered by the Spirit is that the disciples are never left alone and that they as a community can and must continue even after Jesus is gone.

The Spirit as a gift of familiarity

“[The Holy Spirit] will take what is mine and declare it to you” (verse 14).

As I tried to put myself in the disciples’ shoes, one of the questions that came up was: “Who is this Spirit?”

The disciples all came from different backgrounds, access points, and communities, so I imagine that even their coming together was a journey of growing in trust and camaraderie. By this point, they knew Jesus and knew that he could be depended on, but for him to leave and send someone else—that would kick up some questions.

• Who or what is that someone else? 
• Do they know what they are doing? 
• Do they know the truth? 
• How can we trust this guide? 
• Where will the guide be? 
• You, I know … but this other one? I am not sure.

In the wisdom of continuity and care of familiarity, Jesus promises that the Spirit knows him. There’s something deeply pastoral and kind in this. Jesus tells them, “He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” I imagine this being comforting. Jesus is not just leaving them alone or leaving them with something wholly disconnected from him. The Spirit that is sent is doing so from the teachings, the guidance, the wisdom of Jesus. They know Jesus. They trust Jesus. They have been talked to about the God Jesus prays to, and now they will know the third part of this triune God, the Spirit. They can trust the Spirit, declaring from the truth of Jesus, because they are familiar with Jesus and trust him.

Sometimes in the presence of deep change, the gift of familiarity and continuity is a practice of care and trust-building for what is new and to come.

Stay tuned …

John’s Gospel often points to a further revelation or a mystery that is unfolding. I often think of this Gospel as the “Stay Tuned” Gospel, where Jesus is giving just enough to keep the disciples curious and attentive but not giving the whole story away. A tension in this text is at the beginning: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (verse 12). I imagine the disciples thinking, “Well, you have already said a whole lot, so what is worse than this?! You are leaving!”  

But rereading that in the context of the unfolding mystery, Jesus is offering a reminder for them to stay tuned. “Things will unfold that build upon what you know now. There are lessons you will learn, teachings you will receive, help that’s on the way that will fortify you for the work and life ahead.” Jesus didn’t say, “I will never tell you,” but “The timing of right now is not aligned with what will be best for you.”

In that, Jesus reminds the disciples and those of us witnessing now that so much of faith is staying attuned to what is coming, and trusting in its unfolding. It is receiving the gifts of wisdom from the Spirit and walking through the uncertainty, even as we trust the certainty that we are not alone and that the Trinity (above, around, within us) is guiding us to the truth that looks like love.

In Proverbs, Wisdom is a woman. Proverbs 8 represents the most famous of her words (though she speaks elsewhere in Proverbs too; see also 1:20–33). 

The language of the passage is rich: At the outset of Proverbs 8 we are reminded that Wisdom is accessible to any of us who will heed her voice. 

Wisdom is to be found in the midst of the hustle-and-bustle of our lives. In Proverbs 8:1–4 she calls to people “on the heights” and “beside the way.” She cries out “to all” from “the crossroads” and “beside the gates in front of the town” and “at the entrance of the portals.” 

Throughout the early chapters of Proverbs (Proverbs 1–9), the book’s addressees are encouraged to follow the way of wisdom and justice and to turn away from the path of folly and wickedness. But what is the path of wisdom? How does Proverbs suggest we should actually live? What does a wise life look like? 

Proverbs 8, and indeed most of Proverbs 1–9, doesn’t offer many specifics (Proverbs 6 is an exception) about the life of wisdom. To understand more fully the “content” of wisdom for Proverbs, to glimpse the sorts of values and virtues humans ought to pursue and the vices that should be rejected, readers of the book need to turn especially to Proverbs 10–31. 

Careful interpreters will discover in Proverbs 10–31 the values and virtues—such as generosity, faithfulness, kindness to the poor, honesty in market relations, and fairness in the legal realm, especially for those who inhabit a marginal socioeconomic status—that the book promotes. These values and virtues from the Hebrew Bible, because they are part of the same Israelite-Jewish moral tradition, are easily linked to the key Christian virtues the New Testament speaks of, for example in Galatians 5. 

The language of the passage is rich: Throughout Proverbs 8, Woman Wisdom is described with words that scholars have long recognized parallel the rhetoric other ancient sources deploy to describe goddesses. 

In a very real way, then, Woman Wisdom represents the feminine divine in ancient Israel’s theological imagination. In fact, scholars have debated the meaning of the words in Proverbs 8:22 that the New Revised Standard Version translates as “The Lord created me [Wisdom] at the beginning of his work.” The Hebrew verb qanah most basically means “acquire,” and certainly, one might “acquire” something by creating it. Hebrew permits this understanding of the term. Such a rendering of the word, however, suggests that ancient Israel’s religion was always and plainly monotheistic, just as Judaism and Christianity, the religious inheritors of the Bible, are. But a strict monotheism likely did not always characterize Israel’s religion (see below). 

The Hebrew verb qanah also might mean something like “beget,” as Eve says in Genesis 4: “Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced [qaniti] a man with the help of the LORD.’”

Whatever it might mean for the Lord to “beget” or “produce” Wisdom in Proverbs 8, this rendering of qanah, too, can be understood in terms of monotheism.

However, on one rather well-known occasion in Scripture, “acquire” (qanah) is also used in the context of marriage, although it is not the usual expression for marriage in the Hebrew Bible. In Ruth 4 Boaz claims that on the day that the closest “next-of-kin” of Ruth’s dead husband “acquires” her husband’s inheritance, this redeemer (or perhaps Boaz himself; the Hebrew is ambiguous) will “acquire” Ruth—apparently as a wife (see also 4:10). 

It may be, then, that the goddess-like Woman Wisdom in Proverbs 8 was early on conceived as a kind of consort or wife of Israel’s God Yahweh. The idea is not that far-fetched since many scholars believe there is good evidence that early in ancient Israel’s history, the goddess Asherah was understood as Yahweh’s spouse, even if the male-centered and subsequently monotheistic tradition turned away from both goddess religion and polytheism. 

If traces of the feminine divine in ancient Israel can be discerned in Scripture, how might that impact the theological and ethical reflection of Christian communities and individuals today, in churches and other organizations where not only traces but clear instances of sexism and the marginalization of women’s leadership are discernable? As in Proverbs 8:1–4, does not Wisdom (still) cry out? 

The language of the passage is rich: In Proverbs 8:22–31, Woman Wisdom explains her origins. As we saw, verse 22 says, “The LORD created me [Wisdom] at the beginning of his work.”

Proverbs 8:22–31 makes clear that Woman Wisdom exists prior to the creation of the cosmos—“before the beginning of the earth” (verse 23). She is thus in some fashion present at the Lord’s creation of the cosmos. “When he established the heavens, I was there … when he made firm the skies … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker” (verses 27–30).

The scholarly debate about the meaning of the Hebrew word ’amon lying behind the New Revised Standard Version’s expression “master worker” is one of the most famous in biblical studies. Besides “master worker,” there are good reasons for translating the word as “little child” too. Whatever the best rendering, in 8:30–31 Woman Wisdom delights the divine with her “rejoicing” (or “dancing,” another possible rendering of the Hebrew text) during God’s creative work. Her pleasing actions at creation, “in the beginning” as it were, point to creation’s goodness (see also Genesis 1).

Wisdom’s close association with creation in Proverbs 8 suggests to some interpreters not simply that God used God’s wisdom when the deity created all that is. It hints, too, that divine Wisdom in some sense infuses the cosmos. The created world might thus be regarded not merely as that which God has entrusted to humans (see also Genesis 1:26), but as itself sacred. If so, it would demand not just our respect as a divine work, but our reverence. 

This is not pantheism—the idea that God and the cosmos are identical—a notion about which traditional Christian theology has often been suspicious. Instead, it is a kind of panentheism, or the idea that something of the divine inhabits everything. This idea has fared much better especially among contemporary Christian theologians. 

For people living in the Anthropocene epoch, an age that is now characterized by widespread environmental degradation, Proverbs 8 can thus move preachers and congregations toward some consequential moral-theological positions regarding “care of the cosmos.” What “good news” for both humans and all of sacred creation will preachers and communities of faith proclaim in light of Proverbs 8?

The language of the passage is rich: Since ancient times Christians have understood Wisdom in Proverbs 8 to be more than just a personification of the book’s ethical teachings. Jesus of Nazareth is called the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and subsequently Proverbs’ Wisdom came to play a significant role in Christian reflection on the triune Godhead. Proverbs 8 is thus well read on Trinity Sunday. 

Psalm 8 is a psalmic interpretation of creation, comparable to Genesis 1–2 and Job 38–41.¹ More specifically, it is a panegyric on human excellence (verses 8:4–6) couched within a pious frame (verses 8:1a, 9). For the psalm celebrates not so much God as the God who created human beings. Human beings, according to our psalm, occupy the honored center in the great chain of being—“a little lower than divine” (verse 5, Jewish Publication Society TANAKH) but above all earthly creatures (verses 6–8).

All of this raises the question that the psalmist appropriately places at the structural heart of the psalm: “What is humanity?” (verse 4). And the psalm provides an intricate response: Humanity plays the intermediary role of articulating creaturely praise to God and of mediating divine sovereignty to creation.

The structure of the psalm and the cosmic order

The structure of Psalm 8 mirrors the structure of the cosmos.

God and humanity anchor and animate the structure of the psalm. On the one hand, the praise of God frames the psalm at the beginning and the end (verses 1a, 9); and, on the other, at the structural center of the psalm is humanity (verses 4–5). This is not a static structure. Far from it—mutual regard between God and humanity dynamically connects the outer frame and the core of the psalm.

God, from the outside, looks inward toward humanity with care and concern: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (verse 4 New Revised Standard Version); and humanity, from the middle, looks outward toward God in praise: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (verses 1a, 9). The entire psalm, then, is an echo chamber of divine love and human adoration, pulsating in rhythmic response inward and outward.

Filling out the rest of the psalm are creatures above and below humanity. Above human beings are the heavenly bodies: the sun, the moon, the stars, and divine beings—in Hebrew, elohim, which may be translated as “God” or “gods” (verses 3, 5). Below humanity are all earthly creatures: domesticated and wild animals of land, sky, and sea (verses 6–8).

The total picture is of an orderly world that mirrors exactly the structure of the psalm. God embraces all of creation all around, and humanity sits crowned and, I dare say, enthroned at the center of the created world. Human beings, even more than God, are the stars of the psalm.

In light of this exaltation of human beings in the psalm, it is important to note that human beings are nowhere subjects of verbs of action in the psalm. Rather, God is always and everywhere the one who acts: God “makes [human beings] less than divine,” “crowns them with glory and honor” (verse 5), “makes them rulers,” and “places” all other creatures under their authority (verse 6). That is to say, whatever glory, honor, and power humanity possesses, their source is God. Humanity rules, but it does so at the pleasure of God as God’s ambassador.

The proper understanding of humanity’s relationship of authority over creation as a mediation of divine will attenuates the temptation to misinterpret the psalm as a theological carte blanche for human beings to use and abuse creation solely for their own ends. For if we remember that God’s desire for creation is that it be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1), then it becomes incumbent on humanity, as God’s faithful representative, to work toward making life on earth flourish, not only for human beings, but also for all of God’s creation. The duty and the privilege to do so constitute the honor and glory of human beings.

The enigma of infant lips

The world according to Psalm 8 is orderly and resplendent and, as noted above, reflected in the structural artistry of the psalm itself. But not all is right angles and straight lines. In verse 2, God’s cosmic foes, the enemy and the destroyer, appear—curiously—in the same frame as babes and infants.

God’s enemies, in the context of creation, are the forces of chaos and evil that appear elsewhere in the Bible as Leviathan, Rahab, and sea monsters (Isaiah 27:1; 51:9–10; Psalm 74:13–15; Genesis 1:21). And God’s ongoing work of creation involves maintaining a cosmic boundary to keep the sea monsters at bay, lest they penetrate creation and work death and destruction on earth (Psalm 104:9; Job 38:10–11; Daniel 7). According to Hebrew thought, shared by our psalmist, evil persists in the world, and God actively battles forces of evil in continuous assertions of divine and creative power.

Divine combat, however, does not appear in Psalm 8. To our great surprise, the psalm does not assert that God battles the enemy but that, remarkably, human babes and infants do! How can we resolve this enigma?

As noted above, human beings are passive beneficiaries of divine action; God creates, empowers, and authorizes them to rule. But human beings are not utterly inactive, and their modest activities have cosmic consequences. First, human beings see: “When I look at your heavens…” (verse 3). The result of sight, it appears, is appreciation of God’s majesty which is manifest in creation, the works of God’s fingers and hands (verses 3, 6–8). This leads to the all-important second human activity. Human beings speak and declare God’s praise: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” In sum, human beings perceive God’s glory manifest in creation and so give praise to God.

The observation that should be underlined at this point is that human declaration of praise constitutes the outer frame of the psalm, which we said above is analogous to the outer boundary of the cosmos that God maintains in order to keep out chaos and evil. In other words, according to the theology of the psalm, human praise somehow makes God present as a protective reality for creation. Praise keeps out evil.

This is not mere speculation on the structure of the psalm but may be the solution to the enigma of the “mouths of babes and infants” (verse 2). Verse 2 says that God founds a bulwark—against God’s cosmic foes, one might reasonably surmise—“from the mouths of babes and infants.”

If we assume these are human babes, what the psalmist may be saying is that even the mumbled praise of babes, no less than the fully articulate praise of human adults which frames the psalm, constitutes the bulwark erected against evil. Not only professional temple singers but also little children participate in the duty and privilege of all humanity: In declaring God’s praise, babes and infants defeat the enemy and make real God’s orderly reign on earth.

So we join in the unending song: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for June 11, 2017.

Romans 5:1–11 is a transitional passage from the fatherhood of Abraham (4:1–25), which we share with the Jewish people, to the progenitor Adam, whom we share with all humanity (5:12–21). The mention of boasting in our tribulations (thlipseis, verse 3) is surprising at first glance in an upbeat passage that first touts having peace with God and gaining access to God’s grace (verses 1–2; more on this below), until we realize that the chain of development from tribulation to patience to character to hope (verses 3–5) lets Paul tie boasting to hope, the leading idea of this passage (5:2).

“Tribulation” is a common term in apocalypticism used to describe the darkest hours before dawn. The reference to God’s wrath (orgē) from which we shall be rescued (verse 9) likewise evokes the end time. In so doing, Paul sets up an apocalyptic context for the ensuing chapters leading to the new creation of chapter 8.

Paul speaks confidently of “boasting” (verse 3), even though previously he had panned boasting as unworthy (2:17, 23; also 11:18). But he uses the term paradoxically: He boasts in his tribulations. Who would take pride in their own sufferings? And why? His words in the following verses try to clarify the conundrum: Suffering would lead to patience, patience to a test of character, and character would finally engender hope.

Since this hope looks forward to the end, this means the new creation is already started and hope gives us an eager expectation that it will culminate in a perfect conclusion. This hope does not put us to shame (verse 5)—which the New Revised Standard Version misleadingly translates as “disappoint.” This hope provides grounds for boasting—boasting in the impending glory of God (verse 2).

We can demonstrate from our experience that this hope is not some pie in the sky but represents present reality. We have been justified, we have peace with God, and we have access into the divine chamber in which we stand (verses 1–2).

If we give full weight to the tenses of the verbs used here, they describe our present prerogatives in light of past, accomplished acts. Most importantly, we have reason to be optimistic “because the love of God has come to be poured out [ekkechytai] in our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (verse 5). The verb I translate as “has come to be poured out” is used in the perfect tense, referring to actions taking place in the past with results that are valid still. The love of God was given as an accomplished act, but it remains in our hearts as a present reality.

Love here makes an entrance in Romans, but it is in fact the narrative arc leading to the triumphal declaration that nothing can separate us from the love of God (8:28–39). To unpack what Paul means by the love of God, though, we need to see how he defines love in the next passage. The death language and bloody images in 5:6–10 might cause many discomfort; maybe that’s why the Revised Common Lectionary omits it from today’s reading. To do so, however, would deprive us of Paul’s central statement on love.

Paul first recites a piece of early confession describing Jesus dying for us while we were weak or while we were sinners (5:6–8). The confession consists of four poetic lines all ending with the same verb “to die” (apothnēskein). Paul breaks this pattern by interjecting, “God gathers his love into us” (verse 8; New Revised Standard Version “God proves his love for us”). This is obviously of a piece with his statement that God’s love “has been poured out in our hearts” (verse 5). Christ’s death for the weak and the sinful manifests God’s love, to be sure, but Paul goes beyond his predecessors. He ascribes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to God’s gathering his love into us. We have become the storehouse of God’s love for humanity because the Spirit resides in us.

God’s love is not limited to the personal realm; it extends to the communal and political. Paul was the first to formulate the idea of salvation as reconciliation. Behind it stands the breaking and perfecting of new creation, a theme he will explore later. It refers to the cessation of the eternal enmity between God and humanity ever since the fall, so that the original creation could attain its full potential. What is remarkable about Paul’s conception of reconciliation, however, is that God takes the initiative, reaching across enemy lines to former adversaries. God does so by forgoing rightful claims through the martyrdom of one man, all for the purpose of achieving peace.

At this point, Paul’s use of theo-political language in the first two verses of our passage becomes apparent. The term “access” (prosagōgē, verse 2) and its cognates were commonly used in the Roman imperial cult for approach to Caesar. Likewise, the notion that “grace” is a space in which one stands (verse 2) finds no parallel in Paul, who otherwise takes grace to be an extension of God’s power into the human realm. In the imperial cult, grace was used as a stand-in for the emperor’s presence (verse 2).

“Peace” (verse 1), naturally, recalls the famous or infamous pax romana, Caesar’s motto for achieving peace through military conquest. The letter was intended for an audience living in the heart of the imperial seat. Elsewhere Paul condemns pax romana in 1 Thessalonians 5:3, where he consigns those who cry “peace and security” (Latin pax et securitas) to destruction at the coming of the Son.

Paul mimics the theo-political language of the Caesar-religion to subvert it. Unlike pax romana, the peace that God offers is achieved not by military conquest, not by patronage, power, or prestige, but by its very opposite, the death of Christ—for the sake of God reestablishing solidarity with the enemy. In so doing, “Paul declares an end to the deadly cycle of power, privilege, law, justice, and violence”¹ that constituted the core of our civic and political life.

Notes

1. Dieter Georgi, Theocracy in Paul’s Praxis and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 97.