In 1991 the World Council of Churches met in Canberra, with the theme "Come Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth." The most memorable worship session I attended began with us all being handed a sheet of paper and pencil. The leader asked us to sit for a moment and to think about the people who had been most influential in shaping our journey of faith, then to write down the names on the piece of paper. Ushers then collected our sheets. By the end of the service we had a huge tapestry with all the names pinned to it, thousands upon thousands. As we filed past the tapestry I was overwhelmed by this vast congregation of saints, mostly unknown to the world, whose lives had mediated the truth of Christ to those of us meeting that evening. How intricate, detailed and local, is the Spirit’s dealings with us through the gifts of other people!

I had 8, maybe 9, names on my sheet. I’d like to introduce you briefly to three. Three local saints whose lives were transparent to the truth of God for me.

The first is Wendy. Over years Wendy has felt deeply the crisis brewing in the created order. I don’t need to detail it here. We know it well enough. Rivers that run dry or are so poisoned fish within and vegetation alongside struggle to live. Bird and animal species hounded to extinction. Air that you can see, but can hardly breath. Forests disappearing and deserts expanding to replace them. Climate change. And so on.

Wendy is a student of the great Catholic theologian Thomas Berry. She is fond of quoting Berry’s remark that the task of this generation is to learn to see the world as a "community of subjects rather than a collection of objects." We need to see, honour, love and defend the integrity of all creatures. In theological terms, we need to see the whole amazing interconnected web of life as sacred because it is the creation of God and the object of God’s love.

At times Wendy has said to me, gently but clearly, "the trouble with your spirituality, Graeme, is that it’s too tied up with Christology. You live so much in the second paragraph of the creed, which focuses on Jesus. ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord.’ … who …‘for us and for our salvation’, —and the ‘us’ and ‘our’ means us human beings—‘for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.’ Human. Human. It’s all about humans and their salvation. Of course that is important," she said, "but you are so immersed in it, you forget the wider work of God’s creation. It’s time to put more prayer and action into the first paragraph. The, ‘I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth of all things visible and invisible.’ Widen your spiritual horizons. To be faithful to God, you need to love and defend God’s world more passionately."

She’s right. I do need to expand my spiritual vision in relation to God the Creator; I do need to take more care in how I use and misuse the grandeur of God’s world.

My second local saint is Athol. A very different kettle of fish! Athol was a New Testament scholar. Above all he loved the Gospel of Mark. He translated it, taught it, preached it, lived it. For Athol, the central thing in Christian spirituality is Jesus’ call to discipleship; the call to follow him, knowing that his way led to the cross. Jesus went to the poor, the outcasts, the ill, the despised, rather than to the powerful and respectable people. He lived with them, ate with them, healed them, defended them. In so doing he provoked the anger of more powerful people, and eventually they took him out of the equation; or tried to, though the resurrection proved something of a barrier to their intentions.

Athol embraced this theology. He went and lived in inner city Melbourne amongst the poor. He created an open community that welcomed and served people without jobs, without money, without shelter, without health. He poured his considerable energy and talent into that ministry and burnt himself out by the age of 54.

He, too, talked to me about my spiritual life. "The trouble with you, Graeme," he said … Why is it that people who comment on the state of my spiritual health seem to start their observations with "the trouble with you, Graeme?" Hmm…. Anyway, Athol said, ‘the trouble is that you are too comfortable in your middle class security. You talk a lot about Christ and about faith in Christ. But you don’t quite see that it is Christ Jesus who is the truth of God, and Jesus lived as the Gospel of Mark portrays. If we are to follow Christ we need to be more like Jesus."

He was right. I can easily weaken the call of Jesus to bring God’s grace and mercy to the most needy in our world. I can turn a blind, or at least unfocussed eye, to the call of Christ for justice and peace for people who are left wounded by the side of the roads of our society.

My third local saint is Barbara. Barbara belonged to the first church I had in Melbourne. When I arrived she was a regular member of the congregation, willing to do her bit. This was in the 70s, at the time the charismatic movement was making big strides in churches around the city. Barbara got caught up in the movement. She had an experience of the Spirit of God that deeply touched her. As a young minister, I was jumpy about this development. I feared a rush of happy clappy, narcissistic-type spirituality, even speaking in tongues, which was certainly not to my taste.

But the experience transformed her whole understanding prayer and action. Over the next few years Barbara gradually became a crucial leader in the congregation, developing a new community of prayer, initiating new outreach ministries in the area, supporting people who were struggling, all in a low key but wonderfully effective way.

Yes, you’re right. Barbara said, "the trouble with your spirituality, Graeme, is that it’s too much in your head. You need to let it sink deeper into your heart. All that theology, all those words. But you try to control the Spirit with them. Loosen up a bit. Remember Jesus said the Spirit blows where it wills, not where you wish it would. Believe that God can do new things, things you haven’t dreamed of, and try to follow where that leads."

She was right too. I can try to fit God to my theology instead of my theology to God. I know here (head) the Spirit is not my spirit but God’s, and that God will do what God will do. But I need encouragement to be bit more adventurous, to celebrate divine freedom, and allow my spirit to be opened up by it.

Today is our Trinity Sunday. Today we celebrate the truth that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the creator God, the reconciling Christ, the life giving Spirit. If this really is who God is, then our walk with God, our spirituality, should reflect it; that is, it should, as far as possible, be a trinitarian spirituality. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century German philosopher once said to Christians, "if you want me to believe in your redeemer you’ll have to look a bit more redeemed." My local saints put a variation of that to me. "If you want people to believe in your trinitarian God, you’ll have to live a bit more trinitarianly!"

A spirituality that respects and reveres creation is important, because God is the creator of all things. A spirituality that works to bring reconciliation and peace to a world torn by violence and injustice is important, because Christ is the divine reconciler of the world. A spirituality open to the new, to the unexpected, and to the joyous is important, because God is Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life.

1. Two things to close: First, to live a trinitarian spirituality is beyond the capacity of any one of us. Only God’s life is truly universal, truly righteous, and truly free. As individuals we reflect God’s glory only in fragmentary ways. That is why we need an inclusive church. We need the Wendys, the Athols, the Barbaras, and all the other saints whose lives express aspects of Trinity in community. We are, in Paul’s wonderful phrase, "members one of another" in our walk with God. Let us together, with our various gifts, work to help our community deepen its common walk with its trinitarian Lord.

2. And second. Just because it is too big for me, doesn’t mean that I don’t need to hear what the saints are saying. I can’t be ecological like Wendy; I’m too embedded in the ecclesia. But I can widen my spirit in her direction and start to be more responsible in my dealings with God’s creation. I can’t be a radical like Athol; I’m too timid of heart. But I can respond to his example to be more committed to the urgent task of reconciliation in a world of violence and poverty. I can’t be a charismatic like Barbara; I’m too laced up. But I can pray that the Holy Spirit might open my spirit a bit more to the freedom, joy, and new possibilities she creates in the world. Let us encourage each other as individuals of the community to widen our appreciation of the riches of God’s trinitarian life and be converted anew by Jesus Christ to God in the power of the Spirit.

"And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all."