At the beginning of the Scottish leg of my priestly career, I was talking to a local man at a reception. In our casual, informal chat I shared my general views on the British and their habits. The first sentence I heard after I’d stopped was: ‘Father, I’m Scottish, not British.’ At that time it was a surprising declaration for me to hear; looking in from the outside, the UK had always been perceived as a single country with minor local differences. Since then I’ve learnt – sometimes the hard way – that the United Kingdom is anything but a homogeneous country. Some people have an incredibly strong sense of their national identity, though very rarely in hostile opposition towards another nation. However, the majority of people here that I’ve come across over the years consider themselves to be both Scottish and British.
Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. This one short sentence was the axis of Judaism, its confession of faith. To this day, many Jewish people start their everyday prayer with these words. When Christianity sprang up from Judaism, its members faced fiercely strong opposition to their claim regarding the divinity of its founder, Jesus Christ. In the Judaic tradition there was no room for ‘another god’, not to mention yet another one, the Holy Spirit. Initially the Apostles didn’t bother too much about that: they simply proclaimed Jesus as Redeemer. But with churches settling down and spreading into Greek cultural territory, the need to untangle this problem became urgent. Greek philosophy provided the right framework. To cut a long story short, the Fathers of the Church managed to reconcile the monotheistic principle of God’s oneness with the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Though the basic model was commonly accepted by the Christian churches, the attempts to establish the fine details took a few centuries of heated theological dispute, sometimes turning into nasty violent clashes, and with opposing sides calling each other heretics. Over all those centuries and up to the present day, many theologians, among them St Augustine and St Patrick, have tried to explain the mystery of the Triune God. Nowadays all those discussions and attempts of the past to explain the Trinity might be perceived as purely theoretical, even daft and redundant, with no practical application to everyday life.
We couldn’t be more wrong! The apparently theoretical theological definitions have very practical implications for the way we believe, the way we pray, the way we live. If Jesus Christ is God, his teaching, his death and his resurrection reach beyond the limited time and space of his earthly appearance to continue with the same effectiveness across the generations. But if Jesus was only a human being, adopted by God and charged with a specific mission, then his teaching was just advisory, and his sacrifice was just exemplary. Consequently our redemption would be a completely personal effort deprived of any divine influence. Furthermore, our celebrations and sacraments would make very little sense, resembling services of remembrance, recalling past events, rather than participating in a living sacrifice. If Jesus is God, he’s alive and can truly influence my life; if He isn’t God, he’s just a wise, but long-dead moral teacher.
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen and heard discussions regarding Scottish independence getting fiercer and fiercer, seemingly more and more divisive. Proponents on both sides have their own arguments for their case, and counterarguments to the claims of their opponents. Many ordinary people living in our country remain unconvinced, because many have no problem with reconciling their double or even treble identity. I feel Polish, Scottish and European all at the same time, and have no problem with reconciling all three identities. Variety in unity is the way God lives; we can do the same.