Readings: 2 Samuel 6:1-2, 12-19, Secrets of Heaven 10416 (see below)
See also on Youtube: youtu.be/PK5TJzklh7U Not long after I decided to go with the reading for today, I began to regret it. As I read over 2 Samuel, going back and forth over the text to see what happened before and after, I started to panic a little, thinking: “I can’t draw anything good from this!” And why? Because it is too messy. There are no simple heroes or villains. It is a story of war, and no one comes out well. We may remember David, a mere boy who vanquished the giant Goliath. After that, he spent years as a loyal servant in King Saul’s court. Even as Saul’s paranoia eventually forces David to become a fugitive, he maintains his integrity in the face of Saul’s cruelty. And yet, as David gathers support and strategizes, even as Saul eventually dies at the hands of the Philistines and David mourns him with sincerity, the narrative is filled with wartime actions that seem almost casual in the biblical account but that feel deeply wrong in the larger scheme. And, as much as David is lifted up as a seminal leader, alongside his good qualities we also know that he was deeply flawed. And in a flash I feel a distinct resonance with our own times: full of messiness and sadness and loss and injustice, full of a necessary reframing of things we thought we knew, full of a necessary reckoning with things covered over, full of dealing with things we never thought we’d have to deal with. From pandemics and insurrections to climate change and racial injustice, there is a lot to feel uncomfortable and uncertain about. Processing it all feels hard and messy and sad, as we all just try to figure out how to show up in way that is accountable and useful. I’m sure we’d prefer easier stories, easier history, an easier sacred text, but that is not what we have in front of us. What I take from this story, though, is the recognition that God remains in all of it, not as sanction but as grace, and a reminder to pair reflection and challenge with celebration and joy. Because, in the face of all that is happening in the world, I know that I sometimes it can feel like celebration is not allowed, that somehow joy itself in the face of injustice and pain is a betrayal. How can we be happy when so many are suffering, so much is going wrong in our world? And certainly, there are ways that the pursuit of happiness, of momentary and external joy, can be a distraction, an avoidance, a resistance, an indulgence, that prevents us from dealing with what needs to be dealt with. We certainly need to be aware when we are doing this. But, celebration and joy around the presence of God with us is an indispensable way to connect *to* God, to feel within our bones that our God is a good God, to recognize that our God is with us, in every challenge. It is a kind of celebration that cannot be relinquished, for the sake of our own well-being. We can see this in the picture of David dancing as the ark is taken to Jerusalem, bookended by war and upheaval on one side and David’s upcoming transgressions on the other. It is not so much that David as a character has a consciousness of this tension; rather, the narrative itself provides us with the juxtaposition. Within so much loss and violence and turmoil, still God reaches out in order to be among humankind, to be at the very center of our lives, as the ark with God’s instructions for living would be in the center of Jerusalem. And so David dances, as do the people, and we are invited to join in. This dancing, this expression of joy, does not erase the urgency and the gravity of the wrongs we will need to right, the catastrophes we will need to manage, the apologies we will need to make, the healing we will need to do. The dancing, the expression of joy, puts us in the space where we might be renewed, where our selfhood is forgotten, even if just for a moment, where God’s love might freely flow into our soul, our mind, our heart, so that we have the fortitude and the resilience to step into the challenges of our life and our world. For there certainly are other ways to approach our challenges. We look at Michal, Saul’s daughter, we see her despising David as he danced, and we see a resonance with that part of us that despises freedom and joy in ourselves and in others. She admonishes David sarcastically as he returns home: “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” (2 Samuel 6:20) Her story is complicated too. As daughter of the king, she was used to privilege. And yet as a women in ancient times, she did not have access to any measure of self-determination either. She was initially promised in marriage to David by her father, Saul, when David was favored in court. Years later, after Saul had died, David called that promise due and dragged Michal away from her current husband. The biblical account tells us her husband followed behind her for miles, weeping, as David’s soldiers led her away. Of course she was salty and resentful, at minimum. Her life had been determined by powerful men who cared nothing for her own wishes. And even her own feelings ultimately do not get to be hers, as this personal episode is co-opted by the narrative to demonstrate the true end of the reign of Saul and his line. There are ways that we have all been wronged and challenged, by particular people, by systems, by what seems like fate. Anger, resentment, and sadness are reasonable and expected reactions to this reality, especially in situations where we have no power to make things better, to right the wrongs, to change our circumstances. But the ways we process that anger, resentment and sadness are key. We can see in Michel what happens when life make us hard and cynical. When we see the eruption of joy in others and all we can think of is what we have lost, what has gone wrong. The biblical narrative implies that for this stance, Michal would remain childless all her life. In the natural sense, this seems an overly harsh sentence for an understandable reaction to being treated like chattel. But in the spiritual sense, we can see that nothing can be born from that type of hardness, there can be no offspring of growth and transformation from a mindset that centers our pain, instead of processing our pain, that twists the existence of hardship into an ongoing support for a ego-centered worldview. And that is a very different thing from recognizing an accountability for our own actions even as we do not excuse what has happened to us, even as we work for justice and change. And all of this is so nuanced and difficult to sort out in our real lives. This text doesn’t tell us “don’t worry be happy.” This text doesn’t tell us to just forget about our challenges and dance. This text isn’t saying we shouldn’t feel the fullness of the injustice of the transgressions we encounter, learn about, or experience. Perhaps it is just too much to see *David* dancing, knowing that he was the one who took Michel away from her life. But is it possible to see the dancing itself as holy and good apart from him? What instead, would it have been like if Michal could have danced? She was alone in that window looking down; what if there had been a community to dance with her, to help her remember her connection to her God and her worthiness and potential. We can have compassion for the way her perspective turned, and why, while also hoping and wishing that she might have had access to a community and a practice that renewed her, that kept her whole in spirit. Purely happy endings are the stuff of fairy tales, but the dance, connected to the ground and our heartbeat; it bridges what is and what could be in a real and primal way. The establishment of the ark in Jerusalem is so very important to the Jewish tradition and by extension, to ours. It signals the centrality of God in our lives, about how God pitched a tent right in the middle of all our messiness, and how we might respond by building the temple of our reverential selfhood around it. What steadfastness, what an unreasonable faith God has in us! And for this gift, for this grace, we dance. Amen. Readings: 2 Samuel 6:1-2. 12-19 1 David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. 2 He and all his men went to Baalah in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. 12 Now King David was told, “The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets. 16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart. 17 They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. 18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. 19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes. Secrets of Heaven #10416 This is clear from the meaning of 'playing' as the desire of a person's interiors to celebrate, for play is the outcome of that desire, being a bodily activity brought about by gladness of mind; and all desire for celebration and all gladness of mind come from the delights belonging to the loves that govern a person. The reason why agreement as well is meant is that every desire to celebrate has agreement residing inwardly within it; for if any disagreement or disapproval enters in, that desire perishes. The desire to celebrate resides inwardly in a person's feeling of freedom, and all feeling of freedom comes as a result of love, when nothing exists to frustrate it.
0 Comments
Readings: Mark 6:1-13, Secrets of Heaven #4677:8-9 (see below)
See also on Youtube: youtu.be/ucNEkdH5y0M Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash So, I feel a little crotchety standing up here and saying this but its true: I don’t like to travel. Now, I totally like being in new and different places, that’s great. What I don’t like is the traveling to and from new places, especially air travel. I’m not afraid to fly, but rather, I do get anxious about all the moving pieces…packing for myself and my family, leaving to get to the airport on time, finding parking, wondering will there be a huge line at security? will I make it onto an overbooked flight? how will I navigate an unfamiliar airport? There are just so many variables. I recall one time several years ago trying to make it back from Convention in California. As I touched down in Chicago, ready to make a connection, my phone dinged. The connecting flight was delayed two hours. Fine, that meant I had more time for lunch. But over the next several hours, I came to dread the buzz of my phone. Ding. One more hour delay. Ding. Another hour. Ding. Another two hours. Ding. Flight cancelled. I checked into a hotel with nothing but my handbag and my clothes on my back, thinking of this text. No second tunic, or deodorant for that matter, for me. This is what makes the bible a timeless document. Instructions given to specific people in a specific time, for specific reasons, can also have something important to say to us now. Jesus had good reason to instruct his disciples as he did. The dangers of traveling in the ancient world (as chronicled for example in the story of the good samaritan) made pairing up a good idea. A staff, in particular, was necessary to protect against wild animals. They were not to carry money to make it clear that they were not charlatans or magicians looking to make a quick buck, as there were many of those kind around in those days. They were to stay in the first house they were welcomed to, in order to discourage an appearance of currying favor to procure fancier accommodations. They were not to carry a second tunic, something that would protect them against the cold of night, but rather, trust in the Lord that lodgings would be found. And finally, shaking the dust off one’s clothing has a precedent in the book of Nehemiah as a sign of renunciation. The disciple’s mission was urgent, and they were not to waste time in the towns that were not receptive to their preaching. Jesus was combining common sense with a desire for accountability, integrity and resilience. His disciples would be able to adapt to their circumstances, bringing the good news to people with a sense of servanthood, not triumphalism or superiority. And they would respect people’s freedom, moving on when it was clear that they were not welcome. We would do well to remember the simple beauty of these instructions and what they teach us. Like: Community is a good thing; so make a friend for the journey. Or: Be fierce and brave in protecting those we love from harm; and we might be called upon to protect the vulnerable too. Avoid making money an idol; recognize that it is incidental to the movement of God in the hearts and minds of individual people; we can always show love no matter how much money we have in our pocket. Be a humble servant; what we are given and who we are is enough; we need not strive towards an ever-increasing level of comfort and convenience because, really, it is not about us. Avoid trying to engineer all possible outcomes; for then there is no room for the movement of God and for grace to flow between people and into situations. And, always respect the freedom of others; we may not agree with them but we are doing no one any favors by being pushy. Gentle persistence born of love is about trusting the emergence of image of God in all people, and that is very different from the kind of relentlessness is often about our own agenda more than God’s. As we learned in our Swedenborg reading, there are two additional spiritual dimensions to this teaching. In the Word, tunics (as do most clothing) correspond to truth, the true ideas that we clothe ourselves with, the ideas we slip into that guide our living in the world. We are not to have two tunics because, as the reading said, Divine Truth is singular, it only ever derives its being from divine love. There are no other origins for Divine Truth, and the instruction to only have one tunic represents this fact. A second tunic would represent truths that we derive from our selfhood and our ego, truths and ideas that serve us, not Divine Love. And it is really easy to pack that second tunic, just in case. It’s really easy to clothe ourselves in divine truth until it starts to cost us something. For example, we might believe in the equality of all people until it means that we need to give up our privilege. We might believe that God loves everyone until we ourselves are called to love everyone, including those we “other.” We might believe in the glory of creation, until it inconveniences us to care for our earth. Then, we reach for that second tunic to protect ourselves against the loss of whatever we think is indispensable to us. We start to think we deserve our unearned privilege, or that others are inferior or different, or that we can’t possibility make a difference. But these ideas involving superiority, power, apathy (and many others) do not serve divine love, they serve our self. They keep us feeling safe and comfortable and toasty warm. The second idea from the Swedenborg reading is this: that all the things listed in the gospel text, in Mark and the other gospels, are all good things from the Lord. Gold, silver, bronze, and bread represent different shades and kinds of goodness in our lives. So it is not that the disciples were never to have any contact at all with these things, but rather that they were not supposed to pack them for themselves. They were not supposed to carry them along as if they owned them. And this is because the goodness and truth we receive from the Lord is from the Lord alone. We get into trouble when we start thinking that they are ours, that they originate in us, and we can and should control their coming and going. I remember when my daughter was a much younger than she is now, and I thought that I would start giving her some responsibility when we were preparing to travel. I gave her a backpack and told her to pack the things she thought she would need. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, but I was a little surprised by what made it into the bag, and I had to sit down with her and pull things out one by one. I found myself saying things like: “You never use that headband, do you really think you will need it? or “You can’t possibly need three different stuffed animals, how about just one.” (Let me say, with practice and age, she is a very competent bag packer now.) But you can see how this is like us and God. When we pack our own bags, we will put lots of stuff in there that doesn’t belong. And so God will sit down with us and gently challenge us about what we think is necessary for the journey. This is actually the process of regeneration: The Great Unpacking. We all probably begin with one enormous unwieldy backpack, full of things that we have deemed necessary for survival, or things we picked up on the way. Sometimes we maybe let other people pack our bag and we never thought to look inside, or we were too afraid to. But, One by one, God will help us unpack the things we don’t need, the things that are too heavy and weighing us down, the things that prevent us from being the nimble and focused disciples that God knows we can be. Do we need this armor? No we do not. Do we need this self-defensiveness? Nope. Do we need this fear? No. Do we need this self-focus, do we need this worry, do I need this self-hatred, do I need this distrust? No, no and no. Just in case we think we can get around the idea of an empty backpack by choosing to only packing good things, like empathy, service, civility, well, its not that simple. Packing good things is better than unhelpful things, certainly, but this can only be transitional at best. Money and bread are good and helpful things, but the disciples were not supposed to pack them because the problem is our packing them into our backpack ourselves. The problem is us trying to control the goodness of God, to hoard it and use it for our own ends. And this is where it gets so hard; striving for achievement, keeping ourselves busy, pleasing other people, having enough, being healthy or accomplished—these all seem like good things. And they are. Unless we are using them to bolster our own sense of self-image, keeping them in our backpack because they make us feel good or important. And lets face it, we all do this. This is why it is important to sometimes take off our figurative backpack and take a look inside. Buddhist teacher Tara Brach quotes the sage Sri Nisargadatta saying “illusion exists…because it is not investigated.” She continues: “If we are attached to untrue beliefs, it is because we have not examined our thoughts. We have not met them with mindful investigation; we have not asked whether they truly represent our current, living experience of reality. Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.” (1) Perhaps we are carrying around some things that we didn’t realize, things that prevent us from being present to our lives in its vulnerable and beautiful reality, that prevent us from opening our hearts in compassion to those around us, that prevent us aligning from ourselves with the influx of heaven. Swedenborg’s book Divine Providence tells us: “The Lord is at work in the center of our being, and works from that center into everything that depends on it all the way to our boundaries, and we are living at these boundaries while this is happening. As long as we are keeping these boundaries closed, then, no cleansing can take place.” (2) The Lord is with us, in the center of our being, and is working for our benefit. But God will not take away our sins without our cooperation, just as it would have been unkind for me to empty my daughters carefully packed backpack without her permission. We need to purposefully and in freedom, lay our backpack down and look inside, and be willing to learn about the value and usefulness of what we have packed. And one day, to our surprise, we might find that our psycho-spiritual backpack is empty, that our second tunic is neatly left in the closet, and we do not care, because we are so connected to our God that we know we will be given what we need in every moment to become an angel. Amen.
Readings: Mark 6:1-13 1 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. 8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Secrets of Heaven 4677:8-9 [8] Because Divine Truth is singular - that is to say, it is derived solely from Divine Good - the twelve disciples were commanded, when they were being sent out to preach the gospel of the kingdom, not to have two tunics. [9] All the individual instructions given in these places are representative of the celestial and spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom which the disciples were sent to preach. The reason they were not to take gold, silver, bronze, bag, or bread with them was that those things meant different kinds of good and truth received from the Lord alone.…Now because these things had to be not twofold but singular, they were forbidden to have two staves, two pairs of sandals, or two tunics. Readings: Revelation 12:1-9, 13-17, Apocalypse Revealed 533:1,3 (see below)
See also on Youtube youtu.be/7a9UIkBh-nY Photo by Mier Chen on Unsplash Today we are celebrating, a little late, a traditional Swedenborgian holy day, June 19th. On this day, we celebrate the amazing ways that God is always breathing life into our spiritual journeys, individually and collectively, and we celebrate the vision that this reality suggests: that God has a dream for humanity, and that God is working to help us achieve it. This vision is what Swedenborg has called a New Church, and is pictured in the book of Revelation by a beautiful city descending from the sky called the New Jerusalem. This is of course, where our church gets its name: The Church of the Holy City. It is named thus, so that as we gather together in the here and now, we also look forward and work to cooperate with what God is doing in the world and for the world. Now, there is another metaphor used for the New Church in the book of Revelation though, and that is “the women clothed with the sun” from Chapter 12, which is our reading for today. But first, a note on The New Church, as a phrase: The Swedenborgian movement has historically called itself The New Church, on our best days we know that it is only aspirational, that the New Church will never actually be bounded by bylaws, boards, membership, and committees. We make that structure because humans beings can accomplish more when we work together, and it makes us happy to gather with each other. But the phenomenon of “church” (defined in Swedenborg’s mystical way) exists wherever people work to take care of each other, raise their hearts and minds beyond their own self, and look to a higher power to help them do that. Certainly, human beings have always been able to do that, so “church” (mystically defined) has always existed. But there are also times when human capacities for spirituality need revitalization, especially if the earthly structures and the forms of church that we have devised are actually starting to get in the way of people caring, loving, and growing spiritually. Much of Swedenborg’s works are him arguing against human theologies that *are* getting in the way, particularly the kinds where we try to buy or talk our way into salvation. There is no short cut into salvation - is always whole-person transformation and nothing less, an eternal journey towards healing and wholeness, powered by the ways we connect our faith (what we believe) with the ways that we reach out to serve and love others. So, sometimes in human systems there needs to be a newness brought to bear — God is indeed always doing a new thing! When we talk about there being a New Church, what we mean is a movement away from trying to find short-cuts to spiritual healing and wholeness, and a movement into accepting that salvation can only occur when the love in our hearts and the faithfulness in our minds work together towards the project of mutual love. There are many in the world that already understand this! And of course, it is an ongoing lesson for us all. But let us now return to the figure of the woman clothed with the sun. She represents this revitalization of human spirituality, this New Church, in particular, the ways that it now exists in heaven, for everything on earth is connected to everything in heaven. She is clothed with the sun because any such revitalization must have the love of God at its core, and we learned in our meditation several weeks ago that the Lord appears in heaven as the sun. The moon beneath her feet represents the New Church on earth, reflecting those rays of the Divine sun as best we can, but not being the origin of them. Swedenborg notes that since all things in heaven and earth are connected; there could be no New Church in heaven if there is not one on earth, and vice versa. Yet, we note the *separation* of the sun and the moon in this picture; what of that? The mystical church on earth and the mystical church in heaven *are* connected, yet always working towards full conjunction. We are a work in progress, in the process of becoming ever more connected. Or, to use a Lutheran phrase to describe the character of it: “already but not yet.” We are already connected but our union is not yet full and complete. There will always be more work to do. So, what is it that actually conjoins us with God and the heavenly church? The work of love, of course.(1) We unite ourselves with God and heaven when we love what God loves and when we act in accordance with that. But let us return to that in a moment. Because the next question is a little less heart-warming. We have already asked what conjoins, so the next question is: what fractures, what separates? What devours? Here we come to the great red dragon from the story. The woman is in labor and gives birth to a child, representing all the humane perspectives that a revitalized human spirituality will center: God is Divine Love & Wisdom, God is always forgiving, God made heaven for all, salvation is available to all who live the kindest life they can, sacred scripture speaks on many levels, all religions can be a path to God, and more. Yet the dragon wishes to devour such humane, useful, effective ideas, to center other ideas instead. Ideas that make God and spirituality punishing, exclusive, materialistic. Ideas that center power, rigidity, cruelty. Ideas that tell us we should be out for ourselves, that mutual love is weakness, that faith need only be the right words to the right person, that some deserve salvation more than others. We see the dragon everywhere, everywhere around us and everywhere within. A desire to connect more authentially with others in our life might be devoured by a fear of vulnerability. A desire to connect with God more intentionally is devoured by our lack of follow-through. A desire to apologise is devoured by our sense of pride. A desire to be a more welcoming church, town, country is devoured by a fear of change. A desire to take care of the vulnerable is devoured by a lack of generosity. A desire for integrity and process is devoured by the hunger for power. There is much that stands in the way. But ultimately, though the dragon and what it represents stands there waiting, what I see connecting the New Church in heaven and the New Church on earth is the phenomenon of labor: the work of it, the pain of it, beauty of it, the courage of it, and the sheer creativity of it. The phrase “a labor of love” is a phrase for a reason; we know the truth of it. We might think of the New Church, this revitalization of the human spirituality and what it can achieve, as the opposite of a black hole: something that is continually birthing new, thoughtful, caring, brilliant, helpful, comforting things that can assist in our spiritual journeys. These things might be birthed in churches, or in spiritual movements, but they can certainly be birthed in many other places too. Anywhere or anyplace that looks to learn and grow in service and love, in movements of all kinds that stand for justice, hope and peace. And so then, our work is two-fold, to facilitate and assist in birthing the newness, the comfort, the preciousness of every tiny piece of spiritual growth we and the world might make, and then to be vigilant against the dragon that would devour them. And I hesitate to use such language, because such language is so often used to pit human beings against each other. You’re the dragon, no you’re the dragon. Battle metaphors are powerful *and* flawed tools. But we know the world, and we know our own hearts, do we not, my friends? There *are* forces, habits, tendencies within us that will swallow our good intentions whole. And what is the world made of, but us? We need to be able to see the dragon with clarity, to know the way it is appearing within us, and work to let go of the claws that it has in us, while at the same time resisting the dragon’s sneaky disguises as “othering” or as shame, or as judgmental pride. Instead, we look to the story and see that the child is protected by being sent up to God. We protect the preciousness birthed by the New Church by first and foremost relinquishing ownership, surrendering pride and power and merit, and centering God instead of ourselves. There are many ways to picture the powerful story of God’s presence with us, of God’s vision for humanity. The woman clothed with the sun is a beautiful one that speaks to us on many levels. It communicates to us a timeless sense of connection, generativity, beauty and protection, as well as the reality of what stands against those things. As we celebrate New Church day, today and in the future, I hope we all might be in equal parts hopeful, clear-eyed, and willing to labor. Amen. (1) Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven #1068 Readings: Revelation 12:1-9, 13-17 1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. 7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. 13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Apocalypse Revealed 533:1,3 A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet. This symbolizes the Lord's New Church in heaven, which is the New Heaven, and the New Church to come on earth, which is the New Jerusalem. …The woman here appeared clothed with the sun because the church is governed by love toward the Lord; for it acknowledges Him and keeps His commandments, and that is loving Him (John 14:21-24). The moon appeared under the woman's feet because it means the church on earth, which was not yet conjoined with the church in heaven. The moon symbolizes the intelligence in a natural person, and faith (no. 413). And its being seen under the woman's feet means, symbolically, that it was a church to come on earth… [3] The church in heaven does not continue in existence unless it is conjoined with a church on earth, because heaven where angels are, and the church where people are, function together, like the internal and external components in a person… Readings: Mark 3:20-35, Apocalypse Revealed 723 (see below)
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash The gospel of Mark, as a narrative, really gets down to business quickly. Literally, we have turned ONE page from the start, at least in my bible, and Jesus is getting into all kinds of trouble. He has already been baptized by John, called his disciples, preached all over the place and healed many people of various diseases and maladies, including leprosy and paralysis, eaten with a (gasp) tax collector and other sundry sinners and challenged the religious authorities on the subject of the Sabbath. Jesus has been very busy, and people are taking notice. Large crowds follow him around, and we start our text for today with the acknowledgment they were preventing him from even doing normal things like sitting down at a table to eat. Understandably, Jesus’ family is concerned. They do not yet understand what he is trying to do. Their time will come, as Jesus’ brother James will one day be the leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem, after Jesus’ death. But for now, they think he is out of his mind. However, his late-to-the-game family is the least of Jesus’ troubles. The religious authorities and the political elites are already plotting to kill him. By page three of the gospel. They are actively looking for reasons to denounce him and trap him, and we are treated to one of those arguments here. They recognize that Jesus is performing miracles that are beyond human means. They see the transformative nature of his works. But they attribute the power of these accomplishments to the devil. They see him heal people and free them from possession, and they call such work satanic. Jesus exposes the ridiculousness of their assertion. Hell does not stand for human freedom and human thriving; why on earth would the devil participate in such work? Hell seeks dominion and enslavement, not healing and not liberation. It doesn’t make any sense. Then Jesus says “Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven…” Now, this is quite the pronouncement, seemingly in conflict with Jesus’ words and actions so far, based as they have been on the necessity for repentance and the availability of forgiveness. So, blasphemy must be pretty bad then, to elicit such a response. What is blasphemy though exactly? It is sort of an umbrella theological term, which at best can mean irreverent behavior towards that which is sacred and at worst cursing and reviling God and what God stands for. And clearly, it is this second more troubling and serious end of the spectrum that Jesus is talking about. Because we are not talking about the ubiquitous OMGs that seem to clutter our cultural landscape. Certainly, taking the Lord’s name in vain is not to be encouraged but habitual and relatively unconscious blasphemy is very different from what Jesus is talking about here in this text. Swedenborg makes a distinction between blasphemy that originates in the understanding and blasphemy that originates in the will. And I quote (1): “The second kind are the ones which are so horrible, not the first. Those that come out of the will by way of the understanding spring from evil of life, whereas those that come solely out of the understanding and not at the same time out of the will spring from falsity of doctrine or from the illusions of the outward senses that deceive a person set fast in a state of ignorance.”(1) Ignorance and thoughtlessness do not condemns us. True blasphemy is never just a misunderstanding, one cannot trip and accidentally blaspheme. Neither is it blasphemous to be skeptical about God, or even wrong about God. Paul, author of many biblical epistles, is an excellent example of this. He started out as a devoted Pharisee persecuting Christians because he thought it was the right thing to do. But as soon as he had a spiritual experience, heard from Jesus that he was in the wrong, he immediately changed his behavior completely. His will was to be zealous for God, even as his understanding led him to work against God. But since his will was not for himself and his own power and rightness, then as soon as he understood his wrongness he transformed his behavior. However, it is entirely another thing to see and recognize the work of the Holy Spirit for what it is and call it satanic as we understand the religious leaders in our story to have done, to see resurrection and re-creation, God’s main work in this world, and to say that it is worthless and treat it with contempt. To say essentially that the vulnerability and struggle of re-creation is fundamentally the wrong way to go. We might take the German Christian church during the rise of Nazism, as an example. The German Christian church actively allowed Nazi ideology to permeate and twist the gospel. Nazi flags were hung in churches, strewn upon altars. They took the Word, full of God’s bestowal of worthiness on all creatures, and deemed it inadequate, claiming that the Nazi interpretation of the gospel, based on purity of race, was the true fulfillment of the Word. They took God’s depth and breadth of love and made it narrow, made it an excuse for domination and superiority. It is an understatement to call this an over-reach, even though it was. It was also blasphemy of the worst kind. The only way to justify such a disparate interpretation is from a will for power, for nothing else can cause God’s name to be taken up in the spirit of exclusion and death. This was not a mistake in interpretation, this was not an honest disagreement, this was the will for power twisting the gospel into its exact opposite. This is blasphemy. Taking the vulnerable, transformative, resurrection message of the Jesus and making it about the dominance of one people over others. And this is what there is no coming back from, no forgiveness. What we are capable of understanding about God stems from what we love and value. When we try our best to love God, and not our self-as-center, we might make mistakes of understanding but we are inherently open to correction because in our love for God we submit our understanding to God, we submit our own interpretations and preferences to God’s mission for the universe. Therefore our understanding of God’s truth can and likely will change over time. This is part of our spiritual journey, our trajectory of transformation and growth. But this will not happen if our will loves ourself and our own ego above all else. Growth and change is then threatening to our sense of ego-power. We will prefer that which is static and certain for that can be more easily controlled. Being created anew is inherently uncontrollable because it involves a surrender of self, and to the self that is focused on power, such surrender is impossible. And so the blasphemy that calls God’s creative and transformative character hellish cannot be forgiven because this kind of blasphemy rejects the whole premise of forgiveness, rejects the whole notion of transformation, rejects the goodness of re-creation at all. It is a self-inflicted wound, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The lack of forgiveness comes not from God. God cannot turn away from us. As we heard in our reading, it is against God’s nature.(2) The lack of forgiveness for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit comes from rejecting the idea of vulnerability as useful, repentance as necessary, and forgiveness itself as a way forward into new ways to love. Notice also, that Jesus, as testy as he sometimes gets, does not take these affronts personally. He sees himself as part of God’s larger movement for all of creation, and therefore exposes the heart of the worldview that these religious leaders espoused. It seemed that they were objecting to one troublesome man, but Jesus points out that to be against the healing and liberation that he, Jesus, brings is also to be against the whole trajectory of the Holy Spirit, to be against the character of God. The whole of the cosmos expresses God’s creative power, and every part of the universe participates in its own on-going creation, and Christ is just one part of that larger picture. The Holy Spirit is calling us all to take part in the adventure of on-going creation. Like all adventures, it won’t all be sweetness and light along the way, but the horizon is ever expanding if we are willing to let God lead us. And perhaps it will serve us today to think about where we are throwing up roadblocks to our own re-creation. Where we have convinced ourselves that rightness is better than vulnerability, where we have convinced ourselves that we are so chosen and blessed that we need not stoop to care for the forgotten, where we have convinced ourselves that true Christian love is fanciful and ill-advised. Because, blasphemy is not an act that comes from nowhere, it comes from what we have chosen to love and value. When the self is loved above all, then the movement of the Holy Spirit towards others is incomprehensible. Though it is hard sometimes, when we choose to love God, we choose to love the principles of expansion, inclusion, surrender and redemption, we choose to love the existence of a creative and blossoming universe. And so praise be to God, the creator of wonders. Amen.
Readings: Mark 3:20-35 20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” 22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” 23 So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” 30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.” 31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” 33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Apocalypse Revealed 723 For blasphemy symbolizes a denial of the Lord's Divinity in His humanity, and an adulteration of the Word, thus its profanation. For someone who fails to acknowledge the Lord's Divinity in His humanity and falsifies the Word, but not intentionally, does indeed commit profanation, but lightly. But people who claim for themselves all the power of the Lord's Divine humanity, and for that reason deny His Divinity, and who apply everything in the Word to acquiring dominion for themselves over the sanctities of the church and heaven, and for that reason adulterate the Word - those people commit serious profanation. True Christianity 56 …From these few points you can see how insane people are who think that God can condemn anyone, curse anyone, throw anyone into hell, predestine anyone's soul to eternal death, avenge wrongs, or rage against or punish anyone…In reality, God cannot turn away from us or even look at us with a frown. To do any such thing would be against his essence, and what is against his essence is against himself. Readings: I Samuel 3:1-20, Secrets of Heaven #561 (see below)
Photo by NEOM on Unsplash This is such a beloved story from the Old Testament; it says beautiful things about listening for the voice of God, about call and vocation, about mentorship. Well, at least the first half of it does. The second half is a little more complicated. Yes, from Samuel we learn that it is important to listen for the voice of God. But then, what will that voice say? What will that voice call us to do? What if it involves judgment? What if it is difficult? So, first, some background on the text: the book of Samuel comes directly after the book of Judges in the bible. Earlier on, in Exodus and later, the Children of Israel had benefited from having two strong leaders in Moses and Joshua. But then comes a more trying time, which is chronicled in the book of Judges. Tribal wars begin to escalate, the state of things starts devolving. From time to time, leaders called “Judges” rise up to carry Israel through one crisis or another, but the trajectory remains downward and increasingly out of control. Now, back when Joshua led the nation, he had placed the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant at a place called Shiloh. Through all the troubles, this where it remained, and where we find ourselves in the story of Samuel. Previous to our text for today, the book of I Samuel introduces us to Samuel’s mother, Hannah, who in a familiar kind of story in the bible, was a favored wife who was also barren. She prays for a child at the tabernacle at Shiloh, and promises that if her wish is granted, she will place the child into the service of the Lord. She does became pregnant, and when Samuel is old enough he becomes an apprentice to Eli, priest of the tabernacle and descendant of Aaron. But as trustworthy and kind and diligent as Eli was, his sons, also priests, were the opposite. They were corrupt. They were taking more than their share of the people’s sacrifices, and they were sleeping with the women who served in the tabernacle. And Eli, in his old age, had failed to curtail their excess and their abuse of their role. This is the context of Samuel’s call story. A society rife with corruption and violence, including even the priests of the tabernacle, and as a result, communication from the Lord was rare. It felt like God was absent, but even if God was present, no one was listening. And into this space, the Lord spoke Samuel’s name. Two times Samuel went to Eli, thinking that his master had called him, but he had not, and he sent Samuel back to bed. The third time, however, convinced Eli that it was the Lord who was calling Samuel, and so he counseled Samuel as to what he should do. When the Lord called again, Samuel said “Here I am, speak for your servant is listening.” It is such a sweet and tender scene. The openness and innocence of Samuel speaks volumes, as does the gentle and wise mentorship that he receives from Eli. And in the tenderness of the moment, it becomes tempting to stop right there. But this is not the end of the story. The Word that Samuel receives from the Lord contains a judgment upon Eli. Samuel delays communicating this likely painful and awkward truth. But Eli, admirably, demands to know what the Lord said in full, and he accepts the judgment in full. His sons cannot remain in leadership, and because he did not restrain them, neither can Eli. And so Eli steps aside to let Samuel take on the mantle of authority as the one who speaks God’s word. It is a beautiful call story, but you can see, if we stop too soon we don’t get the whole of it. God communicates with the world because God loves the world, and God has hope for the world. So, it is important for us to listen for what God is saying. And it is equally important to listen even if God’s word contains judgment upon ourselves and our behavior. It may seem to us that the judgment upon Eli was unjust. In the chapter before, he does indeed reprimand his sons, but they do not listen to him. Eli is clearly a good man. He has a good moral compass, he was loyal to God and likely his sons’ behavior pained him considerably. But what he didn’t do is challenge the structures that allowed his sons to take advantage of others. Eli is the part of us that is trying our best but is essentially happy with the status quo. The part of us that attends to what is in front of us faithfully. The part of us that might even be pained and saddened about the ways that other people are behaving but don’t actually do anything about it. I know I struggle with the Eli part of myself all the time. Things happen in this would that we would never sign off on ourselves, and perhaps we don’t mind saying so. But how far are we willing to go to change the structures that support or necessitate materialism, poverty, racism, sexual abuse and harassment, and gun violence in the world, just to name just a few. Certainly, I know I go much less far than I might wish to such change things, stymied by overwhelm, confusion, apathy, embarassment or any number of impediments. And so the difficult question before us all, is whether we —diligent, kind, steadfast Eli— have we restrained our figurative sons? Have we challenged those around us, our families, co-workers and friends, when they have crossed a line, have we called out sexist behavior in real time, have we admonished a friend for a racist joke or idea, have we resisted the dehumanization of others however and whenever it occurs? Further, have we worked to restrain and transform the kind of ideas within ourselves that support injustice? In Swedenborg’s metaphorical universe, sons often represent forms of truth, the shape of our ideas, the way we see things. Corrupt sons are then corrupted, false, misleading ideas. Ideas like “one person can’t change anything,” “those in poverty should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” “we live in a post-racial society,” “I deserve all my personal advantages,” “those people are just like that,” “it will always be this way.” Ideas that perpetuate “othering” and dehumanization and apathy, ideas that make complex things simple and simple things complex, ideas that justify the centering of ourselves and our egos and our comfort. How far have we been willing to go to challenge these ideas within us? To uproot them, and strip them of their power so that the Word of God can replace them? Eli’s failure didn’t come from trying his best to restrain the corruption and bumping up against the limits of what one person can do. Eli’s failure came from whatever excuses allowed him to ultimately overlook his son’s behaviors, to throw up his hands. He spoke to them but did nothing to change the system in which they had free reign. So, this is not about taking responsibility for everything in the world that is bad, but taking responsibility for what we can do. Believe me, I stand convicted in this pulpit as much as anyone. So yes, this is a hard hard Word from I Samuel today. Do we perhaps now feel something of Samuel’s ambivalence, something of Samuel’s reticence at hearing what the Lord said. But…there is good news here to be had, for two reasons. The first is the *existence* of Samuel. If Eli is a part of us, then Samuel is too, just as much. Samuel is the part of us that is devoted, looking to be guided, wanting to hear, committed to showing up, a state fueled by what Swedenborg calls “remains” or a “remnant.” It’s a bit of a strange term, granted, but what he means by it is that all of the good and true things that we learn throughout our lives, all of our good experiences of love and compassion we have received, these are protected by the Lord deep inside of us. This pure goodness and innocence is preserved, stored within us if you will, ready to be drawn upon when needed. And there will definitely be times when it is needed; our Eli challenges are but one way that we might drift away from or avoid the life of the spirit. But, our Samuel nature is ready to respond to the Lord, our Samuel nature provides a well-spring from which God can work with us and through us. And this goodness that “remains” with us in this way, it is a gift from the Lord, it is God working every which way to build us up, nourish us, give us chances to succeed and change. “The Lord preserves all these states in us in such a way that not even the least significant of them is lost.” This goodness that God stores up for us is inviolable, no matter how steadfastly we might turn away. The second piece of good news is Eli’s integrity at his judgment. Eli might have been old and nearly blind, but he knew when the Lord was speaking. The good news is that the part of us that is distracted by worldly things, worldly concerns, the part of us that is afraid or overwhelmed or anxious or weary, that part of us is still essentially and deeply good. This part of us nurtured and mentored Samuel, and recognized the importance of Samuel. It just also needs to open up to the Word of the Lord, accept the judgment and do better, to allow the rise of Samuel to occur and the word of the Lord to become present on the earth. And this is exactly what Eli did. There is *such* hopefulness in this story. In the midst of chaos we see God doing a new thing, we see God doing what God does: re-creation. But understandably, God doesn’t begin this work with our Eli natures, as good and kind as they might be, for they are mired in the business of the world, mired in linage and tradition and the preservation of what exists. God starts re-creation with Samuel, the innocent openness that will hear and respond. Sometimes we might resist, we might feel uncomfortable about what the Lord is telling us, but that is okay, this is part of being human. The important part is that we are hearing it and recognizing it and wrestling with it, for by contrast, Eli’s sons weren’t hearing anything from God at all. Our Eli natures do not come under judgment because they are impure or imperfect, they come under judgment precisely because God is hopeful for us, and God believes in what we can do and what we can be. And so Samuel speaks God’s Word and..“The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.” Amen. Readings: I Samuel 3:1-20 1 The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the LORD, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down. 6 Again the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” “My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 8 A third time the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 11 And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. 12 At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end. 13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them. 14 Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’ ” 15 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, 16 but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.” Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 17 “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.” 19 The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD. Secrets of Heaven #561 To explain what a remnant is: It is not just the good and true things that we learn out of the Lord's Word from the time we are small and that become stamped on our memory. It is also all the states that rise out of those things, such as a state of innocence from babyhood, a state of love for our parents, siblings, teachers, and friends, a state of charity toward our neighbor and compassion toward the poverty-stricken and needy. In short, it is all states of goodness or truth. These states, along with the good and true things imprinted on our memory, are called a remnant. The Lord preserves them in us, hiding them away in our inner being without our slightest awareness and carefully separating them from the things that are our own — in other words, from evil and falsity. The Lord preserves all these states in us in such a way that not even the least significant of them is lost. Readings: Luke 14:25-35, Acts 2:1-12, Secrets of Heaven 10490:6,7 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Arnau Soler on Unsplash Good morning, my friends. Happy Pentecost! Today we will be considering the question: What is Discipleship? What does it truly mean to “follow Jesus” in our lives as they exist in this day and age? Because, we all know of the 12 disciples in the gospels. We have had previous sermons on texts that treated of their journey, including their call. But that was a long time ago. Can we think of ourselves as “disciples” of Jesus today? What does that mean for us now? Let’s begin with looking at the passage from Luke in our reading. Initially, it suggests that true discipleship is something unattainable for the vast majority. Who among us will truly forsake - nay, hate - our families in order to be a disciple of Jesus? Is such a thing even consistent with Jesus other teachings, such as the ones where we are told to love one another? Of course not. So we must look for a deeper meaning. What is Jesus really trying to tell us? Swedenborg would assert that the way to understand this passage is to see how family members are being used as metaphors. The people who are typically the closest to us in our lives stand for the things that we hold closest to us in our hearts and minds. Our perspectives, our narratives about the world or ourselves, our identities and the actions we take that align with those, our habits and desires and preferences. When these desires that we are wedded to are evil, as in they privilege and support our own selfishness in large and small ways, and when these things that we think are false, again privileging our own selfishness in the same way, then yes, we need to “hate” them and cut them out. And certainly, the bibical language here is intense. We *can* have compassion for ourselves as we struggle to disentangle ourselves from them over time. But the overall message is clear: in order to be a disciple of Jesus, we need to be committed to the process of “carrying our cross.” We need to be committed to the process of freeing ourselves and healing ourselves from everything that would cause us to create or perpetuate harm. And while committment to this process requires many things, such as devotion, sacrifice and courage, chief among them, I believe, is humility. Because as we delve into the process of truly taking up our cross, things might not always seem so clear cut. This process of taking up our cross will play itself out on many levels, basically as deep as we wish to go with it. We can repent for or let go of any number of desires and ideas and their associated actions that are universally agreed to be “bad” or harmful. Anger, stubbornness, jealously, avarice, defensiveness, prejudice, this list goes on. Sometimes it is very easy to see where we have hurt someone and why. And then, the remedy is very simple. Apologise, *try* not to do things like that anymore, and eventually our diligence and our efforts make us become someone who *doesn’t* do things like that anymore. This is the process of regeneration that we spoke of last week. Eventually, we find we have cut those metaphorical “family members” from our lives, as Jesus asked. We have grown and evolved, and we hold mutual love as the ideal closest to our hearts and minds. But sometimes the process doesn’t feel quite so simple. As we go deeper into it, we might need to increase our understanding of what are truly good or harmful desires, ideas and actions. Things that we have been taught are good or bad, might have contextual or societal elements, deeper layers, that require untangling. Separating righteous anger and from self-referrental anger, is a good example. Many of us, especially women, might have been taught that anger is always bad, and it certainly *can* be when we give ourselves over to it for selfish reasons. But, anger can actually also be a valuable guide if we are willing to learn how to regulate our experience of it. Can we learn how to avoid acting from it, and if we do, can we make sure we will willing to clean up the mess we make? Can we learn to ask questions of our anger so that we can see what is beneath it: hurt, fear, sadness? Can we learn how to harness its righteous aspects and use it to motivate our pursuit of justice? Or on the other side of things, what if we have been taught that something is an unequivocal good, but maybe there are aspects of it that are not? Productivity is highly valued in our capitalistic society. We are groomed to achieve, and produce, and climb a ladder of ever-increasing achievement to produce both security and satisfaction for ourselves. But does it produce meaning? Does it produce community? It is good to take responsibility for ourselves, to contribute to society. But to what end? Our own exhaustion? Perhaps some reframing of this idea would help any one of our discipleship journeys. Or, there is the notion of being useful and caring, in our tradition, and many others. We might have learned that these things are the highest good, and indeed they are! But the lessons our half-evolved selves end up taking from this might sometimes bear scrutiny. Those of us, and I’m including myself here deliberately, who tend towards co-dependence might need to pay attention to why and when we try to be useful and caring. I know for myself, if others are not OK, I find it very hard to be OK within myself. And so then in order to recalibrate my own inner tension, I try to *make sure* others are OK, which can often turn into over-functioning, and not letting other people have their own experience. I’m sure you can see how especially this plays out in parenting. Something that seems like it is good—being useful and caring—actually might not be so entirely, and might be coming from a self-centered place, an inability to regulate not feeling OK. And so this is where is all connects to our reading from Acts. The most important part of discipleship is not actually devotion but humility, essentially remaining teachable. Because like everything, devotion can have its dark side. It can become so rigid and unyielding, so attached to this or that ideal, that it actually prevents our growth. In my co-dependence just described, the possiblity exists of being so attached to the idea of “I’m doing something good!” that we are blind to the harm. And then, our very idea of what is “good” becomes one of those metaphorical family members that Jesus tells us to forsake. Or with the earlier example of anger, attachment to the very notion that it is always utterly “bad” means that we might miss all the really juicy and important ways it could help us grow, if we were to come at it all from a different direction. In our Pentecost story from Acts, the most amazing thing about it was that the Holy Spirit spoke to everyone in their own language, that each person could “hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.” And they asked each other: What does this mean? When we remain teachable, when we center the question “What does this mean?” God will always be speaking to us in our own language. When we have ears to hear what is next for us to learn, God’s Holy Spirit will be present to communicate what we need. And the humility to hear it, to not throw up obstacles and objections based on our various attachments, is the bedrock quality required for taking up our cross, for being a disciple. We need to yield ownership, even over our best efforts and our best ideas. And this means that the final thing we need to let go of is our attachment to what being a disciple will look like, our attachment to some future perfect self that we have devised. We don’t actually know where our journey will take us. We don’t actually know who we are to become and what that will look like. As Jesus stated in our reading: …those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Discipleship is ultimately not about what we are willing to give away, but what we are willing to give up, the level to which we are willing to yield ownership over the journey itself. I’m finding this to be a particularly hard lesson. Perhaps you are too. Or not. This is the beauty of the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us all so uniquely. What a blessed thing; to be so precious to God that we are guided so individually. For we know that there is not a language in the world, nor a language of any singular soul, that God does not speak fluently. Amen. Readings: Luke 14: 25-35 25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ 31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. 34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” Acts 2:1-12 1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Secrets of Heaven #10490:6-7 …Is there anyone who does not see that these words should not be taken literally, at the very least from the fact that they say without any qualification that father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters must be hated before anyone can be the Lord's disciple, when yet it is one of the Lord's commands, that no one should be hated, not even an enemy? [7] It is self-evident that the things which are a person's own, that is, evils and falsities in their own order, should be understood by the names of those family members, since it also says that a person must hate their own soul and renounce all their possessions, that is, the things which are properly theirs….’Being the Lord's disciple' means being led by Him and not by self, thus by the forms of good and the truths which come from the Lord and not by the evils and falsities which come from the person. Readings: Exekiel 36:23-28, John 3:1-7, True Christianity 586 (see below)
See also on Youtube Today we will be considering the question: What is Regeneration? This is a particular term used in our tradition to indicate the process of spiritual growth that leads us toward having a heavenly character. It is ongoing, it is constantly evolving, it is always challenging and sometimes delightful. It is the stuff of our life. As the author Annie Dillard says: How we spend our days… is how we spend our lives.(1) If we are committed to a tracjectory that is leading us to become more loving, more generous, more responsive to otheres, then we are engaging with the process of regeneration, no matter what we might call it. The term regenerate means to re-create or revive something somehow. In nature, a salamander can re-grow an entire limb after it has been lost. In human beings, our bodies naturally regenerate themselves gradually by replacing our cells over time. This biological contruct can serve as a powerful metaphor for our emotional lives, as note the times a meaningful experience has re-shaped our habits or our identities. In theology, the specific metaphor of being born again is often used, as in our reading. In Jesus’ words, entrance into the kingdom of God requires that we be re-generated, re-made, re-born. This is indeed a very potent metaphor. How moving it is, the sense of being held in the womb of God as our heavenly character is being slowly formed, built cell by cell, moment by moment, decision by decision, all the while being nourished by a loving parent who would give literally everything of itself, its own lifesblood, to this re-creation. So, why does the process of regeneration matter? Because like all things, God wants us to be happy. But crucially, God wants *all* of us to be happy. And so God made our happiness part and parcel of everyone else’s happiness. Mutual love is the key to God’s kingdom. But, we are not a collective, like bees, or other insects. We don’t naturally just act for the good of the hive. We are born with an actual sense of selfhood. And thus lies the central temptation, the central quest, of the human life. Can we balance that sense of selfhood with our relationship to others? Can that selfhood learn to exist in mutuality, to give over part of itself to others, in order to find a greater sense of wholeness? We are born into a world that requires us to work and strive for survival. As comfortable as our society might seem, we only need to look to the news to see that we are a hairs breadth away from any number of threats to that stability. Our selfhood knows this. And so it strives for domination and accumulation, to gain from these things what feels like psychological safety at every opportunity. And herein lies the space for evil to enter the picture. And not just mustache twirling evil of substantial size, but everyday cruelty and thoughtlessness, anything that serves the centering of one particular selfhood, ours, to the exclusion of others. This is the condition we are all born into. This is what needs to change so that we can enter into the happiness and peace that God has planned for us. Perhaps we can use the illustration of a board game. Does anyone remember the Game of Life (if that is not too much on the nose!)? The game pieces were little cars and you would put people inside them as you traveled a game board that represented the different milestones in a typical life: education, family, employment etc. It’s cute and fun, but as with most board games, the goal is to win, to beat the other players. If someone rolls an unadvantagous number on the dice, we might cheer because it will put us ahead. If we can knock then off the board entirely, even better. But there are some board games that are designed to be collaborative, where it is only possible to win together. And this is why the process of regeneration matters. We don’t always know exactly how to do that, how to advance our common good together, whether in relationships, communities, societies, nations. Our selfhood will have its fears and doubts about such a path, and will have plenty of learning to do. And so we do the work of spiritual and personal growth. And like being born, this process is not always comfortable. Part of the process is tension, conflict, and crisis. Not necessarily overtly with other people, or though that *can* be part of it. But rather, an essential tension between what our selfhood wants and the practices of mutual love: listening, relinquishing, sharing, including, caring. Swedenborg writes that we have been given a special ability that allows for our spiritual progress: the fact that our will and our intellect are separate. Our will is the driving force of our life, the engine, what we want. But it is technically possible to both want something, and also to know that this thing is not good for us, or for others. A very silly example: we might want some chocolate cake. But we also might know that in this particular case, we shouldn’t have it. Maybe we are gluten-intolerant, maybe we have already had enough sweets for the day. In young children, this separation of will and intellect is not yet complete, and so we note that if a young child wants the cake they will take the cake - there is no daylight between what they want, what they think, and what they do. But as we grow and mature, there can be a pause beween those three things. In those pauses, this is where God can act, and this where we can cooperate with God’s action. We might recall the famous quote from Victor Frankel’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. And this is why we do things like spiritual practices, like coming to church, engaging in contemplation and reflection, meditation, journaling, or whatever works for us. We want to make those spaces between what we want, think and do to be spacious, fertile, and useful spaces, designed to help us be as loving as we can be. We do the work of re-generating our selfhood, away from instinctive and incessant self-centering, and towards the practice of mutual love. How does this occur? Swedenborg writes that the process begins with self-awareness. We notice, we listen, we ask: want kind of presence am I being in the world? How do my actions affect others? What am I creating with my energy? And as we gather this information, we might receive answers that indicate we are hurting ourselves or others. In a religous context, these things are what have historically been called sins. Whatever we call them though, the knowledge of them give us an opportunity to move forward. If we admit their reality without defensiveness, and feel pain on their account, this is what is called repentance. But the process continues: from this space of accountability, we ask for help. Certainly from God, potentially from others according to context, and we take a step into a new life in which we don’t do that hurtful thing anymore. And we certainly may fail a little or a lot in living that new life, but over time, with intention and practice, we succeed. A habit that our selfhood thought was necessary to its own supremacy or survival is put aside, and we learn that we can be whole and safe without it, and in fact, that we are more whole and safe without it, within God’s plan for our happiness. And sharpen this point, Swedenborg writes, if we don’t follow this path, we are *unable* to love our neighbor.(2) We might be able to exist alongside them. But *love* is impossible without a willingness to enter into this process. And this is indeed what God has called us to: to LOVE one another. This is not a call about sentimental feeling. It is call into the process of regeneration, into the process of helping each other become reborn for the sake of us all. If we wish to wrastle this whole idea back into traditional Christian frameworks, then we see that the process of regeneration is what “saves” us. If you recall from our sermon on salvation a few weeks back, we reframed the notion of salvation as healing, as the experience of becoming whole. So when we say that regeneration is what confers salvation, it is not at all as if we try very hard to be good girls and boys, and if we reach a certain threshold, then God plucks us out of the mire and gives us a heavenly life. It’s rather that the process of regeneration saves us because it heals us. Heals us of the state of being born into self-centeredness, and the habits and learnings that our selfhood has deemed necessary, and trains us instead in mutual love, so that we can all be each other’s salvation. Of course, what I have outlined above is simplifed. There layers upon layers of work to do if we are willing, and we may return to central tensions at different points in our lives as our capacity to do the work has evolved and changed. Each person’s unique selfhood and context is different, so the work will look different for everyone. This is as it should be. Yet we are joined by the central and corportate quest - to become spiritual beings, become beings who have God’s spirit at our center, a center that grounds us and holds us in love and heavenly connection. Amen. (1) Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (2) Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christianity #530 Readings: Ezekiel 36:23-28 23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. 24 “ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. John 3:1-7 1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ True Christianity 586 We can be regenerated only gradually. Each and every thing that exists in the physical world serves as an illustration of this fact. A seedling does not grow up into a mature tree in a single day. First there is a seed, then a root, then a shoot, which develops into a trunk; then branches come out of that and develop leaves and finally flowers and fruit. Wheat and barley do not spring up ready for harvest in a single day. A home is not built in a single day. We do not become full grown in a single day; reaching wisdom takes us even longer. The church is not established - let alone perfected - in a single day. We will make no progress toward a goal unless we first make a start. People who have a different conception than this of regeneration know nothing about goodwill or faith, or how each of these qualities grows as we cooperate with the Lord. All this makes clear that regeneration progresses analogously to the way we are conceived, carried in the womb, born, and brought up. Readings: Psalm 139:1-4, 13-18, John 14:1-7, Divine Providence #59, #201, #203:2 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Stephen yu on Unsplash Today we will be spending time with the question: What is Divine Providence? This is a concept that is particularly important to our tradition, given that Swedenborg wrote an entire book about it (my second favorite one, if anyone is asking). How do we understand this concept? In basic terms, Divine Providence is the notion that God (the Divine) provides for us human beings in some way. And not so much providing what we *want* but what we *need*. Swedenborg writes that Divine Providence is “Divinity working among us, banishing our love for ourselves.(1) Love for ourselves here does not mean healthy self-esteem or self-care, but rather self-importance or self-obsession, and learning to let go this kind of self-love is an important part of being able to build a heavenly character. A bigger question though, than “what” Divine Providence is, is how it works? Because certainly it seems obvious that a God who loves us *would* provide for us, much as parents or another beloved adult, might provide for their children. But *how* does God do that? Well, there’s the real question. What does Divine Providence look like, how do we experience it, why does it matter? One thing that our tradition agrees upon is that Divine Providence is not interventionist. And by that I mean, that God does not intervene in human events in either a random or transactional way. We might hear the phrase “God works in mysterious ways” to explain what feels like a miracle or an act of divine intervention. Or we might be exhorted to pray and supplicate to God for something that we desire. And it is tempting to think that we are special enough to receive a miracle, or diligent and devoted enough to pray sufficently. But, God does not provide anything to one person and not another; God does not and cannot play favorites among all God’s beloved children, and God cannot be convinced to do so no matter how much we pray. God will always give freely to all; the remaining question is always our openness. Swedenborg writes: Sound reason tells us that everyone is predestined to heaven and no one to hell. We are all born human, which means that we have the image of God within us. The image of God within us is our ability to discern what is true and to do what is good…This ability is the image of God; it is enduring with everyone who is whole and is never erased. (2) So, by the very fact of the universality of God’s love, there are some limits to way the Divine Providence can act. And perhaps this seems counter-intuitive, for how can there be limits for an infinite being? But it is actually not God’s freedom that is paramount to God, but ours…God relinquishes ultimate freedom and creates structure around God’s action in order to preserve our freedom of choice, and the image of God within each of the us. We can imagine Divine Providence being like a stream that move us forward in its current. It acts upon everyone who enters the stream in the same way. If we come upon a boulder or some other obstruction, it’s not that God magically smites the boulder for us, but rather continues with the gentle force that will help us get around it. No amount of prayer can affect the current; it is what it is. But we can decide how we relate to the current. We can swim against it if we wish. Or we can work with it, noting the ways that our position might affect the flow. Further, Divine Providence is not only all inclusive, it is pervasive. It not only takes care of our ultimate trajectory (like a stream pushing us forward to a destination) but it exists fully in each of our smallest moments as well. We heard in our reading that Divine Providence must focus on our eternal state at every step of our journey because God, being outside of time, sees our whole future as present. However, it can only do that *because* it attends to the slightest details. Our stream only takes us somewhere because in each moment we decided to stay in the stream and not get out, or stubbornly cling to a branch. Our future is made up of a multitude of tiny details in sequence, and so of course God is in each of these as well. Sometimes it is a little hard to comprehend something like Divine Providence that is so big and so little at the same time. How do we grasp on to it? How do we trust or have gratitude for it? And perhaps that is why even us Swedenborgians like to sometimes capture Divine Providence and put it in a perceptual box. We might say “It was Divine Providence that this happened or that happened.” And Swedenborg says that is indeed one way we can recognize it, that it is sometimes hard to know how Divine Providence is working in the moment but we can see how it played out in retrospect. There is relief and trust and gratitude to be found in the recognition that God was with us all the while, even when we couldn’t see it. However, for me, I find that this approach is lovely for sometimes, but not quite enough to nourish everyday spirituality. It captures how God is with us for seminal, perhaps life-changing things, but not so much how God is with us for the tiny, maybe inconsequential things. And so for myself, I’ve decided to change the term Divine Providence, a noun, a thing that might feel like it has happened, or will happen only in discrete and bracketed times, to The Divine Providing, a verb that is happening all the time, anywhere. For me, it shifts my perception a little, into a space where I can trust that God is active for my welfare in an ongoing way. Because, it certainly is lovely to feel gratitude and awe for the way that things sometimes come together so well: meeting a significant other in an otherwise implausable way, getting just the right business card at just the right time, or even in my case, getting ordained right when the perfect call opened up nearby. But many times, the most difficult emotional growth occurs for us human beings in the smaller moments: an argument with a loved one, a child getting a drivers licence, navigating rejection or success, trying something new, learning to apologise. When I call God’s guiding presence with me The Divine Providing, I can more easily believe and trust that God is really there, in these small but potent moments, giving me what I need. God isn’t picking and choosing the most important moments to be present; God is always present, always guiding, always flowing, always caring. This is a great comfort to me. The Stream of Providence is also a term that is sometimes used, and is of course, where I got my earlier metaphor. But for the times when we don’t feel like we are getting anywhere, when we can’t quite grasp a sense of movement, or perhaps feel stuck, I like to focus on a sense of providence that is more of an internal flow than an external flow. God’s Providence flowing into me, rather than myself flowing along with it. This isn’t a better way to see it necessarily, just different, and differently helpful at different times. One can also say that this way of viewing it more clearly puts the ball in my court. Swedenborg writes: …God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love…If we receive this love, we become connected to God and we love our neighbor out of love for God. Then we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor. Our love for God makes us willing and able to love our neighbor. (3) And this brings us to the final part of our earlier question. We’ve talked about what Divine Providence might look like, and how we might experience it. Now we come to why it matters. It matters to God because it is a way to guide us to our heavenly home and an eternity of happiness, and God loves each one of us deeply, and wants that for us. But it matters to us because our individual salvation can never actually be separated from anyone else’s. We’re not actually floating down the river by ourselves. God can’t literally take the hand of another person who is flailing, but we can. God can’t literally shout encouragment from the other side of the rapids, but we can. God can’t literally remind someone to float when they need to catch their breath, but we can. Divine Providence matters, and the way God has designed it matters, because it balances our individuality and our communality so well. God desires our partnership, and has given us real and meaningful agency. So, we can’t put our responsibility to others onto the shoulders of divine intervention; we can’t explain away our responsiblity to others by believing they didn’t pray hard enough, or do something else hard enough, or be something else hard enough. God’s providence doesn’t pick and choose, and so we can’t blame the brokenness of the world on it. Instead, the level playing field provides an opportunity for us to see the image of God in everyone, just as God does. Like all of the ways that God loves us, God’s laser-sharp focus on our journey is indeed *all* for us and our benefit, and yet the moment we give ourselves to it we are invited to see, and love, and care for, everyone else in the stream. The Divine Providing for us and through us, for the wholeness of all. Amen.
Readings: Psalm 139:1-4, 13-18 1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. John 14:1-7 1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Divine Providence 59 It has not yet been realized that divine providence focuses on our eternal state at every step of our journey. It cannot focus on anything else because Divinity is infinite and eternal, and what is infinite or eternal or divine is not in time. It therefore sees the whole future as present. Since this is the nature of Divinity, it follows that there is something eternal in everything it does, overall and in detail. Divine Providence 201 By "universal" we mean something that comes from details taken together, as a generality arises from specific instances. If you take the details away, then, what is the "universal" but something with a vacuum inside, like a surface with nothing inside it, or like a compound with no components? Divine Providence 203:2 We can see from this that divine providence is universal because it attends to the slightest details, and that it is an infinite and eternal creation that the Lord has provided for himself by creating the universe. Readings: Genesis 28:10-17, Luke 17:20-21, Heaven & Hell #54 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Johannes Plenio Today we have before us the question: What is Heaven? But before we go there, let’s zoom out a little bit. One the the most important questions, perhaps THE question really, of religious and spiritual traditations is: Is this all there is? This earthly life that we perceive around us, it is the only reality that exists? Does our life end when our body dies and our consciousness leaves it? And honestly, in the end, who really knows? One thing we do know about though, is the reality and pervasivness of human spiritual experience. We all know of it, to greater and lesser degrees. For as long as human beings have existed, they have had experiences that seem to point to something beyond us. What exactly? Again, who knows? But it seems to be a persistent, if variable, part of being human. There are many explanations for it, ranging for scientific to biblical to mystical, but none have been able to grasp the whole of it. And perhaps that is for the best. For our tradition, for illumination on the nature of the spiritual realm, we look to the expansive and detailed spiritual experience of Emanuel Swedenborg. Do we understand his experiences as true, or at least that truth can be found within them? Well yes, that’s what it means to be a tradition, but of course what that means to each person is different. Do we believe that his spiritual experience is a revelation, that it contains the intentional Word of God to us? Some of us do, though we disagree about what that means exactly (and that disagreement is totally okay). Do we believe that Swedenborg has said everything there is to be said on the topic? At least in our branch of the tradition, we recognize that Swedeborg’s experiences were filtered through the lens of his own mind, which was situtated in his own context. Given that, his perception was necessarily limited, but I would argue, this blessedly gives us the opportunity to grapple with the information in positive ways and imagine what else can be learned. So as we return to the question before us today - What is Heaven? - it is with this background. Swedenborg wrote voluminously about the nature of heaven and, for the most part, the precepts are compassionate, common sense, consistent, and comforting. Are they the whole of it? Perhaps not, but they are an excellent start. First, let’s talk about what heaven is NOT. Heaven is not a place on high, above us. We humans are limited by our necessarily spatial language, and we have long described things that are beyond us somehow as “above” us. But the truth is that heaven is right here in our midst. It is not separate from us, it is here right now, and it is connected to us. We are simply not aware of it. And thus heaven is not actually even a “place.” Rather, it is a state of being, a state of awareness. Swedenborg received the gift of having the awareness of this world, this plane of existence, and awareness of the spiritual realm both at the same time, and this was possible because we exist in both realms simultaneously. Our body anchors us to the physical realm, and our spirit connects us to the spiritual realm. Swedenborg writes that heaven is in fact made by the divine nature of God flowing into us, and the level of which we are able to accept that inflow (without ownership of it) is the level to which we will be in heaven, or not.(1) So we can see that heaven is not a “place” or is even “anywhere” in the way we understand that idea, but rather is a state of being that is open and receptive to the inflow of God. Next, heaven is not a reward that we are granted because we have believed or said the right things. It’s not even a reward for *doing* the right things, for the right things can alway be done for the wrong reasons. Rather, heaven is the spiritual home of our inmost heart. What God wants for us is our eternal happiness. Happiness, true happiness, can only occur where we feel in tune with the mission of the place and people around us. And so, as we find our way to heaven, we are guided to that place within it that is best for us, one that resonates with our inner nature. But the character of heaven is not relative to us per se, it is first and foremost a realm of mutual love, a state of being that God has designed to ensure optimal happiness for us. There is alot of beautiful and valuable variability under the general umbrella of mutual love, and the more we ascribe to mutual love as a notion, and the more we try to conform ourselves to living that way, the more comfortable in heaven we will be. Heaven is a choice. And believe it or not, the same is true for hell. For those for whom mutual love is abhorrrent, they are given a place to be. Not in heaven, for their discordance with the mission of mutual love would be disruptive, as we certainly know it to be in this world too. But more so, they would be unhappy in heaven, for their hearts wouldn’t be in it, and hypocrisy is not possible in a realm where our spirits shine forth unimpeded. So therefore, heaven, and hell for that matter, are not a judgment made upon us by God, they are the culmination of a journey, the grounding of a process. God most pressing concern is where will we be most happy. If that is hell, if we have consistently refused God’s invitation to the greater happiness of heaven, then that is where we will end up. Heaven, and by extension hell, are not a judgment given by God but a choice that we have lived into. And finally, heaven is not exclusive. It is not a realm accessible only to Christians, only to those who profess the right belief. As a realm of mutual love, heaven is accessbile to all humans who live a life of integrity and honesty. Each human being is beloved of God, it doesn’t matter who they are or where they come from. And so each human being is given every opportunity to build a heavenly character inside themselves using the building blocks that are accessible to them. A God of divine love could do nothing else. So now, let’s move on to what heaven IS. Through our discussion of what it is not, we have already determined that heaven is: a state of being, a choice, our spiritual home that welcomes all, one that is actually right here, even if we don’t have an awareness of it just yet. It is also: Diverse. While the notion of mutual love might seem pretty straight forward, there is so much room within it for ways it might be expressed. And so Swedenborg talks about the incredible diversity of heaven, that there is an infinite number of communities, each coalescing around shared values and interests, and that no individual angel is like any other. Heaven is composed of an infinite variety of people and communities, and this variety is a big part of what makes heaven delightful; a perfect balance of individuality and and shared purpose. (2) Heaven is beyond time. While the notion of eternity can be intimidating from inside our temporal minds, heaven is a place where we do not experience time in the same way. Things continue to occur in sequence, for our minds are made for that, but the overall experience of time is according to our state of being. Swedenborg writes that angels do not experience eternity to mean infinite time but rather infinite state of being.(3) Think of the ways that time appears to speed up or slow down according to our own enjoyable or unpleasant experience. II imagine it’s a little bit like that. Next, heaven is active. It is absolutely a place of peace, but that doesn’t mean it is a place of languidity or passivity. Heaven is a realm of mutual love, but that doesn’t mean purely sentimental and blissful feelings, but love that is expressed in action. To quote Swedenborg: It is the activity of love and faith that makes heaven (4). We can all imagine that we would be totally bored if heaven really were about sitting around all day on clouds. It’s not; it contains all the kinds of activities that keep our hearts and minds engaged and living. And finally, heaven is evolving. Swedenborg doesn’t actually say this explicitly but I think it is a safe extrapolation from what we already know. If heaven is populated with people from this world who have become angels, and we ourselves remain essentially who we are after we die, made as we have been from our experiences, and our life, and our ongoing brilliantly individual activities of love and faith, then it makes sense that the quality, the character, of heaven would evolve to reflect that. Of course this would be the case, and also be God’s very plan. So all of this speculation can be pretty fun, or at least, I think so, but what does this mean for our lives right now? How does our perspective shift when we understand heaven to be here with us, and within us, as indicated in our bible texts? If the afterlife if not actually “after” but “now”? If we are currently participating in a journey that will simply continue in the spiritual realm? Well, in that case, there is no putting any of it off until later. We are building our heavenly character now, or not. This gives us an incredble amount of agency to shape our internal trajectory in the here and now, regardless of circumstances. And perhaps this feels like a lot of pressure - for those of us susceptible performance anxiety, or perfectionism, it might well be. But we remember, it is not about getting to the “right” place, it is just about getting to “our” place, our heavenly home. God is preparing it for us, and us for it, right now, and is doing so through our every experience, no matter how small. And as we imagine that God is doing the same with every other person in the world, who exists now and ever has existed, does it change how we view them, how we value them? Does it change how we might judge them? Does it change how we might wish to help them? When we are all on the same journey regardless of our culture, religion, circumstances - how does that equalize us? And now that I have reached the end of this sermon I realize that it has been a true firehose of information and I apologise for that. But this is also the blessing of our particular tradition. Heaven is not abstract to us. It is deeply familiar, reflecting the beauty of our smallest moments and activities, constructed out of our individuality and the ways that we love each other. It is not beyond us. It is right here, deeply connected to our life, and our decisions, and our every moment. And to honor this reality, I can only offer this benediction from the Iona Community, which we will hear again at the end of the service: God to enfold us, God to surround us; God in our speaking, God in our thinking; God in our life, God on our lips; God in our souls, God in our hearts. Amen
Readings: Genesis 28:10-17 10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Luke 17:20-21 20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Heaven & Hell #54 It can never be said that heaven is outside anyone. It is within; because every angel accepts the heaven that is outside in keeping with the heaven that is within. We can see, then, how mistaken people are who think that getting into heaven is simply a matter of being taken up among the angels, regardless of the quality of their inner life, who believe that heaven is granted merely because of [the Lord's] mercy. On the contrary, unless heaven is within an individual, nothing of the heaven that is outside flows in and is accepted. Readings: Psalm 27, Luke 19:1-10, Divine Providence 338:9 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Tom Swinnen Today we begin with the question: What is salvation? It is certainly a word that one hears a lot in regard to religion. In a religious context, salvation seems to be something good that we can receive from being in relationship with God, or a higher power. In general terms, being saved, experiencing salvation of some kind, means moving from a set of undesirable circumstances to a different set of more desireable circumstances. A friend might come to save us when we have a flat tire on the side of the road. We go from being stranded to being at home, or we go from having a broken vehicle to having one that is drivable. A parent might grab their child when they are about to cross the road without looking. A co-worker might save us from an impossible deadline by helping us out with our work. There are so many macro and micro ways we are saved by each other in this world, and gratitude abounds for that. In Christian theological terms though, the traditional definition is narrower. The salvation that Christians receive has to do with the afterlife, not this world. Our positive relationship with God saves us from an eternity in hell, traditionally a place of torment, and allows us an eternity in heaven instead, traditionally a place of bliss, peace and happiness. But the traditional Christan view (which I will now try to paraphrase) has some caveats: Since God is wholly and completely just, and since humanity is so wholly bad (I mean, just look around), God demands accountability and reparation from us, because a truly just God could do no other. And of course, we are so bad all the time, in ways large and small, that we could never pay the cost. In that case, all human beings would be in hell all the time. So Jesus, out of love for us, stepped in to pay the bill for us, and God was so moved by this offering that it was accepted on behalf of us all forever - but only for those believe and accept what Jesus did. Thus, we are “saved” from the fate that was due to us by recognizing the value of, or having faith in, Jesus’ mighty sacrifice for us. And reformed Christianity doubled down on the importance of right belief, because of the idea that what we “do” or how we act, can never contribute to our salvation because our motives can never be pure. We will always be trying to get into heaven with what we do, and that is inherently duplicious and tainted no matter what. Only acts in which we have nothing to gain can be purely good, so we must be saved by faith, by belief first, then once freed from selfish motive, our actions can be purely good, if we wish them to be. We are saved by surrendering the idea that we could ever save ourselves. And much of this has made sense to many people, especially when there things to atone for that we feel like could never be made right no matter what we do. But there are also some problems. What do we do with the biblical decription of God’s steadfastness and love? Isn’t love inherently responsive and forgiving? Where is the balance to God’s justice? Is God so inherently transactional? Does this process of salvation reflect how human beings actually work, emotionally and existentially? Are we actually defined by one moment, one confession of belief, or is our selfhood, our character, created more progressively? Because, at it’s best, faith alone salvation does allow us to step off the hamster wheel of ego or fear-based striving, which can be its own kind of tyranny. We can surrender to the truth of the way Jesus has loved us all and know that it is enough. There is a very sweet and needed freedom there. And yet, at its worst, faith alone salvation gives free reign to humanity’s worst tendencies. When we imagine that all of our sins past and present have been forgiven due to one mighty sacrifice, well that creates a different kind of freedom - one that justifies any kind of bad behavior going forward. Just say the right words and it is done - the rest of life is gravy. Further, when we imagine that there is one right way, one right set of words to say and beliefs to profess, oh and by the way, we have them and we control them, this also gives the Christian church an enormous amount of power, which I think we can safely say it hasn’t used well. Would God design a system with such an enormous accountability-free loophole? Would God design a system that disenfranchises every single person who has never even heard of Jesus? Swedenborg thought that it could not be so. So he spoke of salvation as a progressive partnership between faith and action, a process that changes us from the inside. A process that keeps us accountable to the selfhood that we are creating. A process that does us the respect of giving our actions true meaning. Yes, we absolutely need to surrender our selfhood to God, surrender our notions of righteousness and judgment to God. We give our faith to something higher than ourselves, a framework of ongoing relinquishment that keeps us on the right and true path. But the problem is that we are not made in a moment. Our selfhood, our character, our life, is not made in a moment, even if it is a transcendent important meaningful moment. Our life is made up of all the moments that we string together, our character made of all the decisions we make one after another. We have to put our money where our mouth is for our faith to have any meaning at all, for it to “save” us. Like with our friend saving us from the flat tire on the side of the road, we’ll need to actually call them, we’ll need to help them haul the spare from the trunk, we’ll need to hand them the tools and watch the safety of the jack…because if we don’t, if we don’t see ourselves in partnership with the whole salvation situation, we won’t bother to avoid the potholes in the future, we won’t bother to replace the tires when they are worn out, we won’t bother with the ongoing maintenance and awareness that driving safely requires. It’s good to have a friend that we believe in and can count on. But we don’t want to be someone who relinquishes consequence and accountability because we happen to have a good and generous friend. We don’t want to be someone who just uses them to get home. Because, salvation is not just about getting somewhere, getting off the side of the road and back home, getting to heaven rather than hell. Heaven is not a reward, or a ticket we can buy, heaven is the home of our inmost heart. Such a home must match who we inherently are, or at least, who we are willing to work to become. One moment of faith, however well intentioned, and especially if not well intentioned, cannot make such a match for us. But a life of ongoing creation, one of partnership with God that progressively builds a heavenly selfhood, can. And this is why I especially like the way that Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley subsitutes “healing” for the word “salvation.” (1) He writes: I certainly believe it is a better theological choice. Healing is a process that requires our cooperaton.” And he rephrases our text for today: “[Healing] has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.” We note how holistic Zaccheas’s experience was. He had an openness to something more, a *faith* in something larger than his current circumstances, his current way of doing things. He knew that Jesus was important but that knowing alone wasn’t enough. He needed to make changes to his life, make reparation for what he had done wrong. And this brought him into right relationship with his higher power and the people around him. Healing came to his home; where there was brokenness in his way of being, he repaired it. And this “saved” him but only because he was changed from the inside out. He was saved from perpetrating harm, and the ways that perpetrating harm would dictate who he was becoming. And actually, seeing salvation this way, as healing, reframes the whole process as almost mechanistic, and less moralistic, and I mean this in a good way. We can’t function at our best, or be our happiest, or serve others around us really effectively, unless we are healed and whole (or at least, on the way to becoming so). This is what God ultimately wants for us. God’s salvation is not about trying to be “enough” or “right” it is about being healed. Being healed of our self-centeredness, being healed of our flaws, being healed of our limited perspectives, as well as being healed of our hurts, our traumas, our wounds. Because this is what a God who actually cares about our well-being, our happiness, would do: design a process that has a chance of bringing us to wholeness and peace, and then walk that process with us. This is why salvation is not a moment, it is a journey. And the destination is not a place, the destination is the wholeness of ourselves. Some moments, moments of faith, especially ones that send us down an important road, are special, but they cannot be so special that they make the journey that follows meaningless. Our faith is the lamp, and then we must consciously take each step as it is illuminated. And thanks be to God, we don’t do it alone. Amen (1) Decolonizing Evangelicalism by Randy S. Woodley and Bo C. Sanders, p18 Readings: Psalm 27 1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. 3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. 4 One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. 6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD. 7 Hear my voice when I call, LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. 12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. 13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Luke 19:1-10 1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Divine Providence 338:9 We can see from this that if we look deeply enough, we find that the theologies of all our churches teach how to live; and since they teach how to live, they teach that our salvation depends on how we live. Our life is not breathed into us in an instant but is formed gradually, and is reformed as we abstain from evils as sins--specifically, as we see what is a sin, recognize it, admit it, and then do not intend it, and therefore refrain from it, and also as we know the means that relate to knowing God. By these two means our life is formed and reformed, and they cannot just be poured into us in an instant. Our inherited evil, which is essentially hellish, has to be banished first, and goodness, which is essentially heavenly, planted in its stead. |
Archives
July 2024
Categories |