 Readings: Matthew 15:32-39, Apocalypse Revealed #10 (see below)
See also on Youtube Many times the spiritual life is about striving, and that’s a good thing. We owe it to each other to try to be a a little bit better today than yesterday, to leave the world a little better than we came into it. Indeed, this is the heart of the New Church vision of the New Jerusalem; a transformed world made up of one transformed heart and mind at a time. Lent is part of that story, a time when we might try a little harder, and with a little more focus. For those of us that tend toward a more anxious frame of mind, though, the healthy striving of the spiritual life can sometimes get a little twisted up. This is totally understandable because the hells, and our egos, and western culture are always deifying the hustle, tempting us to value ourselves by our achievements, calling us forward to take our place on the treadmill of “just a little more, just a little better.” When that constant drumbeat becomes the soundtrack of our brains this can a tyranny. Striving can be a good thing, but not when it become the stick that we beat ourselves up with. So today, we are going to focus on the notion of “being enough.” At a soul level, we are always enough, for we are created in the image and likeness of God. Yes, God wants us to be happy, and so yes, God helps us to transform ourselves into loving and kind people, but God doesn’t love us “more” when we do that. And God certainly doesn’t love us more if we constantly worry about not being good enough, as if that would somehow prove how serious we are about it. And so our text for today is the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, whereby Jesus transforms a small amount of bread and fish into enough to feed a multitude. Please don’t get the wrong idea. This story isn’t about asking God to multiply what we can give, what we can achieve, make us more more more. In our Swedenborg reading, we learned that the number seven represents not “more” but fullness and completeness. They began with seven loaves, and they ended up with seven baskets; the number seven—completeness—remained the same in the beginning and in the end. So from this, I hope we can rest in the idea that wherever we are in the journey, we are enough. Now, this lesson might not be for everyone. We all need different things, for some, a message of motivation and striving is what is needed, and we do preach that a lot. But we need not fear that resting in our enough-ness will suddenly leave us complacent. In fact, psychological research has shown the opposite: higher levels of positive emotions like gratitude actually lead to more action. So, let us make space today, for knowing we are enough as we are. I’ll invite you now to join me in a time of contemplation. I’ll begin with a reading from Tara Brach’s Trusting the Gold. And then we will hear our scriptures again, and we can sit with them for a moment, and finally we’ll end with a prayer from George Appleton. Make comfortable in your seat, take a deep breath, and close your eyes. I could have done that better, I should have gotten more done. I wish I had been more sensitive. For many years, never enough was a chronic habit of mind, and I could run endless variations on the theme. Finally one night before going to bed, I sat down and asked myself “Okay, what would be enough? What do I have to do to be good enough?” Over the next weeks, I started tracking what happened after I’d completed a successful weekend of teaching, or after receiving feedback about contributing to others’ wellbeing, or after being particularly kind or generous with someone. The enough feeling would last about 2.4 minutes before I’d start fixating on what else I needed to do, how I needed to prepare for the next event, how I needed to be more consistently sensitive and kind. Even the most satisfying accomplishments, upon close inspection, would seem tainted by ego, and therefore not spiritual enough. Whatever I was doing, it didn’t leave me with an enduring sense of enough. Since that long ago evening when I faced the never-ending narrative of falling short, I have discovered that enoughness has absolutely zero to do with accomplishing, nothing to do with achieving, and is not at all about trying to be good enough. Rather, the realization of enough is right here in the fullness of presence, in the tenderness of an open heart, in the silence that is listening to this life.(1) (Matthew 15) 32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” 33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” 34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” Let us pause and settle in companionship with the number seven, as spoken in this text. The disciples want to know how there will be enough. What do you have? Jesus asks. Seven, they reply. Enough. (Matthew 15) 35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. Let us pause and sit with the word satisfied. Jesus gave thanks, and fed the people, and they were satisfied. Seven basketful were still left over. Enough. …numbers in the Word symbolize properties, and “seven” symbolizes all things or all people, and so also fullness and completeness…(Apocalypse Revealed #10) Let us pause and visit with the fullness and completeness of God. We are made in God’s image and likeness, and so share in God’s fullness and completeness at our deepest levels. Help me, O Lord, to descend into the depths of my being, below my conscious and sub-conscious life until I discover my real self, that which is given me from you, the divine likeness in which I am made and into which I am to grow, the place where your Spirit communes with mine, the spring from which all my life arises. (George Appleton) Amen. (1) Tara Brach, Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness, p12-13. Readings: Matthew 15: 32-39 32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” 33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” 34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” 35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan. Apocalypse Revealed #10 For numbers in the Word symbolize properties, and “seven” symbolizes all things or all people, and so also fullness and completeness, and it occurs in the Word where the subject is something holy, and in an opposite sense, something profane. Consequently this number involves holiness, and in an opposite sense, profanation.
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 Readings: Genesis 1:27, 29-31, 2:1-3, Isaiah 62:1-3, Secrets of Heaven #8893 (see below)
See also on Youtube Welcome to the seventh and final installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Spiritual Rest. Last week, we explored the notion of Creative Rest, and the ways that engaging with beauty and wonder enfold us into the ongoing creative forces with which God enlivens the world. Today, we hear in our Genesis text, an ancient poem, that tells a story about the way that God created the world in the beginning. In the parts we didn’t read, God first says let there be light, God makes the sky, the oceans and the land, God makes plants and all kinds of vegetation, God makes the sun and the moon and the stars, God makes birds, sea creatures and animals. And then, we come to our text for today, the sixth day, when God makes human beings, and places them in a world that will nourish them. We read: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. So, on the seventh day, God is said to have rested from all this creating. In the Swedenborgian perspective, we don’t see this as a literal story of how the Earth came to be, nor only just an ancient oral tradition, but as a metaphor for the spiritual life of a human being. The beginning of Genesis tells the story of the creation of the world, while at the same time, at a deeper level, tells the story of the creation of our internal lives. The details of all of that will make another fun series some time, but for the purposes of our topic today, we will skip right to the end. The Seventh Day, the holy day of rest, represents a stage in our spiritual development when we have assimilated divine love and truth so deeply that it is written on our hearts. Swedenborg writes: For people whose character is heavenly…[their] inner life is patterned in such a way that the Lord enters into their understanding, reason, and knowledge by way of love and the convictions of love. (1) Meaning that, this is a point when our acceptance of divine love toward ourself and others is so instinctual that there is no longer a time when we need to think about the right thing to do, we no longer need to convince ourselves via our conscience to do the right and loving thing, we just do it. Love drives us first and foremost. We might describe this as being a fully integrated person; we are so open to the flow of God that our external thinking doesn’t get in the way of being kind and loving. This state of flow or integration allows for the experience of maximum spiritual freedom and is thus represented by the seventh “day of rest.” Because God blesses this day and sanctifies it, the Abrahamic traditions followed it as a spiritual practice. But, it is important to note that in this story at least, we are talking about God resting. So on one level, God in Genesis models rest, and advocates for cyclical, consistent rest *for us,* in the blessing of the Sabbath. But in a spiritual sense, what this story is telling us is that God does *not* rest until *we* each reach the seventh day. In the process of our ongoing creation, God continues to want what is best for us, and continues to work for that no matter what. This is a most incredible gift, a steadfast love and concern that the Bible often praises. In this sense, the seventh day is holy not just because of the what God did and said in Genesis, but because of what God continues to do for our spiritual development, for us and with us, now. So, how do we connect these two things conceptually? Why is what God does important to our own practice of spiritual rest? Because our ability to receive spiritual rest is anchored in the notion of sanctuary. Dr. Dalton-Smith defines sanctuary in this context as “a secure place where protection reigns and comfort is received.”(2) Other definitions include the term refuge. God certainly desires and needs our partnership in the co-creation of our spiritual path. But it is important to recognize that this partnership is a partnership of consent, not a partnership of power. We are not the source of love, life, and truth, God is. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a true partnership to you, but what it actually allows for is for *us* to be able to rest. It allows for us to be able to let go and find sanctuary. Swedenborg writes: Spiritual people are called God's work after they have developed a heavenly nature, because the Lord has fought for them all on his own. He is the one who has made, formed, and created them. That is why this verse says that God completed his work on the seventh day and, twice, that he rested from all his work…creating people anew — regenerating them — is the Lord's work alone…Because we have done none of the fighting ourselves — the Lord does all the fighting for us — he is the one said to rest. (3) We can receive spiritual rest, we can rest from our spiritual labors, because we know that God never does. We can rest because fundamentally, we are not God. We are not the source, we are beneficiaries of the source. There might be times when we are really feeling our various accomplishments, when we might trick ourselves into thinking that we are the source, that it is all up to us, that we might just be able to control everything we need to control. But can we truly rest when we are in this headspace? Can we truly find sanctuary? Of course not. What makes the Sabbath holy is that it is an occasion when we recognize our limits. And our earthly selves may well be thinking: Yuck, what an unpleasant realization! How can something as inherently depressing as recognizing our limits be holy?” It is holy because the recognition of our limits cannot be separated from the recognition that God has our back. God would never ever have created human beings without the basic operating set-up of God’s complete and unending support. What a monstrous God it would be to create human beings and then only conditionally engage with them. That God does not exist. Instead, God created us, and promised to walk with us always, promised to fight continually on our behalf until the only thing needed anymore was the presence and flow of love. This is what the creation story in Genesis pictures. It like the way a parent holds on to a bicycle which a child is still learning to ride, running alongside, steadying the bike, as we learn how to balance, how much pressure to give the pedals, how to keep the handlebars straight. And then, suddenly, balance is found and off we ride, and our heavenly parent can let go and watch us fly. They are not gone, they are still watching and cheering, but a fundamental new capacity has been gained by us, and The Parent doesn’t need to run anymore. We can find spiritual rest, spiritual sanctuary, in the holiness of the promise of the seventh day. God will not let go of the bike until then. Not a single moment before we are ready. And so, we don’t have to hold it all, we don’t have to hold the seriousness and the weight of our entire spiritual journey all the time. We can joyfully surrender it to The One who is running alongside. Swedenborg writes: None but those who have experienced a state of peace can appreciate the nature of the peaceful tranquillity that the outer self enjoys when there is an end to struggle, or to the disquiet of burning desires and misconceptions. That state is so joyful that it surpasses all our notions of joy. It is not simply an end to our struggles but a vibrancy welling up from deep-seated peace, affecting our outer being beyond the capacity of words to describe it. (4) Amen.
Readings: Genesis 1:27, 29-31, 2:1-3 27 So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Isaiah 62:1-3 1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. 2 The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. 3 You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. Secrets of Heaven #8893 'And rested on the seventh day' means that at that time peace and the good of love are present. This is clear from the meaning of 'resting' as peace; and from the meaning of 'the seventh day' as the state of celestial love, and therefore what is holy. The reason why 'resting on the seventh day' means peace and the good of love is that before a person has been regenerated or created anew there is no serenity or rest, since their natural life engages in conflict at that time with their spiritual life and wishes to have dominion over it. Consequently the Lord at that time labours, for He fights for the person against the hells that attack. But as soon as the good of love has been implanted conflict comes to an end, and rest takes over; for now the person is brought into heaven and is led by the Lord in accord with the laws of order there, and so is at peace. These things are meant by 'Jehovah's rest on the seventh day’.  Readings: Psalm 148, Divine Providence 3:2
See also on Youtube Photo credit: Aaron Burden from Pexels Welcome to the sixth installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Creative Rest. In the psalms especially, like in our text of Psalm 148 today, there is a lot of imagery devoted to the beauty of the earth, and praising God for creating it. From prehistoric cave paintings to ancient texts, art, craftsmanship, we can gather that human beings have always had the capacity to appreciate and participate in the beauty that surrounds them. There is something very fundamental, elemental, sacred that is evoked when engaging in…. Dr. Dalton-Smith defines creative rest as “the rest one finds when immersed in creative beauty.” (1) But she warns that creative rest should not be relegated to something “just for creative people, or [something] that will result in a work of creativity, like art or music.” Instead, creative rest, or to use another phrase, creative renewal, is a practice that feeds our “basic need for wonder.” (97). For many, this basic need goes hand in hand with some artistic endeavor, but that is not the case for everyone. The basic need for wonder can be fulfilled in a multitude of ways. The important part is accepting the invitation to see beauty, and to let it affect us and change us. Sometimes, we let our personal hang-ups get in the way pursuing creative rest in the ways that will fulfill us the most. Bronwen Mayer Henry, currently a working artist in high demand, in her book Radioactive Painting, relates the unconscious narrative that she adopted in high school art class: “I loved the class. It was challenging and fulfilling. But it was in this class—sitting alongside so many stunning artists—that I formed an identity as a second-class artist. Each week when we had critiques, to my surprise, I did fine. Yet looking around the room, I knew I wasn’t the best. Some people had raw talent of breathtaking proportions…that clear knowing led to a second, more debilitating conclusion: I wasn’t the best and therefore I shouldn’t continue… Today, when people describe to me their “not good enough” feelings, I look them in the eye and say, “Who cares if you are the best? Does it make your heart soar? If so, by all means do it!” (2) The author Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, continues this line of permission-giving: “If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, story tellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers—these are our common ancestors. The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong on to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We are all the chosen few. We are all makers by design…Your creativity is way older than you are, way older than any of us. Your very body and your very being are perfectly designed to live in collaboration with inspiration, and inspiration is still trying to find you—the same way it hunted down your ancestors. All of which is to say: You do not need a permission slip from the principal’s office to live a creative life. Or if you do worry that you need a permission slip—there, I just gave it to you. I just wrote it on the back of an old shopping list. Consider yourself fully accredited. Now go make something.” (3) Yes! So, let’s make something. And, that something might be something outside of yourself, like a cake or a poem or a painting. But also, just as important, when we interact with beauty we are additionally given the opportunity to create something inside of us. When wonder arises within us, no matter where or how we found it, this is a creative act also. Wonder is an emotion that is inherently creative because what it does is it creates space within us. When we wonder, we are opening up, making space for feeling and thinking and seeing new things. Wonder is a suspended space, in which anything could happen, in which we are impressionable, malleable, we are God-facing instead of self-facing. And so because of that state of openness, In the practice of creative renewal, *we* are what is being made anew. Whether we accompany that being-made-new with a traditionally artistic practice, or we accompany it with a walk in the woods, or listening to music, or something else, it doesn’t really matter. Creative renewal both rebuilds the parts of us that have been broken down, and engineers the building of parts of us that we didn’t even know we needed. Wonder is a sacred and necessary force. And this is one of the reasons I love the Swedenborg reading for today, in which the Swedenborg the scientist is sincerely nerding out over the beauty, the intricacies, the design of the natural world. “Collect your wits” he says “and look through a good microscope and you will see incredible things,” like some over-enthusiastic high school science teacher, and I am 100% there for it. Because he is right. There are so many opportunities for wonder in our amazing world; taking the time to notice this fact is a powerful spiritual practice. But what he says next is even more powerful. He invites us to consider the source. Beyond the wow factor of how pretty or majestic something is, he invites us to consider that God’s divine love and wisdom is written into the design of everything, and that because God is an engaged rather than distant God, that this love and wisdom continues to pour into the world even now. He writes: This is not just something that happened at its creation; it is something that has been happening constantly ever since. Maintenance is constant creation, just as enduring is a constant coming into being. Which brings us back around to wonder and the fact that wonder re-creates us. When we intentionally engage in beauty and creative renewal, when we experience wonder, we are engaged in the constant creation of our own selfhood, and this enfolds us ever more fully into the ways that God is constantly creating the whole of the world, the whole of existence. When we behold the beauty of existence, when we open to the wonder that results from this beholding, we fall into the slipstream of constant creation and we become an inexorable part of it. We are enfolded into the beauty and take our place within it. Many of the other types of rest we have talked about—physical, mental, emotional, sensory—these are focused on restoring “what already is.” They work to renew something that we already have by blessed design, and we just need to be sure that we are refilling the cup, paying attention, doing the work needed so we can be whole and thriving. Creative renewal starts out in “what already is,” in terms of the fact that we already have the capacity for creativity and wonder, but it doesn’t stay there. It is a jumping off point for “what could be.” Creative rest is rest because in a moment of wonder, we don’t have to keep our grasp on what we think we are, we can let go. We can surrender our agendas and our striving and just let God be God. We can praise: 2 Praise God, all you angels; praise God, all the heavenly host. 3 Praise God, sun and moon; praise God, all you shining stars. 4 Praise God, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. 5 Let them praise the name of the LORD. Amen.
Readings: Psalm 148 1 Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights above. 2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his heavenly hosts. 3 Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars. 4 Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. 5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for at his command they were created, 6 and he established them for ever and ever— he issued a decree that will never pass away. 7 Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, 8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, 9 you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, 10 wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, 11 kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, 12 young men and women, old men and children. 13 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. 14 And he has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his faithful servants, of Israel, the people close to his heart. Praise the LORD. Divine Providence #3 3. 1. The universe as a whole and in every detail was created out of divine love, by means of divine wisdom. [2] Everything that meets our eyes in this world can serve to convince us that the universe and absolutely everything in it was created out of divine love by means of divine wisdom. Take any particular thing and look at it with some wisdom, and this will be clear. Look at a tree--or its seed, its fruit, its flower, or its leaf. Collect your wits and look through a good microscope and you will see incredible things; and the deeper things that you cannot see are even more incredible. Look at the design of the sequence by which a tree grows from its seed all the way to a new seed, and ask yourself, "In this whole process, is there not a constant effort toward ongoing self-propagation?" The goal it is headed for is a seed that has a new power to reproduce. If you are willing to think spiritually (and you can if you want to), surely you see wisdom in this. Then too, if you are willing to press your spiritual thinking further, surely you see that this power does not come from the seed or from our world's sun, which is nothing but fire, but that it was put into the seed by a creator God who has infinite wisdom. This is not just something that happened at its creation; it is something that has been happening constantly ever since. Maintenance is constant creation, just as enduring is a constant coming into being.  Readings: Psalm 36:5-9, John 13:1, 4-9, 12-17, 34-35, Secrets of heaven #2057:2 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Josh Willink from Pexels Welcome to the fifth installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Social Rest and restful relationships. I sort of engineered this particular topic to fall close to Valentine’s Day because we will already be saturated by images of romantic relationships, and I thought that our discussion today might be able to provide an interesting counter-point or accompaniment to that. St. Valentine was a Roman priest who was martyred some time in the late 3rd Century BCE, and whose feast day falls on February 14th. Legend has it that he was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples during a time of Christian persecution in Rome. It is said that he would cut hearts from parchment to give to persecuted Christians as a reminder of God’s love, which is perhaps the genesis of the use of hearts of Valentine’s Day (1) And if these legends are true, St. Valentine was someone who was willing to risk his life for relationship; the relationship of Christians with their God, and with each other. That kind of passion and self-less love is admirable, even if viewed through the rose-colored glasses of historical legend. There are two key ways of thinking about social rest. The first is the necessity of a rest from superficial relationships. When I say superficial, I don’t necessarily mean to be derogatory, although we all know how exhausting actually toxic relationships can be. By superficial I really just mean the regular relationships that we encounter in our everyday lives, online or IRL, not terribly deep. People we work with, various acquaintances, clerks in a store, students in the same classroom; I’m sure we can all think of many other examples. These relationships will represent varying levels of engagement and satisfaction, but they also require energy from us and eventually we all need a break from them. Introverts will probably feel this more acutely, and be more aware of the need for this type of social rest. But the second type of social rest is not a movement away from relationship but further into safe and restful relationship. This is also an important human need. We are social animals and we gravitate toward connecting with each other. Relationships become restful spaces when they embody acceptance and compassion, when they make space for vulnerability, and when truth is spoken with love and openness. We can see how much restful relationship is connected then to the authenticity we spoke about a few weeks ago with Emotional Rest. To quote poet Adrienne Rich “An honorable human relationship, that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love,” is a process of deepening the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.” (2) The truth of the matter is that we can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. Human self-delusion or isolation is not necessarily a direct function of our total social contact. We can still feel alone inside an abundance of superficial relationship, or we can feel alone inside an abundance of our own pride, inside our own fortress of self-righteousness. More relationship cannot actually replace the need for restful relationship. But it is when we are able to have the courage to tell each other the truth with love, and the courage to hear that truth, and as a result we are seen and valued as ourselves, this is restful relationship. Though it might ultimately feel peaceful, it is certainly not passive, and though it might involve love, it is not always or only romantic. Dr. Dalton-Smith writes “social rest is how we practice the give-and-take of authentically vulnerable relationships”(3). Any relationship that is able to comfort and revive us is a restful one, restoring the part of us that was built to connect with others. And, the ultimate manifestation of this type of relationship is our relationship with God. Despite all the ways in the Bible in which God is described as angry and vengeful, Swedenborg tells us that this is just an outer appearance, the way God has been described by human beings, and that the true reality is that God cannot even look at us with a frown (4). Imagine removing any sense of conditional love or disappointment or striving for worthiness from a relationship; this is what we have with God. There is nothing to fear, we are known and loved as we are, and being known and loved in such a way is deeply deeply restful. God wants that for us, with God and with each other. In our story from John, Jesus gives words to this desire. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34). God desires that we take the steadfast love God offers to us (as I have loved you) and try to offer that to each other (so you must love one another). The love of God is used as model to help us understand the expansive way we are called to love each other. And, we see this love embodied in the way that Jesus ministers to the disciples by washing their feet. He was opening up their relationship to a new level of vulnerability and service, and certainly the disciples felt uncomfortable at first. But they came to understand what Jesus was doing, pushing them to redefine how they were to love their neighbor, how they were to embody restful relationship for each other. Because, what makes this type of rest different from the others we have talked about so far, is that the notion of restful relationship is necessarily a communal one. All the other types of rest—physical, mental, emotional, sensory—are ones that we are invited to make time for, or reclaim space for, for ourselves. And there is certainly an aspect of social rest that can follow that same vein: the importance of reclaiming space when we need time alone. But the part of social rest that involves restful relationship; this we cannot do alone. To get social rest, we must rely on another person. It is a type of rest that we all have to embody together. And this brings us to the mystical wonder of Swedenborg’s vision of heaven: that in giving ourselves wholly to mutual love, the practice of loving our neighbor more than ourselves, this produces a cohesive and connected whole, an inter-related and inter-dependent whole that has the quality of single human being. Not of course in a literal sense, but in a metaphorical one; that the ways that so many individuals become one heaven is similar to the way that so many individual cells in our body become one being —all working together in harmony for a single purpose. But the mystical wonder goes even further than that. Our Swedenborg reading today spoke of the fact that even in this heavenly oneness of form, each person functions like the center point. In visions of oneness we often think of individuality receding but instead individuality becomes, paradoxically, even more central. This is the strange and wonderful gift of the spiritual life: that the more we love others, the more we strive to embody restful relationship for others, the more we focus on the other rather than ourselves, the more deeply we are woven into the fabric of community, and the more deeply we can experience *our* authentic selves. I don’t know about you, but this seems like an amazing thing to be celebrating on Valentine’s Day, and something that St. Valentine himself would likely be completely on board with. This week’s type of rest is different because we can’t actually control receiving it; we can’t control other people. But what we *can* do is work on embodying restful relationship for others, and make space for the restful relationships we have. What we can do is devote ourselves to a vision of mutual love that will ultimately connect us. We can ask ourselves, how can I be a steadfast, safe, open, loving, truthful and compassionate space for others? I’m not sure how all that fits on a candy heart, but I’m sure the result will be just as sweet. Amen.
Readings: Psalm 36:5-9 5 Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. 6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, LORD, preserve both people and animals. 7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. John 13:1, 4-9, 12-17, 34-35 1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end…4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” 12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Secrets of Heaven 2057:2 [2] Mutual love in heaven consists in those there loving their neighbour more than themselves, and as a result the whole of heaven represents so to speak one human being; for by means of mutual love from the Lord all are associated together in that way. Consequently every manifestation of happiness possessed by all is communicated to each individual, and that possessed by each individual to all. The heavenly form produced by this is such that everyone is so to speak a kind of centre point, thus the centre point of communications and therefore of manifestations of happiness from all. And this takes place in accordance with all the variant forms of that love, which are countless. And because those in whom that love reigns experience supreme happiness in being able to communicate to others that which flows into them, and to do so from the heart, the communication consequently becomes perpetual and eternal.  Readings: Psalm 23, I Kings 19:9-13, Divine Love & Wisdom 363 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Anni Roenkae from Pexels Welcome to the fourth installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Sensory Rest. Our senses are the most amazing gift. They are the means through which we experience life, the means through which we experience joy and pain and *everything.* They are also dynamic, growing as we challenge them, compensating for other senses as the need requires. But, we also live in an extremely intense time period for our senses. We are surrounded by technological innovations that contribute to that sensory load: the sound of cars and truck on nearby roads, bright lights during the nighttime, all kinds of entertainment content available for streaming whenever we choose, abundant food highly engineered for our tastes, and of course, our ubiquitous phones, providing an unending and addictive stream of information and fascination. Our senses, like any other human capacity, can get overloaded. And the ways that the senses become overloaded will be unique to each of our contexts, depending on the ways that we spend our time, including our various responsibilities and vocations. Many times we don’t even get to choose how and when our senses are engaged. So, an important focus of our attention to rest has to also include an awareness of which of our senses need to rest and renew. We need to ask ourselves the question: when do we need to intentionally withdraw form some kind of sensory input, even if just for a moment. And I say, even if just for a moment, because there are a couple of dynamics here. Sometimes our sensory load is not fully in our control. Picture mothers of young children being on touch overload, a cashier in a busy market on sight overload, students after a long day at school being on sound overload. Even a moment of sensory renewal in those contexts can go a long way. But another dynamic is that some products and industries and people try to “capture” our sensory attention for profit, via exploitation of our natural inclinations. (Ahem, social media, I’m looking at you). And in these cases it is important that we learn to “reclaim” our sensory balance so that we can function well. Some of the most powerful scriptures, like our texts for today, speak of the restoration of God being deeply present in quietness and gentleness. Now, I am acutely aware of the irony here, because I am bringing this exploration to you in the form of sensory input, you are hearing and seeing me, many of you through a screen. So if any of you wish to reclaim some of your sensory integrity and turn me off, you have my complete support! Really, you do! For those who remain, we’re going to do a guided meditation around gratitude for the senses. Our senses are so ingrained, so integral to our experiences, that like many things we do naturally, we might take them for granted. So, this meditation is designed to cultivate gratitude and awareness around the gift of the senses, so that in the rest of our everyday lives, we might be reminded to give our senses the renewal that they need. Some relevant lines of scripture will also be woven in to the meditation. But first quick word: in exploring gratitude for our senses, we will come face to face with the reality that some of our senses have diminished over time, or experienced another kind of challenge. I invite you to hold any vulnerability or sadness gently alongside the gratitude; all those feelings belong. So, let’s begin. First, take a moment to settle into your seat, take a deep breath, let it out slowly. We’ll begin with an energy exercise to embody gratitude and renewal to one of our most important senses, our sight. If you are wearing glasses, and you are able, I invite you to take them off and put them down within reach for a moment. Now, put your palms together and rub them, like you would if you were trying to stay warm. Work up some heat, as much as you can. And, immediately place the heel of your palms gently on top of your eyes and fold the rest of your hands over your forehead. Take a deep slow breath, and feel the warmth and the energy from your hands enter into your eyes and your forehead. Just sit with that for a moment, and let your eyes be ministered to. Send them love and thanks for all they do. Psalm 16:8 I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Now return your hands to your side or your lap. Take another deep breath and close your eyes. Let us bring our attention to our hearing. Let us give thanks for the ways that our hearing connects us to our world, connects us to our deepest emotions. We are now going to enter into a moment of silence…but of course, it won’t be complete silence will it? Let us attend to the noises that we hear in our surroundings, perhaps small things we wouldn’t normally be paying attention to. Hold them in the gentle space of your hearing and then let them go. Moment of silence - 30 seconds Habakkuk 2:20 The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Now, let us take another deep breath, this time feeling the breath as it goes in and out of our noses. We give thanks for the sense of smell, for the way it co-mingles and accesses our emotion and memory so directly, for the way it brings us back in memory so instantly, for the way it connects us, particle by particle, to our environment. Take another breath, knowing that as we breathe, we take in the air around us, we take it in - inside our bodies. We assimilate the oxygen that we need and breath out the carbon dioxide. We are in a dynamic balance with the space we are in, partaking of that space through our breath. Our sense of smell is on the forefront on this ability. John 12:3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Let us continue with our intentional breathing, and now focus on a sense very connected to smell - taste. Let us feel our breath moving over our tongue and mouth, down our trachea and deep into our lungs. Just as we bring air into our bodies for sustenance, so too we bring nutrients in the form of food. We give thanks that our sense of taste makes that necessity so enjoyable and varied, that we can taste even the smallest of variations that connects us to how and where our food came from, the sun and the earth from which our food arises. Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Finally, take a deep breath and put your hand on your heart. Feel the warmth and pressure of that gentle nurturing gesture, as we give thanks for the gift of touch, a sense that grounds us deeply within our space and and within our movements, a sense that allows us to communicate care and love. Luke 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Let us now take on final breath, as we bring ourselves back into our various spaces. In a moment we will celebrate communion together, another hallowed ritual which is a celebration of the senses. May we continue in gratitude. Amen. Readings: Psalm 23 1 A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever. I Kings 19:9-13 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” 11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?" Divine Love and Wisdom 363 Love and wisdom, and the volition and discernment that come from them, constitute our very life. Hardly anyone knows what life is. When people think about it, it seems like something ethereal, something with no specific image. It seems like this because people do not know that only God is life and that his life is divine love and wisdom. We can see from this that the life in us is nothing else and that there is life in us to the extent that we accept it. …our senses are derived from [love and wisdom], our sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, with their own pleasures and satisfactions. The appearance is that our eye is seeing, but our discernment is seeing through our eye, which is why we ascribe sight to our discernment. The appearance is that our ear is hearing, but our discernment is hearing through our ear. This is why we speak of the attentiveness and listening that are actually functions of discernment as "hearing." The appearance is that our nostrils smell and that our tongue tastes, but discernment is smelling with its perceptiveness and is tasting as well; so we refer to perceptiveness as smelling and tasting, and so on. The wellsprings of all these functions are love and wisdom; we can therefore tell that these two constitute our life.  Readings: John 8:12-20, 25-31, Divine Providence 224 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels Welcome to the third installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Emotional Rest. These last couple of years, we have really been on an emotional roller-coaster. Between the pandemic and politics and world events, not to mention our own colorful lives, it is not at all surprising if we are feeling emotionally depleted. Human beings have lots of feelings. It’s one of the wonderful (and terrible) things about us. We are both thinking and feeling creatures. Emotions are a natural part of our human experience and so, naturally, our emotional capacity is something that can become fatigued and need rest, just like our minds and our bodies. There are lots of ways that we can become emotionally fatigued, but let’s just lay out a few for us to think about. The first way is by not acknowledging the feelings that we have to ourselves. Often times it seems like we need to ignore or squash our feelings in order to get on with our life. We might wonder, how could we possibly get anything done if we are always feeling our feelings? There is sometimes a fear that if we unleash them, our feelings will take over everything. Or perhaps we are ashamed of our feelings. We understand that some feelings are “bad” and so we want to pretend that we don’t have them. But ignoring or squashing our feelings creates its own special kind of fatigue. The feelings are still there, they are just unprocessed. And it takes energy for them to remain that way, just out of our sight. The second way is by not acknowledging the feelings that we have to others. This often has a lot to do with meeting other people’s expectations. Perhaps we think that our feelings will not be acceptable to others, or we struggle with how to articulate them. Perhaps we have been socialized to hide our real feelings in certain situations, like at work, or with our family. This can be totally draining. It takes energy to put on a mask, to present ourselves inauthentically to others. The third way is by being affected by the emotional state of the world in general and other people in particular. Human beings are social animals and emotions are contagious. We can all think of situations in which our emotions are affected by what is going on around us, and who is present with us. Think about the ways we consume the news and how that affects us, how much more connected the world is now and how quickly information can travel. We know so much more now about the challenges experienced in the entire world. Or on a more personal level, think about how we have all needed to show up for each other in new and different ways these last few years; that has been sacred but exhausting emotional work. Now, all of these ways in which our emotional capacity gets fatigued actually originate in a kind of emotional superpower that has gotten out of balance. When working in balance, all of these emotional dynamics just listed are actually good things at their core. In the first case, in not acknowledging our feelings to ourselves, this is an over-extension of our ability to separate our thinking and our feeling. It is a blessing that we can do this at all. We see toddlers learning this skill, to regulate their emotions, in real time as they grow and learn, as they figure out ways to feel their feelings that don’t always involve a complete meltdown when we won’t let them eat Cheerios out of the dogs mouth. Grown ups continue to learn and refine this skill as well. We learn when it is important to compartmentalize our emotions and just get things done. But, emotional fatigue arises if we continue to compartmentalize indefinitely. All feelings need to be felt and processed at some point. In the second case, not acknowledging our feelings to others can actually be a blessing because it means that politeness and civility can exist. Emotions are chaotic, messy, raw and sometimes not nice. If everybody blew up at everyone else every time they felt a little bit frustrated, the world would be a really unpleasant place to live in. Social conventions can be protective; I might want to yell at the person who cut me off in traffic but not doing so is most often better than doing so, and sometimes our trained civilities give us the tiny pause we need to settle down and see things from another person’s perspective. At its best, civility is an act of care for our fellow human beings. At its worst, civility or social convention becomes heavy in the way that a suit of armor is heavy. It can protect but it can also distances us, and its burdens are not always distributed fairly. It can become tiring to have to carry that level of inauthenticity all the time. In the third case, being affected by the emotional state of others is a blessing that allows us to feel empathy. Our brains are wired for this purpose. There are actual neurons, called mirror neurons, whose function is is mirror the emotions witnessed in others. Our brains are wired to feel in solidarity with other human beings. What a powerful design feature! What a blessed, connective gift from God. But, like any neural path, it can get tired. And this fact is complicated by the reality that, while we will often choose to use our gifts of empathy in service for another, by being present for them, witnessing and giving space and permission for them to feel what they need to feel, other times, our mirror neurons might just start firing in response to whoever we’re with, and we become affected by negative emotions unintentionally. Either way, if we don’t process these emotions that we are encountering through our mirror pathways, we will become emotionally fatigued. And it is no fun to be emotionally fatigued. Whatever way you slice it, too much emotional inauthenticity is not good for us. Even if we do it “for the sake of others” we can’t stay out of our own emotional center for long. It pays to become acquainted with our emotional truths, and to get good at processing and accepting them. This is where I want to introduce you to the Buddhist teacher, Tara Brach. She outlines a process called RAIN, which helps to identify, accept and assimilate whatever we might be feeling. The first letter R stands for Recognize. We are invited to take a moment to simply recognize whatever feeling we are feeling, to give it a name and quality. The A stands for Allow. This is the point where we stop pretending or squashing or judging the emotion and give it the space to be there. Tara invites us to tell the emotion that it belongs. The I stands for Investigate. This is the point where we start to ask some gentle questions about our feeling. Where am I feeling this in my body? What is this feeling asking for in response? Is there a need associated with this feeling? And finally, the N stands for Nurture. From our larger sense of self, we offer care to whatever vulnerable or fearful or grieving states have been uncovered by our gentle questioning and attention. This process invites a shift away from ignoring or fearing our emotions towards a compassionate acceptance of them. (1) But aha, you might say! What about emotions that are typically labeled as bad? What about anger, jealousy, pride, fear etc? If I “accept” that I have these emotions, isn’t that excusing them, won’t they then run away with me? It’s important to note that there isn’t a letter in RAIN that stands for letting our emotions call the shots in our actions. The truth is, when we see our emotions clearly, and accept their presence, then we are in true freedom to make a decision about that to do with them. Many times, it is when we try to stuff our emotions down, or pretend that they don’t exist, that we end up unconsciously or unintentionally acting out from them. Picture a tired parent finally losing it after a long day of trying to be “the grown up.” Accepting the presence of any feeling is not the same thing as letting that feeling guide our choices, and in fact acceptance is an integral part of moving beyond our feelings, if we need to. And so, getting emotional rest and renewal can certainly be about putting down the emotional burdens that are tiring us out, but also, it is just as much about doing the work of processing the emotions that we have. This is a good skill to cultivate because we will always have emotions, this part of what makes us human. But interestingly, we won’t always have the ability to hide them. Our Swedenborg reading for today talks about the spiritual realm as a place where inner things are no longer hidden. There is no hypocrisy in the spiritual world, what we think and feel is always apparent. Now, our earthly reaction to this might be “oh no, that sounds terrible!” How embarrassing that our true feelings will always be shining forth! But on the other hand, what freedom! I’m not sure our earthly minds can truly appreciate what it would mean to lay down our natural duplicity. To be at one with oneself, so truly authentic and whole, with no translation from our inner landscape to our outer? What a relief to lay down that burden! And as uncomfortable as the idea might make us feel, I’m quite sure that every angel surrounding us would be an expert practitioner of the RAIN method, especially the Nurture part, for themselves and others. When compassion is the order of the day, authenticity starts to feel more possible. This is of course what God wants for us: to be whole, to be truly ourselves. The only way to get there is to be honest and compassionate with our emotions, and to unflinchingly seek out essential self-knowledge. Jesus modeled that for us in our reading from the gospel of John: 13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 25 “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied…“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Amen. (1) Tara Brach, Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness, p100-101 Readings: John 8:12-20, 25-31 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” 19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?” “You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come. 25 “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. 26 “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” 27 They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him. 31 To the Judeans who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Divine Providence 224 Can anyone fail to see that it is the inner level [of a human being] from which the outer level arises and that the outer level therefore derives its essence from the inner level? Surely everyone knows from experience that the outer level can appear in a guise that differs from the essence that it derives from what lies within. This is obvious in the case of hypocrites, flatterers, and con artists…I mention this because we too can put on pretenses in our civic and moral dealings as well as in our spiritual ones. We know that many people do. [2] …What is hidden shows through…very clearly in the spiritual world, because when we move from this physical world into the spiritual world, which happens when we die, then we leave behind those outward appearances along with our bodies, but keep the inner qualities that were hidden away in our spirits… [3] Let me also add that in the spiritual world there is a sharing of feelings and consequent thoughts, which means that none of us can say anything except what we are actually thinking. Also, our faces change there and become images of our feelings, so others can see from our faces what we are really like. Hypocrites are sometimes allowed to say what they are not thinking, but their tone of voice sounds discordant because of their deeper thoughts, and they can be recognized by this discord. So we can tell that the inner nature is hidden within the tone, the language, the expression, and the gestures of the outer, and that while people in the physical world are not sensitive to this, it is obvious to angels in the spiritual world.  Readings: Psalm 131, Matthew 6:24-35, True Christianity 364:3 (see below)
See also on Youtube here Welcome to the second installment of our sermon series The Seven Types of Rest. I’ve drawn these seven types from the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D. in her book Sacred Rest, and I invite you to check that out if you have any interest. Today, we will be talking about Mental Rest. Friends, I really struggle with this one. One of my regular caveats to this whole series is that I’m not coming to you as someone who has mastered any of these types of rest. But I find getting enough Mental Rest to be particularly difficult. We all, always, have a mental track running in our minds to various degrees at various levels. Prioritizing our to-do lists, thinking about what to make for dinner, what we have coming up on the calendar, things we have done we wish we hadn’t, things we haven’t done that we wish we had, and how we might accomplish other things we want in the future. Not to mention all the other random thoughts that pass through our mental stream. Our minds are grand machines, and good at what they do, which is essentially optimizing prediction. Our minds are tasked with taking care of us, and taking care of the people and things we care about. A lot of the time, they do a really good job. But, the prediction business is always a bit of a gamble, and the temptation to run this scenario or that scenario just one more time is pretty strong. On the face of it, what harm could that do? It’s good to be prepared. It is an act of care to be prepared. But, I find that my mind sometimes gets stuck in a preparation loop, always looking to accomplish a little more, optimize a little further, control things a little better. And what is the feeling that goes along with all that strategizing? Anxiety, right? Even if it just a low purr underneath a mostly functional life, a lack of mental rest can often accumulate and then manifest in the experience of anxiety, or discontentment, or overwhelm. There is a natural limit to what one mind can do, and this is okay. And our minds, like our muscles, need rest and renewal. And so this mental renewal can look like a lot of things. It can look like meditation or contemplative prayer. Listening to music works for a lot of people, because it quiets the mental track in favor of a musical one. Exercise works for some, or a handicraft. There are lots of options and it really is very individual. Our minds are limited just like the rest of our bodies, even if they don’t like to think so, they do need time off. This is, of course, what Jesus was talking about in the (pretty famous) passage from Matthew that we read today. Consider the lilies of the field, says the King James version, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. This passage is part of the sermon on the mount, a wide-ranging speech from Jesus covering many topics. Now, I’ll be honest, I feel really judged by these teachings. Don’t worry, says Jesus. Be like the birds and the flowers, says Jesus. Ok sure, I just won’t worry. Easy-peasy. Well, of course, that is easier said than done. But I think that when we dig a little deeper, we do find a more nuanced teaching than my easily offended ego first sees. Obviously, Jesus in employing a metaphor, as he often does, to try to communicate something of the essence of what he is describing. When we think of a flower of the field, what is it that we think about? Perhaps rootedness, groundedness, but also a kind of natural flexibility, like flowing in the wind. We might think of soaking up the sun and the rain, being in the moment and accepting what the moment brings, growing in the season we are given to grow in. This is a pretty big contrast to one of the passages right before when Jesus was talking about fasting in a hypocritical and performative way. Often times, his followers would point to other spiritual practices and ask what about that, do we need to do that? Jesus would often say no because he understood the question was about checking off a box…doing this to get that, fast or sacrifice or say the right words to get salvation or praise or righteousness. Certainly, fasting can be an effective spiritual practice in the right context (which Jesus describes), but not if it is used in a grasping, ambitious way. That is simply an empty practice. Jesus is speaking right into the predictive tendency of our minds, reminding us that when it comes to spiritual life, to put away the to-do list, because it doesn’t work like that. To focus instead on learning to be be grounded, grateful, and open, and the rest will follow. This is not to mean are to vilify the busyness of our mind, or eschew the day-to-day business of our lives; it’s not all or nothing. As Jesus said, God knows you need those details, and our minds are designed to handle them, but rather, we are invited to see them for what they are: the lovely and precious *externals* of our lives. Any external, to be living rather than an empty shell, must have an internal, and Jesus is saying fill *that* up with all the being-like-a-flower energy. That is the kind of energy that can sustainably power the external details of our lives. Because, it is entirely feasible to check all the external boxes and still be empty on the inside, and this is what Jesus is cautioning us against. Which brings us to the deeper spiritual question that animates this exploration of mental rest, for me at least: what do I need to *do* to be worthy? Our minds are doing machines, tasked with translating plans and desires into reality. Our minds’ natural language and currency is control. So, of course our minds ask this question, even if just as background programming. Tell me what to do to be worthy and safe and successful and I will do it. I’ll put it on the to-do list. But of course there is nothing we need to *do* to be worthy of God’s love. No box we need to check, no words we need to say. We were created out of love, and loved we will remain. This is very difficult for our minds to assimilate. Our minds, tasked with strategizing our safety and survival, find it hard to believe that a moment in which we are not “thinking” is just as full of God as a moment in which we are. And this sometimes feels like an obstacle to taking mental rest. From our mind’s point of view, we are wasting time. But that’s why Jesus used the flower of the field metaphor, to bring us out and away from the way our mind usually understands usefulness and to inhabit a totally different headspace. When I am finding it difficult to make space for mental rest, especially in meditation, when a common practice is to just notice our thoughts but not run away with them, I tell myself that the moments in which my mind is quiet are just as full and meaningful as the moments in which I am actively thinking, planning and doing. This notion is inspired by our Swedenborg reading: In a word, all things are full of God. We each take our own portion from that fullness. (True Christianity 364:3) Moments of mental rest seem to the natural mind like emptiness. And our minds see emptiness as unproductive and so how that can it be good? So I remind myself, moments of quiet, of mental rest, have a usefulness that is beyond what our doing minds can see. They anchor us in our essential worthiness, and uncouple that essential worthiness from our abilities and our accomplishments. The mind sees emptiness but the spiritual reality is very different. Now, of course, to name the other side of the equation, this is not to say that the spiritual path is only passive, is only a letting go. The spiritual path is also very active, with lots of active questions to answer like: What do I need to do be in alignment with God’s purposes? What can I do to become a form of love? How can I help people and leave the world better than I came into it? There are lots of different things we can *do* that will help us transform and grow into the angels that God intends us to be, active things that our minds will be a great help with. But those are transformational questions and today we are dealing with more existential questions. Today, we settle into the truth, that while we are invited into partnership with God in the spiritual journey, we are not earning our worthiness or our belovedness. Our minds believe that they are tasked with achieving what we need and they take that task very seriously. But God has already given the gift of our belovedness, we don’t need to achieve that. And so we are invited to plant ourselves like a flower of the field in the vast soil of our worthiness and to stay grounded in that, and to give our minds permission sway in the breeze from time to time. Amen. Readings: Psalm 131 1 A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. 3 O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. Matthew 6:25-34 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. True Christianity 364:3 [3] The Lord is omnipresent; and everywhere he is present, he is present with his entire essence. It is impossible for him to take out some of his essence and give part of it to one person and another part to another. He gives it all. He also gives us the ability to adopt as much as we wish of it, whether a little or a lot. The Lord says that he has a home with those who do his commandments, and that the faithful are in him and he is in them. In a word, all things are full of God. We each take our own portion from that fullness.  Readings: Psalm 16, I Kings 19:1-8, The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 98 (see below)
See also on Youtube here Photo by Ilham Rahmansyah on Unsplash So my friends, welcome to the first installment of our series on The Seven Types of Rest. I don’t know about you all, but I certainly have become exhausted by the last couple of years, and perhaps it has been the same for you. The pandemic is one part of it, but there are many other things going on in the world that might contribute, not to mention each of our personal lives. I’m seeing a deep weariness in myself and in others, even as we try to live our lives as normally as possible. And I think that one interesting feature of this time is that perhaps we are getting an inkling that it is possible to be exhausted in different ways, not just physically. Certainly I’ve never had so many of my acquaintances complain about insomnia, but it is not only about sleep. We are becoming intimately acquainted with emotional and mental exhaustion too, as we live under high levels of uncertainty, in circumstances requiring high levels of resilience and flexibility. This is a lot to sustain over time, especially when we had use up our initial reserves, our surge capacity, well over a year ago. And so when the idea came to me about doing a series on rest, it felt right, it felt needed, to me at least. So, this is my first caveat for this series: I’m learning alongside you. I’m no expert here, I’m struggling just as much as the next person with making the space for rest, or resting effectively in the ways that I really need. Here is my second caveat: many of these ideas, especially the seven categories of rest which structure this series, they are not my own. I’m relying on work done by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD, and you can find this work her book Sacred Rest, which I invite you to explore if you want to know more. And finally, we acknowledge that talking about rest, about the capacity to make space for it even when it is hard, or not our first inclination, this is a privilege. For some, the necessity financial survival or care-taking responsibility, or the existence of crisis, makes getting enough rest difficult if not impossible, and this lifts up to our eyes the systemic and cultural forces at play. So while this series will focus on the agency that each of us has in our own lives to cultivate rest, that focus does not intend to dismiss the ways in which our culture makes that very hard. But ultimately, hopefully, individuals who value and prioritize rest will work to change our very individualistic and busy-ness-obsessed culture over time. So, the structure of our seven week series will explore these different types of rest: physical, mental, emotional, sensory, social, creative and spiritual. Today we will start out with physical rest. Obviously, we all know how important sleep is; we do it every night and it is impossible to avoid for long. Our bodies and brains require rest and they will take it when necessary. However, sleep is just one aspect of physical rest. Dr. Dalton-Smith defines rest as an activity that purposefully revives the parts of our life that we regularly deplete(1), so it is not just about stillness, it is about renewal. Physical renewal sometimes needs to be active; when we have been sitting for a long time, for example, then walking or stretching constitutes physical rest from a persistent activity, and this can be just as integral to our physical well-being as stillness. Dr. Dalton-Smith prompts us to ask ourselves and our bodies: what do we need? and to pay attention to the answer.(2) We can be angels to ourselves, as in our bible story for today. In that text, Elijah was physically exhausted by running for his life. He had been agitating against King Ahab and his idolatrous worship, and now Queen Jezebel had threatened to exact revenge. Elijah fled, and was now hiding out in the wilderness. At one point, he could physically travel no further and, despairing, he lay down and fell asleep. We can very easily imagine that he had forgotten to eat, from either anxiousness or lack of time or scarcity of food. The angel touched him on the shoulder and reminded him to eat, reminded him that his body needed to be renewed and strengthened for the journey ahead. For, it is one thing to the take the time to perform the rest we need, hard enough as that is, but sometimes I think we might forget to even ask the question, to be that angel for ourselves and to ask, what do I need? I’ll be honest, I rarely forget to eat, but I sure do forget to stretch after working at my computer for a long time. I sure do forget to breathe full deep breaths when I have defaulted to shallow anxious breathing. So, many times part of the problem is that we don’t even ask that question: what do I need? Why? Certainly we might be distracted by our multitude of responsibilities. But perhaps I wonder if there is a deeper reason? Perhaps there is a spiritual question at the heart of it all that we may not even be aware we are asking, which is: am I allowed to need? Am I allowed to need rest and renewal? Am I allowed to have limits? For, we might say, if I am committed to a spiritual path that revolves around rooting out selfishness for the sake of others, am *I* allowed to need, personally? Is it *okay* to need? This might seem like a silly question on the face of it, but I would invite a pause to see: are we trying to answer this question with our head, when really the question is coming from our heart? But before we try to answer that, let’s take a short interlude to consider a central doctrine of the Swedenborgian faith, the doctrine of use. One of the ways Swedenborg conceptualized the human being is that we have a mind and a heart, which we employ together to perform actions, hopefully actions that benefit others. Love and Wisdom working together to perform a Use, an effective and use-full action. This reflects the nature and being of God as well, as we are created in God’s image, and so this triad of love and wisdom working together to be useful is an important way to align ourselves with the divine design. So to Swedenborgians, the question of “how am I being of use?” is not only a practical one but a devotional one. Not just about the satisfaction of checking things off our to-do list, or even just doing something “nice” for someone, but rather, it is about the ways in which we can participate in the transformation of the world. To quote Desmond Tutu: “Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” The downside of such an emphasis though, is that it might focus us more fully on “doing” and less on “being.” We might start to mistake “use” as being about busy-ness, when it is really not about that at all. “Use” as a concept is more relational than that. It is more about inquiring what is needed in a given moment and context and then seeing how we can serve into what that moment and space requires. It is dynamic. And, it necessarily puts us in relationship with others and invites us to consider how we are inter-connected and all part of a whole. Because, if we are to perform useful, effective and loving actions, well, someone has to receive them. We can’t all be givers all the time. So, part of the formulation of the doctrine of usefulness has to include the part about sometimes being the receiver. When we all both give and receive, this is a much more dynamic and resilient design than if things were only one-sided. Which brings us back around to our question: is it okay to need? Fundamentally? It has to be. We have been created as beings that can be useful, who can give, but in order to fulfill our design, we need to be able to give to each other. Need is an integral part of the way things are set up. It *is* okay to need. It is not shameful, it is necessary. And if it is okay to need, to have needs, then it is also okay to fulfill them. Maybe this all sounds so simple, but I know that there are times that I forget this even this very simple principle. Now, sometimes only others will be able fulfill our needs. And sometimes the work of usefulness is to mindfully and reverently fulfill our own needs. Our Swedenborg reading today talks about the importance of being a neighbor to ourselves. Of course, it also talks about grounding that importance in care for others, and love to God, so that a focus on our own needs doesn’t become overridingly selfish. We spend plenty of time preaching about selflessness in church, and it is an important spiritual practice. But today, and in this series, we are working to create a balance that allows for becoming a sustainable giver. And part of this will involve paying attention to what our physical bodies are telling us. To listen to see if they are telling us that it is time to lie down, stretch, move, breathe, or dance. We will be returning to these themes of need and usefulness throughout this series. For today, let us resolve to have compassion for our needs, especially our physical ones, to give them space and permission to exist. They won’t always be perfectly met, but at least the habit of gentle questioning, and the assumption that need is actually okay, might open up a little more awareness of how we can be angels to ourselves. 7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. (I Kings 19:7-8) Amen. (1) Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD, Sacred Rest" Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, p16 (2) Ibid, p42. Readings: Psalm 16 1 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” 4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips. 5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. 11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. I Kings 19:1-8 1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” 3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. 7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine #98 The following example may show how we are to be neighbors to ourselves. We all need to provide our bodies with their food and clothing. This needs to come first, but the object is to have a sound mind in a sound body. Further, we all need to provide food for our minds, meaning things that build our intelligence and wisdom, but the object is that our minds will be able to be of service to our fellow citizens, our community, our country, the church, and therefore the Lord. If we do this we are providing for our well-being to eternity. We can see from this that what should come first is the *purpose* for which we do something, because everything depends on that. It is also like building a house. First we need to lay the foundation, but the purpose of the foundation is the house, and the purpose of the house is living in it. If we think being neighbor to ourselves is actually the most important thing, this is like regarding not the house or living in it but the foundation as our final goal. But in reality, from start to finish, living in the house is the true goal, and the house and its foundation are only means to this end.  Readings: I Samuel 2:18-20, 26, Luke 2:41-52, True Christianity 89 (see below)
See also on Youtube As a mother, I have to tell you, this text is really hard to read! First, there is the anxiety of losing your child. All parents, or anyone looking after a young child, have experienced their hearts in their throat at some point, when they realize that the child is not where they expected them to be. Then, can you imagine having to search for three days! I’d be an utter wreck. And then, additionally, there is the sass that Jesus delivers! The kind of sass only a pre-teen can accomplish. “Why were you searching for me?” WHY? YOU KNOW WHY? IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS! Seriously, I’m about to burst into flames right here on the pulpit. I need to take a deep breath! As much as I would rather not explore it though, this text is an extremely rich one. It is the only account in the gospels of an event in between the infancy and the adult ministry of Jesus. In biographies of famous figures of that day, stories of a precocious childhood were common. In particular, the Emperor Augustus was known to have eulogized his grandmother to great effect at the age of twelve (1). So already, the gospel writer is telegraphing Jesus’ superiority to the emperor. We also begin the story with Jesus’ whole family going to Jerusalem for Passover. All male Israelites were required to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, and some other religious festivals, once a year. The journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem would probably have taken four or five days by foot. Clearly, Mary and Joseph are observant and diligent Jews, and Jesus’ facility with the Torah in the temple anchors him firmly in the Jewish tradition. Such pilgrimages from country to city would have taken place in groups for the sake of safety, and we can probably surmise, in the form of extended families. We also might surmise a more communal parenting style than we are familiar with today, arising from a pastoral village setting, so it is not entirely unbelievable that Mary and Joseph might have thought Jesus was just hanging out with his cousins. Children can be extremely reluctant to come home when they are having a good time with their friends! But we can also imagine the panic felt by Mary and Joseph when they realized Jesus was missing, how quickly they must have tried to travel back, how confused and frantic they must have felt while retracing their steps. We don’t know if they spent three whole days searching in Jerusalem, or if the three days includes the travel back to the city, but clearly they didn’t go straight to the temple. The text tells us they were astonished to find Jesus there. Probably they went first to the family they had been staying with, then perhaps to friends, then probably the marketplace, or some other place where children might hang out. Why did they not think to check the temple sooner? To Jesus, it seemed obvious that they were searching the wrong places for him. But it wasn’t obvious to Mary and Joseph. Why not? Even with all they had seen and heard, even as they knew their son was special, they didn’t assume that he would be in God’s house, attentive to God’s business. In similar ways, we too might look for fulfillment, and meaning in places that do not necessarily serve us. What are the lyrics to that famous song? “Looking for love in all the wrong places”? In our day to day lives, we are driven by the human desire to feel safe, content, fulfilled, and engaged. We look toward many different things to satiate those desires. We look to various kinds of entertainment to engage our minds, sports teams or other groups to satisfy our tribal instincts, social media to feed our desire for connection, food to satisfy our desire for safety and sufficiency. We look to money for material comfort and upward mobility, to power for worthiness, to-do lists and technology for control, and many many other individual variations of these things. These are just some examples of ways that we try to inject meaning into our lives, ways to make us feel okay, ways to make us feel settled, safe, included and worthy. And what do these efforts lead to? *Do* they lead us to feel we have meaningful lives? *Do* we feel safe, settled, included and worthy on their account? Sometimes we do, in the short term. But just as often we just feel restless, empty, not quite there yet, stressed. Studies have shown that human beings are not actually very good at predicting what will make us happy and fulfilled over time(2). Martin Luther King Jr, in a speech during the Montgomery bus boycott entitled, “The Birth of a New Age(3)” spoke of the kind of leaders we need to propel our society forward, to midwife our society into a form that he called “the beloved community.” He said: “We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity.” One thing I find interesting in this quote is that it implies a recognition that human beings must love something, must find meaning somewhere. So, the question becomes *what* are we in love with? What is driving us? What is the soul of our work? Where are we finding meaning? In money or justice? In publicity or the common good? Because, the problem is not so much looking in the wrong places, as if God can be found only in one place, in the temple or in church, as if some parts of this world are inherently good and others are not. The problem is loving our various distractions for themselves instead of how they can be infilled with God. Things like money and publicity are in actuality neutral; how we use them and why determines how present God will be in them. For example: I recently gave money to a GoFundMe campaign for a friend of a friend who was experiencing some challenges (I’m sure many of you have done similarly for other causes). This involved both money and publicity as referenced in the King quote above. However, money that contributes to the the well-being of others when they need it the most is, of course, filled with God’s love and usefulness. Likewise the publicity, the social media platform that allowed me to know about this person. For all of the flaws inherent in social media, (and there are many!) in that moment and for that purpose, it was Godly and heavenly. What an honor, a miracle really, to be able to help someone so materially and easily, with just a keystroke. We also know this: that various entertainments can have a usefulness that is as simple and rest and rejuvenation, and as complex as introducing us to new perspectives and ideas we can reflect upon. Likewise food; as much as it can be abused it is a conduit for care and love, for bringing people together, for presence and gratitude. Even power, something that the gospel teaches us to be incredibly suspicious of, when used to help others can be a good thing, when used properly it can birth us all into a better world. We know from the Christmas story that God can and does enter into this world in ways that we might not expect. That God can and does enter into this world through forms that we might dismiss or disparage. We recall from our Swedenborg reading, that this is in fact, part of the divine design. All in the universe, including us, have been created so that they can welcome the divine, can be prepared to be infilled with the Lord. When space is made, when all that is self-serving is cleared out, then God enters as if coming in to God’s own dwelling. This is what we prayed for in our Christmas Eve prayer from Sister Joyce Rupp, that *we* might all be God’s Bethlehem in the here and now. And this is our choice: We can love all those things that distract us from God as things in and of themselves, and they *will* fulfill their purpose, they *will* distract us. But when we see that God has created all things to be a vessel for partnership, then these things can be transformed. It is not about looking in the wrong places per se, because God can be, and is, in all those places that Mary and Joseph looked in first. God is in the marketplace, the playground, the library, the shopping mall, the office. Instead, it is about recognizing divine interconnectedness as the blueprint of the world. Jesus was in the temple bringing our attention to this divine interconnectedness. “Didn’t you know that I had to be in *my Father’s* house?” he said. In the Greek, there isn’t actually a noun at the end of this sentence, and translators will fill in the gaps with “my Father’s house”, or “about my Father’s business.” But really, the most literal translation “to be in that which is my Father’s.” It is more that Jesus was saying: Didn’t you know that I had to inhabit my divine inheritance? Didn’t you know that I had to be present to my relationship to Spirit? Didn’t you know that I had to be present to the divine order that calls us to partnership, that calls us to depth and connection? Jesus is calling us to see that loving God first, and loving the things God loves, infills and enlivens everything else, due to God’s living relationship with us and the world. It is when our allegiance is given to the distracting thing, then we will be lost and continually searching. When, for example, we love money for sake of having more and not for the good it can do, when we love publicity for the sake of self-gratification and not for purpose of connection and enlightenment, that is when we will have trouble finding God, because we have closed down our capacity for partnership. So, we return to the question: What are we in love with? For what we love will affect what we are able to discover. Mary and Joseph were clearly loving Jesus as their son, their boy, and so they looked for him in places where a twelve-year-old boy might be. Could we not imagine that Mary and Joseph hurried past the temple without looking inside, in a rush to retrace their steps. Jesus, however, with a burgeoning knowledge of his connection to the divine, was growing beyond their expectation, just as our Lord calls us to grow beyond our own expectation of where God should be, to see opportunities for partnership, for God’s indwelling, everywhere. Amen.
Readings: I Samuel 2:18-20, 26 18 But Samuel was ministering before the LORD—a boy wearing a linen ephod. 19 Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice. 20 Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, “May the LORD give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the LORD.” Then they would go home. 26 And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the LORD and with people. Luke 2:41-52 41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them. 51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. True Christianity 89 In the process of taking on a human manifestation, God followed his own divine design. …in the act of creating, God introduced his design into the universe as a whole and into each and every thing in it. Therefore in the universe and in all its parts God's omnipotence follows and works according to the laws of his own design…. Now, because God came down, and because he is the design, there was no other way for him to become an actual human being than to be conceived, to be carried in the womb, to be born, to be brought up, and to acquire more and more knowledge so as to become intelligent and wise. Therefore in his human manifestation he was an infant like any infant, a child like any child, and so on with just one difference: he completed the process more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us do. …The Lord's life followed this path because the divine design is for people to prepare themselves to accept God; and as they prepare themselves, God enters them as if he were coming into his own dwelling and his own home… It is a law of the divine design that the closer and closer we come to God, which is something we have to do as if we were completely on our own, the closer and closer God comes to us. When we meet, God forms a partnership with us.  Readings: Psalm 28, Luke 1:39-45, Secrets of Heaven #545 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Sebastian Voortman from Pexels This week we will take some time to center the character of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is introduced within the first five verses of the book of Luke and is the mother of John the Baptist, who we focused on last week. We learn that she is the wife of a priest named Zechariah; they are childless and quite old. But Elizabeth will soon enter into the biblical tradition of miraculous pregnancies. An angel appears to Zechariah to tell him that Elizabeth will conceive and bear a son, and they are to call him John. “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to make ready people for the Lord.” (v17) And soon, just as the angel said, Elizabeth falls pregnant. After a few months, Elizabeth’s relative, Mary, comes to her with her own miraculous story. Mary is pregnant too, the miracle being not her age, but that her womb will grow the earthly body of the living God. The beauty of this story is in its mystery. All Mary needed to do was say an initial greeting: “Hello, Elizabeth….!?” as we all might do at the door of a trusted friend. And the baby John, growing, developing, in his quiet and dark space, was shocked awake by the sound. Something about the call of Mary’s voice activated the Holy Spirit within John, and we are told the baby “leaped for joy.” It is hyperbole, of course. But it serves to illustrate the mystical connection between Jesus and John, one that will be so beautifully illustrated when John baptizes Jesus at the Jordan river some thirty years later. In this moment though, despite the baby’s leaping, it is Elizabeth who gives voice to the movement of the spirit with what are sometimes called her “four oracles.” First, she declares the blessedness of Mary. This blessedness, which seems so clear to us now, was patently ridiculous then. Mary was unmarried, and we can imagine what kind of tumult her pregnancy was going to cause her family, and her betrothed, Joseph. Mary was insignificant in the scheme of things; a teenager of no particular family or reputation, an oppressed minority under the thumb of a brutal empire. From an earthly perspective, her life was about to fall apart. But Elizabeth declares her blessed. Second, she affirms the identity of Mary’s child. Mary is about to sing her Magificat, her hymn about what God is going to do with her, how Jesus will affect a mighty change in the power structures of the world. But even before that, Elizabeth affirms that Mary is, that someone like Mary could be, the vessel for that kind of change. And, she affirms the identity of Jesus but though Mary, using the term Mother of my Lord, lifting up the fact that God chose to work through women in a patriarchal society. Third, she interprets the leap of her baby within her. With all that we have already said, that in earthly terms Mary’s pregnancy of not a good thing, that it is ridiculous to think that someone like Mary could be so pivotal, into circumstances under which we would all be aghast and overwhelmed and unbelieving, Elizabeth speaks of joy. And in a much more elemental way than “this good news for you makes me happy.” She speaks of what God is doing in electric terms, of life’s deep knowledge that God always reaches out to us and that this is good. She gives words to the fact that in the quantum space between sound and cell there was a communication, there was a missive of love that we call spirit. And it caused a reaction that Elizabeth called joy. The animation of still-developing life recognizing life. And fourth, she declares another beatitude upon Mary for her faith. We don’t actually know the wholeness of Mary’s mental state at this time. She utters her sacred yes in the previous verses: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” And soon she will sing of the possibilities in the future, but in the in-between, we can imagine she might have felt some worry. But Elizabeth lifts up Mary’s faith in God’s promises. We can read this as the promises that the angel fortold, of Jesus birth, but also Mary will soon sing of greater promises, of a just society, of full bellies, of the ascent of the humble rather than the arrogant. Mary has a faith around God’s intention for the world, and is willing to play her part in bringing this into being. This opportunity brings her joy and so she sings: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” (Luke 1:46) Elizabeth becomes the conduit through which the joy in Mary and the joy in John are connected. It is amazing to think that this is the same rough and ready John the Baptist from our text last week, the one hurling epithets about vipers and warning about the winnowing fork and the fire. Today we find that the urgency of his call was born out of joy, was born out of an electric leaping in utero at the sound of Mary’s voice, and the promise that she represented. And Mary, born into a dangerous world of empire that we can hardly fathom now (but many in this world still can), accepting a mission that might well ostracize her, or impoverish her, and that would later require her family to flee as political refugees, into this reality she speaks of joy as well. If joy is possible for Mary, it is possible anywhere, and this is a radical hope. It communicates to us that we are made for joy. That the very existence of joy is a simple declaration of God’s original intention for us, for a good God would not make beloved children for any other purpose. But of course, if we are not feeling joy, that is not an indictment of us, that we are somehow defective, or defensive, or unfeeling. There are many reasonable and understandable reasons to not feel joyful. The challenge of the spiritual journey is to acknowledge the fact that we are made for joy, without also making the experience of joy an imperative in every moment. We must hold very gently the potential unhelpfulness of the question: If joy is a natural preordained state, then what am I doing or not doing that is getting in the way of it? There are times that this question is a useful one. Sometimes our ambition, or our distraction, or our selfishness gets in the way of the simple joy that is available to us when we quiet ourselves down, or when we open our eyes to what is already present, or when we serve someone other than ourselves. Sometimes we are looking for joy in the wrong places, and once we recognize that, we are freer to seek joy where it will actually find us. But other times, joy does not feel accessible at all, and this is not our fault. There is trauma and brokenness and loss in this world, and the appropriate and unavoidable reaction is often sadness, grief and lament. We need to recall that Elizabeth said: blessed is she, not joyful is she. Just as the beatitudes declare “blessed are those who are poor, who weep or hunger” as a way of expressing love, care and concern for those who are normally forgotten and marginalized, so too does Elizabeth’s beatitudes upon Mary pronounce a blessedness that is counter to her circumstances. The beatitudes of the gospels declare a state of inherent worthiness of each of our beings that does not depend upon our emotional state or our productiveness, and so too we hear a beatitude upon Mary that is anchored in a larger trust in God’s promises, a larger trust in God’s ultimate intentions, and not in her feeling in any given moment. It can be difficult to hold lament in one hand and trust in the other. Even now we might be feeling a mounting tension and uncertainty around rising covid cases, around the state of the world, or other events in our lives. But what we do know from our Swedenborg reading today, is that heavenly joy resides in our inmost recesses, in the deepest and most secret parts of our being. This capacity for joy is always with us. It is a part of God’s order of heaven and of life, part of the web of experience to which we are always connected. We won’t always feel it, and that is okay. Lament is the price of love, the price of moral concern for those around us. But we may also know that, even when it is quiescent, the capacity for joy is our baseline, an integral part of our operating instructions. At times, perhaps this capacity will come alive with a leap that we weren’t expecting. At times, this capacity will rest within us, softly waiting for a time it can be born. And so, we learn in Advent that we can trust in God’s promises, not even so much what God will do but what God has done already. Amen. Readings: Psalm 28 1 To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit. 2 Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. 3 Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts. 4 Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve. 5 Because they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD and what his hands have done, he will tear them down and never build them up again. 6 Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy. 7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. 8 The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. 9 Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever. Luke 1:39-45 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Secrets of Heaven #545 In order to teach me about the existence and nature of heaven and heavenly joy, the Lord has given me the opportunity to perceive the pleasures of heavenly joy frequently and for extended periods. Because I have learned these things by actually experiencing them, I possess the knowledge but cannot possibly put it into words. To offer just an idea of it: The countless pleasures and joys there, which come together to create a single experience shared by all, carry with them a certain emotion. Within that common experience, or that common emotion, are points of harmony among a boundless number of feelings. These individual points of harmony do not come clearly but only vaguely to our awareness, because our perception is extremely generalized. Even so, I was allowed to perceive that there were countless parts, organized in a way that can never be described. Those countless parts flow from the order that exists in heaven, which determines their nature. [2] The smallest individual elements of an emotion are organized in such a way that they are presented and sensed only as a collective whole, according to the capacities of the person who feels the emotion. In a word, every whole has an unlimited number of parts, organized in the most perfect way; every one of the parts is alive; and every one of them affects us, all the way to our inmost recesses. For the inmost recesses are where heavenly joy comes from |
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