The Woman and the Dragon

Readings: Revelation 12:1-9, 13-17, Apocalypse Revealed 533:1,3 (see below)
​See also on Youtube ​youtu.be/7a9UIkBh-nY
Photo by Mier Chen on Unsplash

Today we are celebrating, a little late, a traditional Swedenborgian holy day, June 19th. On this day, we celebrate the amazing ways that God is always breathing life into our spiritual journeys, individually and collectively, and we celebrate the vision that this reality suggests: that God has a dream for humanity, and that God is working to help us achieve it. This vision is what Swedenborg has called a New Church, and is pictured in the book of Revelation by a beautiful city descending from the sky called the New Jerusalem. This is of course, where our church gets its name: The Church of the Holy City. It is named thus, so that as we gather together in the here and now, we also look forward and work to cooperate with what God is doing in the world and for the world. 

Now, there is another metaphor used for the New Church in the book of Revelation though, and that is “the women clothed with the sun” from Chapter 12, which is our reading for today. 

But first, a note on The New Church, as a phrase:

The Swedenborgian movement has historically called itself The New Church, on our best days we know that it is only aspirational, that the New Church will never actually be bounded by bylaws, boards, membership, and committees. We make that structure because humans beings can accomplish more when we work together, and it makes us happy to gather with each other. But the phenomenon of “church” (defined in Swedenborg’s mystical way) exists wherever people work to take care of each other, raise their hearts and minds beyond their own self, and look to a higher power to help them do that. 

Certainly, human beings have always been able to do that, so “church” (mystically defined) has always existed. But there are also times when human capacities for spirituality need revitalization, especially if the earthly structures and the forms of church that we have devised are actually starting to get in the way of people caring, loving, and growing spiritually. 

Much of Swedenborg’s works are him arguing against human theologies that *are* getting in the way, particularly the kinds where we try to buy or talk our way into salvation. There is no short cut into salvation - is always whole-person transformation and nothing less, an eternal journey towards healing and wholeness, powered by the ways we connect our faith (what we believe) with the ways that we reach out to serve and love others.

So, sometimes in human systems there needs to be a newness brought to bear — God is indeed always doing a new thing! When we talk about there being a New Church, what we mean is a movement away from trying to find short-cuts to spiritual healing and wholeness, and a movement into accepting that salvation can only occur when the love in our hearts and the faithfulness in our minds work together towards the project of mutual love. There are many in the world that already understand this! And of course, it is an ongoing lesson for us all.

But let us now return to the figure of the woman clothed with the sun. She represents this revitalization of human spirituality, this New Church, in particular, the ways that it now exists in heaven, for everything on earth is connected to everything in heaven. She is clothed with the sun because any such revitalization must have the love of God at its core, and we learned in our meditation several weeks ago that the Lord appears in heaven as the sun.

The moon beneath her feet represents the New Church on earth, reflecting those rays of the Divine sun as best we can, but not being the origin of them. Swedenborg notes that since all things in heaven and earth are connected; there could be no New Church in heaven if there is not one on earth, and vice versa. Yet, we note the *separation* of the sun and the moon in this picture; what of that? The mystical church on earth and the mystical church in heaven *are* connected, yet always working towards full conjunction. We are a work in progress, in the process of becoming ever more connected. Or, to use a Lutheran phrase to describe the character of it: “already but not yet.” We are already connected but our union is not yet full and complete. There will always be more work to do. So, what is it that actually conjoins us with God and the heavenly church? The work of love, of course.(1) We unite ourselves with God and heaven when we love what God loves and when we act in accordance with that. But let us return to that in a moment.

Because the next question is a little less heart-warming. We have already asked what conjoins, so the next question is: what fractures, what separates? What devours?

Here we come to the great red dragon from the story. The woman is in labor and gives birth to a child, representing all the humane perspectives that a revitalized human spirituality will center: God is Divine Love & Wisdom, God is always forgiving, God made heaven for all, salvation is available to all who live the kindest life they can, sacred scripture speaks on many levels, all religions can be a path to God, and more.

Yet the dragon wishes to devour such humane, useful, effective ideas, to center other ideas instead. Ideas that make God and spirituality punishing, exclusive, materialistic. Ideas that center power, rigidity, cruelty. Ideas that tell us we should be out for ourselves, that mutual love is weakness, that faith need only be the right words to the right person, that some deserve salvation more than others.

We see the dragon everywhere, everywhere around us and everywhere within. A desire to connect more authentially with others in our life might be devoured by a fear of vulnerability. A desire to connect with God more intentionally is devoured by our lack of follow-through. A desire to apologise is devoured by our sense of pride. 

A desire to be a more welcoming church, town, country is devoured by a fear of change. A desire to take care of the vulnerable is devoured by a lack of generosity. A desire for integrity and process is devoured by the hunger for power.

There is much that stands in the way. But ultimately, though the dragon and what it represents stands there waiting, what I see connecting the New Church in heaven and the New Church on earth is the phenomenon of labor: the work of it, the pain of it, beauty of it, the courage of it, and the sheer creativity of it. The phrase “a labor of love” is a phrase for a reason; we know the truth of it. We might think of the New Church, this revitalization of the human spirituality and what it can achieve, as the opposite of a black hole: something that is continually birthing new, thoughtful, caring, brilliant, helpful, comforting things that can assist in our spiritual journeys. These things might be birthed in churches, or in spiritual movements, but they can certainly be birthed in many other places too. Anywhere or anyplace that looks to learn and grow in service and love, in movements of all kinds that stand for justice, hope and peace.

And so then, our work is two-fold, to facilitate and assist in birthing the newness, the comfort, the preciousness of every tiny piece of spiritual growth we and the world might make, and then to be vigilant against the dragon that would devour them. And I hesitate to use such language, because such language is so often used to pit human beings against each other. You’re the dragon, no you’re the dragon. Battle metaphors are powerful *and* flawed tools.

But we know the world, and we know our own hearts, do we not, my friends? There *are* forces, habits, tendencies within us that will swallow our good intentions whole. And what is the world made of, but us? We need to be able to see the dragon with clarity, to know the way it is appearing within us, and work to let go of the claws that it has in us, while at the same time resisting the dragon’s sneaky disguises as “othering” or as shame, or as judgmental pride.  Instead, we look to the story and see that the child is protected by being sent up to God. We protect the preciousness birthed by the New Church by first and foremost relinquishing ownership, surrendering pride and power and merit, and centering God instead of ourselves.

There are many ways to picture the powerful story of God’s presence with us, of God’s vision for humanity. The woman clothed with the sun is a beautiful one that speaks to us on many levels. It communicates to us a timeless sense of connection, generativity, beauty and protection, as well as the reality of what stands against those things. As we celebrate New Church day, today and in the future, I hope we all might be in equal parts hopeful, clear-eyed, and willing to labor. Amen.

(1) Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven #1068


Readings:

Revelation 12:1-9, 13-17
1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.
4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.
8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.
15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.
16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.
17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.


Apocalypse Revealed 533:1,3
A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet. This symbolizes the Lord's New Church in heaven, which is the New Heaven, and the New Church to come on earth, which is the New Jerusalem.
…The woman here appeared clothed with the sun because the church is governed by love toward the Lord; for it acknowledges Him and keeps His commandments, and that is loving Him (John 14:21-24). 
The moon appeared under the woman's feet because it means the church on earth, which was not yet conjoined with the church in heaven. The moon symbolizes the intelligence in a natural person, and faith (no. 413). And its being seen under the woman's feet means, symbolically, that it was a church to come on earth…
[3] The church in heaven does not continue in existence unless it is conjoined with a church on earth, because heaven where angels are, and the church where people are, function together, like the internal and external components in a person…