 Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-22, Mark 1:21-28, Divine Providence 230:2, Secrets of Heaven 668 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Eduardo Goody on Unsplash We join Jesus today at the begining of his minstry in the gospel of Mark, right after he has called his first disciples to follow him. They reach the town of Capernaum, and Jesus goes into the synagogue and begins to teach. It is not so unusual that Jesus would have engaged in a public reading and exposition of the Torah - this was the purpose of the synagogue - but rather that his teachings began to put him in conflict with the experts in the law, the scribes. He was starting to preach something different, something that made the people sit up and take notice, something that made the religious leaders uncomfortable. What is interesting is that Mark characterizes less what Jesus says, but how he said it. He tells us Jesus taught with “authority” and that was part of what the people, and indeed, the impure spirit, were responding to. We’ll leave modern interpretations of exorcisms to another day. For now, I’d like to focus on the question of authority: why did Jesus have it, and why was that important to the people listening? To understand why the Jewish people would sit up and take notice of someone teaching with authority, we need to take a detour through Deuteronomy. It is the fifth book of the bible, traditionally ascribed to Moses, and takes the form of various Mosaic speeches and acts, providing a supplement and an expansion of the of the original law, including the ten commandments, which we hear about in Exodus. The book experienced “several stages of growth and editing,” coming together during the Babylonian exile and after it, as Israel worked to reclaim its identity, both internally and politically. So in our reading, in the midst of this reclamation of identity and nationhood, we see the careful balancing of the powers in religious life. In making a covenant with the people, God had established Godself as the ultimate authority, but understandably, the people had always required some kind of accommodation of that authority in their context. So, God gave them the law, and the priesthood, and finally a king. But, the problem with authority passed down by inheritance, like the priesthood and kingship, is the rise of orthodoxy. Therefore, God also gave authority to prophets. When the authority of the king or the priests calcified into something that no longer served the people but served the elite, God sent prophets to preach a word that challenged the status quo. A word new enough shatter complacency but old enough to remind the people what had been true all along. These prophets are an incredibly important part of Jewish tradition, they are an embodiment of God’s continual care and love, a compassionate God who cares enough to send correction when God’s people have gone astray. This is one of the reasons that the question of “authority” was important to the Jews in Jesus’ context and why they were so attuned to it. They had a tradition of prophets rising up to challenge the status quo, and so the people were always on the look out. But, the particular people who wrote and collated Deuteronomy were not prophets but priests. They recognized the importance of prophets to the balance of righteous power but they also feared them. They feared for their own position, of course. Those ensconced in orthodoxy rarely believe it is right for it to be dismantled or reformed. But also, there is a potential dark side to prophetism. Such a back door into God’s authority can leave a space open for bad actors and profiteers. Vulnerable people will often believe anything that gives them hope. But not everyone who claims to speak for God, does. Not everyone who claims to speak the truth, does. So, the Deuteronomists were attempting to set up some boundaries. They wanted to limit the influence of outsiders, so they said prophet must rise up from “among your own people” and they wanted leave a high bar, so it needed to be someone “like Moses,” their most revered prophet. And then they also provided some guidelines for answering the question: how do we know when someone is speaking for God? How do we know if what they say is the truth? The first guideline is that the prophet should not speak in the name of other gods. On the face of it, that seems pretty simple. If they say it doesn’t come from the one true God, then it doesn’t come from God. But speaking in the name of other gods isn’t always so straight forward. In Swedenborgian sense, a name symbolizes the character, the essential nature of a thing. If you are familiar with the play by Arthur Miller, the Crucible, the main character is asked to sign his name to a document professing his guilt in order to gain his freedom. Many others had already done so. But he is not guilty of the crime and he cannot bring himself to do it because his name, to him, is not only what he is called by others, but what he stands for as a person. Speaking in the name of other gods is also about speaking with allegiance to the character of not only other gods, but other powers, other priorities. In the words of one of my commentaries it is preaching “doctrines which teach the soul to worship other things as supreme.” Other things like money, power, influence, celebrity, pleasure, security, the list goes on. So a true prophet does not lift up priorities that are antithetical to God’s kingdom, does not invite us to worship things other than God, does not call us to value things which God has cautioned us against valuing. The other guideline this chapter provides is that the word of prophecy must come true. Already, this is a tricky one. The Israelites, post-exile, were chastened that they did not listen to their many prophets who preached destruction, for that did indeed come to pass. And yet, we heard several weeks back the story of Jonah, about a prophet who did preach destruction but found that prophecy averted by the Ninevites’ repentance. As we know having come through a modern pandemic, it is often very hard to prove the realness of a disaster averted. But the prophetic word is not always about predictions of calamity; remember it is a new word about what has always been true. The prophets were bringing the people back to the covenant, back to what they knew was right. This is a type of word that can be proven true in the course of our own lives. Is it better to love than to hate? Is it better to tell the truth than to lie? What happens when we respect our parents, our neighbors, our spouses according to the commandments? What happens when we look after the most vulnerable among us? The truth of this type of prophecy is borne out everyday, right in front of us. The realness of God’s divine truth is not an abstract thing; its realness comes to pass in the small moments between people just as readily as in the “arc of the moral universe.” So, the first guideline is prompting us to pay attention to what a prophet is calling upon us to love and serve. The second guideline is prompting us to take a look at the form of the prophecy and the fruit that it bears. Do the words encourage us to love or hate, do the words encourage us to act with courage and integrity? Because, for something to be true, it must be giving form to love. If it is not giving form to love then it is not true. From our Swedenborg reading: no truth can be brought forth unless love exists within it. If it is giving form to love of the Lord and love of the neighbor, then it is true. If it is giving form to self-love, giving form to love of dominion, giving form to fear….then what is being preached is falsity, no matter how appealing, how pragmatic, how right it may sound. We will know a prophet by what they tell us to love and by what they tell us to do. So, the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were urgently waiting for a prophet to rise up and speak truth to power. As an occupied people under the boot of Rome, with a political and religious elite complicit in their efforts to retain control, they hoped and prayed for a word from God that would change their dire circumstances. By their tradition, they were finely attuned to the authority of the prophet, and they saw it in Jesus that day. We too look for prophets, in our day and age, even if we don’t necessarily understand people to speak for God as directly as in ancient Israel. Perhaps we don’t always look for religious prophets, but political and cultural prophets certainly. It is a natural human tendency to resist the calcification of our institutions, to try to introduce some fresh air into fossilized ways of doing things. God knows this, and the Deuteronomists knew this. But prophets are not always recognized in their day. Many did not recognize Jesus for what he was, many did not recognize the word of God being spoken in their midst. Likewise, often it is only the passage of time that proves the truth of the prophet. As many have reminded us this past Martin Luther King day, Dr King was not popular in his day. He is oft quoted now, and is much admired, but Gallup polls in the 1960s show a very different picture. In a a survey in 1963, the year before Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize, just under half of the respondents had a negative view of him, with a fourth having an extremely negative view of him. Much of white america did not approve of Dr. King’s actions during the civil rights movement. And we can see why; he was employing the prophet’s refrain…Repent! Open your eyes to the suffering of the marginalized! The *purpose* of the prophet is to make us feel uncomfortable, to help us see where God’s kingdom is yearning to be born more fully. And we don’t always welcome that reminder. But, let us apply the rubric: what was Dr. King calling on us to love? Our fellow human beings. What was he calling on us to do? Give form to that love through the granting of equal rights. Dr. King’s good friend and colleague, Rabbi Heschel has written, that “the purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness….prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: few are guilty, but all are responsible.”(1) As we will learn as we journey though Mark this year, Jesus will not be satisfied with an understanding of power and authority that is apart from sacrifice. Many will marvel at his miracles, at his teaching, but Jesus meant for these to be a call to action, to responsibility, to an embrace of a kingdom in which servanthood and mutual love reign. Having our eyes opened to the moral state of our lives, individually, socially, nationally, can be very painful. But it can also be transformational, because the recognition of the authority of divine truth is just as much a call as any of Jesus’ disciples received. The question is: are we listening? Amen. (1) Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets: An Introduction, p16-17 Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-22 15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” 17 The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” 21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. Mark 1:21-28 21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. 27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. Divine Providence 230:2 We can see from this that in the Word, "the name of God" means both God and everything divine that is in God and that emanates from God. Since the Word is a divine emanation, it is a name of God; and since all the divine gifts that we refer to as the spiritual gifts of the church come from the Word, they too are a name of God. Secrets of Heaven 668 …Indeed no truth can ever be brought forth unless some good or delight exists for it to spring from. Within good and delight there is life, but not within truth apart from that which it derives from good and delight. It is from these that truth is given form and develops, even as faith, which is connected with truth, is given form by and develops out of love, which is connected with good. Truth is like light; there is no light apart from that which flows from the sun or flame. It is from these that light is given form. Truth is merely the form which good takes, and faith merely the form which love takes. The form that truth takes depends therefore on the character of its good, as does that of faith on that of its love or charity.
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 Readings: Genesis 28:10-19, John 1:43-51, Secrets of Heaven #3539:2, #3701 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Johannes Plenio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/spiral-staircase-1102913/ Today we hear the story of Nathaniel’s conversion. As a character, he does not appear in any gospel apart from John, and is absent from the other gospel lists of the twelve disciples. This is not surprising though; the gospel of John does not seem to define discipleship as narrowly, or formally, as the other gospels. In this gospel, Nathanael appears twice; in our text for today, and also later when Jesus appears by the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection. He seems something of a relatable figure, doesn’t he? Perhaps it is easy to recognize his skepticism in ourselves and others. Nathanael hails from Cana, and people from Cana generally despised folks from Nazareth. So, when he scoffs that nothing good can come from Nazareth, he is revealing his pre-existent bias. We all often fall into bias or prejudice, forming opinions from preconceptions, and we deserve to be challenged on it, drawn away from it, especially if we are public figures who set the tone for national discourse. Yet thankfully, Nathanael does not appear to be hardened in his ideas; he accepts Philips invitation to “come and see.” Upon seeing Nathanael, Jesus affirms his good character. His reference to Nathanael as an “Israelite” is meant to place him positively within the history of their tradition. Nathanael asks suspiciously, how do you know me? And Jesus reveals what Nathanael had been doing before Philip had come and found him. This hardly seems like much of a revelation; there could have been a number of ways Jesus could have found this out. But Nathanael is convinced. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that a fig tree traditionally denotes a place where rabbis study the Torah, and to Nathanael it was revealing something of his own private nature and aspiration. We don’t really know. Even so, even Jesus seems a little bemused by the speed of Nathanael’s reversal, and shares rather conspiratorially, “you will see greater things than that.” As we imagine Jesus whispering the same thing to us, it feels like an exciting promise, that we are being let into an amazing secret. As we travel through the episode though, I believe that the true revealing of Jesus character is found not so much in the titles that Nathanael subsequently calls Jesus, but in verse 51, where Jesus says you will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This is a reference to the story of Jacob’s ladder in the book of Genesis. In our reading today we learned that, while Jacob was on a journey, he stopped to sleep for the night and he had a dream. And he saw what Jesus was referring to here: “a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” The Lord is at the top, reiterating his promises to Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, and making new promises to Jacob, including: I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” A Swedenborgian interpretation of this story of Jacob, involves the joining together of what is spiritual and what is earthly, essentially the process of our spiritual journey as earthly beings becoming spiritual beings. In order to be regenerated, we need to be able to raise up our understanding beyond the less than spiritual things that we love in this world. We need to be able to recognize the truth of God’s reality even if it is different from the habits and the loves we have formed in ourselves. For example, we might love winning arguments, but the truth of reality is that conversation and relationship is about connection not domination, and so should be opportunities for listening and empathy. Our relationships will likely suffer until we can arrive at a recognition of this fundamental truth. But this recognition *itself* doesn’t mean anything for our spiritual trajectory if we don’t bring that understanding back down to earth and enact change in our actual life. To do this, we would need to put aside the satisfaction that we get from besting our conversation partners, and thinking ourselves absolutely right, in order to really hear other people, and actually practice listening. The process of regeneration of our spirit, is that we ascend to realization and then we descend to actualization, the spiritual brought down and conjoined with the earthly. There are many ways to understand or to picture how this process works; the stairway suggests a connective loop but a spiral is also an image that is often and usefully employed. What I find especially interesting in the juxtaposition of these two stories are the two different promises that God makes to Jacob and to Nathanael, promises made to us as well, when we are in these different headspaces. To Nathanael, Jesus says “you will see greater things than these.” This is an exciting promise filled with potential. It is about what we are going to be able to learn, how we are going to be able to expand our minds and our worldview. We are going to be amazed by what God is and what God can show us. There is more to know and experience and understand and we are being invited into that knowledge. This is the promise that is spoken to us at the beginning of the ascent of the stairway. We begin here in all of our earthly details but sometimes we look up and we know there is more to life. We might be reasonably skeptical in our hope, we might take each rung carefully and that is okay. But the *promise* is that the stairway exists and it goes upward. The promise is that we can improve our state, ever increasing our capacity to love and make the world a better place. This kind of outward looking aspiration is what drives much of human learning, both secular and religious. The other promise is to Jacob. God says: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” This is the promise of the descent. If the ascent is exciting and exhiliarating, the descent is not always so. Changing our habits, our desires, our selfish impulses, our social structures, is actually very hard work. Psychology has informed us that it takes nine positive thoughts to counteract one negative one, or that forming new habits takes three skills: attention, focus and purposeful repetition. Do any of those three things sound like they are supported and lifted up in this modern day and age? Not so much. Spiritual work can be discouraging, exhausting, and embarrassing. We will fail many times before we succeed. Think of trying not to lose our temper, for example. It is so very hard to dismantle our emotional habits around our various triggers. What about facing the reality of white privilege? Many of us will encounter layers and layers of shame and regret and defensiveness and uncertainty around this topic before we are able to contribute usefully to the dismantling of systemic racism. The promise of the descent though, indeed the promise contained within the incarnation itself, is that God does not stay at the top of the ladder while we go down into the scary hard work. God comes down with us, is present with us, through all of it. God’s whole purpose is to make a heaven from the human race, to connect the earthly and the spiritual within us, and this is a game way too important to coach from the sidelines. So God goes where we go, into the details, into the slog. And Jacob wakes up, recognizing that the lowly crossroads where he laid his head is the house of God; God was present and he didn’t realize it. And this is one of the ways in which we can become derailed in our process, whereby we think that God only presides at the top of the stairway and that freedom and peace and satisfaction only exist at the top. It is possible to become so obsessed with self-actualization, with aspirationally being our best selves, that we forget about the descent when it matters, forget to be present to our life. The mistake is when we see the stairway as an escape from our life, not the way to transform our life. The exact opposite case is demonstrated in the words of Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He writes: “When I was in Vietnam, so many of our villages were being bombed. Along with my monastic brothers and sisters, I had to decide what to do. Should we continue to practice in our monasteries, or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs? After careful reflection, we decided to do both—to go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness. We called it Engaged Buddhism. Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the use of seeing?”(1) And the gospels of Jesus underscore this point, as we progressively see how Jesus follows up on his comment to Nathanael. When he said “You will see greater things” he could have simply meant all his superhuman miracles, the transfiguration, the resurrection. These were awesome, awe-filled things. But he also meant touching and healing the unclean, he also meant the garden of Gethsemane, he also meant the cross, he also meant his fellow people of Nazareth. Jesus entered into the most broken and despised aspects of human life, as well as the good parts, as well into the potential. With him, the angels were ascending *and* descending all the time: You will see greater things AND I will not leave you. Jesus’ glorification was, and needed to be, a reflection of our own process, a reflection of the ascent and the descent, a reflection of a whole and connected loop, because God means to offer salvation to everyone and redemption to everything. A manufactured superhero Jesus bids us escape our lives and our contexts, and sometimes we really do wish that is what redemption is about: escape. But it is not, it is about transformation. A very wise lady once said to me: There is no way out but through. And in the end, how else can we imagine that God and humankind could have any real partnership but with this balancing, this fundamental connection, between transcendence and immanence, between the great beyond and the right here. God powers the movement of the human spirit with a twin engine of divine promises: The divine carrot moving us forward, the divine companion holding us up. Praise be to God. Amen. (1) Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, p91 Readings: Genesis 28:10-19 10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” 18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. John 1:43-51 43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” 48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” 50 Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Secrets of Heaven 3539:2 The goal of rebirth is for us to develop a new inner self and therefore a new soul, or spirit, but our inner self cannot be remade or reborn unless our outer self is too. Although we are spirits after death, we take with us into the other life aspects of our outer self: earthly emotions, doctrines, facts—in short, all the contents of our outer, earthly memory. These form the foundation on which our inner depths rest. Whatever priorities determine their arrangement, then, those are the priorities that inner things take on when they flow in, because inner things are modified on the outer plane. This shows that not only our inner, rational self needs to be reborn or remade but our outer, earthly self as well. Secrets of Heaven 3701 And look: God’s angels going up and going down on it symbolizes infinite and eternal communication, and resulting union; it also symbolizes an apparent climb from the lowest level and then, when the pattern reverses, a descent.  Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5, 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12, Heaven and Hell #141, Secrets of Heaven #9031 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Jill Wellington: https://www.pexels.com/photo/lady-in-beach-silhouette-during-daytime-photography-40192/ Today we are extending Epiphany a little bit longer. So if you haven’t taken your Christmas tree down yet, don’t worry, I’ve got you. Two weeks ago, we heard about Simeon and Anna, and contemplated what it means for Jesus to have a particularly Jewish identity but also an identity with a larger purpose for the whole world. So too now, does Matthew hint at this broader scope with the visitation of the three wise men, referring back to Israel’s mythology of the last days, and how that involves all people. The gospel of Matthew is primarily written with the early Jewish-Christian communities in mind, and so it is very concerned with demonstrating that Jesus is a fulfillment of the Torah, the holy Jewish scriptures. This could very easily have translated into a completely insular gospel, an insider account, an inward looking endeavor. And yet, right here at the beginning, in the middle of very Jewish story, we encounter these foreign figures, these three Magi. We assume there at least three because there are three gifts detailed, but we are not actually told how many there were. The word describing them, magos, indicated a priestly class (though probably not a royal class) of Persian or Babylonian experts in the occult…meaning things like astrology and dream interpretation, soothsaying. It’s where we get the modern word “magic.” They were clearly pagan, and just very different from the Jews. Yet, here they are, paying homage to Jesus. Why would that be important? If Jesus was to be understood as a fulfillment of Jewish scripture, why should that matter to anyone other than the Jews? Because the Jewish way of understanding God’s end plan for the world always involved the whole world and not just them. Yes, the story of the Old Testament is the story of one group of people and their particular relationship with God, and their promises to God. But that doesn’t mean that they believed God was going forsake the rest of the world. We heard in our reading today, in Isaiah chapter 2, the prophet detailing a vision of “the last days,” where “all the nations” will stream towards the high mountain on which the Lord’s temple will be established, where people will beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. God’s divine plan for humankind involves peace and acceptance amongst all people, that all should walk in the light of the Lord. This vision is reiterated in our other reading, Isaiah 60, a post-exile text, where during a time of searching for and reforming their identity, the Jewish people are reminded that their future is intertwined with the future of all peoples, and that further, their identity is now to, though God, become a blessing and a light to the whole world. We read: See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people. But the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. What an amazing call to action to receive after years of oppression in exile. One would reasonably imagine that a people newly out of exile would be thirsty for revenge, desperate to reclaim their power in the world, bitter and prejudiced against anyone but their own people. But instead, God calls them to be the complete opposite. God calls them to be a light for the nations, God calls them to be bright and welcoming like the dawn. God calls on them to shine and let the glory of the Lord rise up in them. And it is to these texts, among others, that Matthew is alluding in his story of the Magi. The Magi represented the nations following the light mentioned in Isaiah, following the brightness that would lead them to a new dawn, and a new future for the world. Their presence was not only an indication that Jesus was special, that Jesus was to be worshipped, they represented an important part of the fulfillment of Israel’s destiny, a destiny that would not be complete without them, for it had always included them. Now granted, the nations in Isaiah’s vision that are to stream into Zion are doing so to pay honor to the one true God - the vision is inclusive but it is not relativistic. Yet, it is also not nationalistic either, but rather, God-centric - the nations are to come because of the greatness of the Lord, not because of the greatness of Israel. God had always been acting for and speaking to the whole world, and so like Simeon and Anna, the Magi had their eyes open, their minds watchful. When they saw something important rise up, they acted, they stood up, they moved. Verse 2:2 is variously translated “we saw a star in the east,” and “we saw a star when it rose” because the greek word anatole can mean both the east and “a rising,” like the rising of the stars or sun. These wise men, from the East, from the place of “the rising,” rose up themselves to follow the star to wherever it would lead them. In Swedenborgian terms as well, the east is a powerful image because “the east” represents the Lord. And this is because Swedenborg tells us that the Lord appears in heaven as the sun, a manifestation of divine love and divine truth, in the form of warmth and light. The Lord’s love shines like a sun, and everything that comes into being in heaven and on earth is ultimately from this source. To the extent that this warmth and light are accepted by us, to the extent that we allow this warmth and light to manifest itself as love and wisdom in our actions and our lives, then we learn from our reading that the angels say of such people “the Lord has risen among them.” Indeed, the “Lord is said to rise in the heart when a person is being regenerated, when he or she is governed by the good of love and faith.” The Magi embodied this state of being. They were driven by their holy curiosity, their desire to see what God was doing in the world and so they were open to noticing the star rising, open to the new possibilities of a journey, open to seeing beyond themselves. Herod, however, gives us the opposite case. Herod could not see the star. He too was a foreigner, an Idumean, from a region south of Judea, but there would be no searching for the light for him, no birthing of new possibility, because to the self-absorbed, all that is not the self is dangerous. With his eyes glued constantly to his own ascendency, to the consolidation and perpetuation of this own power…of course it was impossible for him to see the star, impossible to be open to a recognizing something good or true apart from his own self-interest. But that didn’t mean it was impossible for him to recognize the importance of the Magi showing up. Even in purely worldly terms, it was unusual. They ask where is the king? And of course, to Herod’s mind there is only room of one king: himself. There is no rising within his heart, no dawning of something new, because all newness to him is a threat to his power, to the status quo. To him, the promise of the star is nothing but annihilation and so he acts accordingly. And this is representative of the conflict within our own hearts, for we all have parts of us that are Herod, and parts of us that are the Magi. God is always wanting to rise within our hearts, always gently urging us to turn toward the east, to notice the star…but if our hearts only have room for ourselves we will not react with an expansion of spirit, we will not react with curiosity, we will not react by rising up ourselves, we will only contract, and act to shut the light down. And sometimes, honestly, this feels easier. The Magi did not know where they were going. Pilgrimage is scary, movement is scary, especially when we have no guarantees about where we will end up or what we will find. But Herod’s path is darkness and death, as safe and astute and pragmatic as it may seem. Herod’s path represents the setting of the sun, not its rising. So what does this mean for us? What lessons can we draw from the Magi? First, We can desire not to be insular. Whatever promises that we think God has made to us, God will always be speaking to all. The light was made for shining, and so salvation is open to all who will have it. God’s vision for our future involves curiosity and open doors. Second, We can learn that God constantly endeavors to rise within the human heart. Whether it is a huge bright rising sun, or small shiny star, or a tender gentle burnished dawn… there is always a possibility of a new state of being for us. People, including us, might not always react well towards newness, but God tells us to not to fear. May we believe in God’s perpetual dawning. Third, We can learn that when we sense something rising, then it is time to act. The Magi trusted the rising, they looked for it, they acted on it. Pilgrimage can be scary, movement can be exhausting, but can we also remember that the rising is a gift, that the end of the journey is always new life, a baby in the manger. Can we inhabit that space, and live into this paradigm? Fourth, we learn that God has called us to be a blessing and a light to the world. There will be times when we would rather shut down, times when we would rather lash out, for there is so much suffering in our own lives and in the world at large. In the midst of that though, God has said, Let there by light, and let it be you. God called forth the light from chaos in the beginning, and God calls it forth even now. The Magi were looking for the star, the Jewish people eagerly anticipated the coming of the nations…and that looks to me like we are all a people searching for each other, searching for our common dawning. So Arise, my friends, and shine, for your light has come. Amen. Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5 1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 5 Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD. Isaiah 60:1-6 1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. 5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. 6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD. Matthew 2:1-12 1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6 “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. Heaven and Hell 141 The reason they give the name "east" to the direction in which the Lord is seen as the sun is that the whole source of life is from him as the sun. Further, to the extent that warmth and light, or intelligence and wisdom from him, are accepted among angels, they say that the Lord has risen among them. This is also why the Lord is called the east in the Word.1 Secrets of Heaven 9031 …It is similar with the Sun of heaven, which is the Lord; this too is said to rise. But it is said to rise in the heart when a person is being regenerated, and also when he or she is governed by the good of love and faith; and it is said to set when a person is immersed in evil and in falsity arising from it.  Photo by Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-bauble-1646331/
Readings: Luke 2:21-40, Secrets of Heaven #10574:11 (see below) See also on Youtube We talk a lot during Advent and Christmas about the coming of the light, and about the light shining in the darkness, and how beautiful and hopeful that light can be. This is often a lifeline to us; we need beauty and we need hope. But of course, the light did not come only to be beautiful, to be the object of our admiring gaze. The light came to inspire and effect the transformation of this world……in fact, the beauty and hope that is inspired in us by the light, the glory of it, is I believe, because we recognize its larger purpose. Today in our text we read the final section of Luke’s birth narrative. It tells us about what Mary and Joseph do before returning to Galilee. It does not often get as much attention as the manger scene but it is important nonetheless, because it makes a declaration about who Jesus is and what he is going to do. Among the various rituals that we hear described in the text, one of them is that Jesus is circumcised, as the law specified, on the eighth day after his birth. This event would mark his acceptance into the covenant community of Israel. Yet, this act is held in tension with Jesus’ naming, which Luke makes clear comes, not from Joseph or Joseph’s linage, but from God. We find that Jesus’ identity is both within and without established boundaries, he is both particularly Jewish, and but also something beyond that. So, as we will see throughout this passage, Jesus identity is of two realms. He is clearly Jewish, and his parents do all that they are supposed to do in order to fulfill the law. They are devout, they are diligent, and so will Jesus be. But, that is not all Jesus is to be. Jesus has also been given an identity by God that speaks to something larger than the destiny of Israel, it speaks to the coming of the kingdom of God. And so this tension that exists in the presentation of Jesus identity, can mirror the tension of how God is to be present in our own lives. God will always be “something else” to us, something beyond our expectations, for God shows up in ways that we cannot imagine. The Christmas story is an example: God showing up in all the places we do not expect…a vulnerable baby, born out of wedlock into poverty to a marginalized young woman of no particular birth in an occupied land. The Christmas story is so familiar that we sometimes forget just how unusual it really is, the gently sanitized versions of the stable belying the muck and the mess, and joy of the shepherds muting the terror and surprise of the heavenly host appearing to the lowest of the low. Praise be to God that the divine does not play by our rules, our bureaucracies, our systems of merit. Praise be to God that our concepts of where God is *allowed* to be are confounded again and again and again. God shows up where we do not necessarily expect. And also, as we hear in our text today, God showed up for the patient and devout Simeon and Anna, showed up for them in the very place that God had always said God would be: the temple. So, it’s not that God specifically enjoys being random or confounding us, it is just that God cannot be bounded by our ideas of God; it is impossible that the infinite should conform to the finite. But that doesn’t mean that the point of surprise is to humiliate and confuse us, or to have us believe that we cannot possibly rely on God in any way because God’s ways are so very mysterious. The point is that God must have as many means as possible to reach us. For Simeon and Anna, their God showed up for them through what they had always done: their diligent rituals, their devotion. They had patiently and devoutly transformed themselves into people who could see God in the everyday, and when Jesus showed up, they understood exactly who he was and what he was going to do. They were not put off by the poverty of his circumstances or the vulnerability of his infant state. They had long cultivated the kind of eyes that could see God, and so they *did* see God. It will not be long in the gospel story before we learn that not everyone was willing or able to recognize God so easily. And so now, as we stand on the threshold of a new year, we might find ourselves sitting in a similar tension. We have just witnessed the incredible gift of the birth of Jesus, and the incredible wonder of how God shows up, and now we must return to our lives as they are. And as we return we find it is also the time of year for resolutions, the time of year when we are called to think about how we want to live into the new year. To ask: how I can be a partner to God? To wonder: Is there a way that I can uncover God’s presence in the everyday, through my everyday, just like Simeon and Anna. For, we will always all be Shepherds, wherein the divine sometimes bursts in upon us, our eyes forced open by the sheer majesty. We will all always be Mary wherein the divine is found in unexpected opportunity, seeing God in circumstances that we never would have chosen on our own. But the question before us today is: can we also be Simeon and Anna, ready and waiting to see the divine because of the kind of life we have constructed for ourselves. Because clearly, we cannot control God’s coming, but we can little by little transform ourselves into the kind of person who recognizes God’s constant presence in this world, who sees the baby and declares the glory. For, the seeing of the light and declaring the glory of it cannot really be separated. We heard this in our Swedenborg reading: the light represents God’s divine truth, and the glory represents whatever is produced by the light. Here we come to understand that the function of the light is active. It is not just content to shine beautifully; it’s aim is to *enlighten*, to produce an outcome that increases the presence of God in the human heart, to be a way in which we can perceive something of the divine, a way in which we can be connected to the love of God. This is the way God is truly glorified, not by praise, but by outcome, by what happens when we perceive what the light reveals. And this is not always pretty. In Simeon’s words…”This child is destined for the falling the rising of many in Israel…so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed and a sword will pierce your own heart too.” The light of Divine Truth reveals, but we are not always happy about *what* it reveals. Change is scary, and growth is work. Yet, it gives us the opportunity to step into that which glorifies God, instead of that which obscures God. Swedenborg phrases it that “the glory” is everything that *springs* from Divine Truth. I do love how active that phrasing is. The enlightening, the revealing nature of Divine Truth wants to give birth to something alive and glorious, something that connects us more strongly to God and to each other, and given the smallest opportunity, our smallest cooperation, it will. And the question posed by Simeon and Anna today is how to keep our eyes open to the light on the non-Christmas days of the year when we are not assisted by a culture saying “Look here!” Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”(1) Of Anna, our text says: “She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” In reality, we never *do* leave the temple, we never can, for God’s presence is not mediated by space but by attention. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are. God has made the world, and our lives, the temple. May we remember to pause and look around, for a tiny, precious, vulnerable revelation may be about to enter. Amen. (1) Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, xvi Readings: Luke 2:21-40 21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. 22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord” ), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” 33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him. Secrets of Heaven 10574:11 These places have been quoted from the Word because 'glory' and 'light' are mentioned together in them; and they have been quoted to make people aware that 'light' means Divine Truth that comes from the Lord, thus the Lord Himself in respect of Divine Truth, and that 'glory' means everything that is a product of the light, consequently everything that springs from the Divine Truth composing the intelligence and wisdom which angels possess, and which people in the world who receive the Lord in faith and love possess. |
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