Readings: I Chronicles 29:10-20, Matthew 6:9-13, Divine Providence 58 (see below)
See also on Youtube Welcome to this sermon series in which we examine a prayer that we have likely said many hundreds of times: The Lord’s Prayer. It is called thus because it is based upon two passages in the gospels when Jesus’ disciples ask him how they should pray and he gives them a model. The Lord’s prayer as we know it contains themes of holiness, God’s will, God’s kingdom, God’s provision for us, forgiveness and indebtedness, and temptation. Additionally, a doxology was added to the end in the early days of the Christian church, most likely based on our reading from I Chronicles, a reminder of whence comes all power and glory. To this day, we find that some Christian practices include this doxology and some do not. Today, we will focus on the beginning phrases: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The prayer starts out by using a metaphor that speaks of intimate relationship; we do not just say “Father” but “Our Father.” It is interesting to note that in the gospel of Mark (14:36), when Jesus is praying in the garden of Gethsemane in his most challenging moments, he qualifies his use of the word “Father” with the Aramaic term “Abba,” which is best understood by us as “Papa,” a word used not to indicate fatherhood in a general detached sense, but a word used everyday in familial contexts. So whatever word we use for our own fathers, that is the word that would express the closeness with which we are addressing God in this prayer. Next, we speak of hallowing. This is a kind of archaic word to us now, but it means to make holy, or to honor with holiness. And specifically, we hallow, or make holy, the name of God. On the surface, this might seem a simple matter of external praise. But Swedenborg indicates that in the bible, the word “name” represents the essential nature of something, its entire character, or essential being. (1) To illustrate this, I want to tell you about the very first thing that I ever bought as a child with my own money. It was a homemade stuffed seal at a flea market. I loved that stuffy so much. Can you guess what I called it? Seal. Not very original, I know. But when I think back to that time, and about why I didn’t choose a different name, I think it is because I loved that seal for exactly what it was. This would have been in the early 80’s, so the variety of available toys pales in comparison to today, and basically in a landscape of mostly teddy bears and dolls, I had never seen a stuffy quite like it. So I didn’t see a reason to name it anything other than it was, because I loved seals, and I loved this stuffy because it was a seal. I called it the name that best reflected its essential character, which was its most valuable trait to me. And thus in a similar way, when we invoke and hallow God’s name, we do not simply hallow the word that we call God, but rather, the whole of God’s being that we are using that word to signify. Sometimes that word might be Father, Lord, God, Creator, or something else but regardless of the actual word, when we hallow God’s name, we are lifting up and honoring the whole of what God stands for, the whole of God’s intent and mission and providence. And as we heard in our Swedenborg reading, God’s intent is to save the whole human race, no exceptions. Next, we begin to speak of how we would like God’s presence to be known by us and by the world. This prayer, like much of the bible, uses a royal metaphor to express this. We ask that God’s kingdom might come, essentially that God’s “reign” might be extended from heaven onto the earth. The assumption embedded here is that heaven is a realm, or a vision even, where God’s intent comes to pass more completely than on earth. How are we to understand what it means for God’s kingdom to come on earth? It might help us to understand how that metaphor is employed in the gospel at large. Most of the time, it is done in a kind of subversive way, in that it co-opts that familiar royal language, but then reframes what such a reign would be, reframes what such a kingdom would look like, and contrasts it with what we know of earthly kings and kingdoms. If we might otherwise describe kingdoms in terms of power, strength, authority and dominance, the bible describes God’s kingdom as a place where the least will be first, belonging to people who are poor in spirit, or who are like little children. Jesus compares it to a party to which everyone is invited, a seed sown in a field, yeast leavening bread, a tiny mustard seed, a treasure hidden in a field for which we would give everything we own. Because of the way that God’s kingdom is actually described in the bible, many preachers now slightly change the word to “kin-dom” to better reflect its true nature, one in which relationship, equity, respect and worthiness are paramount. Finally, as as extension of the notion of bringing God’s kingdom to earth, we ask in the prayer that God’s will be done. Inherent in this request is the idea that our will must be surrendered to God’s will. In so far as prayers are calling forth what might not yet be, we pray that even as our own will remains primary before our eyes (we are human after all and it cannot be otherwise) that we might remember that God’s will ultimately has a broader view; in essence, we surrender our view to God’s view and practice the discipline of putting our will into eternal perspective. Jesus himself models this prayer, once again in Gethsemane, as he countenanced the ultimate sacrifice of his own will and his own life, saying: “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36) While we will generally, thankfully, not be facing Jesus’ particular gauntlet in our own lives, we recognize that the dynamic itself plays out in smaller ways over and over. I’m sure we all find our own will, our own desires, thwarted time and time again in this life. And the purpose of our submission to God’s will in the prayer, is not to make us inherently suspicious of our own will in every circumstance. It is not that are to become emotional martyrs but rather to submit to the discipline of curiosity, the discipline of holding our own will lightly enough, that when it does need re-evaluating, we are open to doing it. This is how regeneration happens. This is what salvation actually is. There is such a powerful progression within these initial lines of the prayer. We first proclaim as holy not only God’s being but God’s intent and providence; and in the hallowing of God’s name we declare our allegiance to God’s intent, and our belief in God’s trustworthiness. This then leads us to ask that God’s vision, what we call God’s kin-dom, might become manifest in our world. We see the value of the kin-dom and wish for it to be the way of things. But even as these opening lines speak mostly of God, they begin to mark out our responsibility as well. Many upcoming parts of the prayer, which we will explore in the coming weeks, explicitly lay out important ways that we can help the kin-dom come, though faithfulness, forgiveness, and courage. But these start, in these early sentences, with the surrender of our own will. Many times, our desires will be contrary to the coming of God’s kin-dom, and in our prayer we make this essential recognition and commitment: when our will is contrary to the kin-dom, may God’s will be primary. The purpose of prayer in general is to center us in our relationship with God. As we navigate our own lives, as we navigate our personal and communal contexts, how might this prayer be of help to us? Everyone will have their own individual responses but here’s what I see: That God remains present with us, and as God ever was. God’s being, intent and vision are steadfast and available; when we lift them up as holy we place them at the center of our lives, and they become our compass and our guide. When we have questions about the meaning of things, we have something fundamental to turn to. Then, when we declare that God’s kin-dom might come, we issue an invitation to our own selves to step into the birthing of that vision, to partner with what God is already doing. We have an answer to the question, what should we do? We have the hope of God’s kin-dom to look forward to and to guide our work. And then we start to get an answer about how; we declare that God’s will be done, setting in motion a foundational discipline of reflection that is an opening for personal spiritual growth. And thus, a powerful invocation is given, and a powerful prayer is begun: Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. (1) Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christianity #300. Readings: I Chronicles 29:10-20 10 David praised the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name. 14 “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. 16 LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. 18 LORD, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you. Matthew 6:9-13 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ Divine Providence #58 The reason divine providence focuses on what is infinite and eternal particularly in its intent to save the human race is that the goal of divine providence is a heaven from the human race…Since this is the goal, it follows that the main focus of divine providence is reforming and regenerating us, that is, saving us, since heaven is made up of people who have been reformed and regenerated. Since regenerating us is a matter of uniting what is good and what is true, or love and wisdom, within us the way they are united in divinity that emanates from the Lord, divine providence focuses primarily on this in its intent to save the human race. The image of the Infinite and Eternal One can be found in us only in the marriage of what is good and what is true.
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Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5, John 2:1-11, True Christianity 249 (see below)
See also on Youtube Photo by Vinícius Estevão Today we find ourselves exploring Jesus’ very first miracle in the gospel of John. Jesus, his mother Mary, and the disciples, were at a wedding which had run out of wine to serve. Perhaps it is hard for us, today, to muster any real alarm at the idea of there being no wine left. Weddings in those days were often multi-day affairs and the implication is that there was some wine to begin with at least. Surely, by now, everyone had already had their fill, we might say? Context is certainly helpful to us in understanding why it is that Mary thought this was worth bringing to Jesus’ attention. He was, after all, just a regular guest, not a member of the family or the wedding party. Well, we in the Western world, for the most part, experience an abundance of fresh and clean water. This is not something we can assume of Jesus’ day, particularly in a desert climate. Wine was an important drink because fermentation killed various pathogens that might otherwise be present in fresh water. Today we think of wine as an indulgence, but it is possible in that context there was no alternative to the wine; the wedding party was in danger of not having any liquid at all to serve at an event in a dry climate. In addition, in Jesus’ context, much more so than today, there existed a stringent hospitality culture. For the wedding to run out of wine to serve the guests: that would have been extremely shameful. Cana would not have been that big a place; the bridegroom would from that point onward have been known as “the one who ran out of wine at his wedding,”(1) and his whole family would have shared in the humiliation. Certainly, this would not have been a good start to married life for the bride and bridegroom. Is there anything to which we could compare this situation to today? Perhaps we might imagine that a wedding reception or party only served half of the people dinner, or had no working bathrooms for a hundred people? Even so, it is hard to replicate for us now the urgency that would have been felt by the original hearers of the story. Jesus saved the wedding party from acute and lasting embarrassment, and the guests from potentially dangerous dehydration. It is a story of abundance and grace urgently needed but where it was least expected. However, and I thank a couple of my former seminary classmates for bringing this to my attention, water being changed into wine is not good news for all people. Those who are challenged by alcohol addiction will hear this story very differently than those who are not. Likewise for all the many references to wine in the gospels, including how it is a foundation of communion theology. We’ve already mentioned why wine was so prevalent a drink in ancient times; Jesus simply used the forms of his day, and our relationship to those forms has changed somewhat according to our new modern context. This is one reason why it is important to recognize the metaphorical nature of what Jesus is doing here. This is not a miracle about wine in and of itself, but about what the wine represents: the potential for transformation. In this story, it is the wine that holds the space for this idea, but such divine gifts are written into the fabric of reality and can be seen in so many things. We might think of raw ingredients being made into a cooked meal, we might think of the journey of caterpillar to butterfly, a diamond being converted from a lump of carbon, or the transformation of blossom to fruit. When we interpret this story through a Swedenborgian lens, which takes elements of the story and asks what they represent within ourselves, we can see in a larger sense that we are exploring how it is that people can grow and change. The waterpots represent our normal way of doing things, filled with water that represents our normal way of thinking. We might have inherited these forms or perspectives, or we might have accepted them due to their prevalence in the world around us. They might even seem to serve us, and society, in certain ways. But they are not expressing the fullness of God’s intention for us, not expressing the reality of God’s love as fully as possible. For in a Swedenborgian worldview, wine always represents truth that comes from goodness (AR 316), truth that has gained its soul, its reality, from love. Our life, and all its manifestations, both boring and sublime, need to be filled with a rationale that serves love, so that our presence in the world likewise serves love, and this is what is represented by Jesus turning water into wine. I’m sure we can think of many examples in our own lives when our old ways of being became transformed into something more loving, when old habits gave way to a new awareness. Perhaps we relinquished control and gifted someone space, or conversely perhaps we relinquished self-centeredness and gifted someone true attention. Perhaps we stopped going through the motions and came to understand the gift of the present moment, or the power of showing up. Perhaps we have come to recognize our privilege, or our responsibility, or our belovedness, and now act differently. These are the gifts and goals of the spiritual life, what we call in our tradition, the process of regeneration. However, when these transformations occur, when water is transformed into wine on personal and societal levels, there is often push back. There are always parts of ourselves and parts of our society who are invested in the status quo and don’t want it to change because it serves them as it is. I’m not saying it is wrong to be skeptical of change. Clearly, not all change is good in every circumstance, not all progress is positive. Technology, for example, while it has done so much good in the world, has also initiated climate change, increased income inequality and consumerism, and made war incomprehensibly more deadly, among other things. Which is why it is so important to keep in mind the context of the gospel story for today: a wedding, a community event. This miracle of transformation occurred within a community, in order to serve that community. It was a miracle that worked to draw people deeper into community with each other, that allowed a host to continue to attend to his guests and provide for their needs. Swedenborg writes that a marriage represents the love that God has for us and that we have for God, a desire for union between God and people(2). When we evaluate some change that we see around us, when we observe a transformation in ourselves, or in our world, and we wonder if we are seeing the wedding at Cana writ large, seeing water become wine, we should also wonder, what is this change looking toward? Greater community or greater separation? This is where we can learn much from the preaching of Martin Luther King Jr, whose life we will commemorate as a country tomorrow. One of the bedrocks of his philosophy, was The Beloved Community, which was not a utopian vision of something far away but a practical earthly vision where (in his words) “love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred” because a “critical mass of people [are] committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.” (3) He writes in a sermon: “In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” (4) Rev. Dr. King understood that God pushes us forward into change, but only for the purpose of greater connection, with ourselves, with God, with others. When speaking of the Montgomery bus boycotts, he said “the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.” (5) The story of the wedding at Cana, and the words Martin Luther King, call us to believe in miracles in the hearts of people. Miracles of abundance that, in the words of Karoline Lewis, “lead to or restore relationship.”(6) And in that community with each other, we find, as the steward in the story said, the best is saved for last. As we allow the transformation of water into wine, as we must do in this life in order to spiritually progress, we will find an abundance and a quality and a grace that we could not have foretold. God’s love and providence are always working towards union, always working towards the beloved community. In these years before us, I hope we will continue to have the courage to believe in that. Amen.
Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5 1 For Zion’s sake, I will not be silent; for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not rest—not until her integrity shines like the dawn, her deliverance like a flaming torch. 2 The nations will see your vindication, and the rulers your splendor; you will have a new name that YHWH’s mouth will bestow. 3 You will be a garland of beauty in YHWH’s hands, a solemn crown worn by your God. 4 Never again will you be called Forsaken. Never again will your land be called Desolate. But you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married. For YHWH will take delight in you and your land will be joined with God in wedlock. 5 For just as a young couple marry, you will be forever married to this land; as a newly married couple rejoice over each other, so will YHWH rejoice over you. John 2:1-11 1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. True Christianity 249 …in the individual details in the Word there is a marriage between the Lord and the church and therefore a marriage between goodness and truth, because wherever there is a marriage between the Lord and the church a marriage between goodness and truth is also present, since the latter marriage comes from the former one. When a whole church, or just an individual within a church, has truths, the Lord flows into these truths with goodness and brings them to life. To put it another way, when people who are part of a church understand something true, the Lord flows into their intellect and enlivens it by bringing goodwill into it. We all have two faculties of life called the intellect and the will. Our intellect is a vessel for truth and therefore for wisdom; our will is a vessel for goodness and therefore for goodwill. For us to become part of the [universal] church, these two parts of us have to become one. The two parts do in fact become one when we build our intellect with genuine truths and our will is filled with goodness and love. Then the life of truth and the life of goodness are in us - the life of truth in our intellect and the life of goodness in our will. When these two lives are united, they become one life, not two. This is the marriage between the Lord and the church; it is also the marriage between goodness and truth in us. Readings: Isaiah 51:1-2, 4-5, 9-11, Luke 5:1-11, True Christianity 58 (see below)
See also on Youtube This is the first call story in the gospel of Luke. The Jesus that we have just celebrated being born will grow up to perform a ministry of teaching and healing. At the start of today’s text, we see that he is beginning to gain a reputation and is drawing large crowds, so large that he resorts to preaching from a boat. Now, Jesus and Simon Peter, who will become one of the most prominent disciples, have already met by this point. In fact, one of the healings Jesus had just performed in the gospel of Luke was for Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus knew whose boat he was using, and the gospel makes it sound a little more casual and random than it probably was. Yet, there was purpose in what Jesus was doing, because when he was done teaching, he was not yet done with Simon. “Put out into the deep water, and let down your nets for a catch,” he told him. Simon does not seem sure about Jesus entirely. He has seen him heal his mother-in-law but still thinks he knows better, at least regarding fishing. After all, fishing is his trade. So, he is doubtful but respectful, still calling Jesus “Master,” and he does what Jesus says, though we imagine probably half-heartedly and without expectation. The catch, however, is super-abundant; it is a miracle of plenty where there previously had been none. Simon is astonished and falls on his knees before Jesus, this time calling him “Lord.” And along with James and John, Simon subsequently leaves everything and follows Jesus. There is some interesting language used in this gospel, compared the the other versions. Jesus tells Simon “don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” Perhaps some of us are more familiar with the wording from Matthew or Mark: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This is not just a disagreement in translation; the actual words in greek are different between the gospels. Perhaps Luke was trying to be clever, playing on the sense that Simon Peter, the fisherman, was he himself the first to be “caught.” However, in modernity, we cannot help but squirm at this wording. From this side of history, catching people sounds very problematic. Through the lens of colonialism and slavery, the word catch sounds a discordant note. Whatever Luke intended at the time, “to catch” a person, to us now, infers an abrogation of freedom on the part of the one who is caught. Is this what Jesus meant? We know that it cannot be so. There is not a single instance of Jesus forcing someone to follow him. Indeed, he even allowed one of his own the freedom to betray him. What is meant here then? What shall we gather from this story, as we enter into it as people who both support the growth of spiritual community and experience our personal faith? As people who hope to “catch” and also who are caught? As both fisherman and fish? From the fisherman point of view, we are being asked to believe in an abundance of spirit and connection in the midst of the everyday. Fish was a staple food and there was a thriving fishing industry on the sea of Galilee. Simon was equivalent to a middle class small business owner today (1). He was wonderfully ordinary, not particularly distinguished or qualified. After Jesus had done his thing for while, he issued a specific challenge to Simon. Go out onto the deep water, put down your nets. Much like the English word “deep,” the greek word “bathos” has both a literal meaning (“deep sea”) and also a metaphorical meaning (“the deep things of God.”) It speaks of depth as a physical measurement, but also as the depth of things, as mystery. As we heard in our Isaiah reading, the primordial sea was an ancient Jewish symbol of chaos (2). And that is often how we perceive things that are beyond our understanding in any given moment; as chaos, as a deep and foreboding darkness. Yet, Jesus invites us to go out into this depth, this mystery, to go out beyond what we think we know, to go out beyond into the place where our limited understanding is no longer dominant. How many of us want to do that? How many of us really want to go deep, when we could just exist on the surface? But Jesus directly commanded Simon to go there, to put down his net, to reach into the mystery and see what he might find. When God invites us to go deep, it is not chaos that God means for us find but God’s presence. From our Swedenborg reading we heard: [God’s] omnipotence fills, and works within, the sphere of the extension of goodness, a sphere that is infinite. At a deep level, this sphere pervades the universe and everything in it. God’s love pervades everything. Even at the deepest darkest depths, God’s love and God’s presence can be found. The purpose of Jesus’ request to Simon Peter was to uncover that reality. In our everyday lives, we remain safe on the boat, living our surface life, seeing how we want to see, thinking we know what fish are out there. God is inviting us to go deeper into the water. What did Simon find there? He found an abundance of fish that he could not have predicted. And Simon also found that he was the fish. He was the one who was caught. The heart of the miracle is not so much the abundant haul of fish, though knowledge of God’s abundance is always a miracle. This was also a call story. The real miracle is that Simon became the fish. The real miracle was that for a moment, separation and distance were abolished, and Simon found himself viewing God’s love from the inside, breathing water when we has was used to breathing air. The real miracle is the knowledge that everything is connected. We imagine a separation between the spiritual life and our everyday concerns, between Sunday and Monday. We imagine a separation between God and the world, or between groups of people. Perhaps it is easier to get on with being a fisherman that way. Our default mode is separation, our default mode is to stay on the surface. Yet God invites us into the deep. And when we accept this invitation, connection, empathy, and love are our reward. But even so, what is our reaction to this new sense of connectedness? When we look to the text, do we see wonder and astonishment? Yes. But we also see shame. Simon was convinced of God’s transformative power but believed that he was not pure enough to engage with it. That his sinfulness must somehow disqualify him from relationship with God. Even as he proclaimed Jesus “Lord,” he also told him to go away. Connection feels painful, feels impossible, if we truly believe that we don’t deserve it, or that we don’t belong in the circle. Even as Simon recognized the abundant power that he saw before him, even as Simon recognized the gift of being scooped up in God’s net, it felt like too much. Simon received an invitation to explore depth, connection, and transformation. Sometimes the possibility of these things feel like chaos and so we demur. We burrow back into our own smallness, we toss out our shame behind us as reasons why God should not want us. But God does want us. There is nothing we can do that will ever persuade God to no longer want us. So what does this mean for the mission of the church, for the so-called “catching” of people? How are we to understand that? For the disciples were to become leaders in the Jesus movement, spreading Jesus’ teachings far and wide. What does it mean for us, as we step away from the boat as Simon did, leaving behind what we think we know, to follow Jesus? I believe that it means we issue the invitation as Jesus did, for people to explore depth in safety. I believe it means that we let the spirit do the work of transformation in others and stand together in love and community as we each struggle with what that brings up for us, including shame. And I believe it means we go forth with a vision in which people are no longer marked and defined by separation, but in which the fisherman sees with the eyes of the fish and vice versa. As we are liberated from our own sense of separation, our presence automatically brings others into community. And perhaps this is what it means “to catch” others: to help facilitate a transformative moment… to catch our breath, to catch a glimpse of something beautiful….a moment when we realize that something is deeper and fuller than we thought, a moment when we realize our potential, a moment when we realize God’s love, a moment when we shift from Master to Lord, a moment when we transform from fisherman to fish. These are deeply precious moments of personal call, and so we praise a God who, in the words of Isaiah, makes a road in the depths of the sea for us. Amen (1) Ronald J. Allen, https://www.workingpreacher.org/?lect_date=02/10/2019&lectionary=rcl (2) Ibid Readings: Isaiah 51:1-2, 4-5, 9-11 1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; 2 look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many. 4 “Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: Instruction will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. 5 My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. 9 Awake, awake, arm of the LORD, clothe yourself with strength! Awake, as in days gone by, as in generations of old. Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced that sea monster through? 10 Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? 11 Those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Luke 5:1-11 1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." 5 Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" 9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. True Christianity #56 In the universe and everything in it, God's omnipotence follows and works through the laws of its design. God is omnipotent, because he has all power from himself. All others have power from him. God's power and his will are one. Because he wills nothing but what is good, he cannot do anything but what is good… God is in fact goodness itself. When he does something good, he is in himself. He cannot walk away from himself. Clearly then, his omnipotence fills, and works within, the sphere of the extension of goodness, a sphere that is infinite. At a deep level, this sphere pervades the universe and everything in it. At a deep level, this sphere also governs things outside of itself to the extent that they become part of it through their own design. If things do not become part of that sphere, it still sustains them. It tries in every way to bring them back to a design in harmony with the universal design that God inhabits with his omnipotence and follows in his actions. If things against the design are not brought back into the design, they are cast out of God; but there he still sustains them from deep within. |
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