Love is the Engine of Faith

Readings:  Revelation 12:1-10, 13-17, Matthew 25: 31-40, Apocalypse Revealed 533, Doctrine of Faith 55 (see below)
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Photo credit: ​Miguel Á. Padriñán

We’ve spent a few weeks now with one important metaphor from the book of Revelation, the Holy City New Jerusalem. Today we are going to feature another image that is central to the Swedenborgian tradition: The Women Clothed with the Sun, and the Great Red Dragon.

In the Swedenborgian worldview, the woman clothed with the sun symbolizes what Swedenborg calls “a new church.” And this is not a church understood in an institutional way, but in a more mystical way; it is the ongoing connection between humankind and the Divine. The Woman represents this connection, in all its beauty and power, its fierceness and serenity. And when it is called new, it speaks to the tender hope that we all have, that humanity’s connection to the Divine might always be growing and evolving. A hope that God might always be tending to this connection and providing opportunites for it, and that we might be open to seeing those opportunites and acting upon them.

Importantly, the woman clothed with the sun is pregnant, again representing the possibility of newness and generativity within humanity’s connection with God. The “church” understood in this mystical way, at its best, and represented in traditions throughout the world, can be a powerful force for new learning and insight, for seeing new perspectives, for helping us create and sustain new habits, for “birthing” a growing and thriving life of care for others. In particular, we understand the child the woman will bear to represent the doctrine of this new church - meaning all the valuable ideas and approaches and perspectives that provide a framework for living a useful, caring, reflective, spiritual life.

And in our tradition, there is one central idea that is integral to living a useful, caring life, and that is that love is the engine of faith. That faith cannot be separated from love and caring, that true ideas are only true in so far as they express love, that the only true expression of faith is to live a life based on kindness. What could be a more perfect representation of this than a baby? Innocent, vulnerable, angelic, completely dependent on care from another, and grown cell by cell by the care one body gives to another. 

But the idea that love is the engine of faith is not always welcome to us. It might sound simple in principle, but the practice of it requires the displacement of the self, of ego, of superiority over others. Many times we don’t want to do that. So we try to separate the two things, love and faith. We tell ourselves that we don’t really need the love part, we can have a spiritual life (or something that looks like it) just with the faith part, if we are certain enough about it. That we don’t actually have to let go of self, ego, superiority; we get to keep those things alongside certainty and faith. And this is not a good path. It is trying to have our cake and eat it too, trying to have a spiritual life without any personal sacrifice of power, or the centrality of ego. This is represented by the red dragon. This is a creature that devours and destroys. It is the delusion that it is possible and allowable, or even preferable, that we can disregard love because we believe the right things, and we believe them devotedly enough.

We can see the face of this dragon in recent attempts by some sectors of conservative christianity to label empathy as a sin. The argument is that empathy is weaponized by certain progressive groups, and used to bully people into feeling guilty about being cruel to people that they don’t think deserve empathy, you know, the “wrong” people. This idea that empathy is a “tool of manipulation” has now also crossed over into some secular spaces and conversations, becoming the defacto stance of our current administration. 

And we can see very clearly, that this is the red dragon snorting fire and smoke, being angry about the ego and power relinquishment that empathy demands, and not wanting to do it. Being angry about how empathy necessarily diminishes their perceived superiority and centrality, and saying “I don’t have to do it, you can’t make me.” And then pretending that their faith does not require it. Jettisoning the integral practice of empathy that Jesus modeled, and letting their shell of an imposter faith strike out alone.

Which would be bad enough, except that the dragon then turns around and tries to devour the baby. Tries to destroy any truth, or practice, or institution, that upholds empathy as central, by spewing forth a river of lies, and falsehoods, and spurious arguments. Our job is to protect that baby, birthed everyday by the new consciousness of our connectedness represented by the Woman Clothed with the Sun. Our job is to be the good earth that swallows that river of lies through consistent and resiliant loving action. Because this is where everything always must culminate: acting with love to benefit our neighbor, our fellow human beings. This is where a life of faith is always supposed to lead, every single time. 

You see, in the Swedenborgian tradition, we make a big deal of the relationship of love and wisdom, in God and in each of us. We see these two things as embodying a partnership, an indistinguishable oneness, much like the ying and yang from Eastern philosophy. They support each other, with love driving wisdom, and wisdom guiding love. But we too are susceptible to the dragon’s arguments. We too can argue that wisdom must be the gatekeeper, that love should lie dormant until wisdom figures out how it is “allowed” to be expressed, turned on and off at wisdom’s say so.

This too, is a delusion. Our discernment is not supposed to be employed first, as a way to determine who deserves empathy and who doesn’t. Our discernment is not supposed to be a gatekeeper to empathy, it is supposed to be its guide, helping us to determine how to love in health and effectiveness. Figuring out that measure of healthiness and effectiveness is not always easy; it’s actually a ton of work. So, it is tempting to just say empathy is too hard, and too costly, or to just give it lip service. But Steven Charleston, an Episcopal priest and indigenous elder has said: Love compromised is faith denied,”(1) and never has a Swedenborgian sentiment been better expressed. Judgment is not supposed to be the center of doctrine, faith, or life, love is. Love is the engine, it is the heart of faith. Judgment guides, but it must not take the throne. Empathy is and must be always the default, because it is God’s default. If we even remotely are trying pretend that we care about what God wants, or the kind of life Jesus lived, we cannot wriggle out of the demand to practice, cultivate, and act with empathy.

The book of Revelation was orignally written as a work of resistance literature against the cruelty of empire. It spoke to its own context then, and we can use its symbolism to help us recognize the shape of empire around us, and within us, now. It can give us hope that notions like the dragon will not prevail. It can give us hope that the woman clothed with the sun really is the future of humankind. It can give us hope that even the small things we do to safeguard the woman’s baby are valuable and important.

So, how does this story end? The Dragon tries to drown the woman in great flood of falsehood but she is taken away and saved by the wings of an eagle. Swedenborg tells us that the wings of an eagle represent “spiritual intelligence and circumspection.”(2) To me, this means being kind and reflective, seeing through to the heart of things with clarity, knowing how to recognize false reasoning, knowing how to recognize when selfish tendencies rise up within us, and having the spiritual intelligence and maturity to take a beat and always re-center in the reality of what the woman clothed with the sun is working to birth. It is spiritually intelligent to love, to learn how to love, to learn about what is preventing us from loving, to learn what love looks like to others. Empathy is no sin. On the contrary, it is the highest good there is. It is the only thing that prevents each of us from pretending we are a universe of one. And such pretending is the opposite of God’s hope and intention. God made us, and the universe, to be in eternal community. So my friends, let us be loyal to that intention, and to that reality. Amen.

1. Steven Charleston, Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder, p114
2. Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained 756 & Apocalypse Revealed 761
   
   

Readings:

Revelation 12:1-10, 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.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.


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.

Matthew 25: 31-40

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.
32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Apocalypse Revealed 533

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 sun symbolizes love…

The Doctrine of Faith 55

The Dragon Mentioned in the Book of Revelation Symbolizes People Devoted to a Faith Divorced from Caring. I noted earlier that in the course of time every church degenerates into two common evil versions of religion, one that comes from a love of having control and one that comes from intellectual pride.