Readings: Matthew 28:16-20, True Christianity 685 (see below)
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Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Today we end our church year with the last things that Jesus says and does in the book of Matthew. That last chapter in Matthew moves at lightning speed. Within twenty verses, Jesus is risen, appears to Mary Magdalene, the chief priests do a little spin control, and then the eleven remaining disciples gather to receive the Great Commission.

But the narrative implies that the reflection will continue for Jesus’ followers. They have shared news of the resurrection within their own circles. What responsibility do they now have beyond that? What might their new mission be? This is a fertile reflection for us as well, as we gather together before our summer hiatus. What of Jesus’ call, of Jesus’ mission, do we wish to take forward with us, into our break, into our life, and into our new church year when we reconvene again.

The gospels speak in different ways about that mission, most famously in our reading today from Matthew.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Here are the commissions from the other gospels:

From Mark: 15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 

From Luke: 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

From John: (20:21) As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And later to Peter: Take care of my sheep. (21:16)

Each gospel has a slightly different emphasis, but what we are seeing is a call to making disciples, to preaching, to witnessing, and to caring for one another. What might these things mean to us in our own lives?

The making of disciples and the preaching seem to go fairly naturally together. Mark’s commission is more general than Matthew’s; it calls for a dedication to preaching but no particular outcome from that preaching. Matthew (the later gospel of the two) gets a little more specific. It calls for a discipling, a path of learning that culminates in baptism.

Now, many traditions take this commission very literally, making it their mission to baptize as many people as possible. While not the topic for today, it is worth thinking about how this mission has traveled hand and hand with colonialism, with devastating results on the world stage. The Swedenborgian tradition, however, with its high respect for spiritual freedom, and its more universalist theology of salvation, has never placed a very high premium on proselytizing. 

What does it emphasize then? The discipling and teaching parts of the commission, and the reality of baptism as being part of a process, rather than an endpoint. Swedenborg talks about baptism being an inauguration rather than an endpoint, that it has several functions including being brought into community, into an opportunity for learning, and into a life of regeneration, with these three functions following on from each other and supporting each other. (TCR 677-684)

So whether we are talking about preaching, teaching, sharing, discipling, the emphasis is on living a good life, rather than saying the right words. From Secrets of Heaven 5006:

…when the Church fails to preach life, no one acquires any affection for good; and when there is no affection for good, neither is there any for truth.

The success and fidelity of the mission is measured in how the good news has affected, changed and supported lives, how it has grown in each heart an affection for goodness and wholeness and truthfulness.

Which leads us into Luke and John, whose commissions seem to go together as well, emphasizing witnessing and caring for others. While witnessing does have a sense of proclamation in Christian contexts, the word is not quite the same as simple preaching. It feels more experiential.

Swedenborg writes:

John [the Baptist] is said to have borne witness to the Word of God, but because John [represents] all people who possess goodness of life arising from charity and its accompanying faith…therefore all these are meant in the spiritual sense.(AR 6)

Witnessing implies being *in* an experience, really assimilating it, and then speaking from how that experience has changed us. It is living a good charitable life and letting that life produce its accompanying faith. And of course, the gospel that conceived the parable of The Good Samaritan, Luke, is the one that emphasizes really seeing what is around you and being present to it. Witnessing done fully and intentionally, naturally leads to care for others. 

Which brings us to John (the gospel writer) who characterizes those who are “sent” as extensions of God’s love: As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Jesus tells Peter to take care of or feed his sheep three times in a row, a time-honored narrative strategy of amplification. To say something three times in the bible means that it is very important. Our most crucial and culminating mission is to take care of all of God’s children, to embody the love of God in this world. 

In these days, as we observe ever more chaos around us in our national sphere, it is worthwhile considering how the disciples transitioned from being followers to being apostles. It is upon us to explore that transition in ourselves too, in our own situations and contexts. We are commissioned to preach, teach, learn and intentionally inaugurate ourselves into a life of faith, and to support others doing so too. We are commissioned to witness the presence of God, to allow God to settle deeply into our hearts, lives, habits, and communication. We are commissioned to be those that God has sent, and to see others as those who God has sent, and to honor that in one another. And we are commissioned to feed God’s sheep, to care for all of God’s children, to be a source of nourishment, spiritually, emotionally, as well as physically, to all God’s creatures. 

Of course, that is a lot. But it is an authentic, faithful, loving and trusting path, and we have the honor of sorting out for ourselves. It is what our God left us with. Amen.


Readings:

Matthew 28:16-20

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

True Christianity 685

From all that has been said on this topic so far, it is possible to see that the three functions of baptism work together in unity as the first cause, the intermediate cause or means, and the last cause, which is the result and the ultimate purpose of all that went before. The first function is to identify us as a Christian; the second function, which is a consequence of the first, is to allow us to know and acknowledge the Lord as the Redeemer, Regenerator, and Savior; and the third function is to lead us to be regenerated by him. When that happens, we are redeemed and saved. 

Since these three functions follow each other and come together in the last, and since angels see all three together as forming one thing, therefore when baptism is performed or read about in the Word or mentioned in conversation, the angels who are present take it to mean regeneration rather than baptism. 

Readings: John 17:6-19, Secrets of Heaven #9229 (see below)
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Photo credit: Johannes Plenio

One of the reasons why I love this text today, is that you can really hear Jesus as a person in it. He is praying for his friends. Next in the gospel of John, he will pray for all those who will come after but this prayer, this prayer is for his companions who have been journeying with him for the past three years; his friends, his disciples. You can hear that history of friendship in this prayer. “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them, by the power of your name…” I don’t know about you, but I am deeply moved by the pathos held in these words about someone leaving and wishing they could still protect those they care about.

Jesus and the disciples had been through a lot together. And so when Jesus had a chance to pray for them, he prayed for their protection, for their joyfulness, for their connectedness, and lastly, for their sanctification. To sanctify something means to make it holy. Often times in religious contexts, this implies a separation or a purification. That to be holy or consecrated, something needs to be set apart, or having something about it purged, or stripped away. But I don’t think that is what Jesus is getting at here.

The whole time Jesus is praying, before ending with the notion of sanctification, he is praying about connection, weaving together God and Jesus and people, saying things like ”so that they might be one as we are one,” or “They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.” From this we see that somehow sanctification must have something to do with entering into or being brought into oneness and connection.

But what does that really mean? We heard in our Swedenborg reading that holiness comes from the Lord alone. So it is not something that we can accomplish on our own, or while being separate from God. Holiness requires connection to God by its essential nature. Holiness emanates from God, and the holiness of anything else is directly correlated to how connected it is and receptive it is to the divine.

But it also doesn’t seem like a binary connection, like putting a plug into a socket. It is more mystical than that. Jesus says “All I have is yours and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.” There is a sense of co-mingling and a shared identity. In fact, it reminds me of what Swedenborg wrote in Divine Providence: “the more closely we are united to the Lord, the more clearly we seem to have our own identity, and yet the more obvious it is that we belong to the Lord.”(1)

And now we also have this word: belong. The more we intentionally connect to the Lord, the more clear it becomes that we belong to the Lord. And not in the sense of being God’s property, but in the sense of being a part of something bigger, a sense of being exactly where we are supposed to be. So we are learning that holiness is a function of connection, which leads to a sense of belonging.

We are seeing that Jesus’ prayer has a powerful subtext; it is about what is going to happen to the disciples next in their lives, but even more it is about “becoming who are we in God.” To quote one of my seminary professors: 

Jesus called us into sanctification, which is the becoming of who we and the earth are in God: sacred people living in sacred places with all forms of sacred life, without distinction. (2)

God wants everything to be holy because God wants everything to be connected to the divine. Holiness cannot be some kind of currency that mediates the value of someone or something, meaning that only a few very special things are or can be holy. That seems more like something the grasping human mind would do to the concept of holiness. 

In fact, the more I hear about this, the less it seems that holiness is something staid, static, prescribed, measured, perfect, something that we must be very careful with because it is so very special, but rather, it has to be something that we fling ourselves into and towards with abandon, with our whole selves. If holiness comes from our connection with God, then holiness must also involve holding nothing back, and holiness must also involve letting go; letting go of the ways we think it should be and letting it become what it is.

But of course, we need to remember to circle back to the fact that holiness is found in God not us. All of these observations about holiness are beautiful but can also very easily be twisted to sanctify anything that we want sanctified. God wants everything to be holy but that doesn’t mean everything can be holy. Evil, malice, hatred, distortion…these things could never even contemplate the kind of ego relinquishment that holiness requires.

Thus, we see in the text that Jesus says “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” You might recognize these words from our communion liturgy. This is intentional, in order to reflect the reality that holiness is not a firehose of blissful acceptance, but it is an active and intentional partnership with what emanates from God. Swedenborg writes:

By 'that which is holy' is meant the Divine Truth emanating from the Lord. This Truth is called holy, and is meant also by the Holy Spirit…(3)

Holiness is an attribute of divine truth. When Jesus was praying for the sanctification of his disciples, he was praying that they would feel anchored and grounded in the reality of what he had embodied for them, the truths that he had brought to life for them. He said: “They are not of the world…” meaning that he hoped they would not find their belonging in the cravenness of human self-centeredness but rather in the universal and sacrificial love of God. The gospel of John begins with the “Word became flesh.” Jesus’ very existence tells us the truth about God.

And, divine truth is not just about knowledge but about life. Swedenborg writes, speaking of angels:

…in the measure that they receive good from the Lord they are holy; and the measure of good they receive from the Lord, that is, the measure in which they are holy, is determined by how far they lead a life of good in keeping with the genuine truths of faith.. (4)

Holiness is also about how open we are to being transformed by loving our neighbor, by being useful, by leaving the world better than we found it. Have you heard the phrase that it is better to “get caught trying?” It means that it is better to at least risk trying to accomplish important, loving, difficult things, and potentially fail, than to not try at all. There is magic, holiness, in that desire to serve that is willing to “get caught trying.” Jesus knew that his disciples would have a difficult road ahead of them, but if they were grounded, sanctified, in the truth that leads to good, the truth that leads to trying, then they would be protected from “the evil one,” that is, the forces that try to stop us from “getting caught trying,” the forces of cynicism, avarice, hypocrisy, ambition and fear.

What have we discovered today? That holiness is about connection and about belonging. That holiness grounds us in truth, propels us in life. That sanctification is the process of tracing all things back to God and then finding out who we are in that light.

Jesus loved his disciples. What he wanted for his friends, was that they might be so deeply connected to the divine, to the reality which Jesus had embodied for them, that it would sustain them going forward. That they would understand the quality of the love that they belonged to and that they might “have the full measure of [his] joy within them.” And of course, Jesus wants that for us as well. Amen.

1. Emanuel Swedenborg, Diving Providence #158
2. Cláudio Carvalhaes, Commentary on John 17:6-19, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-176-19-5
​3. Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven #8302
4. Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven #8806

​Readings:

John 17:6-19

6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. 13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Secrets of Heaven #9229

… the meaning of 'people of holiness' [is] those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken.

Readings: I Samuel 17, Secrets of Heaven #1197 (see below)
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Photo credit: Ir Solyanaya on Pexels

This is probably one of the most familiar stories in the Old Testament. It certainly has made its way into our collective imagination and our language, as even people unfamiliar with the bible generally, know that the names David and Goliath recall the potent narrative of the underdog, the triumph of the little guy over insurmountable odds.

So, first, a little background on the story. As noted by the name of the book I Samuel, the story takes place in the days of the prophet Samuel. The children of Israel desired a king to rule over them, and so Samuel installed Saul as monarch. But ultimately God rejected Saul as king, due to a number of transgressions, and so Samuel anoints a new king in secret: David, the youngest and smallest of the sons of Jesse.

But meanwhile, Saul remains king, and readies for war with the Philistines. The Israelites are not confident in their ability to win, and they are mightily intimidated by the Philistine champion, Goliath, who at six cubits and a span, was about 9 feet 9 inches tall. And David, the secretly anointed but utterly forgettable brother comes to visit his older siblings on the war front. They are not pleased. Yet somehow David has a kind of unbelievable confidence that carries him to the notice of Saul. Saul agrees to let David fight Goliath, and even though David refuses traditional armor and weapons, he wins, using his very simple sling and five smooth stones he had gathered at the river.

It is a crazy, detailed, and exhilarating story. And as we look through a Swedenborgian lens, we of course see that the story is a metaphor for our internal life. Swedenborg tells us that the Philistines represent faith separated from caring and Goliath the conceit of self-intelligence.(1) We can see how one leads to the other, in that, as we try to separate what we know and believe from how we live in relationship to others, we are tempted to retreat further and further into a silo of self-righteousness and high self-opinion. 

The more we place value and prestige on our thinking, on our intelligence, or on our beliefs, (rather than our living) then a giant of self-centeredness starts to grow, until only *we* can be right (because our ego demands that we must be), and we have lost the humility and the reflective ability that is so central to spiritual evolution and a spiritual, loving life.

And there are many varieties of mental and emotional Goliaths that keep us immobilized, that keep us centered in fear and ego. So many giants that feel so big and strong, and loom so large over our internal landscape. Privilege, co-dependence, being judgmental or self-focused or defensive, a fear of vulnerability, or a need to control, are just a few examples.

Who would have thought, though, that the answer would be David? David, who is picked on by his brothers, David who says “Now what have I done?”, the small and inconsequential shepherd boy? Because sometimes, our truest loves, our cherished ideals, our lofty goals, our bleeding hearts, our desire to make a difference, they seem so small and ridiculous compared to “the way the world works.” But those things, those depths of our hearts, those true north principles, when out on the field on their own, they will pull the sheep from the lion’s mouth without a moment’s hesitation. David’s faith was powerful, but it was just a different kind of power. He had no use for armor or the sword.

Instead he had a staff, a sling, and five smooth stones from the river. What do these represent to us? The staff is what David leaned on: his reliance on God, the thing that kept him grounded and steady. The sling represents our understanding, and the ability to direct truth against ideas or tendencies that are harmful. But crucially, what do we put in the sling? Smooth stones. Particular true ideas that are smoothed out, rounded out, by our experience of God’s truth being effective in our lives, helping us to love others.(2) We aim our sling towards things that are harmful but not out of rage, not with sharp stones designed to cut and bleed, but with smooth stones meant to dispatch the danger for the purpose of creating more space for love.

David’s triumph over Goliath pictures how when we find our internal giants are taking up too much space, intimidating us, immobilizing us, even leading us, that there are small smooth indestructible and completely available truths that can re-center us. Some examples of these might be: the golden rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you, love your neighbor, we are all made in the image and likeness of God, blessed are the those who mourn, The Lord is my shepherd, and many many others. The smoothness of the stones is important, meaning that the truths need to be anchored in goodness. A rough truth harshly applied might conquer a giant for a time, scare it away for a moment, but at what cost to our spirit? For example, if some Goliath fear or flaw is preventing us from doing something useful, we could certainly marshal the desirability of usefulness against ourselves in a judgmental way, and that might shame us into action. But that won’t deal with the deep-seated assumptions or anxieties that brought the giant into being in the first place. It won’t help us understand how to love better, either ourselves or others. A smooth stone though anchored in the truth that it *is* good to take care of others, and to try to make a difference in their lives, that belongs in the sling, but it’s smoothness holds in compassion the anxieties, the context, the cultural training, that might make it hard for someone to act. It is only when the wholeness of situation is seen and acknowledged that can it be fully addressed. Swedenborg has spoken in his works about truth alone being sharp or rigid, and goodness having the quality of being soft, smooth or flexible.(3) David’s sling could only be effective, his aim could only be true, when the stones were smooth. Likewise, we absolutely need the clarity of truth to be put against our giants, but without self-compassion we won’t take the time to do the difficult reflection we might need to do to vanquish them in a healthy way.

And now that we have seen the inner landscape of this story, we can also see how it might apply in a broader sense, how we might complete the circle and integrate this inner landscape into our relationship to the outer world.

Just as we have Goliath tendencies, habits, fears, in our own minds, there are Goliaths to contend with in society and culture: assumptions, prejudices, systemic injustices, ingrained inequalities, war, corruption, racism and so much more. I know we can recognize this happening all around us, especially recently.

And what this story teaches us, is that these giants are not vanquished by *also* assuming might, or by being uniquely clever or skilled and outwitting them. These giants are vanquished by being willing to go to the river and find those smooth stones, those key, elemental, inviolable truths that we can easily carry with us and that give us the courage to stand forth day by day.

David tried putting on Saul’s armor but he could barely walk in it. We can’t mimic cultural Goliaths that are perpetuating harm, can’t put on their trappings of earthly power, or emulate their way of doing things, for then we will just turn around and perpetuate harm in different ways. Nor can we use the weapons that Saul provided; they are too heavy upon the soul, too difficult to carry.

And, neither was it skill in wielding the sling that was key. Certainly, David did need to know how to use it, but also it was only a perfectly smooth stone that could be wielded by the sling in an effective way. That is the choice that matters. Truth alone, a sharp stone, might seem like the perfect weapon but it is not. The smoothness of a truth that is anchored in goodness and compassion, this is what can ultimately vanquish evil; it is the only thing that can. So let us ask ourselves: What are the principles that are guiding us as we confront our giants? Are they anchored in lovingkindness, made smooth by the water of life, by the way that God’s love flows toward us, in and around us? For we have a long way to go, my friends. Let us put our smooth stones in our pockets, and let them, with God’s help, guide us forward. Amen. 

(1) Emanuel Swedenborg, The Doctrine of Faith #52
(2) Anita Dole, The Dole Notes Volume 3, p142
(3) Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven #7068


Readings:
I Samuel 17

1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah…2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines…4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him. 8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” …11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. 

12 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. 13 Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war… 14 David was the youngest… 15 but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. 16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. 17 Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. 18 Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them…20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. …22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. 25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him…26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” 27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.” 28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.” 29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.” 

38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. 

41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” 45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands…47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 

Secrets of Heaven #1197

The ancient church used the label of Philistine for all those who talked and talked about faith and about the idea that salvation is found in faith and yet completely failed to live a life of faith…

These people by nature could not help turning religious knowledge into a matter of memorization. The knowledge of spiritual and heavenly realities and even the mysteries of faith become nothing more than objects of memory when the people who are adept at them have no love for others.

Memorized details are dead objects to us unless we live according to them as a matter of conscience…Neither secular nor religious knowledge means anything to us in the other life — even if we have learned all the secrets that have ever been revealed — unless it permeates our life.

A sermon by Rev. Nancy Piorkowski

Readings: Galatians 5:1, 13-25, The New Jerusalem and it's Heavenly Doctrines 142 (see below)
Photo credit: J. Plenio

Enslaved or Free? 
  
The word SLAVERY stood out for me in the reading from Galatians. 
  
The recent developments in our country are causing deeper and deeper angst for the marginalized who are being victimized by laws and ideologies that seek to separate and restrict our freedom to live and make choices. Today I am honoring the work and the legacy of Harriet Tubman and her calling to be a conductor of the Underground Railroad. We just celebrated Juneteenth, the date that commemorates the day in 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation which had been declared by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. 
  
Today is not meant to be a history lesson about Harriet Tubman or Juneteenth, but instead it is an opportunity for a deeper understanding of how the life of Harriet Tubman and the observance of Juneteenth shape our world today. You may or may not be aware that the Underground Railroad was part of our heritage in Wilmington. I live close to the Wilmington Riverfront and remember even as a child of six or seven the talk that a couple of farmhouses in the area were Stations in the Underground Railroad. I knew that they were hiding places, but in my childish confusion, I wondered how a Railroad could be underground, and inside of a house! As I grew up, I came to understand better that the Underground Railroad was a term used to describe the way that slaves escaped from the South. It was a series of safe “stations,” which were often abolitionist’s homes were slaves could be safe as they journeyed North with the hope of obtaining their freedom. 
  
What does all this have to do with me? 
  
I grew up in a segregated white world. My limited experience with growing up in the 1960’s. Those were very turbulent times with the assassination of JFK and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the unrest and rioting that followed. I remember the curfews and the tensions in our household. I observed racism from my parents and neighbors and really had no real opportunity to get to know a Black person. 
  
I remember being puzzled and confused by what I was seeing. As my world experiences grew outside the home, I fortunately had opportunities o to interact with people of color, throughout my life. In my naivete, I could not understand why Black people and white people were separated and my wish was that people could just exist together as people, regardless of race. 
  
I first met Ianus, a middle aged Black woman, when she was hired to be my paraprofessional for my class that had physically challenged wheelchair bound students. Three students were for the first time in their “home” schools, needed assistance with their day to day navigating through the building, including personal care. Well, I can truthfully say that we hit it off from the very beginning of our working together. We had students who had complicated needs who were dependent upon us for them to have a full and complete school life experience, and it often took the two of us working together, to meet the needs of these students when they needed to be transported out of their chairs for various reasons during the day, and taken on and off the school bus.   Our love and caring work with our students created a lasting bond between us that has grown and blossomed to this very day. It did not stop there. We became best friends. That friendship has lasted for decades, and we are still “best buddies,” as she like to refer to us. I remember the time that she invited me to a weekend retreat at Drayton Manor. She checked with her pastor first to make sure I would be welcomed at the retreat. I was with a bunch of Methodist women who just happened to have a different skin color. I was the only white woman in attendance. It was a wonderful retreat and a wonderful experience of just being women together. I do not remember any awkwardness from them or me. Except at one point the minister was doing some kind of trivia game with the group and she paused and said that a white person would not know the answer! We all laughed! 
  
Ianus and I were a tandem team! Our partnership of caring and educating these students created a bond of love for our students, and a deep and lasting friendship which has continued and deepened over the years. 
  
I have over the years been truly blessed to have become close friends with Ianus Gordy who has shared with me, through her life experiences, the realities of segregation and discrimination that she experiences growing up and living life as an African American. She in a way became a Harriet Tubman for me. Our frank discussions about race, bigotry, and life (both the tragic and the joyful parts), helped me understand and have compassion for her life experiences. Knowing and hearing her personal struggles relayed without anger or rancor, helped me grow. Ianus passionately believed that if our fragmented world would just take time to get to know each other, take the time as we did, people would come together and embrace one other’s common and shared humanity. 
  
We all have our prejudices. Unfortunately, this is part of our make-up as a society, but it does not mean we have to live and act with those feelings or ideas that rear their ugly heads. According to Swedenborg, we are spiritually enslaved or free according to the choices we make in our lives. If we do evil in “freedom” it is slavery because it is love of self not the neighbor or the Lord. This freedom becomes slavery after death. 
  
We can become enslaved to a thing, a want, or an idea, or we can become free; the choice is ours. It is really about the choices we make in our own heart and minds and the actions we take to support our choices. I began to wonder to myself: what idea or things enslave me? Is it my fear of retribution, of not fitting in or agreeing who those who have that expectation for me? Is it my desire to not create a tension between my friends and relatives? Am I just afraid of what people will think? 
  
We do not come by love and compassion for our neighbor automatically, but by education and understanding, and desire can overcome hatred and bigotry. This is especially challenging when the neighbor has a different race, culture, religion, or orientation. It takes a commitment to see and look for what is true and good in all people. A person must be open to loving the neighbor as ourselves and loving God. Let’s all become instruments of the Lord who hear freedom calling! Amen.


Readings:

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrines 142

Doing evil freely seems to be a kind of freedom but it is actually slavery, since this freedom comes from our love for ourselves and our love for this world, and these loves come from hell. This kind of freedom actually turns into slavery after we die, since anyone who had this kind of freedom becomes a lowly slave in hell afterward. 
In contrast, freely doing what is good is freedom itself because it comes from a love for the Lord and from a love for our neighbor, and these loves come from heaven. This freedom too stays with us after death and then becomes true freedom because anyone who has this kind of freedom is like one of the family in heaven. This is how the Lord expresses it: "Anyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not abide in the house forever, but the Son does abide forever. If the Son makes you free, you will be truly free" (John 8:34, 35, 36). 
Since everything good comes from the Lord and everything evil from hell, it follows that it is freedom to be led by the Lord and it is slavery to be led by hell.