Christmas 2 No one has ever seen God.
St. Anselm had the insight that God is greater than that which we can conceive. It is a wonderful description of the ineffable mystery of the Divine. Unfortunately, St. Anselm then attempted to use the limited categories of human reason to set forth a logical proof for the existence of God.
God does not prove his own existence. God transcends all human created categories of existence and essence. God is "I AM". God is the infinite and eternal Presence from which humanity flees and against which humanity rebels.
God doesn’t prove his own existence but he does reach out to the human race. He chose one family, the family of Abraham, to work with over a period of time spanning two thousand years. He sent that family Moses, to reveal the Law. He sent the prophets to call them to repent and prepare. In the fulness of time, God sent His only Begotten co-eternal Son to be born into that family and to manifest the personal life giving love of the Divine Presence.
In Jesus Christ the plan, and pattern and purpose of our lives took human form. God determined it was not enough to send a Lawgiver and Prophets. God knew the visitation of angels was at best inadequate to accomplish his goal. God sent his Son, His only Son into the world to take human form and to be born into the family of Abraham to reveal God’s Presence.
The Divine Presence is unconditional love. There is no condemnation in Jesus Christ. People condemned him. People attempted to use him to satisfy the demands of self will. People eventually killed Jesus because he would not allow them to use him and he would not tell them what they wanted to hear.
Jesus exercised divine power from the place of infinite love and compassion. This was not what people expected of the Messiah. This was not what people expected of God. The beloved apostle John tells us that Jesus came to his own people and his own people rejected him. They, we as a species, reject Jesus because he does not fit into the rigid and inflexible categories of reason, will and emotion that we seek to impose on ourselves, each other, the world, and God.
As God refuses to prove His existence so He refuses to allow human beings to define His existence. The fulness of divine revelation is not in a prophet, priest or king. It is not in a book, a program or a religion. The fulness of divine revelation is in a person, a particular man who lived in a particular place at a particular time. That man is Jesus Christ.
In Jesus God manifests himself and makes himself known. If you want to know what God is like then study the life of Jesus Christ. There are four eyewitness accounts in the four gospels. There are multiple apostolic commentaries on the gospels in the New Testament writings.
The great revelation that Jesus brings to us from God is that God is for us. God is not against us. God is with us in Jesus Christ. God is not a vague concept or a philosophical construct. God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is Jesus Christ.
All of the stories about Jesus are recorded for a single purpose: that all people every where may have the opportunity to hear the Good News that God is with us, all of us, each of us, in Jesus Christ.
Jesus offers all people everywhere the gift of reunification with God. Jesus continues to be the divine Presence in four ways.
These four ways are the Bible, the Sacraments, the Church, and the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is the record of God reaching out to Abraham and his descendants to prepare them to receive the Messiah, the anointed Son of God. The Bible records with brutal honesty how so often so many people heard the message and rejected the message God proclaimed through Moses and the prophets.
As a book, the Bible offers multiple insights into the human condition. All of those insights are collected and presented by the action of the Holy Spirit to convict us of the reality of our condition. They are there to reveal to us the solution God offers.
The solution is Jesus Christ. After the resurrection and ascension, Jesus gave the world three means by which we can experience his real presence in the world. The Church, the One Holy and Apostolic Church is the body of Christ at work in the world.
Jesus calls every member of the church to be his personal representative in the world. Jesus calls us to focus our time and attention on three loves: love of God, love of others, love of our own soul.
Jesus empowers us to live from the place of love by the invitation to the total immersion of our souls in that love in two ways: the sacraments and the Holy Spirit.
In the blessed sacrament of the altar, Jesus infuses his own divine life into our souls. As we receive the bread and wine by grace through faith Jesus offers us a new way of living, a new way of being human.
The transforming power of that new way of living and that new way of being human is the indwelling personal presence of the third person of the Holy Trinity. We are each temples of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us, encourages us and comforts us as we learn that self will is not free will.
It is the Holy Spirit who helps us make the real choice to surrender self will to divine will and to discover the grace of free will. To be free is Christ is to be free from the pressures of the secular world to conform to its demands and deceits. It is the true freedom that brings joy and peace in whatever circumstances we may experience life.
The Holy Spirit sets us free from the tyranny of time. It is that tyranny that brings fear, anxiety, pride and despair to our souls. The Holy Spirit sets us free in the eternal now of the Divine Presence, the great "I am" made flesh, made personal in Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God in all of his fulness and glory except the co-eternal Beloved of God, Jesus Christ. As we unite ourselves to Christ in the waters of baptism and in the blessed sacrament of the altar, we begin to live in the Divine Presence. It is we, each of us, who become the proof of God’s reality as we grow in grace and form our lives to become a blessing to others.
Jesus has made God known in himself when he lived on this planet. Jesus continues to make God known in each of us as we hear the invitation to immerse our souls in the real presence of divine love and compassion.
No one has ever seen God. God can make himself known to people through you as you make a real choice to live the new life of grace through faith in the co-eternal Beloved of God, Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Christmas I
Christmas I
In the beginning was the Word
Jesus Christ is the incarnate co eternal Word of God.
When the beloved apostle John writes about the Word of God he writes about the logos. The Greeks defined the logos as the transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe. The logos is that which transcends the realm of men and gods, heaven and earth, matter and energy, space and time, reason ,will and emotion. The logos is timeless, unbounded, all encompassing and transcendent. The logos is that which no one can know, perceive or understand. The logos is the pattern for the universe from the very large to the very small.
From the Greek perspective, to the extent that the gods and goddesses had any objective reality, their existence derived from the logos. John makes the very bold and astonishing statement that the logos, the eternal Word, became a particular man, Jesus Christ.
Suddenly, that which is unknown is made known. That which by nature is unknowable is knowable. That which is inherently transcendent is incarnate. That which is impersonal is personal.
How did John come to this understanding?
First: he lived with Jesus for three critical years. John was a young teen when Jesus called him to be one of his students. John spent his formative years observing Jesus Christ, listening to him, walking along the dusty roads of Judea and Galilee with him. John memorized Jesus’ teachings. This was not unusual for a student in that part of the world. The act of memorization is common. The subject matter was unique. Jesus re presented the teachings of Moses and the Prophets in a way that had never been heard. John absorbed this teaching at first with little understanding.
When Jesus died on the cross, John was still a teen. Jesus made provision to complete John’s education by entrusting him to the care of Holy Mother Mary. She whom the archangel Gabriel described as full of grace had the experience, the knowledge, the understanding and the wisdom to direct John’s spiritual development.
After Jesus rose from the dead, He sent the Holy Spirit to anoint the apostles. Before his execution, Jesus had promised to send a Counselor, an Advisor. That Counselor is the Holy Spirit.
John waited to write his account of the Good News until much later in his life. He had the wisdom of Holy Mother Mary, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and a lifetime of prayerful reflection on his personal experience of Jesus to draw on.
John’s conclusion about Jesus forms the prologue to his gospel account. He starts his book in the same way the author of Genesis started the first book of the Torah. In the beginning.
Where Genesis declares simply: in the beginning God, John expands that declaration and says: in the beginning was the Word, the logos. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. John concludes his introduction by declaring that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God is Jesus Christ.
John states: all things were made through him. As the incarnate logos, Jesus is the pattern by which, through which and for which the entire universe and each and every one of us was created. We are in fact God the Father’s gift to God the Son.
This is the context and the meaning of Jesus’ statement: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the logos, the transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe. To reject Jesus is to reject the pattern by which everything was created and has its form and function.
The negative reaction that so many people have to John’s revelation of who Jesus is serves to highlight the problem confronting the human race. As a species we have in fact rejected the logos. We have chosen to separate from the logos. As a species we embraced the concept that life, the universe and everything created itself. In that choice we declare our independence from any transcendent reality, meaning, and purpose to life. We reject universal meaning and embrace individual separation.
John offers us a different choice. He tells us later in his gospel: I have seen him, heard him, touched him, observed his miracles, pondered his teachings. I was there when the Romans tortured him to death. I saw his lifeless body placed in the arms of his grieving mother. I was there at the empty tomb. I saw the angels. I knew with every fiber of my being that he lived. I bear witness to you that in Jesus Christ, God united his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus Christ God demonstrated that the divine nature is pure, holy, unconditional love.
Jesus is the meaning and purpose to life, the universe and everything. He has come to find the lost. He has come to restore to wholeness what was broken. He has come to make known the unknowable.
Jesus offers to all people everywhere the gift of eternal life. Eternal life is not a quantity of time but a quality of relationship. Eternal life is not a future reward. Eternal life is a present reality. Eternal life is a new way of living that John himself discovered and experienced as he learned the wisdom of Mary and the divine Presence of the Holy Spirit.
The great gift of God to all people is the incarnation of the logos, the very plan and pattern and purpose for our existence. The great gift of God to humanity is Jesus Christ who is the eternal life of divine love and compassion shining in the darkness of human fear, self will and pride.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us in the Person of Jesus Christ.
In the beginning was the Word
Jesus Christ is the incarnate co eternal Word of God.
When the beloved apostle John writes about the Word of God he writes about the logos. The Greeks defined the logos as the transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe. The logos is that which transcends the realm of men and gods, heaven and earth, matter and energy, space and time, reason ,will and emotion. The logos is timeless, unbounded, all encompassing and transcendent. The logos is that which no one can know, perceive or understand. The logos is the pattern for the universe from the very large to the very small.
From the Greek perspective, to the extent that the gods and goddesses had any objective reality, their existence derived from the logos. John makes the very bold and astonishing statement that the logos, the eternal Word, became a particular man, Jesus Christ.
Suddenly, that which is unknown is made known. That which by nature is unknowable is knowable. That which is inherently transcendent is incarnate. That which is impersonal is personal.
How did John come to this understanding?
First: he lived with Jesus for three critical years. John was a young teen when Jesus called him to be one of his students. John spent his formative years observing Jesus Christ, listening to him, walking along the dusty roads of Judea and Galilee with him. John memorized Jesus’ teachings. This was not unusual for a student in that part of the world. The act of memorization is common. The subject matter was unique. Jesus re presented the teachings of Moses and the Prophets in a way that had never been heard. John absorbed this teaching at first with little understanding.
When Jesus died on the cross, John was still a teen. Jesus made provision to complete John’s education by entrusting him to the care of Holy Mother Mary. She whom the archangel Gabriel described as full of grace had the experience, the knowledge, the understanding and the wisdom to direct John’s spiritual development.
After Jesus rose from the dead, He sent the Holy Spirit to anoint the apostles. Before his execution, Jesus had promised to send a Counselor, an Advisor. That Counselor is the Holy Spirit.
John waited to write his account of the Good News until much later in his life. He had the wisdom of Holy Mother Mary, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and a lifetime of prayerful reflection on his personal experience of Jesus to draw on.
John’s conclusion about Jesus forms the prologue to his gospel account. He starts his book in the same way the author of Genesis started the first book of the Torah. In the beginning.
Where Genesis declares simply: in the beginning God, John expands that declaration and says: in the beginning was the Word, the logos. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. John concludes his introduction by declaring that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God is Jesus Christ.
John states: all things were made through him. As the incarnate logos, Jesus is the pattern by which, through which and for which the entire universe and each and every one of us was created. We are in fact God the Father’s gift to God the Son.
This is the context and the meaning of Jesus’ statement: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the logos, the transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe. To reject Jesus is to reject the pattern by which everything was created and has its form and function.
The negative reaction that so many people have to John’s revelation of who Jesus is serves to highlight the problem confronting the human race. As a species we have in fact rejected the logos. We have chosen to separate from the logos. As a species we embraced the concept that life, the universe and everything created itself. In that choice we declare our independence from any transcendent reality, meaning, and purpose to life. We reject universal meaning and embrace individual separation.
John offers us a different choice. He tells us later in his gospel: I have seen him, heard him, touched him, observed his miracles, pondered his teachings. I was there when the Romans tortured him to death. I saw his lifeless body placed in the arms of his grieving mother. I was there at the empty tomb. I saw the angels. I knew with every fiber of my being that he lived. I bear witness to you that in Jesus Christ, God united his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus Christ God demonstrated that the divine nature is pure, holy, unconditional love.
Jesus is the meaning and purpose to life, the universe and everything. He has come to find the lost. He has come to restore to wholeness what was broken. He has come to make known the unknowable.
Jesus offers to all people everywhere the gift of eternal life. Eternal life is not a quantity of time but a quality of relationship. Eternal life is not a future reward. Eternal life is a present reality. Eternal life is a new way of living that John himself discovered and experienced as he learned the wisdom of Mary and the divine Presence of the Holy Spirit.
The great gift of God to all people is the incarnation of the logos, the very plan and pattern and purpose for our existence. The great gift of God to humanity is Jesus Christ who is the eternal life of divine love and compassion shining in the darkness of human fear, self will and pride.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Christmas 2009
Christmas 2009
Do not be afraid for I bring you Good News of great joy
The angel of Christmas spoke those words to a group of frightened, lonely and impoverished shepherds some two thousand years ago. He also speaks these same words to all people every where this night. He speaks these words to each of us.
Do not be afraid. Despite the circumstances of life, do not be afraid. In the midst of so much frustration and confusion and bad news there is good news. It is not only good, it is the most amazingly best news the world has ever heard. This news is so magnificent that is brings forth joy to all who choose to hear it and to receive it.
That is why the Holy Spirit made sure the Blessed Virgin Mary remembered the circumstances of that night. Holy Mother Mary kept all of these reports and experiences in her living memory and told them to Luke, a young Greek physician who would eventually write down all Mary remembered of that night.
The stories we have of that first Christmas night come from the careful attention to detail that the Holy Spirit gave to Mary. The stories are real, grounded in history, substantiated by history and yet transcend history. For the stories of Jesus’ birth speak across time to all people everywhere.
The great good news of Christmas is the news that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. At a very specific moment in history in a very specific place in a very specific person God became a human being.
In the birth of Jesus Christ God permanently and irrevocably united His divinity with our humanity. What was lost is now found in Jesus Christ. What was broken is now made whole in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God speaks to all people everywhere with the words: I will never leave you or forsake you.
In the babe of Bethlehem there is no judgment. There is no condemnation. There is the fulness of acceptance. There is the abundance of eternal love.
At Christmas we remember that the co-eternal Son of God the Father emptied himself of his power and prerogatives to become a helpless infant. Jesus entered the world as we enter the world. Jesus entered the world as a struggling helpless infant so he could experience life as we experience life. He also entered the world to give us the gift of eternal love.
Eternal love has no beginning and it has no ending. Jesus offers himself to us fully and completely and says; Come. Receive the gift. Receive the blessing. I became as you are so that you might become as I am. Eternally beloved of the Father. Eternally filled with life in the Holy Spirit.
Once a year we remember that God the Father sent His Son into the world. There is no condemnation in that visit. There is no judgment. There is no demand. There is only the love of the Triune God reaching out to all people everywhere with the message of unconditional love and acceptance.
The choice is ours. God imposes himself on no one. He offers himself in Jesus Christ to everyone. The Good News that brings great joy to all people is the love of God in Jesus Christ. That love is eternal. That love is a gift to all who choose to receive it.
Rejoice with Holy Mother Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi and the angels. The Good News of Christmas is God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Do not be afraid for I bring you Good News of great joy
The angel of Christmas spoke those words to a group of frightened, lonely and impoverished shepherds some two thousand years ago. He also speaks these same words to all people every where this night. He speaks these words to each of us.
Do not be afraid. Despite the circumstances of life, do not be afraid. In the midst of so much frustration and confusion and bad news there is good news. It is not only good, it is the most amazingly best news the world has ever heard. This news is so magnificent that is brings forth joy to all who choose to hear it and to receive it.
That is why the Holy Spirit made sure the Blessed Virgin Mary remembered the circumstances of that night. Holy Mother Mary kept all of these reports and experiences in her living memory and told them to Luke, a young Greek physician who would eventually write down all Mary remembered of that night.
The stories we have of that first Christmas night come from the careful attention to detail that the Holy Spirit gave to Mary. The stories are real, grounded in history, substantiated by history and yet transcend history. For the stories of Jesus’ birth speak across time to all people everywhere.
The great good news of Christmas is the news that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. At a very specific moment in history in a very specific place in a very specific person God became a human being.
In the birth of Jesus Christ God permanently and irrevocably united His divinity with our humanity. What was lost is now found in Jesus Christ. What was broken is now made whole in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God speaks to all people everywhere with the words: I will never leave you or forsake you.
In the babe of Bethlehem there is no judgment. There is no condemnation. There is the fulness of acceptance. There is the abundance of eternal love.
At Christmas we remember that the co-eternal Son of God the Father emptied himself of his power and prerogatives to become a helpless infant. Jesus entered the world as we enter the world. Jesus entered the world as a struggling helpless infant so he could experience life as we experience life. He also entered the world to give us the gift of eternal love.
Eternal love has no beginning and it has no ending. Jesus offers himself to us fully and completely and says; Come. Receive the gift. Receive the blessing. I became as you are so that you might become as I am. Eternally beloved of the Father. Eternally filled with life in the Holy Spirit.
Once a year we remember that God the Father sent His Son into the world. There is no condemnation in that visit. There is no judgment. There is no demand. There is only the love of the Triune God reaching out to all people everywhere with the message of unconditional love and acceptance.
The choice is ours. God imposes himself on no one. He offers himself in Jesus Christ to everyone. The Good News that brings great joy to all people is the love of God in Jesus Christ. That love is eternal. That love is a gift to all who choose to receive it.
Rejoice with Holy Mother Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi and the angels. The Good News of Christmas is God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Advent IV
Advent IV My soul magnifies the Lord
.Mary was a young woman full of grace.
From this passage of scripture we can deduce several things about Mary.
First: she had memorized scripture. Her magnificat quotes extensively from Hannah’s song of praise in the book of I Samuel. She is well acquainted with the mighty acts of God in the history of Israel from Abraham to the prophets.
Second, her family were likely Pharisees. The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible as authoritative. Mary quoted the books the Pharisees accepted as part of the divine revelation.
Third, she manifested great humility. When her cousin Elizabeth praised Mary’s faith Mary immediately offered the praise and the blessing to God.
Fourth, Mary sought to help others. She visited her elderly cousin Elizabeth to help Elizabeth during the time of her pregnancy.
Fifth, Mary was a woman of faith. She heard the word of God, she believed the word of God, she formed her soul in accord with the word of God.
Sixth, Mary lived a life of joy in the Lord. The Bible says, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Mary lived a life of courage and conviction through her joy in God. Her life was not always easy or pain free. But, she lived her life with the awareness of the Divine Presence and in that Presence knew joy.
Seventh, Mary revealed that her soul was a soul immersed in the love of God through worship. The scripture reveals very little about Mary but what it does reveal is a young woman who was dedicated to Bible study, prayer, service to others and worship.
So it was that when the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary he said: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us.
Grace is a gift. We cannot earn it. We cannot lose it. We can choose to accept it or to reject it. Where so many people throughout history have said no to God, Mary said yes.
Grace is the Divine Presence making Himself available to us.
Where so many people throughout history have debated and discussed and attempted to debunk the existence of God, Mary chose to live in the Divine Presence.
The Divine Presence transcends human categories of existence or essence. The Divine Presence makes himself known to us in every moment and every aspect and every experience of our lives. Most of us most of the time choose to shut out that Presence. Most of us most of the time blame God for not being more obvious in proving his existence to us.
God never proves his existence. God is the "I AM" who transcends existence and makes existence possible. Mary knew this. How she knew this is revealed in part through her character. Mary’s character partakes of the divine image and likeness.
Drawing on divine grace, Mary chose to form her soul in union with God’s eternal love and infinite holiness.
She met the challenges and sorrows of her life from the place of grace. That place is the conscious awareness of divine love and holiness.
Those choices Mary made in her life are the same choices we can make. The very first and basic choice is to pay attention. People in our secular world reject God and say God is not speaking. Mary testifies that the problem is not with God. It is with people.
People aren’t listening. We aren’t listening because we are not paying attention to life at the most basic level. In Western society there is an abundance of distraction and noise and deceit that keeps us from perceiving the reality of the Divine Presence.
What is the solution?
There are many. Mary shows us a few. Memorizing scripture is one. Praying. Helping others. Listening to others. Practice being present to others. Practice being present to ourselves. Silent prayer, meditation, contemplation. Worship.
There are thousands of reasons why we reject this approach to life. The main complaint in our culture is: I’m too busy. The spiritual foundation for the tendency to resist the Divine Presence is fear.
The soul that is lost in separation from God fears that God will impose his will on us and punish us if we fail to be obedient. The soul lost in separation also fears that life will be proven meaningless if God does not exist. The logical choice the soul creates is unbearable. It says: if God is real he must give me whatever I want. If I don’t get what I want then either God is punishing me or God is not real.
God sent Jesus into the world to break this vicious circle of human logic. Jesus not only tells us that God is love. Jesus shows us that God is love. Perfect love.
Perfect love transforms fear into faith. It begins with a real choice to say yes to God. It may happen in a dramatic conversion experience as we see in the life of St. Paul. It may happen more gradually over a number of years as we see in the life of the beloved apostle John. It may even happen from early childhood as we see in Mary.
To live life in the Divine Presence is to live life to its fullest potential. We may still be doing the same things we’ve always done: working, paying bills, raising children, socializing with friends. We may find that some things we once did out of habit reveal themselves to be unsatisfying and meaningless.
It is the soul that makes a conscious self responsible choice to receive the grace God offers that experiences life from the place of faith, hope and love. It is that soul that attunes to the Divine Presence in all circumstances of life and sings: My soul magnifies the Lord.
.Mary was a young woman full of grace.
From this passage of scripture we can deduce several things about Mary.
First: she had memorized scripture. Her magnificat quotes extensively from Hannah’s song of praise in the book of I Samuel. She is well acquainted with the mighty acts of God in the history of Israel from Abraham to the prophets.
Second, her family were likely Pharisees. The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible as authoritative. Mary quoted the books the Pharisees accepted as part of the divine revelation.
Third, she manifested great humility. When her cousin Elizabeth praised Mary’s faith Mary immediately offered the praise and the blessing to God.
Fourth, Mary sought to help others. She visited her elderly cousin Elizabeth to help Elizabeth during the time of her pregnancy.
Fifth, Mary was a woman of faith. She heard the word of God, she believed the word of God, she formed her soul in accord with the word of God.
Sixth, Mary lived a life of joy in the Lord. The Bible says, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Mary lived a life of courage and conviction through her joy in God. Her life was not always easy or pain free. But, she lived her life with the awareness of the Divine Presence and in that Presence knew joy.
Seventh, Mary revealed that her soul was a soul immersed in the love of God through worship. The scripture reveals very little about Mary but what it does reveal is a young woman who was dedicated to Bible study, prayer, service to others and worship.
So it was that when the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary he said: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us.
Grace is a gift. We cannot earn it. We cannot lose it. We can choose to accept it or to reject it. Where so many people throughout history have said no to God, Mary said yes.
Grace is the Divine Presence making Himself available to us.
Where so many people throughout history have debated and discussed and attempted to debunk the existence of God, Mary chose to live in the Divine Presence.
The Divine Presence transcends human categories of existence or essence. The Divine Presence makes himself known to us in every moment and every aspect and every experience of our lives. Most of us most of the time choose to shut out that Presence. Most of us most of the time blame God for not being more obvious in proving his existence to us.
God never proves his existence. God is the "I AM" who transcends existence and makes existence possible. Mary knew this. How she knew this is revealed in part through her character. Mary’s character partakes of the divine image and likeness.
Drawing on divine grace, Mary chose to form her soul in union with God’s eternal love and infinite holiness.
She met the challenges and sorrows of her life from the place of grace. That place is the conscious awareness of divine love and holiness.
Those choices Mary made in her life are the same choices we can make. The very first and basic choice is to pay attention. People in our secular world reject God and say God is not speaking. Mary testifies that the problem is not with God. It is with people.
People aren’t listening. We aren’t listening because we are not paying attention to life at the most basic level. In Western society there is an abundance of distraction and noise and deceit that keeps us from perceiving the reality of the Divine Presence.
What is the solution?
There are many. Mary shows us a few. Memorizing scripture is one. Praying. Helping others. Listening to others. Practice being present to others. Practice being present to ourselves. Silent prayer, meditation, contemplation. Worship.
There are thousands of reasons why we reject this approach to life. The main complaint in our culture is: I’m too busy. The spiritual foundation for the tendency to resist the Divine Presence is fear.
The soul that is lost in separation from God fears that God will impose his will on us and punish us if we fail to be obedient. The soul lost in separation also fears that life will be proven meaningless if God does not exist. The logical choice the soul creates is unbearable. It says: if God is real he must give me whatever I want. If I don’t get what I want then either God is punishing me or God is not real.
God sent Jesus into the world to break this vicious circle of human logic. Jesus not only tells us that God is love. Jesus shows us that God is love. Perfect love.
Perfect love transforms fear into faith. It begins with a real choice to say yes to God. It may happen in a dramatic conversion experience as we see in the life of St. Paul. It may happen more gradually over a number of years as we see in the life of the beloved apostle John. It may even happen from early childhood as we see in Mary.
To live life in the Divine Presence is to live life to its fullest potential. We may still be doing the same things we’ve always done: working, paying bills, raising children, socializing with friends. We may find that some things we once did out of habit reveal themselves to be unsatisfying and meaningless.
It is the soul that makes a conscious self responsible choice to receive the grace God offers that experiences life from the place of faith, hope and love. It is that soul that attunes to the Divine Presence in all circumstances of life and sings: My soul magnifies the Lord.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Advent III
Advent III One is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
John the Baptist was not subtle.
Any one who begins a sermon by calling his congregation a brood of vipers is certainly not subtle. Yet, people flocked to listen to John. They listened, but they did not always believe.
John was a dramatic figure. He lived in the desert. He wore a coarse camel’s hair tunic. He ate insects and honey. He spoke loudly and passionately about the kingdom of God. His style guaranteed him an audience.
Yet, in all that John was and preached and did, he concludes: some one greater is coming. I baptize you with water from the river. But He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
People understood that the one to come would be the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed of God.
In John’s baptism the people waded into a river and immersed themselves under the water. It was a symbol of dying to sin and rising to a new life of righteousness. But, John’s baptism was only a symbol. It represented the will and desire of the moment.
The baptism that the Messiah would bring would be more than a symbol. It would be a sacrament. It would not only represent human will but divine will. This new baptism would infuse divine grace into the human soul. It would bring the personal real presence of God to each human being who received it.
The new baptism would also be a baptism of fire.
In our modern use of this phrase we think of an ordeal that some one undergoes to enter into a new profession or a new way of life. And so, for a soldier the first exposure to combat is called a baptism by fire.
For those who receive the Messianic gift of grace, the baptism of fire is the purification of the mind, heart and will that leads to the transformation of the soul.
The baptism of fire is the fire of the refiner. The refiner takes a metal ore, such as silver. The silver is mixed with base material that obscures its beauty and hides its value. The refining process burns away the base material until only the clear beauty of the valuable silver remains.
This is the image of sanctification. In the process of sanctification God immerses our soul into the process of transformation.
Transformation requires we give up something we currently have so we can achieve some greater and more fulfilling potential that is present but not yet realized.
Transformation is the result of the personal presence of God the Holy Spirit in our souls.
Unlike the image of the silver ore being refined in the fire, the Holy Spirit’s fire destroys nothing. Nothing is lost. Nothing is consumed. The fires of the Holy Spirit recreate the original purity of our souls by releasing the original grace we have chosen to condense and compress and distort through sin.
We don’t just give up our sins. We yield them to God the Holy Spirit to transform the hard compressed core of sin back into the expansive dynamic creative expression of virtue.
Human beings tenaciously hold onto sin in the mistaken belief that the way of sin is the way of freedom, happiness and power.
When we finally yield a particular sin to the process of sanctification we begin to discover the contrast between sin and virtue.
The great obstacle to sanctification is self will, the human will to power. And so, the most powerful level of transformation lies in the will.
The human soul lost in separation from God believes that self will is free will. Nothing could be further from the truth.
John explains this in very practical terms when various people ask him what they should do now that they have been baptized. John tells people to reclaim their sense of who they are according to their calling in life.
The wealthy are rich not to assert their will to power over the poor but to share their abundance with the poor. The choice is to embrace the principle of God’s will to love and reject human will to power.
The tax collectors have the legal authority to collect taxes for the common good of society so the state can build roads, bridges and aqueducts. They abuse that authority when they assert their will to extort money from people to enrich themselves. John simply tells them: do your job. Remember your original purpose. Choose the divine will to love and reject the human will to power.
Soldiers exist to serve and protect not to dominate and terrorize.
John advises soldiers: do your duty. Do not abuse your position in society. Choose the divine will to love and reject the human will to power.
The human will to power distorts human reason and allows us to rationalize our selfish behavior. The human will to power corrupts the human heart and produces false needs and insatiable desires that can never satisfy. The human will to power lives from the place of demand. That demand can never be satisfied. It can only lead to greater levels of fear, frustration and despair.
The refining process of sanctification starts with examining the principles by which we make decisions. The fundamental principle the prophets condemn is self will. The fundamental principle the prophets commend is God’s will. God’s will is always unconditional love. God’s will is always holiness in thought, word and deed.
People cannot make the choice to live by divine will apart from divine grace. And so, John- the last of the prophets- gives the people hope when he says that one is coming who will immerse the soul in the living waters of the Holy Spirit and transform the soul in the divine fire of the Holy Spirit.
It isn’t magic. It will not violate human choice. It is a sure and certain promise to those who hear the word of God, receive the word of God, believe the Word of God and desire a new relationship with God.
People came to John for many reasons. Some were curious. Some were seeking. Some wanted to be where the action was.
All who came had the same opportunity to hear the prophetic message. All who came had the same opportunity to make a real choice to receive the blessing God brought into the world through John.
That blessing is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the one whom John said was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
John recognized that no matter how hard we may try, human beings cannot simply say no to separation from God. Because we are lost in separation we are slaves to the rebellion of self will. It is God who must heal the breach. God must offer reunification as a free gift. God must initiate and sustain the process of transformation by His personal real presence in our souls.
The people who came to John, who believed his message, and who accepted his symbolic baptism wanted to know "what next?" What then should we do now that we have been baptized?
John’s answer was twofold.
First;:rediscover the gift of the divine will to unconditional holy love in your daily life. Surrender to that love. In the Presence of that love stop asserting your individual will to power to dominate others.
Second, prepare to meet and be embraced by the love of God in Jesus Christ here and now in this present moment.
The baptism of Jesus Christ is the total immersion of the soul in eternal love. In that immersion we begin to experience the transformation of our thoughts, our desires, and our will.
At every step of the process, the Holy Spirit invites us to make a real choice to reject the will to power and embrace the will to love.
Sometimes those choices seem small and insignificant.. Some times those choices seem difficult and overwhelming. In all of those choices God himself promises to be with us. God supplies us with the courage and grace we need for the moment as we respond to his invitation with the desire to grow in grace.
Jesus is greater than John and all of the prophets because Jesus can reunite the separated soul to God. Jesus baptizes our souls in the total immersion of the Holy Spirit and in the transforming fires of divine love.
John the Baptist was not subtle.
Any one who begins a sermon by calling his congregation a brood of vipers is certainly not subtle. Yet, people flocked to listen to John. They listened, but they did not always believe.
John was a dramatic figure. He lived in the desert. He wore a coarse camel’s hair tunic. He ate insects and honey. He spoke loudly and passionately about the kingdom of God. His style guaranteed him an audience.
Yet, in all that John was and preached and did, he concludes: some one greater is coming. I baptize you with water from the river. But He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
People understood that the one to come would be the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed of God.
In John’s baptism the people waded into a river and immersed themselves under the water. It was a symbol of dying to sin and rising to a new life of righteousness. But, John’s baptism was only a symbol. It represented the will and desire of the moment.
The baptism that the Messiah would bring would be more than a symbol. It would be a sacrament. It would not only represent human will but divine will. This new baptism would infuse divine grace into the human soul. It would bring the personal real presence of God to each human being who received it.
The new baptism would also be a baptism of fire.
In our modern use of this phrase we think of an ordeal that some one undergoes to enter into a new profession or a new way of life. And so, for a soldier the first exposure to combat is called a baptism by fire.
For those who receive the Messianic gift of grace, the baptism of fire is the purification of the mind, heart and will that leads to the transformation of the soul.
The baptism of fire is the fire of the refiner. The refiner takes a metal ore, such as silver. The silver is mixed with base material that obscures its beauty and hides its value. The refining process burns away the base material until only the clear beauty of the valuable silver remains.
This is the image of sanctification. In the process of sanctification God immerses our soul into the process of transformation.
Transformation requires we give up something we currently have so we can achieve some greater and more fulfilling potential that is present but not yet realized.
Transformation is the result of the personal presence of God the Holy Spirit in our souls.
Unlike the image of the silver ore being refined in the fire, the Holy Spirit’s fire destroys nothing. Nothing is lost. Nothing is consumed. The fires of the Holy Spirit recreate the original purity of our souls by releasing the original grace we have chosen to condense and compress and distort through sin.
We don’t just give up our sins. We yield them to God the Holy Spirit to transform the hard compressed core of sin back into the expansive dynamic creative expression of virtue.
Human beings tenaciously hold onto sin in the mistaken belief that the way of sin is the way of freedom, happiness and power.
When we finally yield a particular sin to the process of sanctification we begin to discover the contrast between sin and virtue.
The great obstacle to sanctification is self will, the human will to power. And so, the most powerful level of transformation lies in the will.
The human soul lost in separation from God believes that self will is free will. Nothing could be further from the truth.
John explains this in very practical terms when various people ask him what they should do now that they have been baptized. John tells people to reclaim their sense of who they are according to their calling in life.
The wealthy are rich not to assert their will to power over the poor but to share their abundance with the poor. The choice is to embrace the principle of God’s will to love and reject human will to power.
The tax collectors have the legal authority to collect taxes for the common good of society so the state can build roads, bridges and aqueducts. They abuse that authority when they assert their will to extort money from people to enrich themselves. John simply tells them: do your job. Remember your original purpose. Choose the divine will to love and reject the human will to power.
Soldiers exist to serve and protect not to dominate and terrorize.
John advises soldiers: do your duty. Do not abuse your position in society. Choose the divine will to love and reject the human will to power.
The human will to power distorts human reason and allows us to rationalize our selfish behavior. The human will to power corrupts the human heart and produces false needs and insatiable desires that can never satisfy. The human will to power lives from the place of demand. That demand can never be satisfied. It can only lead to greater levels of fear, frustration and despair.
The refining process of sanctification starts with examining the principles by which we make decisions. The fundamental principle the prophets condemn is self will. The fundamental principle the prophets commend is God’s will. God’s will is always unconditional love. God’s will is always holiness in thought, word and deed.
People cannot make the choice to live by divine will apart from divine grace. And so, John- the last of the prophets- gives the people hope when he says that one is coming who will immerse the soul in the living waters of the Holy Spirit and transform the soul in the divine fire of the Holy Spirit.
It isn’t magic. It will not violate human choice. It is a sure and certain promise to those who hear the word of God, receive the word of God, believe the Word of God and desire a new relationship with God.
People came to John for many reasons. Some were curious. Some were seeking. Some wanted to be where the action was.
All who came had the same opportunity to hear the prophetic message. All who came had the same opportunity to make a real choice to receive the blessing God brought into the world through John.
That blessing is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the one whom John said was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
John recognized that no matter how hard we may try, human beings cannot simply say no to separation from God. Because we are lost in separation we are slaves to the rebellion of self will. It is God who must heal the breach. God must offer reunification as a free gift. God must initiate and sustain the process of transformation by His personal real presence in our souls.
The people who came to John, who believed his message, and who accepted his symbolic baptism wanted to know "what next?" What then should we do now that we have been baptized?
John’s answer was twofold.
First;:rediscover the gift of the divine will to unconditional holy love in your daily life. Surrender to that love. In the Presence of that love stop asserting your individual will to power to dominate others.
Second, prepare to meet and be embraced by the love of God in Jesus Christ here and now in this present moment.
The baptism of Jesus Christ is the total immersion of the soul in eternal love. In that immersion we begin to experience the transformation of our thoughts, our desires, and our will.
At every step of the process, the Holy Spirit invites us to make a real choice to reject the will to power and embrace the will to love.
Sometimes those choices seem small and insignificant.. Some times those choices seem difficult and overwhelming. In all of those choices God himself promises to be with us. God supplies us with the courage and grace we need for the moment as we respond to his invitation with the desire to grow in grace.
Jesus is greater than John and all of the prophets because Jesus can reunite the separated soul to God. Jesus baptizes our souls in the total immersion of the Holy Spirit and in the transforming fires of divine love.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Advent II
Advent II
Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.
A true prophet of God is a time traveler.
A true prophet of God reaches out with one hand into the past to hear and echo the voice of God speaking to Moses the ineffable and omnipotent Name of God: I am. I am. It is in the context of that awesome and holy name of God that the prophet hears the Law God spoke to Moses.
The prophet hears the Name and in hearing the Name understands the Law. God is. Because God is, the Law is. People rebel against the law. People reject the Law. But, no one ever breaks the Law. The Law is absolute eternal truth. The Law proceeds from He who is: the eternal presence in the timeless present.
No human being ever breaks the Law. It is the Law that breaks human beings. This is not God’s will for us. God created us to be his children. God loves us.
And so, it is the call of the prophet to bring God’s Name and God’s Law forward into the present. As the prophet brings the Word of God into the present he confronts the power of sin.
The power of sin is the human will to power that insists: my will be done. I want what I want and I want it now and I refuse to acknowledge the consequences.
The human will to power is self will that produces separation from God.
As the prophet holds the Law of Moses to the present he hears the voice of God speaking one word: repent. Turn around. Make a change. Embrace the Name. Accept the truth even as you are broken by the Law. It is the duty of the prophet to proclaim the eternal truth of God to his specific generation.
God spoke to Moses and said: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods but me.
The prophet brings that past statement to the present reality. As the perfect Law of God meets imperfect, lost and rebellious human beings, the prophet discerns where and how people reject the law and walk away from God. The urgency of the prophetic voice is the call to repentance.
The call to repentance says: Stop. You are going the wrong way. You are making choices that distort your soul and disrupt your happiness. You need to turn around. You need to head into a different direction. Because, if you continue in your present direction you will create pain and suffering, fear and frustration, isolation and separation.
The Law is holy and good. If you continue on this path, you will break your mind, your heart and your will on the Law. Stop.
God then invites the prophet into a very specific time into the future to bring into the present a different message. It is also a complementary message. The prophet perceives the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah is the personal presence of God in the world. The Messiah is the fulfillment of the plan of salvation God initiated with Abraham and Moses.
The prophet holds the reality of the Messiah to the present moment and perceives the truth of the hearts and minds and wills of the people. No room. There is no room in our souls for the Messiah. Self will rejects the Messiah.
And so, the prophet cries out. Prepare. Make a different choice. Make his paths straight.
The invitation to prepare is the invitation to reconcile the absolute holiness of God as revealed in the Law with the eternal love of God made flesh in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Repentance is the cleaning out of accumulated debris in our path. Preparation is the intention to walk the path God has set before us. That path is steadfast holy love.
There is an old saying: short cuts make long delays.
The path that God sets before us in Moses and in Christ is the straight and narrow path of life. There are detours. And, there are signs left by people who took those detours. The signs say: this way is so much easier. This way brings so much more pleasure. This path is just as good as the narrow path and will ultimately take you to the same place.
Every one who left these signs at the off ramps to the detours lied. They either believed a lie and repeated it. Or, they simply ignored the truth and lied.
The voice of the prophet cries out in the wilderness of false teachers, false promises and false gods. God is the great I am.
God doesn’t just offer an opinion about truth. God is truth.
The bad news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless it is because you chose a detour off the straight and narrow path of life. The good news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless, you can make a different choice.
Make room for Jesus Christ. Make his path to your soul straight.
How do we do this?
First, if you have never accepted the gift of reunification with God in Christ do it now. Make the real choice to stop. Turn around. Face Christ. Make a real chouce to make room for Jesus in your life. Say yes to his gift of eternal love. Receive the gift. Then know, you are one with the Father through the Son, now and forever.
Second, once you have received the gift Jesus brings it is time to straighten out the detours in our souls. The inner detours are like knots. Some times with patience we can unravel them. Some times we just need to take a more direct approach and cut them open and remove them.
How can we identify these inner spiritual detours and knots? The only way we can do this is by reading the Bible prayerfully and intentionally. Before we begin to read the Bible it is important to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. It is also important to ask the Holy Spirit to show us the way to implement in our daily lives the lessons we learn.
Third: make worship the single most important priority in your life. Nothing is more important. It is the first and great commandment that summarizes all of the commandments. In worship we immerse ourselves in the eternal love of God. We rediscover our meaning and purpose. We claim the joy of abundance God has prepared for us. We receive direction and guidance for our lives.
Fourth: we make the paths of our souls straight so we can fulfill the second summary of the law. Love others as you love yourself. God has given us a job to do. Our job is to live life from the question: how may I help? As you make the pathways of your soul straight to receive the fulness of Jesus Christ, you will begin to notice human need.
Human need has two aspects: material and spiritual. God wants each of us to offer the gift of reunification with divine love to all people. We cannot do this if we are lost in a detour or tied up in knots. We make our paths straight so we can be open to the Holy Spirit speaking through us to others to offer them the gift of love in Jesus Christ. Jesus says: when you encounter some one who is lost- offer to show them the way.
Human need also has a material aspect. Jesus says, if you see some one who is hungry- feed them. If you encounter some one who is lonely- spend time with them.
There is always an urgency in the prophetic voice. Repent and Prepare. The time is short. The moment is now, not later. If we delay until later we delay until never.
Our need is too deep to delay. Human need is too insistent for us to delay.
Now is the time to repent.
Now is the time to prepare.
Now is the time for each of us to prepare our souls in the way of our living Lord Jesus Christ.
Now is the time to make the pathways in our souls straight and open to the real presence of our living Lord Jesus Christ.
The word of God for us on this second Sunday of Advent is the voice of the prophets who cry out loudly and urgently: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.
Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.
A true prophet of God is a time traveler.
A true prophet of God reaches out with one hand into the past to hear and echo the voice of God speaking to Moses the ineffable and omnipotent Name of God: I am. I am. It is in the context of that awesome and holy name of God that the prophet hears the Law God spoke to Moses.
The prophet hears the Name and in hearing the Name understands the Law. God is. Because God is, the Law is. People rebel against the law. People reject the Law. But, no one ever breaks the Law. The Law is absolute eternal truth. The Law proceeds from He who is: the eternal presence in the timeless present.
No human being ever breaks the Law. It is the Law that breaks human beings. This is not God’s will for us. God created us to be his children. God loves us.
And so, it is the call of the prophet to bring God’s Name and God’s Law forward into the present. As the prophet brings the Word of God into the present he confronts the power of sin.
The power of sin is the human will to power that insists: my will be done. I want what I want and I want it now and I refuse to acknowledge the consequences.
The human will to power is self will that produces separation from God.
As the prophet holds the Law of Moses to the present he hears the voice of God speaking one word: repent. Turn around. Make a change. Embrace the Name. Accept the truth even as you are broken by the Law. It is the duty of the prophet to proclaim the eternal truth of God to his specific generation.
God spoke to Moses and said: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods but me.
The prophet brings that past statement to the present reality. As the perfect Law of God meets imperfect, lost and rebellious human beings, the prophet discerns where and how people reject the law and walk away from God. The urgency of the prophetic voice is the call to repentance.
The call to repentance says: Stop. You are going the wrong way. You are making choices that distort your soul and disrupt your happiness. You need to turn around. You need to head into a different direction. Because, if you continue in your present direction you will create pain and suffering, fear and frustration, isolation and separation.
The Law is holy and good. If you continue on this path, you will break your mind, your heart and your will on the Law. Stop.
God then invites the prophet into a very specific time into the future to bring into the present a different message. It is also a complementary message. The prophet perceives the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah is the personal presence of God in the world. The Messiah is the fulfillment of the plan of salvation God initiated with Abraham and Moses.
The prophet holds the reality of the Messiah to the present moment and perceives the truth of the hearts and minds and wills of the people. No room. There is no room in our souls for the Messiah. Self will rejects the Messiah.
And so, the prophet cries out. Prepare. Make a different choice. Make his paths straight.
The invitation to prepare is the invitation to reconcile the absolute holiness of God as revealed in the Law with the eternal love of God made flesh in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Repentance is the cleaning out of accumulated debris in our path. Preparation is the intention to walk the path God has set before us. That path is steadfast holy love.
There is an old saying: short cuts make long delays.
The path that God sets before us in Moses and in Christ is the straight and narrow path of life. There are detours. And, there are signs left by people who took those detours. The signs say: this way is so much easier. This way brings so much more pleasure. This path is just as good as the narrow path and will ultimately take you to the same place.
Every one who left these signs at the off ramps to the detours lied. They either believed a lie and repeated it. Or, they simply ignored the truth and lied.
The voice of the prophet cries out in the wilderness of false teachers, false promises and false gods. God is the great I am.
God doesn’t just offer an opinion about truth. God is truth.
The bad news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless it is because you chose a detour off the straight and narrow path of life. The good news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless, you can make a different choice.
Make room for Jesus Christ. Make his path to your soul straight.
How do we do this?
First, if you have never accepted the gift of reunification with God in Christ do it now. Make the real choice to stop. Turn around. Face Christ. Make a real chouce to make room for Jesus in your life. Say yes to his gift of eternal love. Receive the gift. Then know, you are one with the Father through the Son, now and forever.
Second, once you have received the gift Jesus brings it is time to straighten out the detours in our souls. The inner detours are like knots. Some times with patience we can unravel them. Some times we just need to take a more direct approach and cut them open and remove them.
How can we identify these inner spiritual detours and knots? The only way we can do this is by reading the Bible prayerfully and intentionally. Before we begin to read the Bible it is important to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. It is also important to ask the Holy Spirit to show us the way to implement in our daily lives the lessons we learn.
Third: make worship the single most important priority in your life. Nothing is more important. It is the first and great commandment that summarizes all of the commandments. In worship we immerse ourselves in the eternal love of God. We rediscover our meaning and purpose. We claim the joy of abundance God has prepared for us. We receive direction and guidance for our lives.
Fourth: we make the paths of our souls straight so we can fulfill the second summary of the law. Love others as you love yourself. God has given us a job to do. Our job is to live life from the question: how may I help? As you make the pathways of your soul straight to receive the fulness of Jesus Christ, you will begin to notice human need.
Human need has two aspects: material and spiritual. God wants each of us to offer the gift of reunification with divine love to all people. We cannot do this if we are lost in a detour or tied up in knots. We make our paths straight so we can be open to the Holy Spirit speaking through us to others to offer them the gift of love in Jesus Christ. Jesus says: when you encounter some one who is lost- offer to show them the way.
Human need also has a material aspect. Jesus says, if you see some one who is hungry- feed them. If you encounter some one who is lonely- spend time with them.
There is always an urgency in the prophetic voice. Repent and Prepare. The time is short. The moment is now, not later. If we delay until later we delay until never.
Our need is too deep to delay. Human need is too insistent for us to delay.
Now is the time to repent.
Now is the time to prepare.
Now is the time for each of us to prepare our souls in the way of our living Lord Jesus Christ.
Now is the time to make the pathways in our souls straight and open to the real presence of our living Lord Jesus Christ.
The word of God for us on this second Sunday of Advent is the voice of the prophets who cry out loudly and urgently: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Advent 1 (2009)
Advent I Be Alert
Jesus always surprised people.
Jesus always did ordinary things in extraordinary ways. He also taught the fundamental facts of Moses and the Prophets in a very unique context. That context is truth. The truth is not a set of facts or speculations. The truth is a person. By his own personality Jesus defines truth.
By his personal presence Jesus challenges the misconceptions and distortions of what people believe about themselves, other people, the world, and God.
One of the greatest misconceptions we have about the world is that everything is all about me. It is all about asserting my will to get what I want when I want it. Jesus sets forth the correcting principle that everything is all about love. Jesus clarifies the distinction between the means and the end, the process and the goal.
Many people had come to believe Jesus was the Messiah. And that belief, at least in its outward form, was true. How they understood what the Messiah would do and who he would be was not true. From the place of self will people looked for a Messiah who would give them world conquest, wealth and power.
They missed the reality of what Moses and the prophets taught. They missed the reality of who Jesus is. They missed the reality because of their profound misconceptions about life. They missed the reality because of the fundamental distortions of reason, will and emotion. Those distortions are a consequence of original sin, the defining choice humanity made to separate from God.
The people of Israel in Jesus’ day looked forward to the final judgment with the certainty that God would punish the unrighteous and reward the righteous. With such a perspective, it became important to know who was righteous and who was not. All of the images Jesus uses in the passage were widely known to the people of Israel.
Signs in the sun, and moon and stars were expected. Wars and rumors of wars were common. Distress and fear were normal.
What was different in Jesus telling of the story was the conclusion.
For many if not most people the conclusion was: therefore obey the law and God will not allow these things to happen to you. If you do the right things you will escape God’s punishment. Those who fail to do the right things will suffer the calamities of God’s last judgment.
Jesus teaches something very different. He teaches that the wars and rumors of wars do not come from God. He teaches that earthquakes, floods and natural disasters are not divine punishment. For these things happen to everyone, the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, the righteous and the unrighteous.
Nevertheless, despite these terrible calamities, God is working his purpose out. His purpose is not to use the calamities as punishment. His purpose is not to favor one group of people over all others. God’s purpose is far more sweeping in its magnitude and all encompassing in it scope.
God’s purpose in Jesus Christ is to restore all people and all of creation to the fulness of unconditional love.
Many people in Jesus day looked forward to the final jusgment, the last days, with a mixture of fear and anticipation. They wrote books that speculated how it would all work out. They created charts and graphs to set the times when it would happen. Some even stored weapons and food so that they would remain safe and be able to conquer the survivors.
That isn’t the point. That isn’t the plan.
Jesus told the people that all of these things that they attributed to God’s wrath in the final judgment would take place in their generation. Every generation faces all of these catastrophes. The point of the stories about the final judgment and the last days is that every generation could easily be the last generation.
Every generation could easily be the last generation because every generation asserts the will to power that says "my will be done". Wars come from people not God. The effects of natural disasters are magnified when people ignore the obvious signs of natural law. In a world of abundance large numbers of people suffer starvation and privation because a smaller number of people desire to be rich and powerful.
The Plan, God’s Plan, is to restore a lost, lonely and broken humanity to the source of life. That source is a person: Jesus Christ. That person reveals himself as unconditional love.
Jesus teaches about the final judgment in the last days from the context of the Plan of Salvation. This teaching is not designed to frighten us. It is not designed to satisfy our curiosity about the future. It is not about who God will reward and who God will punish.
The teaching is for the liberation of our minds, hearts and wills from the deceits of self will, fear and pride. The teaching directs us to the personal relationship God has offered all people everywhere in Jesus Christ.
So, Jesus encourages in these words: be alert at all times. Pay attention. Stay conscious. Do not be led astray by false teachers. Do not be distracted by either the pleasures or pain that we will encounter in this world. Do not live you life by default, simply following the pattern set by the surrounding culture.
Wake up. Use you eye to see. Use your ears to hear. Observe the world as it is. Pay attention. Through prayer, immerse your soul in the eternal unconditional love of God.
Jesus’ teaching is designed to offer us the best possible way to live our lives here and now. The ability to live that best possible way starts at the baptismal font. It is nourished at the altar. It is made real to us as we hear the word of God, believe the word of God and then ask God for the strength and courage to live the word of God.
The word of God for us on this first Sunday of Advent is "be alert at all times". At all times, make a real choice to live in the divine presence of Jesus Christ. Be who God has created you to be. Be who Jesus has redeemed you to be. Be who the Holy Spirit empowers you to be. Be the love of God manifesting in this time and at this place in your soul.
Jesus always surprised people.
Jesus always did ordinary things in extraordinary ways. He also taught the fundamental facts of Moses and the Prophets in a very unique context. That context is truth. The truth is not a set of facts or speculations. The truth is a person. By his own personality Jesus defines truth.
By his personal presence Jesus challenges the misconceptions and distortions of what people believe about themselves, other people, the world, and God.
One of the greatest misconceptions we have about the world is that everything is all about me. It is all about asserting my will to get what I want when I want it. Jesus sets forth the correcting principle that everything is all about love. Jesus clarifies the distinction between the means and the end, the process and the goal.
Many people had come to believe Jesus was the Messiah. And that belief, at least in its outward form, was true. How they understood what the Messiah would do and who he would be was not true. From the place of self will people looked for a Messiah who would give them world conquest, wealth and power.
They missed the reality of what Moses and the prophets taught. They missed the reality of who Jesus is. They missed the reality because of their profound misconceptions about life. They missed the reality because of the fundamental distortions of reason, will and emotion. Those distortions are a consequence of original sin, the defining choice humanity made to separate from God.
The people of Israel in Jesus’ day looked forward to the final judgment with the certainty that God would punish the unrighteous and reward the righteous. With such a perspective, it became important to know who was righteous and who was not. All of the images Jesus uses in the passage were widely known to the people of Israel.
Signs in the sun, and moon and stars were expected. Wars and rumors of wars were common. Distress and fear were normal.
What was different in Jesus telling of the story was the conclusion.
For many if not most people the conclusion was: therefore obey the law and God will not allow these things to happen to you. If you do the right things you will escape God’s punishment. Those who fail to do the right things will suffer the calamities of God’s last judgment.
Jesus teaches something very different. He teaches that the wars and rumors of wars do not come from God. He teaches that earthquakes, floods and natural disasters are not divine punishment. For these things happen to everyone, the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, the righteous and the unrighteous.
Nevertheless, despite these terrible calamities, God is working his purpose out. His purpose is not to use the calamities as punishment. His purpose is not to favor one group of people over all others. God’s purpose is far more sweeping in its magnitude and all encompassing in it scope.
God’s purpose in Jesus Christ is to restore all people and all of creation to the fulness of unconditional love.
Many people in Jesus day looked forward to the final jusgment, the last days, with a mixture of fear and anticipation. They wrote books that speculated how it would all work out. They created charts and graphs to set the times when it would happen. Some even stored weapons and food so that they would remain safe and be able to conquer the survivors.
That isn’t the point. That isn’t the plan.
Jesus told the people that all of these things that they attributed to God’s wrath in the final judgment would take place in their generation. Every generation faces all of these catastrophes. The point of the stories about the final judgment and the last days is that every generation could easily be the last generation.
Every generation could easily be the last generation because every generation asserts the will to power that says "my will be done". Wars come from people not God. The effects of natural disasters are magnified when people ignore the obvious signs of natural law. In a world of abundance large numbers of people suffer starvation and privation because a smaller number of people desire to be rich and powerful.
The Plan, God’s Plan, is to restore a lost, lonely and broken humanity to the source of life. That source is a person: Jesus Christ. That person reveals himself as unconditional love.
Jesus teaches about the final judgment in the last days from the context of the Plan of Salvation. This teaching is not designed to frighten us. It is not designed to satisfy our curiosity about the future. It is not about who God will reward and who God will punish.
The teaching is for the liberation of our minds, hearts and wills from the deceits of self will, fear and pride. The teaching directs us to the personal relationship God has offered all people everywhere in Jesus Christ.
So, Jesus encourages in these words: be alert at all times. Pay attention. Stay conscious. Do not be led astray by false teachers. Do not be distracted by either the pleasures or pain that we will encounter in this world. Do not live you life by default, simply following the pattern set by the surrounding culture.
Wake up. Use you eye to see. Use your ears to hear. Observe the world as it is. Pay attention. Through prayer, immerse your soul in the eternal unconditional love of God.
Jesus’ teaching is designed to offer us the best possible way to live our lives here and now. The ability to live that best possible way starts at the baptismal font. It is nourished at the altar. It is made real to us as we hear the word of God, believe the word of God and then ask God for the strength and courage to live the word of God.
The word of God for us on this first Sunday of Advent is "be alert at all times". At all times, make a real choice to live in the divine presence of Jesus Christ. Be who God has created you to be. Be who Jesus has redeemed you to be. Be who the Holy Spirit empowers you to be. Be the love of God manifesting in this time and at this place in your soul.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thanksgiiving 2009
Thanksgiving 2009 Do not be anxious.
Anxiety is rooted in that part of the human soul that demands: my will be done.
The remedy for anxiety is giving thanks.
Anxiety focuses the mind on the principle known as Murphy’s Law. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Anxiety is different from planning. Planning involves a rational analysis of a situation followed by a plan of action to deal with the situation.
Anxiety paralyzes action by the use of a logic that concludes no matter what I do I cannot control all events. Therefore, I am helpless. Therefore I am hopeless.
Anxiety is preoccupied with future tragedy. It is locked in the dualism that asserts: if life is not 100% good then it must be 100% bad. Either I get what I want all of the time and God is good. Or, I don’t get what I want 100% of the time and God, if God exists at all, is not good.
Anxiety disrupts the mind, robs sleep, distorts the desires of our hearts- leaving us open to the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, paralyzes the will and finally stagnates the soul.
Moses and the prophets spoke of this great threat to human happiness. Jesus came to transform this threat back into its original blessing.
Anxiety is a distortion of grace.
Grace transforms anxiety back into its original blessing. That original blessing is the ability to enjoy life as it unfolds, as we chose to engage life, as we are fully present to life.
As a teen one of my teachers once joking said 90% of success in life is just showing up. It certainly worked for me in school. Even if I didn’t always complete the assigned reading for my classes I always showed up for class. I always paid attention. And, I always took notes.
Thanksgiving is about showing up for life. It is about paying attention. If is about asking yourself the question: where am I here and now? What am I experiencing here and now? What do I have here and now?
The past is gone. The future has not yet come. There is only here and now. In Jesus Christ, God manifests his presence to each of us, to every human being on this planet, here and now.
What is here now for you? How is God manifesting Himself to you in the circumstances of your life here and now?
Some of us may be thinking of all of the preparations for the coming Thanksgiving meal, the visiting family, the hustle and bustle of what the world calls the holidays. Some of us may be experiencing anxiety about the war, the economy, health, the choices our children are making.
Here and now in the real presence of Jesus Christ at the altar, God asks us to immerse ourselves in the infinite and eternal love of the Son. The sacrament is the antidote to anxiety.
As set our intent to be present to God in these few moments of worship, God immerses our souls in divine grace. He makes all things new. He sets our minds free from the logic of fear to the clarity of faith. He purifies the desires of our hearts so that we may enjoy the wonder of human relationships and human activity. He transforms our wills so we can make a real choice to give thanks for the many blessings of this life.
Jesus teaches: do not be anxious. Then, Jesus tells us how not to be anxious. Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. Make your personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ the first priority in your life. Immerse you mind and heart and will in Jesus’ love. Then, you will experience the duality of life, its pleasures and its pains, with the confidence and courage that you are loved with an everlasting love. Then, your will live your life from the place of thanksgiving knowing that in Jesus Christ, God is with you always.
Anxiety is rooted in that part of the human soul that demands: my will be done.
The remedy for anxiety is giving thanks.
Anxiety focuses the mind on the principle known as Murphy’s Law. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Anxiety is different from planning. Planning involves a rational analysis of a situation followed by a plan of action to deal with the situation.
Anxiety paralyzes action by the use of a logic that concludes no matter what I do I cannot control all events. Therefore, I am helpless. Therefore I am hopeless.
Anxiety is preoccupied with future tragedy. It is locked in the dualism that asserts: if life is not 100% good then it must be 100% bad. Either I get what I want all of the time and God is good. Or, I don’t get what I want 100% of the time and God, if God exists at all, is not good.
Anxiety disrupts the mind, robs sleep, distorts the desires of our hearts- leaving us open to the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, paralyzes the will and finally stagnates the soul.
Moses and the prophets spoke of this great threat to human happiness. Jesus came to transform this threat back into its original blessing.
Anxiety is a distortion of grace.
Grace transforms anxiety back into its original blessing. That original blessing is the ability to enjoy life as it unfolds, as we chose to engage life, as we are fully present to life.
As a teen one of my teachers once joking said 90% of success in life is just showing up. It certainly worked for me in school. Even if I didn’t always complete the assigned reading for my classes I always showed up for class. I always paid attention. And, I always took notes.
Thanksgiving is about showing up for life. It is about paying attention. If is about asking yourself the question: where am I here and now? What am I experiencing here and now? What do I have here and now?
The past is gone. The future has not yet come. There is only here and now. In Jesus Christ, God manifests his presence to each of us, to every human being on this planet, here and now.
What is here now for you? How is God manifesting Himself to you in the circumstances of your life here and now?
Some of us may be thinking of all of the preparations for the coming Thanksgiving meal, the visiting family, the hustle and bustle of what the world calls the holidays. Some of us may be experiencing anxiety about the war, the economy, health, the choices our children are making.
Here and now in the real presence of Jesus Christ at the altar, God asks us to immerse ourselves in the infinite and eternal love of the Son. The sacrament is the antidote to anxiety.
As set our intent to be present to God in these few moments of worship, God immerses our souls in divine grace. He makes all things new. He sets our minds free from the logic of fear to the clarity of faith. He purifies the desires of our hearts so that we may enjoy the wonder of human relationships and human activity. He transforms our wills so we can make a real choice to give thanks for the many blessings of this life.
Jesus teaches: do not be anxious. Then, Jesus tells us how not to be anxious. Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. Make your personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ the first priority in your life. Immerse you mind and heart and will in Jesus’ love. Then, you will experience the duality of life, its pleasures and its pains, with the confidence and courage that you are loved with an everlasting love. Then, your will live your life from the place of thanksgiving knowing that in Jesus Christ, God is with you always.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Christ the King
Christ the King Sunday
My kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus Christ is the rightful king of this planet.
All governments that currently exist are only temporary. God permits human formed governments to exist in this Church Age in order to restrain evil and preserve order. The time is coming when Jesus Christ will return to this planet. At that time, God will dissolve all human governments.
Queen Victoria of England, monarch of a vast world empire, once said that she hoped to live to see the day of Christ’s return. For, on that day it would be her greatest joy to surrender her crown to him and acclaim him king of kings and lord of lords.
When Jesus declared before Pontus Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world, he did not mean his kingdom was not of this planet.
God the Father created this planet according to the pattern of God the Son. This planet and all who live here are the the Father’s gift to the Son.
What Jesus meant, and what Pilate very shrewdly understood, is that his kingdom was not of this culture. The culture of the first century was not that different from the culture of the 21st century. It was a culture of prestige, position, pleasure and power. Those who ruled in that culture ruled from the place of the will to power.
The rulers of the ancient world used a combination of bribes and threats to dominate their subjects. The bribes Rome used were the classic bribes of bread and circuses. Rome provided grain subsidies to its citizens. Rome also provided free entertainment to divert and delight the masses. But, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The price Roman citizens paid was absolute obedience to the will of the emperor. Failure to obey meant death. Rome ruled through fear.
Jesus was not that kind of king. Jesus miraculously fed people but never promised to provide free food. Instead, he taught his disciples that they should feed the poor. Jesus performed amazing miracles but not to divert and dazzle. His miracles were filled with meaning and directed by a single purpose.
That single purpose was God the Father’s Plan of Salvation.
As Jesus stood before Pilate he stood in a wider context. Jesus was the legal king of Israel. His followers had abandoned him once it became clear he was not going to use his divine power to conquer. His enemies arrested him for the same reason. They reasoned, if he is not going to use his power to conquer, then we can kill him without fear.
Caiaphas condemned Jesus to death for acknowledging the truth. It was an inconvenient truth. It was an unacceptable truth. For, if Jesus really was the Son of the Living God then everything the people believed about God was wrong. And, Caiaphas reasoned that to be wrong about God was to risk God’s wrath. In his pride. Caiaphas could not and would not accept the possibility that he and the entire religious establishment of his was could be so wrong. In order for Caiaphas to accept the truth Jesus spoke he, Caiaphas, would have to change in a very profound way. In the end, Caiaphas condemned Jesus to avoid the personal transformation of his own soul.
Caiaphas condemned Jesus for being who he was: the Son of God. In so doing, Caiaphas embodied not just the nation of Israel but the entire human race. The entire human race seeks to define God. Every person on this planet reserves the right to define God’s existence or non existence. The possibility that God might have an opinion is meaningless to humans. The possibility that God might actually visit this planet in person and reveal himself is offensive to humans.
Caiaphas knew that Pilate would be indifferent to religions matters. He knew that most Romans were at best cynics. The charge Caiaphas brought against Jesus to Pilate was not the charge for which the religious court condemned Jesus. The religious court condemned Jesus for saying he was the Son of God. It was the religious crime of blasphemy. The charge Caiaphas brought to Pilate was that Jesus declared himself a king and was therefore guilty of treason.
Jesus was and still is the rightful king of Israel but the people cried out: we will not have this man to rule over us. We reserve the right to define God and to worship God according to our will.
Pilate knew all of this. As an educated pagan he endorsed the Roman cynicism about religious matters. Educated Romans held the view: publically I worship all of the deities. Privately, I believe in none of them.
But, most Romans were not atheists. They believed that there was a transcendent organizing principle that gave form and substance to the universe. They pondered that reality and decided it was so lofty and remote it was incomprehensible.
They called this transcendent organizing principle the logos. It was both a philosophical and scientific concept.
Strangely enough, even modern scientists who describe themselves as atheists nevertheless work from the assumption that there is a unifying organizing principle to the universe. Science would be impossible unless there was order and unless that order could be rationally observed, categorized and summarized.
Pilate knew all this. He also knew that in Jesus’ presence he was experiencing someone who was indeed not of this world of fear, self will and pride. Jesus was a unique category of one. In fact, Jesus just might be the personal presence of the transcendent mystery the Romans and the Greeks speculated that held the rational pattern of the universe together.
Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question convinced Pilate that Jesus was no direct threat to Roman power. Jesus moved the discussion away from the political and the religious into the realm of truth. That is a lofty realm indeed. To Pilate’s mind it was the realm of science, philosophy and ultimate meaning to life’s deepest questions..
It is these things that form the substance of Jesus’ kingship.
They are by no means impractical or esoteric. Jesus’ kingship is fundamental to who we are as a species and as individuals. Jesus rules as king by his self offering to all people everywhere in love.
That love is perfect, personal, and immutable. Jesus rules as king because Jesus not only speaks the truth, Jesus is the truth.. Jesus is the truth because Jesus is the unifying organizing principle to the universe. Jesus is the logos, the plan and pattern of all things and all people.
Jesus doesn’t need to impose his will on the nations and peoples of the world. All people live and move and have their being through Jesus Christ. He is absolute truth in human form. And he reveals absolute truth in the Great Mystery of Universal Love.
Jesus fulfilled the ultimate duty of a king. That ultimate duty is not to impose his will on his people. That ultimate duty is to die for the welfare of his people. We are all his people. All humans belong to Jesus. He died for all of us. He lives for all of us. He loves all of us.
Jesus is the King of love who offers all people everywhere the real choice to receive his love.
Caiaphas ruled the religious realm of his day and made a choice to reject the kingship of Christ. He made that choice in order to preserve his power. He feared losing the ability of saying: my will be done.
Pilate represented the political power of his day and he, too, made a choice to reject the kingship of Christ. He also made that choice in order to preserve his power. He feared losing the ability of saying: my will be done.
Queen Victoria ruled a vast empire in the 19th century. Yet, she looked forward to the day when she would surrender her crown, her power and her empire to Jesus Christ. She longed to say to God in person: Thy will be done.
Each of us rules our own soul as though we were the god and king of our personal universe. Each of us has the same choice Caiaphas, Pilate, and Queen Victoria had.
The kingship of Christ presents the soul with an urgent choice. It is the one real choice all human beings have, whatever our circumstances. It is the choice to accept the divine love and compassion of Jesus Christ.
Jesus stood before Pilate and declared. My kingdom is not of this world. Jesus stands before us today with the same message. As Caiaphas and Pilate made choices to condemn and reject Jesus, so we have the responsibility to accept him at his word. His word is truth. His word is love.
St. Augustine wrote that there are two kingdoms on this planet. There is the Kingdom of Power and there is the Kingdom of love. Jesus clarifies this for us. Jesus crystalizes the truth inherent in the essential pattern of the universe for us.
Jesus will never impose his love. He will always invite us to make a real choice to receive his love. What is your choice? In which kingdom do you chose to live and move and have your being? Jesus offers us his kingdom of love in the words: my kingdom is not of this world system of power and dominance. My kingdom is the realm of real choice and unconditional love.
My kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus Christ is the rightful king of this planet.
All governments that currently exist are only temporary. God permits human formed governments to exist in this Church Age in order to restrain evil and preserve order. The time is coming when Jesus Christ will return to this planet. At that time, God will dissolve all human governments.
Queen Victoria of England, monarch of a vast world empire, once said that she hoped to live to see the day of Christ’s return. For, on that day it would be her greatest joy to surrender her crown to him and acclaim him king of kings and lord of lords.
When Jesus declared before Pontus Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world, he did not mean his kingdom was not of this planet.
God the Father created this planet according to the pattern of God the Son. This planet and all who live here are the the Father’s gift to the Son.
What Jesus meant, and what Pilate very shrewdly understood, is that his kingdom was not of this culture. The culture of the first century was not that different from the culture of the 21st century. It was a culture of prestige, position, pleasure and power. Those who ruled in that culture ruled from the place of the will to power.
The rulers of the ancient world used a combination of bribes and threats to dominate their subjects. The bribes Rome used were the classic bribes of bread and circuses. Rome provided grain subsidies to its citizens. Rome also provided free entertainment to divert and delight the masses. But, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The price Roman citizens paid was absolute obedience to the will of the emperor. Failure to obey meant death. Rome ruled through fear.
Jesus was not that kind of king. Jesus miraculously fed people but never promised to provide free food. Instead, he taught his disciples that they should feed the poor. Jesus performed amazing miracles but not to divert and dazzle. His miracles were filled with meaning and directed by a single purpose.
That single purpose was God the Father’s Plan of Salvation.
As Jesus stood before Pilate he stood in a wider context. Jesus was the legal king of Israel. His followers had abandoned him once it became clear he was not going to use his divine power to conquer. His enemies arrested him for the same reason. They reasoned, if he is not going to use his power to conquer, then we can kill him without fear.
Caiaphas condemned Jesus to death for acknowledging the truth. It was an inconvenient truth. It was an unacceptable truth. For, if Jesus really was the Son of the Living God then everything the people believed about God was wrong. And, Caiaphas reasoned that to be wrong about God was to risk God’s wrath. In his pride. Caiaphas could not and would not accept the possibility that he and the entire religious establishment of his was could be so wrong. In order for Caiaphas to accept the truth Jesus spoke he, Caiaphas, would have to change in a very profound way. In the end, Caiaphas condemned Jesus to avoid the personal transformation of his own soul.
Caiaphas condemned Jesus for being who he was: the Son of God. In so doing, Caiaphas embodied not just the nation of Israel but the entire human race. The entire human race seeks to define God. Every person on this planet reserves the right to define God’s existence or non existence. The possibility that God might have an opinion is meaningless to humans. The possibility that God might actually visit this planet in person and reveal himself is offensive to humans.
Caiaphas knew that Pilate would be indifferent to religions matters. He knew that most Romans were at best cynics. The charge Caiaphas brought against Jesus to Pilate was not the charge for which the religious court condemned Jesus. The religious court condemned Jesus for saying he was the Son of God. It was the religious crime of blasphemy. The charge Caiaphas brought to Pilate was that Jesus declared himself a king and was therefore guilty of treason.
Jesus was and still is the rightful king of Israel but the people cried out: we will not have this man to rule over us. We reserve the right to define God and to worship God according to our will.
Pilate knew all of this. As an educated pagan he endorsed the Roman cynicism about religious matters. Educated Romans held the view: publically I worship all of the deities. Privately, I believe in none of them.
But, most Romans were not atheists. They believed that there was a transcendent organizing principle that gave form and substance to the universe. They pondered that reality and decided it was so lofty and remote it was incomprehensible.
They called this transcendent organizing principle the logos. It was both a philosophical and scientific concept.
Strangely enough, even modern scientists who describe themselves as atheists nevertheless work from the assumption that there is a unifying organizing principle to the universe. Science would be impossible unless there was order and unless that order could be rationally observed, categorized and summarized.
Pilate knew all this. He also knew that in Jesus’ presence he was experiencing someone who was indeed not of this world of fear, self will and pride. Jesus was a unique category of one. In fact, Jesus just might be the personal presence of the transcendent mystery the Romans and the Greeks speculated that held the rational pattern of the universe together.
Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question convinced Pilate that Jesus was no direct threat to Roman power. Jesus moved the discussion away from the political and the religious into the realm of truth. That is a lofty realm indeed. To Pilate’s mind it was the realm of science, philosophy and ultimate meaning to life’s deepest questions..
It is these things that form the substance of Jesus’ kingship.
They are by no means impractical or esoteric. Jesus’ kingship is fundamental to who we are as a species and as individuals. Jesus rules as king by his self offering to all people everywhere in love.
That love is perfect, personal, and immutable. Jesus rules as king because Jesus not only speaks the truth, Jesus is the truth.. Jesus is the truth because Jesus is the unifying organizing principle to the universe. Jesus is the logos, the plan and pattern of all things and all people.
Jesus doesn’t need to impose his will on the nations and peoples of the world. All people live and move and have their being through Jesus Christ. He is absolute truth in human form. And he reveals absolute truth in the Great Mystery of Universal Love.
Jesus fulfilled the ultimate duty of a king. That ultimate duty is not to impose his will on his people. That ultimate duty is to die for the welfare of his people. We are all his people. All humans belong to Jesus. He died for all of us. He lives for all of us. He loves all of us.
Jesus is the King of love who offers all people everywhere the real choice to receive his love.
Caiaphas ruled the religious realm of his day and made a choice to reject the kingship of Christ. He made that choice in order to preserve his power. He feared losing the ability of saying: my will be done.
Pilate represented the political power of his day and he, too, made a choice to reject the kingship of Christ. He also made that choice in order to preserve his power. He feared losing the ability of saying: my will be done.
Queen Victoria ruled a vast empire in the 19th century. Yet, she looked forward to the day when she would surrender her crown, her power and her empire to Jesus Christ. She longed to say to God in person: Thy will be done.
Each of us rules our own soul as though we were the god and king of our personal universe. Each of us has the same choice Caiaphas, Pilate, and Queen Victoria had.
The kingship of Christ presents the soul with an urgent choice. It is the one real choice all human beings have, whatever our circumstances. It is the choice to accept the divine love and compassion of Jesus Christ.
Jesus stood before Pilate and declared. My kingdom is not of this world. Jesus stands before us today with the same message. As Caiaphas and Pilate made choices to condemn and reject Jesus, so we have the responsibility to accept him at his word. His word is truth. His word is love.
St. Augustine wrote that there are two kingdoms on this planet. There is the Kingdom of Power and there is the Kingdom of love. Jesus clarifies this for us. Jesus crystalizes the truth inherent in the essential pattern of the universe for us.
Jesus will never impose his love. He will always invite us to make a real choice to receive his love. What is your choice? In which kingdom do you chose to live and move and have your being? Jesus offers us his kingdom of love in the words: my kingdom is not of this world system of power and dominance. My kingdom is the realm of real choice and unconditional love.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Pentecost 24
Pentecost 24 Proper 28
Beware that no one leads you astray.
There are three things that can lead us astray. The three things are the distortions of our own individual desires, the distractions of our culture, and the deceits of Satan.
As Jesus approached the time of his arrest and execution he warned his students about the dangers of being led astray. The immediate occasion for this warning was their reaction to the impressive edifice and religious power of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Temple was indeed impressive. It was one of the wonders of the ancient world. It had been under construction some 18 years before Jesus was born and its construction continued for some thirty years following his death and resurrection.
It was the third Temple built in Jerusalem. Solomon had built the first around 1,000 B.C. . The Babylonians destroyed that Temple. Nehemiah and Ezra built the second Temple in 516 B.C. It had fallen into decay over the centuries. King Herod began a massive reconstruction of the Temple in 18 B.C.
Herod’s Temple was massive and beautiful. But, it was less a place of worship than a place of nationalistic pride and aspiration to power. This aspect of the Temple is what impressed the disciples. They were captivated by the outward and visible form of the massive stones, the gold and precious gems, the large numbers of people who came from all over the world to worship in that place. They missed the inward and spiritual grace. The missed God’s plan and purpose for the Temple. They missed the invitation to reunification with the love of God through worship.
Only forty years after the resurrection of Jesus, zealots would seize control of Jerusalem, slaughter the Temple priests and lead the people into a disastrous war against Rome that would end in the total destruction of the Temple. It has never been rebuilt.
As the disciples exited the Temple that day, they felt the temptation of the lie. The temptation was not in the impressive edifice of the Temple. The temptation was in the lie that God is power. The lie also tells us: you can have that power.
God certainly is powerful. But, God is not power. God is love.
With virtually all other people of their generation, the disciples believed God was power. They wanted to share that power. They wanted Jesus to manifest that power.
For the disciples, power meant the immediate and miraculous fulfillment of their desires. It meant the exaltation of the nationalistic aspirations of Israel. And, it meant the triumph of Satan’s fundamental lie that through separation from divine love people can find fulfillment through the will to power.
Jesus warned his disciples of the impending destruction of the Temple. All of the signs were there. It didn’t require prophetic revelation to see how the religious politics of Jerusalem would impel the people into direct military conflict with Rome. But, no one saw it coming except Jesus. No one saw it coming because no one wanted to believe that the problem they faced was not in the political realm but in the spiritual realm. No one saw the final consequence because every one wanted the war and everyone believed that God would intervene to give them victory in the war.
As Jesus very accurately discerned the social and political climate of the day, so he looked into the souls of men and saw the rise of deceivers. The apostle John would later name these deceivers "antichrist’.
The antichrist is one who claims to speak for God but who also rejects the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.
The antichrist is both deceived and is a deceiver. In his self deceit he is convinced he and he alone speaks for God. His message is formed and empowered by distortions, distractions and deceits.
Jesus warns his disciples and us: be wary of people who claim to speak for God. Be wary of teachers who tell you what you want to hear. Be wary of religious leaders who hold the outward forms of religion but deny the inward and spiritual grace. Above all, be wary of the lie that Satan brings forth to obscure the Truth.
The truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
It is important to ask questions. All questions are helpful. The pre eminent question is: what is the truth? How does this teacher bring forth the essential truth revealed in Jesus Christ that God is real, God is personal, God is Love, God is Jesus Christ?
What does this teacher say about Jesus Christ?
It does matter what we believe. It matters so much that Jesus warns us to be wary. Question. Read the scriptures. Pray. Above all else, immerse your soul in the love and holiness of God at the altar in worship.
There are three lies that lead us astray. Three deceptions that lead us away from Truth. Those three lies are the disordered desires of our own hearts, the distractions of our surrounding culture, the deceit of Satan that if God is real then God is power.
The disciples desired victory for Israel, wealth and power for themselves. Their desire for God’s blessing was good. But, they had allowed their own fear, self will and pride to distort that desire. They had embraced the culture of death that sought dominance over other people, the world, and God himself. They had allowed Satan to seduce them with the most potent and subtle of all seductions: the will to power.
Jesus warned his disciples as they were caught up in the rush of power they felt as they walked through the impressive magnificent wonder of the Temple. Be wary. Be wary of those who would tell you what you want to hear. Be wary of the way of power. Many will come with that message. Many who have been deceived by that message will also seek to deceive you.
Hold fast to the truth. The truth is a person. The person is Jesus Christ. The truth is that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. Hold fast to Him and He will immerse your soul in the eternal love of His Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament of the altar. It is there you will know clarity of thought, purity of heart, humility of will.
Be wary that no one leads you astray. It does matter what you believe. It does matter how you believe. Draw close to the diving love and compassion of Jesus Christ. In His love you will find the healing of all of your desires. In His love, you will find the fulfillment of all of your dreams.
Accept no substitutes. It is Jesus and Jesus alone who is the fulness of Divine Love offering himself to all people everywhere, offering Himself to you here and now.
Remember the words of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father: be wary that no one leads you astray from love.
Beware that no one leads you astray.
There are three things that can lead us astray. The three things are the distortions of our own individual desires, the distractions of our culture, and the deceits of Satan.
As Jesus approached the time of his arrest and execution he warned his students about the dangers of being led astray. The immediate occasion for this warning was their reaction to the impressive edifice and religious power of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Temple was indeed impressive. It was one of the wonders of the ancient world. It had been under construction some 18 years before Jesus was born and its construction continued for some thirty years following his death and resurrection.
It was the third Temple built in Jerusalem. Solomon had built the first around 1,000 B.C. . The Babylonians destroyed that Temple. Nehemiah and Ezra built the second Temple in 516 B.C. It had fallen into decay over the centuries. King Herod began a massive reconstruction of the Temple in 18 B.C.
Herod’s Temple was massive and beautiful. But, it was less a place of worship than a place of nationalistic pride and aspiration to power. This aspect of the Temple is what impressed the disciples. They were captivated by the outward and visible form of the massive stones, the gold and precious gems, the large numbers of people who came from all over the world to worship in that place. They missed the inward and spiritual grace. The missed God’s plan and purpose for the Temple. They missed the invitation to reunification with the love of God through worship.
Only forty years after the resurrection of Jesus, zealots would seize control of Jerusalem, slaughter the Temple priests and lead the people into a disastrous war against Rome that would end in the total destruction of the Temple. It has never been rebuilt.
As the disciples exited the Temple that day, they felt the temptation of the lie. The temptation was not in the impressive edifice of the Temple. The temptation was in the lie that God is power. The lie also tells us: you can have that power.
God certainly is powerful. But, God is not power. God is love.
With virtually all other people of their generation, the disciples believed God was power. They wanted to share that power. They wanted Jesus to manifest that power.
For the disciples, power meant the immediate and miraculous fulfillment of their desires. It meant the exaltation of the nationalistic aspirations of Israel. And, it meant the triumph of Satan’s fundamental lie that through separation from divine love people can find fulfillment through the will to power.
Jesus warned his disciples of the impending destruction of the Temple. All of the signs were there. It didn’t require prophetic revelation to see how the religious politics of Jerusalem would impel the people into direct military conflict with Rome. But, no one saw it coming except Jesus. No one saw it coming because no one wanted to believe that the problem they faced was not in the political realm but in the spiritual realm. No one saw the final consequence because every one wanted the war and everyone believed that God would intervene to give them victory in the war.
As Jesus very accurately discerned the social and political climate of the day, so he looked into the souls of men and saw the rise of deceivers. The apostle John would later name these deceivers "antichrist’.
The antichrist is one who claims to speak for God but who also rejects the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.
The antichrist is both deceived and is a deceiver. In his self deceit he is convinced he and he alone speaks for God. His message is formed and empowered by distortions, distractions and deceits.
Jesus warns his disciples and us: be wary of people who claim to speak for God. Be wary of teachers who tell you what you want to hear. Be wary of religious leaders who hold the outward forms of religion but deny the inward and spiritual grace. Above all, be wary of the lie that Satan brings forth to obscure the Truth.
The truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
It is important to ask questions. All questions are helpful. The pre eminent question is: what is the truth? How does this teacher bring forth the essential truth revealed in Jesus Christ that God is real, God is personal, God is Love, God is Jesus Christ?
What does this teacher say about Jesus Christ?
It does matter what we believe. It matters so much that Jesus warns us to be wary. Question. Read the scriptures. Pray. Above all else, immerse your soul in the love and holiness of God at the altar in worship.
There are three lies that lead us astray. Three deceptions that lead us away from Truth. Those three lies are the disordered desires of our own hearts, the distractions of our surrounding culture, the deceit of Satan that if God is real then God is power.
The disciples desired victory for Israel, wealth and power for themselves. Their desire for God’s blessing was good. But, they had allowed their own fear, self will and pride to distort that desire. They had embraced the culture of death that sought dominance over other people, the world, and God himself. They had allowed Satan to seduce them with the most potent and subtle of all seductions: the will to power.
Jesus warned his disciples as they were caught up in the rush of power they felt as they walked through the impressive magnificent wonder of the Temple. Be wary. Be wary of those who would tell you what you want to hear. Be wary of the way of power. Many will come with that message. Many who have been deceived by that message will also seek to deceive you.
Hold fast to the truth. The truth is a person. The person is Jesus Christ. The truth is that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. Hold fast to Him and He will immerse your soul in the eternal love of His Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament of the altar. It is there you will know clarity of thought, purity of heart, humility of will.
Be wary that no one leads you astray. It does matter what you believe. It does matter how you believe. Draw close to the diving love and compassion of Jesus Christ. In His love you will find the healing of all of your desires. In His love, you will find the fulfillment of all of your dreams.
Accept no substitutes. It is Jesus and Jesus alone who is the fulness of Divine Love offering himself to all people everywhere, offering Himself to you here and now.
Remember the words of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father: be wary that no one leads you astray from love.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Pentecost 23
Pentecost 23 Proper 27 "She put in all that she had."
The offering we place at the altar is an act of worship.
There are two aspects of life where most people resist advice, particularly religious based advice. They are also the two areas that couples tend to argue about the most.
One of these is finances, money.
The song, "Money makes the world go round" sums up humanity’s understanding of money. It is the means, the end and the goal in life for large numbers of people.
Since money has always been of great importance to people it should be no surprise that God has something to say about it. The first thing God says about money is that money is frozen energy. Money is the frozen energy of our time, talents and labors.
God did not create money. People created money. The small green pieces of paper in our wallets and purses have no objective value. They are just paper. Their worth derives from the value we place in them. That value is in part based on trust, in part based on anxiety, and in part based in the amount of energy we devote to acquiring them.
Money is the frozen energy of our lives. We dedicate a certain amount of time and effort to acquire it. We trade life force for green certificates. By common agreement, we have set a value on human labor and activities and frozen that value in money.
God never created money but he understands its origins and functions better than we do. One of the most misquoted verses in the Bible is" money is the root of all evil." Money itself is completely indifferent to good and evil.
The Bible teaches that the love of money is the root of all manner of evils. As money is frozen life energy, evil is a distortion of love. The two go hand in hand.
The Bible does not endorse any one particular economic system. It does identify the place money can have in our lives. That place is summarized for us by Jesus when he says love God with all of your heart, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
God reminds us that we were designed to love. Our first love is God. God must be first or God will become last.
God must be first since God is the source of love. There can be no love apart from God. Love apart from God always suffers distortion. The greatest distortions of love are what people call evil.
The pre eminent way by which we reconnect to Divine Love and find transformation in Divine love is worship.
Some one once commented to me that they thought God was very selfish in demanding our worship. They asked: what is the point of telling God He is so great? For a moment I was horrified then the Holy Spirit reminded me that as long as people are still asking questions they are open to the Plan of Salvation.
Worship is not for God’s benefit. Worship is for our benefit.
Most religions people tend to forget this. Certainly, most religious people in Jesus’ day had adopted two basic distortions in their understanding of worship. Both can be summarized in the word "bribe".
One of the distortions looked at God, perceived God’s power and reacted with fear. For this approach, the bribe in worship is to placate a very powerful being. The further assumption is that God is unpredictable and potentially vindictive. If we do the wrong thing God will punish us. So, to placate this powerful being we build altars and offer sacrifices.
For much of human history the sacrifice of choice to placate God was a child, usually the first born male.
The concept was that when people killed the first born male infants on the altar of sacrifice that would prove to God that we respected him and feared him. In that proof God would be satisfied and would not bring natural disasters to punish people.
The second distortion in worship is the pay off. The concept is that if I bring something of value to the altar of sacrifice and offer it to God, then God will owe me something of value in return. This is religion as the expression of self will. We worship God so God will give us what we really want, usually more money.
There is a third distortion that emerges from these two. We see the third distortion in the gospel reading this morning. That distortion is pride. The concept is that the act of worship is like tipping a waiter for good service. It says: I am so rich and powerful and important I can afford to give a large gift at the altar.
The wealthy religious leaders in Jesus’ day made an ostentatious display of presenting their gifts before the altar of sacrifice in the Temple. Now, the standard God had set for the offering was the tithe, ten percent. And we read in other parts of scripture how the wealthy religious leaders had devised very clever interpretations of this very clear and simple standard in order to evade it.
The wealthy who contributed large sums of money to the Temple generally were not offering the Biblical tithe. They offered far less proportionately than the working poor.
Compared to the large numbers of working poor they offered significant sums of money. But, they did not bring the tithe. They were not interested in worshiping God as much as they wanted to gain respect and admiration from the people. For them, the money they brought to the Temple was an investment in their pride and prestige and power.
This is not worship. Worship is not a bribe to placate divine wrath or to obtain divine favor. It is not an expression of pride. Worship is the total immersion of the soul in Divine Love and Holiness.
God knows our weakness. He knows our need. He knows that despite the amazing abundance of resources he placed in this world for our benefit, we still live with the fear of scarcity. He also knows that when we created money we made a choice to freeze our life’s energy into stagnate forms.
The command God gave Moses for humans to offer the tithe at the altar is not for God’s benefit. It is not even primarily for the benefit of the Temple or the priests who serve in the Temple. It is for our benefit. It is the first step in helping us move from the distortion of self will, fear and pride, from the experience of life as scarcity, into a new experience of abundance. That abundance is eternal love.
The tithe is preeminently designed as an act of worship by which we take the frozen energy of our lives, place it on the altar of sacrifice, and release it into God’s hand by faith. As we do that God invites us to release our attachment to the experience of life as scarcity. In this act of worship God invites us to experience the new life of abundance in infinite and eternal and ever renewing love.
God tells us we can keep 90 % of our income to spend as we choose. He asks for a tithe, 10%, of our frozen energy to be placed on the altar of sacrifice. It is there that frozen energy will be transformed and released back into our souls as living dynamic and creative life force.
The religious people of Jesus day did not believe this. They believed the money was a bribe to avoid punishment or to get a reward. They gave just enough to impress other people, but never what God had commanded.
The widow did not just give 10%, or 30%, or 50%, or 75%, she gave 100%. She far exceeded what God commanded. The amount was small but it was all she had. It was so small no one noticed, except God.
Jesus declared that those two copper coins that together were worth a single penny were in fact priceless. They far exceeded the value of the silver and gold the wealthy brought out of their abundance. Those two coins were priceless because they represented 100% of the frozen energy the woman held in her hands. Those two coins were priceless because they were a genuine and sincere offering of love and worship.
The widow is enshrined in holy scripture. There are no memorials to her, no churches built in her honor, no hymns or poems or plays. We don’t even know her name. But she shines in the brightness of eternity with a radiance of divine love that reaches out across all cultures and all times.
She put in everything she had. She gave her all to God. She released her meager resources to God and God has blessed those two copper coins in an amazing and ongoing outpouring of grace that will continue until Christ returns to all people every where.
That is love. That is worship. That is what the tithe God invites us to bring to the altar of sacrifice can accomplish when it is presented with the extravagance of steadfast holy love. Out of her poverty, the widow gave her all. God has transformed that gift through eternal love into infinite grace.
For, she out of her poverty gave God everything.
The offering we place at the altar is an act of worship.
There are two aspects of life where most people resist advice, particularly religious based advice. They are also the two areas that couples tend to argue about the most.
One of these is finances, money.
The song, "Money makes the world go round" sums up humanity’s understanding of money. It is the means, the end and the goal in life for large numbers of people.
Since money has always been of great importance to people it should be no surprise that God has something to say about it. The first thing God says about money is that money is frozen energy. Money is the frozen energy of our time, talents and labors.
God did not create money. People created money. The small green pieces of paper in our wallets and purses have no objective value. They are just paper. Their worth derives from the value we place in them. That value is in part based on trust, in part based on anxiety, and in part based in the amount of energy we devote to acquiring them.
Money is the frozen energy of our lives. We dedicate a certain amount of time and effort to acquire it. We trade life force for green certificates. By common agreement, we have set a value on human labor and activities and frozen that value in money.
God never created money but he understands its origins and functions better than we do. One of the most misquoted verses in the Bible is" money is the root of all evil." Money itself is completely indifferent to good and evil.
The Bible teaches that the love of money is the root of all manner of evils. As money is frozen life energy, evil is a distortion of love. The two go hand in hand.
The Bible does not endorse any one particular economic system. It does identify the place money can have in our lives. That place is summarized for us by Jesus when he says love God with all of your heart, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
God reminds us that we were designed to love. Our first love is God. God must be first or God will become last.
God must be first since God is the source of love. There can be no love apart from God. Love apart from God always suffers distortion. The greatest distortions of love are what people call evil.
The pre eminent way by which we reconnect to Divine Love and find transformation in Divine love is worship.
Some one once commented to me that they thought God was very selfish in demanding our worship. They asked: what is the point of telling God He is so great? For a moment I was horrified then the Holy Spirit reminded me that as long as people are still asking questions they are open to the Plan of Salvation.
Worship is not for God’s benefit. Worship is for our benefit.
Most religions people tend to forget this. Certainly, most religious people in Jesus’ day had adopted two basic distortions in their understanding of worship. Both can be summarized in the word "bribe".
One of the distortions looked at God, perceived God’s power and reacted with fear. For this approach, the bribe in worship is to placate a very powerful being. The further assumption is that God is unpredictable and potentially vindictive. If we do the wrong thing God will punish us. So, to placate this powerful being we build altars and offer sacrifices.
For much of human history the sacrifice of choice to placate God was a child, usually the first born male.
The concept was that when people killed the first born male infants on the altar of sacrifice that would prove to God that we respected him and feared him. In that proof God would be satisfied and would not bring natural disasters to punish people.
The second distortion in worship is the pay off. The concept is that if I bring something of value to the altar of sacrifice and offer it to God, then God will owe me something of value in return. This is religion as the expression of self will. We worship God so God will give us what we really want, usually more money.
There is a third distortion that emerges from these two. We see the third distortion in the gospel reading this morning. That distortion is pride. The concept is that the act of worship is like tipping a waiter for good service. It says: I am so rich and powerful and important I can afford to give a large gift at the altar.
The wealthy religious leaders in Jesus’ day made an ostentatious display of presenting their gifts before the altar of sacrifice in the Temple. Now, the standard God had set for the offering was the tithe, ten percent. And we read in other parts of scripture how the wealthy religious leaders had devised very clever interpretations of this very clear and simple standard in order to evade it.
The wealthy who contributed large sums of money to the Temple generally were not offering the Biblical tithe. They offered far less proportionately than the working poor.
Compared to the large numbers of working poor they offered significant sums of money. But, they did not bring the tithe. They were not interested in worshiping God as much as they wanted to gain respect and admiration from the people. For them, the money they brought to the Temple was an investment in their pride and prestige and power.
This is not worship. Worship is not a bribe to placate divine wrath or to obtain divine favor. It is not an expression of pride. Worship is the total immersion of the soul in Divine Love and Holiness.
God knows our weakness. He knows our need. He knows that despite the amazing abundance of resources he placed in this world for our benefit, we still live with the fear of scarcity. He also knows that when we created money we made a choice to freeze our life’s energy into stagnate forms.
The command God gave Moses for humans to offer the tithe at the altar is not for God’s benefit. It is not even primarily for the benefit of the Temple or the priests who serve in the Temple. It is for our benefit. It is the first step in helping us move from the distortion of self will, fear and pride, from the experience of life as scarcity, into a new experience of abundance. That abundance is eternal love.
The tithe is preeminently designed as an act of worship by which we take the frozen energy of our lives, place it on the altar of sacrifice, and release it into God’s hand by faith. As we do that God invites us to release our attachment to the experience of life as scarcity. In this act of worship God invites us to experience the new life of abundance in infinite and eternal and ever renewing love.
God tells us we can keep 90 % of our income to spend as we choose. He asks for a tithe, 10%, of our frozen energy to be placed on the altar of sacrifice. It is there that frozen energy will be transformed and released back into our souls as living dynamic and creative life force.
The religious people of Jesus day did not believe this. They believed the money was a bribe to avoid punishment or to get a reward. They gave just enough to impress other people, but never what God had commanded.
The widow did not just give 10%, or 30%, or 50%, or 75%, she gave 100%. She far exceeded what God commanded. The amount was small but it was all she had. It was so small no one noticed, except God.
Jesus declared that those two copper coins that together were worth a single penny were in fact priceless. They far exceeded the value of the silver and gold the wealthy brought out of their abundance. Those two coins were priceless because they represented 100% of the frozen energy the woman held in her hands. Those two coins were priceless because they were a genuine and sincere offering of love and worship.
The widow is enshrined in holy scripture. There are no memorials to her, no churches built in her honor, no hymns or poems or plays. We don’t even know her name. But she shines in the brightness of eternity with a radiance of divine love that reaches out across all cultures and all times.
She put in everything she had. She gave her all to God. She released her meager resources to God and God has blessed those two copper coins in an amazing and ongoing outpouring of grace that will continue until Christ returns to all people every where.
That is love. That is worship. That is what the tithe God invites us to bring to the altar of sacrifice can accomplish when it is presented with the extravagance of steadfast holy love. Out of her poverty, the widow gave her all. God has transformed that gift through eternal love into infinite grace.
For, she out of her poverty gave God everything.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
All Saints 2009
All Saints Day 2009 (Pentecost 22 Proper 26)
"See how he loved him".
Jesus is love in human flesh.
Jesus just doesn’t have love, show love, or act in a loving manner. He is love. The Bible teaches that only love is eternal. Heaven and Earth were created in a moment of time and will at the appointed time come to their fulfillment and end. Love never ends.
Love never ends because love has no beginning. Love is eternal.
God the Father is the one who loves and he loves eternally. God the Son is the Beloved and he is the Beloved eternally. God the Holy Spirit is the personal power and presence of love and his personal power and presence are also eternal.
Jesus came to earth to restore the one thing that brings meaning and purpose to life. That one thing is eternal love. That love comes to us in the personal presence of the eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Lazarus was Jesus’ friend.
As the eternal Beloved Jesus offers his friendship to all people everywhere. As we see in scripture and experience in our lives, many people reject that friendship. Some reject Jesus completely. They want nothing to do with him. They say: stay away from me.
Others want Jesus to be some one other than who he is. They say, I will be your friend only if you drop this idea that you are the Son of God. Be a prophet and I will listen to you. Be a teacher and I will study your words. Be a myth and I will tell your story and sing songs about you. Be who I want you to be and I will honor you, when it is convenient to me.
Still others wanted Jesus to give them rewards. Give me power and I will follow you. Give me wealth and I will proclaim your greatness. Give me pleasure and I will claim your name as my own. Give me what I want when I want it and I will be your friend.
Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus had a very different response to Jesus. They valued him for who he was. They valued him, not as some false image or some insistent demand they brought before him. They were happy just to invite him for dinner and sit in his presence.
We know no detail about Lazarus’ friendship with Jesus. From the scant evidence in scripture we know that Lazarus and his sisters were devout Pharisees. They believed in the resurrection. They practiced sacred hospitality to strangers. They expected the coming of the Messiah. They were rich. And, they enjoyed Jesus’ friendship.
When Lazarus unexpectedly falls ill his sisters send word to Jesus to come to heal the one he loves. But, Jesus delays for two days and does not arrive until Lazarus has been dead for four days. The sisters are overcome by grief and very plainly tell Jesus: if only you had come sooner. If only you had been here. You could have healed him. But, you delayed. You delayed and your friend whom you loved is now dead. Dead is dead. There is nothing that anyone can do.
Even the Pharisees who believed in the resurrection understood that dead is dead. They did not believe in an immortal soul that survived death. The life is the breath and when a person breathes his last breath there is no more life. There is no more person. For Mary and Martha, Lazarus had ceased to exist.
How Jesus responds and what he did reveal the Great Mystery of human existence and Divine Life.
First, Jesus wept. He cried. He grieved. He knew that death was never part of God’s plan and purpose for humanity.
Jesus in his pre incarnate form was there in Eden when Adam and Eve walked in the beauty of holiness. He invited them to make the one real choice that would seal their souls in union with the Eternal Life of God.
He warned them that the choice to separate from God was real and held a terrible consequence. That consequence was death.
He witnessed the choice humanity made to separate from God. He immediately set into motion the plan to restore what humanity rejected. And he knew the terrible price he would have to pay to accomplish that plan.
Now, at Bethany, Jesus stood in the presence of death. Death was not new to Jesus. He had grown up in a world where infant mortality rates were high and life spans were low. As a child and a teen he had attended more funerals than weddings. This was why he had come into the world. He had come because the human race had separated from God. Humanity had separated from the one thing that is eternal: love. And so, humanity now experienced the consequence of separation: death.
Jesus wept. He wept for Lazarus who had died. He wept for the family who grieved. He wept for the people who lived in fear that death was a punishment. He wept for his followers that they still did not receive him for who he was. He wept because he knew he would call Lazarus back from Paradise, from the place of the righteous dead.
He wept because he knew that the choice of eternal life is the choice of love. That choice must be real. The reality of that choice is that some will accept the gift Jesus brings and some will defiantly reject it. He wept because he loved.
Love always conquers death.
Jesus’ love for his friend Lazarus defeated death that day in the tombs outside Bethany. But, many more people in Judea and Galilee had died and were buried. Many more families grieved. Jesus wept for them as well.
Jesus knew the only solution to death was for him to embrace death.
Jesus experienced death on the cross fully and completely, universally and personally. On the cross, Jesus experienced human sin, human separation, and human death. Jesus knows what is to die. He knows this not just in the abstract. He knows this not just in the experience of his own death.
On the cr
oss, Jesus took upon himself both the universal and the particular sin of humanity. On the cross, Jesus took upon himself both the universal and particular death all people experience.
No one dies alone. Jesus is always there. Always. No one dies un noticed. Jesus not only witnesses the death he experiences the death. On the cross, Jesus personally experienced the death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live.
He did this so he could transform death back into life. The way of transformation is the Way of Divine Love. That love is eternal. Even death cannot over come it.
It is the teaching of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that all who are baptized in Christ are one with Christ and live with him forever. Our hope in the face of death is the love Christ brings to us. That love is eternal. Even death cannot dissolve that love.
Jesus knew that even though he was restoring life to his friend for a few more years in this world, it was only a foretaste of the eternal life Lazarus had already received when he embraced Jesus as Lord through faith, through hope, through love.
The gift of God is the love of God. The love of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the eternal Beloved of the father.
In Bethany that day, the crowds recognized this reality when Jesus wept. They saw the compassion of God in Jesus tears. They witnessed the power of God as Lazarus came out of the tomb, his arms and head still bound by the grave clothes.
Many believed in him at that moment. Many recognized that the love of God was not just a concept or an impersonal force but fully present in Jesus Christ.
They had said: see how Jesus loved Lazarus. The love precedes the miracle. The love comes to us now in the waters of baptism and in the blessed sacrament of the altar. As we behold the real presence of Christ in Holy Communion claim the reality as you remember the words of the crowds that day in Bethany. See how he loved him. See how he loves you. He loves you with an everlasting love. He is here fully present for you. Receive him by faith and know the reality of eternal love in the living Lord Jesus Christ, this day, now, and forever. Amen.
"See how he loved him".
Jesus is love in human flesh.
Jesus just doesn’t have love, show love, or act in a loving manner. He is love. The Bible teaches that only love is eternal. Heaven and Earth were created in a moment of time and will at the appointed time come to their fulfillment and end. Love never ends.
Love never ends because love has no beginning. Love is eternal.
God the Father is the one who loves and he loves eternally. God the Son is the Beloved and he is the Beloved eternally. God the Holy Spirit is the personal power and presence of love and his personal power and presence are also eternal.
Jesus came to earth to restore the one thing that brings meaning and purpose to life. That one thing is eternal love. That love comes to us in the personal presence of the eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Lazarus was Jesus’ friend.
As the eternal Beloved Jesus offers his friendship to all people everywhere. As we see in scripture and experience in our lives, many people reject that friendship. Some reject Jesus completely. They want nothing to do with him. They say: stay away from me.
Others want Jesus to be some one other than who he is. They say, I will be your friend only if you drop this idea that you are the Son of God. Be a prophet and I will listen to you. Be a teacher and I will study your words. Be a myth and I will tell your story and sing songs about you. Be who I want you to be and I will honor you, when it is convenient to me.
Still others wanted Jesus to give them rewards. Give me power and I will follow you. Give me wealth and I will proclaim your greatness. Give me pleasure and I will claim your name as my own. Give me what I want when I want it and I will be your friend.
Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus had a very different response to Jesus. They valued him for who he was. They valued him, not as some false image or some insistent demand they brought before him. They were happy just to invite him for dinner and sit in his presence.
We know no detail about Lazarus’ friendship with Jesus. From the scant evidence in scripture we know that Lazarus and his sisters were devout Pharisees. They believed in the resurrection. They practiced sacred hospitality to strangers. They expected the coming of the Messiah. They were rich. And, they enjoyed Jesus’ friendship.
When Lazarus unexpectedly falls ill his sisters send word to Jesus to come to heal the one he loves. But, Jesus delays for two days and does not arrive until Lazarus has been dead for four days. The sisters are overcome by grief and very plainly tell Jesus: if only you had come sooner. If only you had been here. You could have healed him. But, you delayed. You delayed and your friend whom you loved is now dead. Dead is dead. There is nothing that anyone can do.
Even the Pharisees who believed in the resurrection understood that dead is dead. They did not believe in an immortal soul that survived death. The life is the breath and when a person breathes his last breath there is no more life. There is no more person. For Mary and Martha, Lazarus had ceased to exist.
How Jesus responds and what he did reveal the Great Mystery of human existence and Divine Life.
First, Jesus wept. He cried. He grieved. He knew that death was never part of God’s plan and purpose for humanity.
Jesus in his pre incarnate form was there in Eden when Adam and Eve walked in the beauty of holiness. He invited them to make the one real choice that would seal their souls in union with the Eternal Life of God.
He warned them that the choice to separate from God was real and held a terrible consequence. That consequence was death.
He witnessed the choice humanity made to separate from God. He immediately set into motion the plan to restore what humanity rejected. And he knew the terrible price he would have to pay to accomplish that plan.
Now, at Bethany, Jesus stood in the presence of death. Death was not new to Jesus. He had grown up in a world where infant mortality rates were high and life spans were low. As a child and a teen he had attended more funerals than weddings. This was why he had come into the world. He had come because the human race had separated from God. Humanity had separated from the one thing that is eternal: love. And so, humanity now experienced the consequence of separation: death.
Jesus wept. He wept for Lazarus who had died. He wept for the family who grieved. He wept for the people who lived in fear that death was a punishment. He wept for his followers that they still did not receive him for who he was. He wept because he knew he would call Lazarus back from Paradise, from the place of the righteous dead.
He wept because he knew that the choice of eternal life is the choice of love. That choice must be real. The reality of that choice is that some will accept the gift Jesus brings and some will defiantly reject it. He wept because he loved.
Love always conquers death.
Jesus’ love for his friend Lazarus defeated death that day in the tombs outside Bethany. But, many more people in Judea and Galilee had died and were buried. Many more families grieved. Jesus wept for them as well.
Jesus knew the only solution to death was for him to embrace death.
Jesus experienced death on the cross fully and completely, universally and personally. On the cross, Jesus experienced human sin, human separation, and human death. Jesus knows what is to die. He knows this not just in the abstract. He knows this not just in the experience of his own death.
On the cr
oss, Jesus took upon himself both the universal and the particular sin of humanity. On the cross, Jesus took upon himself both the universal and particular death all people experience.
No one dies alone. Jesus is always there. Always. No one dies un noticed. Jesus not only witnesses the death he experiences the death. On the cross, Jesus personally experienced the death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live.
He did this so he could transform death back into life. The way of transformation is the Way of Divine Love. That love is eternal. Even death cannot over come it.
It is the teaching of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that all who are baptized in Christ are one with Christ and live with him forever. Our hope in the face of death is the love Christ brings to us. That love is eternal. Even death cannot dissolve that love.
Jesus knew that even though he was restoring life to his friend for a few more years in this world, it was only a foretaste of the eternal life Lazarus had already received when he embraced Jesus as Lord through faith, through hope, through love.
The gift of God is the love of God. The love of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the eternal Beloved of the father.
In Bethany that day, the crowds recognized this reality when Jesus wept. They saw the compassion of God in Jesus tears. They witnessed the power of God as Lazarus came out of the tomb, his arms and head still bound by the grave clothes.
Many believed in him at that moment. Many recognized that the love of God was not just a concept or an impersonal force but fully present in Jesus Christ.
They had said: see how Jesus loved Lazarus. The love precedes the miracle. The love comes to us now in the waters of baptism and in the blessed sacrament of the altar. As we behold the real presence of Christ in Holy Communion claim the reality as you remember the words of the crowds that day in Bethany. See how he loved him. See how he loves you. He loves you with an everlasting love. He is here fully present for you. Receive him by faith and know the reality of eternal love in the living Lord Jesus Christ, this day, now, and forever. Amen.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Pentecost 21
Pentecost 21 Proper 25 Your Faith has made you well.
More often than not, what we believe we perceive. And, what we perceive becomes our reality.
Of course, this is not true in an absolute sense. If you believe your are Peter the Great of Russia it doesn’t mean you are the Czar. It just means your belief determines your reality.
What we believe and how we believe is a window into the condition of our souls. During his earthly ministry Jesus placed a significant emphasis on faith. Most religious leaders of his day emphasized works, obedience to the Law. Most religious leaders emphasized right action as a condition for gaining God’s attention and God’s favor.
The very existence of Jesus Christ tells us that there is nothing we can do to get God’s attention or God’s favor. Jesus is the fulness of God reaching out to all people everywhere. We did not earn his visit. We did not even invite his visit. He came because God is love.
Since there is nothing we can do to gain God’s favor there is nothing we can do to lose it. We do need to choose it. We do need to make a real choice to hear the word of God. We do need to make a conscious decision to receive the gift of God.
The gift of God is divine love. That love does not impose itself on us. God does not force us to love him. God does offer his love to all people everywhere without exception. There is no one whom God does not love.
The problem is not with God. We don’t need to work at getting his attention. We don’t need to merit his love. The problem lies in the human soul.
The human soul has chosen separation. The soul has declared its independence from God. That declaration of independence warps the will into a tight tense demand. That demand is self will. The self will asserts the right and the power to define God however it desires. In that choice, the soul creates layers and layers of distortion in an effort to defend itself from what it fears most.
The soul lost in sin does not want God.
The soul in separation fears that reunification with God means destruction. God does not bring destruction to the soul. God does bring transformation. For the soul to embrace reunification with God it must in some profound way surrender self will to divine will.
The impetus for that surrender of the will is faith. Faith is a gift God the Holy Spirit offers all people every where at all times. Faith is a choice to form the soul according to the plan, the purpose and the pattern of Divine Love.
As we see in the gospel reading this morning, faith requires the identification of our need and the desire to receive the blessing God offers.
This may seem straightforward, even obvious. Yet, through out the scriptures we see how people intentionally miss the mark. We see how people choose to ignore God’s messengers, the prophets. And we see how people choose to ignore God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Bartimaeus was blind but he saw the problem. He did not fight against his blindness. He did not play the victim by accusing other people or God for his blindness. His soul was not locked in resentment and self pity. He knew the pain of blindness but he did not cultivate the suffering of shame or of blame.
Neither did he passively submit to his condition. When Jesus approached he called out to him for help. He took action within the limits of his condition. He asked for help. He asked the person who others had said could help him. He perceived another way.
Jesus helps Bartimaeus clarify his intent by asking him what he wants. It may seem like a strange question. But, even more strangely, modern psychologists have discovered a curious phenomena. Some people so strongly identify with their illness that they no longer want to be healed. And some people feel the spiritual pain of separation from God so powerfully that they manifest a physical illness where no physical cause for the illness exists.
So, Jesus invites Bartimaeus to declare his intent. "What do you want, Bartimaeus? What is the longing of your soul?"
We learn that Bartimaeus’ desire for healing was deep seated and profound. It was not casual. It did not proceed from the melodrama of self will. We learn this from the last verse of the passage. Immediately, he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
Jesus told Bartimaeus: go. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has opened your mind and heart and will to the inner depths of your soul. Your faith has rightly identified Jesus as the one who can heal and will heal. Your faith seeks the blessing not just in the outward and visible signs of the things of this world. Your faith is the turning of your soul from self will to divine will.
Jesus says: go. Bartimaeus comes. He follows Jesus. Not every one whom Jesus healed followed Jesus. Bartimaeus did. He followed Jesus in the way. The way is not the road Jesus took as he left town. The way is the new life Jesus offers. It is the new life of grace. It is the new life of faith.
Faith is the reorientation of self will to divine will. Faith is the immersion of the soul in divine love. Faith is the anti dote to fear. Faith is the soul waking up, paying attention, asking questions, seeking answers, standing before the divine presence in Jesus Christ.
Faith is the course correction of a soul lost in separation. It is the course correction from dissolution to integration. It is the course correction from fear, self will and pride to light and life and love.
Faith is not magic. The principle is as you believe so shall you receive. The principle is not: name it and claim it.
Faith opens the soul to be filled with what the soul needs most but cannot see. Faith opens the soul to what the soul desires most but refuses to acknowledge. Faith opens the soul to love. It is the opening of the soul to divine love that allows the mind, heart and will to relax and receive the reality of grace.
For some, certainly for Bartimaeus, the healing of the body follows. For Bartimaeus the healing was immediate. Grace is not magic. Faith is not the will to power to assert control.
Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus is a fundamental question that invites all of us to discern the condition of our soul What do you want? What did you want that created your life to this point? What do you want that is more of the same? What do you want that is different?
Those questions are only a first step. But, they are question that bears repeating. What do you want? What do you want out of life? What do you want from God?
Forget your religious instruction for a minute. Forget what we call today the politically correct answer. Faith requires an honest assessment of the state of the soul.
Jesus once commented that those who believe they are well have no need of a physician. It is important to discern our real demand and our honest desire. Only then, can we turn to God and ask for the grace to receive the transforming power of divine love.
Sin erodes faith if we are not honest. Faith transforms sin if we have the courage to accept the truth where ever the truth may lead. For Bartimaeus that day, the truth was that he was blind. The truth was that he really did want to regain his sight. The truth was not just a series of statements or facts. The truth was a person, is a person, always will be a person: Jesus Christ.
As Bartimaeus opened his soul to the truth through faith, he opened his eyes to receive the healing he desired.. As he received the physical healing his soul opened wide to embrace the spiritual healing. His faith restored his eyes to sight. His faith restored his soul to reunification with God.
Jesus offers the same promise to us. As you believe so shall you receive. Jesus invites us into the new life of grace. He invites us into the new life of faith. He invites us to receive the transforming gift of eternal love.
Jesus invites us into the next step along the way. It is the step of faith. As we take that step, Jesus is already there saying to us. Go. Go forward in faith. Your faith has brought you this far. You faith has made you well.
More often than not, what we believe we perceive. And, what we perceive becomes our reality.
Of course, this is not true in an absolute sense. If you believe your are Peter the Great of Russia it doesn’t mean you are the Czar. It just means your belief determines your reality.
What we believe and how we believe is a window into the condition of our souls. During his earthly ministry Jesus placed a significant emphasis on faith. Most religious leaders of his day emphasized works, obedience to the Law. Most religious leaders emphasized right action as a condition for gaining God’s attention and God’s favor.
The very existence of Jesus Christ tells us that there is nothing we can do to get God’s attention or God’s favor. Jesus is the fulness of God reaching out to all people everywhere. We did not earn his visit. We did not even invite his visit. He came because God is love.
Since there is nothing we can do to gain God’s favor there is nothing we can do to lose it. We do need to choose it. We do need to make a real choice to hear the word of God. We do need to make a conscious decision to receive the gift of God.
The gift of God is divine love. That love does not impose itself on us. God does not force us to love him. God does offer his love to all people everywhere without exception. There is no one whom God does not love.
The problem is not with God. We don’t need to work at getting his attention. We don’t need to merit his love. The problem lies in the human soul.
The human soul has chosen separation. The soul has declared its independence from God. That declaration of independence warps the will into a tight tense demand. That demand is self will. The self will asserts the right and the power to define God however it desires. In that choice, the soul creates layers and layers of distortion in an effort to defend itself from what it fears most.
The soul lost in sin does not want God.
The soul in separation fears that reunification with God means destruction. God does not bring destruction to the soul. God does bring transformation. For the soul to embrace reunification with God it must in some profound way surrender self will to divine will.
The impetus for that surrender of the will is faith. Faith is a gift God the Holy Spirit offers all people every where at all times. Faith is a choice to form the soul according to the plan, the purpose and the pattern of Divine Love.
As we see in the gospel reading this morning, faith requires the identification of our need and the desire to receive the blessing God offers.
This may seem straightforward, even obvious. Yet, through out the scriptures we see how people intentionally miss the mark. We see how people choose to ignore God’s messengers, the prophets. And we see how people choose to ignore God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Bartimaeus was blind but he saw the problem. He did not fight against his blindness. He did not play the victim by accusing other people or God for his blindness. His soul was not locked in resentment and self pity. He knew the pain of blindness but he did not cultivate the suffering of shame or of blame.
Neither did he passively submit to his condition. When Jesus approached he called out to him for help. He took action within the limits of his condition. He asked for help. He asked the person who others had said could help him. He perceived another way.
Jesus helps Bartimaeus clarify his intent by asking him what he wants. It may seem like a strange question. But, even more strangely, modern psychologists have discovered a curious phenomena. Some people so strongly identify with their illness that they no longer want to be healed. And some people feel the spiritual pain of separation from God so powerfully that they manifest a physical illness where no physical cause for the illness exists.
So, Jesus invites Bartimaeus to declare his intent. "What do you want, Bartimaeus? What is the longing of your soul?"
We learn that Bartimaeus’ desire for healing was deep seated and profound. It was not casual. It did not proceed from the melodrama of self will. We learn this from the last verse of the passage. Immediately, he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
Jesus told Bartimaeus: go. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has opened your mind and heart and will to the inner depths of your soul. Your faith has rightly identified Jesus as the one who can heal and will heal. Your faith seeks the blessing not just in the outward and visible signs of the things of this world. Your faith is the turning of your soul from self will to divine will.
Jesus says: go. Bartimaeus comes. He follows Jesus. Not every one whom Jesus healed followed Jesus. Bartimaeus did. He followed Jesus in the way. The way is not the road Jesus took as he left town. The way is the new life Jesus offers. It is the new life of grace. It is the new life of faith.
Faith is the reorientation of self will to divine will. Faith is the immersion of the soul in divine love. Faith is the anti dote to fear. Faith is the soul waking up, paying attention, asking questions, seeking answers, standing before the divine presence in Jesus Christ.
Faith is the course correction of a soul lost in separation. It is the course correction from dissolution to integration. It is the course correction from fear, self will and pride to light and life and love.
Faith is not magic. The principle is as you believe so shall you receive. The principle is not: name it and claim it.
Faith opens the soul to be filled with what the soul needs most but cannot see. Faith opens the soul to what the soul desires most but refuses to acknowledge. Faith opens the soul to love. It is the opening of the soul to divine love that allows the mind, heart and will to relax and receive the reality of grace.
For some, certainly for Bartimaeus, the healing of the body follows. For Bartimaeus the healing was immediate. Grace is not magic. Faith is not the will to power to assert control.
Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus is a fundamental question that invites all of us to discern the condition of our soul What do you want? What did you want that created your life to this point? What do you want that is more of the same? What do you want that is different?
Those questions are only a first step. But, they are question that bears repeating. What do you want? What do you want out of life? What do you want from God?
Forget your religious instruction for a minute. Forget what we call today the politically correct answer. Faith requires an honest assessment of the state of the soul.
Jesus once commented that those who believe they are well have no need of a physician. It is important to discern our real demand and our honest desire. Only then, can we turn to God and ask for the grace to receive the transforming power of divine love.
Sin erodes faith if we are not honest. Faith transforms sin if we have the courage to accept the truth where ever the truth may lead. For Bartimaeus that day, the truth was that he was blind. The truth was that he really did want to regain his sight. The truth was not just a series of statements or facts. The truth was a person, is a person, always will be a person: Jesus Christ.
As Bartimaeus opened his soul to the truth through faith, he opened his eyes to receive the healing he desired.. As he received the physical healing his soul opened wide to embrace the spiritual healing. His faith restored his eyes to sight. His faith restored his soul to reunification with God.
Jesus offers the same promise to us. As you believe so shall you receive. Jesus invites us into the new life of grace. He invites us into the new life of faith. He invites us to receive the transforming gift of eternal love.
Jesus invites us into the next step along the way. It is the step of faith. As we take that step, Jesus is already there saying to us. Go. Go forward in faith. Your faith has brought you this far. You faith has made you well.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Pentecost 20
Pentecost 20 Proper 24
The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.
The disciples were religious consumers.
A religious consumer looks at God and makes the statement: do this for me. James and John were not unique in this aspect of their religious life. Their attitude toward God formed their relationship with Jesus.
James and John came to Jesus with a very blunt and self serving statement: we want you to do for us whatever we ask. They probably believed it was time to cash in on their close relationship with Jesus. Along with Peter they formed an inner circle who received special training and special revelation.
James and John knew Jesus was going to Jerusalem. They knew things were going to happen. They wanted to be in on the action. They wanted to secure their place in the new kingdom Jesus was about to establish. They had their list of goals. At the top of the list was power. They wanted Jesus to make them his vice regents. They wanted to rule over the new kingdom in Jesus’ name with absolute authority to give orders and to make laws.
The other disciples were angry with the brothers. They were angry because James and John had the effrontery to ask for what they all wanted. They asked first. The disciples shared the brother’s desires and demands. They were angry because they were jealous and envious.
Jesus had been teaching the disciples that the kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus had been revealing that his Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation was not a political program. The Plan of Salvation is the fulfillment of the Torah, the Law of Moses. That law has two parts: the commandments and the sacrifices.
Jesus obeyed all of the commandments in thought, word and deed. He had formed his life by the prayer: Father, not my will but Thy will be done. Jesus was now ready to fulfill the sacrificial aspect of the Torah. Jesus was about to offer his perfect life as the one, pure, perfect and final sacrifice for sin.
James and John and the other disciples ignored all of this. They heard the teaching and immediately distorted it to fit into their basic demand. That basic demand is the voice of the separated soul that cries out from the pain of separation: what’s in it for me? My will be done. Give me the power. Me.
Consumer religion is the corruption of God’s call to all people everywhere to hear the words of Jesus Christ and to heed the words of Jesus Christ: I have come not to be served but to serve.
Consumer religion, regardless of the religious label, starts from the place of separation and lives from the place of rebellion. It comes to God, life, other people with the demand: do what I ask of you. My will be done.
That voice perpetuates the pain of separation from God.
For, that voice simply sees God as an extension of its own self will, fear and pride.
The disciples sought rule. They sought power. They vied with each other to become the Messiah’s co regents and co rulers.
Jesus will have none of it. Jesus is the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah. Jesus is the co eternal Beloved who came, who comes, and who will return with the fulness of divine love, divine compassion, divine holiness.
James and John reveal to us, to all people, the great challenge in the spiritual life. The challenge is two fold. The first challenge is to accept Jesus as the one who reunites a separated, fallen, and lost humanity with the eternal love of God.
Our sin nature wants Jesus to be anything other than who he is. Our culture wants Jesus to be a teacher, a prophet or a myth. Our sin nature rejects the clear and concise message that Jesus is the Divine Presence. Our sin nature rejects the reality that our relationship with Jesus Christ is the meaning and purpose of our lives.
James and John wanted Jesus to be a new King David, a warrior king who would destroy Israel’s enemies and plunder the wealth of the gentile nations to enrich the chosen. This is the demand of a soul that seeks to dominate. This is the demand of a soul that is empty and seeks to be filled with wealth, power, pleasure, prestige.
The human soul was never designed to be filled with these things. Consumer religion is cotton candy religion. It is bright, and sweet and fun. A little bit brings temporary pleasure. Too much bring sickness. An exclusive diet brings suffering and death.
The human soul was designed by God the Father according to the pattern of God the Son to be a living Temple for God the Holy Spirit. That is why the kingdom of God is not about what I am getting to make me happy or powerful. The kingdom of God is the total immersion of the soul in eternal love.That total immersion opens the way to the second part of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation: transformation.
There are three initial levels of transformation: the mind, the heart, the will.
Moses and the prophets repeatedly and consistently taught and warned: if you place God second in your life you place God last. If you place God last you are starving your soul of the very essence that created it, sustains it, and expands it.
Jesus repeats this teaching over and over and over again in many different ways. Here, in this passage, Jesus warns the disciples and through them- us, that the voice of demand is the cry of a soul that is standing at the gate to a great banquet and starving because it refuses to accept the invitation to be filled.
How we believe does matter. How James and John viewed Jesus revealed the emptiness of their soul. Consumer religion always demands: do it my way. Give me what I want, on my terms and at my time.
Jesus invites us to consider another way. It is the way of service. It is the way of surrender to the divine will. It is the way of renewing our minds in the Word of God so we may take every thought captive and transform the negativity and frustration of our thoughts into clarity.
It is the way of the transformation of our desires through the total immersion of the soul in divine love.
James and John didn’t understand. Their culture had no place for the real Jesus. Their way of thinking could not understand the concept that the all powerful God would not accomplish his purpose in the world in any way other that through power and dominance. They were selfish and in their selfishness they were lost. They were filled with pride that they would rule. Their pride turned to fear when Jesus was arrested. When Jesus did not use his power but rather his love to meet the anger and fear and demand of human sin.
John finally did get it. As he ran away in panic from the Garden of Gethsemane John felt the reality of divine love. He turned back and with Holy Mother Mary followed Jesus to the cross.
The message of the servant is two fold. To serve is not to demand. To serve is to ask the question: how may I help.
The second aspect of a servant is personal transformation. That question is: where must I change? Where do I need to grow?
Consumer religion redefines Jesus according to the demands of the separated soul. It is the way of command and control. It is the soul both asking and demanding: what’s in it for me? In the end, consumer religion consumes the soul and leaves it contracted, collapsed in on itself, broken, empty and lost.
Jesus offers a different way of living. It is the way of service. It is the way of by which the soul empties itself in serving others. As the soul emptiness itself in service the Holy Spirit fills the soul with grace, joy, and peace. That infilling of the Holy Spirit brings expansion to the soul. In that expansion we experience the fullness of life Jesus promised.
The choice is always ours. Jesus invites us to choose wisely as he reminds us that he did not come to be served through command and control. Jesus came to serve through divine love and compassion. The heart of the servant is the heart overflowing with eternal love. It is the heat overflowing with eternal life.
The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.
The disciples were religious consumers.
A religious consumer looks at God and makes the statement: do this for me. James and John were not unique in this aspect of their religious life. Their attitude toward God formed their relationship with Jesus.
James and John came to Jesus with a very blunt and self serving statement: we want you to do for us whatever we ask. They probably believed it was time to cash in on their close relationship with Jesus. Along with Peter they formed an inner circle who received special training and special revelation.
James and John knew Jesus was going to Jerusalem. They knew things were going to happen. They wanted to be in on the action. They wanted to secure their place in the new kingdom Jesus was about to establish. They had their list of goals. At the top of the list was power. They wanted Jesus to make them his vice regents. They wanted to rule over the new kingdom in Jesus’ name with absolute authority to give orders and to make laws.
The other disciples were angry with the brothers. They were angry because James and John had the effrontery to ask for what they all wanted. They asked first. The disciples shared the brother’s desires and demands. They were angry because they were jealous and envious.
Jesus had been teaching the disciples that the kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus had been revealing that his Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation was not a political program. The Plan of Salvation is the fulfillment of the Torah, the Law of Moses. That law has two parts: the commandments and the sacrifices.
Jesus obeyed all of the commandments in thought, word and deed. He had formed his life by the prayer: Father, not my will but Thy will be done. Jesus was now ready to fulfill the sacrificial aspect of the Torah. Jesus was about to offer his perfect life as the one, pure, perfect and final sacrifice for sin.
James and John and the other disciples ignored all of this. They heard the teaching and immediately distorted it to fit into their basic demand. That basic demand is the voice of the separated soul that cries out from the pain of separation: what’s in it for me? My will be done. Give me the power. Me.
Consumer religion is the corruption of God’s call to all people everywhere to hear the words of Jesus Christ and to heed the words of Jesus Christ: I have come not to be served but to serve.
Consumer religion, regardless of the religious label, starts from the place of separation and lives from the place of rebellion. It comes to God, life, other people with the demand: do what I ask of you. My will be done.
That voice perpetuates the pain of separation from God.
For, that voice simply sees God as an extension of its own self will, fear and pride.
The disciples sought rule. They sought power. They vied with each other to become the Messiah’s co regents and co rulers.
Jesus will have none of it. Jesus is the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah. Jesus is the co eternal Beloved who came, who comes, and who will return with the fulness of divine love, divine compassion, divine holiness.
James and John reveal to us, to all people, the great challenge in the spiritual life. The challenge is two fold. The first challenge is to accept Jesus as the one who reunites a separated, fallen, and lost humanity with the eternal love of God.
Our sin nature wants Jesus to be anything other than who he is. Our culture wants Jesus to be a teacher, a prophet or a myth. Our sin nature rejects the clear and concise message that Jesus is the Divine Presence. Our sin nature rejects the reality that our relationship with Jesus Christ is the meaning and purpose of our lives.
James and John wanted Jesus to be a new King David, a warrior king who would destroy Israel’s enemies and plunder the wealth of the gentile nations to enrich the chosen. This is the demand of a soul that seeks to dominate. This is the demand of a soul that is empty and seeks to be filled with wealth, power, pleasure, prestige.
The human soul was never designed to be filled with these things. Consumer religion is cotton candy religion. It is bright, and sweet and fun. A little bit brings temporary pleasure. Too much bring sickness. An exclusive diet brings suffering and death.
The human soul was designed by God the Father according to the pattern of God the Son to be a living Temple for God the Holy Spirit. That is why the kingdom of God is not about what I am getting to make me happy or powerful. The kingdom of God is the total immersion of the soul in eternal love.That total immersion opens the way to the second part of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation: transformation.
There are three initial levels of transformation: the mind, the heart, the will.
Moses and the prophets repeatedly and consistently taught and warned: if you place God second in your life you place God last. If you place God last you are starving your soul of the very essence that created it, sustains it, and expands it.
Jesus repeats this teaching over and over and over again in many different ways. Here, in this passage, Jesus warns the disciples and through them- us, that the voice of demand is the cry of a soul that is standing at the gate to a great banquet and starving because it refuses to accept the invitation to be filled.
How we believe does matter. How James and John viewed Jesus revealed the emptiness of their soul. Consumer religion always demands: do it my way. Give me what I want, on my terms and at my time.
Jesus invites us to consider another way. It is the way of service. It is the way of surrender to the divine will. It is the way of renewing our minds in the Word of God so we may take every thought captive and transform the negativity and frustration of our thoughts into clarity.
It is the way of the transformation of our desires through the total immersion of the soul in divine love.
James and John didn’t understand. Their culture had no place for the real Jesus. Their way of thinking could not understand the concept that the all powerful God would not accomplish his purpose in the world in any way other that through power and dominance. They were selfish and in their selfishness they were lost. They were filled with pride that they would rule. Their pride turned to fear when Jesus was arrested. When Jesus did not use his power but rather his love to meet the anger and fear and demand of human sin.
John finally did get it. As he ran away in panic from the Garden of Gethsemane John felt the reality of divine love. He turned back and with Holy Mother Mary followed Jesus to the cross.
The message of the servant is two fold. To serve is not to demand. To serve is to ask the question: how may I help.
The second aspect of a servant is personal transformation. That question is: where must I change? Where do I need to grow?
Consumer religion redefines Jesus according to the demands of the separated soul. It is the way of command and control. It is the soul both asking and demanding: what’s in it for me? In the end, consumer religion consumes the soul and leaves it contracted, collapsed in on itself, broken, empty and lost.
Jesus offers a different way of living. It is the way of service. It is the way of by which the soul empties itself in serving others. As the soul emptiness itself in service the Holy Spirit fills the soul with grace, joy, and peace. That infilling of the Holy Spirit brings expansion to the soul. In that expansion we experience the fullness of life Jesus promised.
The choice is always ours. Jesus invites us to choose wisely as he reminds us that he did not come to be served through command and control. Jesus came to serve through divine love and compassion. The heart of the servant is the heart overflowing with eternal love. It is the heat overflowing with eternal life.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Pentecost 19
Pentecost 19 Proper 23 You lack one thing.
He had it all. He was young. Strong. Rich. Righteous.
Other people admired him, envied him, wanted to be like him. But, he sensed he was missing something. He was good but he feared he was not good enough. He felt an unease. He felt a lack. He felt lost.
So he came to Jesus. He just didn’t come casually or calmly. He ran. He ran with the urgency that burned in the depth of his soul. He fell at Jesus’ feet in a sign of great humility. The scripture records few similar examples of people running to Jesus and then kneeling before him.
The young man even addresses Jesus in the most reverent and defferential way. He says. " good teacher". Then, he does what so few did. He does what even Jesus’ closest disciples seldom did. He asks a question. Not just any question. He asks the ultimate question. What must I do to be saved?
At this point he is so close to the answer. So close, and yet so far. He is so close because he comes to the right person, at the right time, with the right attitude. But, he comes with the wrong question. He asks "what?". He should be asking "who?"
Now, there are no bad questions. Jesus not only welcomes all questions he invites them. And, Jesus knows that the first level of questioning comes from the confusion of the mind. There is an internal and an external source to this confusion.
In our day we call the external source of confusion information overload. Since the time of Noah there has never been a civilization in such a state of information overload as ours. Yet, even in the pre technological world of first century Judea there were dozens of conflicting claims to truth and thousands of conflicting laws, schools, teachers and religious systems.
Jesus understands all of this and he cuts to the quick of the matter when he asks the young man to move into greater clarity, to move from the question "what?’ to the question "who?’
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus asks. Only God is good. Only God is good because only God is eternally self existing steadfast holy love. People live from the place of self will, fear, and pride. People live with the illusions of dualism. The greatest of these illusions is that God is about rewards and punishment.
Jesus’ question to the young man is designed to reach past the confusion of a mind on information overload. It is a question designed to penetrate deep past the level of emotion and will. It is a question for the soul. For that place that defines who we are and gives shape to who we aspire to become.
Jesus’ question is an invitation to journey into the depths of the soul. It is there that we discover who we are. It is there that we discover the darkness of separation. And, it is there we discern the pattern by which, through which and for which we were created. That pattern is the co-eternal Word of God. That pattern is incarnate in Jesus Christ.
And, that is why the young man’s question must move from "what?" to "who?"
Salvation is not about credits and debits. It is not something we can earn. It is not a fundamental human right. Salvation is a relationship. Salvation is the total immersion of the soul in the eternal love of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus prepares the way by reminding the young man of his right actions. You know the commandments, Jesus states. You know the standards of behavior. According to the religious experts of the day the young man was righteous through his right behavior. But, he still felt the emptiness. He still felt the fear. He still felt lost.
I suspect there is a plaintiff cry of desperation in the young man as he looks at Jesus and says: I have done all of these things since childhood. The unspoken plea is: why is this not enough? Why am I still lost? What more do I need to do?
He is looking for a law he may have missed. He is looking for a book, a ritual, a spiritual discipline. He is looking for one more thing to do to assure him he has done enough. He has come to the right person at the right time with the right attitude but with the wrong question.
Jesus knows that the more he follows this path of striving the less satisfied he will become. He needs to get off the path of striving. He needs to surrender his belief in a God of rewards and punishments. He needs a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. He needs the total immersion of his soul in divine love and compassion.
So, Jesus starts by answering the "what?’ question first. What must I do to be saved? The young man asks. Jesus replies, "what" you must do is sell all of your possessions and give your money to the poor," Jesus replies.
I’m not sure the young man heard the second part of Jesus’ answer. The real power is in the second part. It is there that Jesus reveals the Great Mystery of divine love. It this there that Jesus affirms the young man’s deepest longing.
Follow me," Jesus says. Follow me. Salvation is not about laws or rituals or schools or disciplines. All of those things have their place. Salvation is not in selling your possessions. The possessions are the obstacle to what you seek. For you, you cannot find what you seek until you remove the barriers to self understanding. You cannot even understand that the question of salvation is not "what?’ but"who?"
It is here that Jesus re affirms his basic message. I am not here just to tell you the truth. I am the truth. I am not here just to show you the way, I am the way. I am not here just to examine the rules that govern life, I am life.
The young man received an answer to a question he was not ready to ask. It was the answer to his deepest longing and most profound need. But, at least at this time, he could not follow Jesus into the soul to perceive the state of his soul.
The obstacle was more than the possessions. The obstacle was the young man’s desire to achieve salvation as a work that merited him reward. To give up his wealth was to give up his belief that righteousness is something I do that requires God to bless me. The obstacle was his belief that the wealth was the blessing.
The choice was to preserve the "I" in the question: "what must I do to be saved."
He had constructed that "I" with his actions and his wealth. It was that "I" that kept him from God. It was that "I" that Jesus asked him to surrender by selling his possessions. Salvation is not a reward. Salvation is a relationship. The relationship produces a new way of living, a new life, a new "I" that finds its true nature in communion with Jesus Christ.
He was so close. He identified that he had a lack. He identified the one who could help him. He made a real choice to walk away from his moment of grace. He chose to keep his belief and trust in his own actions and in his own wealth. He chose to remain lost in his own self will, fear and pride. He lacked the faith that Jesus not only had the answer for his question but was the answer.
He wasn’t the first to walk away. He won’t be the last. In the internal commentary of scripture the disciples are bewildered. After all, they, too, believed as the young man believed. They too believed in a God of rewards and punishments. They too embraced a consumer religion that would give them the things they desired. Despite their confusion, they made a choice the young man did not make. They chose to follow Jesus.
We don’t know what happened to the young man after he walked away from Jesus. We know Jesus loved him. We know the Holy Spirit continued to offer the young man opportunities to come to Jesus. We don’t know the result for him.
The real question is not what happened to the young man. The real question is have we chosen to follow Jesus? What obstacles stand in our way from receiving the gift of reunification with the Father, through the Son by the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit? What do we still lack that inhibits our joy in the new life Jesus offers us?
Jesus speaks to us today from the words of the scriptures. His message to us is an invitation to move beyond the confusion of the mind and the conflicting desires of the heart. He invites us to come to him with the questions that reside in the depth of our souls.
The portal to the soul Jesus offers us today is the place of need, the place of discontent, the place of feeling lost. You lack one thing, Jesus says. Come, and follow me.
He had it all. He was young. Strong. Rich. Righteous.
Other people admired him, envied him, wanted to be like him. But, he sensed he was missing something. He was good but he feared he was not good enough. He felt an unease. He felt a lack. He felt lost.
So he came to Jesus. He just didn’t come casually or calmly. He ran. He ran with the urgency that burned in the depth of his soul. He fell at Jesus’ feet in a sign of great humility. The scripture records few similar examples of people running to Jesus and then kneeling before him.
The young man even addresses Jesus in the most reverent and defferential way. He says. " good teacher". Then, he does what so few did. He does what even Jesus’ closest disciples seldom did. He asks a question. Not just any question. He asks the ultimate question. What must I do to be saved?
At this point he is so close to the answer. So close, and yet so far. He is so close because he comes to the right person, at the right time, with the right attitude. But, he comes with the wrong question. He asks "what?". He should be asking "who?"
Now, there are no bad questions. Jesus not only welcomes all questions he invites them. And, Jesus knows that the first level of questioning comes from the confusion of the mind. There is an internal and an external source to this confusion.
In our day we call the external source of confusion information overload. Since the time of Noah there has never been a civilization in such a state of information overload as ours. Yet, even in the pre technological world of first century Judea there were dozens of conflicting claims to truth and thousands of conflicting laws, schools, teachers and religious systems.
Jesus understands all of this and he cuts to the quick of the matter when he asks the young man to move into greater clarity, to move from the question "what?’ to the question "who?’
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus asks. Only God is good. Only God is good because only God is eternally self existing steadfast holy love. People live from the place of self will, fear, and pride. People live with the illusions of dualism. The greatest of these illusions is that God is about rewards and punishment.
Jesus’ question to the young man is designed to reach past the confusion of a mind on information overload. It is a question designed to penetrate deep past the level of emotion and will. It is a question for the soul. For that place that defines who we are and gives shape to who we aspire to become.
Jesus’ question is an invitation to journey into the depths of the soul. It is there that we discover who we are. It is there that we discover the darkness of separation. And, it is there we discern the pattern by which, through which and for which we were created. That pattern is the co-eternal Word of God. That pattern is incarnate in Jesus Christ.
And, that is why the young man’s question must move from "what?" to "who?"
Salvation is not about credits and debits. It is not something we can earn. It is not a fundamental human right. Salvation is a relationship. Salvation is the total immersion of the soul in the eternal love of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus prepares the way by reminding the young man of his right actions. You know the commandments, Jesus states. You know the standards of behavior. According to the religious experts of the day the young man was righteous through his right behavior. But, he still felt the emptiness. He still felt the fear. He still felt lost.
I suspect there is a plaintiff cry of desperation in the young man as he looks at Jesus and says: I have done all of these things since childhood. The unspoken plea is: why is this not enough? Why am I still lost? What more do I need to do?
He is looking for a law he may have missed. He is looking for a book, a ritual, a spiritual discipline. He is looking for one more thing to do to assure him he has done enough. He has come to the right person at the right time with the right attitude but with the wrong question.
Jesus knows that the more he follows this path of striving the less satisfied he will become. He needs to get off the path of striving. He needs to surrender his belief in a God of rewards and punishments. He needs a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. He needs the total immersion of his soul in divine love and compassion.
So, Jesus starts by answering the "what?’ question first. What must I do to be saved? The young man asks. Jesus replies, "what" you must do is sell all of your possessions and give your money to the poor," Jesus replies.
I’m not sure the young man heard the second part of Jesus’ answer. The real power is in the second part. It is there that Jesus reveals the Great Mystery of divine love. It this there that Jesus affirms the young man’s deepest longing.
Follow me," Jesus says. Follow me. Salvation is not about laws or rituals or schools or disciplines. All of those things have their place. Salvation is not in selling your possessions. The possessions are the obstacle to what you seek. For you, you cannot find what you seek until you remove the barriers to self understanding. You cannot even understand that the question of salvation is not "what?’ but"who?"
It is here that Jesus re affirms his basic message. I am not here just to tell you the truth. I am the truth. I am not here just to show you the way, I am the way. I am not here just to examine the rules that govern life, I am life.
The young man received an answer to a question he was not ready to ask. It was the answer to his deepest longing and most profound need. But, at least at this time, he could not follow Jesus into the soul to perceive the state of his soul.
The obstacle was more than the possessions. The obstacle was the young man’s desire to achieve salvation as a work that merited him reward. To give up his wealth was to give up his belief that righteousness is something I do that requires God to bless me. The obstacle was his belief that the wealth was the blessing.
The choice was to preserve the "I" in the question: "what must I do to be saved."
He had constructed that "I" with his actions and his wealth. It was that "I" that kept him from God. It was that "I" that Jesus asked him to surrender by selling his possessions. Salvation is not a reward. Salvation is a relationship. The relationship produces a new way of living, a new life, a new "I" that finds its true nature in communion with Jesus Christ.
He was so close. He identified that he had a lack. He identified the one who could help him. He made a real choice to walk away from his moment of grace. He chose to keep his belief and trust in his own actions and in his own wealth. He chose to remain lost in his own self will, fear and pride. He lacked the faith that Jesus not only had the answer for his question but was the answer.
He wasn’t the first to walk away. He won’t be the last. In the internal commentary of scripture the disciples are bewildered. After all, they, too, believed as the young man believed. They too believed in a God of rewards and punishments. They too embraced a consumer religion that would give them the things they desired. Despite their confusion, they made a choice the young man did not make. They chose to follow Jesus.
We don’t know what happened to the young man after he walked away from Jesus. We know Jesus loved him. We know the Holy Spirit continued to offer the young man opportunities to come to Jesus. We don’t know the result for him.
The real question is not what happened to the young man. The real question is have we chosen to follow Jesus? What obstacles stand in our way from receiving the gift of reunification with the Father, through the Son by the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit? What do we still lack that inhibits our joy in the new life Jesus offers us?
Jesus speaks to us today from the words of the scriptures. His message to us is an invitation to move beyond the confusion of the mind and the conflicting desires of the heart. He invites us to come to him with the questions that reside in the depth of our souls.
The portal to the soul Jesus offers us today is the place of need, the place of discontent, the place of feeling lost. You lack one thing, Jesus says. Come, and follow me.
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