Pentecost When the Advocate comes
Today is the feast of Pentecost. It marks ten days from Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. It also marks the coming of the Holy Spirit in a new way. That new way is the birth of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Jesus did not appoint a single human being to hold absolute infallible authority over the Church. Jesus well knew that no human soul is capable of holding and wielding absolute infallible authority. Nevertheless, the Church needs such an authority to guide and direct and strengthen. The person Jesus sent was not a prophet, an apostle, a bishop, a saint or a theologian. The Person Jesus sent is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the absolute infallible authority who governs the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The Holy Spirit is the co eternal third person of the Trinity. He is a person not an energy field or a feeling. With the Father and the Son he forms the eternal community of Love and Holiness that is the One God.
The Holy Spirit has been active in the world from the beginning of time. He inspired Moses and the prophets. He accomplished the incarnation of the Son. For that reason He is some times referred to as the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
But before the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit did not live within the hearts and minds and wills of all who seek God. This is the unique and powerful gift Jesus gave to the world on the day of Pentecost.
Pentecost initiated the Church Age. The Church Age is characterized by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every human soul who accepts the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Within that first generation of the Church the Holy Spirit accomplished several important tasks for the coming centuries.
First: He ordered the church in its three fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons.
Second: He set the precedent for authority in the church with the Ecumenical Council.
Third: He inspired the apostles to develop our liturgical pattern of worship.
Fourth: He ordered the sacramental life of the church.
Fifth: He inspired the writing of the final books of the Bible. Those final books comprise the New Testament.
Sixth: He established the universal (catholic) mission and message of the Church to offer the gift of God in Jesus Christ to all people everywhere.,
Seventh: He inhabits the soul of every believer and unites us to the love and holiness of the Eternal Trinity. He helps us grow in grace.
Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of three important principles. Those principles involve sin, righteousness, and rule.
The Holy Spirit leads us to study the scriptures to discern the fundamental truth that sin is separation. It is separation from God, separation from other people, separation from the image of Christ that is implanted in every human soul. This teaching is not new. But it is seldom appreciated.
Most religion teaches that sin is the violation of external laws. That is what the Bible calls transgression. Transgression is a result of separation. The Law can only restrain our tendency to violate the commandments and to act as a mirror to our souls to convict us that there is a deeper problem underlying our tendency to rebel and disobey.
The Holy Spirit reveals and convicts that the problem humanity faces is not just breaking the law. The underlying problem facing humanity is separation.
Since sin is separation righteousness can only be reunification. Righteousness is right relationship. Most religion teaches that righteousness is right action and right belief. If you have right action and right belief God is obligated to give you what you want in this life and to reward you with the pleasures of heaven in the next life.
The Holy Spirit leads us into the truth that neither sin or righteousness are about the external actions we take or fail to take. Neither are they about the form of rational analysis we use to define God, other people and ourselves. Those things have their place only as a consequence of what is fundamentally true about sin and righteousness. What is fundamentally true is relationship.
Sin breaks the relationship God designed us to enjoy. Separation is a real choice humans made to re order our very existence on the principles of knowledge and power. Reunification is also a real choice. God has made the choice for reunification very simple. The choice for reunification is the real choice to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The choice to accept God’s offer of a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ is the choice of love and holiness.
We cannot have a personal relationship with a law, a ritual or a spiritual discipline. Those things lead us back into the three consequences of separation: fear, self will and pride. They engender reactions and rebellion even as they seek to impose submission.
In Christ, it is the relationship of love and holiness that sets us free from fear, self will and pride. The relationship itself then opens our minds and hearts and wills to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will use law, ritual and spiritual discipline from the place of eternal love. The Holy Spirit ever seeks to transform our thoughts, our emotions, our wills by the principles of love and holiness.
Law based religion always asks who is in charge and what is the minimum I have to do to avoid punishment and get my reward?
On an even more basic level the question is: what’s in it for me?
Love based religion always asks the question: how may I help? For love is its own reward. The soul that is immersed in the love of God in Jesus Christ is already participating in the infinite and eternal love of the blessed and Holy Trinity. There is no reward any greater than the infinite and eternal love of God.
The Church Age is the Age of the Holy Spirit. It is the Age of Grace. It is the Age of Evangelism. It is the time when God is offering all people everywhere the gift of love in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is speaking to everyone in the world. He invites all people everywhere to make a real choice to seek love and holiness. The choice is real because it is eternal. The choice is real because love can not be imposed. Love can only be a gift.
The Holy Spirit is speaking very clearly and simply to all people in many and varied ways. The problem is not that God has hidden himself from humanity. The problem is that humanity has hidden itself from God. The Solution is God coming to this planet in the person of Jesus Christ to seek us out and invite us back into the relationship we have rejected and continue to reject.
All choices are eternal choices. In Christ, the Holy Spirit will take the choices we make and fold them into the Divine Love and Compassion of the Beloved, Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ the Holy Spirit can only invite us to reconsider.
The Holy Spirit always, always, reveals the love of God in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit never imposes a religion or a law.
There are sixty seconds in minute. There are sixty minutes in an hour. There are 24 hours in a day. Every day we have 86,400 opportunities to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit offering us the love of God in Jesus Christ.
There are 365 days in a year. Every year we have 3,110,400
opportunities to make a real choice to receive the gift of reunification with eternal love. Every year we have 3,110,400 choices to grow in grace, to transform in love and holiness, to become more of who God created us to be and invites us to become.
In this age of grace every second is an eternal gift in a single moment of time. That is why all choices are eternal choices. That is why Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit into the world during this Age of Grace, during this Age of the Church. That is why there is eternity in the smallest unit of time. Eternal love comes in a single moment when the Advocate, the Holy Spirit comes.
The Holy Spirit has come. The Holy Spirit is here. How are you responding to His invitation to experience a new life in the love and compassion of Jesus Christ?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Truth
Easter VII Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
What is truth?
That question has remained constant in human experience through out time. What is truth?
A Roman governor asked that question many centuries ago. He may have had in mind the already rich heritage of ancient philosophy and science. He may well have remembered sitting in the Imperial Senate and listening to endless debates about foreign policy and financial planning. He may even have been educated in one of the great universities of the time and have been trained in what the Romans called rhetoric and the Jews called disputation.
Pilate, like so many others before and since, asked the question sincerely and with a certain weariness. Just what is the truth? When even the experts can’t agree how can a mere governor, soldier or ordinary citizen know what is true?
There is a saying, gather four Episcopalians into a committee to discuss a matter and they will produce a report with five different and distinct opinions.
The problem is not with the answer, or lack thereof. The problem is in the question. The way we form the question affects the parameters for framing the answer. Jesus clarifies the question for us and resets the parameters to invite a new perception. The question Jesus invites us to consider is not "what is the truth?" But rather "who is truth?"
This is a very strange and different approach to the questions relating to truth. Most people simply want the facts. The facts are the truth. Many people what the further knowledge of how the quality of truth exceeds the bare facts. They seek understanding.
Understanding produces investigation and a myriad of theories and opinions. It also produces debates, contradictions and contention. All too often in human history it results in violence and wars.
A few people seek Wisdom. Wisdom ponders the application of factual knowledge and understanding. Wisdom requires two virtues most humans do not value. They are the virtues of patience and humility.
The Bible teaches us that Wisdom comes from a relationship not from a book, a law code, or a set of religious disciplines as important as they may be in their own sphere. Wisdom comes from associating with the wise. The source of Wisdom is God himself.
That is why Jesus reveals the truth is a person. The truth is the divine transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe, what the Greek philosophers called the logos, what the philosophers of India called the Dharma, and what the philosophers of China called the Tao.
The Beloved apostle John came to know personally, by his own experience, that Jesus Christ is the Logos in human form. Jesus Christ is the personal aspect of the divine transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe.
In his high priestly prayer, offered just before his arrest, torture and execution, Jesus prays for those who believe in him. He prays for his apostles. He prays for us. He prays to the Eternal Father, Sanctify them in the truth. Transform them in the personal relationship they have accepted in your co-eternal Son.
Sanctification is transformation. The purpose of truth is not to dominate or subjugate other people. It is not to produce victors and victims. It is not a means by which some can be right and others must be wrong.
Truth is a person. The essence of truth is the relationship that produces wisdom. The practical effect of wisdom is personal self responsibility. To be sanctified in truth is to be transformed by the relationship we choose to cultivate with the living Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why Jesus states that we, his followers, do not belong to this world of debate, condemnation and conflict over the question "what is truth". In Jesus Christ, we properly belong to the Way of living that pursues the question: who is truth?
In that pursuit Jesus stands with us. In that pursuit Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit to gradually, gently and persistently transform our pride into humility and our insistent demand to get what we want when we want it into patience.
Jesus doesn’t make us right so others can be wrong. Jesus invites us into a right relationship with himself so we can be transformed into the image and likeness of Divine Love and Compassion. He does that so we can offer the gift to others. He does that so we can be a blessing to others.
Very seldom does a person come to faith through humiliation and defeat. A great debater can win all of the points in a dispute but lose the debate if the audience feels debased. Jesus offers a different way. It is the way of life. It is the way of truth. It is the reality of the infinite and eternal God slowly revealing the truth in the primary relationship that gives truth its form and function.
Jesus Christ just doesn’t teach the truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. We experience transformation from confusion into truth as we grow in our personal relationship with Christ. The Bible tells us you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
You shall know the love of God in Jesus Christ as you draw close to him in prayer, the Bible, the sacraments, and in a life of service to other people. That new way of living will set you free from the false demands and expectations of a world that is devoted to acquiring pride, power, possessions and prestige.
This is the gift God offers to all people everywhere. It is not an demand to submit. It is not permission to withdraw. It is not a command to conquer. It is an invitation into a personal life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus, our great high priest, prays for us today. Eternal Father, sanctify these your people in the truth. Transform them in patience and humility through the dynamic active personal relationship they have with you in the divine love embodied in your Son, who alone is the way, the truth and the life. Amen. So let it be.
What is truth?
That question has remained constant in human experience through out time. What is truth?
A Roman governor asked that question many centuries ago. He may have had in mind the already rich heritage of ancient philosophy and science. He may well have remembered sitting in the Imperial Senate and listening to endless debates about foreign policy and financial planning. He may even have been educated in one of the great universities of the time and have been trained in what the Romans called rhetoric and the Jews called disputation.
Pilate, like so many others before and since, asked the question sincerely and with a certain weariness. Just what is the truth? When even the experts can’t agree how can a mere governor, soldier or ordinary citizen know what is true?
There is a saying, gather four Episcopalians into a committee to discuss a matter and they will produce a report with five different and distinct opinions.
The problem is not with the answer, or lack thereof. The problem is in the question. The way we form the question affects the parameters for framing the answer. Jesus clarifies the question for us and resets the parameters to invite a new perception. The question Jesus invites us to consider is not "what is the truth?" But rather "who is truth?"
This is a very strange and different approach to the questions relating to truth. Most people simply want the facts. The facts are the truth. Many people what the further knowledge of how the quality of truth exceeds the bare facts. They seek understanding.
Understanding produces investigation and a myriad of theories and opinions. It also produces debates, contradictions and contention. All too often in human history it results in violence and wars.
A few people seek Wisdom. Wisdom ponders the application of factual knowledge and understanding. Wisdom requires two virtues most humans do not value. They are the virtues of patience and humility.
The Bible teaches us that Wisdom comes from a relationship not from a book, a law code, or a set of religious disciplines as important as they may be in their own sphere. Wisdom comes from associating with the wise. The source of Wisdom is God himself.
That is why Jesus reveals the truth is a person. The truth is the divine transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe, what the Greek philosophers called the logos, what the philosophers of India called the Dharma, and what the philosophers of China called the Tao.
The Beloved apostle John came to know personally, by his own experience, that Jesus Christ is the Logos in human form. Jesus Christ is the personal aspect of the divine transcendent rational creative pattern of the universe.
In his high priestly prayer, offered just before his arrest, torture and execution, Jesus prays for those who believe in him. He prays for his apostles. He prays for us. He prays to the Eternal Father, Sanctify them in the truth. Transform them in the personal relationship they have accepted in your co-eternal Son.
Sanctification is transformation. The purpose of truth is not to dominate or subjugate other people. It is not to produce victors and victims. It is not a means by which some can be right and others must be wrong.
Truth is a person. The essence of truth is the relationship that produces wisdom. The practical effect of wisdom is personal self responsibility. To be sanctified in truth is to be transformed by the relationship we choose to cultivate with the living Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why Jesus states that we, his followers, do not belong to this world of debate, condemnation and conflict over the question "what is truth". In Jesus Christ, we properly belong to the Way of living that pursues the question: who is truth?
In that pursuit Jesus stands with us. In that pursuit Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit to gradually, gently and persistently transform our pride into humility and our insistent demand to get what we want when we want it into patience.
Jesus doesn’t make us right so others can be wrong. Jesus invites us into a right relationship with himself so we can be transformed into the image and likeness of Divine Love and Compassion. He does that so we can offer the gift to others. He does that so we can be a blessing to others.
Very seldom does a person come to faith through humiliation and defeat. A great debater can win all of the points in a dispute but lose the debate if the audience feels debased. Jesus offers a different way. It is the way of life. It is the way of truth. It is the reality of the infinite and eternal God slowly revealing the truth in the primary relationship that gives truth its form and function.
Jesus Christ just doesn’t teach the truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. We experience transformation from confusion into truth as we grow in our personal relationship with Christ. The Bible tells us you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
You shall know the love of God in Jesus Christ as you draw close to him in prayer, the Bible, the sacraments, and in a life of service to other people. That new way of living will set you free from the false demands and expectations of a world that is devoted to acquiring pride, power, possessions and prestige.
This is the gift God offers to all people everywhere. It is not an demand to submit. It is not permission to withdraw. It is not a command to conquer. It is an invitation into a personal life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus, our great high priest, prays for us today. Eternal Father, sanctify these your people in the truth. Transform them in patience and humility through the dynamic active personal relationship they have with you in the divine love embodied in your Son, who alone is the way, the truth and the life. Amen. So let it be.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Easter Vi Friends
Easter VI Jesus says: I call you friends.
Much of religion created by human beings is faith turned into fear.
A seer, a prophet, a teacher brings forth an insight about the Divine. This insight may possess immense beauty. It may hold the complexity of creation in the chalice of clarity and the songs of simplicity. It may inspire artists, poets and musicians to creative heights of accomplishment. But, some how the gift of faith the new insight brings always transforms in one of two ways.
The first transformation of faith is fear. The second is indifference. This should be no surprise. Such transformation is revealed in the Bible right from the beginning of human life on this planet. The Bible is a brutally honest account of how faith transforms to fear, and how fear brings pain and suffering into the world.
From time to time Christians have made a cursory judgment of the Old Testament and described it as revealing a god of wrath. Nothing could be further from the truth. The love of God appears in every book of the Old Testament. It is the word most used by Moses and the Prophets to describe God.
The wrath revealed in the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments as well as in the Apocrypha, comes when people make a real choice to transform faith into fear. For the religious, fear always produces wrath. More often than not, the wrath that fear produces is the working out of the impersonal aspect of God as revealed in God’s holy laws.
It is not that humans break God’s laws and then God punishes them. The Law of God cannot be broken. The Law of God is grounded in the fundamental pattern of the universe. That pattern is choice, cause and effect, and consequence. That pattern proceeds from the very essence of God by which, through which, and for which we and the entire universe exists.
That essential quality of God is love. Love gives the law in the same way a parent tells a child: no, you cannot play with the pretty flames on the gas burner. They are dangerous to touch.
Of course, we all remember how that scenario plays out. For human beings "no" is the signal to disobey and rebel. The gas stove does not punish the child who ignores the parent. The pain of disobedience is simply the consequence of a choice that entered into the world of cause and effect.
People have a tendency to blame God when we ignore natural law and suffer consequences. That blame helps transform faith into fear. The solution to the problem is not more Law or even more knowledge. The tendency to blame, to avoid another basic law- the law of self responsibility, resides within each of us. And so, the solution can only come from one source. That one source is God.
The solution God chose for the problem is Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to preach, to teach and to heal. He did those things with a plan and a purpose. The plan is the Plan of Salvation. The purpose is to re establish the broken relationship between God and humans, to restore the broken relationships among humans, and to repair the shattered image of God in the human soul- to bring unity to our divided psyches.
Jesus reveals to us this morning how he accomplishes this task.
First: Jesus reminds his students, and all of us, that God just doesn’t have love or show love, God is love. Despite the message of Moses and the Prophets few, if any, of the people Jesus spoke with understood this. Their faith had transformed to fear. They looked for salvation within the categories of fear: knowledge, law, power.
Second: Jesus uses the word abide to show how we can choose to receive divine love. As in last week’s gospel reading, Jesus offers us an invitation to turn fear back into faith. The word abide means to live in, to dwell in, to participate in the divine life of the Holy and Blessed and Eternal Trinity.
Third: Jesus offers us a new commandment. This new commandment is a summary commandment that informs and further describes all of the prior commandments God gave to Moses. The new commandment is for people to love each other.
The word the Holy Spirit directed the beloved apostle John to use to communicate Jesus’ message is the Greek word agape.
Agape is the highest form of love. It is the selfless act of seeking the best for another person. It has been described as unconditional love, a love that simply gives without any thought of return or reward. It is a steadfast love that nothing can erode or change. It is a holy love that has no self interest or self serving motive attached to it. It simply pours itself out for the benefit of the beloved regardless of the cost. It is the divine love of Jesus who emptied himself of his divine power in order to become one of us. It is the love that makes worship of God its priority and service to others as its expression.
Agape is impossible for broken, lonely and isolated human beings to manufacture. And so, Jesus reveals the fourth truth that makes this possible. The fourth truth is Jesus’ statement: I call you friends.
Friendship with Jesus is what initiates divine love in our souls and continues on a daily basis to infuse divine love into our souls. The Book of Proverbs says as iron sharpens iron so a friend sharpens his friend.
Friendship with Jesus is friendship with God. That friendship challenges us and encourages as a human friend may challenge us and encourage us to do better. But there is a more profound consequence to our friendship with Jesus. Jesus reveals this more profound consequence when he tells us the Great Mystery: you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
You are not an accident. You exist because God has called you into existence. You are a unique manifestation of divine love here at this time and in this place. You are here to share the divine friendship of Jesus Christ who reaches out to you, to all of you, to each of you personally with the words: I have chosen you. I have chosen you to be my friend.
There is a fifth principle Jesus reveals. It is the principle of transformation. Because Jesus has chosen us to be his friends he pours forth his divine essence into us. It is a gift. It is grace. That grace will, if we choose to accept it into our lives, produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit in all of our thoughts, feelings, choices and human relationships.
The transformation process is three fold. First, our desire to separate from God and to change faith into fear is transformed back in to reunification with God. In that reunification we begin to see the Law of God not as wrath that inflicts pain but rather as the perfect mirror to our souls that brings healing. In that process, fear transforms back into faith.
The second part of the transformation we experience as we grow in our friendship with Jesus is in the way we treat other people. The first aspect of that transformation is to change blame into blessing. Has some one insulted you? Bless. Do not curse. Has some one misunderstood you or failed to meet your expectations? Bless. Do not blame. The life of friendship with Jesus is a life of blessing. Jesus fills us with the grace of divine blessing so that we may in turn bless others.
The third part of the transformation Jesus offers us through his friendship is the reintegration of our souls. The individual human psyche is divided against itself. It is in a process of greater disintegration and disorder as it rebels against divine law and separates from divine love. Friendship with Jesus initiates and continues a healing process.
This healing process brings clarity to our thoughts so we no longer speak of having a divided mind. This healing process brings purity to our hearts so that our desires emerge from the place of truth rather than suffering and self deceit. This healing brings holiness to our wills so that we may perceive that self will is not free will. Only divine will is free will. Self will is slavery to separation, rebellion and suffering.
How do we then become friends with Jesus? How do we continue in his friendship? The key is choice. Jesus has already stated: I have chosen you. It is our response to that choice that cultivates the friendship.
Jesus is the constant loyal but unobtrusive friend who is always willing to bless. His friendship changes us in ways we can scarcely imagine or anticipate. As with any friendship Jesus invites us to share with him our time and attention. We do this through worship, Bible study, prayer and service to others. We do this as we make a conscious choice to cultivate the one relationship that enters into the world of cause and effect to produce eternal consequences.
In that choice we discover the perfection of our desires and the fulfillment of our desires. In that choice we learn how to live life as it is rather than to fight against life in a vain effort to impose our will on other people, the world, and God.
Jesus speaks to us today and says: I call you friends. In the friendship Jesus offers is the transformation of fear into faith, of indifference into spiritual passion. A new and more joyful life awaits us as we hear the word of God, as we believe the word of God, as we live the word of God: I call you friends.
Much of religion created by human beings is faith turned into fear.
A seer, a prophet, a teacher brings forth an insight about the Divine. This insight may possess immense beauty. It may hold the complexity of creation in the chalice of clarity and the songs of simplicity. It may inspire artists, poets and musicians to creative heights of accomplishment. But, some how the gift of faith the new insight brings always transforms in one of two ways.
The first transformation of faith is fear. The second is indifference. This should be no surprise. Such transformation is revealed in the Bible right from the beginning of human life on this planet. The Bible is a brutally honest account of how faith transforms to fear, and how fear brings pain and suffering into the world.
From time to time Christians have made a cursory judgment of the Old Testament and described it as revealing a god of wrath. Nothing could be further from the truth. The love of God appears in every book of the Old Testament. It is the word most used by Moses and the Prophets to describe God.
The wrath revealed in the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments as well as in the Apocrypha, comes when people make a real choice to transform faith into fear. For the religious, fear always produces wrath. More often than not, the wrath that fear produces is the working out of the impersonal aspect of God as revealed in God’s holy laws.
It is not that humans break God’s laws and then God punishes them. The Law of God cannot be broken. The Law of God is grounded in the fundamental pattern of the universe. That pattern is choice, cause and effect, and consequence. That pattern proceeds from the very essence of God by which, through which, and for which we and the entire universe exists.
That essential quality of God is love. Love gives the law in the same way a parent tells a child: no, you cannot play with the pretty flames on the gas burner. They are dangerous to touch.
Of course, we all remember how that scenario plays out. For human beings "no" is the signal to disobey and rebel. The gas stove does not punish the child who ignores the parent. The pain of disobedience is simply the consequence of a choice that entered into the world of cause and effect.
People have a tendency to blame God when we ignore natural law and suffer consequences. That blame helps transform faith into fear. The solution to the problem is not more Law or even more knowledge. The tendency to blame, to avoid another basic law- the law of self responsibility, resides within each of us. And so, the solution can only come from one source. That one source is God.
The solution God chose for the problem is Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to preach, to teach and to heal. He did those things with a plan and a purpose. The plan is the Plan of Salvation. The purpose is to re establish the broken relationship between God and humans, to restore the broken relationships among humans, and to repair the shattered image of God in the human soul- to bring unity to our divided psyches.
Jesus reveals to us this morning how he accomplishes this task.
First: Jesus reminds his students, and all of us, that God just doesn’t have love or show love, God is love. Despite the message of Moses and the Prophets few, if any, of the people Jesus spoke with understood this. Their faith had transformed to fear. They looked for salvation within the categories of fear: knowledge, law, power.
Second: Jesus uses the word abide to show how we can choose to receive divine love. As in last week’s gospel reading, Jesus offers us an invitation to turn fear back into faith. The word abide means to live in, to dwell in, to participate in the divine life of the Holy and Blessed and Eternal Trinity.
Third: Jesus offers us a new commandment. This new commandment is a summary commandment that informs and further describes all of the prior commandments God gave to Moses. The new commandment is for people to love each other.
The word the Holy Spirit directed the beloved apostle John to use to communicate Jesus’ message is the Greek word agape.
Agape is the highest form of love. It is the selfless act of seeking the best for another person. It has been described as unconditional love, a love that simply gives without any thought of return or reward. It is a steadfast love that nothing can erode or change. It is a holy love that has no self interest or self serving motive attached to it. It simply pours itself out for the benefit of the beloved regardless of the cost. It is the divine love of Jesus who emptied himself of his divine power in order to become one of us. It is the love that makes worship of God its priority and service to others as its expression.
Agape is impossible for broken, lonely and isolated human beings to manufacture. And so, Jesus reveals the fourth truth that makes this possible. The fourth truth is Jesus’ statement: I call you friends.
Friendship with Jesus is what initiates divine love in our souls and continues on a daily basis to infuse divine love into our souls. The Book of Proverbs says as iron sharpens iron so a friend sharpens his friend.
Friendship with Jesus is friendship with God. That friendship challenges us and encourages as a human friend may challenge us and encourage us to do better. But there is a more profound consequence to our friendship with Jesus. Jesus reveals this more profound consequence when he tells us the Great Mystery: you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
You are not an accident. You exist because God has called you into existence. You are a unique manifestation of divine love here at this time and in this place. You are here to share the divine friendship of Jesus Christ who reaches out to you, to all of you, to each of you personally with the words: I have chosen you. I have chosen you to be my friend.
There is a fifth principle Jesus reveals. It is the principle of transformation. Because Jesus has chosen us to be his friends he pours forth his divine essence into us. It is a gift. It is grace. That grace will, if we choose to accept it into our lives, produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit in all of our thoughts, feelings, choices and human relationships.
The transformation process is three fold. First, our desire to separate from God and to change faith into fear is transformed back in to reunification with God. In that reunification we begin to see the Law of God not as wrath that inflicts pain but rather as the perfect mirror to our souls that brings healing. In that process, fear transforms back into faith.
The second part of the transformation we experience as we grow in our friendship with Jesus is in the way we treat other people. The first aspect of that transformation is to change blame into blessing. Has some one insulted you? Bless. Do not curse. Has some one misunderstood you or failed to meet your expectations? Bless. Do not blame. The life of friendship with Jesus is a life of blessing. Jesus fills us with the grace of divine blessing so that we may in turn bless others.
The third part of the transformation Jesus offers us through his friendship is the reintegration of our souls. The individual human psyche is divided against itself. It is in a process of greater disintegration and disorder as it rebels against divine law and separates from divine love. Friendship with Jesus initiates and continues a healing process.
This healing process brings clarity to our thoughts so we no longer speak of having a divided mind. This healing process brings purity to our hearts so that our desires emerge from the place of truth rather than suffering and self deceit. This healing brings holiness to our wills so that we may perceive that self will is not free will. Only divine will is free will. Self will is slavery to separation, rebellion and suffering.
How do we then become friends with Jesus? How do we continue in his friendship? The key is choice. Jesus has already stated: I have chosen you. It is our response to that choice that cultivates the friendship.
Jesus is the constant loyal but unobtrusive friend who is always willing to bless. His friendship changes us in ways we can scarcely imagine or anticipate. As with any friendship Jesus invites us to share with him our time and attention. We do this through worship, Bible study, prayer and service to others. We do this as we make a conscious choice to cultivate the one relationship that enters into the world of cause and effect to produce eternal consequences.
In that choice we discover the perfection of our desires and the fulfillment of our desires. In that choice we learn how to live life as it is rather than to fight against life in a vain effort to impose our will on other people, the world, and God.
Jesus speaks to us today and says: I call you friends. In the friendship Jesus offers is the transformation of fear into faith, of indifference into spiritual passion. A new and more joyful life awaits us as we hear the word of God, as we believe the word of God, as we live the word of God: I call you friends.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Jesus said: I am the vine.
Easter V Jesus said: I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me.
In one of a series of "I am" statements, Jesus illustrates for us the nature of God and of humanity.
Last week, Jesus revealed that God is the Good Shepherd who cares for us as the shepherd cares for his sheep. God as the Good Shepherd reveals a very personal quality to the relationship between the human and the divine.
This week, the revelation of the relationship between the Divine and the human becomes even more personal and more essential. Jesus actually tells his students, and us, apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me you wither and die.
Jesus reminds us of the essential quality of life. All life is dependent. For the first 9 months of our existence we are totally dependent on our mothers for life. For close to twenty years following our birth we grow and mature to the place were we become interdependent. We achieve the ability to take care of our physical needs. And, we discern how inter related we are with our families, friends and society for our emotional and psychological needs.
The poet/priest John Donne once wrote: No man is an island. No one of us has the power, the knowledge or the resources to live alone and apart from the wider human community. Isolation is the great enemy of the human race.
Last week Jesus reminded us that a lone sheep will not survive separation from the flock. The Good Shepherd seeks out the lost sheep in an effort to save it from its own foolish behavior.
This week, the metaphor is even more intense. Jesus states that he is the vine and we are the branches. Separation from the vine is death.
Within the context of the metaphor, it is the branch that cuts itself off from the vine. At first, the branch may not notice any difference. It may even relish its new experience of independence. What the branch fails to appreciate, at first, is that it has separated from the very source of its life.
That is the image Jesus uses to describe the human condition. All humans choose separation from God. All humans experience separation from God as the branch experiences separation from the vine. Of course, we are not plants. The human experience of separation is more complex and convoluted than that of a branch that is cut off from the vine. The process is different. The end result is the same.
The drying out of the branch is similar to the dessication of the human soul. For people, this dessication may last decades. It may be attended by moments of pleasure and power. But the process is inexorable.
The branch dries out because it no longer takes in nourishment. It loses the vital capability to convert sunlight, water, earth and air into new life. The drying out is the dying off
An ironic epitaph illustrate this. John Smith. Born 1949. Died 1967 age 18. Buried 2029 age 80. We die spiritually long before our bodies stop functioning.
The soul experiences the process of drying our over a much longer period of time than the branch of a plant. The plant has it easier. The soul endures decades of existence apart from the life it rejected.
The apostle John understood very well that God the Father created all people to be in a loving life giving relationship with God the Son, through the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus tells us he is the vine he also reveals he is life itself. There can be no authentic, enduring and dynamic life apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, the soul experiences existence with ever diminishing capacity for vitality.
The separated soul can still reason and feel and choose. But, its choices become narrowed and reactive. It’s path forward is mired in fear, frustration, confusion, anger, pride and despair. It may for a time obscure the problem by diverting its attention away from its separated state. Diversions may include both pleasures and pain, activity and passivity, entertainments and boredom. The soul that is cut off and lost in separation cannot find its way back to wholeness. And, it defends its original choice through rebellion, pride and spite.
God provides the solution to this terrible problem of separation. God provides the solution to the drying out of the separated soul. The solution is Jesus Christ. The solution is in the word Jesus himself uses: Abide.
To abide in Jesus Christ is to receive the gift of reunification. To abide in Jesus Christ is to live in communion with the very source of life.
We abide in Christ through regular worship, Bible Study, prayer, the sacraments, fellowship with other believers and service to people in need. To abide is to live. To abide is to be refreshed and filled with living waters daily, hourly, in each vital moment of the eternal now.
As we make a different choice we begin to cut ourselves off from the vine. As we chose to separate from worship, Bible Study, prayer, the sacraments, fellowship with other believers and service to people in need, our souls dry out. We become spiritually parched, dry, dessicated, brittle. God does not withdraw from us. But, we can make a choice to withdraw from God. We exchange eternal life for endless existence.
Separation from Christ is separation from life. We continue to exist. We may even for a time achieve our short term goals for pleasure, possessions, prestige and power. We do so at the cost of our own souls. We are like the branches that separate from the vine. We are neutralized as fully self actuating mature people. We exist from the place of reaction. We exist from the place of rebellion and separation.
The Good News is that in this life its is never too late to be restored. It is never too late to ask God to graft us back into the vine and re discover the fullness of life Jesus not only offers but in fact is.
Life in Christ is life in a series of relationship. Existence apart from Christ is existence in a narrowing spiral of isolation. The choice is always ours. If there were no choice Jesus would never have had to come to this planet. He came because we can make a real choice to say yes to life. We can make a real choice to say yes to love. We can make a real choice to say yes to wholeness. We make that choice when we say yes to Jesus Christ.
Every day of our lives other people are testing us. Every day of our lives our culture is seeking to separate us from God. Every day of our lives the Enemy, Satan, seeks to deceive us to make any other choice other than Christ. Any choice is fine, as long as it is not Jesus.
Jesus says, Abide in me. Make the choice to live in Christ. To live in Christ is to be reunited with Eternal Life. To live in Christ is to find the fulfillment of your deepest longings and desires. To abide in Christ is to rediscover your first love is your eternal love who is the source of your eternal life here and now.
As the vine, Jesus is the source of life. As the vine, Jesus gives us the choice to live or to exist. The choice is eternal. It’s consequences form the soul for greater experiences of love and growth or for greater levels of isolation and disintegration.
Jesus’ words to us today are words of promise, invitation and life. I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me. Choose wisely. Choose Jesus.
In one of a series of "I am" statements, Jesus illustrates for us the nature of God and of humanity.
Last week, Jesus revealed that God is the Good Shepherd who cares for us as the shepherd cares for his sheep. God as the Good Shepherd reveals a very personal quality to the relationship between the human and the divine.
This week, the revelation of the relationship between the Divine and the human becomes even more personal and more essential. Jesus actually tells his students, and us, apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me you wither and die.
Jesus reminds us of the essential quality of life. All life is dependent. For the first 9 months of our existence we are totally dependent on our mothers for life. For close to twenty years following our birth we grow and mature to the place were we become interdependent. We achieve the ability to take care of our physical needs. And, we discern how inter related we are with our families, friends and society for our emotional and psychological needs.
The poet/priest John Donne once wrote: No man is an island. No one of us has the power, the knowledge or the resources to live alone and apart from the wider human community. Isolation is the great enemy of the human race.
Last week Jesus reminded us that a lone sheep will not survive separation from the flock. The Good Shepherd seeks out the lost sheep in an effort to save it from its own foolish behavior.
This week, the metaphor is even more intense. Jesus states that he is the vine and we are the branches. Separation from the vine is death.
Within the context of the metaphor, it is the branch that cuts itself off from the vine. At first, the branch may not notice any difference. It may even relish its new experience of independence. What the branch fails to appreciate, at first, is that it has separated from the very source of its life.
That is the image Jesus uses to describe the human condition. All humans choose separation from God. All humans experience separation from God as the branch experiences separation from the vine. Of course, we are not plants. The human experience of separation is more complex and convoluted than that of a branch that is cut off from the vine. The process is different. The end result is the same.
The drying out of the branch is similar to the dessication of the human soul. For people, this dessication may last decades. It may be attended by moments of pleasure and power. But the process is inexorable.
The branch dries out because it no longer takes in nourishment. It loses the vital capability to convert sunlight, water, earth and air into new life. The drying out is the dying off
An ironic epitaph illustrate this. John Smith. Born 1949. Died 1967 age 18. Buried 2029 age 80. We die spiritually long before our bodies stop functioning.
The soul experiences the process of drying our over a much longer period of time than the branch of a plant. The plant has it easier. The soul endures decades of existence apart from the life it rejected.
The apostle John understood very well that God the Father created all people to be in a loving life giving relationship with God the Son, through the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus tells us he is the vine he also reveals he is life itself. There can be no authentic, enduring and dynamic life apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, the soul experiences existence with ever diminishing capacity for vitality.
The separated soul can still reason and feel and choose. But, its choices become narrowed and reactive. It’s path forward is mired in fear, frustration, confusion, anger, pride and despair. It may for a time obscure the problem by diverting its attention away from its separated state. Diversions may include both pleasures and pain, activity and passivity, entertainments and boredom. The soul that is cut off and lost in separation cannot find its way back to wholeness. And, it defends its original choice through rebellion, pride and spite.
God provides the solution to this terrible problem of separation. God provides the solution to the drying out of the separated soul. The solution is Jesus Christ. The solution is in the word Jesus himself uses: Abide.
To abide in Jesus Christ is to receive the gift of reunification. To abide in Jesus Christ is to live in communion with the very source of life.
We abide in Christ through regular worship, Bible Study, prayer, the sacraments, fellowship with other believers and service to people in need. To abide is to live. To abide is to be refreshed and filled with living waters daily, hourly, in each vital moment of the eternal now.
As we make a different choice we begin to cut ourselves off from the vine. As we chose to separate from worship, Bible Study, prayer, the sacraments, fellowship with other believers and service to people in need, our souls dry out. We become spiritually parched, dry, dessicated, brittle. God does not withdraw from us. But, we can make a choice to withdraw from God. We exchange eternal life for endless existence.
Separation from Christ is separation from life. We continue to exist. We may even for a time achieve our short term goals for pleasure, possessions, prestige and power. We do so at the cost of our own souls. We are like the branches that separate from the vine. We are neutralized as fully self actuating mature people. We exist from the place of reaction. We exist from the place of rebellion and separation.
The Good News is that in this life its is never too late to be restored. It is never too late to ask God to graft us back into the vine and re discover the fullness of life Jesus not only offers but in fact is.
Life in Christ is life in a series of relationship. Existence apart from Christ is existence in a narrowing spiral of isolation. The choice is always ours. If there were no choice Jesus would never have had to come to this planet. He came because we can make a real choice to say yes to life. We can make a real choice to say yes to love. We can make a real choice to say yes to wholeness. We make that choice when we say yes to Jesus Christ.
Every day of our lives other people are testing us. Every day of our lives our culture is seeking to separate us from God. Every day of our lives the Enemy, Satan, seeks to deceive us to make any other choice other than Christ. Any choice is fine, as long as it is not Jesus.
Jesus says, Abide in me. Make the choice to live in Christ. To live in Christ is to be reunited with Eternal Life. To live in Christ is to find the fulfillment of your deepest longings and desires. To abide in Christ is to rediscover your first love is your eternal love who is the source of your eternal life here and now.
As the vine, Jesus is the source of life. As the vine, Jesus gives us the choice to live or to exist. The choice is eternal. It’s consequences form the soul for greater experiences of love and growth or for greater levels of isolation and disintegration.
Jesus’ words to us today are words of promise, invitation and life. I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me. Choose wisely. Choose Jesus.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Rainy day ruminations
RUMInations 35 Quips
Three things are strange to behold and a fourth exceeds comprehension:
A fish that eschews water to dry and die in the hot sun of the open air;
A tree that is terrified of light and bows low to bury its leaves in the dark earth;
A singer who will not endure the pause or the rest and exhausts her best in an outburst of a single unsustainable note;
A lover who laments alone, lost in less than what is least than the embrace of the Beloved.
The prophet calls for an answer three times and yet a fourth:
Can there be a song without a singer?
Can there be a wine without the vine?
Can there be a last without the first?
Can there be a filling without the void?
The Cheshire Alice speaks: In the nevermore of our wonderland
We suffer the journey because it is not the journey’s end.
The hedgehog tips his hat and quips: impatience with imperfection
Is itself the invitation to awaken to the humility of becoming the beloved.
Three things are strange to behold and a fourth exceeds comprehension:
A fish that eschews water to dry and die in the hot sun of the open air;
A tree that is terrified of light and bows low to bury its leaves in the dark earth;
A singer who will not endure the pause or the rest and exhausts her best in an outburst of a single unsustainable note;
A lover who laments alone, lost in less than what is least than the embrace of the Beloved.
The prophet calls for an answer three times and yet a fourth:
Can there be a song without a singer?
Can there be a wine without the vine?
Can there be a last without the first?
Can there be a filling without the void?
The Cheshire Alice speaks: In the nevermore of our wonderland
We suffer the journey because it is not the journey’s end.
The hedgehog tips his hat and quips: impatience with imperfection
Is itself the invitation to awaken to the humility of becoming the beloved.
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