Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lenten Study on Jesus' high priestly prayer

John 17 Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer of Consecration
Consecration: to be set apart from the ordinary uses, practices and aspects of the world and dedicated to the exclusive service, worship and glory of God.
In ancient times the first born male was considered sacred to God and consecrated for God’s glory. Satan had distorted this understanding into the practice of human sacrifice.
God began the process of redefining consecration with Abraham and Issac on Mount Moriah.
The Law God revealed to Moses provided the framework for the person and purpose of Jesus Christ.
God completes the redefinition of consecration in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, sacrifice, and resurrection.



Jesus Prays for Himself to be consecrated
1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come.
· The prayer is public, meant to include all people in the communion of the Son with the Father.
· Jesus reveals the personal and specific nature of God as he uses the word “Father”. His choice of address is both personal and definitive.
· Jesus seems to state the obvious as he says: “the hour has come,” yet he makes the statement to acknowledge the fulfillment of the Plan of Salvation. It is central to Jesus’ perspective on his purpose when he prays: Father, not my will be Thy will be done.
· Most people most of the time seek to define God according to the self will of our own needs and desires. Jesus accepts God the Father’s self disclosure of himself as he is. And, Jesus accepts the Father’s Plan of Salvation at the time and place of the Father’s choosing.
Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3
· The request for the Father to glorify the Son emerges from the essential unity of the Trinity.
· For any human being to make this request would be prideful and blasphemous.
· Jesus can only pray this way since he and the Father are one in being.
· Jesus acknowledges his Lordship over the Creation in a way no prophet, priest or king ever could.
· Jesus also acknowledges that the Father has given the Son the authority to give the gift of eternal life to all who believe in him.
· Jesus acknowledges that the Father draws people into faith and directs them to the Son.
· The Plan of Salvation is that the Son should reveal the Father and give eternal life to all who come to the Son.
· Eternal life is a quality of existence that begins now in this world and continues forever.
· Eternal life is the relationship of the soul to the Father through the Son.

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
· Eternal life is the relationship not a product of the relationship.
· The “knowledge” is the personal intimacy of the relationship not the outward and fixed facts about God’s actions or attributes.
· The “knowledge” is open not closed. It implies growth not rigidity.
· There is only eternal life in a dynamic, active, spontaneous relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

4 I have glorified You on the earth.

· Jesus came into the world to glorify God.
· To glorify God is to make manifest the person and attributes of God.
· To glorify God is to reflect the love and holiness of God in thought, word and deed.
· Jesus glorified the Father by becoming the Father’s love and compassion in the world to all people.
· We glorify God as we make a real choice to say to ourselves, to others and to God: I acknowledge your love and holiness by choosing to participate in your divine life by conforming my self will (the will to power) to your divine will (the will to compassionate service).

I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.

· The completion of the Father’s Plan of Salvation comes in Jesus’ arrest, condemnation, torture, and execution.
· Jesus acknowledges that what people consider his utter defeat and complete failure is the Father’s path to salvation for the world.
· Jesus made a conscious choice to follow the Plan into the depths of darkness and death.

5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

· Jesus invokes the Great Mystery of the Eternal Trinity and pulls eternity into a single moment in time that the Glory of God (love and holiness) might be revealed in his prayer, obedience, suffering and death- all counter intuitive to the way people think and to what people expect.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples to be consecrated
6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world.

· The “name” reveals and communicates the essential nature, character and quality of the person.
· To manifest God’s name is to manifest the essential nature, character and quality of God.
· God is love and holiness.
· Jesus communicates God’s love and holiness first to his followers.
· The Father called and gave the disciples (students) out of the world into a new relationship with Jesus Christ.
· The world is the world system, the culture of separation, self will and death.

They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.

· The Father knows those who sincerely seek (however imperfectly) God.
· Those who sincerely seek God are found by the Father.
· Those whom the Father finds He gives to the Son.
· All who seek God are found by God in Jesus Christ.
· All who are in Christ keep the word, the co eternal logos, the divine, rational, creative pattern of the universe.
· We keep the word by seeking to manifest the divine nature (love) and character (holiness) in our lives.

7 Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You.


· All who grow in faith grow in their understanding that Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.
· All who sincerely follow Jesus come to accept His divine nature and character through his words and works.

8 For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.

· The Son only speaks what the Father gives him to speak.
· The disciple recognizes that Jesus speaks the word of God.
· The disciple recognizes that Jesus is the word of God.
9 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.

· At this juncture, Jesus clarifies that he is only praying for those The Father has given him.
· Jesus prays here specifically for his disciples.

10 And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.

· In the unity of the Trinity all who come to Jesus come to God.
· Those who come to Jesus glorify him by their faith.
· The glory is the acknowledgement that Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.

11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You.

· Jesus has left the world of human fear, self will and pride.
· Jesus has entered into the center of the world’s rebellion against God.
· Jesus’ disciples still live and move in the world of separation, sin and death.
· Jesus is already in the process of leaving this world and returning to the Father in Heaven.

Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.

· Jesus prays that the disciples may remain in the love and holiness of the Father.
· IN that love and holiness the disciples will live in unity of plan and purpose.
· The unity of the three persons of the Trinity is a model for the unity of the disciples with each other and with God.

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.

· Jesus kept the disciples safe while he was with them.

Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

· Only Judas is lost.
· The others are kept safe in Christ.

13 But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

· Jesus is preparing to leave Earth.
· Jesus speaks these words for the benefit of the disciples who hear him.
· The benefit is the fullness of joy.
· The joy comes from the choice to embrace God’s eternal love in Jesus Christ.

14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
· The world culture of separation hates the revealed word of God in the scriptures and in Jesus Christ.
· As the world culture hates God’s word so it hates those who embrace reunification with God in Christ.
· The hatred is the active rebellion against reunification with the Father through the Son.
· The hatred is rebellion against the reunification of the human race.
· The hatred is the rebellion against the reunification of the human soul with its original pattern, plan, and purpose.

15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.

· Jesus does not ask the Father to separate or segregate his disciples.
· Jesus asks the Father to protect his followers from the deceit and spite of Satan, the accuser.

16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

· To be baptized into Christ is to enter into a new way of living that is different than the way the world culture teaches.

17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 1

· To sanctify is to make holy.
· Holiness is God character.
· Holiness is wholeness, happiness, health.
· Jesus prays for his disciples to be made holy in the Father’s word.
· The Father’s word is truth.
· Jesus, the logos, is the Truth.

8 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

· Just as the Father sent Jesus into this world to seek, find and reunite the lost so He sends his disciples into the world to do the same.

19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

· Jesus immerses himself in the wholeness, health and happiness of the Father so that those who follow Jesus may also be immersed in holiness.


Jesus Prays for All Believers of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to be consecrated
I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;

· Jesus now applies his prayer for his disciples to all who will believe in him through their preaching.


21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us,

· The prayer for unity is the prayer that all believers in Jesus Christ would immerse themselves in the unity of the Holy and Eternal Trinity.
· The prayer for unity is for all believers to make a choice to maintain the bonds of love and compassion with each other.



that the world may believe that You sent Me.

· Unity of believers will encourage non believers to have faith.

22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:

· Jesus not only shows us the Divine Presence, Jesus is the Divine Presence.
· As we immerse our minds, hearts and wills in the Divine Presence we surrender self will, fear and pride.
· As we immerse our souls in the Divine Presence we live in the unity of pattern, plan and purpose Jesus prays for us to experience.

23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

· The unity derives from the love and produces love.
· The unity is the witness to the world of the love.
· The unity integrates our souls into the Divine Life of the Holy and Eternal Trinity.

24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

· Jesus prays that all believers would come to perceive the fullness of Divine Love and Holiness expressed in the unity of the Three Persons of the Eternal Trinity.

25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.

· The world culture of separation and rebellion cannot not and will not know God.
· Only those in Christ can seek God and be found by God.

26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

· The Name is the character and nature of God.
· Jesus is God’s declaration that God is love and holiness.
· Jesus is God reaching out to fill all people with eternal love.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Lent 5

Lent 5 You do not always have me.

Jesus is the visible expression of God’s extravagant love.

While people in Jesus’ time and in our time debate and discuss, analyze and criticize Jesus, God simply pours himself out to us fully, completely, and without restraint in Jesus Christ.
Such superabundance of love is impossible for human beings to understand. Most people ask the question we grow up and learn to ask: What’s in it for me? What was in it for Jesus?

Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is one of those rare individuals who grasps the essential meaning and purpose of God. That meaning and purpose is infinite, eternal, unconditional love. It is the extravagance of love appearing in a world obsessed with scarcity. It is the extravagance of grace in a world lost in self indulgence.

The pound container of perfume Mary broke to anoint Jesus was worth about a year’s salary. It could have been diluted and placed in dozens of smaller containers to sell in the market and earn a enormous profit for the family. Instead, Mary poured it all out in one moment of devotion.

Judas was outraged and said so. They other apostles were probably no less astonished and bewildered. Why? Why so much extravagance? Why so much waste?

Of course, most people looked at Jesus in terms of their own needs and desires. They wanted power, pleasure, possessions, and prestige. They expected Jesus to give them those things.
God sent Jesus into the world to give eternal love.

Eternal love? You can’t sell it. You can’t cash it in. You can’t trade it for what you really want. Eternal love for most people most of the time is wasted breath. The words speak but hold no meaning. The words hold no meaning because they hold no value for us. What most people most of the time value is money and power.

Mary valued Jesus. She heard his words. She observed his actions. She believed in the value of his gift. She perceived Jesus as the extravagant outpouring of Divine Love to all people everywhere.

As she embraced the extravagance of Divine Love in Jesus Christ she brought forth from her own soul the real choice to practice the extravagance of divine love. Her choice to take a valuable jar of perfume and anoint Jesus with the entirety of its contents is an act of worship.
God looks for this kind of response from each of us, from all of us.

Who we worship and how we worship defines who we are and what we are becoming.
God is seeking for people who have even the smallest desire to be immersed in the very essence of who God is: eternal love.

As we begin to seek the total immersion of our souls in Divine Love God will fill us with that love. As we are filled with that gift so we find the additional desire to share that gift.
It starts with worship since worship is the most perfect form of love a human being can experience. The purpose of worship is not to flatter orto placate God. Worship is not a holy bribe to get God to give us what we want, what is really important. The purpose of worship is the total immersion and endless transformation of the soul in Christ. Christ and Christ alone is the supreme value from whom all other things derive value.

It does matter who you worship and how you worship.

Judas follow4ed Jesus for all the wrong reasons. In that respect he was no different from the other apostles and most of the disciples and very likely most of us at times.

Had Judas been able to perceive the outpouring of Mary’s devotion as a moment of grace, perhaps he could have sought that grace after he betrayed Jesus. But, Judas knew very little if anything of grace. He knew power. He knew money. He knew rewards and punishments. He did not know grace.

Mary knew, or at least was beginning to know, grace. Grace is the character of the relationship Jesus offers us. Mary knew grace because Mary knew Jesus. In that grace, Mary glimpsed the greater reality of Divine Love.

Divine love is infinite and eternal. It has no beginning and has no end. It makes all things new and joyful. It is the amazing abundance of God pouring Himself out to all people everywhere.
And so, Mary takes the most precious possession she has and makes a real choice to pour out its contents, its worth, its value, on Jesus.

In her simple yet amazing choice, she mirrors a tiny portion of the great love of God in Jesus Christ.

The people who witnessed this act were astonished, bewildered, even outraged. Jesus was delighted. Mary had made the best choice at that moment. Mary had chosen love, eternal love. Her action has been recorded for all people and for all time.

This is the model of worship our Heavenly Father is seeking in us. This is the model of worship the Holy Spirit is encouraging us to embrace fully and passionately. This is the model of worship that immerses our mind, heart, and will in the eternal love of Jesus Christ. This extravagance of worship is the means by which we live God’s blessing and become God’s blessing now at this time in our lives, at this place where we live, and forevermore, world without end. Amen.
 
 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Lenten study on contemplation

Lenten Study 4 Contemplation
March 17, 2010 Psalm 62:1
Contemplation is conscious uncritical awareness of what is.
Elements:
1. Silence
2. Observation
3. Non attachment
4. Non judgment
5. Intent
6. Awareness
7. Grace
Aspects:
1. The souls seeks God through intent
2. God seeks the soul through grace
Premise
· God wants to be found.
· People want to hide.
· The Holy Spirit inspires us to seek
· Jesus tells us that even the smallest faith intent to seek will result in being found.
· The details of the process are less important that the intent to enter into the process
Obstacles
· Fear: loss of control
· Self will: rebellion against what is
· Pride: the will to power/ the demand for judgment and outcome
· “me first” creates distortions in thought, emotion and will.
· Those distortions lead to an endless feedback loop of demand/despair that compresses our perception of reality.
· The feedback loop creates and maintains a false ego- a false self- that defends itself with cynicism, arrogance, separation.
Goals
· Proximate: to enter a journey of awareness/ to wake up the mind, heart and will to what is rather than what the separated ego demands.
· Ultimate: the experience of life as it is rather than how, what and why we want it to be.
Comments
Contemplation is not
· Irrational, unemotional, passive
· Esoteric, occult, superstitious
· Submission, aggression or withdrawal
· Resignation, disinterested, aloof
· A method, a philosophy or a science
· Static, fixed, stagnate
· Bound by religion, reason or rule
· Paradox, anomaly, or contaction
· Dualism, monism, pantheism

Contemplation is an invitation
· of the Divine
· of unconditional love into unconditional love
· to wake up not to zone out
· to experience more fully life as it is here and now
· into silence
· into truth
· into expansion, creativity, spontaneity
· into the true self
· into authentic undefended relationships
· into effortless effort
· into the activation of unlimited potential
· into self responsible real choice
· into a new way of living
· into the place where the eternal touches the temporal
· to experience and savor the unity of essence and the multiplicity of existence.
· The Logos

Suggested preliminary exercises
There is no one correct way to pray, meditate or contemplate. There is only the real choice to set an authentic intent.
That authentic intent is the mustard seed of faith that inspires awareness and action.
As you practice your intent it becomes more clear, concise, focused and unbounded
1. Single point concentration on an object.
2. Single point focus on a mental image
3. Pondering, savoring, feeling a scripture
4. Devotional exercises: the rosary, Benediction, Holy Communion
5. Lovingkindess: “I wait for thy lovingkindness, O Lord, in the midst of thy Temple.” Psalm 48:8
6. Worship: “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.”Psalm 11:4
7. Silence; “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” Psalm 62:1

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Lenten study on meditation

Lenten study week 4
Meditation: Zoning out or zoning in.
What do you think about when some one says the word "meditation"?
Most Western people think of meditation in terms of a posture, exercise, and discipline. Most people in the West think of meditation as zoning out to find a blissful tranquil state with no thought and little awareness of self, the world, or any transcendent reality.
Meditation is none of these things.
Meditation is zoning in not zoning out.
Meditation may or may not involve a posture, exercise or discipline.
Meditation is simply making a conscious choice to pay attention to what is.
Stages of Meditation
1. Attention
First Exercise: sit quietly for one minute and observe your thoughts. Try not to force your thoughts in any one direction. But, if you find yourself in a forcing current simply observe that.
Report: what did you experience?
Second exercise: sit quietly for one minute and observe your body. What do you feel? Aches, pains, numbness, pleasure? What is there?
Report: what did you feel?
Third exercise: sit quietly for one minute and pay attention to the room around you. What do you see, hear, feel, smell, touch, taste?
Report: what did you experience with your five primary senses?
2. Question
Are you the thoughts, feelings, sensations? Is that you?
Or, are you the one who chose to observe those thoughts, feelings and sensations?
Where is the real you?
3. Observation
As you experience emotional reactions to people and events try to remember to ask your self: where is the real me?
Is the real me the anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, demand, pride?
Or, is the real me that Observer who notices all of these things?
 
4. Cultivation
If you have come to the conclusion that the real you is the observer continue to pursue meditation by making a conscious choice to invite the Observer to be present in your daily activities.
If you have not come to the conclusion that the real you is the Observer that’s OK. That is where you are. Observe your resistance to the process. Ask yourself: who is observing the resistance? Is the resistance the real me or is the one who observes the resistance the real me?
Either way, set the intention to approach life from the question: what is the truth?
What is the truth of my present experience?
If you are in physical pain ask: what is the truth of this pain? Am I the pain or some one who is experiencing the pain?
As I sit (stand, recline, kneel) and pay attention to my life as it is what do I observe?
Is the observer the same as the pain?
In the act of observation how does your perception and experience of the pain change (or not).
5. Lucid
Now that you have done some of the "spade work" of meditation it is time to seed the grounds of awareness with Divine Truth.
There are any number of techniques or methods. All have some value. Their value is only instrumental. They are a means to an end not the end goal itself. The end goal is simply Presence.
Presence to who you really are.
Presence to other people as they are.
Presence to the world as it is.
Presence to God as God is.
Lucid techniques:
Experiencing the story
1. Select a story from the Bible. Let’s try Genesis 1:26- 2:3
2. Read the passage out loud.
3. Observe how you think, feel, react to the story as it unfolds.
3. Make a conscious choice to exercise your imagination.
4. Place your self in the story as though you were there observing what was happening as it happened.
5.Shift your awareness into the present.
6. Experience the story as though it is happening here and now.
7. Observe the events as present events.
8. Observe your own thoughts, feelings, reactions as you experience the story as a present reality.
9. Ask God: how are you Present here and now in this exercise?
10. Sit in silent awareness of what is here and now.
Memorizing the scripture
Psalm 119: 9-11
Luke 2:51
Memorizing scripture with conscious intent and awareness can open our souls to the Divine Presence.
Memorization is best when regular.
It does not have to be frequent, just regular.
As you memorize ponder the words.
Ask God the questions: how is this true?
How can I apply this truth?
***********************************************
Some points to consider
You, the real you, are not your thoughts.
The sin nature manufactures a false you.
The Holy Spirit calls you into an awareness of the real you.
The real you is a particular and unique manifestation of the Infinite and Eternal love of God.
You are more fully you when you are in an active, conscious, self responsible relationship with Jesus Christ
Meditation is a means by which we respond to the Holy Spirit’s invitation to wake up, pay attention and be present to the fullness of life.
The false you reacts from the place of fear, self will and pride.
The real you responds from the place of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ.
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Lent 4

Lent 4 So he told them this parable

More often than not people approach God from the place of rational analysis.

More often than not, people say things like: I haven’t decided yet what I think about God. I am still thinking about whether God exists. Sadly, most people most of the time are lost in thought, lost in the categories of rational analysis.

This is why Jesus so frequently used parables to communicate spiritual truth. A parable is a story with one main point.

A parable is not an allegory. All too often people attempt to recast the parables into the realm of allegory where rational analysis gives us the opportunity to impose our interpretation of the details of the story.

The underlying spiritual framework for parables is relationship. God does not invite us to analyze his existence.

God asks us to enter into an ongoing creative spontaneous experience of his presence in the world, in the church and in our lives.

This is not to suggest we should abandon thought. There is a place for rational critical analysis. That place is self examination. That place is self responsibility.

We can see all of the elements of meaning in the parable of the prodigal son.
The younger son rationally analyzes his situation, his family dynamic and his father’s temperament. He decides he wants his inheritance now while he is still young and can enjoy life. He sees how his older brother works hard on the family farm and decides that hard work is not for him. He sees how his father is loving and compassionate and how he can manipulate him to get what he wants.

The fatal flaw in the younger son is self indulgence. He wants what he wants and he wants it now. He uses his intellect to analyze the situation and to make the decisions he needs to make to get what he wants.

He succeeds only to fail. He gets everything he wants and very soon comes to realize he wants nothing that he has gained. He sacrificed his relationships with his family, his brother and his father for the money he thought would buy him happiness. He used his intellect to devise and execute a plan. His plan succeeded.

For a short time, he enjoyed the pleasures his money bought him. Then, he came face to face with a reality his careful plans and rational analysis could not perceive. He could not perceive the danger because he only focused on the immediate fulfillment of his desires.
Had he used his intellect in the proper way he might have asked questions. He might have asked: what happens when the money runs out? He might have analyzed the probabilities of the situation. He might have, but he didn’t.

He had a fine critical analytical mind but he used it to manipulate people to satisfy his immediate desires. He was, as Shakespeare once wrote, hoist by his own petard. He misused his mind to manipulate other people so he missed his opportunity to perceive and understand some basic principles about the world as it is.

In the end, the younger son lived in a fantasy world that other people were more than willing to indulge- until his money ran out. When his money ran out, his friends abandoned him, Reality hit him and hit him hard. From a life of self indulgent arrogance he suddenly found himself alone, starving, and broken.

As he hit rock bottom and literally wallowed with the pigs, he came to himself. He recognized the problem. The problem was his own irresponsible behavior. The problem was his own arrogance. He accepted the humiliation of his circumstances. He accepted personal responsibility for his choices. He began the long difficult process of repentance.

He had a long way to go. The journey back home was not easy. The distance was great. It was a long walk for someone weak from starvation. It was a tedious retracing of his entire belief system. Suddenly, the old farm looked pretty good. Suddenly, the older brother didn’t appear to be as stupid. Suddenly, his contempt for his father’s love and compassion began to change into appreciation and hope.

He had gained every thing he ever wanted and lost it all. He was slowly coming to the realization that relationships are more important than wealth and pleasure. He was slowly coming to the conclusion that the train of logic that led him to starvation was the inevitable result of a rational analysis blind to the underlying reality of life.

That underlying reality is personal relationship. That personal relationship is formed by love and expressed in love. As he approached his home he still wasn’t thinking clearly. He had the barest sense of the solution. It was the Father’s love and the brother’s resentment that completed the lesson for the younger son and for us.

The single elegant simple point of the story is the reality of love. Derivative points include the essential importance of personal relationships with other people and with God. A corollary to the importance of personal relationship is the principle of self responsibility and the limitations of rational analytical thinking.

As the father welcomed his younger son so God welcomes us. As the younger son rejected his father through arrogance and pride so we reject God. As the older son condemns his brother for his outrageous and foolish behavior so we tend to condemn those we perceive to be sinners.
The point of the story is the corrupting power of sin and the redeeming power of unconditional love.

Both sons still had a long way to go before they could fully embrace the reality of unconditional love. They could do it because the father first embraced them.

The application to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation is direct and immediate. All people in our arrogance and pride reject God. All people redefine God according to our own needs. All people justify this redefinition by chains of logic and analysis that in the end only leave us impoverished, starving for meaning and purpose, humiliated by the recycled pain of shame and blame.

Jesus and Jesus alone is the solution. Jesus and Jesus alone came down from heaven to seek us out and to restore the relationship with God that we rejected. Jesus is really not interested in what we think about God. That is why he told stories to communicate truth. That is why Jesus never formulated systems or programs or lists of specific prohibitions and commands.
The reality of God is in the personal relationship with God. The reality of the relationship is Jesus Christ.

The father in the story reached out to both sons at the place where they were stuck in the arrogance of their pride and rebellion. Our heavenly Father reaches out to all of us, to each of us in that place where we are stuck.

God is patient and persistent. He waits for us to discover the folly of our insistence that we can define life, the universe and everything with rational analysis. He sends the Holy Spirit into our lives to communicate His great love for us in the ordinary events of our lives.

As Mother Theresa once said, God whispers to us in our pleasures but shouts to us in our pain. Whether it is a whisper or a shout, it is one simple elegant and powerful word: Jesus.
God invites us to participate in the truth of Creation by entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to offer this relationship to everyone. It is a gift and it is unconditional. Where ever you are currently stuck in your life the Holy Spirit is there with you inviting you back home to the loving embrace of the father. Always in every way possible, the Holy Spirit speaks the divine word of Creation, Redemption, and Transformation. That divine word is Jesus.
 
 

Friday, March 5, 2010

Lent 3

Lent 3
Unless you repent you will all perish.

Jesus moved in the world with humility and compassion. He also moved in the world in Truth.
People made the mistake of assuming that humility was weakness. When Jesus confronted their false ideas about God they became confused, angry and confrontational.

Jesus challenged many of the common beliefs of his time. One of these beliefs was: bad things only happen to bad people.

This is not what the Bible teaches. It is not verifiable from even casual observation of the world. It was what most religions of the time taught. It was what most people believed.

People mentioned to Jesus the Galileans whom Pontius Pilate killed as they were preparing their sacrifice in the Tempe. Pilate had information to suggest they were terrorists. He sent his soldiers to hunt them down and kill them. The soldiers found them at the temple with the animals they were preparing to sacrifice.

Whether the Galileans were terrorists or not, they were in the middle of an act of worship in obedience to God’s Law revealed to Moses. They were performing a righteous act. How could God allow them to be killed?

Jesus cites another example linked to a righteous act. The tower at Siloam was as aqueduct designed to bring water into the Temple. The project was designed to bring praise and glory to God in the only Temple God ever authorized people to build. Yet, in the construction, the tower collapsed. Eighteen workers died. Why? They were performing a righteous act.

Jesus never answers the why question. He simply reminds us that bad tings happen in the world. Governors charged with maintaining law and order sometimes kill innocent people in the war on terrorism. Workers some times die in accidents even in holy sites such as the Temple.

God does not throw lightning bolts to punish the wicked or to protect the righteous. But, sin still exists in the world. There are terrorists who mingle with the general population. There are contractors who fail to take proper precautions to safeguard their workers.

The bad things that happen are not a punishment from God. The bad things that happen are the result of a human choice entering into the world of cause and effect. That is why Jesus avoids giving a reason for why the righteous suffer. Jesus simply issues the call to repentance.

Jesus’ call to repentance reminds us that we live in a fallen and broken world. We live in a state of separation from God. As we make choices from that place of separation we experience consequences. The solution is not to blame others, or even ourselves. The solution is to take personal responsibility for our part in humanity’s separation from God. The solution is for us to take personal responsibility for our rebellion against God. The solution is to repent.
Repentance means to stop, wake up, pay attention, turn around.

Repentance means we agree with Jesus’ description of the problem. The problem Jesus describes is separation. We don’t experience separation because we do bad things from time to time, or because we fail to do good things from time to time. The reverse is true.
We fail to do the good and instead make bad choices because we have already chosen to separate from God.

The solution to this problem is not a religious or psychological program. The solution is a person, Jesus Christ.

In Jesus Christ, our heavenly Father very specifically and personally unites His divinity with our humanity. In Jesus Christ, God the Father offers us the gift of reunification, restoration and transformation.

Repentance is not just about a resolution to stop lying, cheating or stealing. That is certainly important. What Jesus means by repentance is more profound and encompassing. It is a total reorientation of the direction of our lives. It is the surrender of self will to divine will. It is the transformation of fear into faith. It is the restoration of unconditional love as the defining principle of our lives.

We cannot simply choose to live by unconditional love. Only God knows this kind of love. Only God is this kind of love. We can, if we choose, receive unconditional love as a gift. We can, if we choose, ask the Holy Spirit to apply this kind of love to our thoughts, words and deeds.
The truth is not just a statement. The truth, the absolute and non negotiable truth, is a person: Jesus Christ.

God the Father created each of us, all of us, according the plan, the pattern and the principle of God the Son. That plan, pattern and principle is unconditional love, steadfast holy love. In that love we experience the full potential of who God created us to be. We begin to experience the full potential here and now, regardless of the circumstances of our lives.

Apart from God’s perfect plan and pattern and purpose we perish. We wither away as we waste the time God has given us. As we wander lost and alone in separation from God we create distortions in the way we think, the way we feel, the way we make choices. By seeking independence through the demands of the will to power we recycle the pain of life into suffering.

Jesus came as the final solution to sin, separation and death. In his call to repentance he proclaims the truth of Divine Love. Jesus reminds us that there are only two ways for us to live in this world. The way we currently live is the way of separation. It is the assertion of self will. It is the demand that says: my will be done. That way is the way of destruction.

It is the way of the soul’s disintegration in this life. It is the way of the soul’s eternal desolation in the next life. God did not design the human soul to live this way.

The other way of living is Jesus Christ. This way is not just a set of religious practices we add to our crowded and busy lives. It is the way of transformation in unconditional love. It is the Way by which God the Holy Spirit is helping us to wake up, stop, look, listen and then make a real choice to embrace divine love and compassion in all aspects of our lives.

When Jesus declares that he is the way, the truth and the life, He clarifies for us what he has come to offer. He offers a new way of living that emerges in a new relationship.

Eternal life is a personal relationship with God the Father, through God the Son, by the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit. It is the dynamic of the new relationship with God in Christ that transforms our choices and produces a new way of living, a new way of being human.
Jesus clearly and explicitly teaches us; except you repent you will all perish. The call to repentance is a call to stop. Wake up. Listen. It is a call from the One who loves us with an everlasting love to return to Him. It is a call into a new relationship.

We enter into the new relationship through the waters of baptism. We immerse ourselves in the daily dynamic of that new relationship through the blessed sacrament of the altar. The Holy Spirit encourages us to pray, read the Bible worship and perform acts of service to others as the means by which we grow closer to Jesus and he becomes more present in our lives.

During Lent, the Church sets aside time for us to ponder the words of Jesus. The Holy Spirit guides us in a process of self examination. One fundamental question the Holy Spirit asks us is: what is the primary relationship in your life?

The primary relationship is the defining relationship. The defining relationship forms our souls and sets the parameters by which we experience our lives. God the Father designed each of us according to the plan, the pattern and the purpose of the co-eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

God the Father designed each of us to be in a primary relationship with Christ so that all of our other relationships would be filled with meaning, and purpose and unconditional love. It we make Christ second in our lives we make him last. If we make him last we no longer live in love but exist in self will, the will to power.

This is the essence of the call to repentance. We will also discover those things that we do or fail to do that we need to correct and to change. Those things will be part of the process.
What is most important is the animating Truth that underlies the process. That underlying Truth is Jesus Christ.

Jesus warns us today: unless you repent, unless you stop, wake up, listen, turn around, you will perish. You will experience existence as tedium and strife and suffering. If you repent, if you embrace the new way of living in the personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ, you will experience the divine presence of unconditional love. The Holy Spirit will set you free to live in that love.

Repent and embrace the One who came to us with the reality of tranforming unconditional love.