Pentecost 2

Pentecost 2 (Matthew 10:40-42)
Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.

If you really want to know God look at Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament prepares us to understand Jesus. Everything in the New Testament helps us to receive Jesus. The sole purpose of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is to help people experience the living reality of the living Lord Jesus Christ.
All religion is human speculation about God. Only Jesus Christ is God reaching out to the human race.

All religion asks some basic questions: who or what is God? What does this Deity or Deities want from me? How does this make a difference in my life? Our Heavenly Father answers this question in a very unusual way. That Way is Jesus.

Most forms of religion assume a rewards/punishment pattern to human interaction with the divine. For most people most of the time, the good things in life are the reward and the bad things in life are the punishment.

Virtually every atheistic I have ever listened to tells the same story. I don’t believe in God because God failed me. God failed the implicit bargain religion teaches. That bargain can be stated: if you do good you get good; if you do bad you get bad. This is not the way the world works. It is the demand of the human soul. It is a demand that leaves us empty and seeking something new or something different to satisfy our longing.

People desire many things. People long for happiness, justice and love. As St. Paul wrote: the greatest is Love. As Moses wrote: God brings forth steadfast holy love. As King David sang: O Lord, I will celebrate your love forever. As the prophets proclaimed: The Lord yearns to bless his people as a groom longs to bring happiness to his bride.

As the beloved apostle John wrote and experienced: God just doesn’t have love; God is love. Jesus is the Love of the Eternal Father in human flesh.
The reason we exist is because our Heavenly Father created us to live in an active dynamic transforming relationship of infinite and eternal love with the co-eternal son.

The Archangel Gabriel directed the Blessed Virgin Mary to name her son Jesus, savior. Our Heavenly Father has audibly declared Jesus’ name in eternity is: The Beloved.

If you receive Jesus as your personal lord and savior you receive the co-eternal Beloved. Jesus himself is the reward. The reward is the new life and the new way of living that comes from entering into the new relationship God offers all people everywhere.

What does God want?

God wants us to make a real choice to immerse our mind, our heart, our will in the real presence of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ. This is the one thing God wants from us. All other things Moses and the Prophets and the Apostles taught all derive from this one thing.

The reward of the prophets and the righteous is the immersion of the soul in the steadfast holy unconditional love of God.

This is why the Holy Spirit led Moses into the wilderness. He was too distracted by the pleasures and the power and the pride of his position as a Prince of Egypt. He had to learn love by becoming a shepherd of sheep. From among the highest in human society Moses became the lowest. In that journey from the palaces of Egypt to the Sinai desert, Moses learned what only the desert could teach him. Moses learned unconditional love.

In learning unconditional love, Moses prepared himself to hear what very few people have ever heard. Moses prepared his mind, his heart, his will to hear the Word of God.

It is the same Word Moses heard in the desert that the prophets heard and proclaimed. It is the Word that became flesh in Jesus Christ and dwelt among us in complete humility.

If you receive Jesus you receive the one who sent him. If you receive Jesus you receive the one who prepared Moses and the Prophets to announce his coming. If you receive Jesus you receive the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The reward is the relationship.

In this present world of duality there will be good times and bad times. In this world of cause and effect we will know success and we will know failure. We will know pleasure and we will know pain. In this world as it is, Jesus offers us himself.
He stands at the thresh hold of this world and knocks. He stands at the door to our individual souls and knocks. Jesus never imposes himself on us. He did not and will not come into this world to command and control. He came and continues to come into this world to offer himself to us.

The question implicit in Jesus’ teaching on this second Sunday of Pentecost is: will you welcome me?

For just a moment forget the religion. Focus on the relationship. For just a second forget the doctrine. Focus on the person. Listen. Pay attention. Here and now in the space of a single breath Jesus is calling to us. Here and now within a single heart beat Jesus invites you to receive an eternal treasure that will transform your life.
That treasure is a personal relationship with the co-eternal Beloved of the eternal Father. That treasure is the Holy Spirit infusing love into our souls by the presence of his own infinite and eternal love.

What does God want? He wants to call us the beloved of the co-eternal beloved. He wants to immerse our souls in the love of that relationship. He wants to transform our fear, anger, frustration, pain, pride and despair in the active dynamic of that relationship.

That is what God wants.

What do you want?

Will you allow Jesus to be who he is?

Will you surrender the urgent and impossible demand of the sin nature to define other people, the world and even God?

Will you yield your self will to be transformed by divine will and discover the liberation of free will in Jesus Christ?

Will you this day at this time and in this place just as you are welcome the Living Lord Jesus Christ as your personal forever friend and companion?

Wealth and power will pass away. Friends and partners will disappoint you. Only Jesus is the eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father.

The reward Jesus offers is himself. The reward is the relationship that will never pass away. The relationship will only get better as we discover in Jesus the reality of the infinite and eternal love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.