Pentecost 7 (Matthew 14:13-21) “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”
Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed but only changed in form.
This is one of the fundamental laws of science that I learned as a child. It is also a basic biblical principle. The Bible is clear that when God works within the created universe he works within the laws that he embedded into the universe. He does this because the laws that govern the universe reflect the pattern of the co-eternal Son of the Father.
When the Biblical writers describe miracles they speak of the sun behaving in an unusual way- but it is still the sun. They speak of the waters of the Red Sea parting- but it is still the sea. When Jesus performs his miracles he normally uses the ordinary things of this world. He infuses these things with grace. He releases their potential according to the more fundamental spiritual laws of abundance, compassion and unconditional love.
There is a significant difference between miracle and magic. Miracle works within the framework of God’s creation according to spiritual law. In the miraculous feeding of the five thousand men along with thousands of women and children, Jesus initiates the miracle by looking up to heaven. He acknowledges the reality of God within the context of prayer. The prayer Jesus prayed most often is “Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.”
In this miracle, Jesus demonstrates the attitude, action and pattern for miracles. That pattern is revealed to us in the model prayer Jesus gave us. The Lord’s prayer sets the forth the pattern, plan and purpose of God as God invites us to experience him.
If you are looking for a Bible study, either individually or as a group, I invite you to list the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer and then ponder their meaning. Question the invitation to grace that each phrase offers. Record your impressions. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what Jesus is teaching us about God, ourselves and the world around us.
Miracle is not magic. Magic is rooted in the false belief that by will and knowledge we can impose our desire on the world around us. Magic is routed in the assertion: my will be done. Miracle is rooted in the aspiration: Heavenly Father, Thy will be done.
Jesus observed the problem. Too many people. Too little time. Too few resources. Jesus responded with compassion. The disciples saw only the outward and visible form of the problem. They wanted Jesus to send the people home.
Jesus told his disciples that the crowd didn’t need to leave. They wanted to be there. They wanted to be with Jesus. This is exactly why Jesus came to earth. This is exactly why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to give birth to the one holy catholic and apostolic church.
Our heavenly Father want us to want to be with Jesus.
The Father never forces us to be with the Son, either in the here and now or in the hereafter. The reality of the relationship God offers is unconditional love. It is the reality God wishes to produce in each of us.
The people wanted to be with Jesus. Despite the growing darkness, lack of food and lack of shelter, they wanted to be with Jesus. And, Jesus wanted to be with them. They met him where he was and he welcomed them where they were.
The miracle emerges in the divine presence. It is the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in Jesus Christ that facilitates the miracle.
Jesus lifts up his gaze to heaven to demonstrate to people he is surrendering his will to the Divine will. He wants to be sure people understand he is not about to perform magic. He sets the context for the miracle in an attitude of prayer. The context is surrender to the divine will.
From the attitude proceeds the action. Jesus blesses the loaves and the fish. He just doesn’t give thanks over the food. He blesses, hallows and sanctifies the food. He sets it apart and places it into the very center of Divine Love and Compassion.
The attitude produces the action and leads to a result. The five loaves and three fish feed thousands. When the meal is over there is actually more food left over than what was present at the start.
Jesus used no special words that can produce an identical result. There was no thunder or lightning, no hosts of angels brining in baskets of food. The rocks did not turn into bread or the insects into fish.
The miracle was real and it proceeds from the real presence of God.
There was not enough food that night for everyone to eat. And so, Jesus prayed, blessed and gave. He gave unconditionally. He gave with abundance.
The abundance was already there as it is already in our world and in our lives. Jesus released the abundance through a miracle of love and compassion that drew from his own infinite and eternal substance.
There is amazing abundance in God’s creation yet a billion of people are starving. There is amazing abundance in God’s creation yet a billion of people lack the basic necessities of life. The problem is not a lack of resources. The solution is not in a political ideology or economic theory.
Jesus shows us the solution in this miracle. The solution is for each of us to place ourselves in the real presence of the living Lord. The solution emerges as we cultivate the desire to be with Jesus.
Jesus once said: if you have two coats and you know of someone who has no coat- that is your invitation from God to be the solution to that person’s problem. This is not how the world works right now. That is not what our culture teaches. It makes no sense in the context of any economic theory or political system. It only makes sense in the context of our personal relationship with the infinite abundance of God present to us in Jesus Christ.
Magic is the attempt to assert power to impose our will on other people and the world. Magic acknowledges no rational argument, accepts no compromise and blames other people for the world’s problems.
Science simply describes what is. Scientism draws the conclusion that the only reality is matter, energy, time and space.
Miracle proceeds from faith. It is the faith that comes to Jesus and desires to be with Jesus. It is a new life and a new way of living in the real presence of the divine that changes our attitude, produces an action and yields a result.
Jesus invited his students, his disciples, into an experience of faith. They were skeptical. They were trapped in scarcity. They were enslaved by fear. “We have nothing here,” they said. “Nothing, except these five loaves and three fish. Nothing.”
They missed their moment. They missed the obvious. They missed the basic math. 5 +3 does not = 0. They were not ready for the advanced math. 5+3 plus Jesus= infinite abundance. When you add Jesus to the equation, any equation, you add in a term that is both infinite and eternal.
This miracle is sometimes called the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. The multiplier is Jesus himself. Jesus is the real presence of the Divine who makes the miracle possible.
It isn’t magic. You can’t just ask for something and then add the phrase: in Jesus’ Name” and expect it will instantly appear. It isn’t subject to the laws of ordinary cause and effect, of basic math. You can’t reproduce the same conditions surrounding a miracle and produce the same result.
Miracles emerge in the particular and unique context of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ.
Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed but only changed in form. Jesus did not create bread out of nothing. He did not even change rocks into bread. He released the abundance of the Creation through the five loaves and three fish his disciple had.
You who have come here today need not go away empty handed. Our heavenly Father has set this time and this place as the appointed moment for an ongoing miracle. It is here on the seventh day. It is here at the altar of sacrifice. It is now at this hour that Our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to touch ordinary bread and wine and transform them into the abundance of eternal life.
How much would you pay for an extra decade of life? What would you sacrifice for an extra year of life? God offers us the gift of eternal life here and now on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice.
The bread is the abundance of infinite love. The wine is the extravagance of eternal life. The miracle is here. As it was then so it is now. The miracle is now. The miracle is the real presence of Jesus Christ in the bread and wine that will transform our every thought, emotion and choice. It is as we are transformed in this miracle that Jesus asks each of us to be a miracle for someone else.
We cannot be this miracle from a place of scarcity. We cannot be this miracle if we are enslaved by magical thinking or political ideology.
It is as we experience a change in attitude through this miracle of Real Presence that Jesus invites us to take action and produce a result. As we ponder the scandal of a billion human beings starving to death in a world rich with abundance Jesus tells us today as he told his disciples so long ago: “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Pentecost 6
Pentecost 6 (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52) The Kingdom of heaven is like
The Bible says little about heaven.
The purpose of the Bible is to reveal the problem confronting humanity and the solution God offers.
From time to time people ask me about heaven. Usually the people who ask this question are very young or very old. The young want to know such things as whether their pet dog or cat will be in heaven. I normally give them the answer Billy Graham used to give. If you want your pet in heaven it will be there. The very old want some assurance that heaven is real and that they qualify to enter into it.
In Jesus’ day, virtually all people understood the Kingdom of Heaven to be here on earth. Jews and pagans alike believed heaven was the realm of the divine, earth was the place for human beings, and the underworld was the place of the dead.
When people in Israel heard Jesus proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven they had a very specific and detailed understanding about what that meant. They understood that the Messiah would crush the enemies of Israel, destroy Rome, establish Jerusalem as the capital of a new world empire, enslave the nations and bring wealth and prosperity to the faithful. They also believed the Messiah would select the one true expression of Judaism and then violently suppress all other sects and religions.
Jesus knew this story very well. He had grown up hearing it from his friends, neighbors, teachers and priests. He also knew it was simply not true. He knew it was not true for two reasons. He studied the scriptures and he immersed himself in the love of God the Father through worship and prayer.
Jesus knew the Kingdom of heaven was not a military, political, and economic structure. The Kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love of the Triune God made manifest to us and for us in Jesus Christ.
This was not what the people in Jesus’ time expected. It is still not what most people most of the time in our culture expect. Popular culture in the first century was looking for the right leader who would usher in the right government in order to establish the right religion. Fundamentalists in many religions in our time share this understanding.
What the mainstream culture seems to expect in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven is self indulgent entitlement. Some one once said that how we view God reveals how we view ourselves. Our image of the Kingdom of Heaven reflects the culture we live in more than the transcendent reality of heaven. We can test this idea by examining popular TV shows, movies and books that deal with the subject of the afterlife.
Jesus’ first century teaching about the kingdom is ideally suited to challenge twenty first century cultural assumptions. The parables in today’s gospel passage are drawn from ordinary life. They don’t use religious jargon or abstract philosophical concepts. The parables are short and to the point- well suited for the limited attention spans of modern people.
What is important to hear is the introduction to each of the parables. Jesus says: the Kingdom of heaven is like. This is a comparison of a transcendent spiritual reality to an ordinary aspect of our lives here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a mustard seed. The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It is like a mustard seed insofar as it starts small.
When Jesus teaches what the kingdom of heaven is he states: the kingdom of heaven in within you. The kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love revealed to us and made real for us in Jesus Christ. The kingdom of heaven is made manifest in us through a personal relationship Jesus Christ.
Like a mustard seed, the kingdom starts small, almost imperceptible at first. It seems insignificant in comparison to the arena of politics, economics, law and war. Yet, like the mustard seed it contains the fullness of the pattern, plan and purpose of God. It grows and develops and transcends all expectations.
Like yeast, the kingdom works unseen and yet without fail to effect an amazing transformation in the lives of those who embrace it.
Like buried treasure it is a hidden wonder that we rejoice to discover.
Like the priceless pearl it is a treasure of worth and beauty for which we willingly sacrifice our time, attention and money.
Like a fishing net, the invitation to the kingdom is universal. All are welcome. All will be included who truly value and desire the gift.
The gift is the personal relationship God the Father offers us in God the Son, Jesus Christ, by the invitation of God the Holy Spirit at work in the world.
The great question is: do we value this treasure? Are we willing to devote our time and attention to the relationship as the treasure hunter and the gem merchant were willing to devote their time to acquire what they valued? Are we willing to grow in grace as the mustard seed grows slowly and surely into the greatest of shrubs? Are we becoming the treasure fit for the King’s house?
The kingdom of heaven is within you. It is the divine love, the agape, you choose to receive, value, cultivate and bring forth in your thoughts and words and deeds. It is not something we can earn. It is a gift. It is not a basic human right. It is the very pattern of the universe. It is not a religion or a ritual or a book, as important as they may be. It is a person. The Kingdom of heaven is the love that emerges from the personal relationship our heavenly father offers us in his Beloved co-eternal Son.
The Kingdom of Heaven manifests in our lives here and now as we hear the invitation from the Holy Spirit and make a real choice to receive the gift God offers. We manifest the kingdom of heaven in our lives as we choose to immerse our minds, hearts, and wills in the three forms of Love God offers.
The three forms of love are worship, service and transformation: love of God, love of others, love of our true self.
Do we value these three forms of love? Do you trust that these three loves will grow and develop like the mustard seed? Do we trust that these three loves infused into our souls produce a healthy nourishing benefit like the yeast in dough? Do we organize our time and resources around the principle of divine love?
The test is clear. The parables show us that the test is the action produced by our faith. The sower, the baker, the treasurer hunter, the jewel merchant and the fishermen all share one common trait. How they choose to act reveals what they value and what they believe.
Jesus wants us to consider carefully the amazing benefit from the choice to immerse ourselves in his steadfast holy unconditional love. He yearns for us to experience his love as a priceless treasure beyond imagination. He pours himself out to us in the blessed sacrament of the altar to infuse us with the richness of infinite blessings. Jesus is seeking friends who want to spend time with him, learn from him, and transform in him.
The Kingdom of heaven is like the seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl and the net. It is small yet powerful. It is undervalued in all human cultures. It is the reality of God present to us in the small choices we make. The small choices accumulate in this world of cause and effect and produce a result.
For those who hear the invitation and receive the invitation as Good News, the gift of a personal relationship with God the Father through God the Son, Jesus Christ, is beyond price and worthy of our highest priority. It is a new life and a new way of living.
Is this what you want? Are you willing to ask God the Holy Spirit to help you immerse yourself in this gift? Do you want a life transformed in steadfast holy unconditional love?
The Kingdom of heaven is not in Rome, or Jerusalem or any other city on earth. The Kingdom of heaven is within you. As you choose to bear the image and likeness of God in your life so you bring forth the blessing of the Kingdom in your thoughts, desires and actions. Heaven is a transcendent reality that we can enter into and experience in the here and now of our lives as we choose.
The Bible reveals that the Kingdom of heaven is like so many of the ordinary aspects, events and objects in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence. It is not those things. It is like those things. The very pattern of the divine nature is woven into the world. Jesus selected only a few examples in order to stimulate our curiosity and to encourage our questions. Perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves: Is the Kingdom of heaven like me?
The Bible says little about heaven.
The purpose of the Bible is to reveal the problem confronting humanity and the solution God offers.
From time to time people ask me about heaven. Usually the people who ask this question are very young or very old. The young want to know such things as whether their pet dog or cat will be in heaven. I normally give them the answer Billy Graham used to give. If you want your pet in heaven it will be there. The very old want some assurance that heaven is real and that they qualify to enter into it.
In Jesus’ day, virtually all people understood the Kingdom of Heaven to be here on earth. Jews and pagans alike believed heaven was the realm of the divine, earth was the place for human beings, and the underworld was the place of the dead.
When people in Israel heard Jesus proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven they had a very specific and detailed understanding about what that meant. They understood that the Messiah would crush the enemies of Israel, destroy Rome, establish Jerusalem as the capital of a new world empire, enslave the nations and bring wealth and prosperity to the faithful. They also believed the Messiah would select the one true expression of Judaism and then violently suppress all other sects and religions.
Jesus knew this story very well. He had grown up hearing it from his friends, neighbors, teachers and priests. He also knew it was simply not true. He knew it was not true for two reasons. He studied the scriptures and he immersed himself in the love of God the Father through worship and prayer.
Jesus knew the Kingdom of heaven was not a military, political, and economic structure. The Kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love of the Triune God made manifest to us and for us in Jesus Christ.
This was not what the people in Jesus’ time expected. It is still not what most people most of the time in our culture expect. Popular culture in the first century was looking for the right leader who would usher in the right government in order to establish the right religion. Fundamentalists in many religions in our time share this understanding.
What the mainstream culture seems to expect in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven is self indulgent entitlement. Some one once said that how we view God reveals how we view ourselves. Our image of the Kingdom of Heaven reflects the culture we live in more than the transcendent reality of heaven. We can test this idea by examining popular TV shows, movies and books that deal with the subject of the afterlife.
Jesus’ first century teaching about the kingdom is ideally suited to challenge twenty first century cultural assumptions. The parables in today’s gospel passage are drawn from ordinary life. They don’t use religious jargon or abstract philosophical concepts. The parables are short and to the point- well suited for the limited attention spans of modern people.
What is important to hear is the introduction to each of the parables. Jesus says: the Kingdom of heaven is like. This is a comparison of a transcendent spiritual reality to an ordinary aspect of our lives here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a mustard seed. The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It is like a mustard seed insofar as it starts small.
When Jesus teaches what the kingdom of heaven is he states: the kingdom of heaven in within you. The kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love revealed to us and made real for us in Jesus Christ. The kingdom of heaven is made manifest in us through a personal relationship Jesus Christ.
Like a mustard seed, the kingdom starts small, almost imperceptible at first. It seems insignificant in comparison to the arena of politics, economics, law and war. Yet, like the mustard seed it contains the fullness of the pattern, plan and purpose of God. It grows and develops and transcends all expectations.
Like yeast, the kingdom works unseen and yet without fail to effect an amazing transformation in the lives of those who embrace it.
Like buried treasure it is a hidden wonder that we rejoice to discover.
Like the priceless pearl it is a treasure of worth and beauty for which we willingly sacrifice our time, attention and money.
Like a fishing net, the invitation to the kingdom is universal. All are welcome. All will be included who truly value and desire the gift.
The gift is the personal relationship God the Father offers us in God the Son, Jesus Christ, by the invitation of God the Holy Spirit at work in the world.
The great question is: do we value this treasure? Are we willing to devote our time and attention to the relationship as the treasure hunter and the gem merchant were willing to devote their time to acquire what they valued? Are we willing to grow in grace as the mustard seed grows slowly and surely into the greatest of shrubs? Are we becoming the treasure fit for the King’s house?
The kingdom of heaven is within you. It is the divine love, the agape, you choose to receive, value, cultivate and bring forth in your thoughts and words and deeds. It is not something we can earn. It is a gift. It is not a basic human right. It is the very pattern of the universe. It is not a religion or a ritual or a book, as important as they may be. It is a person. The Kingdom of heaven is the love that emerges from the personal relationship our heavenly father offers us in his Beloved co-eternal Son.
The Kingdom of Heaven manifests in our lives here and now as we hear the invitation from the Holy Spirit and make a real choice to receive the gift God offers. We manifest the kingdom of heaven in our lives as we choose to immerse our minds, hearts, and wills in the three forms of Love God offers.
The three forms of love are worship, service and transformation: love of God, love of others, love of our true self.
Do we value these three forms of love? Do you trust that these three loves will grow and develop like the mustard seed? Do we trust that these three loves infused into our souls produce a healthy nourishing benefit like the yeast in dough? Do we organize our time and resources around the principle of divine love?
The test is clear. The parables show us that the test is the action produced by our faith. The sower, the baker, the treasurer hunter, the jewel merchant and the fishermen all share one common trait. How they choose to act reveals what they value and what they believe.
Jesus wants us to consider carefully the amazing benefit from the choice to immerse ourselves in his steadfast holy unconditional love. He yearns for us to experience his love as a priceless treasure beyond imagination. He pours himself out to us in the blessed sacrament of the altar to infuse us with the richness of infinite blessings. Jesus is seeking friends who want to spend time with him, learn from him, and transform in him.
The Kingdom of heaven is like the seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl and the net. It is small yet powerful. It is undervalued in all human cultures. It is the reality of God present to us in the small choices we make. The small choices accumulate in this world of cause and effect and produce a result.
For those who hear the invitation and receive the invitation as Good News, the gift of a personal relationship with God the Father through God the Son, Jesus Christ, is beyond price and worthy of our highest priority. It is a new life and a new way of living.
Is this what you want? Are you willing to ask God the Holy Spirit to help you immerse yourself in this gift? Do you want a life transformed in steadfast holy unconditional love?
The Kingdom of heaven is not in Rome, or Jerusalem or any other city on earth. The Kingdom of heaven is within you. As you choose to bear the image and likeness of God in your life so you bring forth the blessing of the Kingdom in your thoughts, desires and actions. Heaven is a transcendent reality that we can enter into and experience in the here and now of our lives as we choose.
The Bible reveals that the Kingdom of heaven is like so many of the ordinary aspects, events and objects in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence. It is not those things. It is like those things. The very pattern of the divine nature is woven into the world. Jesus selected only a few examples in order to stimulate our curiosity and to encourage our questions. Perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves: Is the Kingdom of heaven like me?
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Pentecost 5
Pentecost 5 (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)
So it will be at the end of the age.
All things in this world of duality have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This is very confusing and frustrating for one and only one terrestrial species. Humanity has the gift of self awareness. In that gift we perceive that there is the possibility for something greater and more enduring than birth, life and death. We can dream of and yearn for immortality. We can sense the reality of the eternal.
Having said that, humans can also choose to reject the reality of the eternal realm. We can choose to assert that this world of duality is all that ever was, is or will be. We have no direct evidence to support that assertion. There is substantial evidence in nature and in the way we think and feel and make choices to suggest at least the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth than we can observe and analyze in our limited experience of the world.
Moses, the prophets and the apostles all teach that the reality of the Eternal Realm, of God, should be self evident to human beings. Moses, the prophets and the apostles also observe that most human beings most of the time reject that reality. We are lost in a very narrow self limiting reality that we ourselves create and maintain.
The logical question to ask is: why?
Jesus provides the answer to that question in today’s parable of the weeds.
The Bible, the written word of God, starts with the words: in the beginning God. The Bible never seeks to prove that God exists. The Bible assumes that God exists. The Bible makes this assumption because the person who commissioned the Bible, who invited scores of men and women over a thousand year time period to contribute to the Bible, and who over saw the writing and editing of the Bible is God.
God is not the subject of the Bible. Humanity is the subject. The Biblical writers observed human behavior, classified human behavior, developed some theories about human behavior, tested those theories and then came to a conclusion. The conclusion is that our species has chosen to separate from God. In that separation we rebel against God. In that rebellion we fall into fear, self will and pride. In that fall we manifest sin in our personal lives and in our societies. The final consequence of separation is death.
Jesus tells us this morning that in the beginning the co-eternal Son sowed good seed in this world. The good seed is the rich potential in each of us for life and love and holiness.
A tiny seed barely visible to the human eye contains all of the information needed to use sunlight, water, earth and air to build the most complex and beautiful plant, or flower or tree.
The seed contains the full potential of the mature plant. It is a blueprint that holds the pattern, plan and purpose for the plant. It is not just a passive set of data. It contains a motive potential that will respond to environmental conditions and activate the birth, direct the growth and complete the maturity of the organism it is designed to produce.
Pine seeds always produce pine trees. Sunflower seeds always produce sunflower plants. Pine seeds never produce sunflowers. The genetic data within the seed and the design within the data are specific.
So it is with the spiritual seed of grace. The Bible very clearly teaches that God the Father created the world and our species by the power of God the Holy Spirit according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son. Unlike plants and animals, part of our design is real choice.
Humans can chose to alter the way the design manifests in the world, and in our own lives. We can choose how we will be human.
It is clear that many people do not have faith in God. It is evident that for many who proclaim to have faith in God that faith is not a priority. Jesus uses the parable of the good seed and the weeds to offer an explanation for the world as it is and as we experience it.
The world as we now experience it is the world of duality. Some have faith some do not. Some center their lives on their faith and some do not. The world of duality is the world of choice. It is the world of the “either or”.
The Son of Man, Jesus, scatters the seed of grace universally. Satan scatters the seeds of self indulgence and self righteousness universally as well. The children of the Kingdom are those who choose to become who God created the human race to be.
God created all people to be the loving companions of the co-eternal Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Despite our original choice to reject this wonderful purpose and even more wonderful person, Jesus continues to send the Holy Spirit to sow the seed of grace in the souls of all people.
The seed of grace contains within it the plan, the pattern and the purpose of the Person, Jesus Christ. We can choose to receive the seed of grace and then grow and develop according to the pattern of grace. Or, we can make another choice.
Satan has also sown spiritual seed in the world. He scatters his seed as well. This is the seed of self will, fear and pride. It is the seed that holds the pattern of self indulgence and self righteousness. Those who choose to develop according to the pattern of this seed enter into a state of spiritual dissolution. We become less of what God created us to be. We enter into a state of devolution and disintegration.
Jesus warns us very clearly that the seed of grace produces a pattern and person of faith. The person of faith sets priorities and makes choices in this world of duality from the principle of unconditional love and compassion.
The seed of Satan is the seed of the will to power. It produces a pattern of living that is self absorbed and self indulgent. It bears the fruit of pride, cynicism, and rebellion. For such a soul there can be no room in the Kingdom of Divine love and holiness.
It is not that God refuses to give that soul a reward or a right. The reality is that the soul which rejects the seed of grace has chosen to develop according to the pattern of Satan, the pattern of the will to dominate.
Such a soul refuses to accept the reality of Jesus Christ in this life and continues to reject and rebel against Jesus in the next life. Each of us chooses our eternal destiny here and now in the realm of choice, the world of duality.
We all choose from one of two patterns of personal development. The pattern is implanted in our souls by the seed of grace or the seed of Satan. We make the choice which seed to cultivate. The Law of Love confirms our choice in the world of cause and effect and produces a result. The result is eternal.
Which pattern have you chosen to follow in order to become the person God intended you to become? Whose plan for life are you following? Our Heavenly Father has given us Jesus Christ as the plan of salvation and the pattern for life. Satan’s Plan of Damnation is any path other than Jesus Christ.
Where do you seek meaning and purpose in your life? Is it in the things of this world of duality, the world of change and the world of temporary pleasure? Is it in the will to power that proudly rejects God? Is it in the indifference of cynicism that refuses to accept even the possibility that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. Who do you think Jesus was and is? How do you choose to accept Jesus, reject Jesus or simply ignore Jesus?
How have you chosen to live and move and have you being in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence?
This world is the world of duality, the realm of choice. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit into the world in love to sow the seed of grace to produce faith and yield a harvest of blessing. Satan has sent his slaves, the fallen angels, into the world in spite to sow the seed of self will, fear and pride that will produce a rush of pleasure through rebellion and yield a harvest of despair.
As we choose in the here and now, so it will be at the end of the age. Choose wisely. Choose love. Choose Jesus.
So it will be at the end of the age.
All things in this world of duality have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This is very confusing and frustrating for one and only one terrestrial species. Humanity has the gift of self awareness. In that gift we perceive that there is the possibility for something greater and more enduring than birth, life and death. We can dream of and yearn for immortality. We can sense the reality of the eternal.
Having said that, humans can also choose to reject the reality of the eternal realm. We can choose to assert that this world of duality is all that ever was, is or will be. We have no direct evidence to support that assertion. There is substantial evidence in nature and in the way we think and feel and make choices to suggest at least the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth than we can observe and analyze in our limited experience of the world.
Moses, the prophets and the apostles all teach that the reality of the Eternal Realm, of God, should be self evident to human beings. Moses, the prophets and the apostles also observe that most human beings most of the time reject that reality. We are lost in a very narrow self limiting reality that we ourselves create and maintain.
The logical question to ask is: why?
Jesus provides the answer to that question in today’s parable of the weeds.
The Bible, the written word of God, starts with the words: in the beginning God. The Bible never seeks to prove that God exists. The Bible assumes that God exists. The Bible makes this assumption because the person who commissioned the Bible, who invited scores of men and women over a thousand year time period to contribute to the Bible, and who over saw the writing and editing of the Bible is God.
God is not the subject of the Bible. Humanity is the subject. The Biblical writers observed human behavior, classified human behavior, developed some theories about human behavior, tested those theories and then came to a conclusion. The conclusion is that our species has chosen to separate from God. In that separation we rebel against God. In that rebellion we fall into fear, self will and pride. In that fall we manifest sin in our personal lives and in our societies. The final consequence of separation is death.
Jesus tells us this morning that in the beginning the co-eternal Son sowed good seed in this world. The good seed is the rich potential in each of us for life and love and holiness.
A tiny seed barely visible to the human eye contains all of the information needed to use sunlight, water, earth and air to build the most complex and beautiful plant, or flower or tree.
The seed contains the full potential of the mature plant. It is a blueprint that holds the pattern, plan and purpose for the plant. It is not just a passive set of data. It contains a motive potential that will respond to environmental conditions and activate the birth, direct the growth and complete the maturity of the organism it is designed to produce.
Pine seeds always produce pine trees. Sunflower seeds always produce sunflower plants. Pine seeds never produce sunflowers. The genetic data within the seed and the design within the data are specific.
So it is with the spiritual seed of grace. The Bible very clearly teaches that God the Father created the world and our species by the power of God the Holy Spirit according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son. Unlike plants and animals, part of our design is real choice.
Humans can chose to alter the way the design manifests in the world, and in our own lives. We can choose how we will be human.
It is clear that many people do not have faith in God. It is evident that for many who proclaim to have faith in God that faith is not a priority. Jesus uses the parable of the good seed and the weeds to offer an explanation for the world as it is and as we experience it.
The world as we now experience it is the world of duality. Some have faith some do not. Some center their lives on their faith and some do not. The world of duality is the world of choice. It is the world of the “either or”.
The Son of Man, Jesus, scatters the seed of grace universally. Satan scatters the seeds of self indulgence and self righteousness universally as well. The children of the Kingdom are those who choose to become who God created the human race to be.
God created all people to be the loving companions of the co-eternal Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Despite our original choice to reject this wonderful purpose and even more wonderful person, Jesus continues to send the Holy Spirit to sow the seed of grace in the souls of all people.
The seed of grace contains within it the plan, the pattern and the purpose of the Person, Jesus Christ. We can choose to receive the seed of grace and then grow and develop according to the pattern of grace. Or, we can make another choice.
Satan has also sown spiritual seed in the world. He scatters his seed as well. This is the seed of self will, fear and pride. It is the seed that holds the pattern of self indulgence and self righteousness. Those who choose to develop according to the pattern of this seed enter into a state of spiritual dissolution. We become less of what God created us to be. We enter into a state of devolution and disintegration.
Jesus warns us very clearly that the seed of grace produces a pattern and person of faith. The person of faith sets priorities and makes choices in this world of duality from the principle of unconditional love and compassion.
The seed of Satan is the seed of the will to power. It produces a pattern of living that is self absorbed and self indulgent. It bears the fruit of pride, cynicism, and rebellion. For such a soul there can be no room in the Kingdom of Divine love and holiness.
It is not that God refuses to give that soul a reward or a right. The reality is that the soul which rejects the seed of grace has chosen to develop according to the pattern of Satan, the pattern of the will to dominate.
Such a soul refuses to accept the reality of Jesus Christ in this life and continues to reject and rebel against Jesus in the next life. Each of us chooses our eternal destiny here and now in the realm of choice, the world of duality.
We all choose from one of two patterns of personal development. The pattern is implanted in our souls by the seed of grace or the seed of Satan. We make the choice which seed to cultivate. The Law of Love confirms our choice in the world of cause and effect and produces a result. The result is eternal.
Which pattern have you chosen to follow in order to become the person God intended you to become? Whose plan for life are you following? Our Heavenly Father has given us Jesus Christ as the plan of salvation and the pattern for life. Satan’s Plan of Damnation is any path other than Jesus Christ.
Where do you seek meaning and purpose in your life? Is it in the things of this world of duality, the world of change and the world of temporary pleasure? Is it in the will to power that proudly rejects God? Is it in the indifference of cynicism that refuses to accept even the possibility that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. Who do you think Jesus was and is? How do you choose to accept Jesus, reject Jesus or simply ignore Jesus?
How have you chosen to live and move and have you being in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence?
This world is the world of duality, the realm of choice. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit into the world in love to sow the seed of grace to produce faith and yield a harvest of blessing. Satan has sent his slaves, the fallen angels, into the world in spite to sow the seed of self will, fear and pride that will produce a rush of pleasure through rebellion and yield a harvest of despair.
As we choose in the here and now, so it will be at the end of the age. Choose wisely. Choose love. Choose Jesus.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Pentecost 4
Pentecost 4 (Matthew 13:1-9;18-23)
“A sower went out to sow.”
A sower has one job and one job only: sow the seed. In the ancient world and in many parts of the world today the sower began his day with a sack of seed. His job was to walk a path and a pattern over a field. He sowed seed by reaching into his sack, taking a step forward, pulling out his hand and throwing the seed over the land from left to right or right to left.
The pattern of sowing is reach, step, scatter, step.
Sowing is unskilled labor. Any one can do it as long as you follow the rule and the pattern.
Older children and younger teens are ideal sowers. In technologically developed countries machines do the sowing but follow a similar pattern.
There is a certain pragmatic extravagance in sowing seed in large fields. You just can’t take the time to pick and choose where to sow. You just can’t risk the decision as to where to sow on the sower. You get the seed out there with the understanding some will never grow and bear fruit but most will.
This story of the sower is a parable. A parable is a story that is drawn from ordinary life to communicate a fundamental spiritual truth. The effectiveness of parables is based in the more profound revelation that our Heavenly Father designed the world according to a very specific pattern, plan, and purpose. That pattern, plan and purpose is, as the beloved apostle John tells us, the Logos. The Logos is the co-eternal Word of God. Parables work well as teaching devices because the world from which the parable draws itself reflects the pattern, plan and purpose of God.
John also tells us that the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God, became a particular human being at a particular place and in a particular time. The pattern, plan and purpose of God embedded in the creation is also revealed to us in a single person: Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ use of parables reveals two fundamental aspects of the Creation. The pattern, plan and purpose of God is embedded in the ordinary events, activities and substance of life. And, human beings more often than not miss the meaning.
The thousand year record of human behavior recorded for us in the Bible shows us that people consistently reject God. The parable of the sower is a summary of that thousand year record of human behavior in a very short, succinct and powerful image.
The sower is in fact God himself. The Father sends the Holy Spirit into the world according to the plan, pattern and purpose of the Son. The Sower sows the seed of the Kingdom, which is the seed of grace. This is not something strange or unusual. It is not secret information available to only a few who claim enlightenment or righteousness.
The Sower scatters the seed of grace with extravagance and with abundance. This is the pattern of the co-eternal Beloved Son. It is the pattern of unconditional love pouring himself out to all people everywhere.
This is why even Jesus’ own disciples reacted to the parable of the Sower with confusion. It didn’t fit their preconceived ideas about who God was and how God acted.
Jesus not only takes the time to explain the parable but helps his disciples to perceive why they had trouble understanding it. The barriers to understanding this parable are the same barriers that create resistance in the human soul to perceiving the reality of God in nature.
The barriers are threefold. To use the Biblical language they are the world, the flesh and the devil.
Jesus says it better in the parable.
The seed that falls by the wayside, off the path, outside the field, is the arena of those for whom God is just one option among many. Those are the ones who are easy prey for the birds who come and devour the seed. The birds represent the devil, Satan.
Satan can snatch the seed of grace from those who choose to live in the wayside because they do not value God for who He is or for what He offers. They are indifferent to God. In their indifference they ignore the seed of grace.
The principle of the wayside is that if we place God second in our lives we place God last. If we place God last we will not value who God is and what God offers us. If we place God last then Satan steps in and takes from us the very gifts God offers.
Satan is a thief, a liar, and a murderer. But, he cannot violate the law of love. The law of love is the law of self responsibility. We make a choice. That choice enters into the pattern, plan and purpose of the creation in the realm of cause and effect. That choice produces a consequence.
Those who live by the wayside choose to place God second and so they choose to place God last. They are not evil, at least by the standards of the world. They are simply indifferent. That indifference enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a consequence. The consequence is that Satan steals the gift and the people don’t even care.
How can we discern whether we are living by the wayside? Moses gives us a simple test. Where are you on the day of worship? If we place God first we are where God calls us to meet him on the seventh day, the day of worship.
The next place the seed falls is the stony place. This is the place of the flesh. The prophet Ezekiel laments that people have a heart of stone when it comes to their love for God. The flesh is the disordered and distorted desires of the heart. The distortions proceed from the place of original separation. They are distortions of love. The main distortion is self indulgence. Self indulgence generates the belief that if God is love then God must give me what I want when I want it.
We want many things over the course of our lives. Some things are age appropriate. Some things are never appropriate. Some things require patience and persistence. Self indulgence issues a demand to God backed by a threat. The demand is: give me what I want now. The threat is: if you don’t give me what I want I will stop believing in you.
Many people are sunshine believers. As long as we are living well and not experiencing pain we believe in God, we come to church, we rejoice in the apparent blessings of life. Yet, we always encounter the storms of life. Sadly, sunshine believers interpret these storms as evidence of God’s wrath or God’s absence. Sunshine believers abandon God in the false belief that if God doesn’t give then what they want when they want it, then God is either cruel or non existent.
Job shows us the way to deal with the distortion of self indulgent love in his statement: the Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
The third challenge to faith is the challenge of the world. The world is the surrounding culture. It is all the expectations, assumptions, and patterns of behavior we learn from school, entertainment and the various institutions of our society. These things choke out faith as we choose to give them our time, attention and life energy.
The test to discern the influence of the world is the test of priorities. The Biblical text we can use is St. Paul’s 13th chapter in his first letter to the church at Corinth. This is some times called the love chapter. The test is to substitute your name for the word love in the chapter. Are you living up to that statement? If not, why not? What is the obstacle to living life from the principle of unconditional love?
One of the most direct challenges the world offers is the temptation to love money and to use people. If our first priority is money we make no room for grace. The money is not the problem. The problem is where we direct our love. The test is how we set our priorities.
The seed that falls on good soil always produces a harvest. The harvest is the blessing of God that begins with grace and grows in faith. The key is in hearing God’s word, believing God’s word, reading, studying and memorizing God’s word, then acting on God’s word.
The world attempts to drown out God’s word. The flesh seeks to diminish and distort God’s word. The devil seeks to steal God’s word from us. The solution to these problems is Jesus.
Jesus is the word of God in human flesh. The solution to the problem we face as a species and as individuals is in a personal relationship with the personal God, Jesus Christ.
Religion seeks to impose lists of laws between us and God. Secular society encourages self indulgent indifference to God. Jesus offers us a new life and a new way of living in a new experience of unconditional love.
The Way of Jesus is open ended, spontaneous, active, dynamic and creative. Jesus invites us to experience the infinite and eternal in the ordinary events and objects of the here and now. The Way begins in the quiet moments of our lives when the Holy Spirit offers us divine grace, the gift of God in our daily experience of the creation, other people, ourselves and God.
Our Heavenly Fathers sends the Holy Spirit to speak to us the invitation to receive the love of the co-eternal Beloved Son as the sower sows the seeds: with extravagant abundance according the plan, the pattern, the purpose and the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.
“A sower went out to sow.”
A sower has one job and one job only: sow the seed. In the ancient world and in many parts of the world today the sower began his day with a sack of seed. His job was to walk a path and a pattern over a field. He sowed seed by reaching into his sack, taking a step forward, pulling out his hand and throwing the seed over the land from left to right or right to left.
The pattern of sowing is reach, step, scatter, step.
Sowing is unskilled labor. Any one can do it as long as you follow the rule and the pattern.
Older children and younger teens are ideal sowers. In technologically developed countries machines do the sowing but follow a similar pattern.
There is a certain pragmatic extravagance in sowing seed in large fields. You just can’t take the time to pick and choose where to sow. You just can’t risk the decision as to where to sow on the sower. You get the seed out there with the understanding some will never grow and bear fruit but most will.
This story of the sower is a parable. A parable is a story that is drawn from ordinary life to communicate a fundamental spiritual truth. The effectiveness of parables is based in the more profound revelation that our Heavenly Father designed the world according to a very specific pattern, plan, and purpose. That pattern, plan and purpose is, as the beloved apostle John tells us, the Logos. The Logos is the co-eternal Word of God. Parables work well as teaching devices because the world from which the parable draws itself reflects the pattern, plan and purpose of God.
John also tells us that the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God, became a particular human being at a particular place and in a particular time. The pattern, plan and purpose of God embedded in the creation is also revealed to us in a single person: Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ use of parables reveals two fundamental aspects of the Creation. The pattern, plan and purpose of God is embedded in the ordinary events, activities and substance of life. And, human beings more often than not miss the meaning.
The thousand year record of human behavior recorded for us in the Bible shows us that people consistently reject God. The parable of the sower is a summary of that thousand year record of human behavior in a very short, succinct and powerful image.
The sower is in fact God himself. The Father sends the Holy Spirit into the world according to the plan, pattern and purpose of the Son. The Sower sows the seed of the Kingdom, which is the seed of grace. This is not something strange or unusual. It is not secret information available to only a few who claim enlightenment or righteousness.
The Sower scatters the seed of grace with extravagance and with abundance. This is the pattern of the co-eternal Beloved Son. It is the pattern of unconditional love pouring himself out to all people everywhere.
This is why even Jesus’ own disciples reacted to the parable of the Sower with confusion. It didn’t fit their preconceived ideas about who God was and how God acted.
Jesus not only takes the time to explain the parable but helps his disciples to perceive why they had trouble understanding it. The barriers to understanding this parable are the same barriers that create resistance in the human soul to perceiving the reality of God in nature.
The barriers are threefold. To use the Biblical language they are the world, the flesh and the devil.
Jesus says it better in the parable.
The seed that falls by the wayside, off the path, outside the field, is the arena of those for whom God is just one option among many. Those are the ones who are easy prey for the birds who come and devour the seed. The birds represent the devil, Satan.
Satan can snatch the seed of grace from those who choose to live in the wayside because they do not value God for who He is or for what He offers. They are indifferent to God. In their indifference they ignore the seed of grace.
The principle of the wayside is that if we place God second in our lives we place God last. If we place God last we will not value who God is and what God offers us. If we place God last then Satan steps in and takes from us the very gifts God offers.
Satan is a thief, a liar, and a murderer. But, he cannot violate the law of love. The law of love is the law of self responsibility. We make a choice. That choice enters into the pattern, plan and purpose of the creation in the realm of cause and effect. That choice produces a consequence.
Those who live by the wayside choose to place God second and so they choose to place God last. They are not evil, at least by the standards of the world. They are simply indifferent. That indifference enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a consequence. The consequence is that Satan steals the gift and the people don’t even care.
How can we discern whether we are living by the wayside? Moses gives us a simple test. Where are you on the day of worship? If we place God first we are where God calls us to meet him on the seventh day, the day of worship.
The next place the seed falls is the stony place. This is the place of the flesh. The prophet Ezekiel laments that people have a heart of stone when it comes to their love for God. The flesh is the disordered and distorted desires of the heart. The distortions proceed from the place of original separation. They are distortions of love. The main distortion is self indulgence. Self indulgence generates the belief that if God is love then God must give me what I want when I want it.
We want many things over the course of our lives. Some things are age appropriate. Some things are never appropriate. Some things require patience and persistence. Self indulgence issues a demand to God backed by a threat. The demand is: give me what I want now. The threat is: if you don’t give me what I want I will stop believing in you.
Many people are sunshine believers. As long as we are living well and not experiencing pain we believe in God, we come to church, we rejoice in the apparent blessings of life. Yet, we always encounter the storms of life. Sadly, sunshine believers interpret these storms as evidence of God’s wrath or God’s absence. Sunshine believers abandon God in the false belief that if God doesn’t give then what they want when they want it, then God is either cruel or non existent.
Job shows us the way to deal with the distortion of self indulgent love in his statement: the Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
The third challenge to faith is the challenge of the world. The world is the surrounding culture. It is all the expectations, assumptions, and patterns of behavior we learn from school, entertainment and the various institutions of our society. These things choke out faith as we choose to give them our time, attention and life energy.
The test to discern the influence of the world is the test of priorities. The Biblical text we can use is St. Paul’s 13th chapter in his first letter to the church at Corinth. This is some times called the love chapter. The test is to substitute your name for the word love in the chapter. Are you living up to that statement? If not, why not? What is the obstacle to living life from the principle of unconditional love?
One of the most direct challenges the world offers is the temptation to love money and to use people. If our first priority is money we make no room for grace. The money is not the problem. The problem is where we direct our love. The test is how we set our priorities.
The seed that falls on good soil always produces a harvest. The harvest is the blessing of God that begins with grace and grows in faith. The key is in hearing God’s word, believing God’s word, reading, studying and memorizing God’s word, then acting on God’s word.
The world attempts to drown out God’s word. The flesh seeks to diminish and distort God’s word. The devil seeks to steal God’s word from us. The solution to these problems is Jesus.
Jesus is the word of God in human flesh. The solution to the problem we face as a species and as individuals is in a personal relationship with the personal God, Jesus Christ.
Religion seeks to impose lists of laws between us and God. Secular society encourages self indulgent indifference to God. Jesus offers us a new life and a new way of living in a new experience of unconditional love.
The Way of Jesus is open ended, spontaneous, active, dynamic and creative. Jesus invites us to experience the infinite and eternal in the ordinary events and objects of the here and now. The Way begins in the quiet moments of our lives when the Holy Spirit offers us divine grace, the gift of God in our daily experience of the creation, other people, ourselves and God.
Our Heavenly Fathers sends the Holy Spirit to speak to us the invitation to receive the love of the co-eternal Beloved Son as the sower sows the seeds: with extravagant abundance according the plan, the pattern, the purpose and the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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