Trinity Sunday 2012 “You must be born again!” John 3:1-17
Nicodemus was religious. He was a theologian, a judge, and a well-respected authority with power, position and prestige. He knew all of these things about himself. He also knew he was lost.
Nicodemus knew he was lost in religion and trapped in his position as a religious authority.
He did not always know he was lost. It was only when he heard about Jesus that he recognized there was something wrong. There was something wrong with a religious system based on credits and debits. There was something wrong with a theology that taught that God was so pure, holy and transcendent that God had to use angelic intermediaries to give infallible and inflexible Law to human prophets to impose on weak, fallible human beings.
Most of all, Nicodemus recognized he was lost and trapped in his own pride of position. He was the religious expert. As an expert he had a position on the Religious Council that decided who was righteous and who was unrighteous, who God favored and who God cursed, who lived by the Law and who should die by the Law.
Nicodemus could not afford to be in doubt about anything. He feared being wrong. But, when he looked at Jesus he found himself gazing into the perfect mirror of Divine Love and saw himself for who he was: lost.
Nicodemus came to Jesus secretly by night- but he came. He approached Jesus from the place of fear- fear of the other religious experts who might condemn him. Nevertheless- he sought Jesus. He initiated a conversation. He asked questions.
Nicodemus knew he was lost and he suspected Jesus had come to seek the lost, to find the lost, and to restore the lost to union with God.
As a religious expert, Nicodemus had just enough knowledge to recognize the inadequacy of knowledge. As a religious authority with the power of life and death in his society, Nicodemus had just enough power to recognize the inadequacy of power.
What Nicodemus longed for and hoped for was what Moses and the prophets had experienced and proclaimed: God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is Jesus Christ.
Jesus brought forth his preaching, teaching and healing in the context of Moses and the prophets but not within the religious categories Nicodemus had studied and enforced.
Jesus is Divine Love, mercy and compassion in human flesh. Jesus performed miracles from the place of love. What Jesus offered was completely different and absolutely unique. It was so different and unique that the knowledge and power Nicodemus held could not comprehend it.
Jesus offers himself as the solution to a problem Nicodemus and all others of his generation, and ours, failed to identify. The problem is separation from God that produces a life characterized by fear, self-will and pride.
The solution is a new life. The solution as Jesus presents it to Nicodemus is: you must be born again.
The new birth is a spiritual birth. It is the reunification of the lost with the One who has come into the world to seek the lost, to find the lost, and to restore the lost to Divine Love and holiness.
Nicodemus thought and acted from the place of law within the categories of rewards and punishments. Jesus stood before Nicodemus as the perfect mirror of Divine Love to reveal to him and to us how we have separated from Divine Love. Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, as he speaks to us, with mercy and compassion to offer us a new life.
The new life is reunion with the Father, through the Son, by the Real Presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus clarifies for the people of his generation and all generations that the One God is infinite and eternal love. That love eternally expresses himself as the one who loves (the Father), the Beloved (the Son), and the love that forms the essential Divine Being (the Holy Spirit). The reality of God revealed in Jesus is active, dynamic, creative, life giving and personal.
God the Father created us to live and move and have our being in this dynamic expression of eternal love. Our choice to separate from God cuts us off from that love and that life. Jesus restores that love to us by inviting all people everywhere to be born again into the new life of eternal love.
Despite the fear Nicodemus felt that night, he met the perfect love of God in Jesus Christ. He heard the Word of God speaking the mercy and compassion of God. He questioned. He pondered. And, he made a real choice.
He chose to be found in Christ. He chose to be born again by the action of the Holy Spirit. He chose to surrender his self-will and pride to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.
The Plan of Salvation is the steadfast holy love of the infinite and eternal Trinity inviting all people everywhere to be reunited to the Father, through the Son by the new birth in the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Pentecost 2012
Pentecost 2012 (John 15:26-27;16:4b-15)
“When the Spirit of truth comes He will lead you into all the Truth.”
Truth is a person. Truth is the second person of the infinite and eternal Trinity. Truth is the Logos, the Beloved. Truth incarnates, becomes flesh, in Jesus Christ.
The third person of the infinite and eternal Trinity is the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate. An advocate speaks on behalf of someone. The Holy Spirit speaks on God the Father’s behalf to the human race. He also speaks on our behalf to the Father.
The Holy Spirit is the Helper and the Guide for all people everywhere. He always, always helps people discern the truth of the human condition. The truth of the human condition is that we as a species and each of us individually have willfully chosen separation from God. Not only have we chosen separation we are lost in separation. As we are lost we cannot find our way back by our own reason, will or emotion. We are lost in the limited and ever narrowing world view of our condition. The proof of this is pain, suffering and death.
The Holy Spirit revealed this truth to Moses and the prophets as they recorded their observations of the human condition and their own personal experience with God.
As the Holy Spirit speaks on the behalf of the infinite and eternal Father, so he reveals to humanity the Father’s solution to the problem of separation. That solution is a person, the second person of the infinite and eternal Trinity. Jesus and Jesus alone is the solution to separation.
In Jesus the infinite and eternal Trinity unites divinity with humanity never to be divided from it. Salvation is an organic and spiritual union of the Divine with the human in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit always, always reveals Jesus as the pattern, plan and purpose for the human species as a whole and for each of us individually. Any spirit that claims to come from God yet does not honor the co-eternal Beloved of God is not from God.
The Holy Spirit meets us where we are and initiates a process of reunification and transformation. Only He can do this. We can help. The Holy Spirit invites us to help through the activity we call “evangelism”. But it is important to understand that it is not our job to convert or to change anyone other than ourselves. It is our job to grow so close to Jesus that we reflect a small portion of his infinite and eternal love in our attitudes and actions.
Moses and the prophets identify three basic paths for humanity: the path of separation, the path of reunification and the path of stagnation. Jesus revealed to the beloved apostle John that these three paths can be characterized as hot, cold or lukewarm.
The Holy Spirit reaches out to a species that is cold and indifferent to divine principles and the divine person. He seeks to ignite a spark, the spark of love, in the souls of people who are lost in self-indulgence and lost in the will to power. He has at his disposal an infinite array of signs and symbols and means by which to accomplish this.
As a guide, the Holy Spirit meets us in the individual particularity of where we are lost, you are lost, I am lost. As a Guide, the Holy Spirit always, always leads us to Jesus.
Jesus identifies three principle misunderstandings we humans hold. These misunderstandings divert our attention from the truth and subvert our desire for the truth. These three principles of misunderstanding deal with sin, righteousness and judgment. These misunderstandings manifest in two forms: the rigid inflexible form of power; and the self-indulgent seductive form of knowledge.
The Holy Spirit reveals that all sin is a distortion of the good. The source of this distortion is the pain of separation. We sin, by direct action or passive inaction, in an effort to mask the deeply rooted pain of our separation from God, nature, each other, and the image and likeness of God imprinted in our souls.
Since sin is a distortion that proceeds from the pain of separation righteousness is an expression of the new life of reunification with God. That reunification comes solely through our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We become who God created us to be only in relationship with the one for whom, by whom and through whom God created us. That one is the co-eternal Beloved, incarnate in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the reunification of humanity with divinity in his own person. He just doesn’t stand as an example. He is the reality of the Original Blessing. He is the real presence of the new life that will produce the new way of living.
In Christ there is no judgment, no final condemnation. That judgment, that final condemnation, is personified in the choice the Seraph Lucifer made. Lucifer declared: I am like God. He condemns himself by making a final choice to separate from God in order to be equal with God.
None of this is taught by the world’s religions or secular philosophies. It is present only in Jesus Christ.
This is the broad outline of the task the Holy Spirit undertakes in his outreach to the peoples of the world. The Holy Spirit is actively and compassionately speaking to everyone on this planet at this moment. He is seeking to help us understand that we are lost in separation, He is guiding us very gently but persistently away from fear, anger and hatred into faith, hope and love.
In this process each soul has the personal responsibility to listen. Each soul has the personal responsibility to take the next step forward that will lead to reunification with the Father, though the Son in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We are you still feeling the pain of separation?
Where are you lost?
Where are you walking the tight rope of indecision?
Where are you lukewarm in love and compassion.
It is precisely there that the Holy Spirit is even now meeting you.
The Holy Spirit is our advocate, guide and helper. He meets us where we are: lost in self-will, fear and pride. He invites us to consider our condition. He offers a path forward. It is the Way of reunification and transformation. It is the Way of Jesus.
“When the Spirit of truth comes He will lead you into all the Truth.”
Truth is a person. Truth is the second person of the infinite and eternal Trinity. Truth is the Logos, the Beloved. Truth incarnates, becomes flesh, in Jesus Christ.
The third person of the infinite and eternal Trinity is the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate. An advocate speaks on behalf of someone. The Holy Spirit speaks on God the Father’s behalf to the human race. He also speaks on our behalf to the Father.
The Holy Spirit is the Helper and the Guide for all people everywhere. He always, always helps people discern the truth of the human condition. The truth of the human condition is that we as a species and each of us individually have willfully chosen separation from God. Not only have we chosen separation we are lost in separation. As we are lost we cannot find our way back by our own reason, will or emotion. We are lost in the limited and ever narrowing world view of our condition. The proof of this is pain, suffering and death.
The Holy Spirit revealed this truth to Moses and the prophets as they recorded their observations of the human condition and their own personal experience with God.
As the Holy Spirit speaks on the behalf of the infinite and eternal Father, so he reveals to humanity the Father’s solution to the problem of separation. That solution is a person, the second person of the infinite and eternal Trinity. Jesus and Jesus alone is the solution to separation.
In Jesus the infinite and eternal Trinity unites divinity with humanity never to be divided from it. Salvation is an organic and spiritual union of the Divine with the human in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit always, always reveals Jesus as the pattern, plan and purpose for the human species as a whole and for each of us individually. Any spirit that claims to come from God yet does not honor the co-eternal Beloved of God is not from God.
The Holy Spirit meets us where we are and initiates a process of reunification and transformation. Only He can do this. We can help. The Holy Spirit invites us to help through the activity we call “evangelism”. But it is important to understand that it is not our job to convert or to change anyone other than ourselves. It is our job to grow so close to Jesus that we reflect a small portion of his infinite and eternal love in our attitudes and actions.
Moses and the prophets identify three basic paths for humanity: the path of separation, the path of reunification and the path of stagnation. Jesus revealed to the beloved apostle John that these three paths can be characterized as hot, cold or lukewarm.
The Holy Spirit reaches out to a species that is cold and indifferent to divine principles and the divine person. He seeks to ignite a spark, the spark of love, in the souls of people who are lost in self-indulgence and lost in the will to power. He has at his disposal an infinite array of signs and symbols and means by which to accomplish this.
As a guide, the Holy Spirit meets us in the individual particularity of where we are lost, you are lost, I am lost. As a Guide, the Holy Spirit always, always leads us to Jesus.
Jesus identifies three principle misunderstandings we humans hold. These misunderstandings divert our attention from the truth and subvert our desire for the truth. These three principles of misunderstanding deal with sin, righteousness and judgment. These misunderstandings manifest in two forms: the rigid inflexible form of power; and the self-indulgent seductive form of knowledge.
The Holy Spirit reveals that all sin is a distortion of the good. The source of this distortion is the pain of separation. We sin, by direct action or passive inaction, in an effort to mask the deeply rooted pain of our separation from God, nature, each other, and the image and likeness of God imprinted in our souls.
Since sin is a distortion that proceeds from the pain of separation righteousness is an expression of the new life of reunification with God. That reunification comes solely through our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We become who God created us to be only in relationship with the one for whom, by whom and through whom God created us. That one is the co-eternal Beloved, incarnate in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the reunification of humanity with divinity in his own person. He just doesn’t stand as an example. He is the reality of the Original Blessing. He is the real presence of the new life that will produce the new way of living.
In Christ there is no judgment, no final condemnation. That judgment, that final condemnation, is personified in the choice the Seraph Lucifer made. Lucifer declared: I am like God. He condemns himself by making a final choice to separate from God in order to be equal with God.
None of this is taught by the world’s religions or secular philosophies. It is present only in Jesus Christ.
This is the broad outline of the task the Holy Spirit undertakes in his outreach to the peoples of the world. The Holy Spirit is actively and compassionately speaking to everyone on this planet at this moment. He is seeking to help us understand that we are lost in separation, He is guiding us very gently but persistently away from fear, anger and hatred into faith, hope and love.
In this process each soul has the personal responsibility to listen. Each soul has the personal responsibility to take the next step forward that will lead to reunification with the Father, though the Son in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We are you still feeling the pain of separation?
Where are you lost?
Where are you walking the tight rope of indecision?
Where are you lukewarm in love and compassion.
It is precisely there that the Holy Spirit is even now meeting you.
The Holy Spirit is our advocate, guide and helper. He meets us where we are: lost in self-will, fear and pride. He invites us to consider our condition. He offers a path forward. It is the Way of reunification and transformation. It is the Way of Jesus.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Easter 7
Easter 7 (John 17:6-19) Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
What is truth?
Pontus Pilate once asked this question. He wasn’t the first; nor will he be the last. Philosophers, scientists and college students throughout history have asked this question. As with Pilate, many ask this question with a certain world weary cynicism.
Generals of all armies in all cultures know that the first casualty of war is truth. Lewis Carroll satirized politicians when he has his character the Red Queen blithely state: a word means whatever I intend it to mean at that time.
What is truth?
College students throughout history have been seduced into self-indulgence, cynicism, pride and despair by this question. As the human brain develops it acquires the ability to analyze data. To analyze is to break down some object or some concept into its component parts.
That is certainly one path to knowledge. But, on its own it is not a path to understanding or wisdom.
Our Heavenly Father designed rational analytical capability as one small and introductory step for human growth and development. Tragically, most people most of the time choose to remain stuck in that developmental stage.
Most people most of the time choose not to accept the challenge and the promise of the post-adolescent life task. That stage of human development is called “synthesis”.
There is a pattern and a purpose to the development of the human brain. That pattern and purpose is not the random interactions of molecules formed by natural selection. That pattern and purpose is the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God. The logos is the rational, active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative eternal self-expression of the infinite God. The logos is the Beloved Son. The Logos, the Word of God, became flesh in Jesus Christ.
Truth is an unfolding pattern. Truth is a developing and maturing purpose. Truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
As the Logos, the Beloved Son, is the pattern, plan and purpose for the entire universe including the human species collectively and each of us individually, so the Truth can only emerge fully and joyfully in a personal relationship with the Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus knew this about himself. In his high priestly prayer he offers himself to the Father as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. As the human embodiment of the Pattern of the universe the pattern for humanity he offers himself to restore to humanity what we chose to reject.
Jesus completes the revelation the Holy Spirit began to bring into the world through Moses and the Prophets. Moses and the prophets could only glimpse the truth embedded in the creation and in human nature. Jesus is that truth.
Moses and the prophets for the most part held the assignment to observe and analyze the problem confronting humanity. Jesus is the solution to that problem.
Philosophy asks wonderful questions. Jesus is the origin and answer to those questions.
Science is very good at taking things apart through rational analysis. Jesus is the pattern who holds the parts together in a plan and for a purpose.
Humanity has exercised a limited form of reason to justify separation from God, meaning and purpose. Jesus restores to humanity what we abandoned.
Truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That person is the infinite and eternal Word of God. We can never exhaust the potential for knowledge, understanding or wisdom as we enter into a personal relationship with the eternal Word.
Jesus prayed for his apostles and he prays for us to be sanctified in the truth. To be sanctified is to be made holy, to be restored to wholeness, health and happiness. Sanctification is a process that proceeds from a relationship.
Jesus, the Beloved Son, prays to the Father for each of us. He prays that we may know him through the personal relationship of a forever friendship. As with all personal relationships it is a process. Truth is absolute. Human beings are not absolute. We can only grow into truth.
In his humanity, Jesus made a real choice to abide in the love of the Father. His constant prayer was: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done. Jesus did not just submit to the Divine Will. Jesus surrendered and embraced the divine will through love.
The pattern of truth is the acknowledgement of God’s plan and purpose for the Creation, for our species, and for each of us individually. There cannot be truth without love. There cannot be love without truth.
Be careful when you bend the truth. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect to produce a result.
Be fearful when you break the truth by telling a lie or even carelessly repeating a lie.
Truth sets us free to love. A lie enslaves us to self-will, fear, pride and ultimately to despair.
All human beings lie to each other. All human beings lie to ourselves. These lies diminish us. These lies keep us lost in separation from God, nature, other people and our real identity.
Jesus knows this about us. He knows this because he lived among us for 33 years. He knows this and he offers his friendship to rescue us from the pattern of deceit that is destroying the Creation, eroding our civilization and decaying our souls.
The solution is a personal relationship with the one who is the very pattern, plan and purpose of truth.
As we enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ it is the love that Jesus pours into our minds, and hearts and wills that will begin to set us free from the lies we tell ourselves and each other about God, nature and humanity.
As we grow and develop and mature in the personal relationship Jesus offers, we can ask the question Pilate asked from a new place and for a new purpose. We can ask: “what is truth?” from the solid rock foundation that underlies supports and makes possible all truth.
Jesus will make us whole, healthy and happy in the friendship he offers us, Jesus will set us free from the lies humanity tells itself in order to assert its will to power. That is his purpose. That is his high priestly prayer for us today, tomorrow and forever.
Heavenly Father, sanctify them in your truth, Your word, your co-eternal Word, is truth.
What is truth?
Pontus Pilate once asked this question. He wasn’t the first; nor will he be the last. Philosophers, scientists and college students throughout history have asked this question. As with Pilate, many ask this question with a certain world weary cynicism.
Generals of all armies in all cultures know that the first casualty of war is truth. Lewis Carroll satirized politicians when he has his character the Red Queen blithely state: a word means whatever I intend it to mean at that time.
What is truth?
College students throughout history have been seduced into self-indulgence, cynicism, pride and despair by this question. As the human brain develops it acquires the ability to analyze data. To analyze is to break down some object or some concept into its component parts.
That is certainly one path to knowledge. But, on its own it is not a path to understanding or wisdom.
Our Heavenly Father designed rational analytical capability as one small and introductory step for human growth and development. Tragically, most people most of the time choose to remain stuck in that developmental stage.
Most people most of the time choose not to accept the challenge and the promise of the post-adolescent life task. That stage of human development is called “synthesis”.
There is a pattern and a purpose to the development of the human brain. That pattern and purpose is not the random interactions of molecules formed by natural selection. That pattern and purpose is the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God. The logos is the rational, active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative eternal self-expression of the infinite God. The logos is the Beloved Son. The Logos, the Word of God, became flesh in Jesus Christ.
Truth is an unfolding pattern. Truth is a developing and maturing purpose. Truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
As the Logos, the Beloved Son, is the pattern, plan and purpose for the entire universe including the human species collectively and each of us individually, so the Truth can only emerge fully and joyfully in a personal relationship with the Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus knew this about himself. In his high priestly prayer he offers himself to the Father as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. As the human embodiment of the Pattern of the universe the pattern for humanity he offers himself to restore to humanity what we chose to reject.
Jesus completes the revelation the Holy Spirit began to bring into the world through Moses and the Prophets. Moses and the prophets could only glimpse the truth embedded in the creation and in human nature. Jesus is that truth.
Moses and the prophets for the most part held the assignment to observe and analyze the problem confronting humanity. Jesus is the solution to that problem.
Philosophy asks wonderful questions. Jesus is the origin and answer to those questions.
Science is very good at taking things apart through rational analysis. Jesus is the pattern who holds the parts together in a plan and for a purpose.
Humanity has exercised a limited form of reason to justify separation from God, meaning and purpose. Jesus restores to humanity what we abandoned.
Truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That person is the infinite and eternal Word of God. We can never exhaust the potential for knowledge, understanding or wisdom as we enter into a personal relationship with the eternal Word.
Jesus prayed for his apostles and he prays for us to be sanctified in the truth. To be sanctified is to be made holy, to be restored to wholeness, health and happiness. Sanctification is a process that proceeds from a relationship.
Jesus, the Beloved Son, prays to the Father for each of us. He prays that we may know him through the personal relationship of a forever friendship. As with all personal relationships it is a process. Truth is absolute. Human beings are not absolute. We can only grow into truth.
In his humanity, Jesus made a real choice to abide in the love of the Father. His constant prayer was: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done. Jesus did not just submit to the Divine Will. Jesus surrendered and embraced the divine will through love.
The pattern of truth is the acknowledgement of God’s plan and purpose for the Creation, for our species, and for each of us individually. There cannot be truth without love. There cannot be love without truth.
Be careful when you bend the truth. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect to produce a result.
Be fearful when you break the truth by telling a lie or even carelessly repeating a lie.
Truth sets us free to love. A lie enslaves us to self-will, fear, pride and ultimately to despair.
All human beings lie to each other. All human beings lie to ourselves. These lies diminish us. These lies keep us lost in separation from God, nature, other people and our real identity.
Jesus knows this about us. He knows this because he lived among us for 33 years. He knows this and he offers his friendship to rescue us from the pattern of deceit that is destroying the Creation, eroding our civilization and decaying our souls.
The solution is a personal relationship with the one who is the very pattern, plan and purpose of truth.
As we enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ it is the love that Jesus pours into our minds, and hearts and wills that will begin to set us free from the lies we tell ourselves and each other about God, nature and humanity.
As we grow and develop and mature in the personal relationship Jesus offers, we can ask the question Pilate asked from a new place and for a new purpose. We can ask: “what is truth?” from the solid rock foundation that underlies supports and makes possible all truth.
Jesus will make us whole, healthy and happy in the friendship he offers us, Jesus will set us free from the lies humanity tells itself in order to assert its will to power. That is his purpose. That is his high priestly prayer for us today, tomorrow and forever.
Heavenly Father, sanctify them in your truth, Your word, your co-eternal Word, is truth.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Easter 6
Easter 6 (John 15:9-17) Abide in My love.
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
Jesus brings into the world Divine love. Jesus doesn’t just speak about that love. He just doesn’t offer an opinion about that love. Jesus is that love personified. Jesus manifests Divine love in all that he teaches and in every action he takes. He is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father whose essential being is steadfast, holy, unconditional love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
All of the commandments Moses brought into the world derive from and express the universal, infinite and eternal love of the universal, infinite and eternal Father. The co-eternal Beloved unifies his divinity with our humanity never to be divided from us. He is one with us in his humanity even as he is one with the eternal Father in his divinity. As the Son is one with the Father in love so the Son is one with humanity in love. It is that love that fulfills the Law and the commandments. It is that love the Son offers each of us to transform our desires so that we can make the real choice to live in love, by love and through love. As we live and move and have our being in Divine love we discover a new desire to fulfill the commandments Jesus gives us.
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
Is it as we live and move and have our being in the love of the Beloved that we experience joy. Unlike pleasure or happiness, joy is not subject to the external stimuli of our senses. Joy proceeds from the living waters of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us through our union with the Beloved. The joy of the Beloved is the joy of the infinite and eternal Triune God: the One who loves, the Beloved, the Love that forms their essential being. Union with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit totally immerses the soul into the fountain of joy the Beloved has always and will always share with the Father and pour forth into the creation.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus takes within himself the 616 commandments Moses gave and fulfills them. Jesus transforms these commandments from within the place of their original source. He then distills these commandments and re presents them to us in three main principles of love: Love God (through worship) Love others (through compassion) love yourself (through a commitment to personal transformation in holiness).
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
Divine love is steadfast (unwavering), holy (devoted to the Good), unconditional (not dependent on any external terms or conditions) and sacrificial (giving from the place of Divine Abundance). Divine love incarnate in Jesus is sacrificial in its devotion to the principles and personification of love. This is the love Jesus is.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
The meaning and purpose of human existence is to be the forever friend of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God the Father calls all of us and each of us to the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. As we make a real choice to enter into that forever friendship through the waters of baptism and nurture that forever friendship in the blessed sacrament of Holy Communion we become more of who the Blessed Trinity created us to be.
Jesus does not relate to humanity from within the categories of command and control or rewards and punishments. Jesus just doesn’t speak of love or demonstrate love- He is Love. He invites us into a new life which is the Triune Life of God. And, he transforms our desires to enter into a new way of living in his forever friendship with us.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
We can choose to enter into the new relationship with God in Christ. As we grow into that relationship we slowly begin to realize Christ chose to enter into that relationship with us. Our species made an original choice to say “no” to that relationship. The Bible is a brutally honest account of the consequences of that original choice. Humanity now lives in a state of separation from God, each other and the truth of who God created each of us to be as individuals.
The Beloved chose to set aside his divine prerogatives to come to Earth and offer humanity another choice. The Beloved was not willing to take humanity’s original “no” to be the final defining word for our species.
Jesus is God’s “yes” that meets humanity’s “no”.
As we make a real choice to believe that “yes,” and to receive that “yes”, the Holy Spirit begins the process of transforming sin back into its original virtue. That process of transformation produces an identifiable and measurable result in the way we think, feel and exert our will. That process of transformation is deeply and profoundly organic in the way it changes our attitudes and actions.
The fruit of our choice to accept God’s “yes” in Christ is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. As we bring forth this fruit in our lives, the Holy Spirit uses this process and experience of transformation to bring clarity to who God creates us to be. In that clarity we discern the root of all desire, even sinful distortions of desire, is the forever friendship we have with the Beloved.
Whatever we ask in the Beloved, through the Beloved and with the Beloved is in union with the perfect will of the Father and will find expression in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the way we experience our lives here and now. It is not a blank check to fulfill all desire. Neither is it a magic formula to get what we want when we want it. It is the realignment of thought, emotion and will with the pattern, plan and purpose of the Creation in the particularity of our lives.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
The consistent message of Moses, the prophets and the apostles is the original choice humanity made and continues to confirm in our choices to separate from Divine love and compassion. The reality of Jesus is the incarnation of that love. The Beloved left the eternal realm and entered into the realm of matter, energy, time and space. He came to seek the lost who do not wish to be found. He came as the Father’s “yes” to humanity’s “no”. He came to reunite the separated. And he continues to pour forth his love in the real presence of the blessed sacrament of Holy Communion to transform us in that love
We cannot practice steadfast holy unconditional love by will alone. We cannot practice the new way of living from the old life of separation. God’s solution to this problem is a person: Jesus Christ. As we live and move and have our being in Jesus we receive the transforming Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit to live the new life of Jesus as he embodied that life.
. The identifiable and measureable result of Divine Love in our lives is how we treat each other.
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
Jesus brings into the world Divine love. Jesus doesn’t just speak about that love. He just doesn’t offer an opinion about that love. Jesus is that love personified. Jesus manifests Divine love in all that he teaches and in every action he takes. He is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father whose essential being is steadfast, holy, unconditional love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
All of the commandments Moses brought into the world derive from and express the universal, infinite and eternal love of the universal, infinite and eternal Father. The co-eternal Beloved unifies his divinity with our humanity never to be divided from us. He is one with us in his humanity even as he is one with the eternal Father in his divinity. As the Son is one with the Father in love so the Son is one with humanity in love. It is that love that fulfills the Law and the commandments. It is that love the Son offers each of us to transform our desires so that we can make the real choice to live in love, by love and through love. As we live and move and have our being in Divine love we discover a new desire to fulfill the commandments Jesus gives us.
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
Is it as we live and move and have our being in the love of the Beloved that we experience joy. Unlike pleasure or happiness, joy is not subject to the external stimuli of our senses. Joy proceeds from the living waters of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us through our union with the Beloved. The joy of the Beloved is the joy of the infinite and eternal Triune God: the One who loves, the Beloved, the Love that forms their essential being. Union with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit totally immerses the soul into the fountain of joy the Beloved has always and will always share with the Father and pour forth into the creation.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus takes within himself the 616 commandments Moses gave and fulfills them. Jesus transforms these commandments from within the place of their original source. He then distills these commandments and re presents them to us in three main principles of love: Love God (through worship) Love others (through compassion) love yourself (through a commitment to personal transformation in holiness).
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
Divine love is steadfast (unwavering), holy (devoted to the Good), unconditional (not dependent on any external terms or conditions) and sacrificial (giving from the place of Divine Abundance). Divine love incarnate in Jesus is sacrificial in its devotion to the principles and personification of love. This is the love Jesus is.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
The meaning and purpose of human existence is to be the forever friend of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God the Father calls all of us and each of us to the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. As we make a real choice to enter into that forever friendship through the waters of baptism and nurture that forever friendship in the blessed sacrament of Holy Communion we become more of who the Blessed Trinity created us to be.
Jesus does not relate to humanity from within the categories of command and control or rewards and punishments. Jesus just doesn’t speak of love or demonstrate love- He is Love. He invites us into a new life which is the Triune Life of God. And, he transforms our desires to enter into a new way of living in his forever friendship with us.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
We can choose to enter into the new relationship with God in Christ. As we grow into that relationship we slowly begin to realize Christ chose to enter into that relationship with us. Our species made an original choice to say “no” to that relationship. The Bible is a brutally honest account of the consequences of that original choice. Humanity now lives in a state of separation from God, each other and the truth of who God created each of us to be as individuals.
The Beloved chose to set aside his divine prerogatives to come to Earth and offer humanity another choice. The Beloved was not willing to take humanity’s original “no” to be the final defining word for our species.
Jesus is God’s “yes” that meets humanity’s “no”.
As we make a real choice to believe that “yes,” and to receive that “yes”, the Holy Spirit begins the process of transforming sin back into its original virtue. That process of transformation produces an identifiable and measurable result in the way we think, feel and exert our will. That process of transformation is deeply and profoundly organic in the way it changes our attitudes and actions.
The fruit of our choice to accept God’s “yes” in Christ is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. As we bring forth this fruit in our lives, the Holy Spirit uses this process and experience of transformation to bring clarity to who God creates us to be. In that clarity we discern the root of all desire, even sinful distortions of desire, is the forever friendship we have with the Beloved.
Whatever we ask in the Beloved, through the Beloved and with the Beloved is in union with the perfect will of the Father and will find expression in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the way we experience our lives here and now. It is not a blank check to fulfill all desire. Neither is it a magic formula to get what we want when we want it. It is the realignment of thought, emotion and will with the pattern, plan and purpose of the Creation in the particularity of our lives.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
The consistent message of Moses, the prophets and the apostles is the original choice humanity made and continues to confirm in our choices to separate from Divine love and compassion. The reality of Jesus is the incarnation of that love. The Beloved left the eternal realm and entered into the realm of matter, energy, time and space. He came to seek the lost who do not wish to be found. He came as the Father’s “yes” to humanity’s “no”. He came to reunite the separated. And he continues to pour forth his love in the real presence of the blessed sacrament of Holy Communion to transform us in that love
We cannot practice steadfast holy unconditional love by will alone. We cannot practice the new way of living from the old life of separation. God’s solution to this problem is a person: Jesus Christ. As we live and move and have our being in Jesus we receive the transforming Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit to live the new life of Jesus as he embodied that life.
. The identifiable and measureable result of Divine Love in our lives is how we treat each other.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Easter 5
Easter 5 (John 15:1-8) ‘I am the true vine.”
The glory of God is man fully alive.
So wrote the theologian Irenaeus in the late second century.
The Plan of Salvation is life. God and God alone is the author of life and the source of life. All life on this planet derives from a common source: God.
Our modern secular culture teaches that life is the result of random interactions of matter, energy, time and space. The dozens of individuals who contributed their observations of nature and humanity to form the Bible come to a very different conclusion.
In our modern world we have two competing and fundamentally opposing views of reality. The secular view proposes that the universe created itself. This view acknowledges that within the universe everything is subject to the law of cause and effect- except the origin of the universe.
This view is very new in the history of humanity. Most people throughout time have observed the reality of cause and effect and reasoned that if everything in the universe is subject to that reality then the universe itself is the result of the same process.
Not all people have been willing to attribute the creation of the universe to a deity. Most people most of the time do assert that there is an uncaused cause to the universe. That uncaused cause is sometimes identified as God, transcendence, or the eternal.
Modern secular culture observes the same set of facts as our ancestors and comes to a very different conclusion. There is no preexisting transcendent cause. By will and will alone the secular mind asserts that this universe of matter, energy, time and space is all that there is, all that there ever was, and all that there can ever be.
Of course, Moses and the Prophets would not be surprised to learn that this is what our culture teaches. Neither would they be surprised to learn that in the United States it is illegal to teach anything different.
Moses and the prophets carefully observed how human beings willfully and spitefully demand the right to define God. It is only a very small step from creating God in our own image to uncreating God and asserting there is no God.
The defining problem for humanity that Moses and the prophets identified is separation. Our species as a whole and each of us as individual members of that species choose to separate from God. We make that choice to acquire power.
Human beings look at the world and say: this is mine. It is mine to do with as I please. Moses says: this world is God’s. Human beings are stewards of nature not owners. We are responsible to the Creator for how we use and abuse the creation.
Human beings look at each other and bring forth a demand: “do it my way.” Submit to my will. Give me what I want. Moses says: you are an interdependent inter related community. You are your brother’s keeper. You are responsible to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Do not ask: what’s in it for me? Ask instead: how may I help.
Human beings look at God and say: if God is real I have the right to define God however I want. Moses once made a similar assertion. God responded to that assertion by saying: I am who I am. I am not yours to define.
In a series of “I am” statements, Jesus takes what Moses observed about human nature and human behavior. Jesus takes the abstractions of theology, philosophy and science that human beings create to redefine God and personalizes them.
Jesus says: I am the vine. You are the branches. Branches that abide in the vine draw nourishment, draw life, from the vine. Branches that separate from the vine separate from the very source of life, from the meaning and purpose of life.
Jesus not only clarifies the source of life he communicates to us and to all people everywhere the meaning of life. The meaning of life cannot be expressed in a book, a set of laws, rituals or spiritual disciplines. The meaning of life cannot be held in any one intellectual category. The meaning of life is active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative and personal. The meaning of life is Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father.
Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose by which the Eternal Father created the universe and all life in the universe through the action of the Holy Spirit.
If the observations and conclusions of Moses and the prophets are correct we can only expect human civilization to move further and further into separation. We can only expect the expansion of atheism, the increase of interpersonal and international conflicts, and the rise of ever more radical forms of self-indulgence and arrogance.
We can also expect the outpouring of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ. The prophetic and apostolic call to reunification with God is the call to enter into a new life and a new way of living.
The new life is real, it is personal, and it is Jesus Christ. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit gives us that new life. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit grafts the separated, withering and dying branch back into the vine from which it separated.
As we choose to live the life of the true vine we enter in a new way of living. The new way of living is characterized by bearing fruit. The vine pours life into the branches so that the branches can bear fruit.
The fruit the true vine, Jesus Christ, produces is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. The life of the true vine, Jesus Christ is love for God, compassion for other people and personal holiness.
How do we abide in the true vine, Jesus Christ?
The preeminent and normative means of abiding are prayer (having a conversation with God), the Bible ( reading, studying, and memorizing God’s written word ) worship on the Day of Real Presence God designed into the universe, the sacraments (especially Holy Communion), service to others, and a desire to be transformed by divine love into divine love (personal holiness).
Whoever makes this choice chooses life in Christ. That life is eternal. Heaven is our choice. Hell is also our choice. Heaven is reunification with the pattern, plan and purpose of life: Jesus Christ. Hell is the willful and spiteful choice to remain separate in order to hold the individual will to power.
The choice is ours. Life is a gift. New life in Christ is a gift. The new way of living in Christ is a gift. The model for salvation is organic as the branches of the vine draw life and produce fruit from the life of the vine. The model of salvation is personal as we enter into the new life and the new way of living in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is life. Jesus is the pattern, plan, meaning and purpose of life. That is why Jesus announces to the world: I am the true vine. I am the source of life. Abide in me, live in me. Live the active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative life of love, compassion and personal holiness.
The glory of God is man fully alive.
So wrote the theologian Irenaeus in the late second century.
The Plan of Salvation is life. God and God alone is the author of life and the source of life. All life on this planet derives from a common source: God.
Our modern secular culture teaches that life is the result of random interactions of matter, energy, time and space. The dozens of individuals who contributed their observations of nature and humanity to form the Bible come to a very different conclusion.
In our modern world we have two competing and fundamentally opposing views of reality. The secular view proposes that the universe created itself. This view acknowledges that within the universe everything is subject to the law of cause and effect- except the origin of the universe.
This view is very new in the history of humanity. Most people throughout time have observed the reality of cause and effect and reasoned that if everything in the universe is subject to that reality then the universe itself is the result of the same process.
Not all people have been willing to attribute the creation of the universe to a deity. Most people most of the time do assert that there is an uncaused cause to the universe. That uncaused cause is sometimes identified as God, transcendence, or the eternal.
Modern secular culture observes the same set of facts as our ancestors and comes to a very different conclusion. There is no preexisting transcendent cause. By will and will alone the secular mind asserts that this universe of matter, energy, time and space is all that there is, all that there ever was, and all that there can ever be.
Of course, Moses and the Prophets would not be surprised to learn that this is what our culture teaches. Neither would they be surprised to learn that in the United States it is illegal to teach anything different.
Moses and the prophets carefully observed how human beings willfully and spitefully demand the right to define God. It is only a very small step from creating God in our own image to uncreating God and asserting there is no God.
The defining problem for humanity that Moses and the prophets identified is separation. Our species as a whole and each of us as individual members of that species choose to separate from God. We make that choice to acquire power.
Human beings look at the world and say: this is mine. It is mine to do with as I please. Moses says: this world is God’s. Human beings are stewards of nature not owners. We are responsible to the Creator for how we use and abuse the creation.
Human beings look at each other and bring forth a demand: “do it my way.” Submit to my will. Give me what I want. Moses says: you are an interdependent inter related community. You are your brother’s keeper. You are responsible to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Do not ask: what’s in it for me? Ask instead: how may I help.
Human beings look at God and say: if God is real I have the right to define God however I want. Moses once made a similar assertion. God responded to that assertion by saying: I am who I am. I am not yours to define.
In a series of “I am” statements, Jesus takes what Moses observed about human nature and human behavior. Jesus takes the abstractions of theology, philosophy and science that human beings create to redefine God and personalizes them.
Jesus says: I am the vine. You are the branches. Branches that abide in the vine draw nourishment, draw life, from the vine. Branches that separate from the vine separate from the very source of life, from the meaning and purpose of life.
Jesus not only clarifies the source of life he communicates to us and to all people everywhere the meaning of life. The meaning of life cannot be expressed in a book, a set of laws, rituals or spiritual disciplines. The meaning of life cannot be held in any one intellectual category. The meaning of life is active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative and personal. The meaning of life is Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father.
Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose by which the Eternal Father created the universe and all life in the universe through the action of the Holy Spirit.
If the observations and conclusions of Moses and the prophets are correct we can only expect human civilization to move further and further into separation. We can only expect the expansion of atheism, the increase of interpersonal and international conflicts, and the rise of ever more radical forms of self-indulgence and arrogance.
We can also expect the outpouring of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ. The prophetic and apostolic call to reunification with God is the call to enter into a new life and a new way of living.
The new life is real, it is personal, and it is Jesus Christ. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit gives us that new life. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit grafts the separated, withering and dying branch back into the vine from which it separated.
As we choose to live the life of the true vine we enter in a new way of living. The new way of living is characterized by bearing fruit. The vine pours life into the branches so that the branches can bear fruit.
The fruit the true vine, Jesus Christ, produces is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. The life of the true vine, Jesus Christ is love for God, compassion for other people and personal holiness.
How do we abide in the true vine, Jesus Christ?
The preeminent and normative means of abiding are prayer (having a conversation with God), the Bible ( reading, studying, and memorizing God’s written word ) worship on the Day of Real Presence God designed into the universe, the sacraments (especially Holy Communion), service to others, and a desire to be transformed by divine love into divine love (personal holiness).
Whoever makes this choice chooses life in Christ. That life is eternal. Heaven is our choice. Hell is also our choice. Heaven is reunification with the pattern, plan and purpose of life: Jesus Christ. Hell is the willful and spiteful choice to remain separate in order to hold the individual will to power.
The choice is ours. Life is a gift. New life in Christ is a gift. The new way of living in Christ is a gift. The model for salvation is organic as the branches of the vine draw life and produce fruit from the life of the vine. The model of salvation is personal as we enter into the new life and the new way of living in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is life. Jesus is the pattern, plan, meaning and purpose of life. That is why Jesus announces to the world: I am the true vine. I am the source of life. Abide in me, live in me. Live the active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative life of love, compassion and personal holiness.
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