Pentecost 14 (Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23) “For it is from within….”
Sin is an inside job.
There is nothing external to the human soul that is inherently sinful. Sin is a distortion of virtue and the corruption of virtue. The distortion comes from the original pain of our choice to separate from God.
Most forms of religion do not acknowledge the Biblical teaching of original separation, also called original sin. Most forms of religion assert that human beings are born in a state of innocence and only gradually learn to make choices that are sinful.
In these forms of religion the problem of sin is a lack of knowledge. Since the problem is a lack of knowledge the solution is education. That education can come in many different forms depending upon the religious culture. For the Pharisees, the knowledge was the proper education in the Law.
The Pharisees certainly had the insight that the Law, the Law of Moses, was important. Sadly, they missed the point of the Law. The Law is holy and good. But, the Law can only reveal to us our original choice to separate from God and our need for reunification with God.
The Pharisees assumed God gave the Law so people would obey. They further assumed that God’s love was conditional. Only those who obeyed the Law were entitled to the conditional love of God. For those who chose to disobey the Law God brought forth only wrathful condemnation.
Since the Pharisees believed that God’s Love and therefor God’s favor (grace) is conditional upon obedience to the Law, it was vitally important for them to know just what the law required. Sadly, these assumptions led to a series of questions, speculations and answers that formed the body of what the people came to call The Tradition.
As the question of what must I do to earn God’s love and avoid God’s wrath became the central question of religion The Tradition became the most important element of religion.
The Tradition was a body of commentary learned by students in question and answer form. In Jesus’ day is was still largely an oral tradition. With the destruction of the Temple in 70AD and the 2nd exile of the Jews in 140AD it became important to record The Tradition in order to preserve it.
The Tradition had emerged after the destruction of the first Temple some five hundred years before Jesus’ birth. It that five hundred years it grew and developed and branched into many different schools of thought.
Ironically, the very effort to help people keep the Law of Moses actually subverted the Law of Moses. Law based religion tends to be fear based religion. It focuses on the external observance of rules and regulations. It produces religious courts to decide disputes over interpretation. It creates religious lawyers to administer the system. And, it creates a culture of rigid inflexible uncompromising judgment.
As Jesus pointed out, such a system also creates the minimalist mentality that asks the question: what is the least I must do to get credit and avoid punishment. The minimalist mentality leads to the invention of the loop hole.
Loop holes allow the rich and powerful to avoid the most troublesome commandments of the Law. Most of these troublesome commandments derive from the three fold principle of the Sabbath. More specifically, the loop hole allows the wealthy to hold an outward form of right belief and right behavior while avoiding the inward transformation of our attitudes and actions.
The tragedy of the Pharisee is in the belief that God’s love is conditional on human behavior.
So, as Jesus points out, the oral tradition of commentary, interpretation and loop holes allows the wealthy to claim God’s favor based on the minutia of daily activities- the right clothes to wear, the right food to eat, the right way to prepare the food, the right way to serve the food, the right dishes on which to serve the food, the right way to wash those dishes before and after the meal, and the right way to wash your hands before, during and after the meal. The rules become the reality.
If and only if you have the time and resources to observe all of the many traditions that govern your daily activities can you lay a claim on God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The poor and the uneducated lack the advantage of the rich and powerful. By definition, the poor are poor because they are unrighteous. They deserve God’s wrath and they receive God’s wrath.
The rich by definition deserve God’s love and receive God’s Blessing. Since they are the righteous they are the ones who write the rules to interpret the Law. And , they are the ones who create the loop holes to avoid the weighty matters of the Law of Moses. Those weightier matters address issues of mercy, compassion and the responsible use of wealth. Those are the Laws the rich and the powerful subvert through the process of interpretation. The system is flawed and hypocritical because it is based on a flawed assumption. It is based on the assumption that God’s love is conditional.
Jesus’ simple message is that God’s love is unconditional. God just doesn’t have love. God is love. God’s love is universal.
The purpose of the Law is to act as a perfect mirror to the soul. The Law of Moses reveals not only how we separate from God by our attitudes and actions but why we separate from God. The Law shows us that we separate from God in order to assert our will to power to be God.
The Law is holy and good. It has its place in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It’s place is not to make us righteous. It’s place is to reveal to us that we as a species have chosen to separate from God. It’s place is the show each of us how we actively and deceitfully participate in separation. And, its place is to lead us to the One who is the final solution and the only solution to the problem.
The solution is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the unconditional love of God the Father. He is the infallible Plan of Salvation for all people for all time.
Jesus is the perfect mirror to the human soul. He shows us where we are in separation from God. He shows us how we can receive the divine gift of reunification with God.
Jesus also shows us where the distortion of sin lies. It is not outside. It is not in an institution or a policy or a program. Sin lies within. It is a distortion of the mind, heart and will that proceeds from the will to power of a soul lost in separation.
The solution to separation is reunification.
The solution to sin is transformation.
Transformation is an inside job. It is the identifiable and measureable result that emerges from a personal relationship with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot just say “no” to sin. You can say “yes” to God. You can say “yes” to God by receiving the gift of God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ. That unconditional love transforms our desires. That unconditional love transforms vice into virtue. That unconditional love leads us into a journey of self-discovery. As we discover who we truly are in Jesus Christ we discover the power to change our attitudes and actions in Jesus Christ.
For some of us the change is revolutionary: dramatic, bold and quick. For some of us the change is evolutionary: slow, measured and even understated. For each of us the change is the real choice to become the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father.
For it is from within that the Real Presence of God sets us free in love to become transformed by love – the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Pentecost 13
Pentecost 13 (John 6:56-69) Does this offend you?
Jesus is the truth.
Unlike prophets, priests and religious teachers, Jesus just doesn’t give some insight into the truth about God. Jesus is the truth of God.
The truth of God is simple and direct: God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
The truth of God is so rich and abundant and powerful that it can only be embodied. It can never be fully expressed in human language. The scriptures help us understand the co-eternal Word of God. The scriptures are not the co-eternal Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus.
All theology exists in the realm of knowledge. The Apostle Paul comments about knowledge by saying: now we know in part.
The preeminent theologian of the Western Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, had a vision of the co-eternal Word near the end of his life. He responded with delight and distress. He gave voice to his distress by saying that all of his books about God were as dust and ashes in comparison to the reality of God. His delight was to experience the Real Presence of unconditional love and compassion.
Jesus never intended to offend anyone when he came to earth. He came in the abundance of unconditional love and compassion. He also knew that he was coming to a species that had separated from God the Father, rejected the friendship of God the Son and ignored the invitation to personal transformation in God the Holy Spirit.
Moses and the Prophets reveal the framework to understand who Jesus is. They point to Jesus. It is Jesus who completes the revelation our Heavenly Father gave to Moses and the prophets.
God is too vast in his love and holiness to be described by any one prophet, teacher or theologian. In the incarnation, God comes to us in the best way, the ideal way, the only way to make himself known to us. Jesus is God’s Word to humanity. That Word is love.
In Jesus God unites his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus, God reveals that Truth emerges within the context of relationship.
Charles Cooley, a modern sociologist, developed a theory of relationship called “The Looking Glass Self”. In this theory, Cooley observes that we human beings form our individual personalities in relationship with other people. Essentially, we not only learn how to be human through our relationships with family, friends and neighbors, we actually build our own unique personalities in the dynamic of those relationships.
Jesus reveals to us that His friendship is the fundamental and primary relationship our Heavenly Father designed us to experience in order to build our unique identities. We are more of who God created us to be as we cultivate the Prime Relationship, the relationship with Jesus Christ. Correspondingly, we are dimished apart from Christ.
What is unique about our relationship with Jesus is that in Jesus we can experience the Real Presence of the infinite and eternal God. What we experience we can then choose to express.
The infinite and eternal reality of God is steadfast, holy, unconditional love. This love is unlike any thing we have ever or can ever experience in this world. It is the underlying meaning and purpose of life, the universe and everything that exists.
It is the missing term in the human equation of duality, of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of life and death.
It is the key to understanding how the One God is three persons.
It is the basis of the incarnation.
It is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in one word.
It is embodied, incarnate, made flesh in Jesus Christ.
It is the Great Mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the altar.
Jesus said: those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Jesus is God in human flesh. God is love. To eat the flesh and to drink the blood is to make a real choice to enter into the total immersion of our being in the Real Presence of Divine love.
This Divine reality comes to us in the very humble and ordinary means of bread and wine. The sacrament of Holy Communion reminds us that the co-eternal Son of God came in the very humble and ordinary means of our humanity. He lived for thirty years in a small town as one of the working poor. He knows exactly what it means to be human. He knows exactly what we, all of us and each of us, need to be fulfilled and completed.
No book can accomplish this. No theology or philosophy can communicate to us what Jesus offers. Jesus is the perfect mirror of God. He shows us who we are: lost in separation. He shows us who we can become: the beloved of God. He just doesn’t tell us the solution. He just doesn’t show us the solution. He is the solution. He gives us himself is a very real and organic way in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Our Heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to invite all people everywhere to receive the gifts of reunification (through Baptism) and personal transformation (through Holy Communion).
As in Jesus’ time so in ours: this offends many people. Many react from the place of pride and say: why does it have to be Jesus? Others react from fear and ask: will God punish me if I do not receive the gift? Still others simply walk away and say: no way. I will not submit my will to this religious teaching.
As with all things in life, Love is the key. Love is the missing term in the human equation of fear, self-will and pride. Love is not just a feeling or a concept. Love is a person: Jesus Christ.
Are you offended by this? Most people are offended if they are honest. Jesus understands this. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And so he offers us his friendship, his life, his very being. There are no preconditions to the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites us to dialog with him as we read the scriptures.
Jesus asks us to ponder the imponderable assertion that He is real.
Jesus invites us to the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence to taste and experience the goodness of God.
The reality of God is the relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. The relationship is the Real Presence of the Infinite and Eternal Beloved of God in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
The invitations have been and continue to be sent.
The table is set.
The banquet hall is ready.
The time and place have been posted.
The gifts have been prepared.
All are welcome.
The Reality of life itself offers himself to us in the bread and the wine.
Your responsibility is to choose to receive the gift God has designed into this universe of matter, energy, time and space.
The gift is the Real Presence of unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Does this offend you?
Jesus is the truth.
Unlike prophets, priests and religious teachers, Jesus just doesn’t give some insight into the truth about God. Jesus is the truth of God.
The truth of God is simple and direct: God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
The truth of God is so rich and abundant and powerful that it can only be embodied. It can never be fully expressed in human language. The scriptures help us understand the co-eternal Word of God. The scriptures are not the co-eternal Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus.
All theology exists in the realm of knowledge. The Apostle Paul comments about knowledge by saying: now we know in part.
The preeminent theologian of the Western Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, had a vision of the co-eternal Word near the end of his life. He responded with delight and distress. He gave voice to his distress by saying that all of his books about God were as dust and ashes in comparison to the reality of God. His delight was to experience the Real Presence of unconditional love and compassion.
Jesus never intended to offend anyone when he came to earth. He came in the abundance of unconditional love and compassion. He also knew that he was coming to a species that had separated from God the Father, rejected the friendship of God the Son and ignored the invitation to personal transformation in God the Holy Spirit.
Moses and the Prophets reveal the framework to understand who Jesus is. They point to Jesus. It is Jesus who completes the revelation our Heavenly Father gave to Moses and the prophets.
God is too vast in his love and holiness to be described by any one prophet, teacher or theologian. In the incarnation, God comes to us in the best way, the ideal way, the only way to make himself known to us. Jesus is God’s Word to humanity. That Word is love.
In Jesus God unites his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus, God reveals that Truth emerges within the context of relationship.
Charles Cooley, a modern sociologist, developed a theory of relationship called “The Looking Glass Self”. In this theory, Cooley observes that we human beings form our individual personalities in relationship with other people. Essentially, we not only learn how to be human through our relationships with family, friends and neighbors, we actually build our own unique personalities in the dynamic of those relationships.
Jesus reveals to us that His friendship is the fundamental and primary relationship our Heavenly Father designed us to experience in order to build our unique identities. We are more of who God created us to be as we cultivate the Prime Relationship, the relationship with Jesus Christ. Correspondingly, we are dimished apart from Christ.
What is unique about our relationship with Jesus is that in Jesus we can experience the Real Presence of the infinite and eternal God. What we experience we can then choose to express.
The infinite and eternal reality of God is steadfast, holy, unconditional love. This love is unlike any thing we have ever or can ever experience in this world. It is the underlying meaning and purpose of life, the universe and everything that exists.
It is the missing term in the human equation of duality, of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of life and death.
It is the key to understanding how the One God is three persons.
It is the basis of the incarnation.
It is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in one word.
It is embodied, incarnate, made flesh in Jesus Christ.
It is the Great Mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the altar.
Jesus said: those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Jesus is God in human flesh. God is love. To eat the flesh and to drink the blood is to make a real choice to enter into the total immersion of our being in the Real Presence of Divine love.
This Divine reality comes to us in the very humble and ordinary means of bread and wine. The sacrament of Holy Communion reminds us that the co-eternal Son of God came in the very humble and ordinary means of our humanity. He lived for thirty years in a small town as one of the working poor. He knows exactly what it means to be human. He knows exactly what we, all of us and each of us, need to be fulfilled and completed.
No book can accomplish this. No theology or philosophy can communicate to us what Jesus offers. Jesus is the perfect mirror of God. He shows us who we are: lost in separation. He shows us who we can become: the beloved of God. He just doesn’t tell us the solution. He just doesn’t show us the solution. He is the solution. He gives us himself is a very real and organic way in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Our Heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to invite all people everywhere to receive the gifts of reunification (through Baptism) and personal transformation (through Holy Communion).
As in Jesus’ time so in ours: this offends many people. Many react from the place of pride and say: why does it have to be Jesus? Others react from fear and ask: will God punish me if I do not receive the gift? Still others simply walk away and say: no way. I will not submit my will to this religious teaching.
As with all things in life, Love is the key. Love is the missing term in the human equation of fear, self-will and pride. Love is not just a feeling or a concept. Love is a person: Jesus Christ.
Are you offended by this? Most people are offended if they are honest. Jesus understands this. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And so he offers us his friendship, his life, his very being. There are no preconditions to the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites us to dialog with him as we read the scriptures.
Jesus asks us to ponder the imponderable assertion that He is real.
Jesus invites us to the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence to taste and experience the goodness of God.
The reality of God is the relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. The relationship is the Real Presence of the Infinite and Eternal Beloved of God in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
The invitations have been and continue to be sent.
The table is set.
The banquet hall is ready.
The time and place have been posted.
The gifts have been prepared.
All are welcome.
The Reality of life itself offers himself to us in the bread and the wine.
Your responsibility is to choose to receive the gift God has designed into this universe of matter, energy, time and space.
The gift is the Real Presence of unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Does this offend you?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Assumption Day 2012
Assumption Day 2012 (Luke 1:46-55)
“He has filled the hungry with good things.”
Grace is the gift of God. The gift of God is the abundance of God.
At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary with the words: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Gabriel did not come to fill Mary with grace. God had already filled her with grace. The abundance of grace is the Real Presence of God.
Most people most of the time reject the abundance of grace in the Real Presence of God. The evidence of this statement is recorded in scripture, history and personal experience. Most people most of the time make choices that reveal to others and to ourselves that we do not value the Real Presence of God. What we do not value we do not choose.
The most obvious evidence to support this statement is the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day, the seventh day, is the Day of Real Presence. Moses writes that God designed time itself to reflect the seventh day. It is the time when the timeless touches time. It is the day when the infinite and the universal is available to the limited and the particular. Moses and the prophets also record their observations that most people most of the time reject the gift of the Sabbath.
That gift is God’s promise to be with us and to bless us with the abundance of grace.
Separation from God is subject to the law of diminishing return. The more you get the less you enjoy but the more you want. The soul disintegrates into stagnation through the pursuit of separation. The soul also seeks greater and greater external stimulation to mask the pain of separation.
Grace is just the opposite of separation. Grace is immersion in divine abundance. The more grace you get the more you enjoy grace and the more you are able to expand and transform into grace.
Mary grew in grace. She grew in grace in the threefold manifestation of love: love of God through worship, love of others through acts of compassion, love of the unique image of God imprinted on her soul through Bible study, prayer, and the surrender of self will to divine will.
Unlike so many people in the long history of Israel who said “no” to God, Mary said “yes”. Mary grew up in a time of religious controversy and conflict. People argued over religious belief and practice. Mary lived a life of grace. She focused on worship, service and personal transformation of her mind, heart and will.
Mary asked honest questions to seek knowledge, understanding and wisdom. When the archangel told her she would be the mother of God’s Son she asked the very logical question: how can this be?
God invites our questions. Mary asked a question in order to hear the answer.
After Mary received the answer to her question she declared: I am the Lord’s servant. She did not presume to change the message of God. She did not debate the angel. She did not claim any special position or privilege. She expressed her moment of grace in the joy of grace by acknowledging the reality of grace: I am the Lord’s servant.
Mary knew that if you name God, Lord, than you are not Lord. You are not in control. You do not make the rules or establish the plan. God does that.\
As the Lord’s servant Mary declared: may God’s will be done. Surrender to God’s will is not the same as submission. Submission to divine will always asserts the hidden bargain: I will do what you want so that you are obligated to give me what I want.
Surrender is the total immersion of the will in the love of God. Surrender is not resignation to overwhelming and incomprehensible power. Surrender is the embrace of the Great Mystery of Divine love by faith. Surrender says: I fully accept your plan and your purpose and I delight in your Real Presence. The framework of power, of command and control, is simply absent from a soul that surrenders to the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Mary’s next choice was to share her joy with her cousin Elizabeth. Grace increases as we share it with others. Mary and Elizabeth experienced an infilling of the Holy Spirit as they met and shared another moment of grace.
This moment brings forth the second portion of the Hail Mary prayer as Elizabeth declares to her cousin Mary: blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
Elizabeth’s joy echoes in the immaculate heart of Mary to produce the song of worship we know as the Magnificat.
The Magnificat is based on Hannah’s song from the book of 1 Samuel. It reminds us that Mary read scripture, studied scripture and memorized scripture. A soul that is touched by grace discovers a desire to read the Bible.
As we choose to respond to the desire to read the Bible God infuses more grace into our soul. We move from a desire to read the Bible to a passion to study the Bible.
The next step of grace is the real choice to memorize the Bible. Mary embodies this pattern of grace and demonstrates the pattern in the Magnificat.
Grace is like a small seed, a mustard seed. It begins small and understated- almost unnoticed. The seed of grace is nourished in our souls by the real choice we make to meet God at the time and place God has announced he will meet us. That time and place is the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence.
In the life of Mary we see how grace balances and transforms the duality of human experience: the joys and the sorrow, the life and the death.
There is no evidence that Mary participated in the religious debates of her time and culture. There is every evidence in her song of joy, the Magnificat, that she accepted grace to grow in faith. Faith is about a relationship. Mary had the most intimate relationship with God any human being has ever experienced. By grace through faith she embraced the will of God and became the Holy Mother of God incarnate.
The way of grace is active, dynamic and transforming. As her son was dying a terrible death on the cross, he asked Mary to take the next step in grace. He asked her to complete the apostle John’s spiritual formation. Despite her grief and her anguish Mary once again experienced the events in her life as a moment of grace. This time, she heard the word of God from her only son who is the Word of God.
She accepted this call by grace through faith in the center of the Great Mystery of God: the infinite and eternal love of God.
The example of Mary, and the experience of Mary, is that life on this planet here and now is formed by joy and sorrow. The way of grace that God offered Mary is the way of grace God offers all people. It is the way of grace that invites us into a life of faith. The life of faith is the immersion of the mind, heart, will and soul in the steadfast holy love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Mary’s life is a life of choice. The culmination of all of the small and big choices Mary made is the Assumption. Mary had chosen to open her heart to grace at every moment in her life, in the joys and in the sorrows, in the pleasures and in the pain, in her life and in her death. At the moment of her death, Jesus brought her body directly to heaven and gave her the gift of immediate resurrection. Then, he crowned her Queen of Israel, Queen of Earth, and Queen of Heaven.
The Assumption of Mary at her death, and the Coronation of Mary in Heaven, is not a reward for submission to Law, religion or belief. It is the fruit of a life of grace lived by faith in the Real Presence of the Great Mystery of Divine Love.
We remember today that Jesus fulfilled the 5th commandment by honoring his mother with the Assumption and the Coronation. We also remember how the Assumption and the Coronation model for each of us the glory of a life that embraced both joy and sorrow by faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, hagios theotokos, pray for us to make a real choice to live by grace through faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
“He has filled the hungry with good things.”
Grace is the gift of God. The gift of God is the abundance of God.
At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary with the words: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Gabriel did not come to fill Mary with grace. God had already filled her with grace. The abundance of grace is the Real Presence of God.
Most people most of the time reject the abundance of grace in the Real Presence of God. The evidence of this statement is recorded in scripture, history and personal experience. Most people most of the time make choices that reveal to others and to ourselves that we do not value the Real Presence of God. What we do not value we do not choose.
The most obvious evidence to support this statement is the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day, the seventh day, is the Day of Real Presence. Moses writes that God designed time itself to reflect the seventh day. It is the time when the timeless touches time. It is the day when the infinite and the universal is available to the limited and the particular. Moses and the prophets also record their observations that most people most of the time reject the gift of the Sabbath.
That gift is God’s promise to be with us and to bless us with the abundance of grace.
Separation from God is subject to the law of diminishing return. The more you get the less you enjoy but the more you want. The soul disintegrates into stagnation through the pursuit of separation. The soul also seeks greater and greater external stimulation to mask the pain of separation.
Grace is just the opposite of separation. Grace is immersion in divine abundance. The more grace you get the more you enjoy grace and the more you are able to expand and transform into grace.
Mary grew in grace. She grew in grace in the threefold manifestation of love: love of God through worship, love of others through acts of compassion, love of the unique image of God imprinted on her soul through Bible study, prayer, and the surrender of self will to divine will.
Unlike so many people in the long history of Israel who said “no” to God, Mary said “yes”. Mary grew up in a time of religious controversy and conflict. People argued over religious belief and practice. Mary lived a life of grace. She focused on worship, service and personal transformation of her mind, heart and will.
Mary asked honest questions to seek knowledge, understanding and wisdom. When the archangel told her she would be the mother of God’s Son she asked the very logical question: how can this be?
God invites our questions. Mary asked a question in order to hear the answer.
After Mary received the answer to her question she declared: I am the Lord’s servant. She did not presume to change the message of God. She did not debate the angel. She did not claim any special position or privilege. She expressed her moment of grace in the joy of grace by acknowledging the reality of grace: I am the Lord’s servant.
Mary knew that if you name God, Lord, than you are not Lord. You are not in control. You do not make the rules or establish the plan. God does that.\
As the Lord’s servant Mary declared: may God’s will be done. Surrender to God’s will is not the same as submission. Submission to divine will always asserts the hidden bargain: I will do what you want so that you are obligated to give me what I want.
Surrender is the total immersion of the will in the love of God. Surrender is not resignation to overwhelming and incomprehensible power. Surrender is the embrace of the Great Mystery of Divine love by faith. Surrender says: I fully accept your plan and your purpose and I delight in your Real Presence. The framework of power, of command and control, is simply absent from a soul that surrenders to the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Mary’s next choice was to share her joy with her cousin Elizabeth. Grace increases as we share it with others. Mary and Elizabeth experienced an infilling of the Holy Spirit as they met and shared another moment of grace.
This moment brings forth the second portion of the Hail Mary prayer as Elizabeth declares to her cousin Mary: blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
Elizabeth’s joy echoes in the immaculate heart of Mary to produce the song of worship we know as the Magnificat.
The Magnificat is based on Hannah’s song from the book of 1 Samuel. It reminds us that Mary read scripture, studied scripture and memorized scripture. A soul that is touched by grace discovers a desire to read the Bible.
As we choose to respond to the desire to read the Bible God infuses more grace into our soul. We move from a desire to read the Bible to a passion to study the Bible.
The next step of grace is the real choice to memorize the Bible. Mary embodies this pattern of grace and demonstrates the pattern in the Magnificat.
Grace is like a small seed, a mustard seed. It begins small and understated- almost unnoticed. The seed of grace is nourished in our souls by the real choice we make to meet God at the time and place God has announced he will meet us. That time and place is the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence.
In the life of Mary we see how grace balances and transforms the duality of human experience: the joys and the sorrow, the life and the death.
There is no evidence that Mary participated in the religious debates of her time and culture. There is every evidence in her song of joy, the Magnificat, that she accepted grace to grow in faith. Faith is about a relationship. Mary had the most intimate relationship with God any human being has ever experienced. By grace through faith she embraced the will of God and became the Holy Mother of God incarnate.
The way of grace is active, dynamic and transforming. As her son was dying a terrible death on the cross, he asked Mary to take the next step in grace. He asked her to complete the apostle John’s spiritual formation. Despite her grief and her anguish Mary once again experienced the events in her life as a moment of grace. This time, she heard the word of God from her only son who is the Word of God.
She accepted this call by grace through faith in the center of the Great Mystery of God: the infinite and eternal love of God.
The example of Mary, and the experience of Mary, is that life on this planet here and now is formed by joy and sorrow. The way of grace that God offered Mary is the way of grace God offers all people. It is the way of grace that invites us into a life of faith. The life of faith is the immersion of the mind, heart, will and soul in the steadfast holy love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Mary’s life is a life of choice. The culmination of all of the small and big choices Mary made is the Assumption. Mary had chosen to open her heart to grace at every moment in her life, in the joys and in the sorrows, in the pleasures and in the pain, in her life and in her death. At the moment of her death, Jesus brought her body directly to heaven and gave her the gift of immediate resurrection. Then, he crowned her Queen of Israel, Queen of Earth, and Queen of Heaven.
The Assumption of Mary at her death, and the Coronation of Mary in Heaven, is not a reward for submission to Law, religion or belief. It is the fruit of a life of grace lived by faith in the Real Presence of the Great Mystery of Divine Love.
We remember today that Jesus fulfilled the 5th commandment by honoring his mother with the Assumption and the Coronation. We also remember how the Assumption and the Coronation model for each of us the glory of a life that embraced both joy and sorrow by faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, hagios theotokos, pray for us to make a real choice to live by grace through faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Pentecost 11
Pentecost 11 (John 6:35, 41-51) I am the living bread that came down from Heaven.
Life is not the same as existence.
All living things also exist. Not all things that exist have life. Sadly, the human species made an original choice to separate from life when we chose and continue to choose to separate from God.
Life is a series of interdependent relationships.
The primary life giving relationship is with God. Relationship is not the same thing as religion. People in Jesus day were very religious. They also were filled with fear. They feared the government. They feared foreigners. They feared each other. They feared that somehow God was so pure, so holy, so transcendent that they were unworthy to receive God’s blessings. They feared that God would punish them if they did the wrong thing or believed the wrong set of statements. They missed the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses and the Prophets that God is love.
In that Divine Love, God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that God is personal. He is like a father to his children in his concern for their well-being. He is like a husband to his wife in his passionate delight.
Fear based religion produces a God of inflexible law. If you obey this law then God is obligated by the law to reward you with what you want when you want it. If you disobey the law then God is obligated by the law to punish you with sickness, poverty and failure. The God of inflexible uncompromising rigid law is the God of indulgence for the rich and powerful. He is also the God of wrath for the majority of the people who lack wealth and power.
Moses and the prophets observed this aspect of religion. They recorded their observations and formulated a theory about why people choose to invent a religion of fear to support a God of self-indulgence for the wealthy and a God of wrath for the working poor. The theory is separation, also known as “original sin.”
Original sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. In that separation, human beings lost the awareness of God as real, personal, and loving. In that separation, human beings lost compassion, concern and kindness for each other. In that separation human beings lost our true identity in love and holiness. We created and continue to create a false identity in fear, self-will and pride.
Jesus came into the world to demonstrate the fundamental truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
In a series of “I am” statements that invoke the very Name of God (I am), Jesus reveals that He has come to find the lost, reunite the separated, and restore life to a species lost in the stark isolation of existence.
It is important to hear the words of Jesus in the context of the observations of Moses and the Prophets. It is Moses and the prophets who help us to understand the pain of existence. That pain creates enormous distortion in our personalities, in the institutions we form and in the religion we create.
That pain of original separation produces the illusion that we can create God in our own image. And, that pain so corrupts and erodes the gift of life God has given to us that we no longer delight in life but endure existence.
Jesus came to restore life to a people lost in mere existence. His life is the delight of the infinite and eternal God in the people He created to be his forever friends. Fear based religion holds the soul in a spiritual stagnation that exists apart from life.
Jesus just doesn’t teach about life. He is life. He is the source of life that is active, dynamic, rational, passionate, spontaneous and creative. He is the life of kindness and compassion to others. He is the life of prayer and worship before our Heavenly Father. He is the life of renewal in the truth of steadfast holy love.
People liked the miracles Jesus performed. They appreciated the healings. They valued the banquets. Sadly, they still attempted to place those miracles into a religious context of self-indulgence and wrath. Tragically, they chose to remain lost in existence, lost in fear. That fear morphed into pride and despair.
Those who through fear chose the path of pride killed Jesus. Those who through fear chose the path of despair abandoned Jesus. It is important to recognize that at the end of his life only four people remained loyal to Jesus. His mother, with her two companions, remained loyal from the place of maternal love. A teen named John remained loyal from the place of fraternal love.
Love overcomes fear. It is the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ that restores life to mere existence. No law can do this. No religion can do this. Only Jesus can do this. He does this by offering himself to us as our forever friend.
Where are you lost in mere existence? How do you perceive God in the terms of self-indulgence or wrath? Where is your religion rigid, inflexible and uncompromising? Where do you react to God, other people, your own imperfections from the place of fear?
That is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you. That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Beloved Son into the world. In Jesus, God is offering new life to all people everywhere without condition. There is nothing you need to do before you receive the gift of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.
How do you receive that gift? Faith. Faith is the pledge of loyalty we see in the examples of Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross. The outward and visible sign of faith is baptism.
What is the result of faith? It is a new life. Jesus gives us life to rescue us from the pain of mere existence. In that new life Jesus enters into a forever friendship with us. He helps us grow into a new way of living.
The essentials of that new way of living derive from the three principles of love Jesus taught and lived. Those three principles of love are worship, service to others, personal transformation. That is the life Jesus brings us.
People sometimes use the phrase “get a life”. Jesus agrees with this statement. He not only agrees that we should get a life he says: here, take mine. My life is the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting moment by moment, choice by choice in the here and now of this world. The new life is the forever friendship God offers us in Jesus Christ.
Life is not the same as existence.
All living things also exist. Not all things that exist have life. Sadly, the human species made an original choice to separate from life when we chose and continue to choose to separate from God.
Life is a series of interdependent relationships.
The primary life giving relationship is with God. Relationship is not the same thing as religion. People in Jesus day were very religious. They also were filled with fear. They feared the government. They feared foreigners. They feared each other. They feared that somehow God was so pure, so holy, so transcendent that they were unworthy to receive God’s blessings. They feared that God would punish them if they did the wrong thing or believed the wrong set of statements. They missed the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses and the Prophets that God is love.
In that Divine Love, God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that God is personal. He is like a father to his children in his concern for their well-being. He is like a husband to his wife in his passionate delight.
Fear based religion produces a God of inflexible law. If you obey this law then God is obligated by the law to reward you with what you want when you want it. If you disobey the law then God is obligated by the law to punish you with sickness, poverty and failure. The God of inflexible uncompromising rigid law is the God of indulgence for the rich and powerful. He is also the God of wrath for the majority of the people who lack wealth and power.
Moses and the prophets observed this aspect of religion. They recorded their observations and formulated a theory about why people choose to invent a religion of fear to support a God of self-indulgence for the wealthy and a God of wrath for the working poor. The theory is separation, also known as “original sin.”
Original sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. In that separation, human beings lost the awareness of God as real, personal, and loving. In that separation, human beings lost compassion, concern and kindness for each other. In that separation human beings lost our true identity in love and holiness. We created and continue to create a false identity in fear, self-will and pride.
Jesus came into the world to demonstrate the fundamental truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
In a series of “I am” statements that invoke the very Name of God (I am), Jesus reveals that He has come to find the lost, reunite the separated, and restore life to a species lost in the stark isolation of existence.
It is important to hear the words of Jesus in the context of the observations of Moses and the Prophets. It is Moses and the prophets who help us to understand the pain of existence. That pain creates enormous distortion in our personalities, in the institutions we form and in the religion we create.
That pain of original separation produces the illusion that we can create God in our own image. And, that pain so corrupts and erodes the gift of life God has given to us that we no longer delight in life but endure existence.
Jesus came to restore life to a people lost in mere existence. His life is the delight of the infinite and eternal God in the people He created to be his forever friends. Fear based religion holds the soul in a spiritual stagnation that exists apart from life.
Jesus just doesn’t teach about life. He is life. He is the source of life that is active, dynamic, rational, passionate, spontaneous and creative. He is the life of kindness and compassion to others. He is the life of prayer and worship before our Heavenly Father. He is the life of renewal in the truth of steadfast holy love.
People liked the miracles Jesus performed. They appreciated the healings. They valued the banquets. Sadly, they still attempted to place those miracles into a religious context of self-indulgence and wrath. Tragically, they chose to remain lost in existence, lost in fear. That fear morphed into pride and despair.
Those who through fear chose the path of pride killed Jesus. Those who through fear chose the path of despair abandoned Jesus. It is important to recognize that at the end of his life only four people remained loyal to Jesus. His mother, with her two companions, remained loyal from the place of maternal love. A teen named John remained loyal from the place of fraternal love.
Love overcomes fear. It is the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ that restores life to mere existence. No law can do this. No religion can do this. Only Jesus can do this. He does this by offering himself to us as our forever friend.
Where are you lost in mere existence? How do you perceive God in the terms of self-indulgence or wrath? Where is your religion rigid, inflexible and uncompromising? Where do you react to God, other people, your own imperfections from the place of fear?
That is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you. That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Beloved Son into the world. In Jesus, God is offering new life to all people everywhere without condition. There is nothing you need to do before you receive the gift of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.
How do you receive that gift? Faith. Faith is the pledge of loyalty we see in the examples of Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross. The outward and visible sign of faith is baptism.
What is the result of faith? It is a new life. Jesus gives us life to rescue us from the pain of mere existence. In that new life Jesus enters into a forever friendship with us. He helps us grow into a new way of living.
The essentials of that new way of living derive from the three principles of love Jesus taught and lived. Those three principles of love are worship, service to others, personal transformation. That is the life Jesus brings us.
People sometimes use the phrase “get a life”. Jesus agrees with this statement. He not only agrees that we should get a life he says: here, take mine. My life is the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting moment by moment, choice by choice in the here and now of this world. The new life is the forever friendship God offers us in Jesus Christ.
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