Pentecost 2 (Luke 7:1-10) “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

Faith is substance and evidence. Belief is strongly held opinion.

The people who met Jesus interpreted his words and deeds in the context of strongly held opinion. For most people who met Jesus, their beliefs were rigid, inflexible and uncompromising. These beliefs also defined their personal identity.

When Jesus taught or acted outside the parameters of belief, people reacted with frustration, bewilderment and fear. The people so identified with their beliefs that they felt Jesus’ presence as a threat to their very identity.

A Pharisee was a Pharisee first and foremost. A Pharisee so strongly identified with the unique tenants of his belief system that he felt justified in opposing and combating all other belief systems and the people who espoused them. The more extreme sects armed themselves and prepared  to use force to impose their beliefs on other less aggressive members of their own sect as well as the members of rival sects.

Jesus did not come into the world to settle disputes over belief. Nor did he intend to impose any system of belief by force. Jesus came into the world to find the lost and restore the lost to union with the Father. Jesus came to initiate a process of faith.

The Roman Centurion had grown up in a culture that did not place a high value on belief. Romans, for the most part, valued pragmatism and power. They also identified loyalty as the preeminent virtue for a citizen and for a soldier.

The Romans admired the Jews’ single minded loyalty to their god. They also valued the moral ethic of Moses and the Prophets. Some Romans studied the scriptures and made donations to the synagogue out of their admiration for the god of Israel.  But, the Romans were bewildered by the incessant and bitter religious disputes amongst the various sects within the Judaism of the First Century.

The Roman Centurion in this account was a commander of 100 men. He was a Centurion because of his accomplishments and because of his loyalty to the Empire. He expected excellence from his subordinates. And, he expected they give him the same loyalty he gave the Emperor.

When this particular Centurion head the stories of Jesus, he responded from the place 0f pragmatism, power and loyalty. He perceived in Jesus a man in whom he could trust and a man who acted from principle. He saw the universal compassion of Jesus did not succumb to debates over religious, political or economic belief.

The leaders of the synagogue presented to Jesus a case for helping the Centurion that expressed the commonly held belief that God is obligated to help the righteous and to punish the unrighteous. Normally, the leaders would classify a Roman Centurion in the unrighteous category since he served the pagan Emperor. They also assumed Jesus would react from the same set of beliefs. They presented a case for helping the Centurion as a reward for his good deed in paying for a synagogue to be built.

The Centurion did not think in these terms. He thought in the terms of loyalty and pragmatism. He knew Jesus healed everyone regardless of their beliefs or social status. He placed his faith in a person not a system of belief or a sect. He made his request from the context of personal loyalty.

Jesus responded to the Centurion’s message with astonished delight. In a society of endless conflict over belief, Jesus now encountered a man who valued loyalty and faith. It was exactly what God had revealed through Moses and the prophets. It was exactly what Jesus had come into the world to give.

I can only imagine the great joy that Jesus felt. Even his own disciples lacked that kind of faith.

Not much later, in the midst of controversy and conflict,  Jesus would ask out loud:” when the Son of man returns will he find faith on the earth?”

Jesus found a man who valued loyalty and who had grown into faith. Jesus also recognized that most people most of the time live from the place of rigid inflexible uncompromising belief. Jesus holds up to us the example of the Roman Centurion as a man who lived from the place of grace by faith.

Jesus longs to say of us what he said of the Centurion: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”

 

 

 

 

Trinity Sunday (John 16:12-15) “When the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into all the Truth.”

Jesus explains how God's Presence emerges from within the soul. The Holy Spirit sets us free to be.

The Great Mystery of Divine Love in Jesus Christ is the Great Mystery of the Incarnation and the Trinity. With Moses and the Prophets the Apostles proclaim that God is One. Through their personal experience and observation they also proclaim that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. Jesus models a plan of salvation that is organic, personal and emerges in a set of relationships.

The Apostles struggled to understand how the man Jesus was also one with the Father. The solution Jesus himself provided was and is the Holy Spirit. In that solution the truth of who Jesus is emerges in the context of a personal relationship.

As the co-eternal Son of God Jesus knows that truth is absolute and definitive. As a particular human being living in a particular place, time and culture Jesus also knows truth for human beings is experiential. Jesus knows these things because he himself is the very pattern of truth. That pattern is steadfast, holy, unconditional universal love.

Someone once commented that the first casualty of war is truth. In our own time we see how the first casualty of politics is truth. Moses and the Prophets observe that the first casualty of the human choice to separate from God is truth. The account of that choice to separate from God reveals the power of deceit to subvert Truth. In subverting truth we distort love.

Satan offered an alternative “truth” to reinterpret the word of God. Satan did this in order to subvert love. Satan himself renounced love for power. He seeks to have all created beings make the same choice. As we make that choice Satan claims us as his slaves.

Adam and Eve chose that distorted truth over the simple and direct meaning of God’s word. In that choice our species rejected steadfast holy universal unconditional love. That choice proceeded from pride and activated the human will to power.

Pride is a distortion of love. The will to power is a distortion of choice. Those two distortions led to the choice we made to separate from God. That choice resulted in a deeply embedded spiritual pain that results in fear.

This is a pattern. It is indeed the definitive pattern that governs our species. And, it is a pattern Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles observed experienced and recorded in the books of the Bible. The defining  problem we experience is a pattern of separation that originates in a lie chosen by pride from the will to power. The undercurrent of that choice is pain that produces fear.

This is a pattern we reproduce in our lives through choices. Law alone cannot break that pattern. Religion alone cannot change that pattern. Reason alone cannot alter that pattern. Only Original Love can transform that pattern of perception and action. The solution to this pattern of distortion is to encounter embrace and live the original pattern of Love. Jesus is that pattern. He reveals the reality of Truth to us in a set of relationships.

Jesus just doesn’t teach that truth is a set of facts we can master and then use. Truth is a set of relationships. Those relationships are the embodiment of the pure potential of the infinite and eternal God. Jesus in his own person reveals that the One God is three co-eternal persons. God himself is a community of love. This image of God is active, dynamic, creative, spontaneous, transcendent, immediate and personal. Jesus does not reveal a static unyielding rigid and inflexible God. Jesus reveals a God who himself is eternally manifesting the infinite potential of love.

It is that God who Jesus invites us to know and to experience. Jesus is the way we know and experience God. God the Father sent God the Son into the world to be our forever friend. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit into the very depths of our souls to help us grow and transform in love.

The Plan of Salvation is reunification with the Father through the Son that manifests eternally by the inner Presence of God the Holy Spirit. Jesus once went so far as to quote the scripture that says: behold, you are gods.

We are not gods by nature. We participate in the Divine Life of the community of persons who are the One God. As we make the choice to be present to God we recognize God is present to us. That Presence emerges from within the soul.

More often than not, we need external reminders of this interior reality. For some of us the beauty of nature reminds us of the truth of God as Creator. For some of us the Chalice of Real Presence is the bread and wine of Holy Communion. For all of us, love in any form reminds of the reality that all human love is the image of the True Divine Love.

Jesus reminds us that fundamentally the truth is that we are not human doings… we are human beings. We are designed by love, for love and in love. Jesus sets us free to be who we are. The Holy Spirit reminds us that Jesus sets us free to be the beloved of infinite and eternal Trinity.

 

Pentecost 2013 (John 14:8-17, 25-27)

“The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

Revelation is an inside job.

Moses, the prophets and apostles observed that there is more than adequate data in nature for a rational mind to discern the reality of God. Moses, the prophets and the apostles also observe that most people most of the time (including themselves) fail to perceive the Real Presence of God.

There is an old saying: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. As with horses and water so with human beings and the Real Presence of God. No matter how much evidence God provides for us we still find ways to ignore the obvious.

By our own reason we cannot prove God’s existence. The atheists have the edge in the debates over God’s existence. They have the edge because they set the parameters of the debate. They also have the edge because the shared experience of all human beings is willful separation from the divine.

External evidence is subverted by the internal distortions of separation, sin and mortality. To put it bluntly: we see what we want to see. And, we hear what we want to hear.

 

Atheists and theists alike share the misconception that there is an objective reality only expressed and only discerned by the five senses of sight, scent, taste, touch and hearing. They miss the point the Biblical writers make. The point is twofold.

Point one is that under ideal circumstances people do have the capability of discerning God in the material world through the five senses.

Point two is that most people most of the time cannot and will not accept the reality of God that comes to them through their five senses. The reason for this is the choice our species made to separate from God.

Separation produces distortion. In a state of separation we cannot and will not recognize the obvious. We reject and repudiate the very pattern of Creation.

Revelation emerges in the context of relationship. It is God himself who initiates the relationship.

God revealed himself to Moses and the Prophets as he invited them into a relationship with himself. The invitation to relationship is universal and unconditional. The record of scripture is that few people value the relationship enough to cultivate the relationship.

Jesus understands this completely. The co-eternal Son  of the eternal Father became a human being in part so he could demonstrate to us that he not only understands what it is like to be human but that he himself experienced what it means to be human.

Jesus knows we are lost. He experienced that terrible condition in the personal relationships he grew up in. His family, neighbors, friends all revealed to him the pain of separation, the distortions of sin, and the fear of mortality. Jesus also felt the pain, distortion and fear first hand as he died on the cross.

Whatever sadness or suffering or pleasure or joy you experience you can trust that Jesus experienced it on the cross as he absorbed human sin. As he absorbed human sin he experienced human sin. And, he transformed human sin.

Having accomplished transformation of separation back into unification Jesus now offers that unification to us as a gift. This is called by theologians : justification. We receive the grace of justification in the waters of baptism. This is the new life that Jesus gives us. It is eternal because Jesus as the Beloved Son of the Father is eternal.

Justification is a one time event in history and a one time event in our lives. The second phase of grace is sanctifying grace. Our heavenly Father infuses the gift of a new way of living into our souls by sending the Holy Spirit to live in our souls.

The Holy Spirit facilitates the new personal relationship we have with the Father through the Son.

The Holy Spirit helps us to transform our thoughts, emotions and will. It is as we mature in sanctifying grace that we achieve clarity of thought, purity of heart and singleness of will. The process itself makes possible the revelation.

The Bible is a closed book apart from the relationship. The Holy Spirit encourages us to read the Bible. As we make a real choice to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit He becomes our teacher. He directs us to study the Bible. He helps us to select the proper commentaries and dictionaries to understand the Bible. And, he inspires us to memorize the Bible.

The relationship releases the revelation from the power of separation.

Resistance to revelation is a consequence of separation. The Holy Spirit will help us to perceive our own personal resistance. The awareness of resistance is the first step to transforming the resistance.

Where do you resist the Real Presence of Jesus?

For some the distortion is primarily intellectual. An intellect lost in separation creates powerful images to block revelation. The Holy Spirit leads such an intellect into a personal experience of Jesus in order to dissolve those images and replace those images. The Holy Spirit never argues in the context of intellectual pride. He offers us a new way of thinking that is grounded in authentic and personal experience.

Some of us are lost in the distortions of our emotions. The Holy Spirit brings these feelings into conscious awareness in the context of Jesus’ universal unconditional love.  Fear, frustration, anger, anxiety and hatred are all distortions of peace and joy. The Holy Spirit will remind us of the healing presence and power of Jesus to transform those emotions.

Many of us are lost in our individual will to power. The individual will to power is that voice of the Adamic nature, the false self, that approaches life, other people and God from the demand: I want what I want and I want it now.

As our teacher and as the holder of the memory of who Jesus is, the Holy Spirit designs a unique program and process of sanctifying grace to identify and transform the individual will to power as we choose to express it.

The primary tools that the Holy Spirit uses in sanctifying grace are: the Bible, the sacraments, the church, other people.

Jesus just didn’t leave us with a book and tell us: here. Study this. Do what it says and you will be fine.

Jesus just didn’t leave us with a religious institution and say: here. Join this organization. Follow the rules and you will be fine.

Jesus sent the third person of the eternal Trinity to live in our souls. The Holy Spirit constantly infuses sanctifying grace to teach us the truth and to remind us that the very principle of truth is Jesus himself.

Revelation emerges in the context of relationship. The Holy Spirit sets us free to grow into the personal relationship the Eternal Father offers us through the co-eternal Son, Jesus  Christ.

 

 

Easter 7 (john 17:20-26) “Grant that they may be one.”

Unity in Christ is unity in love.

Our destiny is not to merge into God and lose our identity. Neither is it to so submit our will to divine will so that we lack our own will. Unity in Christ is the unity of pattern, plan and purpose.

Christ himself is the pattern.

In Christ God unites His divinity with our humanity in a single unique and particular person. Someone once commented to me that they believed that when Jesus ascended into Heaven he merged back into the unity of God the way a drop of water falls into the ocean and merges back in the vastness of the sea.

This is not what Jesus taught. The co-eternal Son became a particular human being in a moment of time. That incarnation is permanent and irrevocable. The Beloved Son of God is now forever in union with our humanity through a unique and particular person: Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the pattern. When we reunite to the Father through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we lose nothing. We become more of who God created us to be. We discover how unique we really are as we grow in grace in union with God and with each other.

As the pattern is Jesus so the plan is Jesus. God the Father always intended our species to enjoy the forever friendship of His Beloved Son. The Father designed us for unity in diversity.

We are all part of the greater whole of humanity. We are each unique as the personal friends of the Beloved Son of God. Our choice as a species to separate from God breaks the original unity in diversity God planned for us.

We no longer have the awareness our first parents shared. We no longer have the awareness of the Real Presence of God with us. Secular people assert that we just don’t need God. We don’t need God to explain nature. We don’t need God to provide an ethical system. We don’t need God to live well and happy lives.

This is a curious assertion from a civilization that endures massive disruptions through addictions, crime, violence, fear, frustration, anger, hatred and death. St. Paul wrote that the evidence of God’s real presence can be clearly observed in nature. St. Paul also writes that most people most of the time miss the obvious.

People then and now miss the obvious reality of God for one very simple reason. We chose to separate from God. In the state of separation we choose not to perceive the evidence of the reality of God. We actually redefine the parameters of the issue by speaking in terms of evidence for the existence of God.

Moses, the prophets and the apostles do not address the issue of God’s existence. They all report their personal experience of the real presence of God. In the context of that experience they reflect on how they, too, once wandered lost in the question of God’s existence. In the context of their personal experience of the real presence of God, they observe and record the many ways many people over the course of thousands of years miss the reality of God as they debate the existence of God.

God is. God is the uncaused cause of this universe of matter, energy, time and space, of this realm of cause and effect. What keeps people lost in fruitless religious, philosophical and ideological debates about God is the choice our species made and continues to make to separate from God.

Moses, the prophets and the apostles do not debate the existence of God. They report their experience of God. They record their observations about the human condition. And, they offer a consistent set of principles to explain their experience and observation.

The great culmination of this project is Jesus.

Jesus reunites God and Man in his own being. He is fully God. He is fully man. He is one with the Father in love. He is a unique personal and particular individual in love. His reality is the plan to restore each of us and all of us to the Real Presence of God with us.

Jesus is also the purpose. And, as with the pattern and the plan the purpose is love. It is the three fold manifestation of love that becomes real as we chose to make Sabbath worship, compassionate service and personal transformation the priority of our lives.

God always intended for there to be many different ways for us to express our common humanity. God never intended us to use that diversity to create division and conflict.

As the problem starts with separation from God so the solution begins with reunification in God. Jesus is that perfect unity in diversity that reveals and manifests the pattern, plan and purpose for us as a species and as unique and particular members of that species.

Since the pattern, plan and purpose is love the activating principle is choice. Since choice is the key Jesus prays for each of us to hear his invitation, believe his invitation,  receive his invitation and then experience his real presence.

The invitation Jesus offers to all people everywhere is the glory of man fully alive in the infinite and eternal unity in diversity of the Trinity and of the incarnation.

It is that unity in diversity Jesus reveals when he prays to the Father: Grant that they may be one.

Easter 6 (John 14:23-29) “I do not give to you as the world gives.”

Jesus is the superabundance of God’s love. There is no scarcity in Jesus. There are no limits to his gifts.

There is scarcity in the way the world gives.

When Jesus speaks of the world he is not referring to the planet. He is identifying the culture of scarcity that human beings create. The planet itself is rich with abundant resources. The human heart is narrow, constricted and fearful.

God creates abundance. Man creates scarcity.

The abundance of God is available to people at every possible level of human experience. The abundance of God encompasses material, emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual needs and desires. The scarcity man creates is by restricted access to divine abundance.

Scarcity proceeds from fear. The fear is that there will not be enough. The fear is that someone will take from me what I need and indeed what is mine and mine alone by right. The fear is that many perhaps most people are undeserving.

In this passage, Jesus reminds us that all abundance derives from love. The love of which Jesus speaks is the infinite and eternal love of God. It is not the conditional contractual love human beings practice. Jesus once said; God makes his sun to shine on the just and the unjust; God makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. This unrestricted divine abundance is anathema to most human beings most of the time.

Certainly, religious people in Jesus’ day believed only the righteous deserve the blessing. Only those who hold right belief and practice right action are worthy of God’s attention and favor.

Jesus is God telling us and demonstrating for us that divine love is universal and unconditional. Jesus is God telling us and showing us that none of us are righteous. All of us hold belief in the context of the distortion of sin. All of us practice good works in the context of an expectation for recognition and reward.

What made it so difficult for people to hear Jesus and receive Jesus was the universal unconditional love of Jesus.

One of my favorite bumper stickers reads: God loves everybody but I am His favorite.

Jesus reminds that God has no favorites. God shows no partiality. Jesus offers the infinite and eternal abundance of God to everyone.

The problem our species confronts is the problem our species creates. It is the problem of scarcity. That scarcity proceeds from the choice humanity made to separate from God. As we separate from God we separate from each other. As we separate from each other we define each other as unrighteous rivals for what we perceive to be limited physical and spiritual resources.

As we separate from God and from each other we separate from the Image and Likeness of God imprinted on our souls. We exist in this world with fear of this world.

Jesus offers a new life with a new way of living. The new life is the original blessing  of divine love. The new way of living is characterized by the original pattern of love. That blessing and pattern is the Peace of God which passes all understanding. It is a life of courageous compassion with the confidence in divine abundance.

Jesus also tells us that His Peace comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Peace of God is not detachment from life. The peace of God is full engagement with life in union with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is our Advocate who speaks for us and helps us identify where we need to transform the distortion of sin back into the original pattern of the original blessing. The Holy Spirit is our teacher who encourages us, inspires us, and equips us to read, study and memorize scripture.

Scripture reveals the original pattern of the original blessing in the experience of many different people over the course of thousands of years. As we study the pattern the Holy Spirit will apply the pattern to the way we live our lives here and now.

The world culture of scarcity produces an ideology of scarcity. That ideology of scarcity produces fear. Fear inevitably leads to conflict and conflict perpetuates death. For the world culture everything has a price and no one is ever secure.

Jesus breaks the cycle of separation, scarcity, fear, conflict and death by absorbing all of it and experiencing all of it on the cross. On the cross he transforms it by love back into love. On the cross Jesus pays the price.

The peace Jesus offers is not like the peace the world culture offers. The peace Jesus offers insures that there are no winners and losers. There are only the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. In that love there is abundance beyond imagination.