Transformation Meditations

Epiphany 5

2012-02-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 6 (Mark 1:40-45) “I do choose. Be made clean.”

Jesus could heal with a word. He could heal with a word because he is the incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God, the logos.

The Great Mystery of the One God is the Great Mystery of love. That love manifests in the eternal realm as The one Who loves (the Father), the one who is loved (the Son) and the love itself (the Holy Spirit).

The Apostle John reveals that the Beloved Son of the Father is the Word of the Father. The image is active, dynamic, creative, rational and passionate. It is not as though there was a time when God was silent and then spoke the word. There is no time in the eternal realm of the Divine. There is no before or after. There is only the eternal now.

God the Father eternally speaks the Word, God the beloved Son.

While this may or may not be interesting in and of itself, most people generally want to know what difference does it make. What difference does it make for my life? What practical help can it offer someone who is struggling to make ends meet, someone who is lonely, sad, or fully immersed in the pleasures and the pains of life?
It certainly made a big difference for the leper. No one could cure leprosy. Even the cause eluded scientists until very recently. There is a cure for leprosy now. For most of human history it meant suffering, exile and a lonely death.

Since no one knew the cause of the disease people feared it might be contagious. Lepers were seen as the living dead. They were exiled to caves outside the cities where they struggled to survive one more day before the inevitable. Death.
The Leper took a risk that day when he approached Jesus. By Law he was not permitted to come close to anyone. By law he was supposed to shout out: “unclean” if anyone came too close to him. What drew the leper to Jesus was faith. The leper had heard the stories of Jesus. He heard and he believed.

It wasn’t easy to believe without seeing. Healing leprosy was not probable. But, it was not impossible. The Leper probably remembered the story of the prophet Elisha healing the leper Naaman. Moses actually wrote into the Law a cleansing ritual for those who might be healed of the disease. The cleansing certified that the leper had indeed been healed and could return to his family.

On one occasion one of the prophets healed a leper by the power of God. On every occasion Jesus healed all who came to him. While he was on Earth Jesus spent the greater portion of his three year public ministry healing all manner of illness including leprosy. And, he healed with a word.

Jesus healed with a word because Jesus is that eternal Word God the Father eternally speaks. The Word is the expression of the very nature of God. That nature is love. God just doesn’t have love. Love is not just one of many attributes of God. God is love.

As the incarnation of God’s self-expression, Jesus reveals the meaning of divine love. That love is steadfast. It never alters due to external circumstance. Jesus never said: if you love me then I will love you. Jesus even loved those who betrayed him, falsely accused him, tortured him, and killed him.

Is your love steadfast? Or, is your love dependent on the external circumstances of your life?

Steadfast love comes only from God. We experience such love only as we reunite with God in Christ. In that unity we have the ability to make a choice to bring forth steadfast love.

The Leper was very perceptive. He believed Jesus had the ability and the power to heal. He also knew that the power is love. And, he understood that love is always a choice. So, when the leper breaks the Law governing lepers and approaches Jesus he says: ”if you choose you can make me clean.”

Jesus responds accordingly. “I do choose. Be made clean.” Love is a choice. Jesus always makes the real choice to bring forth love because Jesus is the physical embodiment of Divine Love.

The word of healing is the word of love. The specific word comes from the transcendent eternal Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.

There were many lepers in Israel who did not come to Jesus for healing. There were many sick people in the wider world of Jesus’ time that Jesus never met and never healed. Everyone in our world experiences illness. Sometimes we recover. Sometimes we don’t. Jesus loves them all.

As a particular man in a particular time and place Jesus could not meet everyone. The Holy Spirit universally and without exception invites everyone to choose life and to choose love. We, the church, are the continuation of the incarnation here and now.

Jesus wants us to continue his ministry among the people we encounter. The ministry is the outpouring of divine love and compassion. The ministry is grace.

It is only as we make the real choice to come to Jesus daily in prayer and Bible Study that we open our minds and hearts and wills to be immersed in divine love. It is only as we hear the call to worship and make a real choice to say “yes” to the call to worship that we reform our unique identities according the pattern of the Word.

Jesus is that eternal self- expression of God at work in the world today. He speaks through the Holy Spirit to all people. He speaks to us through the Bible and the sacraments. He wants us to take what we hear and experience and share it with others. He wants us to embody the Word that he speaks into our souls and become the blessing of that Word to the people in our lives.

That sharing can be as simple as a kind word for a harried clerk in a supermarket. It can be helping a child with homework and visiting an elderly person in a nursing home. It can even be giving someone the benefit of the doubt and refusing to repeat gossip. Human need is inexhaustible. Jesus gives us himself to help us meet some of those needs. It is always our choice to draw on that Love and to make that love real in another person’s life.

The infinite and eternal love that Jesus pours into our souls can become a blessing to others. Jesus in us and through us can meet some of those needs we encounter in others. That is the practical outcome of faith. It does make a difference what we believe and in whom we place our trust.

Faith is a choice. Love is a choice. The leper in his suffering and pain, in his isolation and distress, nevertheless made a choice to approach Jesus and ask for Jesus to make a choice to heal him.

We have the same choice to make. It is as we make the choice to place our faith and trust in the co-eternal Son of God that we grow in grace. It is as we grow in grace that we become open channels of grace to our family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances.

Sometimes people ask me: where is God? Where is Jesus? The answer is you. The answer is us. We are the real presence of Jesus in the world today. Our choice to live by grace through faith can release the power of the Word of God for our own transformation. In that transformation we can become the agents of Christ to our generation.

Jesus responded to the man’s need for healing by saying: “ I do choose to heal you. It is my choice and I choose to bring forth the light and life of Divine Love and Compassion. Be healed.” Jesus spoke the word and the word became the reality. The man was healed and rejoiced, giving thanks to God.

Candelmas 2012

2012-02-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Candlemas 2012 “When the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” (Luke 1:22-35)
Delayed obedience is disobedience. Disobedience is death.

The Law of God revealed through Moses is the Law of Life. The Law reflects the pattern, plan and purpose of Creation and our place in Creation. Mary understood this.

Mary understood this because Mary’s mind was saturated in the scriptures of the Old Testament. Mary knew this because her heart was aflame with love for God. Mary knew this because her soul was full of grace.

The grace opens the personality to the love. The love invites the person to make a real choice.

When we hear the law of commandments, do this and do not do that, we have a tendency to resist, rewrite or rebel. God never intended the Law to solve the fundamental problem that confronts our species. God always intended the law to act as a perfect mirror to our souls.

The Law shows us the standard of holiness God designed into the Creation. The Law convicts our conscience of separation from that standard. Then, the Law prepares us to receive God’s solution to the problem. The solution is not more Law or less Law. The solution is a person, Jesus Christ.

The law is always personal. It always asks us to make a choice. We choose our priorities in the light of the law. We choose our actions and our inaction in response to or in our reaction against the Law.

Where so many people in the long history of the Old Testament had said no to God’s Law, Mary said yes. Her yes emerges from the place of grace. Her yes proceeds from the well spring of love she cultivated in her soul.

Mary chose to travel to Jerusalem to offer the appointed sacrifice at the appointed place at the appointed time. The appointed sacrifice was two pigeons. The appointed place was the altar in the Temple at Jerusalem. The appointed time was forty days from the birth.

Mary did not argue with the particularities of the Law. She did not say: why 40 days? Why not 39 or 41? Why do I have to adjust my schedule to come ancient commandment? Why does it have to be two pigeons? Why not one or three? Why pigeons? And, why does it have to be at the Temple in Jerusalem? There are more convenient places than Jerusalem.

The pattern of obedience is faith. By faith Mary joyfully accepted the Law of her Purification and her son’s Presentation as an invitation to worship. The prayer of faith is: Heavenly Father, not my will but Thy will be done.”

Faith surrenders self-will to Divine will and discovers free will. Faith sets us free from fear to rejoice in the Real Presence of the Divine. The way of faith is the way of life. The way of life is the steadfast holy unconditional and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. We can only immerse ourselves in that divine love at the altar of sacrifice at the divinely appointed time.

The pattern of disobedience is pride. Pride says: ”I know better and I know best therefore my will be done.” Pride rejects Divine Will to assert self-will and discovers slavery to fear. Pride separates us from God, other people and the essence of our true selves. The way of pride is the way of separation. The way of separation is death.

Mary’s obedience to the Law of Moses did not merit her grace. Mary’s obedience proceeds from grace. God’s grace is the universal outpouring of his own divine nature to all people everywhere. It is that divine nature of unconditional love that brings forth both grace and Law to all people and for all people.

The Law reminds us of our separation from God. Grace interacts with Law to invite us to make a real choice to follow the way of faith. The faith releases the love that creates us, sustains us and transforms us.

The delight is in the details. It is in the particularity of the Law that we discover God present to us and for us in the details of our daily life. That is why St. Paul writes that the very unique aspects of nature reveal the reality of God for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

We no longer have the ritual Laws of Moses to guide us in the way of faith. The Temple no longer exists. The time of sacrifice was fulfilled on the cross. The principle behind the Law and undergirding the Law is eternal. The principle is steadfast holy unconditional sacrificial love made flesh in Jesus Christ.

The invitation to grace is the call to worship. For Mary and Joseph it was the Old Covenant Law of sacrifice and Temple worship: 40 days, at the altar of sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem with two pigeons offered to God by a Levitical priest.
For us, it is the New Testament reality of the Incarnation. It is the Real Presence of the Divine on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice in the offering of the holy Mystery of the Mass. It is a choice.

Moses calls to us across the millennia and says: Choose wisely. Choose life.
Mary calls to us and indeed prays for us from her place in the Church Triumphant and says: Choose Jesus.

Epiphany 4

2012-01-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 4 (Mark 1:21-28)
“On the Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.”

The seventh day is the day of Real Presence.

The Sabbath day completes the creation of the universe. The world is not complete until our Heavenly Father forms time itself according to the Pattern of the co-eternal Word, the Beloved, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in the universe of matter, energy, time and space. God the Father designed the Sabbath to remind of the reality of the Son.

Under the Old Covenant, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is the day of Real Presence. It is the day God the Father set aside and sanctified. It is the promise of the Father woven into the very fabric of the universe that he is with and he is for us. It is the time when the timeless touches time, hallows time and holds time in the pattern of the Beloved.

Holy Mother Mary taught her son that the Sabbath Day is the day the faithful hear the call to worship and assemble to immerse our minds, hearts and wills in the steadfast holy love of God. God the Holy Spirit issues the call to worship on the seventh day as the invitation to the marriage feast. It is an invitation to celebrate. It is an invitation to receive the blessing God designed into the universe so we can live the blessing and be the blessing to others.

Throughout the time of the prophets most people in Israel most of the time ignored the Sabbath. As they ignored the call to worship so they very quickly abandoned God. As they abandoned God their perception of the world and other people narrowed. They lost faith and lived by fear.

By the time Jesus came into the world most people in Israel most of the time attempted to keep the Sabbath. Sadly, they thought of the Sabbath as a Law to keep in order to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath.

They took a simple command to sanctify the seventh day and complicated it. The complication came in the desire to find the loop holes.

They understood that the Sabbath was a day of rest. They understood that they were called to stop work on the Sabbath Day. Sadly, they teased out the meaning of the command not to work and develop a way around the invitation to meet God at the time and place God appointed to meet them.

Once such work around was to sell their business to a Gentile, a non-Jew, for a day. The contract stipulated that the Gentile was obligated to turn the day’s profit over to the owner and to sell the business back to the owner on sundown Saturday. The Gentile would run the business on the Sabbath so the owner could keep the law and preserve his profit.

It was a law based solution to a fear based problem. The fear was lack of income if the business owner actually kept the Sabbath as God intended. Fear erodes faith. God created the seventh day to be a day of faith. Faith does not ask what is the minimum I must do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. Faith is the door way to an experience of the infinite and eternal love of the co-eternal beloved.

Law based religion sees only the burden of the Sabbath. Faith based religion sees the Sabbath as the invitation to experience the personal relationship with the divine in a moment of time.

The religious culture of first century Israel tended to hold the outward forms of the Law and miss the inward grace. Not everyone took this approach. Certainly there were some who perceived the joy of the Sabbath. Many others experienced the Sabbath as a burden.

It is no surprise then that Jesus would encounter demonic presence on the Sabbath in the synagogue. In a fear based religious culture there is a profound distortion of Divine Law and Divine Love that opens a door for the spiritual distortion of the fallen angels.

The fallen angels fell because they rejected love and holiness in order to seize knowledge and power. They chose to separate from God long before God created the material universe. In that choice they lost the truth of their own nature. They yielded their original purity to Lucifer and Lucifer repaid them by murdering their true selves.

The fallen angels are now burnt out remnants of their former glory. They are spirits of spite who hate God from whom they separated, Lucifer who betrayed them, humanity whom they envy and themselves for what they have by their own choice have become. They sealed their spirits in separation through pride and now exist in a state of what the poet John Milton once called “heroic despair.”

Fallen angels, demons, will use fear based religion to bully and intimate human beings. Their attitude is: If I’m going down I will take as many of you with me as I can. They cannot force any human being to do anything. They can use fear to deceive and manipulate people. On a rare occasion they can even take possession of a human being.

On that Sabbath Day in the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus manifested the Real Presence of the Living God on earth. Jesus fulfilled the very pattern of the Sabbath. In that pattern, Jesus brought the grace of God to all assembled. Jesus assured the people that there is no condemnation in God.

The people were astonished at Jesus’ teaching. There is no fear in Jesus. There is only infinite and eternal love. It was that love that our first parents Adam and Eve rejected. It was that love the fallen angels abandoned.

The demons possessing the man in the synagogue cried out in fear and anger as they recognized the Real Presence of God in Jesus. They had known his glory once in the Heavenly realms. They had abandoned him then in a vain effort to acquire his power. They now feared he would use that power to destroy them.

Love cannot co-exist with fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Jesus is that perfect love the fallen angels made an original choice to reject. They would not and could not embrace that love and so they fled from that love. Jesus released the man from the demonic powers by the Real Presence of Divine Love on the Day of Real Presence.
Everyone in the synagogue that day experienced the reality of the seventh day. The reality of the Sabbath is Jesus himself. The reality is the grace of God activated by the faith of people through the love of Jesus. Sadly, not everyone chose to enter into the joy of that reality through faith.

Jesus liberated the possessed man from the demons. Some saw his action as a manifestation of a superior knowledge and power. Some envied that power. Some coveted that power. Some reacted with an even greater fear of that power. Some responded by faith.

The seventh day of Real Presence in the New Covenant is the day of resurrection. The principle is still the same. It is the Day God the Father invites us to meet God the Son at the altar of sacrificial love to be transformed by God the Holy Spirit. It is the day God himself designed and created as the day of grace. It is the call to live by grace through faith.

It is the day of perfect love that transforms fear into faith. It is the blessing of the infinite and eternal touching time and transforming time.

On the Sabbath day Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. He taught that God just doesn’t have love God is love. The demons fled from that love. The spiritually oppressed found liberation in that love.

It is on the Sabbath Day of real presence Jesus meets us and completes us and sets us free to be the love of God.

Epiphany 3

2012-01-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 3 (Mark 1:14-20)
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel.”

The time is fulfilled.

All things in this world and of this world have a beginning, a middle and an end. The birth of Jesus is the end of one phase of human history and the beginning of another. It is the end of the prophetic age. With the arrest and execution of John the Baptist the prophetic age ends. After John, there are no divinely appointed prophets.

With the death of the last of the prophets, human history moves into the Church Age. As Jesus calls people to follow him he begins to train the leadership for the Church.
The Church Age is also the Kingdom Age. The Kingdom of Heaven has come in to the world through the incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God, the Beloved. In Jesus, God the Father offers all people everywhere the gift of a new life and a new way of living. The Kingdom of Heaven is that new life and new way of living.

The church is the body of Christ, the continuation of the incarnation. As we each individually unite with Christ in baptism we receive the new life of Christ to become the body of Christ on earth in our specific culture and generation. Jesus wants the Church to continue the mission he initiated when he lived on earth in person.

The mission is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It is the call to receive the gift of reunification with the Father through the Son. It is the call to enter a way of living characterized by personal transformation in thought, word and deed by the Holy Spirit.

The process of transformation is the new way of living Jesus offers. And the pattern in the process is repentance and faith.

In the process of transformation, Jesus shows us where we need to change. He shows us our particular sins. Those sins can be willful, ignorant and even inherited.
Willful sin is active rebellion against Divine Law. Divine Law is the impersonal aspect of God present in the world. Divine Law is revealed in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are Divine Law. During Lent we recite the Ten Commandments every Sunday to remind us of Divine Law.

All particular sins: lying, cheating, stealing, bullying, gossiping and all the others- are distortions of an original virtue. Lying is a distortion of Truth. God created us to tell the truth. The distortion of the virtue of truth into the vice of lying is a result of the original choice our species made to separate from God.
That separation killed a portion of our spirit and has left us all in a state of profound spiritual pain. It is the pain that distorts the virtues into vices. And it is the way of living from the place of separation that leads to our tendency to rebel against Divine Law.

The spiritual pain of separation is the defining power of the old life. The love of Jesus is the defining power of the new life God gives us.

The distortion of virtue into vice through particular sins is the way of living that proceeds from the old life. The transformation of vice back into its original virtue through repentance is the process of the new way of living.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of our complicity in a particular sin. Then, He invites us to repent, to say: “Yes, this behavior is contrary to God’s Law. I am sorry. I want to change”. Finally, he offers to transform the desire to sin into a desire to choose God’s standard of holiness. Then, the Holy Spirit actually transforms particular sins back into their original virtues.

Love is the foundation that infuses the new life into our souls. Faith is the substance that facilitates the choice to repent and transform.

Jesus calls all people everywhere to receive the gift of reunification with God the Father. The call to reunification is the invitation to salvation.

Once we make a real choice to receive the gift of salvation, reunification with God, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit into our souls to help us unravel the many distortions of thought, word and deed that we call sins.

There is willful sin. There is also the sin of ignorance. Sometimes we just don’t realize how our actions and attitudes are so damaging to our souls and to other people. We say: well, that’s just the way I am and God accepts me just as I am.
Jesus comes to you as you are. He loves you as you are. He offers the gift of salvation to you as you are. And, he sends the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, to show you where you need to change in order to live the new life of divine love and compassion. He reminds that nothing of the old life can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Nothing of the old way of living can continue in the Kingdom of Heaven. The more we resist the active ministry of the Holy Spirit in the call to repentance and the power of transformation the less we will enjoy the new life Jesus gives us.

There is also inherited sin. This is the pattern of culture that forms the way we think and how we see the world. The Bible is very clear that all human culture is distorted by sin. From time to time the Holy Spirit will ask us to examine our cultural assumptions about God, life, other people and ourselves.

The time of the Kingdom of Heaven is now. It is not a future event we are preparing for. The Prophetic Age was the age of preparation. The current age is the Kingdom Age. In this age Jesus calls us to continue the reality of the Incarnation by receiving the gift of reunification with God in Him. We become who call created us to be and calls us to be as we yield our self will to Divine will through repentance and transformation.

The way forward in this Kingdom Age is by grace through faith. The Way forward for the Church as the Universal Body of Christ and for each of us as particular members of the universal Church is faith. Faith activates the power of the new life. The power of the new life is the real presence of infinite and eternal love in our souls. That real presence is Jesus.

Our Heavenly Father has fulfilled the time. Therefore receive the gift of a new life in Jesus. Make a real choice by faith to repent of your particular sins and allow the Holy Spirit to transform those sins back into their original virtues.

Epiphany

2012-01-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 2012 (Matthew 2:1-12)
“They saw the young child with his Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him.”

Where is God?

Who or what is God?

People sometimes assert that if God is real He is distant and silent. The people who wrote the Bible had a very different perspective. They summarize the “mystery” of God by observing that God is constantly revealing himself to us in a myriad of ways.
The problem is not that God isn’t speaking to us. The problem is that we are not listening.

One of the most highly educated Biblical writers is St. Paul. He told the people of his day that in every generation and in every nation God provides a witness to his reality and his identity.

The wise men, the three kings, were Chaldeans. They were not descendants of Abraham. They were not even descendants of Judah. They were pagan astronomers and mathematicians. They used math to understand the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars. And, they used their understanding of celestial mechanics to form calendars, clocks, engineering and philosophy.

They practiced science and applied science through the very ancient principle: “as above so below.”

Ancient peoples believed the reality of the divine manifested meaning and purpose to the realm of humanity through the movement of planets and stars. This belief found expression in four ways: science, philosophy, religion and superstition.

The science of ancient astronomy helped farmers understand the seasons and helped engineers create massive public buildings.

The philosophy formed an explanation for the mathematical order of nature in the concept of the logos. The logos is the pattern, plan and purpose that gives form to the order in the universe.

The religion attempted to regulate and restrain the tendency in human nature to ignore and rebel against this fundamental order that is infused in the natural world.
The superstition is the active rebellion against reason that seeks a hidden and secret meaning through knowledge and power. At the risk of offending anyone, astrology is a blend of polytheism, mysticism and occult speculation that re works the math and science of astronomy into a fanciful system by which people seek to acquire power through so called secret knowledge.

The Chaldeans were both astronomers and astrologers. They held reason, faith and superstition in a delicate balance. God spoke to them where they were and invited them to make a journey to a more complete understanding of who God is.

God initiated the journey for the wise men. He got their attention as they stood in their observatory in Babylon and pondered the appearance of a bright star.

In that star they recognized the pattern, plan and purpose of the logos, the very word of God. They traveled west to the place of the prophets. As with most educated people of that time and place they were familiar with the Old Testament observations of human behavior and human belief. They did not follow the star in total ignorance. They did follow the star with a mix of reason, faith and superstition.

They perceived the word of God. They paid heed to the word of God. They sought the advice of religious scholars in Jerusalem. Those scholars told them exactly what they needed know to complete their journey.

The scholars gave them the missing piece to the puzzle. From the revealed word of God in the Bible the scholars in Jerusalem directed the Chaldeans to travel to Bethlehem. It was in Bethlehem that they found what they were seeking. They found Mary. They found Jesus. They found and were found by God.

God does not leave himself without a witness. In every age and in every culture and for every person the Logos continually and consistently reveals himself. Some times he reveals himself in the beauty and order of the natural world. Sometimes he reveals himself in the patterns of math and science.

For the Chaledeans, he attracted their attention in a star. Then he directed them to Jerusalem to consult the scriptures. Finally, he spoke to them through the religious scholars to complete the journey of faith to meet Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem.
God speaks to all people everywhere in a myriad of ways to lead us to faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the word of God, the logos, in human flesh. Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose of life. God speaks to us where we are and always leads us to his Son, Jesus.

The reality is not the science, the philosophy or the religion. Those are the instruments God employs to help us in our journey to the reality. The reality is a personal relationship with the living God in the living Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus finds a lost and rebellious humanity in his own person. He gives us the gift of eternal life through reunification with God. He meets us where we are, loves us as we are, and offers to transform us by his own infinite love to be more fully and completely who God created us to be.

That is why the Chaldean wise men, the three kings, honored Mary and worshipped Jesus. All who seek the truth find the truth and they find the truth in Jesus Christ.

Epiphany 2 (John 1:43-51) “Follow me”.any 2

2012-01-12T09:25:00.001-08:00

Epiphany 2 (John 1:43-51) “Follow me”.

Jesus is God’s invitation to a new life and a new way of living.
Epiphany season reminds us that life is a journey. It is a journey through time as we age. It is a journey through space as we leave home and make our own way in the world. It is a journey of discovery.

The new life in Jesus derives from the very nature of God. That nature is love. That love is infinite and eternal. The journey Jesus invites us to choose is a pilgrimage of exploration and delight in love.

In Jesus God finds us and calls us where we are. Through Jesus God reveals himself to us and offers to walk with us. We become more of who God created us to be as we make a real choice to cultivate the friendship God offers to us in Jesus.
Jesus is the way human beings can discover more about God, more about human nature, and more about our own unique identity.

Certainly, Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Nathaniel all heard the invitation to follow Jesus as a personal invitation to enter into a new life and a new way of living through a new relationship.

At first, the relationship was of a teacher and a student. The three sets of brothers who heard Jesus were intrigued by his teaching. As with many people of their generation they were deeply religious but frustrated and confused by contradictory and competing claims to truth. They asked the question: which is the right religion? They also asked: who is the right teacher? What is the truth? How can we know the truth?

They thought Jesus would answer those questions. They weren’t prepared for the answer Jesus brought. They were looking for an answer in an institution, a set of laws and rituals, and in the categories of culture.

Jesus lived within that religious system and its expectations but he brought something radically new to the question. Jesus presented himself as the answer to these and other questions people were asking.

Jesus didn’t command people to follow a set of rules, perform a set of rituals or submit to one particular political agenda. Jesus said: follow me. Follow me.
Only Jesus could issue such an invitation. Only Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh. Jesus issues the invitation with a mixture of infinite compassion and deep humility. The invitation “follow me” respects the process of choice God gives to every being God has created to experience love.

The most amazing, awesome and indeed terrifying import of Jesus is that He holds each of us in the center of Divine Love. He meets us where we are in time, in space, in culture and as individuals. His presence reveals to us that the activating principle of love for all created beings is real choice.

The testimony of Moses and the prophets is the reality of real choice. We are personally responsible to complete our own creation though the choices we make.
God the Father created us according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit. That pattern is open ended, creative, active dynamic. As beings created by love, through love and for love we have the real choice to follow the principle of love in the path of love. We are responsible to complete our own creation by following the path of love.

It is a real choice. The vast panorama of Biblical history shows us how our choices enter into the world of cause and effect and produce a result, a consequence.
Jesus is the very pattern of love. His invitation to follow him is a more particular and personal expression of the call to worship revealed in the first four of the Ten Commandments.

Jesus is God up front and personal. Jesus is God making his appeal to us to accept personal responsibility for our lives.

Those first disciples of Jesus heard the call and made a real choice to respond to the call. Their understanding was limited and in many ways distorted. They would need to learn to think in different categories. They would need to grow and mature. It was a process that began at a single point in time and continues forever. It continues forever because Jesus is forever.

Jesus himself is the answer to the question: what is truth? The answer appears, unfolds and evolves in a personal relationship.

Nathaniel made a real choice to listen to Jesus and to respond to Jesus. Jesus assured him that choice was pivotal. Through that choice to follow Jesus, Nathaniel would discover greater things than he had ever imagined. He would discover the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in a particular person at a particular place in a particular time.

The call to worship is the call to salvation. The call to salvation is the call to find ourselves in the center of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ.

For Nathaniel and his brother Philip it was a call to spend the next three years following Jesus on his mission to preach, teach and heal. It was a journey that led the brothers to Jerusalem and Jesus to the cross. It was a journey that seemed to end tragically. That tragic end became a glorious new beginning.

For Nathaniel and Philip the journey led to the ends of the earth in the outpouring of apostolic evangelism in the first century.

In every generation and in every nation Jesus continues to invite people to follow him. As we make a real choice to follow Jesus we enter into a new relationship. The challenge of that relationship is the challenge of where we place our priorities, where we devote our time and attention.

The challenge of following Jesus is the choice to follow where he leads. He leads us to the alar of sacrifice in worship. He leads us to discipleship through Bible study and prayer. He leads us to service through acts of kindness, compassion, and fellowship. He leads us to participate in the proclamation of the Good News that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

Our response to Jesus sets the pattern and purpose for our lives here and now and forever.

Jesus calls to us today as he called to Nathaniel. Follow me. Follow me into the Real Presence of Divine Love and Compassion at work in the world today. Follow me and become the active dynamic creative love of God at work in the world today. Follow me.

Holy Name of Jesus 2012

2011-12-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

The Holy Name of Jesus 2012 (Luke 2:15-22)
“He was called Jesus.”

Love and love alone is salvation.

Our Heavenly Father named his incarnate son Jesus. This is the name the archangel Gabriel announced to Holy Mother Mary at the moment of the incarnation.
The angel brought the Father’s message to the holy mother to name her son Jesus. Jesus means savior.

The people of that time looked for a savior. The Romans looked to the emperor to save them from political chaos. The Greeks looked to philosophers and scientists to save them from ignorance. The Jews looked to a messiah to save them from Roman imperialism and Greek polytheism.

The Romans feared political instability and so reacted by creating a immense and powerful imperial system.

The Greeks feared ignorance and so reacted by creating highly complex and diverse philosophies.

The Jews feared the loss of their identity and so reacted by creating rigid and restrictive religious systems to purify the people for the Messianic leader who would destroy the corrupting influences of Rome, Greece, and unrighteous Jews.

Each civilization felt a great and overwhelming fear. Each civilization attempted to express that fear in ways they could understand, manage and control. Each civilization drew back from the cause of that fear. The cause of that fear is separation from God. The outward and visible sign of separation is death.

Death is the fear that people do not want to name. It is beyond our control. It is beyond the influence of politics, philosophy or religion.

Jesus came to save all people everywhere from the power of death.

Jesus saves all people everywhere from death by making a real choice to embrace death on the cross. For every who has ever lived or will ever live the embrace of death is fearful and final. For Jesus, death is a distortion to be transformed.

Jesus just doesn’t conquer death or destroy death. Jesus saves the entire human species from death by willingly embracing death. The embrace of Jesus is the embrace of a love that is infinite and eternal. In that embrace Love transforms death back into life. In that embrace love transforms fear back into faith.

Jesus saves us from fear and death through Love. Only Jesus has this love because only Jesus is this love. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of God the Father who is love.

Jesus is the universal savior for all people because Jesus is the transcendent pattern by which the Father created all people.

Jesus is not only the source of life he is the meaning and purpose of life. God the Father creates every human being through God the Holy Spirit to be the unique and forever friend of God the Son, Jesus, the Beloved.

Jesus is the Father’s gift to all people everywhere. Jesus is a true gift and a real gift. Jesus came to earth as a helpless infant to reassure a fearful humanity that he holds in his sacred heart only grace and compassion.

There is no condemnation in Jesus because there is not condemnation in God. There is no condemnation in God because God just doesn’t have love- God is love.
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There is no compulsion in the universal savior. Jesus offers himself to us as the one pure holy gift of divine love and compassion. The active principle of love is choice.
Jesus offers salvation to all people everywhere with no condition and no restriction. Salvation is Jesus. Only Jesus has embraced sin and death and transformed it back into love and life. Only Jesus has faced fear, embraced fear and transformed fear back into faith.

The call to worship is the call to reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

The call to worship is the universal invitation to all human beings everywhere to receive the gift of divine love and compassion, to find a new life in that love, and to be transformed by that love.

The call to worship is the name Gabriel delivered to Mary and Mary joyfully gave to her son. It is the name of love himself. Love and love alone is salvation.
The name of love is Jesus.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-23T10:23:00.001-08:00

Christmas 2011 (Luke 2:1-14)
“Fear not; I bring you good tidings of great joy.”

The great mystery of Christmas is Jesus Christ.

In Jesus God the Father united God the Son with human nature.

God became as we are so that we might become as God is.

The Christmas angel announced to the shepherds and to the world: fear not. This world and your lives are neither random nor meaningless. There is no condemnation in God. The Good News the angel brought to the poorest of the poor that night echoes throughout the centuries to all people everywhere.

The great joy of Christmas is that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

Where so many people ponder the question of whether God exists or who God may be, God himself answers that question once and for all, fully and completely. The answer is Jesus Christ.

In the infant of Bethlehem we see how the co-eternal Beloved Son of the Father set aside his omnipotence and omniscience to become one of us. Fully God and fully human. A particular man at a particular time in a particular place to reveal the infinite eternal real presence of Divine Love and Compassion for all of us and to each of us.
Jesus is the transcendent Beloved of the Father. Jesus is God with us and God for us in the manger with Mary and Joseph, the animals and the shepherds, the kings and the angels.

Jesus is the real and personal love of God for everyone. Jesus excludes no one and welcomes everyone to receive the gift of eternal love. That love has no beginning and will have no end. As we make a real choice to be found by that love and to immerse our souls in that love we reclaim the Original Blessing our species once rejected.

In Jesus God calls us to be who He originally created us to be. God the Father calls us to be the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ. Jesus fills us with that infinite love and compassion who is eternally the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus, God finds us wherever we are. In Jesus God found Mary and Joseph in the working class town of Nazareth. In Jesus, God found the shepherds in the fields. In Jesus God found the three kings in their observatory pondering the vastness of the universe. In Jesus God finds each of us where we are here and now.

The Christmas angel proclaims: Feat not. God is real. God is love. God is personal. God is Jesus Christ for you and forever. Amen.

Advent 4

2011-12-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

Advent 4 “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.” Luke 1:26-38)

It is important to know who you are. It is even more important to know whose you are.
When the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary he used the formal greeting of the time. The Latin equivalent is “Ave”, Hail. The archangel recognized who Mary was and whose she is.

From scripture we learn that Mary was a young woman, a teen. We see that even as a teen she memorized scripture. And, we have evidence from Mary’s actions that she made worship in the Temple a priority.

Mary was one of the working poor who paid high taxes and lived in a state of constant fear. The working poor feared the Roman occupation army. Even more than the Romans they feared the Tax Collectors Rome hired to bring revenue to the Empire. And, they feared the religious authorities who used their position and power to intimidate and bully the people through a religion of legalism and submission.
People frequently allow the sufferings and the uncertainties of life to define them.
Mary lived in a culture of fear but made a real choice to cultivate the three virtues of faith, hope and love.

Mary made a real choice to use the grace God pours out on all people to define her very being. She chose so completely to immerse her soul in grace that the archangel described her personality as being full of grace.

Grace is a gift. It is a gift of the Real Presence of the Living God. It is a gift not a command. The Bible is very honest in its observation that most people most of the time reject the gift. We reject the gift to preserve our separation from God. In that separation we trade the blessings of God for the illusions of power, prestige, position, possessions and pleasure.

The rich seek more money.

The powerful seek more power.

The poor and dispossessed are paralyzed by fear.

Mary made a different choice. Mary chose to receive the gift and define her life by the gift.

The gift of God is God Himself.

A fundamental principle of scripture is that human beings do not seek out and find God. God seeks out and finds us. Our choice is not formed by our initiative but by our response to God’s intiative.

Mary is the penultimate personality in the plan of salvation. Where so many people for so many centuries said no to God Mary said yes. Where so many people insisted on their right to define God according to their needs and desires, Mary simply acknowledged the core truth of Creation: Behold, I am the Lord’s servant.

The way of Mary is the way of grace. It is the way of faith. It is the truth that God seeks us and finds us.

The issue is not which is the right religion. The issue is not whether every religious and spiritual path is a valid way for human beings to seek God. The issue is how we choose to react or respond to the active dynamic Real Presence of God seeking us and offering us Himself in Jesus Christ.

Mary chose to set aside her fear so that she could experience faith. Mary chose to surrender her self-will to Divine Will so that she could receive God’s gift. Mary used the grace of God to transform the pride of separation back into the original blessing of union with God. Humility is the chalice of the Original Blessing.

Mary sought no position and exercised no rule. She lived and breathed and moved in the grace of God. In that grace she chose the way of faith. In that faith she immersed herself in divine love through worship. And, in that love she fulfilled God’s call for her to become who God created her to be. She became the hagios theotokos, the holy mother of God.

The joy of Mary is that from the moment of his conception, Jesus was fully human and fully divine.

The life of Mary is largely a life of quiet obscurity governed by her care and nurture of her son. God the Father entrusted Mary to bear and raise Jesus because Mary lived from the place of steadfast holy love.

The sorrow of Mary begins as Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism and enters a public ministry that ended in his betrayal, arrest, torture and execution.
The glory of Mary is the reflected glory of the resurrection: the victory of eternal love over death.

The ministry of Mary was to enlighten the teen age apostle John about the ineffable Mystery of the person of Jesus Christ.

The Queenship of Mary, depicted for us at St. Luke’s in the reredos over our altar, is the Queenship of humility, compassion, and the witness of a soul filled with the superabundance of grace and immersed in the infinite and eternal love of God.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent we honor Mary as the person who discovered her true self in the love of God by grace through faith.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent Holy Mother Mary asks us with all compassion and humility to give up our search for meaning, purpose, self and God so we can discover that is it God who is seeking us. It is God who has found us and reveals to us our true self and true purpose in Jesus Christ.

Mary said and continues to say: let it be. Let God be God. Let us each surrender to the Great Mystery of eternal love made flesh in Jesus Christ. Be who God created you to be. Be the living chalice of grace filled with grace. Discover who you are in Christ and then be who you are and whose you are in Christ.

Holy Mother Mary pray for us that we may rejoice in the midst of sorrow and discover the glory of who God created us to be in the proclamation: behold I am the Lord’s servant may it be unto me according to God’s Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Advent 3

2011-12-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Advent 3 “Make straight the way of the Lord.” (John 1:6-8, 19-28)

The straight way is the way to the Real Presence of the living God. It is not a religion it is a relationship. The relationship is with Jesus Christ. The relationship is characterized by love and compassion. And, it is a relationship initiated by the Holy Spirit in the call to worship.

There are many detours along the way. There are no short cuts. Short cuts make long delays, as JJR Tolkien once wrote.

When John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, preached to the people of Judea and Galilee there were three main detours off the straight way of salvation.

For the Romans, power was the detour and war was the short cut.
For the Greeks, knowledge was the detour and cynicism was the short cut.
For the Jews, religion was the detour and legalism was the short cut.
At the risk of offending any one, I suspect that for contemporary Western Civilization the love of money is the detour and self indulgent pleasure is one of many short cuts.

The true prophet of God has the clear sight to discern these detours and short cuts. The Holy Spirit provides the clarity. And, the Holy Spirit directs the prophetic message with two words: repent and prepare.

John the Baptist had the unenviable task of announcing to a very religious culture that they had missed the mark. They maintained the outward and visible signs of religion whist rejecting the inward and spiritual grace.

John’s call to repentance attracted huge crowds. His message stirred the emotions of thousands of people. What John could not do was to change the hearts of those multitudes. He understood the dynamic of the crowds. People might enter into the waters of repentance today and the quickly forget their promise to God by evening. The religious leaders might listen to the message in silence even as they considered how to use John to maintain their position and extend their influence.

John knew his time was short. The true prophet usually does not live long. The true prophet tells people we are lost and in a state of rebellion against the Divine Plan, pattern and purpose of Creation. People in general and people with religious and political power don’ t like that message.

The lost do not want to be found. The rebellious strike back and strike back hard when a true prophet speaks the true word of God.

John’s purpose as the last of the prophets is to prepare the way for the Messiah, Jesus Christ. John calls people to recognize their sin, to repent of their sin, and to understand that the problem of sin runs far deeper than any prophet or religion can reach.

The problem confronting humanity is our choice to separate from God. The solution is to prepare for the One whom God sends into the world to save us from sin. That salvation comes as a gift. It is the gift of reunification with God the Father and transformation in God the Holy Spirit through a personal relationship with God the son.

The straight way to salvation is modeled for us in holy mother Mary’s response to the message of the archangel Gabriel. It is a response to grace by faith summarized in one word: yes.

The call of the true prophet begins with the urgent invitation to consider where we say no to God and how we say no to God. Where are we moving into a detour off the straight and narrow road of salvation? How do we seek the short cuts of self will to tell God what we demand of him?

Jesus is the unity of divinity and humanity. He the second Adam- the pattern of a new life and the purpose for a new way of living.

During Advent we have the opportunity to consider the prophetic call to make our path to God straight- unencumbered by sin.

The straight way is the way of Holy Mother Mary who said: Behold, I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be unto me according to God’s word.
The straight way is the way of the apostle Paul who declared: for me to live is Jesus Christ.

The straight way is the way of the apostle John to whom God the Holy Spirit gave the name: beloved of the co-eternal Beloved.

The straight way is the way of unconditional love.

The last of the true prophets calls us to consider where have chosen detours and short cuts. His call is to return to the royal road of Divine Love and compassion. His call is to walk the pathways of this life with Jesus Christ.
His call is: “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

Advent 2

2011-12-02T05:42:00.000-08:00

Advent 2 “Prepare” (Mark 1:1-8)

The true prophet proclaims one message in two words: repent and prepare.

The call to repentance is the invitation to consider the fundamental problem that defines the human race. If you misunderstand the problem the solution our Heavenly Father offers makes little or no sense.

The call to repentance is the invitation to look into the perfect Law of God. It is as we perceive ourselves, our attitudes and actions, in the perfect mirror of the Law that we recognize sin.

Sin, however, is not the root of the problem. The prophets encourage us to ask questions. Through the prophet Isaiah God says: come let us reason together. Think. Ponder. Question. Dialog.

The logical question to ask ourselves when we look into the perfect Law of God and recognize sin is why? Why do I sin? Why does everyone sin?

The Bible offers a unique answer to this question. It is an answer that leads to another question. The reason why all people sin is because in each of us our reason, emotions and will are distorted.

More often than not we use our reason to rationalize sin. We experience an emotional attraction to sin. And we use our will to rebel against God and to compete with and fight against other people.

The next question is where did these distortions come from? The Bible offers an answer to that question as well. It is an answer grounded in the observation of human behavior spanning several thousand years, Distortion comes from pain. It is a deeply rooted all pervasive existential pain that we are born with.

If we are born with this pain where did it come from? This question takes us to the source of the problem. Deeply rooted existential pain comes from the original choice our species made to separate from God. The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church calls this choice “Original Sin.”

Original Sin is the real choice our species made to separate from God. Separation plunges our spirit into profound existential pain. That pain distorts the way we think, feel and make choices. Those distortions cause sin. The end of the process is death.

The true prophet calls people to recognize the reality of sin, the process of sin, and the origin of sin. As far as I can tell, almost every religion teaches actual sin. No religion other than Christianity teaches Original Sin.

If Moses and the prophets are correct in their observations of human behavior and human nature, there can be only one solution to the problem. The solution is Jesus Christ.

If Moses and the Prophets are correct in their conclusions about the human condition then our species is not only lost in Original Separation, we are lost and do not want to be found. We separated to avoid the Living God and we are willfully and rebelliously lost in that separation.

If this is true, then the moment Jesus came to earth he would meet opposition, redefinition, rejection and death. And, that is exactly what happened.

If this is true then the second prophetic word completes the first. The call to repentance is the introduction and foundation for the call to preparation.

What is it that the prophets ask us to prepare for? It is not the Law. We already have the Law and fail to keep it. Is it religion? There are a multitude of religions and an even greater number of denominations, sects and cults generated by those religions. The prophets declare human religion is distorted by the same process of sin that distorts our mind, heart and will.

The prophetic call to repent identifies the problem. The prophetic call to prepare identifies God’s solution to the problem. The solution is Jesus Christ.

Sadly, just as people rejected the call to repentance by killing the prophets then encapsulating a distorted image of the prophets in religious structures, so people rejected the call to prepare for the coming of the holy Beloved. Instead, they prepared for the coming of a Messianic Caesar. They prepared for the wrong person and the wrong plan because they incorrectly identified the problem.

Jesus knew this. He knew what he would find in his generation. He understood the problem better than anyone. He knew that a species lost in separation is also lost in religion, politics, economics, philosophy, culture, self-will, fear and pride.
The lost do not wish to be found. We are found only in the person of Jesus Christ. In Jesus God unites His divinity with our humanity. It is that union that God finds us and makes it possible for us to receive reunification with the Way, the truth and the life of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.

On this 2nd Sunday of Advent the Holy Spirit is calling us to prepare our minds and hearts and wills to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. In that birth we celebrate the holy Beloved of God who seeks the lost, finds the lost, and rescues the lost.
Repentance and preparation are two sides of one coin.

The Holy Spirit encourages us to ask the questions that can bring clarity to our thoughts, purity to our hearts and unity to our will. The question is: who or what do you prepare for this Advent season? Are you already caught up in the Santa celebrations? Are you preparing to celebrate the cleverly devised myths or the transcendent reality of the Living Lord Jesus Christ?

When Jesus was born into the world the world did not know him. The world did not want to know him. They were preparing for someone and something very different. Advent is that time when we have the opportunity to reflect on our religious lives and our spiritual needs. It is a time of quiet in the midst of a time of activity and distraction. It is a time of real choice.

The true prophet call out “Prepare!”

The Holy Spirit calls to us: Prepare for the holy Beloved of God. Make the pathways of your mind, heart and will straight in the light and love of Jesus Christ. Enter into the new life of grace. Enter into the new way of living by faith. Make a real choice to believe in Jesus. Make a real choice to receive Jesus into your soul. Make a real choice to prepare for the birth of the co-eternal Beloved of God.

Advent 1

2011-11-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

Advent 1 “Keep awake!” (Mark 13:24-37)
Jesus sets us free to be.

The imperative to keep awake is the call to the present moment.

Jesus understood time more completely than anyone who has ever lived or will ever live. In his pre incarnate form Jesus is the pattern by which our heavenly Father created time, space, matter and energy.

The Beloved of the Father voluntarily left the realm of the eternal to enter the world of time. Jesus entered time to seek and to find a people who are lost in time.
How is this possible?

The Bible presents a clear and consistent record of how most people most of the time simply do not pay attention to the world as it is in the present moment.

Moses encountered this aspect of human nature throughout his ministry. When the people lived in slavery in Egypt they longed for deliverance and cried out for the future Messiah to come quickly. When Moses led them out of Egypt into the desert the people forgot their plea and would only complain that they no longer had the food and comfort of their past lives as slaves back in Egypt.

The persistent preaching of the prophets called people into the present moment of the Sabbath, the day of divine Real Presence. It was a call to worship most people most of the time ignored then, and continue to ignore now.

Moses came to understand how the people chose to live for a future paradise or a past pleasure. The prophets were dismayed to realize that the people largely abandoned the Real Presence of God for the illusions of philosophy and the memory of past glories and future pleasures.

The Bible is very clear. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Now. Not yesterday or in the distant past. Not tomorrow or in the distant future. That is why Jesus teaches that the signs of his return are fulfilled in that generation. Nothing needs to happen before Jesus returns.
Jesus could return at any moment.

Because Jesus could return at any moment it is folly to try to predict let alone announce the exact date. Of that time and of that hour no one knows, not even the angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows the time and the hour.
Jesus warns against the folly of predicting the future and admonishes us to be wary, to keep alert and to keep awake. The teaching is to wake up, pay attention to what is. Live in the present moment.

Philosophers and psychologists often observe that many people sleep walk through life. Many people live by default rather than by conscious intent.

We sleep walk through life by adopting an easy routine, the path of least effort and least resistance. We live by default by accepting without question the conventions of our culture and the expectations of other people. As we do this we disconnect from the reality of the present moment. We allow past fears or anxiety about the future to set our priorities and form our lives.

The invitation to keep awake is the call to make a real choice to live by conscious intent in the present moment here and now. The best and only way to live most fully and completely in time is to hear the call to meet the at the time and place of worship.

This is how Jesus lived and moved and experienced time. He formed his life in the here and now of the present moment by attending to the eternal now of the eternal Sabbath Day of Real Presence. In Jesus the timeless touches time as the eternal God unities his divinity with our mortal humanity.

It is as we make a real choice to immerse our souls in the timeless touch of Real Presence that the eternal sets us free from past fear or anxiety about the future. The timeless touch of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice liberates us from the tyranny of time and the tedium of time to live most fully in the present moment: now.

It is the perfect love of the incarnate co-eternal Beloved who releases us from the bondage of past fear into the ineffable joy and wonder of the present moment. It is the Beloved who has come to earth and promised to be present to us on the Seventh day to assure that the future is safe and secure in the everlasting arms of our Heavenly Father.

Jesus sets us free to be.

Jesus sets us free from fear and anxiety to be exactly who our Heavenly Father created us to be. From God’s perspective we are the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. It is only our stubborn insistence on wandering in the wilderness of past fear or in the anxiety of future distress that blinds us from this reality.
During this Advent season the one holy catholic and apostolic church invites us to experience a new life in the midst of the present moment. The first step in this new life is what Jesus teaches us today. Keep awake.

Pascal, the French scientist and philosopher, once commented that all of man’s problems can be traced to his inability to sit still in silence for five minutes. Pascal understood how the sin nature perpetuates humanity’s original choice to separate from God.

As a species we are lost in separation. We perpetuate that separation by choosing to be lost in time. We remain lost in time until we make a real choice to be found in the present moment of the here and now.

Set aside time to encounter the eternal. This is called meditation. It isn’t easy. It requires a choice and a commitment. Make a conscious intent here and now to set aside five minutes a day to sit in silence. You may choose to hold your intent before God in the words of Psalm 62:1 “For God alone my soul in silence waits.”

It is in the real choice to meet the co-eternal Beloved in a moment of silence that we discover how we are lost and where we are lost. The fundamental challenge is that our sin nature does not want to be found. The great promise of God in Jesus Christ is that through the incarnation God has already found us. All we need to do is say: yes. All we need to do is to say what Holy Mother Mary said: Let it be.

Let it be. Be who you are. Make a real choice to enter into the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ in the present moment of the eternal “Now”. Wake up to who you are in Jesus Christ.

And, once you wake up keep awake in the Present Moment with the conscious intent to be the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 2012 “Do not worry.” (Matthew 6:25-33)

Gratitude is the antidote for worry.

My grandfather frequently quoted this scripture to me when I was a child. He would always add an addendum. Don’t you worry- your father worries enough for the whole family. That’s his job.

One of the consequences of Original Sin, the choice our species made to separate from God, is the distortion of thought that produces worry. Through the pain of original separation our brains forms structures that some people identify as threat assessment mechanisms.

The brain in a state of separation and distortion constantly scans the environment for threats. Not only does it passively scan for threats, it actively runs scenarios to test for threats.

And so if someone says something like “I missed you at the meeting last night” the brain will run scenarios to determine if that statement is a criticism, a judgment or a threat.

When we worry, we experience a mental process that produces an emotional result. The brain is preparing the body to run away or to fight if there is indeed a threat. It’s called the flight or fight response. There is a third response called “freeze” where action is paralyzed.

The brain produces a certain level of what Psychologists call “negative self-talk.’ This “negative self-talk” can be very inconvenient and annoying. It is what Jesus wants to heal in us.

Jesus knows all of these things about us. He is the original pattern of human nature. He knows how original separation produces what some philosophers and psychiatrists call “existential pain.”

The Bible is a record of how that existential pain creates distortions in our thoughts, emotions and will. It is those distortions that result in sin. The end result of sin is death.

Jesus just doesn’t say: “don’t worry; be happy”. He tells us how we can heal the distortions that result in worry. And, he not only tells us he shows us. And, he not only shows us he offers to infuse our souls with the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the healing.

On this Thanksgiving Day 2011 we remember how the Christian founders of this nation drew on the divine love and compassion of Jesus Christ when they set aside a day of national thanksgiving. They knew, they chose and they experienced the transforming power of the Living Lord Jesus Christ. They commended that transforming power to the nation as the way of gratitude.

Worry produces anxiety and fear. Worry molds us to live defensively and experience our daily lives as a constant threat that demands fight, flight or freeze.
Gratitude, thanksgiving, resets the mind, heart and will to their original pattern and proper function.

Thanksgiving resets the direction of our lives by the compass that points true north. In the spiritual life true north is Jesus Christ.

Consider your many blessings. Consider family, friends and neighbors. Ask the Holy Spirit to infuse in your soul a new and transforming attitude of gratitude.

Jesus’ ardent and passionate desire is for all of us and each of us to experience life as a journey to celebrate. And so, on this Thanksgiving day Jesus teaches and encourages and empowers us in the word of God: do not worry. Seek first the kingdom of God. As you do that the Holy Spirit will set you free to celebrate life and to enjoy the amazing blessings of life.

Christ the King Sunday 2012

2011-11-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

Christ the King Sunday 2011
(Matthew 25:31-46) “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

How we treat other people reveals the state of our soul.

Jesus goes so far as to say how we treat the least, those who are different, those who are disadvantaged, reveals how we treat him.

Jesus is not speaking of a point system of credits and debits by which we earn a place in the kingdom of heaven. He is speaking of relationships.

What the Bible teaches is that life is about relationships. Moses, the prophets and Jesus reveal that there are three orders of relationships for human beings. The first and most important relationship is with God. The second is how we treat others and the third how we treat ourselves.

What reveals the inner most nature of our souls is the attitude and action we bring forth in our relationships.

As we relate to other people we can choose to bring forth indifference, intolerance, aggression, or compassion.

The people at the final judgment are surprised by the standard.
They expect a checklist based in credits and debits. They expect a standard grounded in performance and results that has nothing to do with attitude. Much to their, and perhaps our, surprise the standard is love and compassion. The question Jesus wants us to ask ourselves here and now before we appear at the judgment seat is: how do I love?

Jesus himself is the answer to that question. How did Jesus love? How does Jesus love?

As we study the life of Jesus Christ we see that first and foremost Jesus loved unconditionally. He loved everyone- even his enemies, even those who abandoned him and even those who tortured and killed him.

Jesus was able to love unconditionally by a real choice to immerse his mind, his heart and his will in the will of God the Father by staying centered in the Divine Presence of God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the union of divinity and humanity in a single individual who manifests the infinite love of God in a particular time, at a particular place in a particular person.

Jesus reveals the universal love of God one person at a time.
Jesus is the universal love of God for each unique person in a unique way.
It is as we make a real choice to reunify with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit that we have access to the infinite unconditional love of God. And, it is as we make a real choice to immerse ourselves in the Real Presence of divine love that we are set free from sin to express compassion.

Sin always kills. Divine love always transforms death into life.
Religion without love is abomination. Religion without compassion becomes either rigid and judgmental, or sentimental and amorphous. Apart from the constant input of divine grace to transform our souls, we stagnate. As we stagnate we hide from the truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Some people hide from Jesus in religion. Some hide in science. Still others hide in self-indulgence. That is why at the last judgment Jesus says: I never knew you. Jesus does not hide from us. We hide from him.

Jesus says I never knew you for I was present to you in the child you abandoned and abused. I was there to you in the people you judged unworthy of food. I was there to you in the people you defamed and bullied. I was there for you but you turned your back on me. You hid in the illusion of self will and now you are lost in that illusion.

I was hungry and you did not feed me.

Hunger is the scandal of a species unwilling to practice compassion. Hunger is the product of souls in a state of self will, fear pride. The starvation of over a billion people on this planet is the outward and visible manifestation of the spiritual state of our species. People starve for their daily bread because our species hides from God and is starving spiritually in the illusion of the will to power, the demand of the soul to dominate other people, nature and even God.

We at St. Luke’s cannot feed a billion people. We can help to feed some of the needy here in the Newtown area. We can do this as we make a real choice to enter into the Way of life Jesus demonstrated.

The steps are very clear and practical.

First: surrender judgment. Give up the illusion that we have a right to judge other people as less worthy than we are.

Second: ask the Holy Spirit to convert the demand of self will into the true freedom of divine will. Make it part of your daily prayer life to say: Heavenly Father, not my will but Thy will be done.

Third: During the four weeks of Advent give up the insistence to have everything done your way. As you come to the altar of sacrifice to receive the gift of divine life ask Jesus to release you from the distortions of sin.

Jesus does not ask us to submit to Law. Jesus asks us to surrender to Love. As we surrender to divine love we are transformed by that love to live and move and have our being in that love. We meet Jesus in the lives of the people God created in His image. And, Jesus meets us through those people in such a very simple and direct way that Jesus says:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

Pentecost 22

2011-11-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

Pentecost 22 (Matthew 25:14-30)
For to all those who have more will be given.

The underlying principle of the parable of the talents is “use it or lose it.”
In Biblical times a talent was a unit of money. A silver talent was worth a year’s wage for a day laborer. The man in the story is both incredibly wealthy and incredibly generous. He has a great deal of trust in his servants. And, he has high expectations for their productivity.

The word “talent” passed into English through this passage. The word shifted in meaning as people pondered the meaning of the parable. We no longer use the word “talent” to refer to a unit of money. We use the word to describe natural gifts and abilities.

In the parable the rich man gives different amounts of money to his servants according to their abilities. The man expects his servants to use the money productively. And, he recognizes each servant has his own strengths and weaknesses that will affect his productivity.

Two of the servants take the gifts and use them wisely. They double the investment. The master returns after a long absence to settle accounts. He commends the wise servants for using their natural gifts and abilities prudently and productively.
The third servant doesn’t use his gift at all. Through fear he hides his gift of one talent and simply returns it untouched and un used. The master confronts the unproductive servant and tells him that he could at the very least have opened a secure savings account and received a modest interest.

The parable is not a lesson in finances. It is also not teaching that we earn God’s favor, God’s grace.

The parable is a lesson about our response to God’s grace. The master represents God. Within the context of the parable He gave each of His servants amazing gifts few people would ever receive. He gave the gifts judiciously, taking into account each person’s unique abilities.

The Bible is very clear that God pours forth his grace, his unmerited favor, to everyone. God even gives each of us unique capabilities by which we can, if we choose, use the gifts.

The point of the parable is our choice to respond or to react to God’s grace.
Money is the ideal symbol for the process of unfolding grace because money is frozen energy. People invented money to quantify the value of time, talents and work. Units of money are units of the life force frozen in place. Money can reveal to us what we truly value. And, money can enter into the life of grace to produce an abundance of blessing.

The difference between the productive and the unproductive servants is the distinction between faith and fear.

St. Paul teaches that we reunify with God and are transformed by God through grace through faith. The operating force is choice. God pours forth his grace to all people in Jesus Christ.

The parable raises the vital question: how do we each respond or react to universal grace?

Do we make a real choice to receive the grace of God by faith? Will we use our natural abilities with understanding and wisdom to unlock the frozen energy of our souls? Do we see life as an adventure to explore?

It is as we choose to respond to God’s grace by faith that we experience the release of the frozen energy of our lives. It is as we use our talents that those talents expand, grow, and mature into the abundance God has placed in them for us to experience and for us to bring forth into the world.

The alternative to a response of faith is a reaction of fear. Fear paralyzes the soul. Fear locks the soul in stagnant life force that produces sin. Fear is always self-absorbed and self-justifying. And fear always erodes faith by spite.

Jesus teaching is very clear. We all have different abilities and different talents. God does not expect us to manifest gifts we simply do not have. God passionately desires for us to take the gifts he has given us and use them by faith.

The actual quantifiable result is less important that the process involved. The process opens our minds and hearts and souls to experience a greater degree of grace. It is as we practice our faith in the daily choices we make with what we have and where we are that we release the frozen energy of our lives.

The servant with five talents used his talents and doubled them. So did the servant with two talents. The blessing is not in the numbers. The blessing is in the process of growth and maturity. The blessing is in the joy.

A good question to ask yourself is: where am I experiencing joy in my life? Does my service to God produce joy?

The joy comes as a natural consequence of a life lived by grace through faith. If your service produces fear, anxiety, frustration and spite you need to step back and ask the Holy Spirit two questions. Where am I not in truth? Where am I not in love?
Those who choose to use grace through love expand their ability to experience grace through love. For to all those who act from the place of self will, fear and pride even what they have will collapse into stagnation and fail to bring forth a blessing.

But, to those who act from faith in love even the abundance of God’s gifts to them will increase, grow and mature into a wealth of blessing and a never ending fountain of joy.

For to all those who have more will be given.

All Saints Sunday 2011

2011-11-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

All Saints/All Souls Sunday 2011 “
The blessings of God are infinite and eternal.

The blessings of God are infinite and eternal because they are an infusion of the infinite and eternal love of God into our souls.

The saints are the saints because they came to understand this principle and to act on this principle. They are blessed because they said “yes” to the blessing our Heavenly Father offers all people everywhere in the ordinary events of life.

God is working his purpose out in our world. God is working His purpose out in the circumstance of our lives. God never promised to annul the folly of human sin. The world is structured according to the laws of choice, cause and effect, and consequence. God does not use magic to cancel the laws that he formed to govern the universe he created.

He does promise to transform sin back into virtue in the Real Presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ. He does promise that despite the bad things that happen in this world He is working to bring all things back to their original perfection.
How does this happen?

Jesus gives us some very profound and difficult teaching on the subject of blessing in his sermon on the mount. In this sermon, Jesus reveals to us the Great Mystery of salvation. That Great Mystery is counter intuitive to most if not all people.

Ponder for a moment the words Jesus uses to complete the statement “Blessed are.”
The people who gathered to hear him that day would have expected something very different. Based on their experience, their values and the way they had been taught to practice their religion they would have expected something like:

Blessed are the rich because God has rewarded them with an abundance of money.
Blessed are the happy because God has rewarded them with pleasure.
Blessed are the strong for God has rewarded them with the power to dominate other people.
Blessed are those who know they are righteous for God has rewarded them with positions of importance.
Blessed are those who condemn the unrighteous for God hates those who they hate.
Blessed are those who refuse to compromise for God rewards their narrow minded dedication to ideological purity.
Blessed are those who conquer and destroy their enemies for God gives victory over the unrighteous.
Blessed are the righteous bullies who impose their will on the weak and foolish for God rewards their perfection by helping them dominate other people.

These are the “beatitudes” those lost in separation from God expect and seek. They are grounded in the will to power of the sin nature.

The blessing of God reaches out to the lost, lonely and broken souls of our world with a very different message. You are most blessed when you are most vulnerable. You are most blessed when you recognize your need, your poverty, your hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose… for God.

The righteous are not those who stand before God filled with pride of accomplishment. The blessed are not those who manage to accumulate wealth, power and position.

The righteous are those who hear the invitation of God to enter into a personal relationship with Him in Jesus Christ. The blessed are those who hear and believe the words of Jesus when he says: I am with you always.

The Blessing of God is the Real Presence of God in Jesus Christ.

God does not bring poverty and suffering into our life. We do that both individually and as a species when we chose to violate the triune law of Love and bring forth those choices into the world of cause and effect.

Jesus perfectly fulfills the triune Law of Love within the context of the laws of choice, cause and effect and consequence. Jesus is the answer to the question so many people ask from time to time in the midst of tragedy: where was God?

Jesus is the Real Presence of God to the poor, the mournful, the meek, the hungry. Jesus is the Real Presence of God to those who embrace the blessing of God and become the blessing of God as the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.
Jesus invites all people to receive the blessing of His Real Presence, to live the blessing, and then to become the blessing. More often than not, we reach for the blessing in a moment of pain and in a moment of need. It is then the Holy Spirit can reach past the distractions of our possessions and pleasures to show us our true spiritual state and our prodound spiritual need.

No one is born a Christian. We are made Christians by a choice. No one is born a saint. We make choices that open our minds and hearts and wills to receive God’s blessing. It is as we make that choice to value the blessing God offers that we experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to live from the place of blessing.

Where is your greatest need today? Where is your sorrow? Where is your pain? It is there that our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to offer you the blessing of personal transformation in the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ.
The purpose of God’s blessing is three fold. God wants to reunite you to the eternal life of the Holy Trinity. God wants you to experience the joy and wonder of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in your daily life here and now. God wants you to be a blessing of love and compassion to other people.

The saints were those who made a choice to reject the demands of the sin nature and to receive the blessings our Heavenly Father offers all people everywhere in all the circumstances of our lives. They weren’t perfect. They simply met God where God offered to meet them. They met God in both the pleasures and the pain of this life. They yielded self will to divine will in a moment of grace.

The saints lived the words Jesus spoke to the crowds and speaks to us today: blessed are you.

Pentecost 20

2011-10-25T09:21:00.001-07:00

Pentecost 20 (Matthew 23:1-12) All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Heaven is humility. Hell is pride.
Heaven is humility because heaven is a personal transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.
Humility is above all else teachable. The soul that seeks to practice humility recognizes that God is love and that love is infinite and eternal. There is always more to learn and more to celebrate. Even St. Paul with all of his knowledge and insight could only say: now we know in part. There are no experts in the kingdom of heaven. There are only students.
Humility helps the soul value Jesus above all other things and people in this world. Humility also assists us in treating other people with kindness and compassion. Humility actively seeks ways to immerse itself in the love and holiness of Jesus Christ through worship, Bible study and prayer. Humility never asks: what is the minimum I must do to get what I want. Humility asks the Holy Spirit for that next step in grace to savor the beauty of holiness.
It is the virtue of humility that enables us to forgive people we think may have sinned against us. And, it is the virtue of humility that empowers us to give other people the benefit of the doubt. The greatest challenge and the greatest joy of humility is to place another person’s interests first. We can do this only as we practice the relationship our Heavenly Father gives us through Jesus Christ. The Christ centered soul can let go of the demand to be right and the demand to impose its will at all times, in all places and over all people.
The religion of Pride is the corruption of humility. It is the defining characteristic of the souls in hell. Pride can be religious or secular. The pride of the religious results in the exaltation of the self. Its voice is: my will be done. It brings forth a demand to other people: do it my way. It stands before God and asserts the right for a reward.
Pride is the collapse of the soul into a tightly compressed set of fears and demands. Pride sets very specific, rigid and inflexible boundaries on what God can do, will do, and must do. It sets the boundaries on other people and even itself. Pride becomes more brittle and self limited as it succeeds.
The worst thing any person can experience is success in pride. Such success exalts the power of original sin. That power is separation. It is present in each of us, in all of us. The extent to which we are unwilling to compromise and practice compassion reflects the degree of dissolution and death we choose to bring into our souls.
My mother used to tell my three brothers and I when we jostled for position in the family or at school: the only thing worse that not getting what you want is getting what you want.
Success in the demand of Pride is failure on the path to Heaven.
The saints understood this very well. They all came to a place in their lives where they recognized the danger of self will, the danger of successfully getting what we want when we want it. The saints understood that the demand of self will is the defining characteristic of a two year old child.
The Pharisees functioned with the consciousness of two year old children. The child wants what he wants and he wants it now. The child is fine when he gets what he wants. He can be charming and even productive. But, don’t cross him. The child has no toleration for frustration or restraint.
The Pharisees looked good on the outside. They had impeccable religious credentials and degrees. They worked hard to gain these credentials. Insofar as they taught the word that God had revealed to Moses they offered understanding to their students. But, they lacked wisdom.
They lacked wisdom because they did not practice the virtue of humility that the Bible says defined Moses. They held the outward and visible signs of the Plan of Salvation but would not and could not practice the inward and spiritual grace.
The more successful the Pharisee in asserting his will to power the more narrow his vision became, and the more fearful his heart. Every soul in Hell is trapped by its own success in bringing forth the demand: my will be done.
Jesus gives us the solution. The solution is humility.
My grandfather often quoted President Coolidge when people challenged him. It is said of President Coolidge that he answered his many critics with the words: you may be right.
St. Paul reminds us: now we know in part.
Since we know in part we can never legitimately say: do it my way. The Pharisees not only believed but trained themselves to know they were always right and everyone else was always wrong. In that knowledge they bought forth arrogance and cultivated pride. They exalted themselves and humiliated other people.
Jesus invited them to reexamined their attitude. They were so close to the solution. They could be so productive in their own way. Only their own success kept them from a personal encounter with the Living God.
The exaltation of the soul through the demand of self will always leads to hell. Only the transforming power of divine love and compassion can rescue us from that path, the path of self-destruction, and restore to us the path of life.
Where do you need to give someone you disagree with the benefit of the doubt? Where are you reacting to life, other people, even God from the consciousness of a two year old child? When was the last time you allowed someone else the luxury of being right? Where are you willing to practice the humility that says to God: not my will but your will be done?
The path to heaven is the way of humility. It is the reality of Jesus’ statement: All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Pentecost 19

2011-10-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 19 (Matthew 22:34-46) You shall love.

Love is not just an option- it is an imperative.

The different religious groups in Jesus’ day challenged him on many different points of belief and behavior. The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife. They challenged Jesus for teaching the resurrection.

Jesus did not debate the merits of theological speculation with the Sadducees. He simply affirmed: God is life. God is the God of life, not death.

The Pharisees believed in the resurrection but only for the righteous. Resurrection was a reward for right belief and right behavior. The Pharisees wanted to know for sure what the minimum requirement was to earn God’s reward and avoid God’s wrath.
And so, after Jesus answers the Sadducees question about the resurrection, the Pharisees ask Jesus to tell them what he thinks is the greatest law. By the context we understand their question proceeds from their assumption that in order to earn the right to be resurrected you must fulfill certain laws. So the question in context becomes: which law is the bottom line requirement for God to reward us with the resurrection?

Jesus answers the question by quoting Moses. The quote is part of the basic creed of Judaism, the Shema. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One; and, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. Then, Jesus adds a command from the book of Leviticus: you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Jesus answers the legalistic Pharisees by quoting the Lawgiver, Moses. And, Jesus summarizes the law with a single command: You shall love.
You shall love God, other people and yourself.

You shall love God with all of your heart (you emotions), all of your soul (your personal identity) and all of your mind (your intellect). The imperative to love is different from the lists of dos and don’ts- the “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”.
It is not something you can do once and then place on your balance sheet to claim a reward. The call to love has no place on the balance sheet of credits and debits, rewards and punishments. We don’t do good works in order to get love and obtain a reward. The love itself, or rather Himself, produces the good works and is Himself the reward.

Love is an ongoing process of transformation of an attitude that produces a set of actions.

Love is a choice.

The source of love, the active dynamic creative power of love, is outside the various biochemical reactions that produce the sentiments of love. The source of love is God. God is love.

Jesus is the incarnate co-eternal Beloved of God the Father. The Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Divine Love in our midst.

The imperative to love is the Father’s call through the presence of the Holy Spirit to embrace the Beloved, Jesus Christ.

Jesus answers the question: “which is the greatest commandment” in the words of Moses. Moses experienced the reality of God in the burning bush and in the ineffable Shekinah Glory of God on Mount Sinai.

God’s revelation to Moses is: I am who I am. God’s command to Moses is: since I am who I am I call you to become who I have created you to be. I call you in love, through love and for love to be the beloved of the co-eternal beloved.

The various laws God revealed to Moses are presented to us to show us that the problem we as a species embody is separation from God. No matter how hard we may try we cannot obey the Law. We, like the legalistic Pharisees, look for the minimum requirement and devote our energy to creating the loop holes to get the maximum credit for the minimum effort. We like the people of Moses’ generation rebel against the law and insist on asserting self- will over Divine will.

The Law convicts us that we need something more. We need something different. We need something more personal and even more intimate. We need Jesus.

Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved in human flesh. He is the original pattern of the Law. He is the ultimate purpose for the Law. He knows the answer to the Pharisees’ question and indeed their deepest longing and most profound fear. He knows this because He himself is the Plan for humanity.

The answer to the questions the Pharisees asked is in the nature of God and the pattern by which God the Father created each of us. The answer is Jesus Christ.
Hear the answer again. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind. All means all. It means perfection. That is the standard of the Law, the pattern of the Law and the plan of the Law.

Jesus allows for no minimum. Jesus allows for no loop holes. Love is personal. The subject of love is also the object of love. It is Jesus Himself. Jesus is the particularity of the infinite and eternal love that is God.
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The point is that we cannot keep the law by our own will. We cannot keep the skeleton outline of the Law revealed to Moses in the commandments. We cannot keep the fleshed out fullness of the law made manifest in Jesus Christ.

We can receive the gift Jesus offers us: reunification with God the Father and a new life and a new way of living in the transforming Presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Father’s invitation to immerse ourselves in the very essence of the Divine. That essence is infinite and eternal love.

For us, Love is an imperative.

The imperative comes from Moses and it comes from the prophets. It comes through the very call to salvation in the word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It comes in the call to worship.

Jesus not only issues the call he makes it possible to fulfill the imperative. Jesus is the infinite and eternal love of God reaching out to each of us with the transforming power of love.

Our part is to make a real choice. Our part is to make a choice to surrender self- will to divine will. Our part is to ask Jesus to change the way we think, the way we feel, the way we make choices so we can become the unique person God the Father created us to be.

The resurrection is not a reward. Reunification with God is not a right. They are gifts that come to us as we embrace the One whom God sent into the world to embrace us. We cannot submit to God to earn his love. We can only surrender to the wonderful gift of his love in Jesus Christ.

Jesus not only summarizes the Law in his answer to the Pharisees, he summarizes the plan, pattern and purpose for our existence. You shall love.

Pentecost 18

2011-10-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 18 (Matthew 22:15-22)
“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
Fear limits choice.
Fear narrows and restricts choice to one of three emotional reactions: aggression, submission or withdrawal.
Faith transforms fear into love. That love is infinite and eternal. That love expands choice. That love is Jesus Christ.
The Pharisees feared Jesus. They feared him because they could not understand him. And, they feared him because they would not understand him. They refused to ask open and honest questions that might lead to understanding because they were convinced they had the right knowledge that would produce the right actions that would gain them divine approval and avoid divine wrath.
They lived and moved and expressed their being from within a well developed religious system that gave them what they valued most: power, pride, position, prestige and pleasure. They had invested their time and energy to defend that religious system against all other sects within Judaism and all other religious systems in the wider world.
Jesus never challenged their religion. He did challenge the assumptions and the values that supported their religion.
The Pharisees feared Jesus because they recognized he was speaking to a problem they refused to believe existed. The Pharisees identified the problem in terms of knowledge and power. They narrowed the practice of religion to those categories and produced extensive lists of belief and behavior by which they could justify themselves and condemn everyone else.
The Pharisees knew they were right and everyone else was wrong. They did not need to question their assumptions. They refused to consider any fact that might contradict their ideology.
Jesus spoke and acted from the place of divine love and compassion. That place is the place of personal relationship with the infinite and eternal. That relationship is active, dynamic, expansive and creative.
Strangely enough, the relationship Jesus offers works well within the broad outlines of the religion the various sects of the day claimed to follow. Jesus spent every Sabbath in the synagogue to hear the reading of the Bible. Jesus observed the liturgical form of worship in the Temple in fulfillment of the Law of Moses.
The challenge the Pharisees brought to Jesus reveals the nature of their fear.
First: they did not approach Jesus in person. They sent their disciples, their students. They probably reasoned that the students would appear to be less threatening to Jesus and Jesus would let down his guard. It was what we might call today a passive aggressive attack.
The Pharisees thought in terms of power and dominance. They assumed everyone else, including Jesus thought in the same terms.
In addition to their religious students, the Pharisees sent the Herodians. The Herodians were a political party who favored collaboration with Rome. Normally, the Pharisees would not associate with the Herodians. But, for their plan to trap Jesus to work they had to set aside their contempt for the Herodians and make a temporary alliance. The alliance was based in a very old principle that says: the enemy of my enemy is my friend…for now.
They approach Jesus with a false reverence that uses flattery to set the stage for the trap. They build up his reputation in order to spring the trap.
The trap in the question relies on a very narrow vision of life. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, to Caesar?
The Pharisees could only see two possible answers to that question: yes or no. If Jesus said yes then the vast majority of people who resented the tax would be angry with Jesus and accuse him of being in collusion with the Herodians. If Jesus said no then the Herodians would report him to the Romans as a revolutionary and Jesus would be arrested for sedition.
It seemed like the perfect trap. It probably would have worked had not Jesus been who he was.
Jesus is the master of the third alternative.
Jesus is very aware of the hypocrisy inherent in law based religion. We miss the more profound religious significance of the question and of Jesus’ answer because we live in a secular culture that prides itself on separation from a religious world view.
The key to understanding this event lies within the first four of the Ten Commandments God revealed to Moses and Moses carved into the stone tablets. There is only one God. Humans are forbidden to make and worship statues that purport to solidify God. Humans are forbidden to blaspheme the Name of God. God has appointed every seventh day to meet us in worship.
Jesus asked to see the coin by which people would pay the tax. Then Jesus asked a question: whose head is imprinted on the coin? Whose title is inscribed on the coin?
The religious leaders of Jerusalem made life difficult for the Romans by their strict allegiance to the first four commandments. Roman soldiers stationed in Judea could not display the symbols of their faith, the images of their guardian deities. The soldiers had to cover up the symbol of the empire, the eagle, on their standards. And, the Romans would not enforce the law that required all citizens and subjects to make a yearly offering of incense to the divinity of the Emperor.
Despite all of these scruples, the Pharisees used the Roman money on which the image of the emperor was imprinted and the divinity of the emperor affirmed. There were some religious sects within Judea that refused to use the Roman coins. They lived in separate isolated communities and did not participate in the economy.
The hypocrisy of the question was in the willingness of the Pharisees to break their own rules concerning idolatry, blasphemy and worship when it came to money. They used Roman money in order to participate in the Roman economy and acquire wealth. They paid their taxes lest the Romans arrest them for tax evasion and treason.
Jesus’ answer to the question redirects the students and the Herodians to consider their values and priorities. For the Pharisees, this question was a trap. For Jesus, this trap was a teaching moment. It was in fact a moment of grace by which Jesus could encourage the listeners to ask a more profound question.
It is obvious the Roman coin belongs to the Emperor of Rome. He issued it and it bears his image and title. What then are the things of God. What bears God’s image and title?
The students were amazed at Jesus’ response but unwilling to enter into their moment of grace. They react to Jesus by withdrawing from him. They asked their question from the place of pride and aggression grounded in fear. And it was from the place of fear that they reacted to Jesus’ answer. They were so close. In fact, they were too close. They did not want to understand Jesus from the place of grace.
They withdrew in order to defend their pride and self-will from the potential for seeing life, other people, Jesus and God from a new perspective. They chose not to consider who Jesus was and what he had to offer.
They knew the first part of Jesus’ teaching: “render unto Caesar” because that is where they had made the necessary compromises of their religious scruples. They refused to consider the second part of Jesus’ teaching: “give to God the things that are God’s.”
What are the things that are God’s? The answer to that question lies in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus not only teaches but lives the reality God revealed to Moses. God created human beings in his image and likeness.
As the Roman coin bears the image of the Roman emperor so the human being bears the image of God. Even more specifically, God the Father imprinted the image of God the Son in our souls. By the power of God the Holy Spirit, the Father imprints the pattern, plan and purpose of the Son in each of us.
That pattern, plan and purpose is steadfast holy unconditional love. That love manifests in three fundamental ways: worship, service to others, personal transformation in grace.
Jesus is the personal incarnation of Divine Love inviting us back into the relationship we as a species rejected.
What does God want us to offer him? Jesus embodies the answer: reunification and transformation.
The religious leaders had just enough understanding of Moses and the Prophets to realize Jesus was inviting them into a new life and a new way of living. He was asking them to examine their priorities. He was asking them to change the way they lived their lives and practiced their religion. He was asking them to move beyond a closed system of laws into an expansive dynamic and creative relationship.
That choice can be frightening. Change is never easy. Changing religions is far easier that entering into the new relationship Jesus offers.
The new relationship is the new reality Jesus offers each of us as we hear his words: give to God the things that are God’s.

Pentecost 17

2011-10-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 17 (Matthew 22:1-14
“The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

What we think about heaven reveals what we truly value.

Norse mythology viewed heaven as a place where warriors feasted and fought. Aztec mythology viewed heaven as a field of flowers where the faithful were reincarnated as butterflies to sip the nectar of immortality.

One of our recent confirmands told me he didn’t want to go to hell but was worried that heaven might be boring. I suspect he understood heaven as an ethereal cloud where people wore long white robes, played the harp and sang hymns.

The preeminent image of heaven used in the Bible is a wedding.

The pattern for a wedding in Bible times has four parts: the betrothal, the promise, the celebration, the consummation.

First, there is the betrothal. In the ancient world, and until relatively recently in human history, marriages were arranged by parents when the children were still very young. The parents made the arrangements and signed the marriage contracts.
Children grew up knowing that at a certain age they would marry a certain individual. Usually, they never met their fiancé until the marriage ceremony took place.

The marriage ceremony was a very formal time honored set of prayers, rituals and promises that honored God, the tribe, the family and the couple.

Following the marriage ceremony was the marriage feast. Everyone in the village or town was invited since it was a celebration for the entire community. Marriage feasts often lasted several days. It was the joyful duty of the father of the groom to pay for the feast and make sure everyone had the opportunity to have a good time.
The celebration ended with the families escorting the bride and groom to the bridal chamber and leaving them alone to consummate the marriage and begin their new life together as husband and wife. The newlyweds usually moved in with the groom’s family where the bride would learn the family customs and religious traditions.

Jesus uses the image of the wedding feast in new and exciting ways. In this parable, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven in terms of a royal wedding.

Perhaps some of you watched the recent royal wedding in England that was televised worldwide. This was a very public ceremony that involved the entire nation and by all reports the entire world.

A royal wedding is a joyful occasion for the entire population of the kingdom. The wedding secured the stability of the state and offered the opportunity for the aristocracy to express their loyalty to the heir to the throne.

As Jesus tells the story of the invited guests who reject the wedding invitation and mistreat the royal messengers the people who hear the story are outraged. They know very well that such behavior is more than rude. It is treasonous.

By their actions they proclaim their contempt for the monarch, the state and the wider society in which they live and from which they draw their wealth and security. They declare themselves independent and separate from the basic courtesies and responsibilities of citizens. When Jesus describes how the king destroys those disloyal wedding guests the crowd would shout out “yes.”

As the parable continues Jesus relates how the king invites everyone in the kingdom to the celebration. The wealthy and powerful forfeit their place through their arrogance. The king’s servants fill the wedding hall with all manner of people, rich and poor, good and bad.

The man who is found without a wedding garment presents a problem for the modern reader. Ancient people would have understood the reference. The king provided the wedding garments for all invited guests. The man who entered the banquet without the garment willfully rejected the royal gift through an act of self will and pride. As with the aristocracy, he is guilty of rebellion and treason. He reveals himself to be disloyal and a threat to the peace and security of the nation. And so, the king orders him to be cast out.

The point of the parable was obvious to the people in Jesus’ time but less obvious to us.

The King is God. The Son is Jesus. The aristocracy are the religious leaders in Jerusalem who reject God’s invitation to enter the Messianic Kingdom of His Son, Jesus Christ. God expands his invitation to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven to all sorts and conditions of people everywhere. The wedding garment is the grace of divine love received in baptism. The response to the royal invitation is a matter of personal choice.

The key to understand the parable is the reality of personal relationships.
It is clear that the aristocracy in the story value the material benefits they derive from the king more that their relationship with the king himself. Ancient societies were built on a series of personal relationships and personal loyalties.
The same is true of our relationship with God. Jesus speaks in the context of personal relationships to reveal the reality of God. There are the relationships of father and son, king and aristocracy, groom and bride. Each relationship is grounded in personal loyalty initiated and sustained by choice.

Jesus uses the image of the most intimate of human relationships, that of husband and wife, to describe the nature of the kingdom of heaven.

Those who look for the material reward of wealth and power miss the reality of the relationship. Those who respond to the invitation to celebrate the relationship are those who accept the invitation to the wedding feast and wear the wedding garment of divine grace.

The kingdom of heaven is not about material rewards. The kingdom of heaven is the great and wonderful celebration of a royal wedding. It is anything but boring. It is a participation in the infinite and eternal love of the triune God.

It is also a choice. It is a very simple and direct choice. As the king in the parable invited first the aristocracy and then everyone to the celebration so our Heavenly Father invites all people everywhere to the grace of baptism to prepare us for the Eucharistic Celebration of the co-eternal beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

The invitation is incredibly simple and straightforward. The Eucharist is the present reality here and now of the wedding feast of Jesus Christ. The invitation is universal and unconditional. As the Eucharist is a gift so the Kingdom of Heaven it represents is a gift. All are invited. None are commanded. How we choose to respond to this invitation reveals what we truly value and who we wish to become.

In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us himself as the groom gives himself to the bride.
God the Father created our species to be in an eternal loving relationship with God the Son. God the Holy Spirit invites all people everywhere into this new personal and intimate spiritual relationship.

The reward is the relationship. Heaven is the relationship. The Eucharist is the time and place in this life where Jesus agrees to meet us to celebrate the relationship. The Eucharist is the wedding banquet the Father gives for the Son and the Holy Spirit invites us to celebrate in the Sabbath Day call to worship.
Heaven and hell are not about rewards and punishments. None of us deserves heaven. None of has a right to heaven. Heaven is a personal relationship, a passionately loyal friendship with Jesus Christ. Heaven is for all people, the good and the bad, who say “yes” to the invitation to the wedding feast.

Jesus wants to be your forever friend. His Father invites you to meet the Son here at the altar of sacrifice where the spiritual banquet begins and continues forever.
Heaven is not boring. It is a new life and a new way of living in the infinite and eternal love of the infinite and eternal Triune God. The Kingdom of Heaven is not like anything human created religion can imagine. The Kingdom of heaven is like a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son.

Pentecost 16

2011-09-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 16 Matthew 21:33-46 “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Human religion would never have invented Jesus Christ.

Jesus is unique in many ways. None the least of these ways is the manner in which he identified the problem confronting the human race and the solution he came to offer.
Jesus was born into an intensely religious society. It was a religion drawn from the teachings of Moses and the prophets but formed by the very human and terribly broken categories of fear, self will and pride. It was a religion bitterly divided against itself. And it was a religion that had no room for the person it claimed to worship.
The parable of the landowner and the tenants is the story of God, God’s prophets, God’s son and the human race.

Moses reveals what most people once considered self-evident. God created the Earth. God created humanity. God appointed humanity to be the stewards of the creation. As stewards we have three responsibilities: care for the Earth, care for other people, and care for ourselves.

Humans chose to reject this stewardship and claim ownership. The modern tendency to assert that God did not create the universe is the end point of a long journey of self will and the claim to ownership. Simple observation tells us that in the world of matter, energy, time and space everything has a cause. Simple observation of how the world works tells us that ownership is an illusion grounded in the will to power. Humans confuse the ability to dominate with the right to possess.

The problem with the human assertion of ownership, of the world, other people, even ourselves is that it contradicts the very pattern, plan and purpose of the universe.
Over the millennia God sent prophets, priests and preachers to remind us who we are and why we exist. The parable Jesus tells in the passage today reminds his listeners that people not only rejected those prophets, priests and preachers- they cast them out of society and at times tormented them and killed them.

The son in the parable represents Jesus himself. Jesus comes not just to preach but to teach and to heal. Jesus comes to model the original pattern of humanity. Jesus is the rightful owner of this planet and our species yet he comes as a servant to help, to heal, to restore the lost to wholeness and to holiness.

The people who listened to Jesus understood this. If they chose to receive Jesus they would need to give up their claim to ownership. They would need to give the claim to use the planet, other people and themselves according to their own will, the will to power.

It was a unique choice. No religion demands this choice. No secular world view demands this choice.

It was a clear choice. Jesus never asked people to believe in a book, a set of laws, a ritual or a so called spiritual practice. He said: come to me.
Jesus is the fullness of God’s original plan and pattern and purpose for creation and for humanity. When we see Jesus we see the origin and the meaning of life in general and each of our lives in particular.

This is why the tenants in the parable kill the son. By killing the son they think they will finally and completely claim ownership by the assertion of self will. Even the religious leaders of Jesus’ time perceive the fallacy in that belief. And yet, when they understand the significance of the parable and its immediate application they rebel just as the tenants in the parable rebel.

The religious leaders reflect the human condition in their rejection of Jesus and in their demand for Jesus to be killed. Humanity has separated from God and now claims ownership of the planet, other people, ourselves and even the very concept of God.
Jesus is God up front and personal. No human being in Jesus’ time, or ours, really expects God to visit us in person. The religious prefer their deities safely remote in transcendence or even more safely locked away in temples, books, or spiritual practices.

From time to time people say they cannot believe in God and will not believe in God without more evidence. Jesus is that evidence. He is the evidence people reject and cast out of this world.

The very presence of Jesus elicits a violent reaction from humanity. Jesus is the perfect mirror that reflects the human condition. There can be no illusion of ownership in the divine presence of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was well aware of this. Jesus in fact counted on this. It was in the human reaction to Jesus that Jesus was able to draw out the poison of sin and transmute it into the sacramental wine of eternal life.

Humanity killed Jesus on the cross as the tenants killed the son. Humanity killed Jesus to drive out a challenge to human pride and human self-will. Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation uses this murderous intent to transform sin and death on the cross back into the original blessing of love and life through the Original Pattern of Creation. That original pattern is Jesus Christ.

People around the world are still lost in separation. People around the world still assert the human will to power to dominate and control. Only now, there is an alternative way of living. It is the way of reunification and transformation. It is the way of Jesus Christ.

We enter this way through baptism. We make a choice to follow this way in Confirmation. We are nourished in this Way through Holy Communion. We form our minds in this way through Bible reading, Bible study, and Bible memorization. We live this Way through worship and through service to others.

Jesus is the foundation stone that humanity rejected. Jesus has become the cornerstone for the new way of living.

This Way is the cornerstone to the new life that is eternal. It is a new way of living that is marvelous to experience. It is the gift of God to all people on this planet. It is the gift of God to you. It is Jesus offering you a new choice and a real choice to be immersed in divine love and to be transformed daily in divine love.

The choice is real. The choice is ours. Choose wisely. Choose Jesus.

Pentecost 15

2011-09-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 15 (Matthew 21:23-32)
“I will also ask you one question.”

All wisdom comes from asking questions.

The disciples of Jesus, his students, seldom asked Jesus questions. Oftentimes, they thought they already knew the answers. Other times, they did not want to hear what Jesus was saying. They feared what Jesus was teaching and preferred to ignore it. They hoped that if they ignored the more difficult teachings of Jesus, the love of God for all people everywhere, Jesus would come back to the teaching they already knew.

The disciples knew God was a God of rewards and punishments. They knew God only loved the Israelites. They knew God only favored the righteous who did the right things and believed the right way. They knew this. So, they did not need to question what they already knew.

The religious leaders in Jerusalem shared this knowledge. In addition, they knew God only worked through approved channels. Only adult males of the tribe of Levi could be priests. Only a handful of families controlled Temple worship. Only validly ordained rabbis could ordain a man to teach and preach God’s Law.

The religious leaders only recognized the spiritual authority of a teacher within the context of their very narrow and rigid religious institutions. There was nothing wrong with the religious institutions. The problem was in the way people used those institutions to impose their will on society and even God.

There was one well known exception to the rule of religion. That exception was the prophet. Only God could call and ordain a prophet. The word alone authenticated the prophetic call and the prophetic office.

The priests and the elders disliked Jesus’ teaching. They accurately perceived that Jesus was not teaching what they and all religious people already knew to be true about God, humanity, and religion. He was teaching something new and different. They feared that Jesus would undermine their own hard earned and jealously guarded religious authority.

In their fear they attacked Jesus where they perceived him to be vulnerable. They attacked his authority to teach. It was clear that no rabbinical school had ordained Jesus. So, he could not function as a rabbi. It was clear Jesus was a Jew, a member of the tribe of Judah. So, he could not function as a priest.

The Sanhedrin, the supreme religious court, did not recognize Jesus’ authority . So, the leadership, the chief priests of the Temple and the elders of the Sanhedrin, challenged Jesus directly.

They asked: by what authority do you act. And, who gave you this authority.
Jesus took these questions and turned them into a teaching moment. Jesus knew these men were among the most intelligent and the most powerful. He knew they were lost in the pride of their great knowledge. He knew they were enslaved by the power of their own self will, the will to power.

Jesus could have given a very simple and direct answer. He also knew the chief priests and elders would react from the place of anger and fear to such a direct teaching. So, Jesus invited the religious authorities to consider the very nature of spiritual authority.

Jesus simply asked: Is the baptism of John grounded in human created religious institutions; or, it does it come directly from God?

Jesus’ question was a wonderful opportunity for the religious leaders to reflect and explore the very nature of spiritual authority in general, and the specific way they exercised that authority within the context of religious institutions.

They perceived the invitation Jesus offered. But, they chose to react with fear. They could only conceive of two ways to answer the question. If they said John’s baptism had no divine authority then the people would reject them. The people recognized John as a prophet. The authority of the prophet comes directly from God and is authenticated by the prophetic word.

If they acknowledged John as a true prophet of God then they would indeed answer their own question about Jesus. John had baptized Jesus. John had declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God. The Holy Spirit had anointed Jesus in the sight of thousands of witnesses. And, God the Father had spoken audibly declaring Jesus to His Son, the Beloved.

Jesus derived his authority from three sources: the last of the prophets, John; God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; and the multitudes who stood on the banks of the Jordan river that day and witnessed the events of Jesus’ baptism and anointing.
Jesus exercised a threefold authority of prophet through John, of priest through divine anointing, and of king by popular acclamation.

The truth was all there for the best and the brightest of Jerusalem’s religious elite to discern and proclaim. The truth was too powerful for the religious authorities to ignore. It was also too fearful for them to accept.

They chose to withdraw from the discussion. They simply said: we don’t know the answer. It was the politically safe reaction. In that reaction, they rejected a moment of grace to enter into the blessing of God.

Jesus sadly concludes his part of the conversation with a short parable and a principle. He tells the religious leaders: you do not enter into the Kingdom because you lack faith. You lack faith because you are unwilling to change your mind. You are unwilling to change your mind because the pride of your position and authority leads you to react to a moment of grace with fear. In that fear, you assert your will to power to withdraw rather than to allow yourself to be embraced by divine love and compassion.

The lesson for all people is the principle of grace. Do we choose to react from fear or respond in the welcoming embrace of divine love and compassion?

Where are we still living from pride in our own knowledge? St. Paul was one of the most powerful intellects in the apostolic church. Yet, Paul said: knowledge puffs up. Knowledge apart from compassion distorts into pride. Are we open to being taught? Do we hunger and thirst to be the students of Jesus/ Are we asking questions?
Jesus sets the tenor for the spiritual life as he stands in our midst and says: Let me ask you one question. It is in the questions that we discover our moment of grace.

Pentecost 13 year A

2011-09-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 13 (Matthew 18:21-35) “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Forgiveness heals suffering.

Most people in Jesus’ time, and perhaps even our time, think of forgiveness in terms of the offending party. This was certainly Peter’s perspective when he asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sinned against him.

Notice that Peter did not ask about forgiving an enemy or even a stranger. He asked about a brother, a relative or close friend. His approach is grounded in the categories of self will, legal obligation, and self justification.

The conventional wisdom of the day was based in the principle of three strikes and you are out. You are only obligated to forgive a person three times. Since Peter was bound up by the cultural norms of his day he thought in terms of self justification. He could be righteous under the law by forgiving the prescribed three times. He was looking to Jesus for supererogatory merit, some extraordinary approval. So he doubled the expectation and added one more for good measure hoping for approval and praise.

Peter missed the point of forgiveness. He was still lost in the technicalities of legalism. He saw forgiveness as a finely balanced scale that would show how righteous he was. From a legalistic perspective, forgiveness is all about me. It is about how I will allow someone who offended me to get away with the offense up to three times; and, if I am feeling really righteous up to seven times.

From a legalistic perspective there is a definite limit to how much forgiveness I will submit to before I say enough is enough. My self esteem can only bear so much insult before I have to retaliate against or withdraw from the offender. Forgiveness is all about keeping the scales of justice balanced in my favor.

Jesus has a very different understanding of forgiveness. Jesus starts from the place of God’s unmerited favor and God’s unconditional love. Within this context, forgiveness has two functions: reconciliation and transformation.

People sin. People get on each other’s nerves. We inadvertently and sometimes deliberately hurt each other. The legalist wants to keep score. Is it three times or seven times that I must forgive before I can strike back in aggression or withdrawal.
When Jesus says to forgive up to seventy time seven he is saying true forgiveness does not keep score. How could you be certain you reached the 490 limit of forgiveness for any one individual? That is the point. You can’t.

You also cannot practice forgiveness from the place of legalism or self will. For Jesus, forgiveness is based in grace not law. Forgiveness proceeds from divine will not self will. The purpose of forgiveness is to restore a broken relationship not to keep score.

Keeping score recycles pain into suffering. Jesus asks us to forgive from grace in love to experience freedom from pain.

It is only as we yield self will to divine will in union with the eternal love of God in Jesus Christ that we truly forgive another person. To forgive is to release the person who hurt us into the grace of God. To forgive is to release our own attachment to the pain of the transgression into the unconditional love of God.
Forgiveness does not say to the offender: that’s OK. It clearly isn’t OK. What forgiveness does is to offer the offender to God, our own pain to God and to seek to transform that pain into a blessing.

If we do not forgive we bind our minds and hearts and wills to recycle the original offense. The legal forgiveness Peter discusses is only an outward formality. It leaves the soul in pride that it is more righteous than the offender. Sadly, that pride eventually corrodes into despair.

When we forgive an offense we just don’t let it go. We let it go into divine grace and divine love. We forgive to become free of resentment and suffering. We also forgive to give God the Holy Spirit the opportunity to heal the broken relationship.
WE can’t forgive if we want to keep score. We can’t forgive if we can’t release the pain of the offense into the hands of God. We can’t forgive if we indulge ourselves in the negative pleasure of being the victim or the martyr.

When it comes to forgiveness Peter wants to keep score. He wants to know the limits. He wants to hold on to the pain and use it as a weapon against the offender. By doing that, he knows he can assert his own will to power in his relationships. He misses the terrible consequence of his attitude and action. He misses the terrible reality that unforgiven sin recycles the pain of sin into suffering. That is the price the legalist pays for keeping the scales in balance to his own favor.

We can only find release from suffering as we release our attachment to both the offense and the offender. It may take awhile. It may take many prayers of seeking God’s grace and God’s love in order to release an offender and the offense so that suffering ends and pain heals.

Lack of forgiveness keeps us focused on ourselves. Lack of forgiveness enslaves us into an obsession with the offender. Forgiveness shifts our focus to God. Forgiveness sets us free from the effects of sin and the perpetrator of sin.
It is never OK that someone has hurt you emotionally, psychologically, spiritually or physically. It serves no purpose to offer a formal kind of forgiveness that still holds on to the memory of the offense in order to recycle the pain of the offense.
Let it go.

Let it go into the open arms of Jesus Christ on the cross. Let it go into the sacred heart of Jesus to be healed and transformed. Bring the pain to the altar of sacrifice and leave it there. Exchange your outrage and demand for the scales of your personal sense of justice to be balanced for the blessed sacrament of infinite love and eternal life. Jesus himself balanced the scales of justice on the cross.
Life is not just too short to hold onto an offense. Life is too long. Jesus has won for all people everywhere the gift of immortality. We can choose to spend eternity immersed in his limitless love. Or, we can choose to spend eternity holding a grudge or defining ourselves by an impossible demand.

Above all, be honest with yourself. Most of us most of the time want to charge a price for our forgiveness. Most of us most of the time want revenge. The Law restrains that desire but it cannot remove it. Only Jesus can do that. And, he does it by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of forgiveness is to immerse our broken lives into the limitless healing fountain of grace. The purpose of forgiveness is to release our attachment to the offense and the offender so we can manifest the blessing of God more fully in our lives.

There is some momentary pain in that release. It always hurts to release self will into divine will. Only as we make a real choice to accept that momentary pain can we discover the infinite blessing of free will. It is a will set free from the recycled pain of suffering. It is a soul set free from self obsession.

Who do you need to forgive? What offense do you need to release into the infinite fountain of divine blessing? Where do you need to yield the demand to keep score into the true freedom of unrestricted compassion?

Jesus says: when it comes to forgiveness stop keeping score. Focus on the unmerited favor of God and the unconditional love of God. Forgiveness is not about keeping score. Jesus says to those who want to keep score: I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Pentecost 12

2011-08-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 12 (Matthew 18:15-20)
Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

A solitary soul is a soul in disintegration.

Moses was very clear when he declared God’s word: it is not good for man to be alone. The Biblical teaching of creation is the teaching that God created human beings as a community. We are each unique in our personality and gifts. And, we are part of a greater whole.

The Anglican poet priest John Donne said it best: no man is an island.
Jesus tells us he is present to us most fully and completely in community. Those who are baptized into Christ are one with The Father, through the Son, in the Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit. Through our baptism we are reunified with God. We discover the astonishing reality that the One God is a community of three persons.
To be in Christ is to be in a new relationship with God, other people and the truth of our own soul.

Our Heavenly Father designed the fullness of humanity to be the forever companion of the co-eternal Beloved Son. The Father designed each of us individually and all of us as a unified species according to the pattern, plan and purpose of the Beloved.
The pattern is love. The love is what defines God and expresses the oneness of God in three persons: the One who loves (the Father), the Beloved (the son) and the very power and presence of love (the Holy Spirit). The pattern of human life as designed by God is to be in an active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative and never ending community of love.

The plan is love. God the Father created humanity by the power of God the Holy Spirit to share the Love of God the Son. Through the Son God pours his love into us. Through the Son we pour forth our love to God, other people and to ourselves.
The purpose is love. God the Father designed humanity to be dependent on Him and interdependent with each other. It is in God and God alone that we live and move and have our being. The highest form of our original purpose is worship. Through worship we make a real choice to immerse the totality of our being, our mind, heart and will, in the eternal love of the Triune God.

We have life only through God. God just doesn’t have life. God is life. God is eternal life. We live because God created us. We die because we as a species made an original choice to separate from God. We live again as we reunite with God according to the original blessing of God. That original blessing is the Beloved, Jesus Christ.
The original blessing becomes real to us and present to us in the three loves that define our essence and can form our existence. Those three loves are love of God through worship, love of other people through service, and love of self through personal transformation.

Our Heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to call all people to receive the gift of the original blessing in the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ. The call of God is the call to worship, the highest form of love. The call to worship is the call to reunify with the Father through the Son. The call to worship is the call to transform our mind, our heart and our will in the living presence of God the Holy Spirit.

The call to transformation is the call to service. It is the call to ask the question of other people: how may I help? It is the call to humility in the way we relate to each other. It is the call to practice compassion.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is to restore a lost, broken and disintegrating humanity to wholeness, health, happiness and holiness.
There can be no rugged individual in the new life of Christ. There can be no solitary spiritual pioneer in the new way of living in the Holy Spirit. There can be no exclusive right to rule or dominate.

God created our species to be a unified interdependent whole. Jesus reminds of this truth when he teaches that if one of us suffers we all suffer. The apostle Paul reveals to us that we collectively, not individually, are the Body of Christ. The Beloved apostle John reveals to us that we collectively are the Bride of Christ.
We enter into the waters of baptism lost in separation. We rise to the new life of Christ as a unique individual member of the Body of Christ. We come to the altar of sacrifice only in community. As a priest I cannot celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass alone. At least one other person must be present.

We learn to become who God created us to be at the altar, in the family and in our service to other people. We diminish our selves as we choose separation and isolation. We become less human as we live from the place of self will. We acquire free will only as we pray the prayer Jesus taught us: heavenly Father, your will be done.

The new life is a gift of God in Jesus Christ. The new way of living this new life can produce is a choice we make in the Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit. This new way of living is the Way of Jesus Christ, the way of surrender in love, through love and for love.

Jesus never asks us to submit to the power of God. Jesus asks us and shows us how to surrender to the love of God.

The Plan of Salvation is not for us to grovel in fear before Divine Majesty. The Plan of salvation is for us to feel the loving embrace of the co-eternal Beloved. The result is for us to share what God has given us in Christ and what God daily offers us through Christ.

God gives us his unmerited favor. And so, God asks us to give that same unmerited favor to others. We do not deserve God’s favor. And others do not deserve our favor. In Christ, God pours his favor, his grace, into the souls of all seven billion human beings on this plant. It is our choice to receive the grace. And, it is our choice to be an open channel of grace. It starts when we make a monumental decision to give other people the benefit of the doubt and to offer them what God is pouring into our hearts. Grace.

The Bible is very clear. God created the heavens and the earth. God created all life including our species according to one divine principle and pattern. God has a plan for our species and a unique purpose for each of us.

The principle, the pattern, the plan and the purpose are all revealed to us and for us in Jesus Christ. In this teaching Jesus reminds us of who God created us to be. We are most human and most alive within a community of unconditional love. We cannot experience the reality of that love apart from its source. We cannot fulfill the purpose of that love in isolation.

In Christ we have been reunified with the Triune God. In Christ we are being reunified with the fullness of the human species. Christ has already accomplished these things for us. Our choice is to be who God the Father has created us to be as we become whom God the Son has given us to be.

No man is an island. We are only human as we participate in the human community. We are most fully human as we participate in the human community with the very source of our being: Jesus Christ. The unfailing promise of Jesus Christ is: where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Pentecost 11

2011-08-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 11 “Take up your cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:21-28)

Divine revelation does not restrict human choice.

We heard in last week’s gospel reading how Peter had declared Jesus to be the Messiah. Peter not only stated that Jesus was the Messiah, he also asserted that Jesus was the Son of God.

It is easy to miss the impact of that statement. In our time and culture we assume that if God exists then all people are God’s children. The Bible and the people who lived in the ancient world believed God created all people but all people were not his children.

The Bible speaks in terms of “sonship”. Sonship had a very precise legal meaning in the ancient world. When a Roman child was born the attending midwife laid the infant at the father’s feet. If the father picked up the child he acknowledged it as his and it became a real person and a member of the family and society. If the father refused to pick up the child and walked away, the baby was a non person. A slave would take the child outside the city walls and abandon it.

In Abraham God adopted a single family as his children. In Jesus, God offers adoption to all people everywhere. In Jesus God unites the co-eternal Beloved Son with human nature. In Jesus, God incorporates humanity into His own Triune Life.
The adoption is available to all. The adoption is not imposed on any.

Peter exemplifies this as he makes a choice to reject the inward and spiritual meaning of the new reality our Heavenly Father revealed to him. Peter was just not ready to enter into the fullness of God’s unmerited favor and unconditional love.
Peter had the words but he not only missed the meaning he refused to accept the meaning.

Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. He assumed the sonship was the adoption through Abraham. He refused to accept the reality that God was truly Jesus’ father. Peter also assumed that the Messiah would do the things and be the person everyone expected.

The expectation for the Messiah was very precise. The Messiah would be a military leader who would destroy Rome, enslave the nations, execute corrupt priests and impose one religion on everyone. It was an imperial vision of religion and politics united in a new king.

When Jesus told Peter the Plan of Salvation involved suffering, death and resurrection, Peter would not accept God’s Plan. Peter had his own plan and Jesus identifies the source of Peter’s plan as Satan. It is Satan’s Plan because it does not derive from the teachings of Moses and the Prophets. It is Satan’s plan because it is a distortion of the grace, peace and mercy God had revealed to Moses and the Prophets.

Satan had tempted Jesus in the wilderness three years before this moment. Satan had attempted to convince Jesus to pursue the path of power and abandon the path of sacrificial love.

The outward and visible sign of sacrificial love is the cross. Death on a cross was shameful and excruciating. The man who died on the cross died as a rebel against human government and divine order. Whoever died on a cross died under a divine curse.
The way of salvation is the way of the cross. Only by dying on the cross could Jesus trap sin and death in order to transform them into love and life. Jesus was no mere mortal. He was fully human and fully divine. As he suffered and died he literally assumed the sin and death of the entire human race. Since he was fully human he suffered unimaginable torment. Since he was fully divine he transformed sin and death by the power of his own infinite and eternal love.

The Plan of Salvation is reunification and transformation.

Peter missed that reality. He was looking for a quick fix that would impose divine will on human will through human politics and institutions. Peter was working with the wrong assumptions about God and humanity.

It just wasn’t Peter. And, it just isn’t Peter. God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that the problem that defines human nature in separation. We as a species chose to separate from God. In that separation we are lost. We are not only lost we do not want to be found.

We don’t like the world we have created but we want a solution to the problem that allows us to be in charge and impose our will on others. This is where Peter was stuck. This is why Peter missed the point and refused to accept our Heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation.

And, this is why Jesus teaches that whoever follows him must follow the Father’s Plan of Salvation. God only has one Plan of Salvation. It is Jesus Christ.

Satan offers an amazing array of alternate plans in religion, philosophy, science and politics. They all rely on the human will to power. They all encourage us to say: my will be done. They work within the context of fear, self will and pride.
The way of the cross is the way of Jesus who prayed: heavenly Father not my will but Thy will be done. This is not just religion. It is a new life that produces a new way of living.

The way of the cross is the way of salvation. It is the way of God’s unmerited favor towards us and God’s unconditional love for us. It is the only way of Salvation because it is the way our Heavenly Father designed and accomplished in His only Son, Jesus Christ.

Peter offered a different Plan of Salvation. It seemed very reasonable and in keeping with the cultural expectations of the day. It was not our Heavenly Father’s Plan. Jesus not only rejects Peter’s Plan he tells Peter in no uncertain terms that his plan is really Satan’s Plan. It is a Plan of Damnation grounded in separation and formed to suit the human will to power.

The Way of the Cross begins at the cross and then continues forever both in this world and in the life of the world to come. It is the way of reunification and transformation. It is the way of sacrificial love that seeks wisdom and practices compassion.

Above all else, the Way of Salvation is the way of self examination and purification in the unmerited favor of God and the unconditional love of God. As St. Paul wrote, now we understand in part. In this life we will always understand in part. We will always grow and transform as we practice the Presence of God in worship and service to others.

The way of the cross is not the way of submission to Law or even religion. It is the way of surrender to Divine Love. Jesus is the way of salvation because Jesus is the Divine Bridegroom who invites us to participate in the joys of the wedding feast.
The way of salvation is Jesus because Jesus is the gift of reunification with God the Father, transformation in God the Holy Spirit and celebration in the eternal love of God the Son.

Pentecost 10

2011-08-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 10 “You are the Christ. You are Peter. (Matthew 16:13-20)

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asked his apostles.

This was a very important question with serious implications. Jesus clearly was a unique and powerful individual. If he were a prophet he could speak the word of God and write scripture. If he were the Messiah, he could fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah. For many if not most people in Israel that had a significant political, economic and military impact on society.

Peter had the right answer. You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Unfortunately in the verses that follow this passage we read that Peter also had the wrong understanding.

Peter had the right answer because God the Father had revealed it to him. As we see in this passage, the revelation of God does not over ride the personality or the will of the person who receives the revelation. There is no guarantee that the person who receives the revelation will accept the new reality the revelation brings.
This was certainly true for Peter. He got the point that Jesus was the Messiah. Then, by his own will he chose to define the Messiah within the politics of his time.

We see this as Jesus begins to explain just what the Messiah must do. He must go to Jerusalem. He must be betrayed. He must be tortured, tried, convicted and executed.
This was not what people expected of the Messiah. It was contrary to what Peter and the other disciples wanted from Jesus. So Peter says, God forbid that this should ever happen to you.

Peter missed his moment. Revelation did not override Peter’s sin nature or guarantee Peter would have the infallible understanding of divine truth. Peter chose to rely on his cultural bias rather that the Bible to understand the revelation he received. It was the first time Peter had faltered. It would not be the last.

Peter never was the rock upon which Jesus would build the Church. No human being can hold such a burden. The rock is Christ himself. Only he has the ability to sustain the church, the body of Christ, you and I and all believers everywhere.

When Jesus says to Peter, you are Peter, the Greek text is very precise in its choice of words. A more literal translation of the verse reads: You are Peter (a stone) and on this the rock (Christ himself) I will build my church.

In the metaphorical language of the Old and New Testament the “rock” is always a symbol of God. It never represents a political or religious leader, a prophet, priest or king.

The church is the body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. Christ did not create the church through Peter. Christ sent the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church on the day of Pentecost.

Peter was certainly a respected leader in the early church. He did not have a unique leadership role. James, the step brother of Jesus, held that role as the first bishop of Jerusalem.

None of the other apostles believed Peter was the rock on whom Jesus was building His church. We read in Scripture how Peter was wrong on two very important issues: should the church preach the gospel to the Gentiles? And, do the Gentiles need to become Jews before they can become Christians?

The question led to the first serious dispute within the Church. The apostles did not turn to Peter and say: you are the infallible vicar of Christ on earth. You decide. The apostles turned to James who convened a council. The council studied scripture, prayed, heard testimony from Paul about the amazing response among the Gentiles to the message of Christ.

The council decided. James issued the decision. Peter accepted the decision. This in fact was the pattern for the church for the first thousand years of its history. No one bishop claimed universal leadership and lordship over the entire church. When the bishop of Rome later made such a claim, the universal church split into two branches in the Great Schism of the year 1054 and finally fractured into thousands of denominations during the 16th century Reformation religious wars.

The purpose of this passage of scripture was never to address the issue of who is in charge. The purpose is to reveal that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God; and, that his own disciples could not accept the meaning and purpose of the Messiah. All people tend to redefine Jesus according to our own needs, desires, and cultural bias.

That is why the solid rock foundation for the Church can only be Jesus himself. The rest of us are fallible, confused, and growing in grace. Only Jesus is the infallible representative of God the Father to a lost and rebellious humanity.
Jesus and Jesus alone is the intermediary between God and humanity.

We dishonor Peter if we attempt to make him hold the impossible burden of being the solid rock foundation for the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. No human being can hold that role.

When Jesus speaks the words: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, he speaks to all of the apostles not just to Peter. How do we know this? The apostle John clarifies this for us when he records Jesus repeating these same words to the apostles after his resurrection. John is very clear that Jesus speaks to all of the apostles and not just to Peter.
What are the keys? They refer to the sacrament of reconciliation. The apostles conferred this authority to the bishops and the bishops conferred it to the priests. It is the authority of the clergy to pronounce the abolution and forgiveness of sins in Jesus name and by Jesus’ steadfast holy and eternal love.

Peter wasn’t quite there yet that day. He had the words. He missed the meaning. That is the human condition. We are all a work in process. We are all on a spiritual pilgrimage. None of us will ever be perfect or infallible in this world. That is why Jesus told his apostles that leaders need to be servants who cultivate humility.
The constant prayer of all believers is the prayer Jesus prayed: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.

The keys to the Kingdom are the unmerited favor of God combined with the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ. The solid rock foundation of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church is and can only be the incarnate co-eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ.

It is as we say to Jesus you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God that Jesus says to us: and you are you. You are the beloved of the co-eternal beloved. And, in that love, the gates of hell will not prevail against you.

St. Mary the Virgin

2011-08-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

Feast of St. Mary the Virgin 2011
My soul magnifies the Lord. (Luke 1: 46)

Mary was an ordinary person who lived an extraordinary life.

Mary held no political office, wrote no books, and had no titles of honor in her lifetime. She was among the humble and meek of the working poor who live and die in quiet obscurity.
Mary also placed God first in her life. When the archangel Gabriel greeted her he said: “Hail Mary, full of grace.” Even before Mary became the holy mother of God she was filled with grace.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us. Grace proceeds from God’s unconditional love. Where so many people have said and continue to say to God: “what’s in it for me?” Mary simply said: “Amen, let it be.”
Where so many people approach God from the perspective of a discriminating religious consumer, Mary said: “I am the Lord’s servant.”
Where so many people demand the right to define God according to our individual needs and desires, Mary said: holy is His Name.
Mary is a unique personality in human history. She plays a unique role in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. She heard the word of God, believed the word of God and brought forth the word of God in a way no one else ever has or ever will.
By grace through faith Mary chose to accept our Heavenly Father’s invitation to be the theotokos, the bearer of God. The story of the Annunciation reminds us that the incarnation began when the co-eternal Son permanently and irrevocably united his divinity with our humanity. At the moment Jesus was conceived Mary became the Holy Mother of God.
Alone of all people who will have ever lived on this planet Mary experienced the reality of the incarnation in the most intimate way possible. God’s choice of Mary was not random. Mary’s choice to say “yes” to God was no accident.
God pours out His grace on all people but not all people respond by saying: “Amen, so be it.” God offers all people His unconditional love but not all people respond by saying: “holy is God’s Name.”
The life of the blessed Virgin Mary evokes the teaching of Moses and the prophets that God favors the poor, the meek and the humble. God blesses the weak in order to confound rich and the powerful. God does this so all may see and understand the reality that God is holy unconditional love.
As God is holy unconditional love so he has created us to bear the image of that love and the likeness of that holiness.
Jesus honored his mother with position and titles only after her death. He granted her the gift of immediate resurrection. And, he crowned her Queen of Heaven, Queen of Israel and Queen of the Church. The Bible very clearly states that the Queen of Israel was the Queen Mother. A king would have many wives but only one mother.
The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church honors Mary because Jesus honors Mary. Through her humility and willingness to serve she has become Queen of Heaven and Earth. Her role in the church today is twofold. She is the preeminent intercessor in the Church Triumphant for the salvation and sanctification of souls. And, she is the preeminent model for the statement: you are saved by grace through faith.
Mary models the basic principle of the Summary of the Law. Love God with all your heart, mind and soul; then love your neighbor as you also love your self. Mary understood that love expresses itself in worship, service and personal transformation.
Mary’s title as “theotokos” bearer of God, is the first line of defense against false teachers who reject the incarnation. Mary’s words: “Amen, so be it,” are the first line of defense against self absorbed self indulgent religion. Mary’s role as Queen of Heaven embodies the reality that it is through humility that we bring forth the blessing of divine grace to other people and the world.
Jesus entrusted Mary to the care of the one disciple who remained loyal to Jesus to the end. Jesus gave that disciple the unique title: the beloved. John is the beloved of the co-eternal beloved. Jesus charged Mary, the theotokos, the God Bearer, with the responsibility to complete John’s education.
Mary wrote no books, But the writings of John in the New Testament bear the teaching of Mary. Mary had no honors or titles during her lifetime. But, Jesus revealed to John that Jesus had taken Mary’s body into heaven at her death and crowned her Queen.
The reredos over our altar depicts the Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven. From the very beginning, the Church honored Mary for her unique role in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. We give no greater honor to Mary than Jesus gave.
Mary embodies St. Paul’s teaching: you are saved by grace through faith. Mary embodies St. James’ teaching: faith without works is dead. Mary embodies the teaching of Moses and the prophets that God favors the poor and exults the humble and meek. Finally, Mary helped the beloved apostle John understand that God just doesn’t have love, God is love.
Mary made a real choice to live by grace through faith in the steadfast holy love of God. As we honor Mary we join our voices with her as she declares to God: Amen. So be it.

Pentecost 8

2011-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 8 (Matthew 14:22-33) “Why did you doubt?”

Doubt from the reaction of fear erodes faith. Doubt from the response of love produces faith.

Doubt is a very curious human phenomenon. As far as we know, only humans experience doubt. Even Satan does not doubt the existence of God. Most, perhaps all, humans doubt the existence of God.

There is passive inherited doubt. This doubt is grounded in superstition, assumption, and a more powerful faith. It is reactive.

Some people doubt the reality of God because they have experienced pain. Some doubt because they have been taught that the world is a dangerous place filled with a myriad of supernatural powers that will just as likely hurt us as help us. Some doubt because they have been taught a very narrow limited and one dimensional world view which has no room for miracles or for God.

There is also an active aggressive doubt. This doubt is grounded in self will and pride. This doubt aggressively attacks faith because it does not want God to be personal and real. It will use the vocabulary of empiricism, materialism and science in order to make an external God vanish. The voice of this active aggressive doubt is the voice of pride which says: I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

Frequently, aggressive doubt is the justification for self indulgence. Some people actively reject and repudiate an image of God as a moral police man who seeks to inhibit the natural human desires for pleasure. This isn’t true. It isn’t true that God seeks to inhibit natural human desires. But, it also isn’t true that the path of self indulgence has any thing to do with natural human desire. Self indulgence is a distortion of natural desire that always produces suffering.

The soul that actively rejects God as a way of asserting the will to power to reject moral boundaries is a soul that seeks to define the universe by will and will alone.
Where passive doubt produces fear that the universe is meaningless, active doubt produces anger and arrogance as it seeks to impose its narrow vision and self will on a universe that is more complex and amazing than any of us can possibly imagine.

There is also an active doubt grounded in a substitute faith. This form of active doubt is what many modern atheists and agnostics practice. They simply believe the material world is the only reality. They also believe the only knowledge available to human beings comes from the experience of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Of course, they also believe that there can be no evidence of any other reality. They have embraced faith in a very narrow materialistic world view that is stuck in a blind feed back loop of absolute certainty.

There is one other form of doubt. This is the doubt of open, honest inquiry. This is the doubt Holy Mother Mary expressed when she heard the words of the archangel Gabriel, when she saw him standing before her. Mary said: how can this be? This is the doubt a scientist cultivates to explore and understand the world. This is the doubt many believers experience as they seek to follow God and understand God’s will. It is doubt in conjunction with humility that seeks understanding.

Certainly, Jesus walking on the water was a miracle. Of course, the disciples did not understand it that way. The Bible is brutally honest as it records how the disciples reacted to Jesus with fear and superstition as they watched him walking on the water. Despite all of the miracles they had witnessed Jesus perform they still thought in terms of the religious culture of their day.

It is important to note that the disciples were frustrated and exhausted by a long night of rowing against the wind. They were experiencing fatigue and that fatigue diminished both faith and reason. They saw Jesus walking on water- not something they or we see every day. In fact, of the thousand year history of the Bible only Jesus is recorded as having walked on water and only on this one occasion.

The disciples saw Jesus and despite their experience of his teaching, actions and character they reacted with fear and superstition. They cried out ‘It’s a ghost”.
The Bible does not teach the reality of ghosts, the spirits of the dead walking the earth. Most religions in the Middle East did not teach the reality of ghosts. Only once does the Bible reference a departed spirit speaking to a living human being, King Saul. The message recorded is one of utter condemnation for King Saul abandoning faith in God and seeking out a medium to summon a spirit from the underworld.

Superstitious people sometimes interpreted dreams or unexplained events in terms of ghosts. Jesus was no ghost. The religion of Israel did not teach the reality of ghosts. Strangely, the presence of Jesus walking on water inspired a reaction of fear and terror amongst the disciples.

The disciples were trapped in passive doubt that comes from frustration, confusion, fatigue and fear.

Jesus allays the disciples’ fear by speaking to them. They hear and recognize his voice. He says three things that can help us in the moments of passive fearful doubt.
First, Jesus says: take heart. Compose yourself. Center your self in the truth of who you are. Find your courage to meet the world from a place of calm confidence.
Second, Jesus gives them the reason for confidence. It is I. He invites them back into faith through friendship and loyalty.

Third, Jesus addresses the fear. As you center yourself in the reality of who you are in the present moment and as you recognize the real presence of Jesus Christ you can access the very essence of the divine: steadfast holy love. Love transforms fear into faith.

Peter shifted his perspective. He no longer saw a ghost. He no longer felt paralyzed by superstition and fear. His passive doubt shifted into active open and honest inquiry. Peter expressed this honest doubt by saying a single word: if.
If it is you, Lord, command me to come to you on the water. Peter had not yet embraced active faith. But he no longer existed in passive doubt.

Jesus replies with a single word of command: “Come!”

It is Jesus inviting Peter to faith by taking an action based in courage, confidence and love.

Peter expresses this courage, confidence and trust by keeping his eyes fixed on Jesus. When he takes his eyes off Jesus he falls back into passive doubt, fear and despair.

As Peter keeps his eyes fixed on Jesus, Peter does what his belief systems teaches is impossible. He walks on water. Once Peter takes his eyes off Jesus, those old beliefs and unquestioned certainties reassert their hold on Peter. He looks at the wind and the waves and despite his own experience he says: this is impossible. I can’t walk on water. No one can walk on water. At that point, he creates his worst fear as he turns a miracle into a tragedy. He begins to sink.

Peter cries out in panic: “Lord save me!”

And Jesus does just that. He does it immediately without hesitation or delay. He picks up Peter, puts him back into the boat, and then enters the boat himself. Then he looks at Peter and says: O you of little faith. You were doing it Peter.

You were doing the impossible, Peter! You were walking on water. And, despite the record of your five senses you chose to reject the reality of the moment. You chose fear. You chose doubt. And in that choice, you sank.

Jesus speaks to all people everywhere in the single powerful and compelling word: Come. Many hear the word and say: not possible. This cannot be real. Others hear the word and say: I don’t want this Jesus to be real. If Jesus is real then my life will have to change and I don’t want to change. Still others react with defiance. No. I will not come to Jesus. I refuse to accept that he even exists. I am the lord of my own life and I will yield to no one.

It is OK to doubt. It is OK to respond to the teaching of Moses and the Prophets with an open honest inquiry: how can this be? It is OK to say to Jesus: if. If you are real help me to experience that reality. Help me to move from fear to faith.
Jesus is the assurance of the infinite and eternal God that human fear can transform into faith through love.

Christian faith is a reasonable trust in a real person. The enemies of Jesus made many accusations against him in the first generation after his death and resurrection. They never asserted he did not exist.

They rejected what Jesus taught but they never said this was not his teaching. They claimed he could perform miracles by deceit or by demonic activity. But, they never said he performed no miracles. They struggled to explain the empty tomb but they never disputed that the tomb was empty.

The evidence for the historic reality of Jesus Christ is compelling. But no amount of evidence can overcome the passive doubt of fear or the active doubt of self will and pride. At the risk of over generalizing from only thirty or forty personal experiences, most atheists and agnostics in the United States simply do not want Jesus to be real. No amount of evidence will convince them other wise.

Only a personal experience in the real presence of divine love can reach the lost masses of people who are enslaved by passive doubt. Only Jesus himself can speak the word to reach past the pride of self will that maintains the invincible fortress of active doubt.

Jesus actively asks the question that can open our minds and hearts and wills to the process of self examination and personal transformation. That question is: why do you doubt?

Pentecost 7

2011-07-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 7 (Matthew 14:13-21) “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”

Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed but only changed in form.

This is one of the fundamental laws of science that I learned as a child. It is also a basic biblical principle. The Bible is clear that when God works within the created universe he works within the laws that he embedded into the universe. He does this because the laws that govern the universe reflect the pattern of the co-eternal Son of the Father.

When the Biblical writers describe miracles they speak of the sun behaving in an unusual way- but it is still the sun. They speak of the waters of the Red Sea parting- but it is still the sea. When Jesus performs his miracles he normally uses the ordinary things of this world. He infuses these things with grace. He releases their potential according to the more fundamental spiritual laws of abundance, compassion and unconditional love.

There is a significant difference between miracle and magic. Miracle works within the framework of God’s creation according to spiritual law. In the miraculous feeding of the five thousand men along with thousands of women and children, Jesus initiates the miracle by looking up to heaven. He acknowledges the reality of God within the context of prayer. The prayer Jesus prayed most often is “Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.”

In this miracle, Jesus demonstrates the attitude, action and pattern for miracles. That pattern is revealed to us in the model prayer Jesus gave us. The Lord’s prayer sets the forth the pattern, plan and purpose of God as God invites us to experience him.

If you are looking for a Bible study, either individually or as a group, I invite you to list the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer and then ponder their meaning. Question the invitation to grace that each phrase offers. Record your impressions. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what Jesus is teaching us about God, ourselves and the world around us.

Miracle is not magic. Magic is rooted in the false belief that by will and knowledge we can impose our desire on the world around us. Magic is routed in the assertion: my will be done. Miracle is rooted in the aspiration: Heavenly Father, Thy will be done.

Jesus observed the problem. Too many people. Too little time. Too few resources. Jesus responded with compassion. The disciples saw only the outward and visible form of the problem. They wanted Jesus to send the people home.

Jesus told his disciples that the crowd didn’t need to leave. They wanted to be there. They wanted to be with Jesus. This is exactly why Jesus came to earth. This is exactly why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to give birth to the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Our heavenly Father want us to want to be with Jesus.

The Father never forces us to be with the Son, either in the here and now or in the hereafter. The reality of the relationship God offers is unconditional love. It is the reality God wishes to produce in each of us.

The people wanted to be with Jesus. Despite the growing darkness, lack of food and lack of shelter, they wanted to be with Jesus. And, Jesus wanted to be with them. They met him where he was and he welcomed them where they were.

The miracle emerges in the divine presence. It is the real presence of the infinite and eternal God in Jesus Christ that facilitates the miracle.

Jesus lifts up his gaze to heaven to demonstrate to people he is surrendering his will to the Divine will. He wants to be sure people understand he is not about to perform magic. He sets the context for the miracle in an attitude of prayer. The context is surrender to the divine will.

From the attitude proceeds the action. Jesus blesses the loaves and the fish. He just doesn’t give thanks over the food. He blesses, hallows and sanctifies the food. He sets it apart and places it into the very center of Divine Love and Compassion.
The attitude produces the action and leads to a result. The five loaves and three fish feed thousands. When the meal is over there is actually more food left over than what was present at the start.

Jesus used no special words that can produce an identical result. There was no thunder or lightning, no hosts of angels brining in baskets of food. The rocks did not turn into bread or the insects into fish.

The miracle was real and it proceeds from the real presence of God.
There was not enough food that night for everyone to eat. And so, Jesus prayed, blessed and gave. He gave unconditionally. He gave with abundance.
The abundance was already there as it is already in our world and in our lives. Jesus released the abundance through a miracle of love and compassion that drew from his own infinite and eternal substance.

There is amazing abundance in God’s creation yet a billion of people are starving. There is amazing abundance in God’s creation yet a billion of people lack the basic necessities of life. The problem is not a lack of resources. The solution is not in a political ideology or economic theory.

Jesus shows us the solution in this miracle. The solution is for each of us to place ourselves in the real presence of the living Lord. The solution emerges as we cultivate the desire to be with Jesus.

Jesus once said: if you have two coats and you know of someone who has no coat- that is your invitation from God to be the solution to that person’s problem. This is not how the world works right now. That is not what our culture teaches. It makes no sense in the context of any economic theory or political system. It only makes sense in the context of our personal relationship with the infinite abundance of God present to us in Jesus Christ.

Magic is the attempt to assert power to impose our will on other people and the world. Magic acknowledges no rational argument, accepts no compromise and blames other people for the world’s problems.

Science simply describes what is. Scientism draws the conclusion that the only reality is matter, energy, time and space.

Miracle proceeds from faith. It is the faith that comes to Jesus and desires to be with Jesus. It is a new life and a new way of living in the real presence of the divine that changes our attitude, produces an action and yields a result.
Jesus invited his students, his disciples, into an experience of faith. They were skeptical. They were trapped in scarcity. They were enslaved by fear. “We have nothing here,” they said. “Nothing, except these five loaves and three fish. Nothing.”

They missed their moment. They missed the obvious. They missed the basic math. 5 +3 does not = 0. They were not ready for the advanced math. 5+3 plus Jesus= infinite abundance. When you add Jesus to the equation, any equation, you add in a term that is both infinite and eternal.

This miracle is sometimes called the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. The multiplier is Jesus himself. Jesus is the real presence of the Divine who makes the miracle possible.

It isn’t magic. You can’t just ask for something and then add the phrase: in Jesus’ Name” and expect it will instantly appear. It isn’t subject to the laws of ordinary cause and effect, of basic math. You can’t reproduce the same conditions surrounding a miracle and produce the same result.

Miracles emerge in the particular and unique context of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ.

Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed but only changed in form. Jesus did not create bread out of nothing. He did not even change rocks into bread. He released the abundance of the Creation through the five loaves and three fish his disciple had.

You who have come here today need not go away empty handed. Our heavenly Father has set this time and this place as the appointed moment for an ongoing miracle. It is here on the seventh day. It is here at the altar of sacrifice. It is now at this hour that Our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to touch ordinary bread and wine and transform them into the abundance of eternal life.

How much would you pay for an extra decade of life? What would you sacrifice for an extra year of life? God offers us the gift of eternal life here and now on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice.

The bread is the abundance of infinite love. The wine is the extravagance of eternal life. The miracle is here. As it was then so it is now. The miracle is now. The miracle is the real presence of Jesus Christ in the bread and wine that will transform our every thought, emotion and choice. It is as we are transformed in this miracle that Jesus asks each of us to be a miracle for someone else.

We cannot be this miracle from a place of scarcity. We cannot be this miracle if we are enslaved by magical thinking or political ideology.

It is as we experience a change in attitude through this miracle of Real Presence that Jesus invites us to take action and produce a result. As we ponder the scandal of a billion human beings starving to death in a world rich with abundance Jesus tells us today as he told his disciples so long ago: “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”

Pentecost 6

2011-07-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 6 (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52) The Kingdom of heaven is like

The Bible says little about heaven.

The purpose of the Bible is to reveal the problem confronting humanity and the solution God offers.

From time to time people ask me about heaven. Usually the people who ask this question are very young or very old. The young want to know such things as whether their pet dog or cat will be in heaven. I normally give them the answer Billy Graham used to give. If you want your pet in heaven it will be there. The very old want some assurance that heaven is real and that they qualify to enter into it.

In Jesus’ day, virtually all people understood the Kingdom of Heaven to be here on earth. Jews and pagans alike believed heaven was the realm of the divine, earth was the place for human beings, and the underworld was the place of the dead.

When people in Israel heard Jesus proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven they had a very specific and detailed understanding about what that meant. They understood that the Messiah would crush the enemies of Israel, destroy Rome, establish Jerusalem as the capital of a new world empire, enslave the nations and bring wealth and prosperity to the faithful. They also believed the Messiah would select the one true expression of Judaism and then violently suppress all other sects and religions.

Jesus knew this story very well. He had grown up hearing it from his friends, neighbors, teachers and priests. He also knew it was simply not true. He knew it was not true for two reasons. He studied the scriptures and he immersed himself in the love of God the Father through worship and prayer.

Jesus knew the Kingdom of heaven was not a military, political, and economic structure. The Kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love of the Triune God made manifest to us and for us in Jesus Christ.

This was not what the people in Jesus’ time expected. It is still not what most people most of the time in our culture expect. Popular culture in the first century was looking for the right leader who would usher in the right government in order to establish the right religion. Fundamentalists in many religions in our time share this understanding.

What the mainstream culture seems to expect in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven is self indulgent entitlement. Some one once said that how we view God reveals how we view ourselves. Our image of the Kingdom of Heaven reflects the culture we live in more than the transcendent reality of heaven. We can test this idea by examining popular TV shows, movies and books that deal with the subject of the afterlife.

Jesus’ first century teaching about the kingdom is ideally suited to challenge twenty first century cultural assumptions. The parables in today’s gospel passage are drawn from ordinary life. They don’t use religious jargon or abstract philosophical concepts. The parables are short and to the point- well suited for the limited attention spans of modern people.

What is important to hear is the introduction to each of the parables. Jesus says: the Kingdom of heaven is like. This is a comparison of a transcendent spiritual reality to an ordinary aspect of our lives here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a mustard seed. The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It is like a mustard seed insofar as it starts small.

When Jesus teaches what the kingdom of heaven is he states: the kingdom of heaven in within you. The kingdom of heaven is the steadfast holy unconditional love revealed to us and made real for us in Jesus Christ. The kingdom of heaven is made manifest in us through a personal relationship Jesus Christ.

Like a mustard seed, the kingdom starts small, almost imperceptible at first. It seems insignificant in comparison to the arena of politics, economics, law and war. Yet, like the mustard seed it contains the fullness of the pattern, plan and purpose of God. It grows and develops and transcends all expectations.

Like yeast, the kingdom works unseen and yet without fail to effect an amazing transformation in the lives of those who embrace it.

Like buried treasure it is a hidden wonder that we rejoice to discover.
Like the priceless pearl it is a treasure of worth and beauty for which we willingly sacrifice our time, attention and money.

Like a fishing net, the invitation to the kingdom is universal. All are welcome. All will be included who truly value and desire the gift.

The gift is the personal relationship God the Father offers us in God the Son, Jesus Christ, by the invitation of God the Holy Spirit at work in the world.

The great question is: do we value this treasure? Are we willing to devote our time and attention to the relationship as the treasure hunter and the gem merchant were willing to devote their time to acquire what they valued? Are we willing to grow in grace as the mustard seed grows slowly and surely into the greatest of shrubs? Are we becoming the treasure fit for the King’s house?

The kingdom of heaven is within you. It is the divine love, the agape, you choose to receive, value, cultivate and bring forth in your thoughts and words and deeds. It is not something we can earn. It is a gift. It is not a basic human right. It is the very pattern of the universe. It is not a religion or a ritual or a book, as important as they may be. It is a person. The Kingdom of heaven is the love that emerges from the personal relationship our heavenly father offers us in his Beloved co-eternal Son.

The Kingdom of Heaven manifests in our lives here and now as we hear the invitation from the Holy Spirit and make a real choice to receive the gift God offers. We manifest the kingdom of heaven in our lives as we choose to immerse our minds, hearts, and wills in the three forms of Love God offers.

The three forms of love are worship, service and transformation: love of God, love of others, love of our true self.

Do we value these three forms of love? Do you trust that these three loves will grow and develop like the mustard seed? Do we trust that these three loves infused into our souls produce a healthy nourishing benefit like the yeast in dough? Do we organize our time and resources around the principle of divine love?

The test is clear. The parables show us that the test is the action produced by our faith. The sower, the baker, the treasurer hunter, the jewel merchant and the fishermen all share one common trait. How they choose to act reveals what they value and what they believe.

Jesus wants us to consider carefully the amazing benefit from the choice to immerse ourselves in his steadfast holy unconditional love. He yearns for us to experience his love as a priceless treasure beyond imagination. He pours himself out to us in the blessed sacrament of the altar to infuse us with the richness of infinite blessings. Jesus is seeking friends who want to spend time with him, learn from him, and transform in him.

The Kingdom of heaven is like the seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl and the net. It is small yet powerful. It is undervalued in all human cultures. It is the reality of God present to us in the small choices we make. The small choices accumulate in this world of cause and effect and produce a result.

For those who hear the invitation and receive the invitation as Good News, the gift of a personal relationship with God the Father through God the Son, Jesus Christ, is beyond price and worthy of our highest priority. It is a new life and a new way of living.

Is this what you want? Are you willing to ask God the Holy Spirit to help you immerse yourself in this gift? Do you want a life transformed in steadfast holy unconditional love?

The Kingdom of heaven is not in Rome, or Jerusalem or any other city on earth. The Kingdom of heaven is within you. As you choose to bear the image and likeness of God in your life so you bring forth the blessing of the Kingdom in your thoughts, desires and actions. Heaven is a transcendent reality that we can enter into and experience in the here and now of our lives as we choose.

The Bible reveals that the Kingdom of heaven is like so many of the ordinary aspects, events and objects in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence. It is not those things. It is like those things. The very pattern of the divine nature is woven into the world. Jesus selected only a few examples in order to stimulate our curiosity and to encourage our questions. Perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves: Is the Kingdom of heaven like me?

Pentecost 5

2011-07-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 5 (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)
So it will be at the end of the age.

All things in this world of duality have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This is very confusing and frustrating for one and only one terrestrial species. Humanity has the gift of self awareness. In that gift we perceive that there is the possibility for something greater and more enduring than birth, life and death. We can dream of and yearn for immortality. We can sense the reality of the eternal.

Having said that, humans can also choose to reject the reality of the eternal realm. We can choose to assert that this world of duality is all that ever was, is or will be. We have no direct evidence to support that assertion. There is substantial evidence in nature and in the way we think and feel and make choices to suggest at least the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth than we can observe and analyze in our limited experience of the world.

Moses, the prophets and the apostles all teach that the reality of the Eternal Realm, of God, should be self evident to human beings. Moses, the prophets and the apostles also observe that most human beings most of the time reject that reality. We are lost in a very narrow self limiting reality that we ourselves create and maintain.

The logical question to ask is: why?

Jesus provides the answer to that question in today’s parable of the weeds.
The Bible, the written word of God, starts with the words: in the beginning God. The Bible never seeks to prove that God exists. The Bible assumes that God exists. The Bible makes this assumption because the person who commissioned the Bible, who invited scores of men and women over a thousand year time period to contribute to the Bible, and who over saw the writing and editing of the Bible is God.

God is not the subject of the Bible. Humanity is the subject. The Biblical writers observed human behavior, classified human behavior, developed some theories about human behavior, tested those theories and then came to a conclusion. The conclusion is that our species has chosen to separate from God. In that separation we rebel against God. In that rebellion we fall into fear, self will and pride. In that fall we manifest sin in our personal lives and in our societies. The final consequence of separation is death.

Jesus tells us this morning that in the beginning the co-eternal Son sowed good seed in this world. The good seed is the rich potential in each of us for life and love and holiness.

A tiny seed barely visible to the human eye contains all of the information needed to use sunlight, water, earth and air to build the most complex and beautiful plant, or flower or tree.

The seed contains the full potential of the mature plant. It is a blueprint that holds the pattern, plan and purpose for the plant. It is not just a passive set of data. It contains a motive potential that will respond to environmental conditions and activate the birth, direct the growth and complete the maturity of the organism it is designed to produce.

Pine seeds always produce pine trees. Sunflower seeds always produce sunflower plants. Pine seeds never produce sunflowers. The genetic data within the seed and the design within the data are specific.

So it is with the spiritual seed of grace. The Bible very clearly teaches that God the Father created the world and our species by the power of God the Holy Spirit according to the pattern, plan and purpose of God the Son. Unlike plants and animals, part of our design is real choice.

Humans can chose to alter the way the design manifests in the world, and in our own lives. We can choose how we will be human.

It is clear that many people do not have faith in God. It is evident that for many who proclaim to have faith in God that faith is not a priority. Jesus uses the parable of the good seed and the weeds to offer an explanation for the world as it is and as we experience it.

The world as we now experience it is the world of duality. Some have faith some do not. Some center their lives on their faith and some do not. The world of duality is the world of choice. It is the world of the “either or”.

The Son of Man, Jesus, scatters the seed of grace universally. Satan scatters the seeds of self indulgence and self righteousness universally as well. The children of the Kingdom are those who choose to become who God created the human race to be.
God created all people to be the loving companions of the co-eternal Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Despite our original choice to reject this wonderful purpose and even more wonderful person, Jesus continues to send the Holy Spirit to sow the seed of grace in the souls of all people.

The seed of grace contains within it the plan, the pattern and the purpose of the Person, Jesus Christ. We can choose to receive the seed of grace and then grow and develop according to the pattern of grace. Or, we can make another choice.

Satan has also sown spiritual seed in the world. He scatters his seed as well. This is the seed of self will, fear and pride. It is the seed that holds the pattern of self indulgence and self righteousness. Those who choose to develop according to the pattern of this seed enter into a state of spiritual dissolution. We become less of what God created us to be. We enter into a state of devolution and disintegration.
Jesus warns us very clearly that the seed of grace produces a pattern and person of faith. The person of faith sets priorities and makes choices in this world of duality from the principle of unconditional love and compassion.

The seed of Satan is the seed of the will to power. It produces a pattern of living that is self absorbed and self indulgent. It bears the fruit of pride, cynicism, and rebellion. For such a soul there can be no room in the Kingdom of Divine love and holiness.

It is not that God refuses to give that soul a reward or a right. The reality is that the soul which rejects the seed of grace has chosen to develop according to the pattern of Satan, the pattern of the will to dominate.

Such a soul refuses to accept the reality of Jesus Christ in this life and continues to reject and rebel against Jesus in the next life. Each of us chooses our eternal destiny here and now in the realm of choice, the world of duality.
We all choose from one of two patterns of personal development. The pattern is implanted in our souls by the seed of grace or the seed of Satan. We make the choice which seed to cultivate. The Law of Love confirms our choice in the world of cause and effect and produces a result. The result is eternal.

Which pattern have you chosen to follow in order to become the person God intended you to become? Whose plan for life are you following? Our Heavenly Father has given us Jesus Christ as the plan of salvation and the pattern for life. Satan’s Plan of Damnation is any path other than Jesus Christ.

Where do you seek meaning and purpose in your life? Is it in the things of this world of duality, the world of change and the world of temporary pleasure? Is it in the will to power that proudly rejects God? Is it in the indifference of cynicism that refuses to accept even the possibility that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. Who do you think Jesus was and is? How do you choose to accept Jesus, reject Jesus or simply ignore Jesus?

How have you chosen to live and move and have you being in this world of choice, cause and effect, and consequence?

This world is the world of duality, the realm of choice. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit into the world in love to sow the seed of grace to produce faith and yield a harvest of blessing. Satan has sent his slaves, the fallen angels, into the world in spite to sow the seed of self will, fear and pride that will produce a rush of pleasure through rebellion and yield a harvest of despair.

As we choose in the here and now, so it will be at the end of the age. Choose wisely. Choose love. Choose Jesus.

Pentecost 4

2011-07-09T04:45:00.001-07:00

Pentecost 4 (Matthew 13:1-9;18-23)

“A sower went out to sow.”

A sower has one job and one job only: sow the seed. In the ancient world and in many parts of the world today the sower began his day with a sack of seed. His job was to walk a path and a pattern over a field. He sowed seed by reaching into his sack, taking a step forward, pulling out his hand and throwing the seed over the land from left to right or right to left.

The pattern of sowing is reach, step, scatter, step.

Sowing is unskilled labor. Any one can do it as long as you follow the rule and the pattern.

Older children and younger teens are ideal sowers. In technologically developed countries machines do the sowing but follow a similar pattern.

There is a certain pragmatic extravagance in sowing seed in large fields. You just can’t take the time to pick and choose where to sow. You just can’t risk the decision as to where to sow on the sower. You get the seed out there with the understanding some will never grow and bear fruit but most will.

This story of the sower is a parable. A parable is a story that is drawn from ordinary life to communicate a fundamental spiritual truth. The effectiveness of parables is based in the more profound revelation that our Heavenly Father designed the world according to a very specific pattern, plan, and purpose. That pattern, plan and purpose is, as the beloved apostle John tells us, the Logos. The Logos is the co-eternal Word of God. Parables work well as teaching devices because the world from which the parable draws itself reflects the pattern, plan and purpose of God.

John also tells us that the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God, became a particular human being at a particular place and in a particular time. The pattern, plan and purpose of God embedded in the creation is also revealed to us in a single person: Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ use of parables reveals two fundamental aspects of the Creation. The pattern, plan and purpose of God is embedded in the ordinary events, activities and substance of life. And, human beings more often than not miss the meaning.

The thousand year record of human behavior recorded for us in the Bible shows us that people consistently reject God. The parable of the sower is a summary of that thousand year record of human behavior in a very short, succinct and powerful image.

The sower is in fact God himself. The Father sends the Holy Spirit into the world according to the plan, pattern and purpose of the Son. The Sower sows the seed of the Kingdom, which is the seed of grace. This is not something strange or unusual. It is not secret information available to only a few who claim enlightenment or righteousness.
The Sower scatters the seed of grace with extravagance and with abundance. This is the pattern of the co-eternal Beloved Son. It is the pattern of unconditional love pouring himself out to all people everywhere.

This is why even Jesus’ own disciples reacted to the parable of the Sower with confusion. It didn’t fit their preconceived ideas about who God was and how God acted.

Jesus not only takes the time to explain the parable but helps his disciples to perceive why they had trouble understanding it. The barriers to understanding this parable are the same barriers that create resistance in the human soul to perceiving the reality of God in nature.

The barriers are threefold. To use the Biblical language they are the world, the flesh and the devil.

Jesus says it better in the parable.

The seed that falls by the wayside, off the path, outside the field, is the arena of those for whom God is just one option among many. Those are the ones who are easy prey for the birds who come and devour the seed. The birds represent the devil, Satan.

Satan can snatch the seed of grace from those who choose to live in the wayside because they do not value God for who He is or for what He offers. They are indifferent to God. In their indifference they ignore the seed of grace.

The principle of the wayside is that if we place God second in our lives we place God last. If we place God last we will not value who God is and what God offers us. If we place God last then Satan steps in and takes from us the very gifts God offers.

Satan is a thief, a liar, and a murderer. But, he cannot violate the law of love. The law of love is the law of self responsibility. We make a choice. That choice enters into the pattern, plan and purpose of the creation in the realm of cause and effect. That choice produces a consequence.

Those who live by the wayside choose to place God second and so they choose to place God last. They are not evil, at least by the standards of the world. They are simply indifferent. That indifference enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a consequence. The consequence is that Satan steals the gift and the people don’t even care.

How can we discern whether we are living by the wayside? Moses gives us a simple test. Where are you on the day of worship? If we place God first we are where God calls us to meet him on the seventh day, the day of worship.

The next place the seed falls is the stony place. This is the place of the flesh. The prophet Ezekiel laments that people have a heart of stone when it comes to their love for God. The flesh is the disordered and distorted desires of the heart. The distortions proceed from the place of original separation. They are distortions of love. The main distortion is self indulgence. Self indulgence generates the belief that if God is love then God must give me what I want when I want it.

We want many things over the course of our lives. Some things are age appropriate. Some things are never appropriate. Some things require patience and persistence. Self indulgence issues a demand to God backed by a threat. The demand is: give me what I want now. The threat is: if you don’t give me what I want I will stop believing in you.

Many people are sunshine believers. As long as we are living well and not experiencing pain we believe in God, we come to church, we rejoice in the apparent blessings of life. Yet, we always encounter the storms of life. Sadly, sunshine believers interpret these storms as evidence of God’s wrath or God’s absence. Sunshine believers abandon God in the false belief that if God doesn’t give then what they want when they want it, then God is either cruel or non existent.

Job shows us the way to deal with the distortion of self indulgent love in his statement: the Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

The third challenge to faith is the challenge of the world. The world is the surrounding culture. It is all the expectations, assumptions, and patterns of behavior we learn from school, entertainment and the various institutions of our society. These things choke out faith as we choose to give them our time, attention and life energy.

The test to discern the influence of the world is the test of priorities. The Biblical text we can use is St. Paul’s 13th chapter in his first letter to the church at Corinth. This is some times called the love chapter. The test is to substitute your name for the word love in the chapter. Are you living up to that statement? If not, why not? What is the obstacle to living life from the principle of unconditional love?

One of the most direct challenges the world offers is the temptation to love money and to use people. If our first priority is money we make no room for grace. The money is not the problem. The problem is where we direct our love. The test is how we set our priorities.

The seed that falls on good soil always produces a harvest. The harvest is the blessing of God that begins with grace and grows in faith. The key is in hearing God’s word, believing God’s word, reading, studying and memorizing God’s word, then acting on God’s word.

The world attempts to drown out God’s word. The flesh seeks to diminish and distort God’s word. The devil seeks to steal God’s word from us. The solution to these problems is Jesus.

Jesus is the word of God in human flesh. The solution to the problem we face as a species and as individuals is in a personal relationship with the personal God, Jesus Christ.

Religion seeks to impose lists of laws between us and God. Secular society encourages self indulgent indifference to God. Jesus offers us a new life and a new way of living in a new experience of unconditional love.

The Way of Jesus is open ended, spontaneous, active, dynamic and creative. Jesus invites us to experience the infinite and eternal in the ordinary events and objects of the here and now. The Way begins in the quiet moments of our lives when the Holy Spirit offers us divine grace, the gift of God in our daily experience of the creation, other people, ourselves and God.

Our Heavenly Fathers sends the Holy Spirit to speak to us the invitation to receive the love of the co-eternal Beloved Son as the sower sows the seeds: with extravagant abundance according the plan, the pattern, the purpose and the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pentecost 3

2011-06-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 3 (Matthew 11:16-19;25-30) “Come to me.”

Jesus asked: “To what will I compare this generation?”

Every generation is beset by a common problem. That problem is separation from God. Separation from God produces a spiritual pain that envelops and enslaves the soul. That pain results in the distortion of our thoughts, emotions and wills.
As every human being is unique so every generation is unique. Every generation manifests the common problem of separation in the unique circumstances of its particular culture.

The culture Jesus grew up in was a religious culture. It was a religious culture of pride, fear, and the will to power. It was a religion of rewards and punishments. It was a culture of rigid categories that produced criticism, contempt and condemnation.
Jesus compares his generation to a group of children sitting in the marketplace. They are sitting still. Not moving. Inert. Frozen. Stagnant. They remain aloof in the pride of their own self sufficiency.

A child comes to the group and invites them to stand up and move around and join him in playing a game. That child is John the Baptist. John preached repentance from sin and preparation for the coming Messiah. John proclaimed a lament for the status quo and an urgent call for self examination and transformation.

That generation of religious leaders refused self examination. They were in fact self satisfied and self sufficient. They refused to enter into a process of transformation because they already considered themselves righteous. They listened to John but did not hear him. They remained seated, stationary, stagnant. John did every thing he could to encourage them to move even the slightest step forward. They refused.

Jesus came playing the flute. Jesus proclaimed the goodness of God and the joy of the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus came celebrating the Divine Presence in the ordinary events of life. He invited the sedentary religious leaders to stand up and join in the celebration.

As with John’s call to repentance, so it was with Jesus’ call to celebration. That generation resisted both John and Jesus. They were set in their ways. They were stuck in their programs. They were defined by their pride of position and power. They were resistant to both repentance and to celebration because they feared change.

They were like pouting petulant children trapped in their own demand to define life, other people and God. They thought they were righteous. They thought they had understanding. They thought they had God figured out. But, they lacked humility. Because they lacked humility they lacked wisdom.

Wisdom starts from the place of humility.

The great tragedy of the sin nature is pride. We can identify pride in our lives whenever we make non negotiable demands backed by a threat.

The way of wisdom is the way of Jesus Christ.

The book of Proverbs is a book about wisdom. The eighth chapter of Proverbs gives a very clear and concise summary of wisdom.

The way of wisdom is the way the co-eternal Son of God adopted when he came to earth. He surrendered every aspect of his divine prerogatives that the religion of his generation valued. He came helpless as an infant. He lived the life of the ordinary working poor. He came in the spirit of the Messianic prophecy announced by the prophet Isaiah: a bruised reed he will not break; a dimly burning wick he will not quench. He came with healing. He came with unconditional love.

This humility confused, bewildered and angered almost every one Jesus met during his three years of public ministry. This was not what anyone expected from the Messiah. The expectation was that the Messiah would support and reward the programs already developed by the righteous. The expectation was for a very material reward in terms of money and power.

The reality was not in the reward but in the relationship Jesus offered.
Jesus is very clear on both the problem confronting the human race and God’s solution to the problem.

People, all people, are lost in separation.

Religious people are lost in religion when we use religion to impose our will on other people; and, when we use our religion to place demands on God. The religion of Jesus’ generation was the religion of the loophole. People asked themselves and their leaders: what is the least I have to do to be considered righteous? What is the minimum requirement for me to avoid wrath and to gain my reward?

Secular people are lost in the pride of knowledge and the despair of superstition. Pride says “I don’t need God.” Despair says: “even if God exists he could never help me.” The secular assert: “it is all up to me and all about me.” The secular also say: “it is not my fault; some one else is to blame.”

Jesus teaches what the religious and the secular do not want to hear. Jesus teaches the personal responsibility of every individual to receive the gift our Heavenly Father offers us. The gift is a person: Jesus Christ.

Jesus angered everyone by proclaiming that he alone knows the Father.
Jesus confused everyone by offering that knowledge to all people as a gift. You can’t earn it. It is not a human right. It is a gift.

Jesus is God pouring himself out to each of us and to all of us in the person of his only begotten Son. Jesus is the real presence of the Infinite and Eternal inviting us to repent and to celebrate.

The invitation is one word: “Come”.
Are you weary? Come. Come to Jesus.
Are carrying heavy burdens? Come. Come to Jesus.
Are you feeling enslaved by your own impossible demands on life? Come . Come to Jesus.

Are you frustrated, confused, agitated by too much or too little knowledge about the world? Come. Come to Jesus.

Jesus offers rest to the weary.
Jesus offers release to the burdened.
Jesus offers renewal to the frustrated.
Jesus offers to refresh our mind, heart and will continually by his own Real Presence.

What Jesus offers is not a program, a set of laws, or a quick fix. What Jesus offers is a new life and a new way of living.
If we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior we reject all other masters. To take the yoke of Jesus is to forsake all other claims on our loyalty, our time, our priorities.

As we take that yoke of Lordship we enter into an active, dynamic, never ending journey of transformation in unconditional love.

That journey is grounded in our souls through the spirit of humility Jesus gives us. It isn’t easy. And, it doesn’t happen over night. It is the only way we can know God. It is the only way we can live the blessing God offers us.

Jesus compared his generation to sullen spiteful children who wouldn’t respond to the call to repentance or the call to worship.

To what does Jesus compare our generation?

How do we respond to the call to repentance, conversion and transformation? Do we say, “Yes Lord?” Or, do we say, “not now?” What do we say? Do we respond with humility or do we react with pride?

How do we respond to the call to worship? The call to worship is the call to the total immersion of the soul in the steadfast holy unconditional love of God. Do we say: “Yes Lord.” Or, do we look for loopholes to avoid the invitation. Do we respond with humility or do we react with pride?

The blessing God offers is in the relationship God offers in Jesus Christ. The relationship sets us free from fear, self will and pride to enjoy a new life and a new way of living in renewal and celebration as we hear the invitation of Jesus Christ in the words: “Come to me”.

Pentecost 2

2011-06-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

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

Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does God want?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The reward is the relationship.

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

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

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

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

That is what God wants.

What do you want?

Will you allow Jesus to be who he is?

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

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

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

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

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

Trinity

2011-06-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Trinity Sunday 2011 (Matthew 28:16-20)
Remember, I am with you always.

The Trinity reveals the pattern, plan and purpose for human life.

The reality that the one God is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can only come through divine revelation. The key to that revelation is Jesus Christ.

Certainly, Moses and the Prophets experienced the reality of God the Holy Spirit as that personal Presence of God the Father who called them into ministry and empowered them for ministry. They also looked forward to the coming of the Messiah.

The word “Trinity” is not used in the Bible. It is a word the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church chose to describe the reality of God as set forth in the Bible and as experienced in the lives of the apostles.

The teaching that the one God is three persons is grounded in the Incarnation. In Luke we read how our Heavenly Father sent the Holy Spirit to effect the incarnation of the co-eternal Logos, the Beloved Son of the Father. In John we read how the Word was always with God and always is God. That Word became incarnate in Jesus Christ.
At Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, God the Father speaks audibly and declares: this is my Son, The Beloved. God the Holy Spirit appears visibly in a form the witnesses could only describe as similar to a dove. The Holy Spirit anointed Jesus to be the Christ, the anointed one.

In the Transfiguration the Holy Spirit appears visibly to the senses of the apostles as a luminescent cloud. Once again, God the Father speaks audibly and declares Jesus to be His Son, The Beloved.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit appears visibly as fire and audibly as the sound of a mighty rushing wind.

Jesus himself refers to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus gives us the baptismal formula as the simple, direct and explicit statement of the reality of the Trinity.

Most people who are not Christians tend to describe the Christian belief in the Trinity as tri-theism. They cannot understand how the one God can be three persons so they tell us we really believe in three gods. No less a person than Sir Isaac Newtown was so troubled by his inability to comprehend the Trinity intellectually, that he rejected the teaching in his effort to make God fit into the mathematical precision of the world of matter, energy, time and space.

God is not limited by that world. God is infinite and eternal. God is greater than the universe. Those of us who live in the universe are limited in our understanding. All of us participate in our first parents’ choice to separate from God. As a consequence of that original choice, we are lost in separation and do not wish to be found.

The record of scripture through Moses and the Prophets is that people do not seek God. People flee from God. Religious people flee from God by creating God in their own image according to their own desires. Secular people flee from God by rejecting the very concept of God.

The first ecumenical councils met to formulate the Nicene Creed in response to a serious challenge to the teaching of the Incarnation and the Trinity. A priest by the name of Arius decided the doctrine of the Trinity was incomprehensible and confusing. He came to believe this doctrine was the cause for anti-Christian persecution.

Arius asserted that there was only one eternally self existent God. That God created the Son in a moment of time, thus removing the complexity of the co-eternal Son. Having rejected the Son as co-eternal with the Father, Arius redefined the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force emanating from God.

Arius accomplished what Sir Isaac Newtown would later assert: he fit God into the limited categories of human understand. He redefined God in human terms. God will not be defined by any one. God is God. God is the great “I am”. The Bible is very clear that the One God is three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Ecumenical Councils struggled to find the words to express this Divine Mystery revealed in the Bible and made real for us in Jesus Christ. They found the words in the subtly of Greek Philosophical thought. After much prayer, Bible study and debate, the First Ecumenical Council in the year 325 AD wrote the Nicene Creed. The second Ecumenical Council met in the year 381 AD to respond to further challenges to the creed and gave us the creed in its present form.

Modern critics of the Council assert that the Church invented the Trinity to appease the pagan Roman mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even Arius recognized that it was the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation that confused the Romans and led them to persecute the Christians under the treason laws.

Other critics say that the Nicene Creed became the official teaching of the church by the narrowest majority of one vote. This is also not true. The overwhelming majority of the bishops who attended the Council understood what was at stake. The debates were not so much about whether the incarnation and the Trinity were Biblical. The debate was over how to express these divinely revealed truths in the most precise language possible.

By the end of the First Ecumenical Council only two of three hundred bishops refused to sign the decision.

Why is the teaching of the Trinity important?

During the debates in the Council a phrase emerged that helped clarify the issue. The phrase is: What he (Jesus) did not assume he could not redeem.

The apostolic witness in the New Testament is very clear. Only God can save. No prophet, priest, king or angel has the power to transform sin into love and death into life. Salvation is Jesus Christ because only in Jesus does the Eternal and Infinite Love of God unite divinity with humanity. Only in that union can Jesus transform sin and death into love and life.

The apostolic witness is very clear that salvation touches the very essence of our being. It is, to use the language of philosophy, ontological not just legal.
The Council relied most on the apostle John’s writing in his gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

It is only the co-eternal Beloved of the Father, incarnate in Jesus Christ, who can reunite a lost broken and rebellious humanity with God. It is Jesus Himself who describes the Holy Spirit as coming from God, having a unique and defined personality, and as being co-eternal with the Father and the Son.

In the end, the Ecumenical Councils recognized there was no other way of describing what the apostles experienced in their lives and wrote in the New Testament than what is set forth in the Nicene Creed.

The Trinity is not a reality the human mind can analyze and prove. The Trinity is the reality of God Jesus invites us to experience.

The Bible never seeks to prove God’s existence. Moses and the Prophets never attempted to prove God’s existence. Jesus is himself the proof of God’s existence yet virtually everyone he knew rejected him, abandoned him and betrayed him. God is “I am”. He is the infinite and eternal self existence that created the universe and became a particular human being within the confines of the universe to rescue human beings from self imposed separation.

We cannot logically prove the Trinity any more than we can logically prove the existence of God. Jesus invites us to experience the reality of the Trinity by faith through grace.

Jesus is himself the key.

Jesus reveals that the one God is not static transcendent inapproachable perfection. Jesus reveals that the One God is an active dynamic outpouring personal love. Within the reality of the eternal, God actively expresses his essential nature in the dynamic out pouring of love. God the Father is the Eternal Lover, the one who loves. God the son is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. God the Holy Spirit is the Presence and Power of that love. One way of experiencing the Trinity is to participate in the new life of The Divine Lover, The Beloved and The Love.

Salvation is a new life in the active dynamic and infinitely creative eternal outpouring of divinity in the three persons of the One God.

We baptize into the Trinity to reunite with life.

We experience sanctification of our minds, hearts and wills in communion with the Trinity to be transformed in holiness.

We enter into eternal unconditional self giving love most fully and completely at the altar of sacrificial worship in the Divine Presence of the Trinity.

Jesus assures us and encourages us to remember that he is always with us. Through Jesus Christ we who live in a universe of matter, energy, time and space are also actively participating in the Divine Life and Love of the One God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost 2011

2011-06-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

Pentecost 2011 “Out of the believer’s heart” (John 7:37-39)

What proceeds from your heart?

What do your nourish and cultivate and cherish in your innermost being? What you choose to hold within is what by default you bring forth to your family, friends, acquaintances and to the wider world.

Jesus knew this about us first hand. He abandoned the ineffable delights of the Heavenly realm and surrendered all of his divine power and knowledge so he could experience life as we experience life: moment by moment in the duality and uncertainty of time.

From the eternal realm Jesus saw the original choice we made to separate from God. He saw that choice enter into the world of cause and effect. He saw how the effect upon the human heart is a terrible pain that distorts every aspect of our being. He saw and he acted.

Jesus, the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father, came to earth at a particular time in a particular place as a particular person in order to experience the brokenness of human existence. He did this so he could heal that brokenness.
Jesus heals our brokenness in two ways. The first way is called Justification. Jesus never sinned. He never sinned because he never made the choice to separate from the Eternal Father. Jesus did suffer the consequences of humanity’s original choice to separate from God.

Jesus bore the particular sin of every human being on the Cross at the moment of his death. During his life, during his thirty three years living on this planet, he also suffered the recycled pain our species inflicts on itself.

He never participated in this terrible pattern of sin, the action and reaction of Original pain at work in the human heart in the world of cause and effect. He did suffer the consequences. He suffered constant insult and abuse from people who rejected him. He suffered constant misunderstanding and demand from people who wanted him to give them power and wealth.

Most of all, Jesus suffered the betrayal of love from every human being he met.
Jesus is the love of God in human flesh. Jesus is the sure and certain truth that God just doesn’t have love- God is love. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved for whom God the Father created all of us and each of us. There is no human being whom God does not love and whom Jesus does not cherished.

Whoever you are and whoever you have chosen to become, Jesus is the love of God the Father reaching out to you. You are the love of God the Father designed to hold the love of the co-eternal Son and to share that love with him.

A twentieth century song states: you always hurt the one you love. You always hurt the one who loves you the most. Other people may find you irritating and dismiss you. Only the one who really loves you can feel the pain you bring forth from the depths of your soul through the distortions of your heart.

Jesus endured this pain from his enemies, from his friends and from his family and from us. No one then and no one now considers who Jesus is.

People then and now seek to define Jesus according to our needs and desires. And, we seek to define Jesus from the place of Original Pain from the Original Choice we made to separate from God. As we do this, we miss the very plan, pattern and purpose for our lives.

That is why the co-eternal Son of God was willing to come to earth and accept the pain humanity inflicted upon him and still inflicts upon him. The great love of God in Jesus Christ bears all human sin, recycled pain, suffering and death then transforms it back into life, eternal life.

The process by which the co-eternal Son applies this transformation to individual souls is the Holy Spirit.

On Good Friday on the cross, the Son sealed the breach of original separation.
On Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into the souls of those who chose to enter into the new life Jesus offers all people.

As the Holy Spirit entered into the souls of the Apostles, He created the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. People did not create the church. The apostles were content to return to their fishing business. They were intent on grafting the New Covenant of Jesus Christ into the Synagogue and the Temple.

The Church is a divinely created organism that temporarily takes form in the world in an institutional form. The Church that the Holy Spirit is forming is the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

The twofold purpose of the church is the two fold action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the faithful. That two fold purpose is the salvation and sanctification of souls.

The salvation of souls is the gift of reunification with God Jesus offers. The sanctification of souls is the purification of the heart and the transformation of the soul that the Holy Spirit offers. This is grace. Grace means gift.

The Holy Spirit is the co-eternal third person of the Eternal Trinity. His purpose is to transform us in love, by love and for love. His purpose for the church is to keep us on message. We have a job to do. We are easily distracted. The Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible, the sacraments, the liturgy, the saints, and through the faithful to call the institution away from these distractions and back to the plan of salvation.

The Holy Spirit is working in each of us to bring us clarity of thought, purity of heart and singleness of will.

It is the Holy Spirit, who has shared the eternal love of the Father and the Son, who passionately and charismatically seeks to pour into our hearts that touch of transcendence by which we can experience the same love that is the very essence of the divine.

To use a more mundane but no less real image, the Holy Spirit is teaching each of us how to love. He teaches us how to love God, other people and ourselves. He not only teaches- he transforms. He takes the broken aspects of our lives and initiates a healing process. He offers to change our very desires. He will, if we give him permission, convert our sins back into their original virtue.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to experience the passionate desire to be the love of God at this time and in this place.

It is as we seek this transformation that our hearts find relief from the pain of separation and the recycled suffering human sin inflicts on the world.

On Pentecost, the apostles experienced conversion, purification and transformation in a very powerful, visual, audible and tangible way. They entered the room fearful and confused. They left the room filled with the wonder and awe of divine love and holiness. They went into the city and proclaimed the love of God in Jesus Christ. Within a single generation they had taken that Good News into Europe, Africa and Asia.

The same Holy Spirit who inspired and empowered the apostles is here with us today. He offers us the same level of conversion, purification and transformation in divine love and holiness.The choice is ours. It is as we choose to be filled by the Holy Spirit that we experience a thirst for God. It is as we experience that thirst that we come to the altar to drink deeply of the grace of God in the sacramental Presence of God. And, it is as we release the pain in our hearts to be healed and transformed in grace that our hearts become springs of living waters for us and for everyone in our lives.

It all starts when we hear Jesus’ words, believe his words, and receive his words into our hearts. It becomes real for us as we pray” Lord Jesus Christ, release the power of the Holy Spirit in my soul that from my heart you may pour forth overflowing rivers of blessings.” Amen.

Easter 7

2011-05-31T14:39:00.000-07:00

Easter 7 (John 17:1-11) This is eternal life.

Some words are so familiar and so unknown that they elude any meaningful impact on or lives.

The words “eternal life” are very familiar to religious people. They even have a false familiarity in the minds of secular people. They are words that Jesus fills with meaning, and purpose and power.

Most people think of eternal life as a future concern. A teen once told me he really had no interest in eternal life. “That’s for old people to worry about,” he said.
Most people think of eternal life in terms of rewards and punishments. And so, some older folk I visit in the hospital or nursing homes will say something like: “I was never very religious but I tried to live a good life.” Usually, they trail off there and never complete the thought. The implication is that heaven, or eternal life, is a future reward for doing good, or at least having good intentions.

Many people in our time and culture believe eternal life is a basic human right. They become agitated at the suggestion that any religion would presume to question this belief or apply sectarian definitions to eternal life.

A significant number of people in our world, especially in Europe and the United States, assert that eternal life is irrelevant, superstitious, and deleterious to living well here and now. They define eternal life as “pie in the sky”, or more graphically as the “opium of the masses.” For these people, eternal life is a fantasy concocted by religion to impose abusive restrictions on human behavior.

Religious people sometimes envision eternal life as endless existence. Sometimes the vision is very mundane. And so, some forms of religion teach that endless existence in heaven is about pursuing all of the pleasures you denied yourself on earth in order to assure your place in heaven.

Sometimes the vision of endless existence is abstract and ethereal. It is completely divorced from any experience of life we have in this world. In some forms it involves the loss of our personal identity as we leave this world of cause and effect and enter into a transcendent world where everything merges into one final unity.

Not so surprisingly, all people hear the word “eternal” and immediately translate it into a measure of time.

Eternal means “timeless”. Eternal means that reality that has no beginning and has no end.

In the realm of the Eternal there is no past and there is no future. Those are sequential categories of time. Some suggest that the eternal is the present moment, now. Yet, even that word has been crafted and shaped and defined in opposition to something that came before now and something that will follow now. The idea that there is only now is unsupported by human experience in the world of time.

Jesus assures us that eternal life is real. It is not a reward. It is not something you can earn, or merit, or lay a claim to as a basic human right. Eternal life is a gift. And, it is a universal gift offered to all people everywhere regardless of who they are, what they do or fail to do.

Jesus also tells us that eternal life is a quality of being not a quantity of existence. That quality is expressed in the Greek word agape. There is no single word in English to translate agape.

Agape is steadfast holy unconditional love.

Jesus teaches eternal life is a relationship.

It is a relationship with God the Father, through God the Son, by the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit.

Eternal life is the life we experience in a personal relationship with the Trinity through Jesus Christ. Jesus and only Jesus is the incarnation of the co-eternal Beloved Son of the Eternal Father.

There can be no eternal life apart from Christ because only God is eternal. Only God is the author and creator of life.

If this is true then eternal life starts right now.

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches that eternal life starts at the baptismal font. At our baptism, our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to graft our souls into the Body of His co-eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

If this is true then the choices we make in this world and in this body have eternal consequences. That is why our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to transform ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of His co-eternal Son. That bread and wine become the medicine of immorality, the food and drink of eternal life here and now as well as in the hereafter.

If this true then it does matter how we set our priorities and make our choices.
The Good News is that eternal life is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the infinite compassion of God in human flesh. Jesus knows what it means to be human. Jesus has in fact experienced all of our sinful choices and their consequences on the cross. Jesus transforms sin back into love and death back into life.

All choices are eternal choices for those who in Christ have eternal life. The Good News is that the Holy Spirit is God Present to us and in us to help us yield our sins to be transformed in eternal love.

It is because we have eternal life here and now in our present relationship with Jesus, however tenuous and imperfect it may be, that we can offer our thoughts, feelings and will to God to be transformed.

Reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit is the Plan of Salvation.

Transformation of our attitudes, actions and priorities is the purpose of the Plan of Salvation.

The personal dynamic of our relationship with Jesus Christ forms the pattern of the Plan of Salvation.

Eternal life for human beings begins in a moment of time in the waters of baptism and then immerses our souls in the timeless reality of Divine Love and holiness. That timeless reality initiates a process that will never end. We will forever grow and transform in the infinite love and eternal life of the Triune God.

The impact of the words “eternal life” is the new life and the new way of living we receive from Jesus Christ. It is a gift. We can use it. We can ignore it. We can refuse it. It is available for everyone to receive.

Have you received the gift of eternal life in the waters of baptism?

If you have received the gift- how are you using it? Be careful how you answer this question. Since you now have eternal life all of your choices have eternal significance. You are co-creating your own soul either with Jesus Christ according the plan, the pattern and the purpose of God; or, you are not. The choice is yours.
Jesus prays that we might know with assurance and delight that we already have eternal life in him.

Jesus further prays that since we have that assurance of eternal life we will grow up, mature and make decisions that are grounded in that new reality.
The new reality is the Good News of God’s infinite and eternal and transforming love for us in Jesus Christ. It is that steadfast holy love at work in our souls here and now that is eternal life.

This is eternal life that you may know God in an intimate and personal relationship through Jesus Christ.

Easter 6

2011-05-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Easter 6 (john 14:15-21 “I will not leave you orphaned.”
Eternal Love transforms mortal life.

Our heavenly Father directed the archangel Gabriel to instruct Mary to name her son Jesus, savior. That is the name by which we know the co-eternal Son. The Father knows the son by a much older and profound name: The Beloved.

Jesus is the fullness of the Beloved in human flesh. He came to restore what humanity lost.

In the original choice to separate from God, humanity aspired to power. That original choice produces an original sin, a broken and lost human nature that cannot and will not act in its own highest and best self interest.

As that original sin entered into the world of cause and affect , it produced many terrible consequences. One of those consequences is the experience of rejection and abandonment.

The process that leads to isolation begins with Original sin. Original sin produces the will to power. The will to power seeks to dominate life, other people, even God. The Bible records the personal stories of hundreds of people over the course of a thousand years who experienced this terrible distortion in life.

The desire to dominate is the desperate desire to over come separation though condemnation and conquest. It cannot accomplish its goal. It can only achieve greater levels of separation, distortion and disintegration.

The bargain lost souls make with the world is dominance and submission. If you submit to my will then I will affirm your value and take care of you. If you refuse to submit to my will then I will condemn you and abandon you.

Much of human created religion is based on this bargain. Most religion relies on a structure of rewards and punishments that states: if you obey God then God will (and must) give you what you want. However, if you disobey God, then God will punish you with pain and suffering and death.

Jesus wanted his disciples to know and understand that he did not come into the world to assert his will to power to dominate any one. There is no condemnation in Jesus Christ because there is no condemnation in God.

God just doesn’t have love. God is love: holy unconditional love.

Jesus tells his disciples that love is the solid rock foundation of life. If we have love it is the love that will motivate us to follow Jesus Christ and to keep his commandments.

Note that Jesus does not use the language of rewards and punishment. He does not endorse a religion of dominance and submission. He does not say: if you obey the laws then I will love you and reward you. He says: as you are in my love you follow the way of life I offer. As you are in love you find the passionate desire to keep the law.

Jesus then assures his disciples, and us, that his Ascension into heaven is not abandonment. There is no abandonment in divine love.

The orphan is left alone to question why. Why did they leave me? Why did they abandon me? Original separation from God produces further experiences of separation in broken relationships among families, friends, neighbors and nations. The will to power seeks to overcome the pain of separation through force.

No wonder Jesus took the time to reassure his disciples that he would never leave us or forsake us. His ascension into heaven is not abandonment. He sends us another Helper. That other Helper is the co-eternal third person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit.

Jesus assures us that he brings no condemnation from the Father. He brings acceptance, life, truth and unconditional love. He came to earth to give us these things as a gift. It is as we receive the gift that we experience a new life and a new way of living. It is as we receive the gift that we experience the transformation of our thoughts, desires and will.

The Bible is very clear that no one by their own will can keep the Law. Life is not about law or the human will to power. Life is about steadfast holy unconditional love. Jesus is very clear that people don’t need more law. We need more love.

How do we know that Jesus makes a difference in our lives? How can we discern where we still live from the place of original separation? Jesus tells us: if you love me you will keep my commandments. It is not about obedience or disobedience. It is not about dominance and submission. We keep the commandments as we immerse our selves in the divine love of God in Jesus Christ.

We keep the commandments as we hold the commandments in conscious intent to live the new life of grace by faith. We keep the commandments as we set the intention to make our relationship with Jesus Christ the first priority in our lives. We keep the commandments as we choose to suspend judgment and give other people the benefit of the doubt by asking others: how may I help? We keep the commandments as we offer our selves and souls and bodies to the Holy Spirit to be transformed into living chalices of grace.

It is our responsibility to make the choices in life that expand love. All choices either expand love or further distort love into fear, self will and pride.
God does not expect us to do this alone. In fact, our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit, the Helper, to transform us into living temples of love and holiness. We have access to the same Divine Presence and Power that filled Jesus and formed his life.

Eternal Love transforms mortal life. That love is not just a feeling or even a principle. It is a person: Jesus Christ. Jesus assures us: I am with you always. I will never leave you or forsake you. I will not leave you orphaned, abandoned, rejected or alone. Claim the promise. Live the promise. Make a real choice to transform in the real presence of the promise.

Easter 5

2011-05-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

Easter 5 (John 14:1-14) You know the Way.

The Way of salvation is the way of life. The way of life is Jesus Christ.

After three years of walking with Jesus, the disciples already knew the way of salvation. They knew the way in their personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They blocked that knowledge as they chose to redefine Jesus in the very limited one dimensional category of the human will to power.

The disciples wanted Jesus to give them a well defined program for the Kingdom. They wanted that program set forth in very detailed laws, charts and time tables. The program needed to meet the needs they had identified for themselves. They cast those needs in the categories of politics, economics, culture, religion, pleasure and power.

None of those categories are necessarily bad. None of those categories can bring salvation. And none of those categories is the foundation for life.

What did the disciples already know?

They knew Jesus. They knew his unconditional love and compassion. They knew his sinless life. They knew his active dynamic and passionate participation in all aspects of human life. They knew his priority for living in the world: Worship, service, personal holiness.

The Way of Salvation is the Way of life. It cannot be limited to a single list of dos and don’ts. It cannot be contained in a narrow religious, cultural or political system. It is not about programs. It is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The principle underlying our Heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation is that we become who or what we worship. We discern who or what we worship through our priorities.
That is why Jesus said: not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Salvation is not just about the outward and visible signs of religion. Salvation is about the inward and spiritual choice we make to mold and shape and develop our souls, our personal identity.

The Kingdom of Heaven was right in the midst of the disciples but the disciples couldn’t see it. They also would not see it. They wanted something else. They wanted the power and the wealth and the assertion of their own self will.

The Bible is very clear that people tend to look past the clear and simple message of salvation. People complicate Biblical teaching because we don’t want to hear the simple and direct message God placed in the Bible. Sadly, this tendency to ignore what God reveals only results in greater levels of frustration, fear and anxiety among the religious.

So, Jesus, as he prepares for his arrest, torture and execution, reveals to the disciples what they had missed.

First, Jesus tells them: do not let your hearts be troubled. The frustration, fear and anxiety come from a choice we make to ignore who God is. The troubled heart is a heart focused on making the world of matter, energy, time and space the sole arena of meaning and purpose. Religious people tend to use religion to try to make the world of impermanence and duality stand still.

The world won’t stand still. All things in this world are only temporary. Mother Teresa once said: hold all things lightly. She did not say: give up all things. This is the world of duality, the world of action and reaction, the world of pleasure and pain, the world of life and death.

There is only one thing permanent in this world. The one thing that is permanent is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of God the eternal Father.

And so, Jesus redirects his disciples to focus their belief in God. No other person, program or object is worthy of belief. God is not an instrument by which we achieve our goals. Worship is not something we do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s punishment. If we approach God as a means to an end we miss the meaning and purpose in life. God is the goal. God is the end.

The Way we enter into the reality of God is Jesus Christ.

The disciples all had religion. They also all missed the relationship.
The four biographies of Jesus Christ very clearly focus on the specific and personal relationships Jesus formed. Jesus reached out to everyone he met with friendship, healing, laughter, compassion and unconditional love. He brought forth that love in holiness.

For most of his public ministry, people simply chose to look past who Jesus was and what he offered. At the end of his life, at the foot of the cross, only a teen named John and Jesus’ mother with her two companions chose to value the relationship more than the anticipated reward.

The disciples knew the way of salvation. It was the way of life. It was Jesus Himself as he modeled a life of worship, ministry and personal holiness.

Jesus’ statement: I am the way, the truth and the life, is an outpouring of divine love and holiness to all people. It is not, as some seek to assert, religious chauvinism. It is grace. It is mercy. It is the peace that passes understanding. It is the new life and the new way of living. It is the Original Blessing of Creation re presented to a lost and rebellious species that chose the way of separation.
Before any one invented the word “Christian” the followers of Jesus simply described themselves as the followers of the Way.

The Way begins in a moment of time at the baptismal font. The way unfolds and transforms as we make a real choice to enter into the real presence of Jesus Christ through Word (the Bible) and Sacrament (Holy Communion).

Those who enter into the personal relationship with God the Father through God the Son enter into a new way of life. That new way of life is defined and characterized by the Presence of God the Holy Spirit.

The way of salvation is the way of life. Every choice we make, every priority we set is either contributing to our personal transformation in the divine love of God, or it is inhibiting our ability to live the abundant life our Heavenly Father offers us in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the way in the context of a personal friendship. Jesus is not the way in the context of religion, culture, politics or programs. These things have their place and they are also transitory and passing away.

Jesus is eternal. His friendship is forever. The relationship he offers us is active, dynamic, transforming and limitless.

You know the way, Jesus told his disciples. I suspect he said this with a smile and an invitation.

Jesus offers the same invitation to us today. You know the way. Like the first century disciples we can easily look past who Jesus is. And so, the Holy Spirit reminds us. He just doesn’t remind us, He also helps us make better choices, wise choices.

What does it mean for you today to hear the message that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life? What difference does Jesus make in the way you make choices and set priorities?

Jesus is very clear. We don’t need more knowledge. We need more love: steadfast, holy, unconditional love.

We don’t need to make judgments about who is right and who is wrong. Judgment cultivates pride and pride kills. Divine love and compassion covers a multitude of sins and heals a multitude of hurts. Divine love and compassion preserves the relationships. We need to cultivate the relationships God has given us. The reality of life is in the relationships we choose to embrace. The joy of living emerges through those relationships.

Jesus says: you know the way. Do you believe this? Will you make a real choice to seek the way in a personal transforming relationship with the Living Lord, Jesus Christ?

Easter 4

2011-05-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

Easter 4 (John 10:1-10)
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Jesus Christ is the plan, the pattern and the purpose for life.

In a series of startling “I am” statements Jesus reveals that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the logos, the co-eternal Word of God. As the logos he is the creative, dynamic and rational pattern of the universe.

People wanted Jesus to reveal and endorse the right religion that would produce right behavior and allow its followers to earn the rewards of righteousness. People were looking for the right laws, the right program and the one right way to acquire God’s favor and to avoid God’s wrath.

Jesus reveals that righteousness cannot be expressed in religious or political categories. Jesus reveals that righteousness is right relationship. Jesus reveals that all people everywhere already have God’s favor. God just doesn’t have love God is love. God loves all people unconditionally.

What Jesus reveals about God is very difficult for people to accept. The Bible is a record of the reason why the revelation Jesus brings is difficult for people to accept. Most people believe the Bible is a record of one of many ways people seek God. Moses and the Prophets record their observations of the many ways people reject God and hide from God.

Jesus is the Way God seeks us. God seeks us out in all of our confusion, fear, self will and pride. He seeks us out in person. He comes to us with an offer of unconditional love and eternal friendship. And in fact, the Bible records how most people most of the time really aren’t interested in what God is offering in Jesus Christ.

Even those who followed Jesus as his disciples, his students, looked through Jesus and past Jesus to what they really valued and really wanted. It is what a fallen and lost humanity seeks. And it is what keeps us lost and broken. It is pleasure, prestige, position and above all else: power.

A separated and lost humanity seeks meaning, purpose and diversion in the externals of life. We define ourselves by what we have and how we can assert our will to get what we want. We divert our awareness of our condition through pleasure and entertainment. These things have their place. These things can never satisfy the deepest longing of the soul.

Jesus offers us who God is. God is steadfast, holy, unconditional love. The disciples heard that message, observed that message, experienced the reality of that message and looked past it. They essentially said: love and compassion. Very nice, Jesus. But, when do we get to the real stuff? When do we get the reward? When do you defeat our enemies, form a new government, purify our religion and give us what we really want? They focused on the externals. They focused on the transitory. They missed the eternal reality Jesus came to give them.

People then, and people now, saw Jesus as a means to an end. Jesus presents himself as the pattern, the plan and the purpose for life. The life Jesus offers is creative, spontaneous, active, dynamic, joyful and self giving. That life is a well of living waters that immerses our soul and pours forth from our soul regardless of the external circumstances our lives.

Jesus is not a means to an end. Jesus is not a bullet point on a resume. Jesus is life, abundant life.

Belief in Jesus does not earn for us an external reward. Jesus is himself the reward. Jesus is the very gate of life. Friendship with Jesus is a new life and a new way of living. Jesus very firmly warns us that he is the only gate, the only way, to reunification with God the Father and transformation in God the Holy Spirit. All other ways are detours and dead ends.

In those detours and dead ends we will meet many who offer to sell us a program and a pathway to satisfy our desires. Jesus warns us that they will also steal our joy and destroy our ability to live the abundant life.

Jesus is the door. Jesus is the way. He actively seeks us in the various detours and dead ends we pursue. He actively invites us into a new life and a new way of living.
The new way of living is neither self indulgence nor self denial. It is the middle way of steadfast holy unconditional love. It is the way of worship, discipleship, evangelism, service to others and fellowship with other believers.

It is no wonder the disciples could not understand this teaching. The new life is inner directed. It emerges in the depth of the soul as the soul immerses itself in the steadfast holy unconditional love of God through worship and service. The new life sets us free from the external circumstance of our society and our world.

The disciples lived lives that were outer directed. They looked at life, they looked at Jesus, and asked: what’s in it for me? How does Jesus help me get and keep the pleasure, possession, prestige and power that I demand? What program does Jesus offer me to meet my needs and my desires? In that pursuit they knew insecurity and fear.

The new life in Jesus Christ sets us free from fear. The new life in Christ transforms fear into compassion, compassion for other people and compassion for ourselves. The new life redefines who we are and how we can best live our lives.
Jesus reveals that we are each a unique manifestation of one aspect of his infinite and eternal love. Jesus reveals the best way to be human and to live in this world is to set our first priority as worship, our second priority in our service to others and our third priority in our own personal transformation.

Jesus calls us to reset our priorities by pledging our life and love and loyalty to him. It is as we make a real choice to immerse our mind, heart and will in the real presence of Jesus Christ that we meet the living Lord in the daily events of our lives and discover how Jesus is the abundant life of God who makes all things new.

Easter 3

2011-05-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Easter 3 (Luke 24:13-35)
He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Seeing is not necessarily believing.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not something the disciples believed easily. Many of the disciples did not immediately recognize Jesus in his resurrection body even when they saw him. People have attempted to explain this phenomena in mystical or occult terms. The reality is likely far more ordinary.

A 14th century English scholar named William of Occam developed a principle of inquiry that may help us understand the problem. William said: the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation.

The simplest explanation for why so many of Jesus’ disciples, from Mary Magdalene to Cleopas and his friends, did not recognize Jesus at first is that they never expected Jesus to rise from the dead. Resurrection was outside the parameters of what they believed was possible in this world. And, it was outside their own religious beliefs.

Seeing is not necessarily believing when the person who sees cannot accept the reality of his senses. If we hold onto strong beliefs and expectations about how the world works and what is possible we may very well miss the moment of grace when the Eternal intersects with the temporal, when the infinite God makes himself known in the particularity of human experience.

More often than not, believing requires a wider and more profound context.
Jesus understood this very well. In his human nature he was a student of the present human condition. As the logos, the co-eternal Word of God, he himself is the pattern of original human nature. He observed the discrepancy between the original pattern and the present reality.

Jesus knew his disciples were lost in separation from God. He knew this separation had produced distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices. He knew that most of his disciples in that generation would not be able to believe in the resurrection within the context of their assumptions about the world.

So, Jesus provided a new context. We hear in this story the three fold nature of the new context. It is the Bible, the Sacraments, and the Community of Faith.

The first thing Jesus did when he spoke with Cleopas and his companions was to lead them in Bible Study. From Moses and the Prophets Jesus explained the context for faith. That context is the great love of God at work in the nation of Israel for over a thousand years prior to the incarnation.

Moses and the Prophets provide the foundation for faith and set the parameters for belief.

The problem was the overlay of human tradition that had evolved over the centuries and obscured the clear and concise message of Moses and the Prophets. So, in addition to Bible Study, Jesus manifested the new reality through the new sacrament of the new covenant: Holy Communion.

As Jesus broke the bread he invoked the memory of the Passover sacrifice and applied it to himself in the present moment.

As Jesus broke the bread, Cleopas and the others had an “aha” moment. It was a moment of grace. And, it was a moment Jesus had prepared through the Bible study that preceded it.

In that moment, the disciples recognized the Plan of Salvation was not law and wrath but love and grace. In that moment, the disciples understood what Jesus had been teaching for three years and what Moses and the Prophets had declared for centuries.
In that moment, the new context Jesus provided facilitated faith. And the faith gave birth to belief. In that moment of grace that produced faith their eyes were opened to see what had been there all of the time. Suddenly, within the new context of Word and Sacrament, seeing became believing.

Their faith resulted in belief. Their belief fulfilled the work of the moment. Jesus vanished. And the disciples rushed back to Jerusalem to report to the apostles who had had their own moment of grace.

The third context of faith that produces belief is the Community of Faith. The disciples gathered together. They shared their personal and individual experience of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That experience became the living tradition of Faith.
The tradition is living not dead. The tradition unfolds in the present time in the personal experience of the faithful. We hold the experience in the context of Word and Sacrament so the universal and unchanging truth of Jesus Christ can be revealed in the particularity of the present moment of our present experience.

This story that we heard read only exists to help us and many others in the world to discover the reality of God. That reality is a new life and a new way of living that over time heals the distortions of human thought, emotion and will. That reality unfolds in a particular moment in a particular place through a personal relationship with the particular person: Jesus Christ.

One of the lessons we may draw from this story is that seeing is not always believing. Another lesson might be: pay attention.

Pay attention to your life. Pay attention to the world around you. Pay attention to the people who are closest to you. Pay attention to your own assumptions about life.
As you pay attention to what is you prepare to enter your moment of grace. The moment of grace will be different for every individual. The moment of grace will be very personal. It will also be your invitation to hear the Good News of God’s love for you in the living Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith does require a new context for belief. The context is not a philosophy or a set of laws or even ritual. The context is the personal invitation from Jesus Christ to hear, and to see and to believe what has been present to us all our lives.
Through word and sacrament Cleopas and the others found a new way of understanding themselves, the world, and God. They saw what was right in front of them. They saw Jesus.

The process is normative for all people everywhere. The process is a continual invitation to transformation in the community of Faith, the Church. The process produces the faith that can joyfully affirm the belief: Alleluia, the Lord is risen indeed!

Easter 2

2011-04-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Easter 2 (John 20:19-31)
“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name.”

Faith precedes belief. Belief follows faith.

Human beings believe all sorts of strange and often contradictory things. The basis of these beliefs is desire and authority.

We frequently believe what we want to believe. This is the self justifying belief of convenience. And, we frequently believe what a trusted authority figure, such as a parent or a teacher, tell us.

Most of the time we do not examine our beliefs. Most of the time we do not question our beliefs. God wants us to examine our beliefs. God wants us to ask why we believe what we believe. It does matter what you believe. Belief enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a consequence.

The basis of belief for the apostles was evidence. The evidence was the personal and physical presence of the resurrected living Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus appeared to them, spoke with them, ate with them, led them in Bible study, celebrated Holy Communion, and invited them to touch him so they would know that he had a physical body.

Our heavenly Father did not, and does not, ask for us to believe in a set of laws, principles, rituals or philosophy as a condition for faith. Our heavenly Father invites us to place our trust and confidence and love in a person: Jesus Christ.
Faith is the solid rock foundation of belief. Belief without faith is like a house built on shifting sand. It won’t stand the time of testing. It won’t endure the storms of life.

It is certainly important to teach our children the beliefs of the Christian Faith. It is far more important to demonstrate faith.

Most of the apostles at first rejected the reality of the resurrection precisely because their minds and hearts and wills had been trained in a set of beliefs that said resurrection is impossible. They knew Jesus personally before he died on the cross. But, they had not yet placed their faith in him. They placed their faith in the religious leaders and the religious system that told them dead is dead. No one rises from the dead.

The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ challenged the fundamental beliefs people had about God, religion, life and death.

It wasn’t easy for the people who had known Jesus personally to accept the new reality of the New Covenant. It meant asking themselves some hard questions about themselves. It meant asking: why do I believe? What authority do I trust?
Jesus told Thomas, blessed are those who have not seen yet believe. Jesus personally appeared to some five hundred people during the forty days after his resurrection and prior to his ascension. Every one else who believes in Jesus is among those who have not seen yet believe.

The Christian Faith is a personal loyalty to a very specific person: Jesus Christ. This faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Jesus in fact states that he is the light of the world. Faith in Jesus is a movement from the darkness of separation, rebellion and death into the light of Divine Love and Divine life.

Jesus is not a cleverly devised myth. His historic reality is attested by thousands of people who knew him. Some of those accepted Jesus. Some rejected him. Some were largely indifferent. In the First Century, people formed an opinion about Jesus as a real person not a mythological story.

All but one of the apostles died for their simple testimony that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. For centuries the church has experienced the reality that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Jesus never authorized any of his followers to kill for him. He asks us to live for him. And, sometimes he asks us to die for him.

Christian martyrs die proclaiming: Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Most of the New Testament books were written before the destruction of the Temple in 70A.D. Certainly all of the New Testament books were in existence by the end of the First Century. This is attested by Christian, Roman, and Jewish writers who quote extensively from the gospels and the epistles. Some quote to uphold the Christian faith. Others quote to attack that faith. And still others quote from a place of indifferent commentary.

The real question is: who is Jesus Christ?

Modern atheists assert Jesus never lived. Does this assertion fit the historic facts?

Modern secularists assert that Jesus was a nice moral teacher but never claimed to be God. Does this assertion fit the eye witness accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching?

Some religions teach that Jesus was one in a long line of prophets but could not have been the Son of God. Does this assertion fit the eye witness accounts of Jesus birth, death and resurrection?

People believe what they want to believe. And, we believe what a trusted authority teaches us to believe.

Jesus invites us into a personal relationship with himself. He asks us to come to him and place our trust in him. He does not ask that we embrace a fully formed inflexible set of beliefs first. The relationship comes first. The faith precedes the beliefs.

The Good News the apostles proclaimed to their generation is that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

The written record of that Good News encourages us to taste and see. Taste and see that the lord is good. Ask Jesus to make himself known to you. Read the stories. Ponder them. Ask: does this make sense?

If God is real, does it make sense he would care about us?

If God is real, does it make sense he would come to us in person to show us who he is?

If God is real, does it make sense that he would invite us to make a real choice to enter into a personal relationship with himself?

If God is real does it make sense that He would choose four very different people to record their personal experiences and impressions of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?

If God is real, does it make sense that he loves us so much that he refuses to impose his will on us but rather invites us to taste and see?

The apostle John believed in the resurrection even before he met the risen Lord. He believed because he had already found faith at the Last Supper, in the company of Holy Mother Mary, and at the foot of the Cross. That faith is a personal trust and loyalty.

We do not have the same opportunity to experience Jesus as Thomas and the other apostles experienced him. We do have that same opportunity that John had.

We have the Holy Eucharist which re presents to us the reality of the Last Supper. We have the personal witness and intercessory ministry of holy Mother Mary. We can, if we choose, stand at the foot of the cross in meditation and contemplation. And, we have an additional opportunity John lacked. We have the gospels.

We have the written record of the apostolic experience of Jesus Christ. The written record is about faith. It is about the living Lord Jesus Christ reaching out to everyone with his personal invitation to receive the gift of God. It is about the unconditional love of God asking us to trust in him.

The invitation to faith is the invitation to a new life that is grounded in unconditional love and a new way of living that is the font of every blessing. John tells us: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing you may have life in his name.”

Choose wisely. Choose life. Choose Jesus.

Easter 2011

2011-04-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

Easter 2011 “He saw and he believed.”

Of all of Jesus’ apostles only John stood at the foot of the cross as Jesus died. Of all of Jesus’ apostles only John believed in the resurrection solely on the basis of the empty tomb.

John’s faith is grounded in the love that brought him with Holy Mother Mary to the foot of the cross.

The essential revelation of God in Jesus Christ is that God is real, God is love, God is personal, God is Jesus Christ.

As a teen who came to consider Jesus his best friend, John grasped the Great Mystery that God just doesn’t have love, God is love. That love is real. That love is personal. That love is Jesus Christ.

The fundamental reality of the universe is the love of God in Jesus Christ. The new life that God offers all people everywhere unfolds in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Heavenly Father names Jesus “The Beloved.” Jesus is the plan, the pattern and the purpose for humanity. God the Father created all of us and each of us by the power of God the Holy Spirit to live and move and have our being through a personal relationship with the co-eternal Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

John believed because John loved. Where so many others wanted Jesus to give them power and position and prestige, John discovered that friendship with Jesus was the most important thing. John experienced that amazing discovery at the foot of the cross in the company of Holy Mother Mary.

Mary also stood at the foot of the cross in the power of love. Her love was the love of a mother for her only Son. It was also a love that filled Mary’s soul with divine grace.

Friendship brought John to the foot of the cross. Mary’s maternal love transformed John’s love through the grace of God.

John’s loyalty to his friend transformed Mary’s love in that same moment of grace.
Jesus’ great love for each of them perfected their human love for him by his divine love for them in a singular moment of grace.

The Christian faith is God’s personal invitation to all people everywhere to experience the transforming presence of Divine Love in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The other disciples of Jesus needed to meet and hear and touch the resurrected Lord before they would believe. Until they had that experience they still thought of Jesus in terms of religion and politics and their own self will. Even when they met him they had trouble recognizing him. They needed to hear his voice and feel his embrace to grasp what they thought to be impossible.

John did not need to see the resurrected Jesus in order to believe in the resurrection. On that Easter morning, John already had faith. He discovered that faith at the foot of the cross in the company of Holy Mother Mary. With Mary the Holy Mother, John the teenager discovered the Great Mystery that God is real, God is love, God is personal, God is Jesus Christ.

Alleluia Christ is risen!

He is risen for you. He is risen for me. He is risen for all humanity. In the resurrection Jesus transforms death into life and sin into love.

On this Easter Morning John, the beloved of the Beloved, prays for us with Mary, the Holy Mother of God that we ,too, would look at that place in our souls where we experience love. That is the place of grace that produces faith. That is the place of grace that will reunite us to God the Father, through God the Son, in the Presence of God the Holy Spirit.

John saw the empty tomb and John believed in the resurrection by the Great Mystery of eternal love. With Holy Mother Mary, the loyal angels and all of the saints John, the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved invites us to proclaim loudly, boldly and joyfully: Alleluia Christ is risen!

Good Friday

2011-04-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

Good Friday 2011 “It is finished”
As Jesus dies on the cross he declares “It is finished.”

What is finished is what the co-eternal Beloved came to Earth to accomplish. The Beloved united his divinity with our humanity in Jesus Christ in order to rescue us from the choice we made as a species to separate from God.

As religious people we are so familiar with the story of that original choice that we tend to lose sight of how that choice formed our species and continues to form each of us.

The Original Choice to separate from God was and is the choice to reject God’s offer of a personal relationship with the Beloved. The choice to separate is the assertion of free will to demand equality with God according to two of God’s many attributes. It is also the choice to reject God’s own description of his essential nature.

The attributes of God our species chose to demand are knowledge and power. The essential nature of God that we rejected are love and holiness.

Original Separation creates original pain. It is a deeply seated pervasive existential pain that we live with all of our lives. It is a pain that creates terrible distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices. It is pain we seek to hide from in the various pleasures and distractions and fatal addictions our culture offers us.

As we seek to hide from the truth of this pain we seek to hide from God. We become lost in the distortions. Those distortions produce a corruption of the many virtues God designed for us to live by and to enjoy. That corruption of virtue is what the Church calls “actual sin”. Finally, the ultimate consequence of Original Separation is death.

This death is two fold. There is the spiritual death at work in our souls. And, there is the physical death that destroys our bodies.
The great problem that confronts and defines the human race is that as a species we have separated from God and are now lost. Not only are we lost we do not want to be found.

The process of death at work in a lost soul manifests in the will to power. The will to power uses people and loves things. The will to power demands of all other people, the natural world and God Himself: my will be done. Do it my way. I want what I want and I want it now.

The will to power is the exaltation of pride that leads to despair.
When our species made this original choice to separate from God, God immediately devised a plan to rescue us from that choice.

The rescue operation is the plan of salvation. The plan of salvation holds no condemnation. The Plan of Salvation preserves God’s original plan for our species to be the immortal beloved of The co-eternal Beloved.

Jesus Christ just doesn’t teach about the plan of salvation, he is the Plan of Salvation.

In Jesus, The Beloved second person of the Trinity unites his divinity with our humanity. In that union, Jesus reunites humanity with divinity in his own person. Jesus is the Father’s Plan of Salvation because Jesus is the second Adam. Jesus is the new way of being human that was God’s original plan for humanity.

Jesus knew people would reject him and kill him. In his humanity he asked if there were any other way to accomplish the Plan of Salvation. There wasn’t. There isn’t. Because the Plan of Salvation is not a religion it is the person of Jesus Christ himself.

As humanity tortured and killed Jesus to preserve our separation from God, Jesus took our will to power into himself, felt the fullness of our sin and death, then transformed it back into love and life through the essential nature of his own eternal love and eternal life.

Jesus said: it is finished as he died on the cross. He said this because he had allowed humanity to do its worst to him. He suffered the worst we could offer and the worst we ourselves could experience. He endured the Original Pain of Original Separation so he could trap it in his own body and soul and by the power of Divine love and holiness transform it back into love.

Salvation is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the reason God the Father created our species. Jesus Christ is The Beloved of the Father who now reaches out to all people everywhere with the invitation for each of us and all of us to become the beloved of the Beloved.

As our origin is in Divine Love so the new life Jesus offers us is in Divine love. There is no condemnation in that love. There is only the compassion of Jesus Christ offering us a completed and perfected work he himself accomplished on the cross.
Jesus said: it is finished. He now offers us that completed work of salvation as a free gift. The free gift is a new life in union with the Father through the Son. The free gift is a new way of living in the personal Presence of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Maundy Thursday

2011-04-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Maundy Thursday 2011 “I am among you as one who serves.”

The preeminent religious rites of the Law are circumcision and the Passover. The preeminent religious rites of the Gospel are baptism and Holy Communion.
The Law, the Law of Moses, sets the standards for humanity and defines the sacrifices that must be offered by humanity when, not if, we break the standards. The Bible clearly observes that everyone breaks the Law.Everyone except Jesus.

Jesus never broke the Law. He came to the cross having lived a perfect life according to the Law. He did this not by law but by love. He never broke the Law because he never separated from Love.

Twice during his public ministry, our Heavenly Father declared audibly: this is my Son, The Beloved. Jesus knew who he was: The Beloved. He made a real choice in his human nature to remain who he was: The Beloved. In that choice he expressed his relationship to our heavenly Father in the prayer: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.

Jesus did what our species failed to do. Our species made the original choice to say to God: not your will but my will be done. In that Original Choice to assert self will over divine will humanity separated from God. In that separation we lost our free will and immersed our souls in sin.

The Bible is a thousand year record of dozens, perhaps scores, of different individuals from different walks of life recording their observations of human behavior. The record is remarkably consistent. Human beings reject divine will in order to assert self will.

God gave the Law to Moses to restrain the evil we bring into our lives and into the wider world. Embedded in that Law is the sacrificial system. That system prepares humanity for the final solution to Original Separation. The final solution to separation, sin and death is Jesus Christ.

At that last supper Jesus was already suffering the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual torments of the final sacrifice. He did not embrace the cross as a martyr. He embraced the cross as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin.

As Jesus prepares for his death he summarizes the Father’s Plan of Salvation. The Plan of Salvation requires Jesus to live a perfect life then offer that life as the final sacrifice for sin. The Plan of Salvation starts with the Law of Moses, goes through the cross of Calvary, and reaches its fulfillment in the resurrection.

As Jesus speaks the word that once created everything out of nothing he takes bread, holds it, blesses it and declares: This is my body. He takes a cup of wine, holds it, blesses it and declares: this is my blood.

Jesus speaks and creates a new reality. It is a new contract with humanity that fulfills the old contract. It is a new law that fulfills the old Law. It is a new religious rite that perfects the old religious rites.

No mere human being could have done this. No teacher, prophet, priest or King could have done this. All human beings are lost in separation from God. All human beings live from the place of self will. Every human being lives with the illusion that we can create our own reality. Only Jesus can in fact create reality with a word.

At the Last Supper Jesus declared: I am among you as one who serves. His life reveals his nature. He never sinned. He helped everyone who came to him. His constant prayer was: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.

Jesus is the alternative way of being human our species rejected. Jesus chose to be who he was. Jesus chose to be The Beloved of the Father. In that choice he overcame Adam’s choice to separate from God.
In that choice he demonstrated how a soul that places Divine will above self will lives from the place of free will.

In that choice Jesus fulfilled the plan of salvation. Jesus takes the choice our species made to separate and re forms it into a sacrifice of self will rather than as an expression of the will to power. In that sacrifice, Jesus trapped Original Separation, sin and death in his own body and soul.

As the sacrifice, Jesus The Beloved, overcame Separation, sin and death and transformed it back into reunion, love and holiness.

The Last Supper is the new rite instituted by the new Adam for the new community of Faith.

The religious content of the Last Supper is the act of love Jesus performed on the cross. The new reality of the Last Supper is that by a word Jesus transforms bread into his body, wine into his blood, self will into free will through Divine Will.

All who partake of Christ’s body and blood partake of that new reality. It is not magic. It is not science. It is Sacrament. It is a new reality Jesus gives us in order to empower us to surrender our separated and sinful self will to Divine will so that we can discover free will. The evidence of the work of the sacrament in our lives is whether we pray the prayer Jesus prayed when he was on earth.

Do we pray: Heavenly Father not my will but your will be done?

Do we aspire to make a real choice in the real presence of Jesus Christ to say to all we meet: I am among you as one who serves.

Palm Sunday 2011

2011-04-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

Palm Sunday 2011 (Matthew 21:1-11)
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Virtually no one was able to accept Jesus for who Jesus was.

It was an incredible almost triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The city was in a tumult. Visitors from all over the Roman world and from the Persian Empire had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover in the one and only Temple the One and only God had authorized people to build.

They asked: who is this coming into the city in triumph? People said: it is the prophet Jesus. People shouted out: Hosanna! Save we pray!

The chief priests and the religious authorities reacted with fear. The people were proclaiming Jesus to be the savior of the nation, the Messiah. If this were true, the priests would lose their jobs and the religious authorities would lose their power.

If it were not true, if Jesus failed to live up to the expectations of the people, there would be chaos. In that chaos Rome would impose the heavy hand of imperial rule. Many would die and the priests and religious leaders could be replaced for failing to maintain order.

There was a third alternative. The third alternative was for the priests and rulers to listen to Jesus. They could easily have asked him to clarify his position and his person. More than even Jesus’ students, the priests and rulers had listened to and watched Jesus over the preceding three years. But, as with almost everyone else, they never took Jesus seriously. They never allowed Jesus to be who he said he was.
Thousands of people had experienced Jesus’ miracles. They each saw something different.

The disciples saw a road to power through Jesus. But, Jesus had not come to impose a new system or institution on the people.

The crowds saw debt relief and revenge on their oppressors. But Jesus had not come with to overturn the economic system or to punish the oppressors.
The priests and rulers saw Jesus as a threat to their wealth and power. But, Jesus had not come to lead a revolution.

Many others looked at Jesus, experienced the miracles and then said: that’s nice but that’s religion and I’m not overly religious so Jesus means little to me. But, Jesus did not come into the world to offer one more religious opinion.

People imposed their own needs and desires on Jesus because all people reserve the right and the power to define God as we chose. This is the essence of Original Separation from God.

God had revealed himself to our first parents as love and holiness. They looked past the love and holiness to see the knowledge and power God had. They chose to purse two of the attributes of God and to ignore the essential nature of God.

BY that Original Choice our species separated from God. We are lost and we cannot find our way back by our own insights, efforts or will to power. The story of Jesus is the proof of this principle.

Virtually no one was able to accept Jesus for who Jesus was.

People heard the name Jesus, which means savior, and wanted Jesus to save them from the Romans, the priests and the religious rulers. In that salvation, they expected Jesus to crush their enemies, exalt his friends to positions of power, and make Jerusalem the capital of a new world empire that would enslave the nations.

This was not the salvation Jesus brought. It is not the salvation Jesus brings.
At the end, only Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John had a tenuous sense of what salvation Jesus brought. As they stood at the foot of the cross they observed just how Jesus would embody salvation.

Jesus didn’t come into the world to effect regime change. He did not come to offer one more opinion among many opinions about religion. He came to seek the lost, find the lost, and reunite the lost to God.

He did this in two ways: he united his divinity with our humanity. And then, in that union, he trapped sin and death in his own body and soul as he died on the cross.
The cross was not something Jesus wanted to embrace. It was the only means by which he could accomplish his goal. For Jesus just doesn’t have love, Jesus is love. He is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father.

Jesus came to reunite each of us to God. He came to save us from sin by transforming sin back into love. He did this through his real choice to unite his will with the will of The Father. He did this by accepting the full weight of human sin on his soul and in his body on the cross.

Jesus came to save us from death. Death was never part of our Heavenly Father’s Plan for the human race. Death is the result of humanity’s original choice to separate from God. Death is not a punishment. It is a consequence.

God and God alone is the source of life. To separate from God is to separate from life.

Jesus trapped death in his own body on the cross so he could swallow it up and transform it back into life by the power of his own eternal life.

The salvation Jesus brings is a new life and a new way of living.

Jesus is not an add on to a personal philosophy.

Jesus is not one option among many.

There are only two options for humanity: life in union with God through Jesus Christ; or, death in separation from God through the individual will to power.
Who is Jesus Christ to you? Are you willing to allow Jesus be who he is? Are you willing to accept the gift Jesus brings, the gift Jesus is?

When you say the hosanna what do you chose to be saved from?
The crowds spoke truth when they shouted “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. They just weren’t willing to ask themselves the question Pilate asked: what is truth?

The answer to that question is a matter of life and death. The answer to that question is the context of the Palm Sunday acclamation: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The answer is Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life, who is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He, blessed is Jesus Christ, who comes in the name of the Lord.

Lent 5 Jesus Wept

2011-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Lent 5 (John 11:1-45) Jesus wept.

Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead is the catalyst for the crucifixion.
As we have observed in the gospel readings during Lent, the miracles Jesus performed attracted large crowds, convinced his disciples he was the promised Messiah, and brought fear, confusion and anger to the religious authorities.

In the midst of this turmoil, Jesus reveals himself most fully and completely as the One who is both human and divine. The particular incident involves Jesus’ relationship with a single family.

According to the internal evidence of scripture, the family of Martha, Mary and Lazarus are wealthy Pharisees who live just outside Jerusalem. We understand they are wealthy because of Mary’s extravagance in pouring a precious ointment on Jesus’ feet. We understand they are Pharisees because of Martha’s statement of faith in the resurrection. Most Jews at that time did not hold that belief.

Tradition suggests Martha was the eldest and the head of the household. This is based on Martha’s concern about providing all the details of hospitality when Jesus visited. Tradition also suggests that Mary was younger than Martha and that Lazarus was the youngest. He was probably an older teen. He had not yet assumed his responsibility as the head of the household. And, he had not yet married and fathered children to carry the family name into the future.

If the tradition is accurate, Lazarus’ death was a terrible tragedy on many levels. Despite the family wealth, the death of the only male heir left his older sisters vulnerable in a patriarchal society. It also meant the end of the family line since the common belief was that the only assurance of life after death was in a man’s children. The children would remember his name. Without heirs to hold the memory of the ancestors, they were truly dead.

The amazing aspect about the story is how the entire universal Plan of Salvation is woven into the particularity of one family’s terrible tragedy. The universal experience of humanity is present: sickness and health, faith and fear, hope and despair, life and death.

Lazarus becomes sick. Martha, as head of the household, sends for Jesus. She includes in the message: your friend is ill. It is clear the family enjoys a close personal relationship with Jesus. And, Martha reminds Jesus that her younger brother is Jesus’ friend. Surely, Martha reasons, Jesus will come and heal his friend. After all, he has healed thousands of total strangers in his three years of public ministry.

There is a very subtle but very powerful use of language in the passage. When Martha and her friends speak of Jesus’ love for Lazarus they use the word that means friendship. When John refers to Jesus’ love for Lazarus and his family he uses the word that means steadfast holy unconditional eternal love.

For the sake of friendship, Martha and Mary and their neighbors expect Jesus to heal Lazarus before he dies. For the sake of steadfast holy unconditional eternal love Jesus invites his friend, Lazarus, to participate more fully and completely in the universal Plan of Salvation for the entire human race.

This choice is not without cost. It cost Lazarus his life. It certainly cost the family terrible sorrow and grief. It cost Jesus a temporary loss of respect from his disciples and the people who wondered if he had failed. It cost Jesus the emotional turmoil of entering into the grief and sorrow of the moment. And, it set into motion the sequence of events that would culminate in the crucifixion.

The disciples warned Jesus that he had only barely escaped death the last time he visited Jerusalem. The religious authorities would be waiting for an opportunity to kill him. Jesus decides to go to Bethany, a town just outside Jerusalem, yet he deliberately waits two days. He waits in accord with the Father’s will. He waits so that the Glory of God might be manifested in the resurrection of Lazarus and in the final culmination of the Plan of Salvation.

The story is familiar. Martha and Mary lament that Jesus is too late. The crowds express doubt in Jesus’ power. Jesus dialogs with the sisters and hears the mixture of faith and fear, belief and doubt, in their grief.

Jesus asks to visit the tomb. The family and the crowd expect Jesus to join them in the ritual lamentation for the dead. It is a loud weeping and wailing, for most religious people believed dead was dead. Even those who believed in resurrection believed it was only for the righteous. And, who could say whether any one particular individual would be accounted righteous. Lazarus was young. Perhaps he had not performed sufficient good works to qualify as righteous. Perhaps his untimely death was a sign of divine punishment for sin.

In the midst of this grief and sadness, doubt and uncertainty, Jesus himself weeps. He is fully human and can do no less. The suffering he encounters is deep and broad. It is the suffering of people lost in the pain of separation from God. It is the foretaste of the suffering Jesus will experience on the cross.

Jesus weeps for the death of his friend and he weeps for the human condition that results in such terrible sadness and death. People some times say: where was God when this terrible tragedy happened? Where was God in the earthquake, the tsunami? He is right there. In Jesus Christ God unites our humanity with His divinity. In that union God experiences our grief and our sorrow. The proof of this is in the statement: Jesus wept.

Jesus wept for Lazarus and for the human condition. This was not His Father’s original Plan for the human race. This is the consequence of the Original Choice our species made to separate from God. That separation has brought terrible distortions to the way we think, feel, choose and experience life. That separation produces fear, frustration, anger, sin and death. And, Jesus is God with us in the midst of all of that suffering.

Jesus is the assurance that although we abandon God, God never abandons us. He is with us in all of our joys and in all of our sorrows. He weeps with those who weep because he is fully human and knows life as we know life and feels suffering as we feel suffering.

This particular story has a happy ending for the family. Jesus raises Lazarus, the younger brother, from the dead. It is an amazing gift for the family that is also the catalyst for the religious leaders to move against Jesus with false accusations of blasphemy. Human separation from God produces fear, frustration, anger, the assertion of the will to power and the fatal pride that leads to the arrest, trial, torture and execution of the Son of God.

Jesus knew this was his path forward. Jesus knew his gift of life to Lazarus was his own death warrant. Jesus also knew this way forward was the only way to accomplish the Plan of Salvation.

Salvation is not a human right. Neither is it something we can earn or demand. Salvation is Life overcoming and transforming death.

No prophet can accomplish this. No religious teacher, philosopher or scientist can accomplish this. Only the co-eternal Son of God, The Beloved, can do this and has done it. Jesus just doesn’t give us a religious insight about God. Jesus is God.
As God, Jesus just doesn’t have life, he is life itself. He is eternal life. He raises Lazarus with a word. He embraces human separation, sin and death, and with a single word in a moment of terrible pain, he unifies a lost broken and tormented human nature with divine nature. By the infinite power of eternal love Jesus reunifies humanity with divinity. By the infinite power of eternal love Jesus transforms death into life.

Jesus wept. He knew the terrible suffering separation produces in human lives. He knew the terrible price he would have to pay to overcome that separation. He knew that even after his own resurrection people would reject the gift of salvation he offers. He continued on the path of the Plan of Salvation anyway. He chose to unite his will with the will of God the Father. That will is steadfast holy unconditional eternal love.

Jesus wept that day at the tomb in Bethany because Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Father. Jesus wept because Jesus just doesn’t have love, Jesus is love.

Lent 4

2011-04-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

Lent 4 (John 9:1-41) As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

False religion produces false answers to false problems.

Jesus had just performed an amazing miracle. He had healed a man born blind. The crowds were astonished. The man himself was filled with joy. The religious leaders were outraged.

Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath. According to the Law of Moses the Sabbath was a day God set aside for rest and worship. The Law says: do no work on the Sabbath day. It is a very simple straightforward command that the religious leaders had made incredibly complicated.

The purpose of the Sabbath is for people to set aside a time to enter more fully into a personal relationship with God. It is a time to ponder the wonders of God. It is a time set apart to enjoy the real presence of God.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders had redefined the Sabbath in terms of rigid rules and regulations focused on the minute detail of what a person could and could not do. They had taken an occasion of joy and delight and turned it into a day filled with restrictions and fear of punishment.

God had spoken through Moses and the Prophets to invite people into a personal life giving and life celebrating relationship with himself. When the co-eternal Son of God came to earth and became a human being he found a brittle fragmented and contentious religious culture in place of a spontaneous life giving relationship.
The question religious people asked themselves was: what must I do to avoid punishment and gain reward? What’s in it for me? They recreated God in their own image and according to their own expectations. They took the rituals and rules God had revealed to Moses as a means to an end and made them the end.

God always intended the Law, the rituals and the sacrifices to point beyond to the relationship God wanted people to enjoy. But, the people valued pleasure, power, possessions, prestige and pride more than the personal relationship. They wanted the material rewards they believed God could give them more than God himself.

They took religion and made it an end in and of itself rather than the means by which they could enter into the relationship. They made obedience to the Law as the guarantor of reward. They formed a religion of legalism to secure their own position in society.

When Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath the religious leaders could not rejoice that the love and compassion of God had brought healing and wholeness to someone who had suffered all of his life. They could only calculate the cost benefit equation for themselves.

They reasoned that if Jesus truly came from God and worked miracles by the power of God there were only two possible outcomes. He would succeed or he would fail.
If Jesus succeeded, if he became the new king of Israel, the Pharisees stood to lose everything they valued. For it was clear Jesus did not need them to administer the religious affairs of the nation. It was clear Jesus rejected their religious culture and institutions.

The new order would be revolutionary in its rejection of the established religious order. And, since the religious leaders only thought in categories of rewards and punishments they concluded that King Jesus would punish them and reward his circle of friends.

If Jesus failed to become the king there would be social chaos. The failed attempt to establish a new order would result in violent reaction and suppression by King Herod and the Romans. Many would die in the chaos including many of the Pharisees.
As the religious leaders assessed the situation, whether Jesus succeeded or failed they would suffer. They looked at Jesus through the lens of a religion of reward and punishment. They asked the question: what’s in it for me? They concluded Jesus would only bring them punishment. With that conclusion they knew they had to kill him before he could kill them.

Jesus knew this would happen. He knew the problem with humanity was not a lack of religious knowledge. He knew that people generally do not seek God. He knew that people create their own deities to suit their needs and desires. He knew what religious people refuse to acknowledge. Humanity has chosen separation from God and in that separation humanity is lost. We are not only lost we stubbornly refuse to be found.

If we are religious we tend to bend and warp and distort religion so it can answer the question: what’s in it for me? How does it build my resume? How does it advance my goals?

The disciples had the same problem as the Pharisees. The disciples saw the blind man and immediately asked: who sinned? Who is to blame? Who should we condemn?

They asked the wrong question because they, too, were trapped in a false religion that provided false answers to false problems. There is no condemnation in Jesus as he heals the blind man. There is no blame. There is no false assumption that if you do good you get good and if you do bad you get bad and its corollary that if you suffer it is only because you have sinned. Jesus knew the world didn’t work that way.
What Jesus wanted to reveal to the disciples and to the Pharisees is that the problem confronting humanity is not revealed in a man born blind but in a religious system that refused to see the light. The blind man is a vessel of grace by which the glory of God manifests to the lost.

In his own person and by his own example Jesus offers the people of his time and for all time a different question to ask. Where most people will ask: what’s in it for me? Jesus demonstrates the question: how may I help? Where can I bring forth the glory of God in a single act of compassion?

To the disciples Jesus says: stop trying to figure out who to blame. Blame is irrelevant. Ask rather, how may I help? As you ask that question you reveal the glory of God.

To the Pharisees Jesus says: personal holiness is personal responsibility for personal sin. Stop judging others. There is no condemnation in God. Righteousness is right relationship. Ask yourself: why do you see me as a threat? I come only with healing. I come only to restore sight to the blind.

It was a lot to ask the disciples and the Pharisees. It is a lot to ask of us. It is a question that only makes sense within the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ who tell us As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
It is Jesus who reveals the problem confronting humanity. It is Jesus who is the solution to that problem.

Lent 3

2011-03-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Lent 3 (John 4:5-42) The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

Jesus frequently shocked people in his words and actions. His meeting with the Samaritan woman broke two very powerful taboos in his society.

The first taboo is that a man does not speak to a woman who is not a close relative. This is true in many parts of North Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia today. It is a very ancient custom and it was ancient even in Jesus’ day.

The second taboo is that a Jew has nothing to do with a Samaritan.
There was a long history of animosity conflict and war between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Samaritans were descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel that had seceded from the Unified Kingdom after Solomon’s reign.

The Ten Northern tribes re formed the Kingdom of Israel under a new dynasty. The Tribe of Judah, the Jews, held on to the old capital Jerusalem and its Temple. Only the tribes of Benjamin and Judah remained loyal to the Dynasty founded by King David.
The Northern Kingdom realized that if their citizens continued to travel to worship God in the Temple in Jerusalem they might also pledge loyalty to the kings of Judah. Under King Jeroboam, the Northern Kingdom built its own shrines and temples. While this was politically advantageous for the kings it was also contrary to the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.

The call of Moses and the prophets was the call to loyalty to the One God. The Northern Kingdom compromised this loyalty and fell into the sin of syncretism. They mixed and matched the religion of Moses with the surrounding pagan religions. Eventually, they formed political alliances with the pagan kingdoms through intermarriage.

The Northern Kingdom abandoned their religion and lost their national identity. Over the course of time they lacked the dedication to God that would preserve their nation. A series of invasions from foreign nations destroyed the Northern Kingdom and either killed or deported the majority of the population.

The remaining people no longer called themselves Israelites. They called themselves Samaritans. They counted Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as their ancestors. They believed that they inherited the promises God made to the patriarchs. But, they abandoned the religion and their unique national identity.

The Jews of the Southern Kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah, viewed the Samaritans as traitors to Abraham, Moses, David and above all traitors to God. Jews considered Samaritans unclean. They would not speak with a Samaritan let alone eat with them or even travel through their territory. The Samaritans likewise hated their brethren from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

The people of the Northern Kingdom are sometimes called the Ten Lost Tribes. They were not lost in the sense that they wandered off and disappeared. They were lost in their self will and pride.

Jesus came to seek the lost. He said: I have not come to call the righteous but the unrighteous. The woman at the well lived with three levels of sin: spiritual, national, and moral.

On all three levels she had abandoned the very clear and direct commandments God had given to Moses. She participated in a culture of compromise. It is important to note that Jesus did not excuse her sin. In fact, Jesus identifies her sin as she attempts to avoid recognizing it.

The woman attempts to engage Jesus in a futile debate on matters of faith and morals. Jesus simply affirms the Law of Moses. But, he does not condemn the woman or her culture. Jesus knows they are lost. He has come to seek the lost, find the lost and to save the lost.

Of course the Lost will sin. Of course the lost will rebel against the Law of God. The lost are the righteous and the unrighteous. All too often, the righteous cannot acknowledge their condition. They believe their right action and right belief earn them a special reward from God.

Jesus corrects but does not condemn the righteous. Jesus confronts but does condemn the unrighteous.

In his conversation with the woman at the well Jesus breaks two very powerful taboos. He does this because he has come to find, seek and save the lost.
The religion of Israel taught that salvation was a matter of rewards for right action and right belief. Jesus came to show that salvation is right relationship. Right action and right belief have a place but cannot bring salvation.

Jesus identifies the root of the problem confronting the woman, the Samaritans and all people. The root of the problem is relationship. The Samaritans chose distortions in three levels of relationship: their relationship with God, their relationship to the Nation and in their personal relationships.

The fundamental distortion is in worship. The woman attempts to direct the conversation about worship into religious and cultural categories. Jesus redirects the conversation into the category of relationship.

Worship is the way human beings offer love to God and experience the love of God. Worship immerses the mind, heart and will in the infinite and eternal love of the One God in three persons. This is why Jesus says: it is the Father who seeks us and invites us to worship. It is the Father who sends the Spirit, the Holy Spirit , to invite us to worship him in truth. Truth is not a statement of fact. Truth is the fundamental pattern, plan and purpose of the Creation. Truth is a person, Jesus Christ.

True worship is Trinitarian worship. True worship is the human response to the invitation of the Holy Spirit into the total immersion of the Love the Father has for the Son and the Son has for each of us.

The woman heard Jesus with astonishment. She had expected either condemnation or indulgence. She experienced Truth. She looked at Jesus Christ and discerned he is the perfect mirror of the Divine. He recognized her sin, called it by name, then offered to transform that sin by his own unconditional love and holiness.

The woman said: I know that the Messiah is coming. In that statement she express a secret hope. Jesus recognized that hope and very simply and directly said: I am He. I am the Messiah in whom you have placed your hope.

The woman believed. The other Samaritans in her town believed. And the disciples were astonished. How could this be? How could reprobate Samaritans receive the Messiah when so many of the Chosen had rejected him?

The invitation to reunification with God is universal. Human response is personal. Salvation is a gift God offers to all people everywhere. The gift is not a place or a possession or a power. The gift of God is a person: the co-eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ.

The Samaritans rejoiced when the Messiah came to seek them out and to find them. They received the gift, much to the astonishment and confusion of the disciples.
Jesus seeks all people everywhere. He offers all people the gift of unconditional love and the gift of transforming holiness. Jesus is the Great Bridge, the Pontifex Maximus, between the Divine and the human. Jesus is the Great Physician who makes house calls to every person on this planet. Jesus actively and ceaselessly seeks the lost. He finds the lost in whatever condition of fear, self will and pride that the lost have created for ourselves. And, Jesus offers salvation to the lost by offering himself to be our one true forever friend.

Worship is the highest form of love human beings can experience. True worship reunites the lost soul to God. True worship transforms the lost soul in God. God wants all people everywhere to experience that love.

That is why Jesus told the Samaritan woman who was outside the community of Israel: The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

Lent 2

2011-03-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Lent 2 (John 3:1-17) You must be born again.

If you are born once you die twice. If you are born twice you die once.

Jesus came to Earth to give a species lost in separation, sin and death a new life. The new life starts with a new birth. The new birth can be described as being born again. The new life is a gift.

It is no coincidence that Jesus first chose to reveal this amazing gift to one of the preeminent religious teachers of the day. Nicodemus was a teacher of the Law. He was a member of a ruling authority called the Sanhedrin. He was an officially recognized and honored theologian. And, he was a legal authority with the power to judge whether or not other people kept the law.

As with all people who exercise power Nicodemus lived with fear. If he showed any weakness, any compromise, any hesitation in upholding the law and defending the religion then others on the Sanhedrin would turn against him, convict him and condemn him. In the worst case scenario he could be found guilty of blasphemy and be executed.

Law based religion is fear based religion. There is no fear in the person of Jesus Christ. There is only the perfect love of God. Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love transforms fear into faith.

Nicodemus built his life and his career within the structures of law based religion. He knew the rewards and the punishments. He lived with the fear. The deepest fear is that no matter how hard I try and how dedicated I am I can never be perfect. The Law is always subject to interpretation and enforcement by people as imperfect as I am.
Since I cannot be perfect I need to be clever. I need to cultivate alliances within the power structure. And, I need to inspire fear to make sure my allies keep their promises.

Law based religion is fear based religion.

Nicodemus could not just come to Jesus in broad daylight to ask his questions. They were very logical questions, very good questions. As a religious ruler Nicodemus could not afford to be seen as indecisive. He had to project confidence and certainty that he knew exactly what God wanted and how human beings could obligate God to give us what we want.

Law based religion does not invite questions. Law based religion rejects discussion. Law based religion dominates.

Nicodemus appears to have understood the weakness in his approach to religion. He seems to have come to that wonderful place where he asked himself: is that all there is? Is religion all about imposing rigid rules on myself and other people? Is religion about rewards and punishments? Is there fundamentally only condemnation in religion, in God?

Nicodemus recognized he had a problem. It was a beautiful problem because it led him to ask questions. It led him to Jesus Christ.

So, Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of darkness. He came with his questions. He came with his fear, and shame and guilt that he, a religious expert and judge, lacked something. He came with fear that Jesus would not have an answer. He came with hope that Jesus just might have an answer. He discovered that Jesus just doesn’t have an answer Nicodemus could weigh against other religious teachings and graft into his own system. Jesus is the answer.

Nicodemus introduces his question with a statement. He intends the statement to flatter Jesus. He acknowledges that “we”, the religious elite, consider you, Jesus, to be a teacher.

From Nicodemus’ position this was a major concession. After all, Jesus had no seal of approval from any school. He had no degree, no preaching license, no human authority.

Nicodemus he even explains why the religious elite have come to this conclusion. It is the miracles. The miracles are evidence that God is working out some purpose in Jesus.

Nicodemus is not quite ready to ask his question. Jesus perceives this. So, Jesus makes a statement designed specifically to provoke a response and a question from Nicodemus. This is important to ponder.

Jesus had never met Nicodemus but he knew him. He knew him better than Nicodemus knew himself. Jesus knew Nicodemus because God the Father had created Nicodemus by, through and for God the Son in the power of God the Holy Spirit. God the Father had created Nicodemus according to the plan, the pattern and the purpose of God the Son. Jesus saw his own image in Nicodemus. That image manifested in a unique personality filled with talents and gifts and potential.

Jesus also saw where Original Separation had distorted that image. Jesus perceived how sin had eroded and corrupted that image. And, Jesus observed how fear, self will and pride had led Nicodemus to create a false self that had nothing in common with the Image and Likeness of God imprinted on his soul. Nicodemus used his false self to defend against the demands of the Law, other people, and the false image of God Nicodemus had embraced. There is no law or religious ritual Jesus could give Nicodemus to restore what Nicodemus had lost.

There is in fact no solution to the problem Nicodemus had become and was experiencing short of a total transformation. That transformation is exactly what Jesus announced to Nicodemus.

You must be born again.

A soul lost in separation creates a personality grounded in fear. A soul lost in separation defends itself from self discovery through pride. A soul lost in separation is a soul already experiencing the consequence of separation: death.
Nicodemus just didn’t need some new ideas. He needed a new life. In modern slang Jesus might have said just that. Get a life, Nicodemus. What you have now is not life. As busy as you are, as rich and powerful as you are, you are dead in the inward recess of your soul.

You exist, Nicodemus, but you don’t live. Get a life. Here, take mine.
I have come from the Father in the fullness of life, eternal life. Take my life, Nicodemus. All you need to do is experience a new birth. You have been born of the flesh Nicodemus. Now you need to be born of the Spirit.

What Jesus told Nicodemus was beyond comprehension. It was outside the parameters of religion and culture and experience. It was in fact a solution to a problem Nicodemus did not want to accept, let alone understand.

And so, Nicodemus challenged Jesus. At least he did it with a question. A question is the first step into the new life of God’s Kingdom.

How can this be? Nicodemus asks. He is confused and frustrated. He had praised Jesus and expected some courtesy and some compliment in return. He wanted an interesting insight or a comment he could store away and repeat at dinner parties. Jesus read the deeper longing of his soul. Nicodemus wanted meaning and purpose.

That meaning and purpose is not Law or religion. It is not a clever comment or new teaching. It is a new life and a new way of living.

Nicodemus struggled with his own resistance. He was lost and did not want to be found. Yet, God the Father had created Nicodemus in the image and likeness of God the Son. The Son stood before him. The Son offered him the deepest desire of his soul. Jesus offered him a personal relationship with the Divine.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. It is born into a species lost in separation and distorted by sin. That which is born of the flesh will die.
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The Spirit of God is the co-eternal third person of the Holy Trinity who unites us to God the Father through a personal relationship with God the Son. That relationship is eternal, it is unconditional love, it is holiness and it is life. In Jesus Christ, there is eternal life because Jesus is the co-eternal Son of the Eternal Father.

If you are born once you are born of the flesh. You die physically as the body of flesh wears out. You die physically because you have already died spiritually as you participate in the choice our species made to separate from God.

If you are born twice you die once. Your body still experiences physical death. But your soul is now united to God in Christ and filled with the Holy Life Giving Spirit. Those who are born twice only die physically. They already have eternal life.

Eternal life is the new life in Christ and the new way of living in the Holy Spirit.
Have you been born again?

The gift of God in Christ is a new birth into the eternal life, love and holiness of the Blessed and eternal Trinity.

Do not marvel when Jesus says you must be born again. It is his gift to give. He offers the gift to all people everywhere. It is our choice to receive or reject the gift. It isn’t religion or law. It isn’t culture or power or pride or prestige. It is life. Abundant life. Eternal life. Amen.

Lent 1

2011-03-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Lent I (Matthew 4:1-11) It is written.

Jesus quoted scripture.

It is important to understand that as a child Jesus learned the scriptures in the exact same way we learn the scriptures. Jesus was fully human. He experienced life as we experience life.

St. Paul tells us that when the co-eternal Son of God the Father came to earth and became a particular human being, he emptied himself of his divine knowledge and power. He did this precisely in order to be able to experience human existence with all of its limitations and temptations.

As a child, Jesus spent many hours in the ancient equivalent of Hebrew School in order to learn the Biblical stories and in order to memorize scripture. He learned by repetition. He practiced. His mother, Mary, and step father, Joseph, helped him and from time to time tested him.

Most importantly, Jesus memorized scripture so that at the moment of temptation he could use the resources God makes available to all of us to resist the temptation.
There are three sources of temptation: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The world is the surrounding culture with all of its values and institutions. The world derives its values and creates its institutions from the place of separation that now defines human nature. That separation produces in all people a deeply seated prevalent spiritual pain. Modern philosophers call that pain existential angst. It is the feeling that something is wrong and something is missing. It is the tendency to ask the question about life: is that all there is?

It is the way we who live in a state of separation from God, nature, other people and our own true nature experience the creation and our place in our society.
The values and institutions humanity creates are a defense against this deeply rooted spiritual pain. The various cultures human beings have created are designed to distract us from this pain and to suppress our conscious awareness of this pain. The world creates a false image about God, nature and human life in order to block our the reality of the Original Pain we inherit along with Original Sin.

We don’t need to take the Biblical assertions about human nature at face value. We can read the observations of human behavior and human culture recorded in the many varied books of the Bible. We can look around us and ask the question: what is happening in the world? We can examine our own lives and pay attention to our own reactions to life and to other people.

We can ask the important questions: where I am living defensively? How do I try to distract myself and avoid paying attention to the world as it is? What is this unease I feel about myself, other people, God?

The flesh is the body of distorted desires we carry with us. Original Sin is the choice we made to separate from God. That choice produces Original Pain. The pain distorts the way we think, the way we experience our emotions and the way we make choices. When the Bible speaks of “the flesh” as a source of temptation it is referring to these distortions.

The desires of our heart are rooted in the Original Blessing of our creation but distorted by the Original pain of our choice to separate from God. The Seven Deadly sins are all corrupted virtues that result from these distortions.

Our culture seeks to distract us from our pain. That distraction only results in suffering. Suffering is recycled unconscious pain.

The flesh is the body of distorted desires that leads us to corrupt virtue into sin.
The devil scarcely needs to do any more. The role he has chosen for himself is to keep us in a state of confusion. If we are religious he uses religion to create false images of God. If we are reading the Bible, the devil wants to focus our thoughts on apparent inconsistencies and contradictions rather than the central truth the Bible teaches.

If we have not accepted Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, the devil devises bait and switch tactics to redefine the problem confronting the human race.
If we are in Christ, the devil seeks to steal the joy of our salvation by encouraging conflict and controversy within the Church.

In Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness we see the pattern of temptation the devil brings.

First, the devil attempts to convince us to meet a legitimate human need by wrongful means. So, the devil recognizes Jesus’ hunger and tempts him to use his divine power to turn stones into bread. This is the corruption of miracle into magic through an appeal to power.

Jesus meets this temptation by quoting scripture. So, the devil switches tactics and quotes scripture. He misquotes it, to be sure. But, the fact that the devil quotes scripture at all can be very confusing to people, especially religious people.

Jesus fights fire with fire and uses scripture to correct the misuse of scripture. That is why it is important not just to read the Bible but to study the Bible and to memorize the Bible. The devil will use false teachers to misquote the Bible in order to confuse the faithful and scandalize unbelievers. Jesus sets the pattern for us to counteract this temptation by his careful and insightful use of scripture.

The third temptation is the same appeal Lucifer made to the angels. It is the appeal he made to our first parents Adam and Eve. It is the distortion of worship.
That is why the first commandment God revealed to Moses deals with worship. The devil always seeks to redefine worship and to confuse the meaning and purpose of worship. In a very simple and crude manner he appeals to the human will to power. He encourages us to approach worship with the question: what’s in it for me?

The devil only needs a tiny foothold in our conscious awareness of the call to worship. He only needs to intrude a small deceit to produce ever expanding levels of frustration.

Jesus once again quotes scripture in its proper context and with its proper perspective.

The great gift Jesus offers all of us to combat and resist temptation is the proper use of Scripture. At the Last Supper Jesus promised to send a Counselor, a teacher, to help us. That Counselor is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit speaks definitively in the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Church. The summary statement of the Councils is the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed.
On a personal and individual level, the Holy Spirit is with us as we read, mark learn and inwardly digest the scripture. It is important to read the Scripture in its proper context and with its proper perspective. The meaning of Scripture emerges most fully in the context of the broader life of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The world, the flesh and the devil would prefer we not read scripture. But, if we do, then the world, the flesh and the devil will tempt us to read scripture alone, apart from the insights of the wider church, and out of its proper historical and spiritual context.

The Holy Spirit wants us to be able to follow Jesus’ example as he combats temptation with the words: it is written. We can only do this as we make a firm resolve to read the Bible, study the Bible, and to memorize the Bible. If you only memorize one verse a month, the memory verse in the monthly newsletter and the Sunday bulletin, you will have implanted twelve verses into your mind and heart in the course of a year. You will have twelve more opportunities to meet temptation with the words: it is written.

Ash Wednesday 2011

2011-03-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Ash Wednesday 2011 (Matthew 6:1-6;16-21) Beware of practicing your piety before men.

Jesus assumed that people would practice piety. Piety is a duty we owe God to act with compassion, respect and reverence. It encompasses loyalty and devotion to God, family and the poor.

Ancient people valued piety highly. Homer refers to Odysseus as “pious Odysseus” in the great poetic work The Odyssey. Modern translations of the Odyssey delete the word “pious”. Modern readers no longer understand or value piety.
Modern secular culture has rejected, devalued and corrupted the concept and the practice of piety. In secular culture piety is almost always linked with arrogance and hypocrisy.

In the ancient world and throughout much of human history piety was linked to humility and contrasted with hubris, fatal pride.

Acts of piety included attending worship at the Temple, reading and studying and memorizing scripture, making offerings to the synagogue, taking care of widows and orphans, giving alms to the poor. A man who did not honor God, support his family and help the poor was considered vain and prideful.

Piety acknowledges that God is the Creator. All things come from God. All creatures owe God a duty to live in accord with the principles of divine love and holiness. Ancient peoples did not trust those who failed to perform the basic acts of piety.
The prophets condemned those who used their time and wealth solely for their own narrow self interest. The prophetic call to repentance focused on the rejection of the call to worship and the tendency of the wealthy to steal from and oppress the poor.

Since piety was such a universal virtue and expectation, many people attempted to cheat. They wanted to perform the minimum requirements for the maximum personal and selfish benefit.

And so, the wealthy might hire a herald and a trumpeter to announce the intent of a wealthy man to go to the Temple to make an offering. Such behavior was a gross violation of a pious duty. It was an outward and prideful form of piety that lacked the inward disposition of humility and reverence.

Giving alms to the Temple or to the poor, fasting and praying all all good things, all acts of piety. The attitude from which people perform these acts determine the extent to which the act is an expression of piety or hubris (fatal pride.)
Jesus expected people to perform acts of piety. He warns that the sin nature we each struggle with as a result of the distortions in our mind, hear and will can easily distort the acts of piety our Heavenly Father encourages us to perform.

Jesus upholds the standard. He describes the way we can corrupt the fulfillment of the standard. Then, he gives us the solution. The solution is to focus on God.
Piety in all of its many forms is the way we show love for God and the way we offer love to God. If we diminish or remove God from the act we lose the meaning and purpose.

The secular world saw the abuse of piety and concluded the solution was to reject piety altogether. Jesus acknowledges the abuse but has a different solution. The solution Jesus offers is for us to make a real choice to live and move and have our being in communion with God.

Jesus offers us reunification with God the Father and then transformation in God the Holy Spirit.

From the place of communion piety recaptures its original purpose and restores the original blessing of divine love and holiness.

Practice piety. Offer your good works to God the Father in union with God the Son by the transforming presence of God the Holy Spirit. The reward is the original blessing of eternal holy unconditional love that makes all things new here and now in this life and in the life of the world to come. Amen.

Last Sunday After Epiphany

2011-03-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

The Last Sunday of Epiphany (Matthew 17:1-8)
They were overcome by fear.

Peter, James and John ascended the mountain with Jesus to meet Moses and Elijah and to hear the voice of God.

It was six days after Peter’s astonishing confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah and Peter’s even more astonishing failure of faith in rejecting the very plan and purpose for the Messiah.

Jesus had preached to the nation and hundreds had become his disciples. Jesus chose twelve of his disciples for more intense training to become apostles. Then, Jesus chose three of the apostles to be the leadership team of the future church.
Jesus had spoken in parables and performed amazing miracles in very understated ways. During the three years of his public ministry he avoided the dramatic expression of divine power so many people wanted from him. Now, he selected his leadership team to receive what so many religious people claim we want. Jesus took them to the mountaintop to see a clear vision of the Plan of Salvation and an even clearer experience of the divine.

Peter, James and John could deal with the special effects miracle of Jesus radiating a bright dazzling white. They could even deal with the miraculous appearance of Moses, who represented the Law, and Elijah, who represented the Prophets. They stood their ground but were clearly out of their comfort zone.

Peter incongruously asks Jesus if he should build some booths. This was a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles which commemorated the wandering of the people in the desert during the time of Moses. It was a religious act to be sure. But, it was irrelevant at that moment. Something greater than religious acts stood before them.
Moses and Elijah, the Law and the prophets of the Old Covenant, define who Jesus is. Jesus completes, perfects and re presents the reality of the Law and the prophets in a new context for a New Covenant.

It is the Triune God who presents the new context for the New Covenant. The bright cloud that over shadows them is the same reality that over shadowed Mary and brought forth the incarnation. The bright cloud is the presence and the power of God the Holy Spirit.

The voice is the voice of God the Father. The voice proclaims that Jesus is the Beloved. Not “a” beloved. Not just even “my” beloved. “The” beloved. The co-eternal Son of God.

Peter, James and John were doing fine until the Holy Spirit descended. They were managing, however weakly, to take this amazing and miraculous experience and place it within their very limited and distorted religious context. They had the situation under control. Until the Holy and Eternal Trinity manifested Himself in all of his fullness before them.

They lost it at that point. They lost all illusion of control. They lost all grasp of the comforting limitations of human created religion. They thought they were looking for God and now God had found them. The scripture says: it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Peter, James and John did not understand that scripture until they experienced its reality personally.

Law books and prophets and Succoth booths are one thing. The real presence of the living God is something else entirely. They discovered a principle they only vaguely considered possible. Human sin converts divine holiness into wrath.

People throughout history have spoken of humanity’s search for God. As though it is God who is lost. As though it is God who plays hide and seek with the human race. Moses and the prophets tell a very different story.

The story Moses and the Prophets tell is that humanity is lost and does not want to be found. Humanity wants to define God and put God in his place: a Temple, a statue, a book of laws, a set of rituals. What people don’t want is to be found by the Living God who is who He is.

Suddenly, the reality of the eternal breaks into the realm of time. The Infinite has made itself known fully and completely available on the holy mountain. Jesus reveals his divine glory. It is an eternal glory he shares with His Heavenly Father and the co-eternal Spirit.

It is what Peter, James and John thought they wanted. It was the last thing they had expected would ever happen. It was the one thing that inspired sheer terror. They fell to the ground. They not only experienced fear, they were overcome by fear.
God does not want to frighten us. That is why he came to earth as a very ordinary and unassuming human being. That is why he lived in quiet obscurity for thirty years. That is why he did not summon angelic armies to destroy the enemies of Israel. That is why he did not authorize his followers to bring a reign of terror to Jerusalem to punish the corrupt religious and political leaders.

Jesus Christ is the Beloved of God. He is that co-eternal Beloved whom God the Father has always loved and will always love in union with God the Holy Spirit, the very spirit of love.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the infinite and eternal unconditional holy love of God.

At that moment on that mountain, Peter, James and John experienced what all religious people and even many atheists claim and demand from God. They experienced God upfront and personal.

It was too much. Too much God. Too much love. Too much holiness.

They fell to the ground overcome by fear. They hid their faces from God. They trembled. The cowered. By their actions they revealed the essential problem that defines the human race. We have chosen to separate from God. In that separation we are lost and do not want to be found. As we are lost we distort our minds, hearts and wills through sin. That sin converts divine holiness into wrath.

At the last judgment all people will experience the reality of God in much the same way Peter, James and John experienced God on the holy mountain. On that day many will cry out in fear. They will say to the mountains: fall on us and protect us. They will say to the oceans: cover us and keep us separate. They will run into the darkest caves and say: embrace us with your darkness and hold back the light.
This is why God comes to us meek and mild. He comes at Christmas as the helpless child. He comes as the wise and gentle rabbi. He comes with healing. He comes with humility. He comes during holy week as the innocent victim of the collective human will to power. He comes at Easter as the one who has transformed sin into love, death into life.

He comes meek and mild in utter humility in the bread and the wine of the Blessed Sacrament. He comes in the real presence of love and compassion.

He comes and people say: why him? Where is the God of our ancestors? Where is the God who drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea and thundered from Mt. Sinai? Show us this God and we will believe.

Peter, James and John believed this. Their experience on the mount of Transfiguration changed their minds. The transfiguration not only revealed the awesome majesty of the infinite and eternal God it also revealed the depth of sin that enslaves the human race.

For a moment, the real presence of the Living God broke the foolish and very mundane belief structures of human contrived religion and human contrived images of God.
God is who is he. He spoke to Moses and said: I am. I am who I am. I am nothing like your philosophies, religions or science.

God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is Jesus Christ. The prophets saw this from afar and preached: repent and prepare.

When he comes…when God reveals his glory to us…there is no way we can ever prepare for the reality of Who he is apart from Jesus Christ.

And so, Jesus walks to Peter, James and John. He kneels down. He touches them one by one. He comforts them. He reassures them he is not the wrathful deity that the sinful imagination of their sinful hearts experience. He is Jesus… himself… alone… on the mountain… with his friends.

Moses and Elijah are gone. The Father and the Holy Spirit have withdrawn. The Industrial light and magic special effects have vanished. There is only Jesus, alone, on the cool wind swept mountain reaching down to lift up his friends still paralyzed by fear. Hugging them as they rise. Reassuring them they are safe. Manifesting to them the love and compassion of the Lord of the Universe in a simple hug from a simple carpenter wearing a simple working man’s robe.

And then, in a strong quiet voice Jesus says: do not fear.

Human sin converts divine holiness into wrath. Jesus Christ converts human fear into faith. Jesus Christ transforms human pride and human sin into love.
In the Presence of the Living God they were overcome by fear. Then, the perfect love of God in Jesus Christ transformed that fear into faith, into hope, into love.

Epiphany 8 (Matthew 6:24-34) Do not worry.

2011-02-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 8 (Matthew 6:24-34) Do not worry.

No one can serve two masters.

With these words Jesus continues his sermon on the mount. With these words Jesus clarifies yet another aspect of human nature. God created human beings for service.
God the Father created human beings to be in a dependent relationship with God the Son through the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit. Another way of saying this is that the Triune God created us to live and move and have our being in the active, creative, dynamic , holy and unconditional love that is the very nature of God.

God created us to participate in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is a co-eternal relationship of the three persons whose love and holiness form the one God.

God the Father created human beings for relationship. Our primary relationship is in the service of worship we offer God. That is why the first commandment is the foundation for all of the commandments: love God with all of your heart, soul and mind.

The means by which we express love for God and participate in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity is through worship. Jesus reveals to us that for human beings worship and service are inextricably linked.

All means all. Not half. Not occasional. All.

Jesus introduces his teaching on worry by clarifying how God created us to live in peace and with courage. The problem comes when we make a real choice to live our lives from a different place and within a different context.

From his childhood in Egypt and Nazareth, Jesus observed how even the most religious of people cheat life on this one singular important point. In fact, even religious people do not love God with all of our heart and soul and mind.

Even the best of us, the most spiritual of us, have a divided mind that produces a divided loyalty and results in fear, anxiety and worry.
Jesus’ call to worship is a call to an exclusive love of God that produces an inclusive love of other people.

Jesus is not interested in religious debates about God. He is God.

Jesus is also not interested in philosophical debates about truth. He is truth.
Neither is Jesus interested in metaphysical speculations about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. He is life.

Jesus came into the world to reveal to us the problem that keeps us separated, divided and fearful. Jesus reveals to us that we are trying to live life by a wrong principle. That wrong principle is the belief that life is all about me. That principle produces a demand that says: me first. Do it my way. It is the voice of pride and it is the will to power.

That demand results in a terrible underlying fear that I will fail to get what I need and what I want. The fear is the recognition that despite my will to power I lack the actual power to command and control other people, the world around me, and God.

The fear of failure produces an attitude of worry. It is the tendency human beings have to view the rich abundance of this world and see only scarcity. Jesus names our worries: not enough food, not enough to drink, a lack of proper clothes.

Jesus also indicates that underlying our worry about things is a more profound anxiety. That more profound anxiety is that God does not really accept us and will not be there for us. And so, we hedge our bets. We serve God in the formal, occasional and minimal rules of religion. And, we serve wealth: the desire for possessions.

The terrible irony is that through our fear that God is distant and uncaring we distance ourselves from God. Through our desire to hedge our bets and serve the pursuit of material possessions, pleasure and power, we lose the one thing that has both immediate and eternal benefit.

Jesus very clearly warns us that as we live our lives with a divided mind about our priorities and our pursuits we enmesh ourselves in fear, anxiety and worry. Jesus knows this about us through observation. He knows this through original creation.
Jesus warns us that if we seek to serve two masters, God and wealth, we end up isolating God in very narrow categories of religion while we pursue what we believe is far more real and practical in the material world of food and drink and clothes. As we do that, we lose our very soul to the fear, anxiety and worry such a way of living produces.

Jesus reminds us that the first commandment is not an ethereal religious speculation but a fundamental and defining principle that has immediate and eternal consequences.
Jesus doesn’t recommend withdrawal from the world. Jesus tells us that we will enjoy our lives in this world more fully and completely as we choose to love God first and to love God with all of our heart and mind and will.

Jesus says: seek God first. Make the love of God your top priority. And then all of these other things you need and desire will be yours as well. Jesus also warns that the reverse is true. If we place God second to our pursuit of pleasure, possessions and power then we place God last. As we place God last we continue the process of separation from God. We live with ever increasing levels of frustration, demand, pride and despair.

Jesus came to find us where we are. And, he loves us where we are.
Jesus came to find a people lost in separation and confused by a divided mind about the best way to live our lives. He pours forth his own divine love into our lives to interrupt our habits and to confound our preconceived ideas. He does this to liberate us from fear, anxiety and worry.

How would your life be different if you simply took God at his word? How would your way of living change if you asked Jesus to help you make the unconditional holy love of God the most important principle and present reality for you?
What would life feel like when lived with the assurance that God is with you, God is for you, God is immediately and eternally present to you?

That assurance comes from the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. It can only become real as it becomes our first priority. We cannot say both yes and no to God. We cannot say I believe but I do not have the faith to act on that belief. We cannot keep God distant and hemmed in by narrow religious categories when God himself is far greater than those categories.

Where we direct our time and attention reveals who we acknowledge as our master, the Lord of our lives. Jesus says we need to choose. If we choose anything or any one other than God we also choose a way of living that will produce ever deepening levels of fear, anxiety and worry. If we choose God we choose a way of living that transforms us and liberates us into a life of joy, peace and courage.

Jesus Christ is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created us. As Jesus encourages us not to worry he offers us the means to live a life set free from worry. Seek God first.

God has already found us in Christ. Make a real choice to allow yourself to be immersed in his love. Make God’s holy unconditional love your first priority. And know that as you do this you will come to discover abundance in the midst of scarcity, faith in the midst of fear, and grace that will transform every worry into courage to live life fully here and now and forever.

Epiphany 6

2011-02-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 6 (Matthew 5:21-37)
You have heard that it was said.

Much of our spiritual growth lies in the work of unlearning what we think we know.
Steven Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” discusses this principle. The book lists the four levels of competency.

At the first level we don’t know what we don’t know. This is the level of unconscious incompetence. There is no shame or fault at this level. There is simply unawareness. It is the mind of an infant who has yet to experience the many possibilities in the world.

The second level is the level of conscious incompetence. At this level we know that we don’t know. This is the level of the beginner. The beginner practices the scales on the piano and suddenly realizes that it will take a lot of time and effort before he can play even the simplest tune. This is the level of effort. This is the level of deferred gratification. We give up some of our time and devote a portion of our energy to overcome our lack of knowledge and skill in order to accomplish our goal.

As we accomplish our goal we enter into the third level. It is the level of conscious competence. At this level we know that we know. This is the level of proficiency. We’ve mastered the basics. We know the scales backwards and forward. We are ready for the 4th and final level.

The 4th and final level is the place of unconscious competence. We can sit at the piano and play the music with grace and creativity. We don’t need to stop and think where middle C is. We just know. We know so well our mind is set free to be spontaneous and creative. This is the level of mastery This is the level of delight.
The Bible used history, poetry, symbol and metaphor to express the same concepts Steven Covey set forth in a more analytic mode in his book. The Biblical authors were interested in observing the barriers that emerge in these four levels of competency. And, the Biblical writers were interested in proposing a solution to the problem those barriers created.

The competency the Bible was most interested in is the competency of being human. Many people assume that the Bible is all about God and humanity’s search for God. This is only partially true. The Bible is about humanity evading God, rejecting God and rejecting who God has called us as to be.

The Bible is also about God seeking us and finding us in Jesus Christ. The purpose of Christ is not to answer religious questions. The purpose of Christ is to call humanity back to its true nature. The purpose of Christ is to restore what we lost.
The Bible sets forth the proposition that there are two basic ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. And, there is the way of Jesus Christ.

The way of Adam is the way of power. It is the exercise of real choice through the will to power. It is the way of demand backed by threat. It is also the subversion of love, the distortion of holiness and the corruption of grace. The way of Adam is the way of fear, self will and pride. It is the way of being human characterized and defined by sin and death.

The Bible observes that regardless of the level of competency we achieve in our lives we have all chosen to remain at the primary level of unconscious incompetence in terms of being human. The Bible also observes that we actually choose to remain at this level so that we never encounter a challenge to our unconscious incompetence. The choice of Adam to separate from God is the choice to abandon the next step in growth: the level of conscious incompetence. To use Covey’s vocabulary: we not only don’t know what we don’t know we assert self will to make an active choice not to know.

The barrier we erect to block our development is pride. Pride rejects the need to grow. Pride asserts: I’m OK just as I am. If there is a problem it lies with other people, the world, God.

Jesus challenged this pride in his teaching and in his person. Jesus challenged this pride because Jesus is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created each of us. Our heavenly Father designed us to be fully human in relationship with God the Son. There is no other model for being fully human.
God wants us to grow. God wants us to develop the amazing potential for love and holiness he has placed in our souls. The growth is what we now call spiritual growth. It is spiritual growth because it is rooted in the most fundamental level of our being- at the level of the soul.

The soul defines who we are as a species and who we may become as an individual. From the soul we mold our minds, hearts and wills to form our identity. With Christ we form a unique authentic personal identity. Apart from Christ we form a false ego based on the assumptions and demands of the surrounding culture. There is ultimately a dull tedious sameness to the false ego. It is a monotone of a single syllable: me.
The soul lost in separation is a soul that endlessly repeats me, me, me in order to drown out the authentic personal identity God has placed within us.

In his sermon on the mount Jesus provides a corrective commentary on the Law of Moses. Jesus does not reinvent the law or abolish the Law. He does challenge us to discern how human pride subverts divine principle and keeps us locked and lost in the Adamic nature of sin and death. That is the level of willful unconscious incompetence. That is the level of the monotonous “me”.

Jesus introduces his corrective commentary on the Law by acknowledging where we are stuck. “You have heard it said.”

You have heard it said that murder is a violation of the Law. That is true. But it is incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Ask yourselves the questions that lead to understanding and wisdom. Ask: what is the underlying principle that forms the reality of this law?

You have heard it said that if a man wants to divorce his wife he can follow a certain legal procedure and end the marriage. That is true. It is also incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Question. Discern the principles that define marriage before you apply the Law to dissolve marriage.

You have heard it said to keep your vows. That is true. Can you by an act of will alone do this? Does the vow give you power over your sin nature? Is there a better way? Ask: where am I stuck in the false ego? Where do I exist and choose by not choosing, by default? How can I live by conscious intent?

When Jesus states: “you have heard it said” he is asking us to examine our assumptions and our habits. He is offering us a way through unconscious incompetence by encouraging us to question . And, he is offering himself as the guide on the path to spiritual growth and maturity.

There are currently two ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. That way rejects the plan and purpose of God for our souls. That way creates and sustains and defends a false ego based in the will to power. That way keeps us locked and lost at the level of unconscious incompetence. It is the way of the surrounding culture. It seems right and it seems normal because it is the way our educational system, entertainment, academic and political system instructs us to think. It is the way the soul remains lost and it is the way we choose not to choose.

The Bible describes this way of being human as the sin nature and the way of death. In order to remain on this way we need to ignore, suppress and distort the image and likeness of God in our souls. As we follow this way, the way of Adam, we in fact kill our authentic self in order to create and sustain a false ego.

It may seem esoteric and complicated. Fortunately, the Bible approaches the issue in a very simple and straightforward manner. The Bible encourages us to examine our assumptions about life and our actions in life.

Jesus gives us the model in his sermon on the mount. You have heard it said. But- is it true? Is what you have learned consistent with divine principles revealed in the Bible? Is the way you set your priorities and achieve you goals grounded in the love and holiness of God? Or, is it grounded in the individual will to power?

The primary purpose of the church Christ founded on the day of Pentecost is the salvation and sanctification of souls. It is the restoration of the image and likeness of God in each of us. It is the invitation to wake up and make a conscious choice to grow and to mature into the nature of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

To accomplish this great and wonderful purpose we need to ask ourselves: are we willing to move from unconscious incompetence into conscious incompetence? Are will willing to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know but we want to grow? Are we willing to trust God that the best way of being human is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

God does not just give us a book and leave us alone to try to figure it out. God gives us his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our constant companion and guide on this path of spiritual growth and maturity. God gives us the Holy Spirit to offer advice and strength and courage to wake up, ask questions, and make changes. God places us in a community of faith to encourage each other and to support each other.

As we approach Lent, ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine one assumption you have about life. Ask: is this true? Don’t get mad- get even. Is this true? Everybody is against me and if I don’t demand my rights I will never get what I want. Is this true? Other people exist to serve me. Is this true? If some one pushes me I will push back even harder. Is this true?

The call to self examination is not the call to self obsession. It is the call to wake up into a new and wonderful process of effortless effort. It is the call to see where the false ego covers the true self. It is the opportunity to wake up and to live life fully and joyfully by conscious intent.

Jesus teaches: you have heard it said. Jesus encourage us to take next step and ask the question: is it true?

Epiphany 5

2011-02-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 5 (Matthew 5: 13-20) Let your light shine
Jesus is the light of the world.

Jesus is the light of the world reaching out to all people everywhere through us. The light reveals the truth. The truth is Jesus Christ.

The truth that Jesus reveals is that God is real. By Jesus’ time Abraham and Moses were already faded memories of a distant past. People read in the Bible how God spoke to Abraham and Moses audibly. Yet, it had been almost five hundred years since God had spoken even indirectly through a prophet.

People read in the Bible about the mighty miracles God had performed during the time of Moses. Yet, there was no evidence of such miracles for many centuries.

If people thought of God at all they thought of a distant, transcendent and silent Divine Principle that no longer spoke and no longer acted in the world of human events. Perhaps the stories were indeed just stories. Perhaps the history was allegory and not literal fact. Perhaps the history of the Patriarchs and the Prophets was similar to the pagan myths- not to be taken literally but to be understood for the moral content.

Religious people thought of God as the Lawgiver who had revealed the Law to Moses then vanished from human experience. The Law was the focus of the religion. The religion was the Law.

Jesus came into the world to reveal the reality of God. Jesus came into the world to reaffirm that God is real and God is personal. The purpose of religion is not to impose Law. The purpose of religion is to facilitate relationship.

Jesus was very careful not to suggest that he had come to abolish the Law. In fact, Jesus teaches that the Law is immutable in all of its parts. And, Jesus taught that righteousness is more than assent to certain beliefs or the fulfillment of certain actions.

The apostle James clarifies Jesus teaching when he declares that the Law, all 616 Laws, is a seamless whole. If you break one law even once you have broken the entire law and forfeited any claim to righteousness under the law.

The apostle Paul clarifies Jesus’ teaching by stating that the Law is holy and good but no human being can keep the Law. Only Jesus can and did keep the law. He kept the law by the power of his relationship with his Heavenly Father.

Jesus came into the world to reveal that God is love: steadfast, holy, unconditional love. The relationship God offers us is the relationship Jesus reveals is the defining nature of Divinity. It is One God eternally manifesting in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the One God eternally manifesting as a community of love. In that community each person is distinct and each person holds the essential unity of the One God.

Jesus came into the world to reveal that in his own person God unites Divinity with humanity. God finds all people in Jesus Christ as Jesus unites humanity with divinity. God offers all people everywhere the gift of reunification and transformation in Jesus Christ.

As God freely chose to unite divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ so in Jesus God offers us the choice to unite with him as we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It is in that call to unity, which is the invitation to salvation, that Jesus becomes for all who receive him the light of truth, the light of love, the light of holiness.

In the new relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ we see where we fall short and we see the new person we may become.

Jesus is the light who reveals to each of us who God created us to be, where we have rejected that creation, and how we can restore what we rejected. As we follow the light into the light we become light to others. We model in our own lives by our choices and priorities the pattern, plan and purpose of God for the human race.
Our righteousness can only exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees in the process of personal transformation. The Law can be a guide but the transformation can only take place within the relationship.

It is the relationship that produces the faith.

Righteousness apart from the relationship always looks for the loophole in the Law. It is salt mingled with sand that still looks like salt but is less that salt. Unscrupulous merchants in the ancient world mingled a little sand with salt to stretch the inventory and make more money. If the salt passed through several merchants before the end user received it there might be very little actual salt left. It would have lost its saltiness as the merchants diluted it to make more money.

Righteousness apart from relationship is like the diluted salt. It has mixed and mingled with the base and the secular until it no longer retains its distinctive flavor and its unique identity.

The relationship purifies righteousness through faith. Legalism dilutes faith with compromise. The compromise is always the dilution of faith with fear, self will and pride.

Fear casts doubt that the way of faith will produce desired results. Self will asserts the human will to power that insists each of us is the master of our fate and the captain of our souls. Pride redefines God as religion, religion as law, and law as subject to human opinion. Sadly, fear, self will and pride erode faith and lead to despair.

Jesus is not about religion. Jesus is the Way of life, the pattern of life, God has designed for each of us. Jesus is the truth, the guiding principle that underlies all existence. Jesus is life. He is the source of life, the giver of life and the very essence of life. His life is eternal.

Faith in Jesus Christ is not just a set of beliefs. Faith in Jesus Christ is trust in a person who invites us to follow him into a new life and a new way of living. Faith in Jesus Christ is not an abstract or arbitrary assembly of facts and ideas. Faith in Jesus Christ is an ongoing friendship with a real person who cares for us and offers not only guidance but the strength and courage to change how we make choices and set priorities.

It is the dynamic of the personal relationship activated by faith that transforms us into the light of Christ for our generation.

Our Heavenly Father invites us to walk in the light of Jesus Christ through our personal relationship with Christ. He gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to make this choice and to live this choice by faith. As we make this choice, the Holy Spirit fills our soul with light so we can fulfill Jesus’ command: let your light shine.

Epiphany 4

2011-01-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 4 Blessed are you (Matthew 5: 1-12)

The blessing is always in the relationship.

Many of us, perhaps most of us, miss the blessing as we look for the reward. We look for the blessing in pleasure, power, possessions, prestige and pride. If we are religious, we consider these things rewards from God for our right behavior or right belief. If we are religious, we understand the absence of these things as divine punishment for some transgression we committed.

Popular religious belief in Jesus’ day taught that the poor are poor because they sinned against God. Poverty is God’s punishment for sin. The rich are rich because they performed right actions and held right belief. Wealth is God’s reward for the righteous.

The world is not so simple and direct. Many agnostics and atheists reject a belief in God because they identify religion with reward and punishment. Clearly the world does not work this way. Consequently, God cannot exist.

Jesus never taught that God is a God of rewards and punishments- at least in the very crude expression of law based religion. Jesus knew the story of Job. Jesus knew that some time - perhaps many times- bad things happen to good people.

Jesus rejects the religious assumptions of his day. He teaches that the
righteous are not those who perform right acts- for no human being can achieve the standard of perfection demanded by the law. Jesus also rejects the idea that the righteous hold right belief. No one, with the possible exception of His blessed Mother, held a right belief about Jesus. Yet, Jesus reached out to everyone regardless of their wrong belief or even at times their unbelief.

And so, when Jesus gives his sermon on the mount he chooses the subject of blessing.
A religious person of the time would have said something like; Blessed are the rich for God has rewarded their righteousness.

Blessed are the happy for God has protected them from sadness.
Blessed are the proud for God has recognized their accomplishments.
Blessed are those who perform right actions and hold right beliefs for God is impressed by their perfection
Blessed are those who condemn the sinful and punish them.
Blessed are the strong for God has delivered their enemies into their hands.
Blessed are the victorious for God has destroyed their opponents.
Blessed are those who persecute the unrighteous and drive them out of the land so that they alone will inherit the Kingdom.

The religious then and the religious now tend to believe the blessing of God is God giving me what I want when I want it. If I get what I want I am blessed and I reward God with my worship. If I do not get what I want then I am either cursed or I reject the very concept of God and declare the universe is meaningless.

Jesus came to proclaim: the blessing is in the relationship. The relationship is God reaching out to all people in Jesus Christ.

That is why Jesus could proclaim that the blessed are the poor, the meek, the mournful, the merciful, the pure, the peace makers and the persecuted.

The blessing is not the reward. Wealth is not the blessing. Poverty of itself is neithera reward or a punishment. Poverty can be an open invitation for God to fill the hungry with the goodness of Jesus Christ.

The rich often miss the blessing as they focus on their possessions. The poor with fewer distractions can often recognize that the blessing is the personal presence of God in Jesus Christ.

Where is the relationship?

The relationship is preeminently in worship. It is in worship that God meets us, greets us, fills us and immerses us in the infinite and eternal love that is God.
The relationship is in service to others. The rich often ask the question about other people: what’s in it for me. The rich often answer the question with the words: there is never enough for two. The rich turn abundance into scarcity and fear there will never be enough.

The poor frequently have the amazing ability to ask: how may I help? The poor often are willing to share their meager resources with family members and friends and even strangers. The poor see even the most modest of resources as abundance to be shared with others.

There are exceptions of course. Jesus neither condemns wealth nor endorses poverty. Both wealth and poverty can corrupt and shatter the soul. What Jesus teaches is that the blessing of God in is in God’s relationship with us.

The poor in spirit may have wealth but they recognize the fleeting nature of material possessions to bring meaning and purpose. The poor in spirit are rich in their relationship with God and so are not possessed by their possessions, their pleasures, prestige or pride.

The relationship sets the rich free to share their abundance with the poor. The relationship sets the rich free to become the blessing to the poor. The relationship comforts the poor with the assurance that God is with them. God comforts them. God has declared that it is they who will inherit the kingdom. The relationship sets the poor free from their material poverty to become the blessing to the rich.

Most of us are neither rich or poor. We are somewhere in between. The challenge for us in this Sermon on the Mount is to hear the message and embrace the principle. The blessing is not in the things we have or even in our skills and accomplishments. The blessing is in the relationship God offers us in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
That relationship sets us free from the fear of scarcity, the lack of purpose, and the void of meaninglessness. That relationship sets us free to use all of the gifts God has given us to His glory and for the benefit of others. The relationship sets us free to live the abundant life of meaning and purpose in the knowledge and love of God.

Jesus declares we are already blessed. We are already blessed because God has sought us out and found us in His co-eternal Son. Jesus clarifies for us that the blessing is in the relationship. That relationship is holy. That relationship is eternal. That relationship is the unconditional love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is the blessing we already have as we hear Jesus proclaim: Blessed are you.

Eiphany 3

2011-01-22T13:06:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 3 Repent. Follow me. I will make you fish for people. (Matthew 4:17 & 19)

Where John the Baptist had preached: repent and prepare, Jesus preached repent, follow, become.

John preached a call to prepare. Jesus preached a call to action.
The call to action is threefold. The first part of the call to action is the call to repent. The call to repentance is the call to stop, pay attention, measure, change.
Stop right where you are and pay attention to how you live. Pay attention to how you speak to other people. Pay attention to where you spend your time, your money and you life’s energy.

As you stop and pay attention then measure what you observe about your life by the perfect mirror of love. That perfect mirror is Jesus Christ. He is the ideal form, plan and pattern for human nature. Anything less than the original pattern is broken, distorted, lost. Anything less than the original pattern is sin.
That sin corrupts and destroys our life. Sin promises pleasure and power. It delivers frustration, fear and despair. The call to repentance is the call to the abundant life.

As you measure your life against the life of Christ you will fall short. Where you fall short is where God is inviting you to change. Repentance is incomplete if there is no transformation. This transformation cannot come as an act of the will. It can only come as we make a real choice to immerse ourselves in the steadfast, holy, eternal love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.

The call to repentance is the call to healing, the call to wholeness, the call to holiness. It is a never ending process of choice and transformation. It has the threefold purpose of opening our souls to the unconditional love of God, our hearts to the sacrificial love of other people, and our spirit to the transforming love of our true nature.

The call to repentance is the call to follow Jesus Christ. We cannot follow Christ by our own will. We cannot follow Christ from the place of self will, fear and pride. We follow Christ in the many various choices we make every day of our lives.
Christ himself provides the power we need to make the changes we need to grow in love. That power is the personal presence of God the Holy Spirit.

The 12 apostles needed three years to understand repentance. They needed to hear God’s truth and to experience God’s truth. They needed to hear their own resistance to God, experience their own rebellion, and unlearn the values and priorities of their time and culture that kept them separate from God.

The apostles experienced faith as a journey. They started well. They left their old lives and followed Jesus. They moved slowly. They left their old lives but not their old way of living. Their three year journey with Jesus was a slow and sometimes tedious journey from fear into faith.

The fear comes from separation. We claim the right to define God as we chose then live with the fear that if we created God does God have his own existence. Jesus is the reality of God who he is to enter into a personal relationship with him.
If we make that choice, to enter into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we enter into a journey of faith. The faith comes as we surrender our demand to define God, the world, other people, even ourselves according to our own self will.
The faith develops as we walk the paths of our individual lives in communion with the co-eternal Son of God.
It took three years for the apo
stles to comprehend that the prayer of faith is: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.
It took three years before the apostles were ready to accept the call to evangelize, to fish for people. They were never perfect. They never completely agreed with each other on even the basics. What made their mission possible was the transformation of their understanding of God. In that transformed understanding came a commitment to personal loyalty and personal transformation.

They learned who God is by spending time with Jesus Christ. They learned where sin corrupted human nature by observing the sinless life of Christ. They learned about their own selfishness and pride as they interacted with each other and as Jesus asked them to pay attention to their attitude and actions.

Jesus is the new life God offers us. The three years Jesus spent with the 12 apostles is representative of the new way of living God invites us to experience. Every Sunday we hear a reading from the gospel. That reading is God’s call to us to repent, follow and become.

A fundamental principle of the Kingdom of God is that we are not yet who we can become. Each moment of our lives is a moment of real choice to hear the invitation to faith. That is why each moment of our lives here and now is an eternal moment with eternal consequences.

Jesus does not expect us to be perfect in this life. He does expect us to transform. He does not expect us to transform by our own will. He supplies to us the indwelling personal presence of God the Holy Spirit to accomplish this.

Where do you need to repent? The answer starts by paying attention to where you live life from the place of demand, threat and reaction. That is your place of grace. That is your invitation to transformation.

Where is Jesus asking you to follow him? Many people have the mistaken idea that Jesus will lead us into places we don’t want to go. Jesus never leads any place that he has not prepared us to embrace and enjoy. The principle by which we can discern the will of God is the steadfast holy love of God.

The principle manifests in our lives in three ways: worship, service, personal transformation. Jesus asks us to follow him into a more joyful and profound self offering in worship, a more self sacrificing experience of service to others, and an amazing adventure of transforming all of our shortcomings and sins back into their original blessings.

Where is Jesus inviting you to follow him in worship, service and transformation?
Where is Jesus inviting you in evangelism? For the first four apostles, all of whom were fishermen, Jesus used the phrase: to fish for people. You have been focused on fishing for your life’s work. Now I will refocus your work to a different kind of life, a different way of living.

Jesus came into the world to seek the lost, to find the lost, to reunite the lost to God, and to transform the lost by the power of divine love.

Those who heed the invitation to repent and to follow are those whom Jesus transforms for evangelism. The particularity of evangelism is unique for each of us. The pre condition for evangelism is consistent. The universality of evangelism is the same: as you experience God’s blessing so share God’s blessing.
The reality of evangelism is in the words Jesus speaks to us today: Repent. Follow me. I will make you fish for people.

Epiphany 2

2011-01-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 2 (John 1: 29-42) Behold the Lamb of God

Command and control is not the way of salvation.

The Messiah is the anointed of God. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for original sin.
This was not what anyone expected of the Messiah. Despite the long centuries of preparation from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the prophets, from the kings and priests- people heard the word of God clearly and explicitly declared. They heard the word, they ignored the word, and they rejected the word.

This is the experience of Moses and the prophets. And, this is the consistent observation of the Biblical writers. This was the experience of the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. This was the reason the Messiah had to be the one pure perfect and sacrifice for original sin.

The people expected God to send a Messiah who would save them from their enemies. They did not expect a Messiah who would save them from their sin. They did not accept the message of Moses and the prophets that actual sin is a consequence of a broken relationship. They did not accept the message that righteousness means right relationship.

It is all there in the Passover story. It is all there in the life and witness of the prophets.

The chosen are not chosen to rule but to serve. The Messiah is not anointed to conquer nations but to conquer sin and death.

The Lamb of God is the perfect sacrifice that seals the breach between humanity and God. It is the human race that creates and sustains the breach, the separation. It is God in Jesus Christ who seals the breach, offers healing and promises a total transformation of sin and death through eternal love and eternal life.

It is clear from the gospels that even those who followed Jesus ignored John’s prophetic witness that Jesus is the Messiah who conquers sin and death. This should not be a surprise. For if the Bible is correct in its assessment of the human condition, then humanity is of itself incapable of helping itself.

From the moment Jesus arose from the waters of his baptism he knew he was on the road to the cross. He knew this because of all people he knew the terrible spiritual pain that human beings live with. That terrible spiritual pain produces distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices.

Human beings in Jesus day understood there was a problem. They observed the world and concluded the problem was a lack of right knowledge, right behavior and right power. In Israel, the people believed that God would anoint a man with that right knowledge to impose the right religion on the world. They believed God would anoint a man to live according the standards of right behavior and then impose those standards on everyone else. They believed God would anoint a man with the office and authority of Kingship to lead the righteous into battle against the unrighteous and to impose God’ s rule over all the nations.

They believed these things despite the teaching of Moses and the prophets about the nature of sin.

John the Baptist testifies that he only recognized the Messiah by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah as He anointed Jesus visibly in his baptism. The Holy Spirit also revealed to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, that the Messiah is the Lamb of God who conquers sin by leading a perfect life and who conquers death by experiencing death and transforming it back into life.

Command and control is not the way of salvation. Command and control is not the way of abundant life.

The rightful ruler of Israel is the Messiah whom God sent into the world to seal the breach human beings created. The true Messiah, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit offered himself to the Father in his daily prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.

The Messiah is anointed for service. The Messiah is anointed to bring reconciliation and healing. He does this by fulfilling the plan and pattern and purpose of sacrificial worship God revealed to Abraham on Mt. Moriah and God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Jesus the Messiah is anointed as the sacrifice God revealed to Abraham and Moses. Jesus is the lamb whose sacrificial death completes and fulfills all of the sacrifices embedded in the Law. Jesus is the Lamb whose death transforms death back into life. And, because Jesus is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice, the life he gives us is eternal.

It is a new life. It is a new way of living. It is a way of living Moses and the prophets proclaimed but could not accomplish. It is a way of living characterized by love and holiness in sharp contrast to the way of command and control.

This is not a way that is self evident to anyone. It certainly was not self evident to the last of the prophets. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that the Messiah would be anointed for service not for command and control. It is also not self evident to us.

God reveals his nature to us in the person of His Son. That is why it is so important we read the Bible and receive the sacraments. It the Bible God tells us who he is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God holds a perfect mirror to our souls and reveals to us how we exist from the place of demand. In the sacrament of baptism God reunites our separated and lost human nature with his divine nature. In the sacrament of Holy Communion God infuses the eternal love and eternal life of Jesus Christ into our souls.

The principles of the new life in Christ and the new way of living in the Holy Spirit are contradictory to the principles of the old life of sin and death. The principles of the old life of sin and death are the principles of command and control. They are echoed every time we issue demands to impose our will and threats to retaliate if we do not get our will

Demand and threat killed Jesus as he knew they would. That is why he came as the Lamb of God and not the Warlord of God.

Demand and threat kill the soul that lives by the principles of command and control. This is what Jesus wants to save us from. He wants to save us from the corruption of the soul that distorts love into the will to dominate and corrupts life into the desire to possess.

Jesus as the lamb of God is himself the salvation from the old life of self will. It is self will that leads to sin and death. It is as we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies at the altar of sacrifice in union with the one pure perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our heavenly Father sets us free from the slavery of self will into the perfect love that produces free will. Free will is a will set free in love to bring forth love and to live from the place of eternal life.

The Holy Spirit lives within us to ask us where we still live from the place of self will. Where do we still reject the true Messiah anointed for service and seek a false Messiah who says: have it your way? Where do we still bring forth a demand to impose our will on others and a threat to retaliate if we others do not submit to our will? Where do we still harbor the desire for God to be on our side so we can dominate other people?

The Messiah is anointed by love, in love and through love for service. In that service the Messiah sacrifices self will to live life fully and completely free from sin and from the fear of death. This is the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. This is the revelation of God to the last of the prophets and to each of us when the Holy Spirit makes the Messiah known in Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice of perfect love- the Lamb of God.