Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2015 (John 6:25-35)

“I am the bread of life.”

Jesus is life. He is in fact the source of life. That life is abundant in the here and now. That life is everlasting in the hereafter.

The very essence of life is love.

On this Thanksgiving day in the United States, our nation asks us to ponder what we are thankful for. Our secular culture seduces us to overindulge and to spend money we don’t have. The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church invites us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude to God.

God is the very source of life. There is no life apart from God. Apart from God there is the slow steady entropy, the slow steady decay of life. The process of decay in the human spirit comes from pride, self-will and fear. Fear distorts and diminishes the joy of Creation. Fear robs us of the joy of salvation. Fear extends and perpetuates original separation. Sadly, this is part of the human condition we have chosen to manifest.

The great gift of God is a new way of being human. It is the way of the original pattern of Creation. It is the way of blessing. It is the Way of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the original pattern of life who has come into the world to reset the pattern. He is the very essence of life- the bread of life. The bread of life he offers us is His own body and blood. It is the gift of Holy Communion. It is a gift that sustains and transforms.

By all means consider the many material and emotional blessings you enjoy this day. Consider the poor, the sick and the lonely who lack these things. Make a real choice to enter into the real presence of abundant life and eternal life by receiving the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ. Walk in the way of life. Receive the blessing, give thanks for the blessing and make a real choice to become the blessing to others. As Jesus is himself the eternal bread of life make a real choice in Jesus to become a channel of blessing to your families, friends, neighbors and the strangers at our gates. Choose the Jesus way of Blessing. Choose life.

Jesus says to us today on this national day of Thanksgiving. “I am the bread of life.”

Advent 1

Advent 1 (Luke 21:25-36)

Heaven and Earth will pass away; but, My words will not pass away.”

Only two things in this world will endure. They are God’s Word and your soul. All other things will pass away. All other things are subject to the law of entropy and decay. Nothing in this world is as it was. Nothing in this world will remain the same.

You, however, will continue. Our Heavenly Father created our species and each of us individually for eternal life in a forever friendship with God the Son. When we as a species chose to separate from God we also separated from the meaning and purpose of life. We did not and cannot annul the design God wove into our souls.  There once was a time when you did not exist. You were born into a moment of time. There will never be a time when you cease to exist. You are designed to exist forever. How that forever manifests is our choice.

Jesus came to restore souls lost in separation into reunion with the Father by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The damage of original separation results in the death of our bodies. It does not annihilate our souls. Jesus offers to restore to us the life we so foolishly abandoned. That life is abundant and it is forever.

No one who is born can escape physical death. No one who is born and dies will cease to exist. If you are born once you will die twice. The first death is physical death that brings an end to the body. The second death is the state of a soul that persists in separation from God. It is a state of despair and pride. Through pride the soul refuses to enter into God’s rest. Through despair the soul laments the loss of earthly pleasures.

If you are born twice you die once. If you are born again in Christ through the waters of baptism you are grafted into the Body of Christ. You are one with him. His eternal life now sustains you. Upon the death of your physical body you are instantly in his presence. He prepares you for the Day of Resurrection when He will give you a new and more substantial body to enjoy the Great Mystery and the Greater Adventure of his forever friendship.

Your life in the here and now is formed by your choice. Your life in the hereafter is also formed by your choice. The Fountain of Grace is freely available for all to taste and drink to the fullest they desire. The Gates of Heaven are twelve giant luminescent pearls that are always open. God turns no one away from his love. God imposes his love on no one. One of my teachers once said: all who seek the truth find the truth and they find it in Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote: all seek love find love and some who seek love will be delightfully surprised to discover they were seeking Jesus all of the time.

God’s word is eternal. You are not eternal but Go did design you to live forever with the co-eternal Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. How you live out your forever is your choice. The meaning and purpose of forever is love. Love is always a choice. Choose wisely. Choose Jesus.

Christ the King Sunday 2015

Christ the King Sunday 2015 (John 18:33-37)

“My kingdom is not of this world.”

Jesus is the rightful ruler of this planet.

God the Father created this planet and our species by the power of the Holy Spirit to be a gift to the co-eternal Beloved Son. The pre incarnate Son walked with our first parents in Eden. He was their friend, their guardian and their guide.

When Adam and Eve chose to separate from God, the pre incarnate Son left this planet. The Holy Spirit initiated a process for him to return. He returned as a new born child in Bethlehem. This time, he united his divinity with our humanity in one particular person in one particular place and time.

Jesus, son of Mary, is the legal heir to the throne of Israel. Jesus, as the incarnate co-eternal Son of God,  is the rightful ruler of this planet. The Father permits earthly governments to exist for now. God designates two basic functions for these temporary governments. Those functions can be described as maintaining peace and security. And the principles God has revealed for earthly governments to follow are recorded in the Bible. They are compassion and justice.

That is not what people believed when Jesus came into the world. It is not what most people most of the time believe now. All too often, belief distorts and subverts truth.

The truth is Jesus Christ.

Everyone in his day believed the Messiah would raise an army, seize control of Jerusalem, destroy Rome and enslave the nations. Those who rejected Jesus believed this. Those who followed Jesus believed this. Those who were largely indifferent to Jesus believed this. Pontus Pilate knew this is what the people of Judea believed. He was ready to deal with such challenges to the Roman Empire. He was not ready for the truth.

When Jesus said: my kingdom is not of this world, Pilate understood very well what he meant. Jesus was not saying: my kingdom is not of this planet. He was saying: my kingdom does not follow the world order. Pilate knew the world order meant military conquest. It meant a culture of pride, self-will, cynicism, deceit and fear. No matter how strong Rome was they knew they were just one civil war or one military defeat away from destruction.

Pilate understood Jesus very well. Jesus very clearly stated that he would not use force nor would he authorize force to establish his kingdom. Jesus was dealing in spiritual matters not military matters. Perhaps, Pilate even recognized that Jesus’ approach could actually change things for the better over time. Clearly, Pilate knew that Jesus was no direct military threat to the world order Pilate defended.

The planet and our species belong to the Living Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus will not use the methods of human political culture to impose his will and demand our submission to his authority.

In a world governed by fear and conflict the Jesus way of exercising Lordship makes no sense. It only makes sense when you surrender to divine love by faith. It only becomes real as you learn to trust Jesus as the new way of living. It only makes sense in the process of surrendering pride and self-will to divine will in the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.

When we make a real choice to accept the gift of salvation God the Father offers us in God the Son we begin a long process of transformation in God the Holy Spirit in order to follow Jesus as Lord and King. We learn slowly and sometimes painfully that Jesus invites us to experience the world from a very difference perspective. It is the perspective of our Heavenly Fathers Plan of Salvation. It is the perspective of universal unconditional love that resets our priorities and produces an action.

The Jesus Way is the only effective way to change and transform the world and our individual lives. Listen carefully to what the world order is demanding of us. Pay attention to how the leaders of the world order use fear to accomplish their goals. Ask yourself the same question Pontus Pilate asked: what is truth? But, ask the question honestly from the place of faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Everyone who seeks the truth will find the truth. The truth is Jesus Christ. Accept no substitute. Pay attention. Listen carefully, Be wary of those who practice deceit, appeal to fear and use conflict to advance their goals.

Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. This planet and our species belong to him. He is the eternal pattern of truth. Follow him into the way of truth. The way of truth is universal unconditional love.    

Pentecost 29

Pentecost 29 (Mark 13:1-8)

“Beware that no one leads you astray.”

People react to God’s prophets by hiring false prophets.  Satan reacts to God’s Messiah by inspiring false Messiah’s.  A false prophet follows the money. A false Messiah is filled with self-deceiving pride.

Jesus understood this. History show how the rich and powerful in Israel hired false prophets to confuse people about God’s Law and God’s Plan of Salvation. The motive is very ancient and very contemporary. The motive is the love of money.

Neither the false prophets nor the people who paid them really believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They rejected those aspects of the Law of Moses that inhibited their passion for wealth and power. They rejected the prophetic call to repentance and preparation.

Some forty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the year 70AD religious extremists seized control of Jerusalem. They claimed to be the true patriots and the true religious conservatives. They drove out the Romans and all foreigners. They took control of the Temple and the government. They instituted a reign of terror in Jerusalem to purge the holy city of liberals, moderates and fake conservatives. They celebrated their victory and waited for God to send an angelic army to defend them. That army never came. The Roman army came instead. And, the Emperor gave one single order to his army: kill them all. And, they did.

The Romans massacred the population of Jerusalem. They destroyed the Temple. They leveled the city of Jerusalem. Then, they excavated the mountain ridge on which the city had been constructed. The current version of the city of Jerusalem is built slightly north of the old site.

Seventy years later, in the year 140AD, a false Messiah, an anti-Christ, arose in Israel. He fulfilled all of the expectations the false prophets proclaimed. He expelled the Romans. He drove out all foreigners. He declared the Kingdom of God on earth. He gathered an army. He promised the people everything the false prophets promised. He waited for God to send an angelic army to defend Israel. Once again, that army never came. The Roman army came. And once again, the Emperor gave one simple command: kill them all. And, they did.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is Jesus Christ. Jesus summarizes our individual responsibilities in the Summary of the Law. He gives the Church her responsibility in the Great Commission. Most people do not want God’s Plan. People tend to create a plan of salvation routed in political or economic ideas. Secular minded people use the language of sociology, culture or psychology. Religious minded people use the outward and visible forms of belief but reject the inward and spiritual grace of faith.

Satan, who has deluded himself to believe he is the equal and opposite of God, has his plan of damnation. The essence of the Plan of Damnation is: keep people separate. Keep them separated from God. Keep them separated from each other. And, keep them separated from the image and likeness of God imprinted on their souls. The effective means Satan uses to achieve his plan is confusion. The key to confusion is deceit.

In this, Satan learned from the rich and powerful who hired the false prophets. A false prophet does not have to convince. A false prophet only needs to confuse.  Human pride and self-will does the real work after that. Satan does from time to time cultivate a false Messiah to create chaos in the world and in the church. In the church, the beloved apostle John reminds us that any church leader who denies our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ is an anti-Christ. St. Paul tells us that such a person follows in the way of the false prophets by preaching a false gospel.

Jesus knew that false prophets and anti- Christs would follow him. He knew that at some point the rich and the powerful would overplay their hands and bring destruction to the Temple, the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel. He knew that false teachers would emerge in the church as weeds grow in a wheat field. He knew this because he knows us. He knows what it is to be human because he is fully human. He knows what it is to be lost in separation from God because he himself was never lost in separation until he took our sins upon himself on the cross. He knew the lost by living among us and paying attention to us. And, he observed that the lost do not want to be found.

Only Jesus can find the lost who do not want to be found.  Some of us are lost in a religious culture of rewards and punishments, of judgment and condemnation.  Some of us are lost in a secular culture of entitlement and self-indulgence. Jesus reaches out to us all. He and He alone is the Father’s Plan of Salvation for humanity because he and he alone reunifies divinity with humanity in his own person.

Jesus knows that every generation in the church will raise up false teachers to deceive and confuse the faithful.  Occasionally, a false Prophet will rise to offer a different plan of salvation and lead many people back into law based slavery, fear and conflict. Satan himself waits for the right moment to inspire a false Messiah, an anti-Christ, to use the forms of religion to subvert the Father’s Plan of Salvation.

Jesus warns us: be wary. Test the teachers. Question the prophets. We do this by waking up to the world as it is and to God as he is. We do this by reading the Bible, studying the Bible and memorizing the Bible in the context of the Body of Christ, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. We do this by immersing our minds, hearts and wills in the highest form of love a human being can experience. That highest form of love is worship.

Be wary. Wake up. Stay close to Jesus. Follow him.

Penteost 24

Pentecost 24 (Mark 12:38-44)

“For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but, she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.”

Money is the frozen energy of our time.

Money is a vital aspect of the way we live our lives in the here and now. The here and now is not the same as the world God designed. Neither does it define the life of the world to come.

God did not create money. Eventually, money will cease to exist. While it does exist God gives us one basic principle to help us understand money. The principle is love. Love is activated by choice.

The song in the musical Cabaret “Money Makes the world go round” has a certain contextual truth. The old phrase: “everything has a price”also has a half truth. Strangely enough, the value in money is a shared illusion. We choose to agree that certain pieces of metal and paper have a value. We choose to assign different values to the time and labor of different people. Those values reflect our priorities. Those values define our souls and hence our way through this life and our destination in the life of the world to come.

God asks of us to choose how we use the money we earn according to the threefold pattern of love.

The first priority is the use of money as an act of worship. The standard God gives so we can make a real choice in the matter is the tithe. The tithe is 10% of what we actually earn from any source. The tithe is an act of worship. As an act of worship, God directs us to present the tithe at the altar of sacrifice.

The second priority is our family. Of the 90% of our income God authorizes us to keep, our next priority is the support of our family.

The third priority is to help the needy. If after the tithe and the support of our family we have money available, our Heavenly Father invites us to use that money to help the less fortunate and less abled,.

The fourth priority is you personally and individually. The world, of course, encourages us to focus on “me first.” God assures us that if we meet the priorities of love He sets before us we will not be forgotten.  Our needs and even some of desires will be met.

God revealed these priorities to Moses as laws. The laws are there to remind us of the first principles of Creation. The laws are there to facilitate the activating principle of love: choice.

The prophets hold us accountable for our choice. While they sometimes use the language of rewards and punishments they are most focused on cause and effect. The prophets held people accountable in two basic areas of choice: time and money.

God’s standard for us in how we use our time in grounded in the Sabbath Day.God’s standard for us in how we use the frozen energy of our time is the tithe.

God also recommends we make offerings for special purposes from time to time. The offering is not the tithe, Offerings are always an expression of our compassion for other people. The tithe is an expression of our worship. The prophets clearly state: how you spend your money reveals who or what you actually worship.

Jesus came to help us understand that God is love. Jesus in his words and actions clarifies for us that of ourselves we are lost in separation from God. The evidences of separation are pride, self-will and fear. The behavioral outcomes of separation are the distortions of the three primary virtues God created us to enjoy. Those three primary virtues are faith, hope and charity.

Faith leads us to the altar of sacrifice on the seventh day to present our tithes in an act of worship. Jesus defines worship as the highest form of love. Worship is the way we empty ourselves in order to be filled with the divine blessing of infinite love. That is why Jesus commends the poor widow for her offering. As small as it was compared to the offerings of the rich it nevertheless represents the essence of divine love. That essence is abundance.

The rich who gave a little out of their material abundance reveal their spiritual poverty before God. They hold onto their wealth but in the process diminish their souls. As they diminish their souls they have no time or space to embrace the infilling of divine love.

The widow who gave everything from her material poverty reveals her spiritual abundance before God. She empties herself of her attachments and in the process is filled with grace. As she is filled with grace God Himself moves in the circumstance of her life to meet her material needs. This angered and bewildered the religious elites of the day. They looked for the reward and preached the punishment. Jesus proclaimed the Good News of divine love that sets us free from separation into a path of reunification.

The standard for the use of our time is the Sabbath. The standard for the use of our money is the tithe. The activating principle is choice. The reality of making that choice is the infusion of divine grace, infinite love and eternal life.

It was that grace, love and life that filled the widow and enabled her to give not just the minimum of 10%, or an impressive 25% or an amazing 50%. She gave 100% of what she had in an act of worship.

Jesus does not condemn the wealthy. He simply points out that the reality of the tithe is the choice to make love through worship our highest priority in how we use our time and money.