Lent 1 (Mark 1:9-15)
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”
The old life cannot support the new way of living.
The old life is the life we inherit from Adam and Eve. We inherit the original choice Adam made to separate from God. And, we choose to live our lives from the foundation of that choice. That foundation produces a way of living that is characterized by fear, self-will and pride, the triad of separation.
The triad of separation leads to sin, rebellion against the call to worship and rejection of the Love of God. The end result of sin is the death of the body and the eternal exile of the soul from God.
Jesus came into the world as the second Adam. He came in the fullness of time. He came following centuries of religious conflict in the midst of a culture convulsed by religious conflict. He came into a world united the military might of Rome. He came into a world united by Greek culture and language.
Jesus came at a time when the books of the Old Testament had taken their final form as we know them today. The Dead Sea scrolls prove that the Old Testament we know today is the same as the people in Jesus’ day knew over two thousand years ago.
Jesus came into a religious culture that finally, after centuries of struggle, embraced monotheism.
These things are part of what the scriptures mean when they say Jesus came in the fullness of time. Jesus also came into a world obsessed with religion and defined by religion.
Judaism had divided itself into over a dozen competing and conflicting sects. Pagan religions emerged and vanished every few years. Philosophers had developed a bewildering array of contradictory visions of the “good life”.
Over all of these things, everyone in the ancient world felt the fear and the despair of death.
People all understood the bad news confronting humanity. The Bad News is separation. The worst news is death. People argued over the causes and the possible solutions to the problem. But, they understood the nature and depth of the problem.
They blamed government, culture, economics and each other for the problem. They sought solutions in power, knowledge, superstition, mysticism and law. None of it answered the basic question. None of it offered a real practical and immediate solution.
Jesus was and is the solution.
Mark records the briefest account of Jesus’ baptism and temptation in the wilderness. The purpose for these brief accounts is to emphasize that Jesus is the Son of God and how Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved in human flesh. It is by this eternal love that Jesus overcomes the temptation of Satan in the wilderness. And, it is within the context of this eternal love that Jesus begins his three year public ministry.
The actual details of the public ministry are less important to Mark than the reality of the person. Jesus just doesn’t preach, teach and heal. Jesus is the fullness of divine love in human flesh. Jesus is the new humanity who lives from the divine center of steadfast holy unconditional sacrificial love.
The solution to separation cannot be law, knowledge, power or even religion. The solution to separation is reunification. God unites His divinity with our humanity in Jesus. That is why Jesus himself is the solution to separation. His words and deeds testify to who he is but in some ways are less important than who he is.
God recognizes the old way of being human and its terrible consequence of sin and death. God’s solution is to provide a new way of being human. There is no quick fix to the problem. There are no minor adjustments to the problem. The solution is the new life.
The new life is a gift. No one can earn it. No one has any inherent right to claim it. All we have to do is receive it. We receive it as a gift by faith that Jesus is who he claimed to be, who the apostles experienced, who God the Father declared and who the Holy Spirit bears witness to in the lives of the faithful throughout the world and across the centuries.
The old life cannot support the new way of living.
Satan met Jesus in the wilderness. Satan tempted Jesus by quoting and misquoting scripture. Jesus met Satan with the steadfast holy unconditional love of the eternal Trinity. This is the way we can meet temptation.
Our minds can always find ways to justify particular sin. We don’t need Satan to deceive us. Jesus offers to renew our minds in the clarity of divine love.
Our hearts can always find ways to justify particular sin. We don’t need Satan to interfere in order to lead us into sin. Jesus offers to transform our hearts by the outpouring of divine love from his own sacred heart.
Our wills rebel against external standards and external authority. The old life impels us to live by the motto “my will be done”. We believe that the assertion of our individual will to power produces freedom. Moses and the prophets tell and show us that the assertion of our individual will to power only leads to slavery.
The slavery of the will to power is the slavery to fear, anxiety, frustration, pride and eventually despair. Jesus offers to set us free from this slavery through the prayer his mother taught him and he now teaches us: “Heavenly Father, not my will but Thy will be done.”
Surrender to divine will produces free will. Free will is the liberation of the soul from the distortions of sin.
As we begin Lent consider where you are still in slavery to sin. Where do you use your intellect to evade the simple and direct truth of God? Where are your emotions distorted by disordered desires for short term pleasures that will only produce long term pain? Where do you bring forth to other people and even to God a demand backed by a threat?
Which particular sin is God calling to your attention through the Litany, the Liturgy and the readings? That awareness of personal sin is your invitation to invite the Holy Spirit to transform that sin back into its original virtue through the infinite power of eternal love.
No one can resist the subtle temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil apart from the new life Jesus offers. That new life is union with the infinite and eternal love of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit That eternal love embodied in Jesus Christ is the very power that created the universe and each of us.
It is by love, through love and with love that we are able to make the real choice to reunify with God. And, it is that unity with the Divine that can produce a new way of living here and now. Jesus reveals the new way of living in his life. Jesus is the new way of living in each choice we make to surrender sin to be transformed into virtue.
The time is fulfilled. Now is the time. Now is the moment to make that real choice to live in the Real Presence of the Divine. Now is the moment to transform our minds, hearts and wills by the principle, power and person of Divine Love: Jesus Christ.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ash Wednesday 2012
Ash Wednesday 2012 (Matthew 6:1)
“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen.”
When Jesus said “beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen” he expected people to practice piety.
Piety is devotion to religious duties and practices. Until recently, piety was highly valued in most cultures. It was certainly valued in the ancient word. It has no value in our modern secular world.
When scholars produced a new modern language edition of “The Odyssey", they realized they could not make a literal translation of the title Homer used for Odysseus. Homer referred to Odysseus consistently as “pious Odysseus.” The word “pious” in the ancient world was the highest form of praise. The modern translators substituted the word “noble”.
That word misses the entire point of the ancient story. Despite the terrible things Odysseus did in war, he is nevertheless honored because of his piety, his sense of reverence that produces certain actions highly valued in faith based cultures.
Piety is a three fold attitude and action towards God, other people and ourselves. It is a virtue characterized by reverence and respect. The acts of piety are religious, charitable and personal.
When you come to church on Ash Wednesday you perform a religious act of piety. God invites us to participate in the liturgy to receive the spiritual treasure of personal transformation in God’s eternal love and holiness. It is as we take the action of coming to church with the attitude of loyalty to God that we bring forth the religious virtue of piety.
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When you bring food to the parish Food Pantry you perform a charitable act of piety. The act is infused with grace as we hold the attitude of mercy and compassion in Jesus’ name. Jesus mentions giving alms, money, to the poor and destitute as an act of piety. It is as act of piety as we remember God’s original plan for our species to be interdependent. It is an act of piety as we seek the real presence of God the Holy Spirit to cultivate divine mercy and compassion in our hearts.
Personal acts of piety are those things we choose to do and choose not to do to facilitate our own personal transformation, our sanctification. Jesus accepts us where we are and just as we are. He invites us to become more of who God created us to be. That invitation is the call to worship and the call to repentance.
During Lent, we have the opportunity to review our priorities, our attitudes and our actions. We have the invitation to yield particular sins to God the Holy Spirit for Him to transform back into their original virtues.
Fasting and prayer are two ways we can respond to this invitation to transformation. Through the self-denial of fasting we can, if we choose, learn something about sacrificial love. In combination with prayer, fasting can help us discern where we live from the place of self-indulgence and the will to power.
We are most fully alive as we live from the place of love and compassion. That is the divine pattern of human life. It is the logos, the co-eternal word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
God invites us to reconsider our priorities during Lent in light of the priorities He gave to us through Moses. Jesus summarizes these priorities in the framework of love. Love God with all of your heart, soul and strength. Love others as you love yourself. God invites us to review the Ten Commandments He gave to Moses and ask in prayer: where I am not in this truth?
Piety is a practice. We are being perfected in piety but we are never perfect in piety. We practice piety in the same way an artist practices art, a sportsman practices a particular sport, as a musician practices music. Through careful and intentional acts of piety we practice the new way of living Jesus gives us. We become more of who God created us to be. We become fully alive in Jesus Christ.
“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen.”
When Jesus said “beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen” he expected people to practice piety.
Piety is devotion to religious duties and practices. Until recently, piety was highly valued in most cultures. It was certainly valued in the ancient word. It has no value in our modern secular world.
When scholars produced a new modern language edition of “The Odyssey", they realized they could not make a literal translation of the title Homer used for Odysseus. Homer referred to Odysseus consistently as “pious Odysseus.” The word “pious” in the ancient world was the highest form of praise. The modern translators substituted the word “noble”.
That word misses the entire point of the ancient story. Despite the terrible things Odysseus did in war, he is nevertheless honored because of his piety, his sense of reverence that produces certain actions highly valued in faith based cultures.
Piety is a three fold attitude and action towards God, other people and ourselves. It is a virtue characterized by reverence and respect. The acts of piety are religious, charitable and personal.
When you come to church on Ash Wednesday you perform a religious act of piety. God invites us to participate in the liturgy to receive the spiritual treasure of personal transformation in God’s eternal love and holiness. It is as we take the action of coming to church with the attitude of loyalty to God that we bring forth the religious virtue of piety.
\
When you bring food to the parish Food Pantry you perform a charitable act of piety. The act is infused with grace as we hold the attitude of mercy and compassion in Jesus’ name. Jesus mentions giving alms, money, to the poor and destitute as an act of piety. It is as act of piety as we remember God’s original plan for our species to be interdependent. It is an act of piety as we seek the real presence of God the Holy Spirit to cultivate divine mercy and compassion in our hearts.
Personal acts of piety are those things we choose to do and choose not to do to facilitate our own personal transformation, our sanctification. Jesus accepts us where we are and just as we are. He invites us to become more of who God created us to be. That invitation is the call to worship and the call to repentance.
During Lent, we have the opportunity to review our priorities, our attitudes and our actions. We have the invitation to yield particular sins to God the Holy Spirit for Him to transform back into their original virtues.
Fasting and prayer are two ways we can respond to this invitation to transformation. Through the self-denial of fasting we can, if we choose, learn something about sacrificial love. In combination with prayer, fasting can help us discern where we live from the place of self-indulgence and the will to power.
We are most fully alive as we live from the place of love and compassion. That is the divine pattern of human life. It is the logos, the co-eternal word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
God invites us to reconsider our priorities during Lent in light of the priorities He gave to us through Moses. Jesus summarizes these priorities in the framework of love. Love God with all of your heart, soul and strength. Love others as you love yourself. God invites us to review the Ten Commandments He gave to Moses and ask in prayer: where I am not in this truth?
Piety is a practice. We are being perfected in piety but we are never perfect in piety. We practice piety in the same way an artist practices art, a sportsman practices a particular sport, as a musician practices music. Through careful and intentional acts of piety we practice the new way of living Jesus gives us. We become more of who God created us to be. We become fully alive in Jesus Christ.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Last Sunday of Epiphany 2012
Last Sunday of Epiphany (Mark 9:2-9)
“This is my Son, The Beloved. Listen to Him.”
It is a very rare occurrence in human history when God the Father speaks audibly to people.
God the Father’s audible word to Peter, James and John on the mount of Transfiguration is identical to the audible word He spoke when the last of the prophets baptized Jesus. And, it is a word very literally placed within the context and framework of the word God the Father spoke to Moses and the Prophets.
The word is Jesus. The word describes Jesus as The Beloved.
Many people in our time complain that God doesn’t speak. They say that if only God would speak clearly and unambiguously then they would believe. The record of scripture is that God does speak.
God spoke to Moses and the prophets. God spoke to the apostles and the disciple. The problem is not that God has not spoken. The problem is that when God does speak human beings refuse to listen.
Peter, James and John had both experiences. They heard God speak. And, they found it difficult to listen. In the real presence of divine glory the three apostles, the future leadership team of the Church, fell asleep. The experience of the Divine manifesting in this world was too much for them to accept.
The context of the Transfiguration is in the failure of the apostles to hear the word of God and to believe the word of God. The transfiguration takes place six days after Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah and then immediately rejected our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in the Messiah.
Jesus took Peter, James and John to the mountain of Transfiguration to give them one more opportunity to hear the word of God and to believe the word of God.
This opportunity was unlike any other they had experienced. At the Transfiguration the one God reveals the fullness of the blessed and eternal Trinity. He recapitulates thousands of years of salvation history in the personal appearance of Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah, who represents the prophets.
On the mountain of Transfiguration the Holy Spirit manifests as a resplendent luminescent cloud. God the Son radiates the dazzling white beauty of holiness. God the Father speaks audibly to reveal the Plan of Salvation.
The plan of salvation comes forth in the context of the Law and the prophets. But, the Plan of salvation is not limited to the Law and the prophets. The Plan of Salvation is Jesus.
Jesus is God the Father’s only begotten Son. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. The Beloved has no beginning and has no end. There never was a time when the Son did not exist.
The Plan of Salvation is nothing more and nothing less than reunification with the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting in the particularity of human experience.
This is the Plan Moses and the Prophets proclaimed. It is not the plan most people in Jesus’ day wanted. It is not the Plan most people in our time want.
One thing the people of Jesus’ day did understand was that the Plan of Salvation is not about a distant future. It is about life here and now. Jesus’s followers and enemies expected him to produce immediate and identifiable results.
They expected Jesus to seize power in Jerusalem, raise an army, impose one rigid and inflexible religious law on Israel, then use his divine power to destroy Rome and enslave the nations. They expected Jesus to make Jerusalem the capital of a new world empire that would impose a new world order. They expected wealth and power as their reward for supporting Jesus.
They missed the reality of Jesus’ teaching that righteousness means right relationship. The missed the reality that the healing miracles express divine love. They missed the truth that Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.
Moses understood this. The prophets understood this. They issued the call to worship to the people and the people rejected the call. They rejected the call because they believed that the problem confronting humanity is a lack of power and a lack of law. Moses and Elijah both experienced in their own ministries how the people they served rejected God.
People reject the authentic prophetic voice for the same reason they rejected and killed Jesus. They don’t want who God is. They don’t want the steadfast, holy, unconditional, sacrificial and transforming love that is God, They, we, want the power.
The Transfiguration of Jesus just before his final journey to Jerusalem set the framework for the apostles to understand why the Plan of Salvation is the Way of the Cross.
They missed it. They fell asleep. They muttered inane references to religious practice. But, God accomplished his purpose. For they remembered.
They remembered the moment of Transfiguration so that after the resurrection they could look back and say: so that is what He meant. That is why Moses and Elijah was there. That is Jesus is both man and God. That is how the one God is three persons.
It can take a while to appreciate what God reveals to us in His word. There is an immediate and identifiable result in our individual lives as we come to Jesus by grace through faith.
The immediate and identifiable result is ours to claim. It is also ours to disdain. The result is the transformation of the way we think, feel and choose. The result is the transformation of fear into faith, of pride into hope, of self will into love.
Make no mistake. Many people want something very different from Jesus. They want Jesus to reward them with the temporary things of this world. They want the money, power, pleasure and prestige that at best is only temporary. Sadly, they want those temporal benefits to continue in the next life.
Moses and Elijah are very clear. Jesus is very clear. We become who we worship. We become how we worship.
Heaven is not only a transcendent reality it is a real presence that we can experience here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is a relationship with Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God the Father, The Beloved of God the Father.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the transforming real presence of The Beloved in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit is speaking to us and working with us so we can become who we are called to worship and how we are called to worship.
In the call to worship, our Heavenly Father calls us to be the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. Eternal life starts now or it never starts. The treasure of heaven is a gift God pours out to us now.
Jesus continues to pour Himself out to us in the blessed sacrament of the altar so that we can live and move and have our being free from fear, free from anxiety, free from frustration, free from the corrosive effects of sin.
On the mount of Transfiguration our Heavenly Father spoke audibly to Peter, James and John. He told them: this is my Son, The Beloved. Listen to Him.
The apostles heard the words but they did not heed the words. They did not believe until after the resurrection. They remembered the words. They wrote then down. And now we hear them. Across the centuries God the Father speaks audibly to us from the words recorded in holy scripture.
Are we listening? Do we believe? Will we act on that belief?
Jesus is God the Father’s Son. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved. Listen to him.
“This is my Son, The Beloved. Listen to Him.”
It is a very rare occurrence in human history when God the Father speaks audibly to people.
God the Father’s audible word to Peter, James and John on the mount of Transfiguration is identical to the audible word He spoke when the last of the prophets baptized Jesus. And, it is a word very literally placed within the context and framework of the word God the Father spoke to Moses and the Prophets.
The word is Jesus. The word describes Jesus as The Beloved.
Many people in our time complain that God doesn’t speak. They say that if only God would speak clearly and unambiguously then they would believe. The record of scripture is that God does speak.
God spoke to Moses and the prophets. God spoke to the apostles and the disciple. The problem is not that God has not spoken. The problem is that when God does speak human beings refuse to listen.
Peter, James and John had both experiences. They heard God speak. And, they found it difficult to listen. In the real presence of divine glory the three apostles, the future leadership team of the Church, fell asleep. The experience of the Divine manifesting in this world was too much for them to accept.
The context of the Transfiguration is in the failure of the apostles to hear the word of God and to believe the word of God. The transfiguration takes place six days after Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah and then immediately rejected our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in the Messiah.
Jesus took Peter, James and John to the mountain of Transfiguration to give them one more opportunity to hear the word of God and to believe the word of God.
This opportunity was unlike any other they had experienced. At the Transfiguration the one God reveals the fullness of the blessed and eternal Trinity. He recapitulates thousands of years of salvation history in the personal appearance of Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah, who represents the prophets.
On the mountain of Transfiguration the Holy Spirit manifests as a resplendent luminescent cloud. God the Son radiates the dazzling white beauty of holiness. God the Father speaks audibly to reveal the Plan of Salvation.
The plan of salvation comes forth in the context of the Law and the prophets. But, the Plan of salvation is not limited to the Law and the prophets. The Plan of Salvation is Jesus.
Jesus is God the Father’s only begotten Son. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. The Beloved has no beginning and has no end. There never was a time when the Son did not exist.
The Plan of Salvation is nothing more and nothing less than reunification with the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting in the particularity of human experience.
This is the Plan Moses and the Prophets proclaimed. It is not the plan most people in Jesus’ day wanted. It is not the Plan most people in our time want.
One thing the people of Jesus’ day did understand was that the Plan of Salvation is not about a distant future. It is about life here and now. Jesus’s followers and enemies expected him to produce immediate and identifiable results.
They expected Jesus to seize power in Jerusalem, raise an army, impose one rigid and inflexible religious law on Israel, then use his divine power to destroy Rome and enslave the nations. They expected Jesus to make Jerusalem the capital of a new world empire that would impose a new world order. They expected wealth and power as their reward for supporting Jesus.
They missed the reality of Jesus’ teaching that righteousness means right relationship. The missed the reality that the healing miracles express divine love. They missed the truth that Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh.
Moses understood this. The prophets understood this. They issued the call to worship to the people and the people rejected the call. They rejected the call because they believed that the problem confronting humanity is a lack of power and a lack of law. Moses and Elijah both experienced in their own ministries how the people they served rejected God.
People reject the authentic prophetic voice for the same reason they rejected and killed Jesus. They don’t want who God is. They don’t want the steadfast, holy, unconditional, sacrificial and transforming love that is God, They, we, want the power.
The Transfiguration of Jesus just before his final journey to Jerusalem set the framework for the apostles to understand why the Plan of Salvation is the Way of the Cross.
They missed it. They fell asleep. They muttered inane references to religious practice. But, God accomplished his purpose. For they remembered.
They remembered the moment of Transfiguration so that after the resurrection they could look back and say: so that is what He meant. That is why Moses and Elijah was there. That is Jesus is both man and God. That is how the one God is three persons.
It can take a while to appreciate what God reveals to us in His word. There is an immediate and identifiable result in our individual lives as we come to Jesus by grace through faith.
The immediate and identifiable result is ours to claim. It is also ours to disdain. The result is the transformation of the way we think, feel and choose. The result is the transformation of fear into faith, of pride into hope, of self will into love.
Make no mistake. Many people want something very different from Jesus. They want Jesus to reward them with the temporary things of this world. They want the money, power, pleasure and prestige that at best is only temporary. Sadly, they want those temporal benefits to continue in the next life.
Moses and Elijah are very clear. Jesus is very clear. We become who we worship. We become how we worship.
Heaven is not only a transcendent reality it is a real presence that we can experience here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is a relationship with Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God the Father, The Beloved of God the Father.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the transforming real presence of The Beloved in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit is speaking to us and working with us so we can become who we are called to worship and how we are called to worship.
In the call to worship, our Heavenly Father calls us to be the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. Eternal life starts now or it never starts. The treasure of heaven is a gift God pours out to us now.
Jesus continues to pour Himself out to us in the blessed sacrament of the altar so that we can live and move and have our being free from fear, free from anxiety, free from frustration, free from the corrosive effects of sin.
On the mount of Transfiguration our Heavenly Father spoke audibly to Peter, James and John. He told them: this is my Son, The Beloved. Listen to Him.
The apostles heard the words but they did not heed the words. They did not believe until after the resurrection. They remembered the words. They wrote then down. And now we hear them. Across the centuries God the Father speaks audibly to us from the words recorded in holy scripture.
Are we listening? Do we believe? Will we act on that belief?
Jesus is God the Father’s Son. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved. Listen to him.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Epiphany 5
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.
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.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Candelmas 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Epiphany 4
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.
“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.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Epiphany 3
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.
“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.
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