Pentecost 22 (Mark 10:46-52) “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus frequently attributed healing to faith.

Sometimes, it was the faith of the person who was healed. Sometimes, it was the faith of the person’s family or friends. On occasion it was even the faith of his mother.

Faith is not the same thing as belief. People believe all sorts of things with minimal to no evidence. Sadly, belief can be grounded in self-will, the will to power. The evidence of belief grounded in self-will is fear, anger, and pride. This kind of belief cannot evolve into faith. This kind of belief subverts and destroys faith.

Faith is trust, confidence and loyalty. The only proper place for faith is the one whom God the Father sent into the world to call forth faith. That one is the incarnate co-eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

The great obstacle to faith in Jesus is belief. We reserve the right to believe whatever we choose regardless of whether it is true. The demand in belief is “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts. I will not be defined by facts. “

Jesus didn’t just offer his opinion about what is true. Jesus is the truth. He is the eternal logos, the transcendent pattern of truth. As the truth he invites all people to look into the perfect mirror of truth. That perfect mirror shows us where our beliefs are counterfactual. That perfect mirror shows us where we are not in truth.

Beliefs that are counterfactual enslave. These kinds of beliefs enslave us in many ways. Primarily, false belief enslaves us to fear. Of course, most people do not consciously choose to be enslaved to fear. What facilitates false belief is personal pride, institutional power and spiritual separation.

How does this work?

Consider what beliefs Bartimaeus had.

As a blind man he was defined by a religious institutional belief that God was punishing him for sin. He believed he was a sinner because he was blind.

As a human being he was part of a species that chose and continues to choose separation from God. Bartimaeus believed he was lost because he was blind not because of the choice of original separation.

His family and town believed he was disabled and unable to work. He could only sit by the road all day and beg for coins. Bartimaeus defined himself as hopelessly broken and disabled, unproductive, a beggar on the very outer edge of the economy and society.

As with many in his condition, people tolerated him but did not consider him a vibrant part of the community. When he cried out to Jesus people attempted to silence him. They believed he had nothing to offer Jesus, nothing to offer God, nothing to offer the wider community. Bartimaeus believed he was worthless.

Cursed, separated, tolerated, disabled, a worthless beggar- these were the words other people used to define Bartimaeus. These were the beliefs Bartimaeus held about himself. And, he was enslaved to these beliefs.

Then Jesus came.

Jesus very quietly challenged what people believed about God, each other, and the way the world works. Jesus proclaimed the Good News that God is real, God is personal, God is universal unconditional love. Jesus taught a new paradigm that not only challenged what everyone believed but overturned those beliefs. What made his message so powerful and so dynamic was that he embodied what he taught. He never said do as I say not as I do. He proclaimed the universal unconditional love of God, embodied that love, and acted from the place of that love. Those actions produced real, identifiable and measureable results.

Bartimaeus could not see Jesus. He had heard the stories. He had heard the excitement and wonder in the crowd. When he met Jesus and heard Jesus speak he moved from the despair of inherited belief to the great hope of faith. He embraced a new vision of God and himself as a child of God. Before he ever regained his sight he heard the truth and saw the implications of the truth.

As Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, Bartimaeus has already begun to experience a new understanding and to embrace a new vision. Jesus grants the request for healing in the context of faith, hope and unconditional love. The hope Bartimaeus feels in the Real Presence of the unseen God produces faith. That faith encounters divine love in trust and courage. The faith initiates a process that leads to healing. The love, who is Jesus himself, completes the healing. Bartimaeus receives his sight as he exercises his faith in the context of a new vision of God.

Then, Bartimaeus sees Jesus for the first time. In response to this miraculous healing of faith, hope and love, Bartimaeus makes a real choice to follow Jesus. Bartimaeus becomes a student, a disciple, and pledges his loyalty to Jesus.

All people inherit counterfactual beliefs. What beliefs keep us, keep you, from faith? Where does belief subvert hope and corrupt faith? Where is the fear, the demand, the pride of self will that cannot and will not see the steadfast, holy, unconditional, universal love of God in Jesus Christ?

Where are you still experiencing life as a problem to be solved rather than as a gift to celebrate?

Where do you still sit on the side of the road begging for scraps when Jesus offers the banquet of Eternal Life and Infinite Compassion at the altar of sacrifice?

Where do you allow the spiritual blindness of our secular culture to define your expectations, priorities and beliefs about God, the world, other people and yourself?

It is there, right there at that place of false belief that the Truth himself calls to you, meets you, and asks you: What do you want me to do for you? How can I help?

You can’t see the solution if you are blinded by religious, political or cultural beliefs. As the Holy Spirit reveals to you where and how you are in a state of spiritual blindness Jesus is right there for you. Jesus just doesn’t offer his opinion about the solution. Jesus is the solution. Jesus is the truth that will challenge and transform false belief. Jesus is the universal unconditional love that will inspire hope, give birth to faith and through faith make all things new. Jesus is the new life and the new way of living who yearns to speak these words to each of us today and always:

“Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

 

 

 

 

 

Pentecost 21 (Mark 10:35-45) “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as ransom for many.”

The apostles wanted to rule.

It is very clear from the biographies of Jesus, the gospels, that the apostles shared the common assumptions of the people of their day. They believed firmly and without doubt that God is power.

Because they believed God is power they also believed the Messiah, God’s anointed representative on earth, would exercise that power to impose God’s perfect will on imperfect people. Those who submitted to this Messiah would receive a reward. The reward would be a position in the new government. With that position would be the power to rule over and dominate other people, lesser people.

Certainly James and John wanted this power to rule and to dominate. Despite the fact that John was Jesus’ best friend, he also came to Jesus with a set of beliefs that subverted that friendship. He assumed that his friendship with Jesus would reward him, and his brother, with the highest positions in the new government. He assumed, as did all of those who followed Jesus and all of those who opposed Jesus, that Jesus would impose God’s will on all people through the institution of religion and government.

The other ten apostles reacted with anger and jealously when they discovered that James and John had asked Jesus for the most powerful posts in the coming Messianic Kingdom. They wanted those positions for themselves.

The apostles and indeed everyone in that generation not only believed they knew who God was, what God wanted, and how God would establish His kingdom, they knew. Not only did they know, they knew that they knew. They were in a state of invincible ignorance. In order to know that they knew all about God they had to ignore the fundamental teachings of Moses and the Prophets. They had to ignore the long history of Israel’s failure as a nation to hear the message, to receive the message and to act on the message the Holy Spirit revealed to them in the Torah, the Old Testament.

Jesus came into the world to demonstrate to people that God is not power. God certainly has power but that is not who God is. Jesus came into the world to show people that their so called knowledge of the Divine was grounded on the shifting sand of wishful thinking and false belief.

Jesus came into a world and a society of strong, rigid, inflexible and uncompromising belief. He came to help people surrender those beliefs to be transformed by faith. He did not ask anyone to place their faith in a religious or political institution. He offered himself as the proper place and the proper person for faith.

Jesus came to reveal and make real who God is. God is love. God just doesn’t have love as one of many attributes. God is love. That love is infinite and eternal. That love is steadfast, holy, unconditional and universal. That love is sacrificial. That love is embodied as Jesus prays: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done. That love asks other people the question: how may I help.

Until the crucifixion, no one who knew Jesus could accept this truth. They were not bad people. But they were lost. They were, as we are, lost in separation from God. In separation they created God in their own image. The created a deity within the categories of fear, self will and pride. They believed in this deity so passionately that they routinely invoked divine wrath on their enemies, bullied people who disagreed with them, and killed anyone who challenged them, including Jesus himself.

The world hasn’t changed much over the last two thousand years. People are still lost. We are lost in the invincible ignorance of beliefs forged in the fires of self will, fear and pride. We are lost in the illusion of religious systems that teach God is either wrath, God is self-indulgence or God does not exist. We are lost and unwilling to question our beliefs as the apostles were at this point in their lives unwilling to question their beliefs.

Thanks be to God. Jesus is not about belief. Jesus is about faith. Jesus is about faith because Jesus is love. He is the infinite, eternal, steadfast, holy, unconditional and universal Love of God in human flesh. His love reached out to the apostles that day. His love first touched the heart of the adolescent hot head John. His love opened a new way of life and a new way of living for all people.

The apostles were not quite there yet. They were still lost in the invincible ignorance of their inherited and unquestioned belief. Jesus was also there. He was present to them. God was present to them in Jesus, as God is present to us and to all people in Jesus.

Jesus very patiently reaches past the apostles’ strongly held uncompromising beliefs to appeal to their souls. It will take a while for their minds to catch up to their hearts and their hearts to catch up to their souls. It will take the momentous events of the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and Pentecost for the apostles to understand that they really don’t know who God is, what God wants, and how God acts.

It will take awhile, as it takes us awhile, to move from the pride of invincible ignorance to the humility of knowing that we can ever only know in part. We can  only ever know in part but we are known fully and completely in the love of God in Jesus Christ.

At this point in the history, Jesus reminds them, as He reminds us, that his meaning and purpose as the Messiah, as God incarnate,  is not command and control. It is service and sacrifice. “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as ransom for many.”

 

 

 

Pentecost 20 (Mark 10:2-16) “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

He seemed to have it all; yet, he asked himself- is that all there is?

According to the standards of the day the man who fell at Jesus’ feet had it all. He was rich and because he was rich he was powerful. His wealth and power demonstrated his righteousness. And, because he was righteous he was approved by God and blessed by God. What more could he desire?  What could he possibly lack?

Lest we miss the point, Jesus asked the man to confirm his obedience to the Law of Moses. Jesus states the six moral aspects of the Ten Commandments, those commandments that deal with our interpersonal relationships with each other. The man acknowledges that he had indeed kept those six commandments since childhood. He was morally righteous. We was well respected by his peers and admired by all. What more could he desire? What could he possibly lack?

Despite his success in business and religion and society, the man knew he was missing something vitally important. He felt a deep and nebulous emptiness. This vague unease crystalized in his consciousness when he saw Jesus. Somehow, the personal presence of Jesus acted as a perfect mirror to the man’s soul. Suddenly, he recognized a fundamental and transcendent truth. He was lost.

Suddenly, his wealth and power were meaningless. Suddenly, his upright moral character appeared to be worthless. Suddenly, the essence of what Moses and the prophets taught emerged from the dim shadows of the past and became real and urgent.

Despite his apparent success in pleasing God to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath, the man recognized he was in a state of separation from God. He asked a question even Jesus’ disciples had not thought to ask: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

He was so close. He did what few of his generation did. He asked Jesus a genuine heartfelt honest question. And Jesus gave him a genuine heartfelt honest answer.

Mark comments at this point of the story that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. Jesus loved him because Jesus is the infinite and eternal love of God in human flesh. God just doesn’t have love, God is love. It is in the context of eternal love that Jesus answers the man’s question about eternal life.

The answer is both personal and individual.

The man had come to recognize there was an obstacle in his life that blocked his relationship with God. He asked Jesus to identify that obstacle. Jesus looked at the man with infinite love and compassion and answered his question. Sadly, the man did not like the answer Jesus gave him.

For that man at that time the obstacle was his attachment to wealth and power. Note that the wealth and power are not the problem. Other people who followed Jesus had wealth and power and used it wisely. The problem is not wealth. The problem is attachment to wealth. The problem lies in the choice the man made to ignore the priority of the first four of the Ten Commandments.

The first four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God. That is where the man was stuck. That is where the man and everyone in his generation was lost.

For that man at that time the solution was very simple. Divest. Detach. Liquidate your vast assets, give the money to the poor, and then enter into a personal relationship of worship and service with God himself in Jesus Christ. Place your relationship with God as the first priority in your life if you really want that relationship to be real and to be presentl.

This is what the man realized he needed. That is the one choice he could not make. He had great possessions. The test of faith revealed that he was indeed possessed by his possessions. He was enslaved to his wealth and dominated by his position of power.

Sadly, he could not take that last step in faith. He could not acknowledge to Jesus exactly how and where he was lost. When he heard the word of God from the Word of God he reacted in fear. And in fear he withdrew from Jesus into isolation. Had he acknowledged his fear, had he asked Jesus for help to overcome his attachment to wealth, Jesus would have healed him as he healed so many others.

But the man did not want to be healed. He did not want to change. He wanted God as an add on to his wealth and power. He knew there was a barrier to experiencing a personal relationship with God. Sadly, when Jesus identified the barrier as the man’s wealth the man walked away from Jesus, walking away from God, walking away from the personal relationship with God that is eternal life.

Jesus comments on the man’s tragic choice by saying: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

The disciples are astonished and dismayed. There is a moment of stunned silence. They, as with everyone in their world, believed salvation, eternal life, was a reward for good deeds done. They believed the gift of God and the blessing of God was the wealth and power God granted the righteous in this life. It was inconceivable to them that you could do all of the right things and enjoy all of God’s blessings and still be lost.

They all thought of salvation in the accounting terms of debits and credits on a balance sheet. Jesus taught that salvation, eternal life, is a personal relationship with the personal God.

The relationship is the present reality of eternal life.

It isn’t just wealth that subverts the personal relationship that is eternal life. Any thing or any one that we choose to place first in our lives can take that role.

The rich man was so close. He even recognized he had a problem. He thought the solution might involve some religious practice he had missed or some charitable donation he could make. It never occurred to him that eternal life is the relationship with God that God revealed to Moses and the prophets and now offered him in Jesus Christ.

The rich man defined himself by his wealth. He was not willing to become a new person, he was not willing to be born again to acquire what he thought he wanted. In the end, he walked away from Jesus as he realized he did not want what Jesus offered. He did not want the personal relationship to define his life.

The disciples very accurately blurted out: then who can be saved? Who really places God first? Who really makes the Seventh Day of Real Presence their first priority and greatest passion in life?

Jesus agrees with this statement. Who indeed places God first? Who indeed can take that next step beyond the outward observance of the Law and embrace the Real Presence of God in the personal relationship God offers? Who is willing to forsake all others and pledge their loyalty to Jesus Christ regardless of the cost?

The answer of Moses and the prophets is: no one. The answer of the wealthy and powerful is: not us. The answer of the apostles is: this is impossible! The answer of God is: Jesus.

For the old way of being human, for the old way of being religious, righteous or rich, salvation is impossible. You cannot enter into the Kingdom of God whilst remaining attached to the kingdom of this world.

Your mind rejects the possibility as being absurd. Your heart is seduced by the promises of power, prestige, pleasure and pride. Your will is enslaved to the demands and expectations of society and culture.

What makes salvation possible is the new way of being human made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus is the way, the only way, to salvation. Salvation is not something we do or something we earn. Salvation is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. It is that relationship that produces a new life (eternal life) in our souls. It is that relationship that produces a new way of living.

The rich man was so close. His attachment to his wealth, not the wealth itself, seduced his heart, distorted his reason and enslaved his will. He not only missed his moment of grace, he made a conscious choice to reject his moment of grace. He said he wanted eternal life but when he discovered what eternal life is he walked away.

The lesson is clear. The warning is urgent. What keeps us from receiving the gift of reunification with the Father through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Who or what do we choose in place of the personal relationship with God in Christ? Where are we attempting to have the new life even as we are lost in the old way of living?

For some, it is money. And to those Jesus warns: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

 

 

 

 

Pentecost 19 Feast of the Holy Rosary

“Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate.” Mark 10:9

People have a tendency to look for the loopholes.

Moses and the prophets observe this tendency in human nature. Moses heard the word of God directly from the Word of God. He declared to the people: this is God’s word. And, when (not if) you break this word these are the sacrifices you must bring to the altar until God deals with the root cause of disobedience.

And so, God reveals to Moses- I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods except me. The people say: yes. Amen. So be it. Then, they begin to parse the words. Who is this god? How can Moses tell us that this God will not reveal himself to other people under a different name and in a different manner? If that is true then worship is strictly how each individual exercises his or her own conscience.

What difference does it really make if we worship the one God in the context of the many faces that god reveals to the nations of the earth? All other things being equal, all religions and all images of God derive from and point to the same reality.

It sounds nice. It sounds reasonable. It even may sound democratic. The flaw in this line of reasoning is that all things are not equal. Moses and the prophets declare that God is the great “I am”. We cannot define God. Only God can reveal himself to us.

Worship is not a matter of opinion or personal preference. Worship is God’s call to humanity to be unified with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the prophets are very blunt in telling us: you become who you worship and you become how you worship. Worship is so important that God himself sets the day, the form and the reality of worship. As with worship so with marriage.

God designed all human beings to find ourselves and to form our unique personal identities through worship. God also designed most human beings to form intimate personal relationships in marriage. God created marriage. God clarifies for us that marriage is a sacrament and a covenant. It is not a civil contract we can make and break as we choose. As a sacrament, marriage is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace that mirrors the relationship of the soul to God.  As a covenant, marriage is a set of promises made to God, the church and to the marriage partner.

Through the sacrament of marriage two become one. Make no mistake, Moses, the prophets, the apostles and Jesus all define marriage as a sacrament and a covenant between one man and one woman. One means one- not one at a time.

At the risk of offending everyone, Western Civilization abandoned the Biblical and traditional understanding of marriage in the post-World War two era through the revision of the divorce laws.

As with the commandments relating to worship, people have always attempted to find the loop hole in the commandments relating to marriage. One of the benefits of the Bible is that it demonstrates the consequences of human behavior over the course of an entire lifetime and over the course of many lifetimes.

And so, the Bible reveals how David cheated on his marriage vows and how the consequences led to murder, death and civil war.

Solomon cheated on God’s definition of marriage and the result was the desecration of the Temple by the introduction of false gods and false forms of worship.

Even as Moses gave God’s definition of marriage the people rebelled and demanded a loophole. So, Moses gave them one. And, it has been with us in one form or another ever since. And, if the scriptures portray an accurate understanding of human nature it will remain with us until Jesus returns.

Jesus did not reaffirm his Heavenly Father’s definition on marriage to condemn anyone. There is no condemnation in Jesus Christ. Jesus did reaffirm the Father’s definition of marriage to offer people the blessing God designed into marriage. And, Jesus wanted people to consider the level of hypocrisy they lived by in excusing their own sin while condemning others.

Jesus was very clear to the religious people of his time: marriage is designed by God and defined by God as the sacramental union of one man and one woman- not one at a time. That and that alone is the standard.

Jesus also understands the problem most human beings have in lving according to this standard. The problem is separation.

As with all sin, divorce is the end result of a long chain of cause and effect with its roots in Original Separation.

The Bible teaches that the family is the basic unit of society. People declare the basic unit of society is the individual.

The Bible reveals that we are our brother’s keeper. People declare that I am only responsible for myself.

The Bible teaches that two become one in the sacrament of marriage. People declare that civil law can dissolve the bond God has established.

Jesus is very clear that divorce is just one of many ways human beings who are lost in separation choose to perpetuate separation. Jesus came into the world to deal with the Original Choice our species made to separate from God. He accomplishes reunification in his own body by uniting divinity with humanity.

Jesus dealt with the consequences of separation on the cross by taking sin and death into himself and transforming them back into virtue and life by his own infinite and eternal love.

The solution to separation is reunification. The solution to sin is transformation. Reunification happens in a moment of time in the waters of Baptism. Transformation takes a lifetime.

Transformation requires a courageous honesty to look at ourselves in the light of Christ to see where our thoughts are not in accord with God’s thoughts because of pride and arrogance, where our emotions are distorted by fear and anxiety, and where our wills are weakened and subverted by self-indulgent individualism.

That is the lesson in Jesus embracing children and setting children as the key to understanding how we enter into the kingdom of heaven. We need to stop blaming others for the problems we create. We need to get back to basics. We need to experience the joy of being born again and then seeing the world with a fresh vision.

Jesus is clear in his teaching that God created marriage and human beings created divorce. This is a great tragedy. An even greater tragedy is the set of conditions that human beings manifest in our personal lives to make divorce an inescapable option. The greatest tragedy is the Original Choice our species made to separate from God, each other, our families, our spouses and ultimately from life itself.

Law cannot solve the problem. The solution is Jesus. Jesus not only shows us the way, he is the way. He is the way of patient and courageous humility. He is the way of positive and cumulative change. He is the Way of a new life that produces a new way of living.

The challenge to this new way of living is twofold. First is our own tendency to assert our self-will to live by the principle: it is all about me. My will be done. The second lies in the institutions human beings have created to enshrine the distorted values of separation. The key is choice.

Jesus sets us free from the slavery of individual and institutional self-will. He sets us free to make a series of small choices to move into a new way of living that is formed by faith, hope and charity. We can choose to take the next step forward in healing the pain of separation that defines our souls and our society.

Jesus sets the stage for us to grow in grace by reminding us that as the problem defining our species is separation so the solution is reunification.

God designed us to live in the perfect three fold union of love manifesting in worship, service to others and personal holiness. “Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate.”

 

 

 

 

 

Michaelmas 2012

Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51)

People are sometimes surprised to discover that the Bible says very little about Heaven and even less about angels.

God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit into human history to invite a select group of individuals to record their observations about the human condition. In that context, God the Holy Spirit helped those individuals discern the fundamental problem confronting humanity and the solution God the Father provides humanity.

The subject of the Bible is neither heaven nor angels. It is not even God. It is humanity. The Bible reveals God’s perspective on humanity through the experience and observation of people God chose to work with and to walk with.

The Bible only speaks of angels in the context of human experience. Angels are messengers whom God sends into our world to accomplish a very specific task. Angles come, fulfill their mission, then leave.

God certainly does not need angels to accomplish his task. He chooses to invite angels to participate in his plan of salvation for humanity.

The angels remind us that as vast as this universe is, there is an even greater reality called Heaven beyond this universe of matter, energy, time and space. Angels also remind us that there is an even more magnificent reality beyond Heaven.

It is important to clarify what the Bible says and does not say about angels.

God created angels before he created the material universe. As God created the angels before he created time and space, so God created Heaven to be the home of the angels. Angels are a separate order of creation from humans. Despite what you may have seen in the movies, human beings do not become angels. And, Heaven is not the true home of our species.

Students of the Bible discern nine distinct orders of angels: Seraphim Cherubim, Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Virtues, Archangels and Angels. St. Paul references three Heavenly Realms. Theologians speculate that each of these realms is further divided into three provinces- a separate province for each of the nine orders of angelic beings. Each realm is vaster and more complex than our universe. And each realm is organized in a hierarchy of increasing complexity, beauty and grace.

The Bible is clear that God created the angelic beings by love, through love and for love. The infinite and eternal love of God manifests the divine essence in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the superabundance of that infinite and eternal Triune Love, God created the multitude of angels and placed them in the nine realms of Heaven.

The number of angels is finite but innumerable. They each hold the image of divine love and the likeness of divine holiness in a unique fashion. As inhabitants of the heavenly realms they immerse themselves in divine love through the beauty of holiness in worship. Angels are agents of love. Angels proclaim the call to worship.

Angels remind us by their very nature that worship is the highest form of love. The account of Lucifer’s rebellion against God and war against the loyal angels is an account of the distortion of worship.

Lucifer was the brightest of the highest class of angels, the Seraph Class. He came to believe that all other angels were inferior to him and unworthy to worship God, to share God’s love. He told them: since I am like God in my intelligence and beauty you then must worship me. I will take your imperfect worship and purify it within my perfection and then I will offer it to God.

This example of how the Seraph Lucifer came to reject God’s love is the story of Original Choice. It reminds us that Lucifer came to view worship as an expression of perfect knowledge and supreme power. Lucifer took his eyes off God, compared himself to other angles, and then chose to exalt himself through the pride of self will. He used his pride to seduce one third of the angels to separate from God and worship him.

In the story of Lucifer’s choice to separate from God we see the pattern of separation, sin and death that has ensnared our species and each of us.

As Lucifer proclaimed “I am like God” the smallest and weakest of all the angels proclaimed “who is like God?” In Hebrew this question is a word: Mi Cha El – Michael. Michael’s name is the angelic affirmation that God alone is God. God alone is the source of life and light and worship.

The Bible records that these two competing views of worship resulted in a terrible war in the Heavenly realms. Much to his surprise, Lucifer could not impose his will on Michael. Lucifer and his followers fought Michael and the loyal angels. Lucifer lost that war and in losing the war lost his place in Heaven.

Michael cast Lucifer into our universe of matter, energy, time and space. Lucifer pulled his followers with him. In our universe, Lucifer is known as Satan (the Adversary) and his angelic followers are demons. Demons are the burnt out remnants of the rebel angels. They are diminished spirits defined by fear and by spite.

Satan still defines himself through pride and self-will. He has lost most of his intelligence, beauty and power. He still attempts to deceive and seduce all beings who have been created for love. He does this by inspiring fear to corrupt and distort the very reason and purpose of our existence. That reason and purpose is the threefold love of the Triune God.

Satan seeks to subvert and destroy worship, to substitute conflict for compassion and to hinder our personal growth in holiness. He cannot impose his will on anyone. He can design philosophies, religions and ideologies to separate us from God and from each other.

Forget the grotesque images of Satan and the demons portrayed in art and in film. On the rare occasion demons appear to human beings they manifest as that which we most desire. They do this because they can only affect human beings through deceit. The Bible warns us that Satan can appear as an angel of light to seduce us into greater separation from God.

St. Paul teaches us to test the spirits by comparing what they tell us to what is written in the Bible. St. John teaches that any angelic being who does not acknowledge the Incarnation of the co-eternal Son of God in Jesus Christ is not from God.

On the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, the Church reminds us that we as human beings have been created for worship, service and holiness. The reality of Satan is the reality of a personal force of evil, of separation, that intentionally seeks to corrupt virtue and trivialize worship.

Satan hates what God loves. He lost his war against Michael. He has declared war on humanity. He believes he can win his war against humanity by deceit. He appeals to human pride and self-will to separate from God by redefining worship as an expression of superior religious knowledge or political power.

Satan flatters the prideful. He seduces the unwary. And, he attempts to intimidate the faithful through fear.

Our Heavenly Father has given the archangel Michael and the loyal angels two important tasks in the Plan of Salvation for humanity. The first task is to defend the faithful from Satan and the demons. The second task is to encourage the faithful to observe the seventh day of worship as the Day of Real Presence.

C.S. Lewis once commented that we are surrounded by spiritual warfare. This warfare is different from the wars human beings fight. The Satanic weapons in spiritual warfare are pride, arrogance, self-will, fear, anxiety, superstition, cynicism, blasphemy and self-indulgence. These weapons keep us in a state of separation from God and each other. Left unchecked, these weapons will leave us bitter, weak and lost in pride and despair.

The loyal angels defend us with spiritual weapons such as faith, hope, joy, humility, compassion, kindness and love. We can choose to ignore and reject the protection and guidance the loyal angels offer us. We can choose to accept their protection and guidance.

The loyal angels seek to protect us from the despair of superstition as well as the arrogance of materialism. They accomplish this task by inspiring us to make wise choices. Above all else, they encourage us to come to the altar of sacrifice to immerse our minds, hearts and wills in the Real Presence of Divine Love on the Day of Worship.

Satan seeks to detach us from God by redefining the meaning and purpose of worship. Michael and the loyal angels seek to encourage us to cultivate our relationship with God by making worship our first priority.

The Biblical stories of angels are not cleverly devised myths. They are the reports and observations of people who experienced an aspect of our world that most of us ignore or reject.

Most of us will never see or hear angels or demons. All of us will experience the reality of their presence as we choose to react to the world through fear, self-will and pride, or as we choose to respond to the world through faith, hope and love.

St. Michael defeated Lucifer by the power of Divine Love and Holiness. The ministry of angels in our midst is the ministry of encouragement. We need not fear any real or imagined supernatural entity. God assures us that the angels protect us.

We need not fear the uncertainties or unpredictable aspects of life. The angels inspire us to experience the highest form of love. That highest form of love is worship. The angels are present with us at the altar of Real Presence on the Day of Real Presence as Jesus reveals Himself to us sacramentally. In the blessed sacrament of the altar, Jesus is the great bridge, the pontifex maximus, uniting heaven and earth, divinity and humanity. It is Jesus who sends the messenger and guardian angles to Earth to assist us in our earthly pilgrimage in this world.

 Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

 

 

 

Pentecost 17 (Mark 9:30-37) “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” The Kingdom of God is counter intuitive to the Kingdom of this world. I remember vividly as a college student grappling with my religious beliefs. I was particularly agitated by portions of the Bible I found barbaric, incomprehensible or simply inconvenient. I still remember thinking: this can’t be the word of God. I don’t like this portion. I don’t agree with this portion. This portion is totally primitive and unscientific. As my thoughts analyzed, dissected and criticized Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles I heard a small whisper of a thought. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. It was, of course, a quote from the prophet Isaiah. I had never made any effort to read, study or memorize the Bible up to that point in my life. But, I am a cradle Episcopalian. I had heard the scriptures read at the liturgy all my life. Somewhere in my memory, God had stored up His word and was now bringing it to my conscious awareness. Then, somehow, I experienced a shift in perception. Suddenly, it occurred to me: if everything in the Bible agreed with my belief system as an 18 year old 20th century middle class American from Trenton, NJ, then I would be God. And if that were true, then we’d all be in trouble. The great challenge for the people in the first century who met Jesus personally was that he did not meet the expectations of their inherited beliefs. Jesus did indeed fulfill the teachings of Moses and the prophets. But, the religion of the day had so reworked and reinterpreted the Torah, the five books of Moses, and the prophets that they missed the obvious. The obvious is the principle God revealed to the prophet Isaiah: my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. The obvious is the principle God spoke verbally to Moses in the words: I am. There are several examples of this principle in the gospel reading today. These principles challenged the disciples, Jesus’ students, then. These principles challenge us today. The first principle is timing. The principle of timing is critical in reconciling what modern people identify as contradictions in the Bible. We hear how Jesus did not want the crowds to know where he was. This is not the first passage in which Jesus presents this message to us. Occasionally, Jesus would instruct someone he just healed not to tell anyone. Of course, the people would always do the opposite. Modern readers think Jesus was being passive aggressive, using reverse psychology. On other occasions Jesus instructed his followers to proclaim the prophetic message of repentance and preparation. There seems to be a contradiction when we read the accounts from our very limited cultural context. The reason is simple. God is who he is. He is real. He is personal. He is love. He is Jesus Christ. Depending on the circumstances of the situation, Jesus asked people not to proclaim his healing power and even withdrew from public life. The scriptures tell us why. He wanted to set aside time to train the future leaders of the church. He knew his time on earth was short. He knew their time on earth would be short. Jesus does not implement a rigid inflexible program. He engages with each of us personally according to the divine principles of love, compassion and holiness. Sometimes that means he asks us not to speak. Sometimes that means he asks us to proclaim boldly the Good News of God’s love. When Jesus offers teaching he expects our questions and delights in our questions. More often than not, Jesus’ students did not ask questions. They did not ask questions because of fear. A basic Biblical principle is that fear is a distortion of faith. That distortion proceeds from Pride. The disciples feared to ask questions for two basic reasons. They did not want to change their belief system. And, they thought God would punish them for asking questions. As I came to understand that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and God’s ways are not my ways, I began to realize that belief can distort and subvert truth. Faith is personal but not individual. Faith invites us into a personal relationship and a process of transformation. If we are not careful, belief can subvert truth and take the place of fact. Sadly, people tend to confuse fact and belief as we assert the will to power to define God, other people and the world according to our own individual needs and desires. The disciples did not ask questions because what Jesus taught challenged their inherited beliefs about God, the messiah, humanity and the world. They reacted with fear. That fear paralyzed them and held them back from understanding. They were stuck in old beliefs and enslaved to old beliefs. The evidence of this is that they ignored Jesus’ teaching about our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation and focused on their own plan of salvation. That plan rejected the way of the cross and pursued the path of the sword. The disciples wanted a plan of salvation that brought them power and position through politics. And so, they argued among themselves about who would be Prime Minister and who would be Treasurer. They ignored Jesus’ invitation to grow in faith because they were stuck in the patterns of inherited belief. Those beliefs took bits and pieces of scripture and wove them into the political ideologies of the day to produce a religion of fear, self-will and pride. It was a religion of power for the righteous and a religion of bad news for everyone else. Jesus not only proclaims the Good News of universal love, He is the Good News of universal love. He uses the moment with his disciples to challenge their inherited beliefs in order to help them grow in faith. First: Jesus sets forth the principle in words. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” The disciples wanted political power. Jesus explained to them that the Kingdom of God is about compassion. It is not about the ability to impose my will on other people. It is about my surrender to Divine Will by helping meet the physical and spiritual needs of other people. Moses taught that God chose Israel to serve in the three fold action of love: worship, compassion, personal holiness. The prophets called the people to repent of the arrogance of pride and self-will that subverted that great and wonderful call. Jesus embodied the call of God and personalized the call. By his words and deeds Jesus revealed how to be the chosen of God. The disciples were not there yet. They were stuck in the belief that God had chosen their nation and them individually to rule. Jesus said: you are chosen to serve. After Jesus speaks his teaching he demonstrates it. He invites a child from the crowd to come near. Children loved Jesus. The child embraced him and Jesus held him in his arms. Then, Jesus reveals another counterintuitive principle of the Kingdom of God. Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me. Whoever welcomes me welcomes God. Why is this counterintuitive? From time to time as I am speaking with a child or a teen an adult will interrupt the conversation to tell me something or to ask me something. This happens less frequently if I am speaking with another adult. Certainly in the ancient world adults believed children should be seen but not heard. After all, children lack experience and knowledge to offer any meaningful contribution to a discussion or a program. They are at best students whom adults are preparing to die in battle or to pay taxes. Jesus not only valued children he honored them. He respected them. Of course, as the co-eternal Son of the Eternal Father, Jesus perceives all of us as children: charming, immature and sometimes temperamental. He welcomes all of us and each of us regardless of our age. He values each of us at every age and stage of personal development. He does not look at children and see future soldiers for a cause. He sees and values children (and adults) as unique manifestations of Divine love and holiness. One important aspect of children is that they are, for the most part, teachable. They have not yet fully absorbed the biases of their culture. They have not yet learned who to fear and who to hate. That is the message Jesus communicates as he embraces a child and says: as you welcome him so you welcome me. On another occasion Jesus says: how you treat the least powerful and the least respected in your society is how you treat me. And, how you treat me reveals your belief about God. The counterintuitive principle is that compassion is more important than power. Preserving the relationship is more important than being right. Do not seek to use whatever position of authority you may have to impose your will on others. Use that position to help others. Do not lock your mind into rigid inflexible uncompromising belief systems. Allow your mind to be transformed by the scriptures through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Continue to be open to fact. Continue to be teachable. Do not confuse inherited belief with living faith. Allow God to be God. Listen. Pray. Question. Grow in grace. Practice compassion to others. Grow in personal holiness to form your soul into a living chalice of grace. Jesus said: Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.

Holy Cross Day

Holy Cross Day 2012 (John12: 31-36)
“I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to myself.”

The great scandal of the Christian faith is the cross.

For ancient peoples, the cross was the symbol of a shameful and terrible death. The cross is execution by slow torture. It is designed to inflict maximum pain for maximum duration before the body expires. The pain of crucifixion is insidious. The victim inflicts torment on himself as he struggles to stave off suffocation by lifting himself up on the nails that pierce his wrists and ankles.

The suffering is physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual as the victim struggles to stave off death with the certain knowledge that his survival only inflicts more pain and will eventually weaken him to the point where he will collapse, suffocate and die.

The Romans used crucifixion to show the people of the Empire that anyone who challenged the authority of the State would suffer unimaginable pain. The Romans also considered crucifixion to be a demonstration to the gods of the ancient world that Rome would maintain order at all costs. Crucifixion was a threat to the people designed to inspire fear. It was also a pledge to the gods designed to insure divine support in their mutual battle against chaos.

Someone once asked me why the crucifixion of Jesus was so important. After all, the Persians, Greeks and Romans had killed tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people by crucifixion. The victims were sometimes thieves and murders and sometimes rebels guilty of treason. Why is this one man, Jesus, so special?
It is a very good question. Jesus addresses the question in the scripture today. Of all the thousands of people who died the horrible death of crucifixion in the ancient world we remember the name of only one: Jesus.

Jesus knew that his death on the cross would draw the attention of the entire human species. He also knew that his death would draw all people to him to make a real choice to receive the gift his heavenly Father offers to the human race through him.
The gift of God in Jesus Christ is reunification with God.

The accusation that led the religious court to condemn Jesus was blasphemy. As in many parts of the world today, blasphemy was a capital offense. People believed that if you insulted the realm of the Divine that realm would bring wrath to the entire community. The only way to avoid divine wrath was to execute the blasphemer.

As today so then, blasphemy was a convenient way to eliminate someone you didn’t like. It is virtually impossible to prove you did not commit blasphemy when someone is willing to perjure themselves in court. The accusation against Jesus was that he claimed to be God. The witnesses against Jesus contradicted themselves in their testimony but the contradictions were meaningless to the religious court. They had already decided to condemn Jesus. The facts of the case were irrelevant.

Of course, Jesus did indeed claim to be God. The apostle John records Jesus’ claim in a series of “I am” statements. God the Father spoke audibly on two occasions to affirm the truth of Jesus’ statement. Jesus’ miracles offer physical evidence to support this truth. And, Jesus never violated the Law of Moses.

Nevertheless, the religious court was determined to find Jesus guilty despite the evidence. They did have one problem. Under Roman law they could not execute a prisoner. And, under Roman Law, blasphemy was not a capital offense. The Romans were largely indifferent to religious disputes. The offense the Romans were most concerned about was treason.

And so, the religious authorities accused Jesus of treason. The Roman governor, Pontus Pilate, knew this was not true. He also knew the Emperor had given him the responsibility to maintain order. The prospect that the religious authorities would start a riot and then accuse Pilate of refusing to execute a threat to the Emperor led Pilate to wash his hands (literally) of the matter and order Jesus to be executed.

Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him. That fact is critical in understanding his death on the cross. Jesus died as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. Where Jesus was innocent of blasphemy and treason, human beings are not. Lest we miss the reality of that statement we need only review the Ten Commandments. Lest we gloss over the standard of attitude and action in the Ten Commandments, the prophets clarify for us how we violate those standards. And, lest we miss the message of Moses and the Prophets Jesus gives us a simple standard. How you treat the weakest, most vulnerable and the most marginal people in your society reveals how you would treat God himself were He in your midst.

The bad news of crucifixion is that the crimes for which Jesus died were not his own but ours. The Good News in crucifixion is that Jesus took every sin of omission or commission of every human being and accepted the consequence of those sins. As the scriptures teach: he who knew no sin became sin. He did this willingly. And it inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on him. He was only able to do this because He is the Love of God in human flesh.

The great scandal of the cross is that human beings collectively and individually chose to reject torture and kill the co-eternal Son of God. We did this because he came in the fullness of love and compassion.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation recognizes the will to power of a species lost in willful separation. God folds that will to power into His perfect plan of Love and Holiness through His son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God deals with sin by embracing sin and transforming sin back into its original virtue through love.
In Jesus, God embraces the ultimate consequence of sin, death, and then transforms death back into life through love.

Because the love of God In Jesus is infinite and eternal, the love of Jesus transforms the sin and death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live. Because the love of Jesus is infinite and eternal the life of Jesus is eternal.

The scandal of crucifixion is that human beings exercise our will to power to remain separate from God, separate from each other, separate from the image of God imprinted on our souls. The scandal of the cross is that God himself resolves the human created problems of sin and death. The scandal of the cross is that eternal life is a gift God offers to all people everywhere in Jesus Christ.

There is nothing you can do to earn God’s love. There is nothing you can do to lose God’s love. God’s love is real. God’s love is personal. God’s love is Jesus Christ. The enduring universal symbol of Divine Love is the cross.