Holy Innocents

Holy Innocents 2015 (Matthew 2:13-18)

“Flee to Egypt…”

God loves the world; but the world does not love God.

The world is the culture of self-will and pride that our species has created. It is a world of fear that has no room for the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. Fear casts out love.

So it was that the political power of the age reacted to the fulfillment of prophecy with fear. King Herod ruled by power and might. He could only conceive of God’s Messiah in the same way. He used fear to terrorize and to rule. He also lived by fear- the fear that someone like him but more ruthless and more intelligent might come and destroy him.

Fear kills the soul. It darkens the mind with paranoid suspicions. It so corrupts the heart that it subverts the natural expression of affection and compassion. It both paralyzes action in the ability to change and it impels reaction to a host of imagined threats.

On that night, the angel warned Joseph to flee Israel and to seek refuge in a foreign country- in Egypt.   Even as the holy family fled certain death in Israel King Herod lashed out in a furious rage. He committed a crime so heinous that it is not even recorded in any known account of the history of the time. Only the Biblical writers dared to remember and remind future generations.

Fear kills. First, it kills our own souls. Then it corrupts our mind, heart and will. Finally, it so distorts the image and likeness of God in our own souls that we are capable of justifying crimes of omission and commission in the name of self- defense.

The Holy Spirit made sure this crime was recorded. He also made sure the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church would hold the memory and honor the victims. He asks us today to consider how fear affects us who are of the household of the faith.

Do we follow secular political leaders who use fear to assert their will to power? Do we follow the lost into patterns of reaction and separation?

Or, do we hear the word of God, believe the word of God and ask our Heavenly Father to empower us to follow the Way of Jesus Christ? That way is the way of kindness and compassion, It is a way we can only follow in union with the co-eternal Beloved by the indwelling of the co-eternal Spirit of Holiness.

King Herod exalted religion but rejected holiness. He distorted love through power. He made a choice from the place of fear. The Holy Innocents pray for us in this present time of challenge, in this time of fear, to learn from Herod’s crime so we can make a different choice.

Fear kills. Those who live from the place of fear have no room for the Beloved. They will not welcome him. They will cast him out. They will follow a false messiah who offers a false plan of security grounded in deceit that brings death.

Only Jesus shows us the way. Only Jesus strengthens our will to choose the way. Only Jesus transforms a heart of stone into a heart of courageous compassion. Only Jesus, the co-eternal Beloved of the eternal Father empowers us with the Holy Spirit to make the difficult choice to follow the way of kindness and compassion. Only Jesus is the Way through fear to faith in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation for all people everywhere.

Christmas 2015

Christmas 2015 (Luke 2:1-14) “In those days….”

Jesus is the assurance that God is real, God is personal, God is love and God is with us.

In those days, in the way way back when Jesus was born, people lived by fear. They were only one crop failure away from starvation. They were only one tax increase removed from poverty. They were only one breath away from death at the hands of religious extremists or government decree.

In those days people were going about their daily lives. They were gathering to pay their taxes. Shepherds were watching over their flocks to protect them from wild beasts and human thieves. Caesar Augustus ruled a vast Empire. A man by the name of Quirinius was the imperial governor of Syria. Luke wrote these words only sixty years after the event. He grounded his account of the birth of Jesus in what was for him and his readers recent history. It would be similar to someone today mentioning that an event took place when Ronald Regan was president.

“In those days” fixes the birth of Jesus at a particular place and time in human history. It is the place, the time and the person who unifies time and eternity, humanity and divinity.

In these days, our day- our present time and place, we question the record. We sentimentalize the story. We miss the meaning in the message. The message is Good News. The Good News is the real presence of God at work in the universe, on our planet, in our species and in our own lives.

The Good News in our day is the infinite and eternal love of God united to our species through a single person. The better news is that God himself has reached out to us and continues to reach out to us in the here and now of our daily lives. The best news is that God is love. Jesus is the love of God manifesting in human flesh. Jesus is the love of God offering himself as the great gift of God to all people everywhere. Jesus is the infinite and eternal love of God entering into this universe of matter, energy, time and space to assure us that God is real and that God is with us.

When Jesus tells his disciples: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me, he is saying: love is the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to God except through love. What is this love? Jesus reveals exactly what this love is. It is kindness, compassion, and civility. It is the Lord of Creation reaching out to a species lost in pride, self-will and fear. It is an infant born in a stable. It is the good shepherd leaving the glory of the eternal realm to seek and find the lost who do not want to be found.

If you want to understand love from God’s perspective then read the stories about Jesus. If you want to experience this love for yourself  then receive the gift of love in Jesus. Simply make a real choice to receive the gift. Simply affirm to God: I receive the gift of divine love you offer me in Jesus. I pledge my life and love and loyalty to the way of divine love. I pledge my life and love and loyalty to Jesus Christ.

Advent IV

Advent IV (Luke 1:39-45) “Blessed are you….”

The blessing of God is the real presence of God.

Someone once said that 90% of success is just showing up. The Biblical writers observe that most people most of the time are sleep walking through life.

Most of us live according to inherited beliefs and habits of behavior. We don’t question. We don’t pay attention. We resist change. We miss the blessing because we have closed our minds and hearts to the abundance God has designed into the universe, our species and indeed into our own souls.

Mary had made a different choice. Mary made a real choice to be present to God. In that choice Mary experienced such a profound blessing that the archangel Gabriel described her as full of grace. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth observed that she was filled with blessing.

What does it mean to be filled with grace? How do we enter into the blessing of God?

God reveals the pattern of blessing in Mary.

Mary set her priorities according to the priorities of God. She made room in her soul for God. She paid attention to the voice of God speaking through Moses and the prophets. She cultivated within her soul a place of silence so she could still the voices of demand and the distortions of fear.

Mary placed first things first as she lived and moved and made choices in her life. She just didn’t profess a belief in the pattern of creation. She embraced the pattern. She immersed her mind, heart and will in the pattern,

The pattern of Creation is the defining nature of God. The pattern of Creation is universal unconditional love. Human beings experience the pattern of love in three sets of personal relationships. Moses and the prophets are very clear on this point. There is no love apart from personal relationships. Love always activates though a choice and produces an action.

Mary’s example of real choice is revealed in a single word: “yes”. Where so many people throughout time and in her own time said no to God Mary said yes.

The primary relationship God designed into our souls in our relationship with the co-eternal Son. We enter into that relationship through worship. For those of you who have chosen to hear the call to worship and have come here today to say yes to the call to worship, you are already 90% on your way to receiving the blessing and to becoming the blessing.

The second set of relationships God designed for us to experience is our relationships with each other. We say “yes” to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation as we cultivate compassion and kindness towards other people. The key to this choice is the question we form in our souls. That question is: how may I help?

The third relationship God designed into our souls is the relationship we have with our true self. There is a false self, a false ego, patterned in pride and self-will. St. Paul calls this false ego the Adamic nature. It is the pattern of separation we as a species chose to define our lives. Our true self is patterned after the image and likeness of the co-eternal Son, The Beloved. It is the Christ nature.

There are two ways you can choose to be you. There is the way of Adam which is the way of separation that produces distortion and death. And, there is the way of Jesus Christ which is the way of reunification, compassion and eternal life.

Mary said yes to our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation in the three fold pattern of personal relationships: worship, compassion and personal transformation. In those choices she entered into the divine presence God designed into the universe, our planet  and our species. She showed up for life and she showed up to life.

As she made that real choice to be present to God her soul expanded to receive greater and greater blessings. She made herself ready to become the hagios  theotokos, the holy mother of God,  as she made the myriad of small choices in her daily life.

Archangel Gabriel looked at Mary and exclaimed: Hail Mary, full of grace. St. Elizabeth looked at Mary and said. Blessed are you.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation sets the pattern of blessing for us to choose. The Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ offers the blessing of reunification with the Father as a gift. The Plan of Sanctification in the Holy Spirit is for each of us and all of us to say yes to God as Mary said yes to God.

In that yes you can be filled with grace. In that yes you can receive the blessing and become the blessing so others will look at you and say. Blessed are you.

Advetn III

Advent III (Luke 3:7-18)

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Change is never easy.

The prophetic call to repent of sin and prepare for the Messiah to deal with sin is in fact quite challenging. That is why many people who came to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, came only for the outward and visible sign of baptism. They did not want the inward and spiritual grace.

They wanted to get the credit for being religious and for being righteous. They did not want to make any changes in what they believed or in how they behaved. That is why the prophet John the Baptist warned the crowds in the words: “you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.”

God’s wrath is the way lost souls experience God’s Glory. The prophets all had the unenviable and difficult task of reminding people, religious people, that they were lost and needed to be found. The prophets discovered by experience that the lost stay lost through pride. And, the prophets observed that those who remain lost through pride cultivate a will to power to resist any change.

The identifying motto that defines a lost soul is the phrase: “my mind is made up; don’t confuse me with fact.” My mind is made up therefore I will never compromise, never learn anything knew, and never ever allow faith or science to change my mind,.

This is what John the Baptist learned from the prophets of Israel. This is what he observed and experienced as great crowds came to him to receive the outward and visible forms of the baptism of repentance. They came. They made sure everyone saw them. Had there been news reporters at the time they would have been sure to grant interviews. They would have had their pictures taken with John as he baptized people in the river Jordan. They would have added their participation in the event to their religious resume. And, they would have walked away still feeling righteous and superior. They would have walked away unchanged.

John knew this was happening. He also knew that as the last of the prophets he was called by God to be faithful to his task. He issued the invitation to repentance- to make a life transforming change in the direction people followed. He announced the message of preparation for the coming Messiah. And, he knew that he could only lead people so far. Jesus, the Messiah, the co-eternal Beloved of the Father, would have to do the hard part.

It is Jesus and only Jesus who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It is Jesus and only Jesus who finds the lost in our pride and self-will and offers us a new life and a new way of living. The new life is his own eternal life. The new way of living is the threefold pattern of love: worship, compassion, and transformation.

Christian Faith is a journey of personal transformation. The Holy Spirit is the Helper who guides us and advises us on that journey. The fire is the fire of sanctification. It is the way Jesus invites us to make the three fold set of personal relationships the Father designed into our species to be our preeminent priorities.

My grandfather used to say: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. The prophets can only take us so far. We need Jesus to take us the rest of the way. The prophets can inform us that we are lost. Only Jesus can find us where we are lost. The prophets can warn us that outward compliance to religious forms and rituals produce no lasting result. Jesus and Jesus only can and does walk with us and help us cultivate a hunger and thirst for grace. Jesus and only Jesus recaptures for us the meaning and purpose embedded in the religious forms and rituals.

Grace is God’s inward and spiritual fire that refines the soul. Grace slowly and steadily enables us to surrender our attachments to false beliefs, destructive behaviors and fatal pride. Grace transforms our desires as fire purifies silver and releases it from being embedded in rock.

To the lost, the prophets preach repent and prepare. To the lost, Jesus completes the process with the word: come. Come and be found. Come and be transformed. Come and enter into a journey of faith that begins in a single moment of time and has no end. Come and become the living temples of the Holy Spirit on earth and the beacon of sacred spiritual fire to help others who are lost to be found in Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Advemt II

Advent II (Luke 3:1-6) “Prepare!”

A true prophet of God proclaims two words: repent and prepare.

A true prophet calls people to change the way we live our lives in two very specific areas of our lives. Those two areas are worship and compassion. Worship is how we experience divine love. Compassion is how we express human love. Both aspects of love are design features of our species.

The Law of Moses temporarily restrains the distortions people call evil. But, the Law cannot address the underlying cause of these distortions. Only the One who designed the original blessing can address the underlying cause of distortions in our thoughts, emotions and will. This is where the second authentic word of a true prophet emerges. That second authentic word is “prepare”.

The call to repentance in the categories of worship and compassion can only help us to identify our resistance to the design feature of the universe (the Sabbath) and our species (kindness). The true prophet of God calls people to prepare to meet the true Word of God. That word is made flesh in the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ.

Once the Son of God appears there is no longer any need to call people to look into the mirror of the Law to see where we distort worship and compassion. We now have the Son, Jesus Christ, who is the perfect mirror both of the original design and of the way we distort the design.

Once the Son of God appears there is no longer the need to invite people to prepare to receive Him. He has come. The call now is the call to receive the One who has come to this planet and now offers himself to us. John the Baptist was the last true prophet of God that God himself sent to proclaim the two authentic words of prophecy: repent and prepare.

The word God now issues to all people everywhere is: Come. Come to Jesus so you can be found by God. Come to Jesus so you can receive the gifts of reunification and transformation. Come to Jesus for Jesus to prepare your soul to live a forever life of delight and abundance in the Real Presence of universal unconditional love.

On this second Sunday of Advent in the year of our living Lord Jesus Christ 2,015, Jesus takes the true prophetic words “repent” and “prepare” and transforms them by his real presence to invite us to allow the Holy Spirit to reunite us to the Father in Him. He then asks us to follow the light of life into a process of preparation for us to be with him the light of life to a fearful and anxious world.

John the Baptist, the last true prophet of God, proclaims repent – renounce your rebellion against the original design of our species. He then declares: prepare. Prepare to receive the One who is the unification of divinity and humanity. Prepare to receive Jesus. And, once you receive Jesus prepare to be transformed. Prepare to be amazed!