Sunday, February 23, 2014

3rd February Trinity 2014, Obey Thy Heart

3rd February Trinity
Luke 12: 35-48

“Be dressed and ready for service and keep your lamps burning. Be like men who are expecting their master back from the marriage feast, so that they can open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are the servants whom the master finds awake when he comes! Yes, I tell you, he will put on an apron himself and show them to the table and serve them. And if he does not come until the second or third watch of the night, and yet finds them awake: Blessed are the servants! You know: If the master of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would not let his house be looted. So be ready: the Son of Man comes at an hour that you had not thought.”

Then Peter said, “Lord, are you telling us this parable, or is it for all human beings?”

And the Lord answered, “Imagine a faithful and competent steward whom his master appoints to be in charge of the whole staff, to give to each one what he is entitled to. Blessed is that servant if the master comes and finds him carrying out his duties.  I tell you, he will entrust him with all his goods. But if the servant says in his heart, ‘My master will not be coming all that soon,” and begins to mistreat the other servants and the maids, himself all the while eating and drinking and becoming intoxicated, then the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour that he does not know. The master will virtually tear him to pieces; he will treat him as those deserve who have not proved faithful.

A servant who knows his master’s will but does not act according to it and so does not carry out his will, deserves the severest punishment. If he does not know the master’s will and then does something that deserves punishment, he will escape more lightly. From one who has many gifts, much will also be expected; and from one who has been entrusted with much, much more will also be demanded.

3rd February Trinity
February 23, 2014
Luke 12: 35 – 48

The world of the angels is ordered in a hierarchy. Each order of angels serves the one above, and all ultimately serve God in love. Demonic beings were once angels who refused to serve.

Today’s reading is a story of good and poor servants. They can be seen parts of a single human being. There is a part of us which, like the angels, wants to serve the Master faithfully, even in his apparent absence. And there is another part of us that would like to devote itself to instinctual or even destructive behaviors. Christ makes it clear that succumbing to the latter will eventually destroy our integrity and tear us to pieces. Doing so consciously and willfully hastens the process.

Christ is the Master of the House. We are the stewards in charge of the house of the body. We are to become competent over our own impulses and behaviors. Part of that competence involves giving to our array of inner ‘staff’, as Christ says, ‘what each one is entitled to.’ (Luke 12:42) They too are servants. We are neither to beat them nor starve them. All of our inner parts need sufficient nourishment and just treatment in order to fulfill their tasks. The chief steward is not to become intoxicated with its own importance. The steward task is to maintain order in the house while watching for the Master of Love, the Master of the Heart, to return. Ralph Waldo Emerson says:

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
.…
’T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,….[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Give All to Love” 

3rd February Trinity 2013, Creative Power

3rd, 4th February Trinity
(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)
Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience the tempting power of the adversary.

Blake
After fasting forty days and nights, He felt for the first time hunger for earthly nourishment. Then the tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, let these stones become bread through the power of your word.”

Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘The human being shall not live on bread alone; he lives by the creative power of every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
  
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the parapet of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Blake

Again a third time, the devil took him to a very elevated place, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give to you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me  as your Lord. “

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship [pray to] God your Lord who guides you and serve him only.’”

Then the adversary left him, and he beheld again the angels as they came to bring him nourishment.

3rd February Trinity
February 17, 2013
Matthew 4: 1-11

To live as a human being on earth is to attract the Tempter. And Christ Jesus was no exception. He too faced humanity’s adversary; but the adversary failed to ensnare Him. This was because Jesus had been taught by scripture, by God’s word itself; and Christ was able to access this and to remember three things at the right moment.

When tempted to supply his own food, He remembered that the human being remains alive by the creative power of God’s eternal speaking, His power streaming through the universe. Even today there are people who do not require food in order to stay alive and healthy.[1]

Blake
He also remembered that human beings are not to challenge the divinely ordained order out of a sense of their own self-importance and pride.


And He remembered that guidance and wisdom come from God, not from the supposed splendor of the prince of the fallen world.


It was Christ’s three recognitions: God’s creative power streaming through the atmosphere, God’s divine ordering, and His wise divine guidance that kept Christ protected from the universal human temptations. He shows us what to remember in times of temptation. He shows us the way to keep our integrity and to remain connected with our own divine origins. For by resisting the temptations of the adversary, Christ has restored humanity’s lost connection with the Kingdom of God in human hearts.[2]




[1] One example is Therese Neumann
[2] Pictures by William Blake, Satan tempting Christ to turn stones into bread, to cast himself down, and to worship Satan.