1st Passiontide 2016,

1^st Passiontide

Luke 11: 29 - 35

And as the crowds increased, Jesus began to speak. “The men of this generation are strangers to their true being. They look for signs and outer proofs of the spirit, but none other will be given to them but the sign of Jonah. For just as once Jonah shared the experience of the spirit with the inhabitants of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man share the experience of the spirit with this present generation. The Queen of the South will rise in the time of great crisis and decision against the men of this present generation and judge them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But know this: here is more than Solomon.

The inhabitants of Nineveh will rise up in the days of crisis and decision against the men of this present generation and will pronounce judgment over them. For they changed their ways after the proclamation of Jonah. But know this; here is more than Jonah.

No one lights a light and then puts it in a hidden place or under a vessel, but rather sets it on a lamp stand, so that all may see the light shining.

The light of your body is your eye. When your eye looks at the world clearly and impartially, the processes of your whole body will be inwardly filled with light. If however the eye’s desire sees the world separated from the spirit, darkness will pour itself into you.

Protect yourself that the light does not become darkness in you.

If your body is now filled with light, so that it no longer takes part in darkness, everything will be completely illuminated, so that, with lightning brightness, the light irradiates you completely from within.

1^st Passiontide

February 28, 2016

Luke 11: 29 - 35

In last week’s Gospel reading, we beheld the light form of the transfigured Christ Jesus, shining on the mountain like the sun. The light that shines from him is the revelation of the Father’s love.  In today’s reading the life of the light continues its progress; for the light of the Father’s love wants to work from within each of us.

Christ chides the people of this generation for not actively seeking the light of wisdom; he chides us for not doing what John the Baptist had encouraged us to do: to change our way of thinking and perceiving.

The Father kindled the light of Christ in the man Jesus, so that all could see the light of love and take it into themselves. The Father would like the same thing to happen within us: that we would take in the light of Christ; that we would look out into the world with the eyes of a clear, impartial, but warm love. The Father would like us to take in with our eyes the being who is the Light of the World, so that our eyes can in turn radiate and shine the brightness of objective love back out into the world.  

As the poet Hafiz says:

God

pours light

into every cup,

quenching darkness.

….

God pours light

and the trees lift their limbs

without worry of redemption,

every blossom a chalice.

….as light

pours like rain

into every empty cup

set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.*

* Hafiz, Interpretive version of Ghazal 11 by Jose Orez

3rd February Trinity 2016, Coming to Light

February Trinity

(5th Sunday before Easter)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Transfiguration, by Theophanes the Greek, Wiki Commons

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James and led them together up a high mountain apart from the others.

There his appearance was transformed before them. His face shone bright as the sun, and his garments became white, shining bright as the light. And behold, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, conversing in the spirit with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be in this place. If you wish, I will build here three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and suddenly they heard a voice from the cloud that said, “This is my son, whom I love. In him, I am revealed. Hear him.”

When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces to the ground in awe and terror.

And Jesus approached them, and touching them said, “Rise, and do not fear.”

And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them: “Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”

And the disciples asked him, “What is meant when the scribes say, ‘First Elijah must come again’?” He answered, “Elijah comes indeed, and prepares everything [restores all things]. But I say to you, Elijah has already come, and the people did not recognize him, but rather have done to him whatever they pleased. In the same way the Son of Man will suffer much at their hands.”

Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

February Trinity

(5th Sunday before Easter)

Matthew 17: 1-13

Here in the west one can look out over the ocean from the mountains. Later in the day one can gaze out upon a sea of light so white, so piercingly bright that one wonders how one can look at it at all. The living waters shine like the sun.

In our lives, too, there are events and moments that are piercing; they may be moments of happiness or of pain; but they remain in our memories forever. In Jesus’ life this is one of those moments. On the mountaintop, Christ, the great being of the Sun, descends so far into him that his living body becomes ‘shining bright as the light.’

With him are two witness in the spirit, Moses and Elijah. They are conversing with him about his coming death. And the three earthly witnesses, Peter, James and John, perceive this living, light-filled, light-emanating body in awe. And further the Light is deepened into the voice of Love; they hear the voice of the loving Father of All. He claims Christ Jesus as His son, the revelation of the Father’s own being. The Father’s Love reveals itself in the living light form of a divine human being. Christ, ‘the son born in eternity’, reveals the Father’s light and love on earth. The poet says:

Transfiguration, Lewis Bowman

…we hear the great seas traveling

underground,

giving themselves up

with tongue of water

that sing the earth open.

They have journeyed through the graveyards

of our loved ones,

turning in their grave

to carry the stories of life to air.

….

We have stories

as old as the great seas

breaking through the chest,

flying out the mouth,

…

all the oceans we contain

coming to light. *

* Linda Hogan, “To Light”, in Seeing Through the Sun

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2nd February Trinity 2016, Embracing Suffering

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.

Jean-Marie St. Eve, Wikicommons

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.”

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, 4th February Trinity

Blake

February 14, 2016

Matthew 4:1-11

Christ was the God who had never before lived in an earthly body. Forty days after his entry at the Baptism into the body of Jesus, he feels for the first time the hunger for earthly nourishment. The body shows him the overwhelming nature of the thirst for existence. This is the thirst for existence that Buddha had warned that humanity needed to be overcome in order to avoid suffering.

And it is this thirst for existence that gives the adversary access to Christ Jesus. Yet Christ manages to maintain his equilibrium between heaven and earth. For he came, not to avoid suffering, but to embrace it.

He refuses to magick up bread for himself. Instead, angels nourish him in the sphere of life. He refuses to succumb to pride in his own uniqueness as Son of God. He sees through the delusion that the Prince of this world could give him earthly power and glory.

Instead, he is faithful to His Father and to his own mission. He does not flee the hunger and hardship that being in a body entails. He chooses, and will continue to choose to embrace suffering, the suffering of all humankind, because he loves us. He chooses the hard road.

In so doing, Christ laid the seed of possibility within each of us. We can see through the delusions of the adversary. We can overcome pride and maintain our trust and connection with our heavenly Father, who holds our unique destiny and purpose in his hands. We can embrace our own suffering as a necessary step along our own path. And we can embrace others in their suffering through Christ’s love. 

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1st February Trinity 2016, Selfless Selfhood

1st February Trinity

Van Gogh

Matthew 20: 1-16

[But many who are last will be first, and many who are first will be last.] The kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of his house, who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Agreeing to pay them one denarius a day, he sent them out into his vineyard.

At about 9 o’clock he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace, and he said to them, “Go also into my vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.” So they went.

He went out again at about noon and at 3 o’clock and did the same. At 5 o’clock he went out and found others standing there, and he said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?” They said, “Because no one has hired us.” He said, “You, too, go into the vineyard.”

And when evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”

Those who had been hired at 5 o’clock came forward, and each received one denarius. Therefore, when it was the turn of those who were hired first, they expected to receive more. However, they too also received one denarius each. They took it, but they began to grumble against the master of the house. “These men who were hired last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”

However, he answered one of them, saying, “Friend, I am not being unjust to you. Did you not agree with me for one denarius? Take what you have earned and go. I wish to give to the man hired last the same as I give to you. Have I not the right to do as I wish with what is mine? Or do you give me an evil look because I am generous? Thus will the last be first and the first will one day be last. “

1st February Trinity

February 7, 2016

Matthew 20: 1-16

This gospel reading about the day’s wages is often used to illustrate the idea of social justice. And it is indeed that. But it can also be explored on another level.

We are all of us sent from heaven to fields of earth, to work here for the Master, the Lord of the Harvest. Some of us have arrived early and labored long. Some of us have been sent more recently. But each of us laboring toward one goal – the Lord’s harvest of human virtues, grown here on earth.

And in the end, our reward, our ‘one denarius’, is the earning of our own individual selfless selfhood. Some must labor long and hard; others seem to achieve it with what only appears to be less struggle and effort.

A part of what Christ is trying to tell us here is that a desire for a greater reward than another runs counter to the ideal and goal of selfless selfhood. Demanding more in comparison to others is not selfless; in fact, it is spiritually counterproductive. The harvest the Lord is trying to bring in will be the selfless virtues of all of humanity.

Those who have worked longest and hardest to achieve them will rejoice for the others; for we are all working together toward the same goal. And the Lord of the Harvest is generous.