2nd August Trinity, Plumb the Depths

Kenneth Dowdy

2nd August Trinity

Matthew 7, 1-29

 “Do not judge your fellow man, so that your judgment will not someday be visited upon yourself. For with the judgment that you pronounce you also speak your own judgment, and the measure by which you measure will be the measuring rod for your own self. Why do you look to the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not become aware of the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: “Wait, I will pull the splinter out of your eye” - but mark it well, there is a log in your own eye. You hypocrite, first remove the log from your own eye, and then you may be able to see how to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor throw pearls to the swine, for these will tread them underfoot, and then turn upon you and tear you also to pieces.

Ask from the heart and it will be given to your heart; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you; for he who asks in uprightness will receive; he who earnestly seeks will find; he who knocks, to him will be opened. Or are there among you those who when his son asks for bread would give him a stone; or when he asks for a fish would offer him a snake? If then you who in spite of wickedness know how to give good things to your children, how much more goodness will your Father in the heavens give to those who earnestly ask him for it.

All that you want that men should do for you, do first for them. This is the true content of the Law and the Prophets.

Walk through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the path is easy which leads to ruin [the abyss] and many are they who walk it. But narrow is the gate and difficult the path that leads to Life, and it is only the individual who finds it. 

2nd August Trinity

July 30, 2017

Matthew 7, 1-29

Our eyes were shaped and formed by the light, in order to see what the light reveals. Our souls have eyes, formed and shaped by our inner experiences and by the soul's attitudes. A critical attitude sees what is lacking, in oneself and in others. Harsh criticism perceives and measures how far we fall short. It is cutting. We need to keep quiet.

Our souls can also be filled with what is holy. In our enthusiasm, we can spill this holy substance in front of cynics, squander holy substance on those who have no capacity to receive it. We need to keep quiet.

Instead of criticizing or gushing, we can quietly center ourselves. We can plumb the depths of our own hearts. With compassion and without harshness, we can honestly recognize our lacks and faults. With an upright heart, we can ask the spiritual world for the strength of soul and nourishment of spirit to become the kind of soul that can help both ourselves and others. Through the Father, we can become conscious of our humanity; through Christ, we can experience the evolution of our humanity; through our human capacities, we can receive and grasp God's Spirit of Love and Light. 

1st August Trinity 2017, Christ-Folk

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1st August Trinity

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there, he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say, Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Then Peter took him aside and began to urge him not to let this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and reprimanded Peter, saying to him, “Withdraw from me; now the adversary is speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature.”

And he called the crowd together, including his disciples and said to them, “Whoever would follow me must practice self-denial and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of his own soul will lose it; but whoever gives his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, his soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that he damages his soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can a man give as ransom for his soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining revelation of the Father among his holy angels."

And he said to them, “The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here there are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit.”

Edwin Austin Abbey 

1st August Trinity

July 23, 2017

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

There are times in life when we receive a momentous revelation. It can be bad news or good, but in that moment, the orientation of our life is forever changed.

Jesus asks the disciples, 'Who do you say that I am?' Peter receives a momentous revelation. In a flash, he recognizes that in Jesus there dwells the Christ, the Anointed and longed-for Messiah. In Matthew's Gospel he answers, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!' And with this revelation. the orientation of his life, and of the life of all of humanity, is forever changed.

Rosenkrantz

For humanity, with this revelation, a new foundation for a new kind of temple community begins to be built. The old temple was built on the awareness of the distance between the chosen people and other people. It was built on an awareness of the distance between a fallen humanity and the divine. Offerings were made to bridge the ever-increasing gap, in the hope that God would send a remedy.

The new community is founded on an inner, individual awareness that Christ Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He is the one who gives life and healing to human souls ill with the burden of their karma. This awareness is the foundation of the new community, the Christ-Folk. It recognizes that all must indeed make compensation for their sins. But the Christ community is built on generosity of spirit and on love; and it also recognizes that we can help each other deal with what we each have brought on ourselves. The community can take on the burden of another's karma. For it has received the revelation of the power and magnificence of the conscious spirit of love. 

4th St. Johnstide 2017, Call of Freedom

St. Johnstide

John in Prison, Rembrandt

Matthew 11: 2-15

When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, and those who have become poor receive the message of

Dore

salvation. Blessed are those who are not offended by my Being.”

When they had gone, Jesus began to speak about John. “Why did you go out into the desert? Did you want to see a reed swaying in the wind? Or was it something else you wanted to see? Did you want to see a man in splendid garments? Those in splendid garments are in the palaces of kings. Did you go to see a man who is initiated into the mysteries of the spirit, a prophet? Yes, I say to you—he is more than a prophet. He it is of whom it is written:

           

            Behold it well: I will send my angel before your face;

            He shall prepare the way of your working in human hearts

            So that your being may be revealed.

The truth I say to you: among all who are born of women, not one has risen up who is greater than John the Baptist; and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist, and even more now, the kingdom of heaven will arise within human beings through the power of the will; those who exert themselves can freely grasp it. The deeds of the prophets and the content of the Law are words of the spirit that were valid [worked into the future] until the time of John. And if you want to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

4^th St. Johnstide

July 16, 2017

Matthew 11: 2-15

There are at least two ways to land in prison; one way is to transgress the law, the social order. The other is to be captured by evil. Humankind has become imprisoned for both reasons. We have transgressed, and we have been captured by the forces of hindrance. 

Christ sent his angel, Elijah-John, to awaken us in our captivity. Through him, we become aware of our guilt, but also of our captive state. And He announces the arrival of our Liberator, the one who will spring the trap, free us, and help us cleanse our clogging guilt.

The angel John was himself imprisoned, both by evil forces and by humanity's collective guilt. In his captivity, others were the ones to bear witness for him, to bear witness to that which he could no longer experience directly. They witnessed that the Liberator gives the insight of vision. He gives inspiration and movement to human souls. He brings cleansing and blessing. And He brings the glad tidings of a new state of freedom for humankind. And so, may we hear Christ's wish for us in the words of the poet:

As a bird soars high

In the free holding of the wind,

Clear of the certainty of ground,

Opening the imagination of wings

Into the grace of emptiness

To fulfill new voyagings,

May your life awaken

To the call of its freedom.*

John O'Donohue, "For Freedom", in To Bless the Space Between Us.

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3rd St. Johnstide 2017, Loving Embrace

St. Johnstide

John 3: 22-36

John in Prison

After this, Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.

He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

But whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is true [truth] [that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. Whoever God has sent, his words are filled with the power of divine thought, for God gives the spirit to human beings not according to human rules, but according to the creative power that he awakens in man.

The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love, and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.

Whoever cannot trust in the power of the Son within will not behold the world of life; rather the working might of the spirit world must one day burn him like a fire that will consume him.”

3^rd St. Johnstide

July 9, 2017

John 3: 22-36

The plant grounds its roots in the earth; it rises and spreads its leaves into the air. And then it holds up the chalice of its blossom to the sun. It sends its fragrance and pollen heavenward, where they will be enriched (and inseminated) by the sun's life-giving rays. Into its chalice-blossom the plant receives new life, which will form in its seeds.

Without the sun, none of this would happen. The plant and its processes have their reality. But the underlying, pre-existing reality rests in the sun.

But the most real reality, the real antecedent truth behind the existence of everything, even of the sun, is God. God is the highest, the truest, the most real of all levels of reality. Far in the future, nature and all its forms will have disappeared. But God will still be, holding all in His loving embrace.

He gave us, gives us His Son, whose presence abides with us, in us, on earth. With His Son, God has given us the power to awaken His own creative potential, His divinity, within us.

As we raise the chalice of our heart, as we send the fragrance of our self-offering toward the Christ-Sun, He, humanity's bridegroom, in turn sends His life-giving grace to fill our hearts, to make fertile the seeds of divinity within us. He sends into us the highest reality of God, as seed of a new life.

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2nd St. Johnstide 2017, Heal the World

Ghirlandaio

St. Johnstide

Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You are sons of the serpent yet! Who led you to believe that you can avoid the decline of the old ways of the soul? Produce true fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind. And do not begin excusing yourselves by saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that God can raise up sons for Abraham out of these stones. The ax is already poised at the root of the trees, so every tree that does not produce good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire.”

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Do not collect any more than you are authorized to do,” he told them.

               

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Do not intimidate and do not accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ, the Messiah.

John answered them all, “I wash you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will wash you with the breath of the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, while he burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

And with many and various exhortations John preached the good news to the people.

2^nd St. Johnstide

feldspar

July 2, 2017

Luke 3: 7-18

Although there is a constant invisible core, living things change. They continually change and evolve their outer form. Only stones remain inert.

John the Baptist encourages us to change, that is, to remain alive. He wants our hearts not to be backward looking, stuck in the past. Otherwise, our hearts turn to stone. Rather, we are to be open to renewal and change. When asked, he encourages us to find new ways to help others, to take no more than our fair share. We are to avoid suppressing others or lying. We are to be content, reconciled with our karma and our place in life.

These practices purify the soul of its egocentricity. They prepare the soul for its great moment, for its Baptism in fire. This fire is fanned with the healing breath of the Holy Spirit of love. This breath of the Spirit is the love that enables us to change and evolve. This is the love that will ultimately heal the world. 

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