1st August Trinity 2019, Regions of Kindness

Matthew 7, 1-29

August Trinity

“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. 

Be on your guard against false prophets of healing. They come to you in the garments of peaceful lambs but inwardly are rapacious wolves. You shall recognize them by the fruits of their deeds. Never will you harvest grapes from a thorn bush, nor figs from thistles. Every noble tree brings forth good fruit, but a wild tree only forms unusable fruit. A noble tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a wild tree cannot form good fruit. A tree that does not bring forth good fruit will be cut down and put in the fire. Therefore, recognize them by the fruits of their deeds.

Not everyone who addresses me with “Lord! Lord! can be taken up into the kingdom; only he who accomplishes the will of my Father in the heavens. In the future, when the light of God breaks over the earthly darkness, many will call to me. They will say, “Lord! Lord! have we not worked in advance for your revelation? Have we not driven out spirits of destruction in honor of you? Have we not gathered multiple powers for your word?”

Then I will freely say to them, ‘I do not know you. My paths are not your paths. Depart from me, for you serve the forces of chaos [the downfall of the world].’

Burnand

Everyone who hears such words from me and acts accordingly will be like a man who wisely built his house on bedrock. The clouds burst, the waves rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not totter, for it was founded upon the rock. He, however, who hears such words from me and does not act accordingly is like a man who foolishly builds his house upon sand. The rain comes down, the floods rise, the winds blow and beat upon the house, and it collapses with a great crash.”

When Jesus had completed saying this, the people were greatly moved, for he spoke to them out of spiritual authority, as if the powers of creation themselves spoke out of him, and not like their teachers of the law [canon-lawyers].

 1^st August/September Trinity

July 29, 2012

Matthew 7: 1-14

In ancient times, caves were often places used for certain kinds of initiations. They involved tests of courage. Even today, being in a cave, or any dark tight space, are places where the only light is the one you bring with you. Often the darkness brings one face to face with oneself.

Our lives can also bring us to tight dark places, where the only light seems to be what we can bring to the situation ourselves. They often involve tests of our courage and our faith.

Today’s gospel reading is a kind of instruction on ‘soul-caving’. It encourages us to enter our perhaps dark and tight soul space. We are encouraged to turn our powers of discernment inward into ourselves, rather than only onto our fellows; to notice the hindrances to seeing that exist within our own soul; to avoid the cynical, the broad and easy.

For what is to be learned is the courage to face, not what is outer, but one’s own inner darkness; to bring our inner light to bear upon ourselves. We are to generate the light of trust toward the beneficence of our God. We are to generate the light of nourishing kindness to shine toward ourselves and toward our fellows. As Naomi Nye says:

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness....*

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 *‘Kindness’, by Naomi Shihab Nye, in Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems

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