Rev. 3:1-6, (Sardis)
Sardis, Tiffany |
he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and the seven stars: I know the consequences of your deeds, for one says of you that you live, and yet are dead. Awaken, and strengthen what remains in you, that is otherwise about to die, for I have not found that your works possess reality before my God.
"Remember how you were once receptive for all the words and workings of the Spirit. Care for them in your soul in inner loyalty. Change your heart and mind.
"If, however, you do not awaken, I will come over you suddenly like a thief, and you will not know at which hour I will come over you.
"But you have some names in Sardis whose souls have not been darkened by illusion and addiction to the senses. They will walk with me in white garments, for they are worthy of them.
"Whoever overcomes, they
shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out their name from
the Book of Life. I will speak out their name and acknowledge them before my
Father and his Angels. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit
says to the churches."
2nd November Trinity
November 7, 2021
Revelation 3: 1-6
This letter is from the Son of Man. It is written to the
angel of the community of Sardis. It can be heard as a letter to an entire
community, ‘a community whose members feel the Christ within themselves’.
It is natural that a community tends to drift away from its
original receptive gesture of soul. After all, things change. Habits form. And
over time, a community’s relationship to the spirit may become dull. It needs renewal. This
letter stresses being open to the words and workings of the spirit. Christ
encourages us to revive our original prayerful openness, in loyal dedication to
Him.
Such openness helps us to overcome illusion through the
Truth of Christ’s Being. It helps us overcome our need to see, hear, touch a
physical, material God. The poet Czeslaw Milosz was asked about praying to a
God one could not perceive:
Glass Sky Walk, Grand Canyon |
All I know is that prayer
constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as
on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of
ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping
of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore
of Reversal
Where everything is just the
opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly
envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every
one, separately,
Feels compassion for others
entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no
other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge
all the same.*
* Czeslaw Milosz, “On Prayer” in New and
Collected Poems, 1931-2001, trans. Robert Hass
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