2nd Trinity IV, Awaken, Remember

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November Trinity

Rev. 3:1-6
 
And to the angel who penetrates the

Tiffany, Angel of Sardis

congregation of Sardis write:
 
Thus speaks 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 workings of the spirit, and for all words which came from 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.

2^nd November Trinity
November 8, 2020
Revelation 3: 1-6, Sardis
 
Inner loyalty is difficult to maintain. For it is our human nature to be distracted by all the claims made upon our souls. There is so much in the world that cries out so loudly for our attention. And the spirit only whispers.
 
We need to quiet ourselves from time to time in order to listen; to listen to the voice of the spirit; to listen to its echo in our own hearts. We need to quiet ourselves in order to remember; to remember how we were once open; to generate that openness again.
 
Each of us at one time heard the li
ving voice whispering from the world of the spirit. We recognized: something important speaks here, something alive. That word found a resonance and awakened our hearts’ love. And so we made a promise, a commitment both to the spirit and to ourselves, that we would continue to try to be open and awake to that voice whenever it speaks.
 
It is so hard to stay awake in the spirit in-between times. The world is so loud. It drowns out his voice, and in spirit, we go to sleep.
 
But once again, as the year itself dies away, we are privileged to hear His voice speaking clearly—
    

Bamberg Apocalypse 

    Awaken.
    Remember.
    Care for the words and workings of the spirit in your soul in inner loyalty.
 
His is the voice that awakens us, the voice that reminds us to remember the love we first felt, the voice that encourages us to care for the inner realities in loyalty.
 
And we respond—Yes Lord; may our prayers be for your ear. May you be in us. May the fire of your loyal love ignite in our hearts.

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2nd November Trinity 2019, Seed Sized

November Trinity

Revelation 1, 1-20

This is the unveiling of the being of Jesus Christ, which proceeds out of the divine world for those who would serve him. To them shall be revealed what must of necessity happen in the future and which powerfully presses into world events. God formed this revelation in imagery and sent it through his angel to his servant John. And so John speaks as a witness to everything he saw, that is, to the Divine Word, and to the life of Jesus Christ, which serves as a testimony. Blessed is he who knows how to read the prophetic words, and blessed are those who know how to hear them, and all who take what is written in this book into their souls; for time presses.

John, to the seven congregations in Asia:

Grace and peace to you

From Him who is, and who was, and who is coming

And from the seven creating spirits before his throne

And from Jesus Christ.

By his witnessing, he is the archetype of trust.

He is the firstborn from the realm of death,

He is the leading spirit of the Kings on earth.

He has turned to us in love, and by the power of his blood

He has released us from the spell of sin which lay upon us.

He has established us as true kings and made us into priests

before the divine Ground of the World, his Father.

To him belongs all light of the spirit and all power of soul from aeon to aeon. Amen.

See: he comes in the realm of the clouds.

All eyes shall see him, also the eyes of those who pierced him. And men down the ages will lament about him. Yes. Amen.

I am the Alpha and the Omega,

Thus speaks the Lord our God

who is, and who was, and who is coming

the divine ruler of the world.

I, John, your brother and your companion in all trials and also in the inner kingdom and in the power of endurance which we possess through our oneness with Jesus: I was on the island of Patmos. There it was granted to me to receive a share of the divine Word and to bear witness to the sufferings of Jesus.

On the Lord’s Day, I was lifted up to the world of spirit and I heard behind me a mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. It said: write what you see in a book and send it to the seven congregations: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

And I turned to see him whose voice was speaking to me. And as I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, a figure like that of the Son of Man:

clothed with a long billowing garment,

encircled round his breast with a golden band;

his head and his hair shining white like snow-white wool,

his eyes like a flame of fire,

his feet like burnished bronze glowing in a furnace,

his voice like the rushing of many streams of water.

In his hand he held seven stars;

from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword

and his face shone, as the sun shines in its full radiance.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet and was as if dead. But he laid his right hand upon me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and look! I am living and I bear the life of the world through all aeons. Mine is the key to the realm of death and of the shades. Write down what you see: what is now, and what is to come.

The secret of the seven stars, which you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the picture in the spirit for the angels of the seven congregations, and the seven lampstands are the seven congregations themselves.”

2^nd November Trinity

November 3, 2019

Revelation 1: 1-20

The writer of the Revelation struggles to put into words what he hears and sees in the spirit. Through his words, he creates a picture for us. Through his word-picture, we see the One he sees, hear the One whose voice he hears.

The altar is a kind of re-creation of what John saw. Like John, we are here in the spirit on the Lord’s Day. We see the seven lampstands in the seven candles. And amongst the burning candles is a picture of the One we hear about in John’s vision:

clothed in a billowing garment…

eyes like a flame of fire…

face shining like the sun in full radiance.

The picture painted above the altar is a kind of stand-in, over and against the day when we are able to see the Living One himself there, face to face. For He is indeed there at the altar, amidst the candles. And during the consecration, the transformation, He changes himself in yet another picture. At the altar we are offering to him what He needs in order to transform himself into yet another form, so that there we receive him, clothed in snow-white bread on a silver paten, shining in wine in a golden chalice.

We hear his words as we listen to the Gospel. We gaze at him pictured among the seven candles. We unite with him as he offers himself to us in bread and wine.

In bread and wine he makes himself small, seed sized, so that we can take him into our Selves; so that he can grow in us; so that we may be his community.

2nd November Trinity 2018, The God of Life

Revelation 14: 6-13

And I looked and saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, bringing the good news which is good news forever to those living on earth—to every race and nation and every tongue and folk. And the angel cried out with a great voice, saying:

“Stand in awe of God and turn to honor him. For we have come to the hour of his divine decision. Raise yourself in prayer to him who in truth created the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the springs of water.”  

And a second angel followed, who said, “Fallen, fallen is the great city of Babylon, who made all nations drink of the wine of her sacrilege, in order to draw the holy into misuse.”

And a third angel followed them, who cried out with a powerful voice: “Whoever adores the beast and its likeness and accepts its stamp on forehead or hand, he will drink of the wine of God’s anger, thick and strong and undiluted, from the cup of his wrath. And in the presence of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb shall anger be transformed into pain like the pain of fire and sulfur.

Memling

Their suffering rises and darkens the encircling air like smoke through the cycles of time. And day and night those who made the beast into their god, who honored its picture as the highest, who took its being into their innermost being, find no peace. In this place however there works the power of the steadfast endurance of those who have taken the healing power of the Spirit into themselves, who have fulfilled the goals of the Spirit, and who have worked trusting in Jesus’ healing deed.

And I heard a voice out of the worlds of Spirit which said, “Write this down: People of heaven are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit, let them rest from their efforts and labors, since their good deeds, the fruits of their lives, are not lost along their paths of soul, but have preceded them here.

2^nd November Trinity

Nov 4, 2018

Revelation 14: 6 – 13

With its hard, dry skin, a seed looks like a dead thing. When the conditions of light, warmth, and moisture are favorable, the cells of the seed’s skin die away. Inside is an embryo waiting, which swells and begins to grow. One root-shoot grounds itself into the earth, while a second leaf shoot struggles to gain the light. As we are approaching the end of the liturgical year, it is appropriate to hear a reading about endings, and what is seed-like.

This revelation to John features angels who urge us to honor the creative God of Life in uprightness. It warns of the ultimate disintegration and pain of those who misused their sacred creativity. It speaks of those who, like a seed that only developed a root and no leaf shoot, worshipped the beast of the abyss. And it assures us that our steadfast endurance of earthly suffering, our harboring of the healing spirit of love, and our trust in Christ are realities. By their own nature, these realities migrate into the light of the spiritual world. They are not lost, but they continue to exist there as housing and nourishment for our souls after death. For we do indeed have the power to create our own heaven or our own hell. In the words of Rudolf Meyer, one of our early priests:

Your kingdom of heaven, oh Human, is where you believe and love.

Rising toward heaven happens the more you practice love.

What is the human heart—bethink—if Jesus Christ,

The more He lives with us, the more he is in His heaven?

The Hell is in you, into which He descends

And also the heavenly kingdom in which he is transfigured.

Someday, when the coverings fall away, there will be announced and revealed

How deep hell’s ground, how wide your heaven was.

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2nd November Trinity 2016, Cannot Forget You

2nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write:

Angels of Seven Churches, Tiffany

Thus speaks he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and over 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 workings of the spirit, and for all words which came from 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.

He who overcomes, he shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out his name from the Book of Life. I will speak out his name and acknowledge him before my Father and his Angels. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

Angel of Sardis, Tiffany 

2

2nd November Trinity 

Nov 6, 2016

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

Whenever a group of people come together regularly and voluntarily, there is an angel who takes an interest in their working. What the members of the group do together enables the angel connected with them to work in a wakeful, creative and inspiring way.

The strong words of the Son of Man in this reading are directed at the angel of the congregation. He says that the angel is about to die, that is, to fall unconscious. The angel's works do not possess full spiritual reality.

This causes us to ask how the creative power of the angel and the members of the congregation work together. For in their essence, they are bound together.

Individual in the congregation, the names of souls, are themselves to be conscious, awake and receptive to the creative workings of the spiritual world and the promptings of their angel. They are to remember and remain loyal to the inspirations they have received in the past. They are not to allow their relation to the sense world to darken their perceptions of the spirit.

It is then that the individuals who join in congregation can nourish and refresh the community's angel. We might hear the angel's voice in a poem by Rolf Jacobsen

I am one you have loved long ago.

I walk alongside you by day and look intently at you

and put my mouth on your heart

but you don’t know it.

I am your third arm and your second

shadow, the white one,

whom you don’t have the heart for

and who cannot ever forget you.*

*Rolf Jacobsen, "Guardian Angel" transl. by Roger Greenwald http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/390357.html

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2nd November Trinity 2015, Peek-a-Boo

2^nd November Trinity

November 8, 2015

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

And to the leading angel of the community at Laodicea write: Thus speaks the Amen, he who strengthens all spiritual working with his own being, the witness trusted and true, the ground of all divine creation:

I see through your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. You should be either cold, or hot. But since you are lukewarm, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.

You say: I am rich, I have my fortune, and I don’t need anything else. But you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable, a beggar blind and naked. I counsel you to acquire from me

gold that is purified in fire, that you may become truly rich;

and garments to clothe yourself, so that the shame which lies in your nakedness may not be revealed;

and a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

Christ the Light of the World, Holman Hunt, wiki

I AM he who disciplines all whom he loves, calls them to account and refines them through trials of destiny, thus drawing them into the stream of cleansing.

Therefore generate warmth [be eager] [strengthen yourself] and change your heart and mind.

Behold, I stand before the door and knock. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and share the meal with him, and he with me.

He who overcomes, to him I will give the power to sit with me on my throne, just as I have been raised to the throne of my Father through the victory of the spirit. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit would say to the churches.

 2^nd November Trinity

November 8, 2015

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

One of the illusions of our modern consciousness is that we stand alone. We may experience ourselves as enclosed and isolated within our own skin. And therefore we try to draw toward ourselves everything, money, possessions, that seem to reinforce our sense of self-sufficiency.

These letters to the congregations tell us otherwise. For truly we are embedded in a world of spiritual beings. “We walk through the spiritual worlds exactly as we walk through the physical air”.[1] And although we may be unaware of them, the consciousness of these beings extends beyond and into our own. Alone though we may feel ourselves to be, we are continuously being seen, watched over, cared for and cared about. It is because we are not aware of them that we can act as though they don’t exist. We are like small children playing peek-a-boo who ‘hide’ by covering their eyes and saying ‘you can’t see me!’ The human race has made itself blind.

One of the signs of spiritual adulthood is becoming aware of the other – of other people, of other beings. As we grow spiritually we can become aware that we are seen, that we cannot hide. We become aware, sometimes painfully, of our shortcomings and failings. This is a first step toward healing.

Ultimately we are accountable. As the funeral service of The Christian Community says: Know that you are beholden to the spiritual beings for everything that you do in thought, in speech, in action. Today’s reading urges us to change the way we frame our awareness, to enlarge it. The spiritual world, Christ and his angels, are knocking at the door of our awareness. We have the choice to open, or not. If we do, they will nourish and strengthen our own awareness, our souls and spirits.

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[1] Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 194 – The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth – Lecture III – Dornach, 14th December 1919

2nd November Trinity 2014, Sky Bridge

2nd Trinity November

Tiffany Stained Glass,
Angel of Sardis

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write:

Thus speaks he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and over 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 workings of the spirit, and for all words which came from 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.

He who overcomes, he shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out his name from the Book of Life. I will speak out his name and acknowledge him before my Father and his Angels. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

2^nd November Trinity

November 9, 2014

Revelations 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. 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.

Sky Walk, Grand Canyon

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 God. The poet Czeslaw Milosz was asked about praying to a God one could not perceive:

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.

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.[1]

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[1]  Czeslaw Milosz, “On Prayer” in New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001, trans. Robert Hass

2nd November Trinity 2007 (2006), Bridge of Love

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas (normally)

Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, 6:10-19

What it comes to in the end is this: grasp the power that streams to you in the experience of Christ in the soul and in the powerful regency of his pure spiritual strength.

Put on the power of God as one puts on full armor, so that you may stand against the well-aimed attacks of the adversary. For our struggle is not to fight against powers of flesh and blood, but against

Blake, Good and Evil Angels

spirit beings mighty in the stream of time,

against spirit beings powerful in the molding of earth substance,

against cosmic powers whose darkness rules the present time,

against spirits who carry evil into the realms of the spiritual world.

Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand your ground on the day when evil unfolds its greatest strength, and victoriously withstand it.

Stand firm, then, girded with the truth, like a warrior firmly girded. Connect yourself with all in the world as is justified in the spiritual world, and this connection with the spirit will protect you like a strong breastplate.

And may Peace stream through you, down to your feet, so that on your path you spread peace, as the message that comes from the realm of the angels.

In all your deeds have trust in God. This trust will be like a mighty shield; with it you can quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take into your thinking the certainty of Christ’s healing deed. It will protect your head like a helmet.

And the spirit, which has become living in you, you shall grasp as one grasps a sharp sword. The sword of the spirit is the working of the Word of God.

May this armor clothe you in all your prayers and supplications, so that in the right moment you raise yourself in prayer to the spirit, and at the same time practice wakefulness in inner loyalty.

Feel yourself united in prayer with all other bearers of the spirit—also with me, Paul, so that the power of the word will be given to me when I am to courageously bring the knowledge of that holy mystery which lives in the message of the gospel.

 2^nd November Trinity

November 5, 2006

Ephesians 6: 10-19

Mankind is at war. Paul makes it clear that this war originates in the spiritual world; adversarial spiritual beings are attacking the core of our humanity. Paul makes it clear that for us the battle is one of defense, of resistance, of holding our own ground against those powers who seek to attack and destroy our inner being. It is a battle ultimately for inner peace.

One of the essential pieces of armor in our defense is what Paul calls the helmet of salvation, which is our own inner certainty of Christ’s deed of healing. This certainty we can generate in our thinking.

For Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection have created an indestructible bridge of love between our world of earth and the world of heaven. In the battle, the adversaries cannot take this bridge. We can protect ourselves from thoughts of doom and continue to make a good defense by remembering, by thinking the thought of Christ’s healing deed. Paul so beautifully expresses this idea of the invincible bridge of love in another of his letters. He says:

In all these trials we are triumphant conquerors through him who offers us his love. I know from experience: neither the forces of death, nor the forces of life, neither angels nor Mights, neither things present nor things to come, not the World Powers themselves, neither heights nor depths nor any other thing or being in creation can separate us from the love of God which took on body in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

We can always generate and hold fast to this thought of the bridge of love. May we constantly put on this helmet of thought, the protection of Jesus Christ’s ongoing healing deed of love.  For “In all these trials we are triumphant conquerors through him who offers us his love.”

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2nd November Trinity 2008, Angel Arrives

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

Escorial Beatus

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis)

And to the angel who penetrates the congregation of Sardis write:

Thus speaks he who has power over the seven creating spirits of God and over 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 workings of the spirit, and for all words which came from 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.

He who overcomes, he shall be clothed with white garments, and I will not wipe out his name from the Book of Life. I will speak out his name and acknowledge him before my Father and his Angels. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

 2^nd Nov Trinity

November 9, 2008

Revelation 3: 1-6

In the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, the twelve good fairies bestow their gifts on the child at her christening. Before the twelfth fairy can offer hers, a thirteenth, angry at not having been invited, storms in and predicts the child’s death at fifteen. The last twelfth fairy cannot undo the curse, but can soften it. She changes the death sentence into a sleep of a hundred years.

The writer of the Revelation also demonstrates this activity of past predictions reaching into future life. For the letters to the seven congregations are actually addressed to the seven ages of mankind’s development. The letters are an assessment of each age, its strengths and weaknesses. Today’s letter to Sardis, the fifth one , is aimed particularly to our present age. The warnings are a matter of life and death. “One says of you that you live, and yet you are dead.” Rev 3:1  For we human beings have indeed been asleep for a long time, unaware of those spiritual beings that constantly surround us as we sleepwalk through our lives. If we continue in what John calls our illusion and addiction to what the senses convey of the material world, then our own souls and spirits will indeed die.

Burne Jones

The cure for this sleep, this sickness unto death, is to wake up. For our souls and spirits live and are fed through wakeful consciousness; their very nature consists of conscious awareness.  In mankind’s childhood, we received the gifts and blessings of the divine world, because we were open and receptive. But then we fell into a long sleep, in which we no longer received the gifts, no longer even remembered the givers. The time of sleep and forgetfulness is over. Mankind needs to wake up.

In the fairytale, when the hundred years were over, the prince passed through the thorny hedge that protected the sleeping kingdom and awakened the princess with a kiss. In our time, the Prince of our soul is kneeling beside our sleeping spirits, waiting for us to wake up out of our own freedom and initiative. If we refuse, the awakening will come, but will appear as doom, fearful and frightening.

John’s letter to the fifth age is a clarion call. Wake up and live! Wake up and converse with your Prince! Live in loyalty to the Spirit who loves you.

This conversing with the spirit of love we call prayer. An early mystic wrote:

The Holy Spirit has compassion on our weaknesses,

and though we remain impure, He often comes to visit us.

When He finds our spirit praying to Him in love,

He immediately dispels the marauding horde of thoughts

that keep it hobbled. And then he bids it forward

to the delicious works of spiritual prayer.

When the angel of the Lord arrives,

he scatters by his word alone

every force that acts against us,

and brings to our spirits that light

that shines without deception.[1]

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[1] [1] Evagrios of Pontos, “Effusions on Prayer”, in Love’s Immensity; Mystics on the Endless Life, Scott Cairns, p. 55.