2nd St. Johnstide 2016, Family of Humanity

St. Johnstide

Visegrad Codex

Matthew 3:1-17

In those days John the Baptist came. He proclaimed his message in the isolation of the Judean desert. He said, “Change your hearts and minds. The realm of [the human being filled with] the heavens has come close.”

He it is of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks:

A voice is heard, calling in the loneliness [of the human soul]: ‘Prepare the way for the highest leader [within the soul], make his path straight and good [Order your feeling and thinking, so that within you a path arises for the inner Lord]!’

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his waist. Hard fruits and wild honey were his food.

At that time people came out to him from Jerusalem and the whole of Judea and from the region around the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the flowing waters of the Jordan and confessed [admitted] their sins [failings, and the errors of their lives].

When he saw that many Pharisees and Sadducees also came for baptism, he said to them, ‘You sons of the serpent, who has told you how to escape from the coming World-Fire [Fury]? Now therefore strive after [to bring forth] the right fruits of the change of heart and mind. Do not think that you are safe by saying: We have Abraham as our father. I say to you: the heavenly Father is just as able to raise Abraham-sons from these dead stones. Already the ax is laid to the root of the trees [of bloodlines], and every tree that does not bear good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire [of testing]. I baptize you with water in order to lead you to a change of consciousness [heart]. He who comes after me is mightier than I; unworthy am I even to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse his grain of the chaff. He will gather the wheat into the barn [for the future], but the chaff his will burn in an unquenchable fire.”

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. But John refused and said, “It is I who need to be baptized by you—and now you come to me?”

Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now. It is good thus, so that we fulfill properly all that destiny [divine righteousness] requires.”

Then he consented. When Jesus had received the baptism and, [seized by the Spirit] was already coming out of the water again, when behold, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending in the form of a dove and hovering over him. And a voice spoke out to the heavens:

               

“This is my Son whom I love. In him will I reveal myself.”

St. Johnstide

July 3, 2016

Matthew 3:1-17

At the end of the day’s work, or a big project, the environment may have become disordered.  Clean-up is called for. An after-school visitor to one of the original Waldorf curative schools was told that he could find the founder and teacher still in the classroom, cleaning up. As the visitor approached, he could hear a phrase repeated again and again: The Spirit creates order! The Spirit creates order!

Today’s gospel reading describes such a moment in human history. The old phase of the elite bloodlines is over; their work is done. “The ax has been laid to the roots of the tree of the bloodlines.” This is because their mission, that of creating a pure bodily form for the Messiah, is complete. After this there can only be decay; for the bloodlines are no longer capable of spirit awareness.

Yet a new order is arriving. The Spirit creates order! Jesus comes to the Jordan as the beginning of a new era for human beings. Christ, the divine Son and Brother, will enter humanity. Everything will be up-ended. Even John the Baptizer’s perception of his own unworthiness is no hindrance. Now a new order, a new Spirit consciousness, has arrived. Now the divine will inhabit the body. Now heaven can reveals itself on earth. For a new spirit consciousness of love for all human beings, beyond bloodline, tribe or nation, will slowly and gradually take over the earth.

It is true that elitism, tribalism, and nationalism will ever try to interfere with the new order. But they have no future. Only the Spirit creates order. Now is the time to recognize that all of humankind is one family, for we are all children of God. Here the 15th Psalm is a kind of prophecy:

Lord, who can be trusted with power,

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.*

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell.*

www.thechristancommunity.org

*Psalm 15, in The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell

1st August Trinity 2015, Our Real Journey

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.

Get Thee Behind Me, Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

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.”

1st August Trinity

July 26, 2015

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

Once again in the course of the year, we stand before a beginning. In this second half of the year, we are embarking on a ten week walk toward Michaelmas. It begins with Peter’s recognizing that Christ, the expected Messiah, the Anointed One, lives in Jesus. Peter’s acknowledgement allows Christ to reveal something more of himself. Contrary to expectations the Messiah will be rejected. He will suffer and die. And He will rise again after three days.

From our perspective, after the fact, Christ’s own path is obvious. But to the Hebrews of His time, such a revelation comes as a shock; the Messiah would be rejected and killed? So it is understandable that Peter objects and seeks to protect Him. But Christ adamantly rejects Peter’s well-meaning but purely utilitarian thinking. For Christ’s mission has a much broader and higher context. The revolution He leads takes place both in the cosmic dimension and within the most intimate depths of the human soul.

In our own lives we can have flashes of insight, inspirations coming from the future. But then objections arise: that’s not what I had hoped for….that would mean….but I can’t. We sense the difficulties and call it impossible. We are unwilling, un-willing what wants to be.

Christ takes a much broader and deeper path, a via negativa, a path of descent. Just as a mother must suffer birth pangs in order to bring forth a new human being, so too must He, and we, be willing to undergo rejection and suffering, and even the death of our hopes and dreams, in order to bring forth what really and truly needs to happen.  As the poet Wendell Berry says:

"It may be when we no

 longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey."