3rd Passiontide 2022, In Death Life Begins

 3^rd Passiontide

John 8:1-12 

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but as soon as day dawned, he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?" They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him. 

Ninetta Sombart

But Jesus bent down and started to write
something into the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, "Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her." And again, he bent down and wrote into the earth. 

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, starting with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?" 

"No one, sir," she said. 

Then Jesus declared, "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin." 

And Jesus began to speak to them again: "I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life."

 3^rd Passiontide Sunday

April 3, 2022

John 8:1-12 

The light and warmth of the sun can be absorbed or reflected. A dark object absorbs the warmth. A light, polished surface stays cooler because it mirrors light back. 

Our minds and hearts can also absorb or reflect. We can listen, absorb, take in. When what we take in enters not just our minds but our hearts, they can become warm. In so doing, we ourselves are likely to be transformed. The genius of the language says that our hearts melt. 

And we can also listen and reflect back. Usually, we reflect back our own soul's reaction. We reflect our ego's rush to judgment. An immediate judgment may be a kind of self-protection coming from the soul's defensive armoring. Being too quick to deflect with our thinking, we bypass absorbing into our heart what is said and possibly being transformed. 

Deborah Harris

In this gospel reading, Christ shows Himself to be someone whose heart and mind work together in a healing way. He does not reflexively reject the woman because she broke the law. He takes her into His great heart, the warmth of His broad understanding of the ways of human behavior, of social interaction, of karma. He then reflects back to her not judgment but rather gives her the strength of His warm understanding and His encouragement to do better. He absorbs her life into His. He carries her in the light of His life. 

The poet Nelly Sachs wrote, 

How long have we forgotten to listen!

He planted us once to listen

Like lyme grass by the eternal sea ....

Although we have business

that leads us far

From his light….

We must not sell our ears….

Press, oh press in the day of destruction

The listening ear to the earth,

And you will hear, through your sleep,

You will hear,

How in death

Life begins.* 

The deeds of each one of us are written into the earth. But the earth has become Christ's body. He absorbs all of our deeds. He carries us in His great heart. He gives us the encouragement and the strength to do better so that we can walk in the light of His life. 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

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*Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), “How Long Have We Forgotten to Listen!” in Women in Praise of the Sacred, Jane Hirschfield. 

3rd Passiontide 2008, The Listening Ear

3^rd Passiontide

John 8: 1-12

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives; but as soon as day dawned he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down, and started to write something in the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote in the earth.

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up, and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I judge you,” Jesus declared. “Go now, and leave your life of sin.”

3^rd Passiontide Sunday

March 9, 2008

John 8: 1-12

The light and warmth of the sun can be absorbed or reflected. A dark object absorbs the warmth. A light, polished surface stays cooler. It mirrors light back.

Our minds and hearts can also absorb or reflect. We can listen, absorb, take in. When what we take in enters not just our minds, but our hearts, we can become warm. In so doing, we ourselves are likely to be transformed.

And we can also listen and reflect back. Usually we reflect back our own soul’s reaction. We reflect our mind’s rush to judgment. An immediate mirroring may be for us a kind of self-protection, coming from the soul’s defensive armoring. Being too quick to deflect with our thinking, we bypass absorbing the other into our heart and possibly being transformed.

In this gospel reading, Christ proves Himself to be a human being whose heart and mind work together in a healing way. He does not reject the woman because she breaks the law. He takes her into His great heart, the warmth of His great understanding of the ways of human behavior, of social interaction, of karma. He then reflects back to her not judgment, but gives her the strength of His warm understanding and His encouragement to do better. He absorbs her life into His. He carries her in the light of His life.

The poet Nelly Sachs wrote,

How long have we forgotten to listen!

He planted us once to listen

Like lyme grass by the eternal sea ....

Although we have business

that leads us far

From his light….

We must not sell our ears….

Press, oh press in the day of destruction

The listening ear to the earth,

And you will hear, through your sleep,

You will hear,

How in death

Life begins.[1]

The deeds of each one of us are written into the earth. But the earth has become Christ’s body. He absorbs all of our deeds. He carries us in His great heart. He gives us the encouragement and the strength to do better. We walk in the light of His life.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), “How Long Have We Forgotten to Listen!” in Women in Praise of the Sacred, Jane Hirschfield, p.217. 

New Year's Eve 2009, Offering Light

New Year's Eve

Genesis 1: 1-8

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning. A second day. 

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Blake

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Blake

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2009

Genesis 1:1-8

  

God’s very first act of creation was to generate light. At first diffuse, He separated the darkness out and gave the light form in sun, moon and stars. And finally He created the Light-Form of the Human Being. We are created as an image of God. Like God, the human being is a creator.

Iris Sullivan

Tonight, at the midnight hour, at this generation of a new year, our noblest thoughts and highest hopes are given a particular power. Normally what we think and strive toward is received by the angels and the archangels, the angels closest to us. They work as best they can with what we offer them, to help bring the future into being. But on New Year’s, the portals to the heavenly staircase are, for a moment, thrown open. Our noblest thoughts rise all the way up to the highest hierarchies. They in turn, give our offerings a particularly strong power to become reality. At New Year’s, the light of the future begins to take form.

Strange to think that perhaps God needs what we have to offer, in order to create the future; that He invites our creativity. In the words of Nelly Sachs,

  

…Perhaps God needs the longing, wherever else shall it dwell,

….And perhaps is invisible soil from which roots of stars grow and swell -

….Perhaps in the sky of longing worlds have been born of our love -

….Around us already perhaps future moons, suns, and stars blaze in a fiery wreath.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Nelly Sachs, (Translated by Ruth and Matthew Mead, in A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, ed. by Aliki and Willis Barnstone)

Christmas Day 2012, Feed My Lambs

Christmas III

John 21: 15-25

(The end of the four Gospels)

After they had had held their meal together, Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than the others here?

Peter answered, “Lord you know that I am your friend”.

Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

And he said to him again, a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I am devoted to you.”

Jesus said to him, “Shepherd my young sheep.”

He asked him a third time, “Simon, Son of John, Are you my friend?”

Peter was heartbroken that he could say to him the third time, ‘Are you my friend’, and he answered, “Lord, you know all things; therefore you know that I am devoted to you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Amen the truth I say to you, when you were younger you girded yourself and walked wherever you wished. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and Another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish to go.”

He told him this to indicate the kind of death by which he would bring the divine to revelation. Then he said to him, “Follow me.”

But Peter, turning, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, following him. He was the one who had leaned upon his breast at the supper and had asked, “Lord, who is it who betrays you?”  When Peter now saw him, his asked, “Lord, what of this man, what is his task?”

Jesus said to him: If is my will that he remain until my coming, that does not affect your path. Follow me…”

From this day the story spread among the brethren that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until my coming, that does not affect your path.”

This is the disciple who here bears witness to these things and who has written all this. And we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that  Jesus did. If they were to be written down one by one, I do not think that the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written.

Christmas III, Day

December 25, 2012

John 21: 15-25

Mili Weber

Today we celebrate the beginning of the creation of a new kind of human being. We celebrate the birth of Jesus, who housed within Him the Christ, the Being of Love.

This reading from the end of all the gospels reminds us of what happened to that Child; He grew to become a man who gave up the innocence of His life in order to become the first born, not into earthly life, but to become the first born from out of the realm of death. The reading is from after his resurrection. Christ Jesus asks Peter whether he reciprocates Christ’s love for him. Peter is told three times in three different ways how his love for Christ is to blossom outward as deeds of love for others.

 

Every year Christ approaches close to us at this time. We have the chance to hear, from the One whose very Being is sacrificial Love, how we can show our love for Him; how our deeds can become a part of the offering song of the angels; how our deeds can support His work in the world.

Every year, we are given the opportunity to begin again. A new day has begun. And as He says in His ongoing revelation, ‘I am the star whose brightness shines in the morning.’ Rev 22:16 

As one poet says:

…God needs the longing, … we are …dark with farewell, lost in births' secret treasure trove,

Around us already…future moons, suns, and stars blaze in a fiery wreath.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Nelly Sachs (Translated by Ruth and Matthew Mead, in A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, ed. by Aliki and Willis Barnstone)

3rd Advent 2010, God With Us

3rd Advent 2010

Romans 8:15-39

translation by James Langbecker

You have not become victim to the spirit of slavery, so to become victim to the power of fear. You have received the spirit of sonship. When we say, “Our Father”, it is the Spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. When his passion and death think in us, then also his revelation.

I have considered that the sufferings of this age are not worthy to be compared with the revelation that will be opened to us.

Creation itself is eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God, for the creation was caught up in the forces of decline, not for its own sake, but for the sake of man’s evolution, which is not hopeless, but full of hope.

And even the creation will one day be freed from its subjection to the forces of decline, and will share in the freedom attained by the children of God through their spiritual activity.

        Through spirit knowledge we know that the whole creation in its distress suffers the pains of unfulfilled birth, and not creation alone, but we ourselves, having in our human nature the first fruits of the spirit, we groan as we eagerly await our entry into full sonship, that the sickness of sin of the bodily nature of mankind be healed.

For in this hope is our life destined for eternity. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But as we hope for what we do not yet see, we eagerly await it.

In this manner the spirit supports us also in our weaknesses. When we do not know how to speak to God in prayer, the spirit supports us inwardly in wordless prayer of feeling will. And he who can see into human hearts knows that the spirit speaks in a divine way in those who keep themselves whole.

We can be sure that everything works for good for those who love God, who are called by his destiny-ordering will.

Because those whose destiny he knew in spirit worlds, their destiny he ordered in harmony with the image of his Son, the first-born among many brothers.

Christ, Hans Memling

        And those whom he chose according to their destiny, he also called to spirit-awakening; and those whom he called to spirit-awakening, he also gave the spirit’s self-justification and self-revelation.

What remains to be said?

If God be for us, what power can succeed against us? He, who did not spare his own Son, but gave him forth on behalf of us all, will he not freely give us all we need through this Son? Who can condemn those in whom the self-evidence of the spirit is given by God?

It is Christ-Jesus, who died, yea, and who is risen, who has become the fulfiller of the fatherly deeds of the Ground of the World, who is the true Representative of Man before God.

Who shall separate us from the uniting power of Christ’s love? Shall difficulty or distress, persecution or famine, lack of clothing, danger or attack?

As it is written:

            To come to you we must die all day long;

            We are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered. (Psalm 44:22)

We will fully triumph over all these trials through him who unites his being with our being through love.

For I am confident that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor archai, nor things present, nor things to come, nor spirit-powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ-Jesus, our Lord.

3^rd Advent

December 12, 2010

Romans 8, 15-39

Sons and daughters, just by virtue of being their parents’ children, stand to inherit their parents’ estate. They have the hope and expectation of an inheritance simply by virtue of having been born into the family. At the same time, by virtue of having been born, they may also be ‘inheriting’ much else: family dynamics to be lived and grappled with, inherited characteristics of temperament and bodily health.

The family of man has inherited many characteristics from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Being part of the human family means grappling with illusion and sorrow, with illness, and ultimately with death itself. We were created in Paradise, but have been making a sorry mess of things since.

God saw that mankind’s God-given inheritance was depleted, ravaged by deep debts we could never hope to repay. The inheritance was in ruins. And so He decided to rebuild the estate by creating the possibility of a new ancestor. Thus He sent His own Son, Christ, to become a new Adam for us. The new body we are to inherit is the resurrection body, the light body of Christ. It is a body we are to inherit when we make ourselves available to take it in. Taking in Christ’s body makes us members of a new kind of human family. Taking in Christ’s body, His blood, strengthens our own light bodies. We begin to shine, to radiate His goodness and love out into the world.

And the world rejoices. It rejoices because the shining of the Sons and Daughters of the Spirit gives promise of release to all of creation; for all has fallen into darkness and bondage with us. All of creation rejoices in the hope and promise of its own inheritance from the sons and daughters of God. For what we will be able to give creation some day is its freedom. As the poet Nelly Sachs says:

All lands are ready to rise

from the map.

To shake off their skin of stars

to tie the blue bundles of their seas

on their backs

to set their mountains with fiery roots

as caps on their smoking hair...[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Nelly Sachs, from “And No One Knows How to Go On”, in O The Chimneys, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1967... Tranlated from the German by Michael Hamburger, Christopher Holme, Ruth and Matthew Mead, and Michael Roloff...