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 

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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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Christmas Midnight 2012, Your Companion

Christmas I, Midnight

Matthew 1: 1-25

[Now is proclaimed the beginning of the whole Gospel, according to Matthew in the first chapter.]

He Qi

This is the book of the new creation, which has happened through Jesus Christ [or, the generation of Jesus Christ], a son of David, who is a son of Abraham.

 Abraham was the father of Isaac,

   Isaac the father of Jacob,

   Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

   Perez the father of Hezron,

   Hezron the father of Ram,

  Ram the father of Amminadab,

   Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

   Nahshon the father of Salmon,

  Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

   Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

   Obed the father of Jesse,

  and Jesse the father of King David.

   David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

  Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

   Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

   Abijah the father of Asa,

  Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

   Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,

   Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

  Uzziah the father of Jotham,

   Jotham the father of Ahaz,

   Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

  Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

   Manasseh the father of Amon,

   Amon the father of Josiah,

  and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

  After the exile to Babylon:

   Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

   Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

  Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

   Abihud the father of Eliakim,

   Eliakim the father of Azor,

  Azor the father of Zadok,

   Zadok the father of Akim,

   Akim the father of Elihud,

  Elihud the father of Eleazar,

   Eleazar the father of Matthan,

   Matthan the father of Jacob,

  and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

From Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the exile in Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations.

The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way: Mary, his mother, was betrothed to Joseph. But before they were aware of having come together, she conceived a child by the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph however, her husband, who was an upright man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, was considering whether he should quietly set her free [or, decided to consider all this a mystery.] As he was pondering this, behold the angel of the Lord appeared before him in a dream and said to him:

 “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because that which is to be born of her is conceived out of the power of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus, that is, the Bringer of Healing, for he it will be who will heal his own of their error and guilt. “

All this took place so that the word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of the prophet, might be fulfilled:

“A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel, that is, God in our midst.”

           

Now when Joseph rose from his sleep he did as the angel of the Lord directed him, and he took Mary to himself as his wife, and he knew her not until she bore her son, and he gave him the name Jesus. 

Christmas I, Midnight

December 25, 2012

Matthew 1:1 –25

The generating of Jesus was long-prepared. It was the generation of a new kind of human being that would begin with Christ Jesus. The preparations are finalized when a man, Joseph, heeds the words of the Lord’s angel. The angel tells him, as angels always do, not to be afraid. The words make clear to him the nature of the inexplicable events that are occurring in his life. And angelic direction makes clear his own role in these events—that his role is to support and protect the mother and child for the sake of world destiny.

Bernhard Strigel

We each of us have an angel who accompanies us through our lives. This being knows the whys and wherefores of what is often veiled to us.

In the words of a poet, this angel says to us:

I am the bird that knocks at your window in the morning

and your companion, whom you cannot know,

the blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am ….

The thought that suddenly comes over you at midday

and fills you with a singular happiness.

….

I am your third arm and your second

shadow, the white one,

…who cannot ever forget you.[1]

Here and now, awake at midnight, we have entered a moment when the veil between ourselves and the angelic world is very thin. The service will speak of the offering song of the angelic choirs. We are being invited to join in offering with them.

For our thoughts and prayers for the world situation are carried toward the center of the world, to the One born this night. Offering and adding our soul’s substance of love to the song of the angels strengthens the great swell of music of offering. For we all have a role to play, however modest, in world destiny. And in response to the music of the offering song, there shines toward us all, Christ’s healing light of grace.

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[1] “Guardian Angel” by Rolf Jacobsen, transl by Roger Greenwald http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/390357.html