96th Anniversary Address, Sep 1922-2018

Anniversary Address Sep 17, 2018

 For 40^th Anniversary of our Chapel in Devon, PA, our first purpose-built chapel in North America, and the 96^th Anniversary of the Founding of The Christian Community

War has always been a part of human culture, unfortunately. In past centuries it mostly took place locally. But in 1914 a war commenced that had world-wide consequences. A perfect storm of advances in war technologies, in communications and the sheer numbers of humans involved, meant that when it ended, 16 million people had died; 37 million if you count the resulting deaths from disease and starvation. The Great War, as it was called, collapsed the old order. Human beings urgently sought a new political or social order, a new outlook or purpose in life, a new form of religion.

Against this backdrop of social chaos and political upheaval, Rudolf Steiner was working creatively in education, in medicine, agriculture, in special needs. In 1917 Rudolf Steiner had said,

Spiritual science may be taken as a support, as a foundation for the life and exercise of religion in the highest sense, and particularly in relation to the mystery of Christ…. …religion in its living form and practice kindles the spiritual consciousness of the human community.

If this spiritual consciousness is to become a living thing in human beings, we cannot possibly remain at a standstill, settling merely for abstract ideas of God or Christ; we must stand renewed among the religious practices and activities…

Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a prominent Lutheran preacher and writer and student of anthroposophy, had earlier approached Rudolf Steiner for a new form of religion. But it took a younger generation of theology students, among them Emil Bock and Alfred Heidenreich, to take up the impulse of bringing such a new form into existence. With Steiner’s help and encouragement, on Sep 16 and 17 in 1922, woven into the first Acts of Consecration of Man, the ordinations of 45 priests took place, including three women. It was a priesthood that would serve the sacramental mysteries of Christianity. Albert Steffen, poet, playwright, and a friend who accompanied the founding, wrote:

Today, the first Act of Consecration was completed out of the spirit, and at which the Risen Christ was present…I can say that Christ was there, for when the words of bread and wine were spoken, I saw his resurrected light-life body. It is the first time that I have seen the being of Christ. His arms were outstretched and there was a radiance about his head. And I experienced then that he healed and hallowed. He was there, and is there.**

The First World War was called the Great War, the War to End all Wars. But in fact, it was the beginning of what would be more than a century of continuing world conflict and social upheaval. Yet, in the midst of it, there was established a way to connect with the living being of Christ, and to build healthy human communities. Obviously, the need continues.

Most of us born in last century, on our way to incarnation before we were born, encountered the massive number of exiting souls of those who had died during the wars. Those souls transferred to our souls and spirits the strong urge to overcome the waste of war and to build strong and positive human communities. For us, the light of the sacraments was a beacon that helped us find Christ and The Christian Community on earth.

The present moment is the gateway into the future. Our praying together during the sacraments gives Christ an opportunity to work in a particular, healing way on the earth. With Christ’s help, we ourselves are generating the beacon for the present and coming generations. Every time the sacrament is celebrated, a light goes out to nourish the guardian angels of human beings. The greater the number of people praying together, the more exponentially greater the light that is generated.

Even after we die, we can be preparing the future. We can be the souls who tell the incarnating human souls and their angels to look for our Sunday Service for Children. We can tell them to bring their parents. We can tell them to look for the light of those communities built on Christ’s love, his healing, his peace.

*Cosmic and Human Metamorphosis, Feb 20, 1917. Quoted in Pioneers of Religious Renewal, Christian Maclean, p. 114

**Steffen, Wege der Christus-Erfahrung, p. 21. Quoted in Pioneers of Religious Renewal, Christian Maclean, p. 40.

8th August/September Trinity 2016, The Food that Fills (Redux)

8th August Trinity

Luke 17: 5-10

And the apostles said to the Lord, “Strengthen our faith!”

And the Lord said, “If you had faith as full of life as a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine [mulberry] tree: be uprooted and be planted in the sea!  And it would obey you.

Van Gogh

Who among you who has a servant for plowing or for herding sheep, who will say to him when he comes home from the field, “Come at once and sit down at table?” Rather you will say, “Prepare the meal for me, put on your apron and wait on me until I eat and drink; afterward you can eat and drink too.” Does the servant deserve special thanks for doing his duty? Think of yourselves like that; when you have done all that you have been told to do, then say: “we are feeble servants, we have only done what we were obliged to do.”

8th August Trinity

Sep 11, 2016

Luke 17: 5-10

There is a children’s story about a lazy young woman, freshly married. Instead of sleeping in, she needed to step up and take hold of the running of a large household farming enterprise.  Other household workers were waiting for her orders. She had to learn to direct the household servants so that the whole enterprise, including the servants, would thrive and be fed.

Perhaps today’s reading is awkward for us. We don’t have servants. And we want to be kind. But perhaps we can look at the servant/master relationship as parts of ourselves that need to come into a healthy hierarchical relationship.

There are parts of our souls that are meant to serve us. Our desire life serves best when it serves the inner master, when it is harnessed for work and caring for others. The soul’s inner master is the I, that part of us which focuses and makes decisions about the work and the caring. Desires in and of themselves can’t be allowed to take precedence, like the lazy wife who desired to stay in bed.

Christ’s use of this metaphor, of course, goes further. It points to our own relationship as servants to the Master of the Universe, to the Lord of Karma. Our task is to offer him food first – then we will be fed. 

The Act of Consecration is the pattern for this. We offer him our noblest and purest thoughts and feelings, our loving devotion. He then has something to transform, to offer us in return as nourishment and strengthening. We bring these offerings because we need to offer him something positive in compensation for our natural errors, weaknesses, and failures. We are feeble servants, only doing what we are obliged to do. But we can have faith and trust that when we do our poor part, when we do our inner and outer work, when we serve Him first, we will, in turn, be nourished and strengthened. 

Albert Steffen wrote*:

Nicole Helbig

I walk through the tilled red land:

The seed sleeps.

I walk through green crops:

The stem shoots up.

I walk through golden fields:

The grain ripens.

I find the miller

And the miller says:

The earth is the face

Of the Son of Man,

And ‘he who eats my bread,

Sets his foot upon me’**

I kneel down

And he offers me the food

That fills, permeates, me

On my earthly journey.

*quoted in Rudolf Steiner's Gesamt Ausgabe (Collected Works) Vol. 36, p. 200 (in German)

** 'He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me,' Jn 13:18, Psalm 41:9

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2nd February Trinity 2017, My Grief or My Gladness

2nd February Trinity

Luke 8:4-18

And as a great crowd had gathered, and ever more people streamed to him out of the cities, he spoke in a parable:

Van Gogh

A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path. It was trodden upon, and the birds of the sky (air) ate it up. Other seed fell upon the rocks, and as it sprouted, it (the sprouting green) withered, because it had no moisture. Still other seed fell under the thorns; the thorns grew with it and choked what came up. And some fell upon good soil, grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold. When he had said these things, he called out: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

His disciples asked him what this parable might mean. And he said: To you, it has been given the gift of being able to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to the others, it is given in pictures and parables, for they see and do not yet see, and hear, although they do not yet understand with their thinking. The meaning of the parable is this:

The seed is the Word of God. That which fell upon the path are those who hear it; afterward the tempter comes and tears the Word out of their hearts so that they cannot find healing through the trusting power of faith working in them.

Those on the rock are those who, when they hear the Word, take it up with joy; but they remain without root. For a while, the power of their faith works in them, but in times of trial, they fall away.

Harvest of Earth, Mattias Gerung, Ottheimer Folio detail

What fell under the thorns are those who hear the Word from the spirit, and as they go on their way, the sorrows and the riches and the joys of life choke it, and they bring no fruit to maturity.

And the seed which fell in the good soil are those who hear the Word, and take it up into their hearts, feel its beauty, become noble and worthy and patiently keep it alive, tending it there until it brings forth fruit.

No one lights a light and hides it under a vessel or under a bench; instead, he places it on a lamp stand so that all who come in see the light. For nothing is hidden which shall not be revealed, and nothing is secret which shall not be known and proclaimed.

So attend to how you listen. For he who has enlivened in himself the power to bear the spirit, to him more will be given. He however who does not have this power, from him will be taken that which he thinks he has.

2nd February Trinity

February 12, 2017

Luke 8:14-18

Christ uses today's parable of living things, seeds, to describe Himself. He is the seed of the living, Creative Word of God. He is sown into our hearts. But whether He grows there depends on the inner conditions into which He falls.

Tissot

One could say something similar about what happens to our own words. How they are received, whether they live and grow in another's heart, depends largely on the conditions into which they fall. Say what we will, unless the conditions are right, nothing will grow.

There is a further element to consider: God's Word is His living, Creative Word of Love. This is what He has sown and wants to grow in our hearts.  But we humans have the option to strew all kinds of words. We can broadcast words of kindness, mercy, comfort. Or we can fling words of hate, cruelty, meanness. We can scatter words that create or words that destroy.

Depending on where these words land, they will sprout. Kind words will grow kindness; mean words will grow hatred. And we will inevitably harvest what we have sown.

Rudolf Steiner said, "We easily allow ourselves through a wrong judgment to be

Hortus Deliciarum, Das Gleichnis vom Sämann Wiki Commons

carried away into hurling an insult, for example, without thinking of the consequences of our action. We hit a person and we are unaware that we have raised our hand against ourselves because this blow will come back to hit us at the given time."*

So even an enlightened self-interest would caution us to be careful of what we speak. For we will inevitably reap what we sow. In the words of e.e. cummings:

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are prayers of earth's own . . .  children

whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness **

*Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 125 – Wege und Ziele des geistigen Menschen – Kopenhagen, 4 June 1910 (page 56-57). This English translation has been copied from the book: GA 125 – Paths and Goals of the Spiritual Human Being – Life questions in the light of spiritual science – Chapter 4 – Copenhagen, 4 June 1910  **e.e.cummings ~, Complete Poems 1904-1962

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2nd Michaelmas, Three Christ-Powers

Archangel Michael, Schongauer

2nd 3rd or 4th Michaelmas

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 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, 3rd or 4th Michaelmas

Memling

October 11, 2016

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

"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."

What is the power that streams to us in the experience of Christ in the soul? His power is three-fold:

It is the power to think the truth; to think thoughts that are true, that are in consonance not only with earthly reality but also with higher spiritual realities. The power of Christ in the soul heals us from the cognitive distortions of unhealthy, untrue thoughts.

Christ's power in the soul is also the power to feel a connection not only with what is beautiful and noble, but also to make peace with earthly reality, with what is. We are to absorb Christ's attitude: I stand at peace with the world, he says. And he gives us this peace so that we can spread peace out into the world. His Peace is to invade our whole being, down to our feet, so that the way we walk in the world spreads peace on the path.

And Christ's third power allows us to act with uprightness and in right relationship to the earth and all its inhabitants. We can do so, not by putting our faith in a static, absolute good, but by trusting in the ultimate victory of an ever-evolving goodness.

A well-known verse by Rudolf Steiner shows us this power of Christ that we can actively take in hand:

To wonder at beauty,

Memling

Stand guard over truth,

Look up to the noble,

Resolve on the good.

This leadeth us truly

To purpose in living,

To right in our doing,

To peace in our feeling,

To light in our thinking.

And teaches us trust,

In the working of God,

In all that there is,

In the width of the world,

In the depth of the soul.*

*Rudolf Steiner, in Wahrspruchsworte, GA 40, page 324.

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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

4th Epiphany 2015, Not My Will

Bloch

4^th Epiphany
John 5: 1-18

Some time later, there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep’s Gate, a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which is surrounded by 5 covered porches. Here lay a great many invalids, the blind, the lame [crippled], the weak [withered], waiting for the water to begin moving. For from time to time a powerful angel of the Lord descended into the pool and stirred up the waters. The first one in the pool after such a disturbance would be cured of whatever ailment he had.

And there was a certain man there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and became aware that he had been ill for so long, he asked him,

“Do you want [have the will] to become whole?”

The invalid answered him, “Lord [Sir], I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Rise up, take up your pallet, and walk.”  At once the man was healed and picked up his pallet and walked.

               

However it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jewish leaders said to the man who was healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your pallet.”

But he replied, “The man who healed me said to me, “take up your pallet and walk!”

And they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you ‘take it up and walk’?”

But the one who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, as there was a crowd in the place.

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, “Take to heart what I say: Behold, you have become whole. Sin no more, lest your destiny bring you something worse.”

The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. That is why they persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

Then he himself countered them with the words, “Until now my Father has worked, and from now on I also work.”

Then they sought all the more to kill him, because not only had he broken the Sabbath, but also because he had called God his own Father and had set himself equal to God.

4^th Epiphany

Feb 1, 2015

John 5: 1-18

The man at the pool in Bethesda wants to be healed. But in  this circumstance, only one person at a time can be healed. And so an atmosphere of competition pervades. With each stirring of the water, egotism arises; each person rushes to be the first to claim the limited resources, so there is nothing left for the others.

Christ first asks the man if he really wants to get well. And then He gives him a direct infusion of His own strength through the power of His creating Word. Rise, He says. Take up your pallet – your true destiny – and walk forward on your path.

Yet the story has a complicated ending. It was the Sabbath. Carrying a pallet was forbidden. And when the man told the leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him and told him to do so, it further aroused their enmity toward Christ. As Jesus knew it would. As we say, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’.

Christ is the true self of humankind. He is also the Lord of Karma. If it is time for healing, it doesn’t matter what the rules are – He works. Knowing that those ‘in charge’ will oppose Him. Knowing that speaking the truth of calling God his Father will in fact cause him to be executed.

He fears not, because He lives and acts according to the Father’s will. As He says in the prayer that He gave us, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in the heavens”. Mt 6:10  As he will say in the face of his own death,” not my will but thine be done”. Luke 22:42  As we can say at any time, “May we so perform your will as you, Father, have laid it down in our inmost being.” (Esoteric Lord’s Prayer, Rudolf Steiner)

1st February Trinity 2010, Bread of Life

1st February Trinity

Matthew 20: 1-16

The kingdom of the heavens is like a man, the master of his house, who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Agreeing to pay them one denarius a day, he sent them out into his vineyard.

At about 9 o’clock he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace, and he said to them, “Go also into my vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.” So they went.

He went out again at about noon and at 3 o’clock and did the same. At 5 o’clock he went out and found others standing there, and he said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?” They said, “Because no one has hired us.” He said, “You, too, go into the vineyard.”

And when evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”

Those who had been hired at 5 o’clock came forward, and each received one denarius. Therefore, when it was the turn of those who were hired first, they expected to receive more. However, they too also received one denarius each. They took it, but they began to grumble against the master of the house. “These men who were hired last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”

However, he answered one of them, saying, “Friend, I am not being unjust to you. Did you not agree with me for one denarius? Take what you have earned and go. I wish to give to the man hired last the same as I give to you. Have I not the right to do as I wish with what is mine? Or do you give me an evil look because I am generous? Thus will the last be first and the first will one day be last. “

 1^st February Trinity

February 7, 2010

Matthew 20: 1 – 16

A kingdom is a realm or a sphere. It implies a boundary or border. In today’s reading Christ uses the term ‘the kingdom of the heavens’. The way that He uses it, we cannot think of this kingdom of the heavens as a place in the afterlife, a place we can only enter after death. His kingdom of the heavens is a place here on the earth. It is a sort of parallel universe that happens alongside or within our earthly lives. Its boundaries are drawn by our awareness of it, our attention. It exists wherever the spiritual and the earthly are united in the now of the human heart.

This earthly-heavenly kingdom is a place where we are called to work, to engage our wills, in community with others. God calls each of us, wants to ‘hire’ anyone who is willing to work ‘heartily’ now, in and for this heavenly-earthly realm. God’s kingdom is created by His wish, His desire, that the spiritual and the earthly intersect. His reward, the day’s wage, is the same for all—we receive what we need to sustain us for the day’s work.

In the middle of each Act of Consecration of Man we pray, along with Christ, the words He taught us. They are the keys to the doorway to the Kingdom: May what the Father wants for the earth happen through our deeds. We can trust that we will be given daily nourishment that will sustain us for His work. With Christ, we pray to the Father:

May your kingdom extend itself

in our deeds and moral conduct.

May we so perform your will

as you, Father, have laid it down

in our inmost being.

Spiritual nourishment,

the bread of life,

you give us superabundantly

in all the changing conditions

of our lives.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] From a contemplation of The Lord’s Prayer, by Rudolf Steiner, transl. by C. Hindes.