2nd Passiontide 2022, Skill They Can Learn

 2^nd Passiontide

John 6:1-15 

After this, Jesus crossed to the far shore

Woloschina

of the Sea of Galilee near Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they had seen the signs of the Spirit he had performed on those who were ill. 

Then Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

When Jesus raised his eyes to the world of the Spirit and beheld how crowds of people were coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread that all these people may eat?" He asked this to test his understanding and presence of mind, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 

Philip answered him, "200 denarii [or, seven months wages] would not buy enough bread for them each to have only a little." 

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "A boy is here with five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are these among so many?" 

Jesus said, "Let the people sit down in groups." There was plenty of green grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave to those seated, likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. 

Now when they were satisfied, he said to his disciples, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." So, they gathered them, and they filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 

Seeing the sign that he had done, the people said, "Truly, this is the prophet who is to come into the world." When Jesus became aware that they intended to come and make him king by force, he withdrew again to the mountain alone by himself.

2^nd Passiontide

March 27, 2022

John 6:26-35 

There are different kinds of thorns. One kind is a permanent woody part of the plant itself, such as the spurs on a citrus tree or hawthorne. Another is a removable part of the plant's skin—such as the prickle on a rose. It does not belong to the plant's deepest layers. Nevertheless, these prickles, like the stinger of a bee, can embed themselves and infect. 

In the Passiontide prayers from the altar, we ask God not to focus on 'the sting of evil' in our hearts. The deepest core of our hearts, made by God, is good. But our hearts have been stung by the thorn of the adversary and are infected with evil. We are acutely aware of our common illness, which inflames us and causes us to wound others. At times, we may feel our inner selves to be lying on the ground, sick unto death. Our hearts need to be healed of their infections. The goodness of our core needs to be strengthened and nourished. 

Christ, the divine Physician, came to nourish and strengthen our heart's core. He gives us the twelvefold bread from the stars, from his Father in the heavens, to nourish, strengthen and heal us. 

We stand in awe before the gift He offers us, the bread of Himself. We may be inclined to rush in, almost greedy for healing. We may want the whole loaf. But He says in the words of Rumi: 

Nibble at me.

Don't gulp me down.

How often is it you have a guest in your house

who can fix everything?*

 

To us, Catherine of Sienna adds:

A thorn has entered your foot. That is why you

weep at times at

night. 

There are some in this world

who can pull it

out. 

The skill that takes they have

learned from

Him. ** 

We take in the bread and wine to become strong, to be healed, so that the good in the depths of our hearts may endure. At the same time, we take it in not only for ourselves. We take it in so that we, in turn, can help in the healing of others.

 

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

* Rumi, "Nibble at Me," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p.64

** Catherine of Sienna, "That Skill," in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 190.

4th Trinity I, Another and Another

Feb. Trinity I

(7^th Sunday before Easter, Sunday before Ash Wednesday)

Luke 18:18-27, 31-34 

Hoffman

One of the highest spiritual leaders of the people asked him, "Good Master, what must I do to obtain eternal life?" 

Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but One—God alone. You know the commandments—you shall not destroy marriage, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not speak untruth, and you shall honor your father and your mother!" 

He said, "All these I have observed strictly from my youth." 

When Jesus heard this, he said, "One thing however you lack: Sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor; thus will you achieve a treasure in the spiritual world—then come and follow me! 

He was sad about these words, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw him thus, he said, "What hindrances must those overcome who are rich in outer or inner possessions, if they want to enter into the kingdom of God. Sooner would a camel walk through the eye of a needle than a rich man be able to find the entrance to the kingdom of God!" 

Those who heard this said, "Who then can be saved?" 

He said, "For humans alone, it is impossible. It will be possible, however, through the power of God working in them."… 

Then he took the twelve to himself and said, "Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything which the prophets have written about the Son of Man will fulfill itself: He will be given over to the peoples of the world; they will mock and taunt him, they will spit upon him and scourge him and kill him, but on the third day he will rise up from the dead." 

Yet his disciples understood nothing of all this. The meaning of his words remained hidden from them, and they did not recognize what he was trying to tell them.

4th February Trinity

February 27, 2022

Luke 18:18-34 

The blossom is the glory of the plant. Rich color, fragrance, and beauty open themselves to the sun. But what happens next?
The petals wither and drop away. Tiny hard green fruits appear, containing even tinier seeds. Yet within that seed is condensed the entire power of the life of the whole plant. 

This is also a basic pattern, a basic rhythm of development in our own human lives: a rich period of glorious development, followed by an apparent loss. Yet for us too, such a loss of glory is a necessary prelude. For Life is consolidating and condensing itself, gathering force and strength. Life is preparing a new phase, a next form; for the law of living things is a continuous changing out of forms. Old forms break apart so that new ones can arise. The death of one form is only a temporary state, for Life itself predominates. 

In this reading, Christ recognizes that the rich young man is ready to lose the richness of his blossoming in order to take the next step on the transforming path of Life. And Christ encourages him by saying, ‘After you have voluntarily given away the old form, come and follow Me!’ 

For Christ Himself walks before us on this path of the transformation, this transubstantiation of forms. This is the path of letting go the old and taking up the new, of dying and becoming. Christ knows that this is the law of living things because He Himself is Life itself—the power of Life in all creatures. He too has voluntarily immersed Himself in the changing of forms, which is so often accompanied by birthing pangs. He willingly subjects Himself to the human condition, to the suffering that accompanies the breaking of the form, even unto the death of the bodily form, so that a new form can arise. For with Him a new form will indeed arise. On Holy Thursday he will pour His soul into a new form of His body—bread and wine. On Easter Sunday He will form a living resurrection body. And at Ascension, the whole earth will become His body. 

We can willingly and trustingly follow Him on this path of the shattering of old vessels and the creating of the new. Because He is the Way, and the Truth of Life. (John 14:6)

So now, as the poet says, 

            Why cling to one life

            Till it is soiled and ragged? 

            The sun dies and dies

            Squandering a hundred lives

            Every instant. 

            God has decreed life for you

            And He will give

            another and another and another.*

---

* Rumi, in Fragments, Ecstasies.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

1st Trinity III 2021, The Power That Made the Universe

 

1st Trinity III

Mark 8:27 - Mark 9:1 

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. 

Then Peter took him aside and began to

Get Thee Behind Me, Tissot

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 their cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of their own soul will lose it, but whoever gives their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, their soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that they damage their soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can they give as ransom for their soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of them 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." 

1^st August Trinity

July 25, 2021

Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1

Changing our angle of vision brings us very different information. Looking at something from below shows us
a different aspect than from above; the right side may be different from the left, as the inner is from the outer.

Christ asks two questions of those following him. One is “Who do others say that I am?” And the answers are multiple: John, Elijah, a prophet. Then he asks, “Who do you say that I am?” It is a question that directs their attention within, to their hearts. And Peter expresses the recognition that in Jesus there lives the promised Messiah, Christ, the Son of God.

For all of us, what matters about Christ is not what others say about him, for there are as many opinions as there are people. What matters is our soul’s own inner recognition of who Christ Jesus is. For he wants to live in and light up each human soul. He wants to live in our thinking as the light of reverent wonder. He wants to live in our hearts as the light of compassion and empathy. He wants to live in our will as enlightened deeds that repair the past and prepare the future. 

We can perhaps hear His voice in the poem by Rumi: 

If you put your hands

Rosenkrantz

on this oar with me,

they will never harm another, and they will come to find

they hold everything you want.

 

If you put your soul against this oar with me,

the power that made the universe will enter your sinew

from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm

that lives in us.*

 

 

* Rumi, “THAT LIVES IN US,” in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky

 

 

 

2nd Trinity II 2021, Soul and Spirit

 

2nd June Trinity II

John 4:1-26 

At this time, the Lord became aware that it was rumored among the Pharisees that Jesus was finding and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, though his disciples did.) Therefore he left Judea and went back again to Galilee. 

Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was also there. Jesus was weary with the journey, and he sat down by the well. It was about midday, the sixth hour. 

Then a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, "Give me to drink," for his disciples had gone into town to buy bread. 

Then the Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?" For the Jews avoided all contact with the Samaritans. 

Tissot

Jesus answered her, "If you knew how the
divine world now draws near to human beings, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me to drink,' you would ask him, and he would give you the water of life [or, the living water]. 

"Sir," the woman said to him, "you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where will you draw the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his flocks and herds?" 

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give them, their thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity." 

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty again, and need never come here again to draw." 

He said to her, "Go call your husband and show him to me." 

"I have no husband," she replied. 

Jesus said to her, "You have well said that you have no husband. Five husbands you have had, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly."

"Sir," the woman said, "I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that only in Jerusalem is the place where one should worship." 

Jesus answered, "Believe me, O woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship a being you do not know; we worship what we do know. That is why salvation had to be prepared for among the Jews. But the hour is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father with the power of the Spirit and in awareness [or, knowledge] of the truth." 

Then the woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will teach us all things." 

Jesus said to her, "I AM he who stands before you and speaks to you."

2^nd June Trinity

June 6, 2021

John 4:1-26 

Sometimes a person is too ill to take anything by mouth, and it becomes necessary to give fluids directly into the bloodstream. As a result, the person feels no thirst, for thirst is quenched by another source. 

In this gospel reading, Christ meets a woman drawing water from an ancient well. It was a well established by Jacob the Patriarch and over the centuries had quenched many a thirst. But over those same centuries, humankind had become more and more ill. This illness produced a deep existential thirst that needed to be quenched in another way. 

Julia Stankova

The hope was that this thirst for meaning, a thirst for guidance and purpose, could be quenched by the five senses, represented by the woman’s five husbands. She is the Soul, looking everywhere for her missing half, for her completion by the Spirit. She looks for meaning through taste and touch, through sight and sound and scent. She looks to the past and the ancient ways; she looks for purpose in high worship on the mountain. But no longer does any of this suffice. This experience is captured by Rumi: 

I have a thirsty fish in me

that can never find enough

of what it’s thirsty for!

Show me the way to the ocean!* 

Humanity’s Soul is ill. She needs the World Physician who will quench our deep thirst another way. “Whoever drinks the water that I will give her, her thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I will give her will become in her a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity.”  John 4:14 

Through our union with Christ, our deep existential thirst will be quenched, for we will be connected to the Source; we will find our way to the great ocean, drinking in, filling ourselves with His life-giving love. 

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

*Rumi, “A Thirsty Fish”, in The Essential Rumi, by Coleman Barks, p, 19.

Whitsun (Pentecost) 2021, Don' Mind the Fire

 

Pentecost

John 14:23-31 

Jesus replied, "Whoever truly loves me reveals

Mark Wiggin

my Spirit, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and prepare with them a dwelling in the everlasting [or, an eternal dwelling]. Whoever does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me. 

"I have said this to you while I am still with you. But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all that I have said to you. 

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. 

"You have heard how I said to you, 'I am going away, and yet I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice because I am going to the Father(ly Ground of the World), for the Father is mightier than I am. 

I have told you now before it happens so that when it happens, you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon, the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me, he has no power. 

But the world shall see in this how I love the Father (Ground of the World) and how I act according to the Father's purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise,  let us be on our way. 

Whitsunday

May 23, 2021

John 14:23-31

 

Fra Angelico

At the first Pentecost event, the disciples see a mighty fire that divides itself into separate flames. Each flame comes to rest over the head of each of them. 

In paintings by Fra Angelico, the flame also appears above the heads of angels. It is the symbol of an expanded awareness. The flames are the fire of love, a love which creates. These flames are an awareness that a river of love, the water of life, flows through all of creation, pervading the entire universe. 

A sudden awareness of the love that creates and bears the universe can at the same time make us aware of our own shortcomings in the realm of love. How loveless we can sometimes be! This painful self-awareness becomes the fire that burns, that burns away the dross of our selfish egotism. Once overcome, however, we can then proceed to generate the fire and warmth of a quiet but enthusiastic love for others, especially for those whose path is different from ours. We can generate an enthusiastic love for the truth. We can generate enthusiasm for deeds of service. 

The poet Rumi helps us become aware of our fear of this transformation of the lower self. He says: 

On the left is a blazing fire and

On my right a cool flowing stream

One group of people walk toward the fire, into the fire

And the other toward the cool flowing waters

No one knows which is blessed and which is not.

Robby Donahey

But just as someone enters the fire,

That head bobs up from the water

And just as a head enters the water

That face appears in the fire….

The voice of the fire says:

I am not fire, I am fountainhead

Come into me, and don’t mind the sparks. 

Our true self is a fire that burns; it burns away egotism; it burns unextinguished in the waters of life-giving love.

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

 

1st Nov Trinity 2020, Don't Mind the Sparks

 

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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 are they who know 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 eon to eon. Amen.

See: He comes in the realm of the clouds.

All eyes shall see Him, also the eyes of those who pierced Him. And those 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 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 Laodicea.

And I turned to see Him whose voice was speaking to me. And as I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and amid 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 shin

ing 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 eons. Mine is the key to the realm of death and 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.”

1^st November Trinity

November 1, 2020

Revelation 1:1-20

Experienced bird-lovers can identify a bird on sight by its size and coloring. But even when they cannot see a bird, they can identify it by its song.

In the magnificence of this reading,
we both see and hear. The Risen Son of Man presents Himself, it is true, in a human form, but as a kind of human ‘bird’ with different plumage: snow white hair, eyes of flame, face of sunlight, glowing feet. He holds seven stars and a sword issues from His mouth.

The vision may be strange to us.

But His song is distinctly recognizable. His voice of Living Waters sings: I was dead, and look, I am living. I bear the life of the world…. Mine is the key that releases from the realm of death. And you are connected to me. For I hold the star of the angel of your congregation in my hand.

Christ, the great Phoenix, once destroyed, rises ever anew from the ashes. He is the new fire. And He is the living water. Perhaps we can hear Him say, in words adapted from the poet Rumi:

The Truth stands before me…

The voice of the fire says:

“I am fire, I am fountainhead,

Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”*

 

*adapted from Rumi

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3rd Passiontide 2020, Time of Suffering

Rembrandt

3rd 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 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.

Breugel

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 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; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life.”

3^rd Passiontide
March 29, 2020
John 8: 1-12

If someone adds something to food or drink to thin it out or to poison it, we say that it has been adulterated. It has been watered down or made harmful.

Over millennia, humanity's soul has been adulterated. The forces of humankind's adversary have inserted the thorn of evil, the sting into our hearts. It is a wound.

Bradi Barth

Because of this wounding, we have become weak. We are both 'watered down,' not fully potent, and at the same time capable of harm.

Christ came to the earth to experience what it is like being a human being in a body of flesh. He knows in depth the underlying human condition of weakness. And its capacity for evil. Yet in His empathy and compassion, He does not judge us. Instead, He seeks to give us strength, to heal us, to raise us.

Given the current world situation, we may now feel contracted in grief. Now is our time of suffering. Yet, like the woman in the gospel reading, we must realize that collectively we have brought this on ourselves. We all have succumbed at some point to self-centered desires and lack of compassion. However innocently, we have all contributed to evil.

And yet, as always, Christ stands in our midst, offering strength and healing to our souls and spirits. He gives us the opportunity to move beyond the self-centered desires, the restless pleasure-seeking, the judgmental anger, and self-pity. We have been adulterated. He offers us the strength to change our ways, become our better selves. Keep going, He says. Separate yourselves no longer from a right relationship to Me, to others, to the world.

In the words of the poet, we may say to Him:

My heart is so small

Fra Angelico

it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?

Yet He answers:

"Look, … your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world."*

Eventually, with Him, we will rise and expand.
 
* Rumi, in Whispers of the Beloved, by Maryam & Azima Melita Kolin

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4th February Trinity 2020, See with the Other Eye

February Trinity

6^th Sunday before Easter 

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience the tempting power of the adversary.

Tissot

After fasting forty days and nights, He felt for the first time hunger for earthly nourishment. Then the tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, let these stones become bread through the power of your word.”

Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘The human being shall not live on bread alone; he lives by the creative power of every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Tissot

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the parapet of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Tissot

Again a third time, the devil took him to a very elevated place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give to you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me as your Lord. “

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship [pray to] God your Lord who guides you and serve him only.’”

Then the adversary left him, and he beheld the angels again as they came to bring him nourishment. 

4^th February Trinity

March 1, 2020

Matthew 4:1-11

When a first-time driver sits behind the wheel, they must first gain control over the power of the vehicle—how far to turn the wheel to end up where they want; how hard to press on the gas or the brake. The first lessons are usually out in an empty space.

Blake

This gospel reading takes place right after Jesus’ Baptism when Christ’s Spirit entered him. Christ had entered the strange territory of a human soul and body. He is in the desert. Imagine what a great coup it would have been for the devil to abort Christ’s mission at its very inception. So we can imagine the devil hauling out his greatest weapons.

The first of the devil’s weapons is the desperation of the body’s need. In suggesting that Christ turn stones into bread, the devil might also be whispering that, of course, it would be foolish for Christ to let Himself die of starvation here in the desert. Yet Christ resists the devil’s suggestion to literally take the matter into his own hands. Christ relies on the Father’s living presence to sustain Him—and indeed, angels come to nourish Him.

Blake

The second and the third of the devil’s temptations involve the soul’s pride in two extremes. First, the devil tries to draw Him into foolishly assuming God’s total protection of His body and soul, no matter how extreme the behavior, even if he were to jump off a high place. Failing that, the devil takes Him to the other extreme, encouraging Him to drop his allegiance to the Father altogether and to derive His power from the Prince of this World.

Blake

Yet new as He is to living in a human body, Christ is no fool. He sees through the errors and consequences in the Enemy’s propositions. He knows that His connection with His Father must remain both appropriate and unbroken for Him to do what he has come to earth to do.

Because Christ was able to overcome temptation from within the human body, He is able to give every human being the possibility to do likewise - to see through and resist the devil’s false suggestions, to do what we have come to earth to do. Each human being has the possibility of maintaining a connection to the world from which we all have come. We can become aware of our real connection with our Father in the heavens, whose kingdom comes when His will is done on earth. We can perhaps hear God speaking in the words of the poet:

Close both eyes and see with the other eye.

Open your hands if you want to be held….

Quit acting like a wolf and feel

the Shepherd’s love, filling you.*

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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* Rumi, “A Communion of the Spirit” in The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks, p. 3.

1st St. Johnstide 2018, Tailor Your Robe

Mark 1, 1-13

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Tamara Rigishvili

Behold, I send my angel before your face.
He is to prepare your way.
Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul
Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,
Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgment of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed: ‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
And at the same time, as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit: ‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

1^st St. Johnstide
June 24, 2018
Mark 1: 1-11
 
“Behold, I send my angel before your face. He is to prepare your way. Hear the voice of one crying in the loneliness of the human soul.” Mark 1:1, 2

These words, of course, refer to John the Baptizer, and his role in preparing the way for Christ Jesus. At the same time, we can certainly resonate with the mood of these words; for many of us, this desert loneliness of the human soul is how modern life feels. We all feel like John.

At the same time, we each also

Klocek

have an angel that walks before us. This angel helps us make straight our own soul paths so that Christ can find entrance into the depths of our hearts.

We are hovering at the solstice. The year is turning. As the outer light diminishes, it will turn into warmth. Now is the time to begin again; to turn around, to change our hearts and minds. It is time to begin to turn inward, to warm our hearts. As the poet says:

This is now.  Now is,
all there is.  Don't wait for Then;
strike the spark, light the fire.
….
The green earth
is your cloth;
tailor your robe
with dignity and grace.*

*Rumi, “Begin”, (adapted by Jose Orez from a version by Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi).  

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