2nd Epiphany 2019, Good Fruit

2^nd Epiphany

Luke 2, 41-52 (adapted from Jon Madsen)

Pinturrichio

Every year his [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they took him with them. Now after they had gone there and fulfilled the custom during the days of the feast, they set off on their way home. But the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know this; they thought he was among the company of the travelers. After a day’s journey, they missed him among their friends and relations. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And those who heard him were amazed at his mature understanding and his answers.

And when they saw him, they were taken aback, and his mother said to him, “My child, why have you done this to us? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.”

And he said to them, “Why did you look

Tissot

for me? Did you not know that I must be and live in that which is my Father’s?”

But they did not understand the meaning of the words he spoke to them. And he went down with them again to Nazareth and followed them willingly in all things.

And his mother carefully kept all these things living in her heart. And Jesus progressed in wisdom, in maturity and grace [favor] in the sight of God and man. 

2^nd Epiphany Sunday

January 13, 2019

Luke 2: 41 – 52

It is such an everyday occurrence that it fails perhaps to amaze: after sending out green leaf after green leaf, suddenly

something new appears—a complete change of form and color into blossom; and further on, a change into fruit. Nothing in the leaf predicts these changes.

Human lives too often undergo astounding transformations. The child who year after year just grows bigger suddenly transforms into a stranger. Or years of doing the same thing as an adult result in a change of career. Or a chance encounter turns the direction of a life.

This archetypal pattern was taken up by the young Jesus and guided into three channels.

As an infant, he had received from the three Magi three inner gifts: the radiant gold of wisdom; religious devotion in fragrant frankincense, and the healing capacity in self-sacrifice in bitter-sweet myrrh.

Through the youth’s own inner efforts, these gifts progress into the all-embracing world knowledge of his people. His reverence develops into devotion to both his Heavenly Father and his earthly parents. And despite the glorious revelation of his nature in the Temple, his capacity for mature and wise self-sacrifice returns him to his humble home in quiet beauty and grace.

He achieves wisdom, maturity, and grace through his active struggle to balance the inner demands of a changing soul with the requirements of earthly life. 

There are times in our lives when we humbly and patiently send out our green leaves, building a sustaining inner and outer structure. Then comes the moment of blossoming revelation, when our work shows its true purpose, embedded in a greater whole. We continue, then, to develop fruitfulness, not so much for ourselves, as for nourishing and sustaining others, for life itself.

Wisdom, maturity, and grace are the fruits of the soul’s work, the signs of an individual in alignment with both self and the world. One day this young man, by dint of his own work on himself to produce wisdom, maturity, and grace would be qualified to say, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit… You shall recognize them by their fruits.” Matthew 7:18-20

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1st August Trinity 2017, Christ-Folk

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

1st August Trinity

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there, he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say, Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Then Peter took him aside and began to urge him not to let this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and reprimanded Peter, saying to him, “Withdraw from me; now the adversary is speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature.”

And he called the crowd together, including his disciples and said to them, “Whoever would follow me must practice self-denial and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of his own soul will lose it; but whoever gives his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, his soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that he damages his soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can a man give as ransom for his soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining revelation of the Father among his holy angels."

And he said to them, “The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here there are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit.”

Edwin Austin Abbey 

1st August Trinity

July 23, 2017

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

There are times in life when we receive a momentous revelation. It can be bad news or good, but in that moment, the orientation of our life is forever changed.

Jesus asks the disciples, 'Who do you say that I am?' Peter receives a momentous revelation. In a flash, he recognizes that in Jesus there dwells the Christ, the Anointed and longed-for Messiah. In Matthew's Gospel he answers, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!' And with this revelation. the orientation of his life, and of the life of all of humanity, is forever changed.

Rosenkrantz

For humanity, with this revelation, a new foundation for a new kind of temple community begins to be built. The old temple was built on the awareness of the distance between the chosen people and other people. It was built on an awareness of the distance between a fallen humanity and the divine. Offerings were made to bridge the ever-increasing gap, in the hope that God would send a remedy.

The new community is founded on an inner, individual awareness that Christ Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He is the one who gives life and healing to human souls ill with the burden of their karma. This awareness is the foundation of the new community, the Christ-Folk. It recognizes that all must indeed make compensation for their sins. But the Christ community is built on generosity of spirit and on love; and it also recognizes that we can help each other deal with what we each have brought on ourselves. The community can take on the burden of another's karma. For it has received the revelation of the power and magnificence of the conscious spirit of love. 

2nd June Trinity 2017, Truth Is Here

June Trinity

John 4, 1-26

Tissot

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.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew how the divine world now draws near to men, 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 [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 him, his thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him 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.”

Rosenkrantz

“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 [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 18, 2017

John 4, 1-26

Canmore

Human beings have always visited sacred places in order to honor the divine. At first, they were simple stone memorials at a place where a great spiritual event or visitation had occurred. Then gradually temples were built as gathering places for honoring the divine with story, song and ritual.

Christ meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's 2,000-year-old well. She asks him about places of worship. Should humankind worship on a mountain top, or in a temple? Christ answers that the sacred space will be within the human heart and mind. "the hour will come, and it has come, when the true worshippers of God will worship the Father," He says, "with the power of the Spirit and in knowing awareness of the truth." John 4: 23

Cologne Cathedral

We can imagine that a kind of soul altar exists within each human heart. And when a group of human beings come together to enact a ritual of offering, the walls of each heart expand. They fill the room, so that hearts work among hearts, within hearts. Together they form a greater heart, the common heart of the community. Hearts offer themselves in a common spirit, out of a communal truth. As e.e. cummings said,

seeker of truth

follow no path

all paths lead where

truth is here*

* e. e. cummings, in Complete Poems 1904-1962 p. 775.

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