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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3rd November Trinity 2014, New Flowers

3^rd November Trinity

Throne of God

November 16, 2014

Revelations 7: 9-17

Next I looked and saw a great crowd beyond anyone’s power to count, from every nation and all races and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb draped in garments of white and with palm branches in their hands, and they shout with a great voice saying, “Healing and help [salvation] to our God who sits on the throne and through the Lamb.”

And all the angels were standing in a ring around the throne and the elders and the four living beings, and they fell down in front of the throne upon their faces and adored God saying,

Yea, so be it. Amen. [To our God be blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength for an age of ages. Amen.”]

All the blessing power of the Word, that creating permeates the world, all the revealing might of the spirit, that enlightens the senses appearance, all the light of wisdom that leads us to true knowledge, the secret of transformation which gives worth to all being, that brings the world forward, and all the strength and power of the spirit –they belong to our God from aeon to aeon. Yea, so be it, Amen.

And one of the elders spoke up, asking me: “These people draped in garments of white, who are they and where did they come from?”

And I said to him, “Good sir, you yourself know.”

And he said to me:

These are the ones just come from the great Suffering. They washed their garments clean, and made them shining white in the blood of the Lamb.

That is why they can stand here before the throne of God

And serve him day and night in his temple.

The One who sits on the throne shall settle down upon them [dwell upon them].

They shall not hunger ever again, nor thirst again;

The sun shall not bear down too hard upon them, nor anything burn them,

Because the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd

And guide them to the springs of the water of life,

And God will wipe away each teardrop from their eyes.

3^rd November Trinity

November 16, 2014

Revelations 7: 9-17

In life we experience the events and conditions of the world; we receive the actions, the words and thoughts of others. And we suffer because we are open to being acted upon.

One pre-Christian response to this fact of our existence was to remove oneself from suffering by cultivating non-attachment. This is perhaps not a bad start, for we frequently suffer because we are over-attached to outcomes; we may be egotistically trying to spare ourselves. Yet Christ, the God made human, taught us that suffering can have redemptive power, especially when undergone willingly and for the sake of others. Suffering can be a real eye-opener.

Hardship and adversity can have a purifying effect on our egotism. It can cleanse us of our prideful sense that we can control our own universe. Adversity endured can teach us that there are gracious gifts to be found in places we do not wish to go, gifts we didn’t know we wanted. It can teach us that suffering can lead to transformation.

Necessary suffering well encountered washes our soul garments clean. ‘Thy greater Will be done,’ can lead us to recognize that there is a greater purpose than our everyday minds can know. In suffering we can find the comfort and consolation of a God who intimately knows what we are going through. For He has been there Himself. Indeed, He continues to occupy the precincts of suffering so that He will be there for us when we find ourselves there.  He will help us to make something out of it. The poet describes this process:

…And if, in the changing phases of man's life

Snowdrops in Snow

I fall in sickness and in misery

my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead

and strength is gone, and my life

is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches

of renewal

odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers

such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still

I am in the hands of the unknown God,

he is breaking me down to his own oblivion

to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.[1]

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[1] D H Lawrence, “Shadows”