5th Easter 2018, Transitions

5^th Easter

John 16, 1-33

“All these words I have spoken to you so that you will not go astray [because you discover what destiny falls to you through being connected with me]. For they will exclude you from their communities, and the hour will come when those who kill you will think they are offering service to God. They will do all this because they have not known my Father or me. All these words I have spoken to you so that when the time comes you will remember that I

Tissot

told you about it. In the beginning, I did not need to say such things for I was with you. But now I am going away to him who sent me; yet, none of you asks me “Where are you going?”  Now that I have said these things to you, sorrow enters your heart.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is for your salvation and healing that I leave you, for if I did not go away, the Comforter, the giver of spirit courage, [who will stand by you in all trials, the Spirit upon whom you can call for assistance at any moment,] would not come to you. When I now go away, I will send him to you. When he comes he will call mankind to account for the decline into sin, for the working of man’s higher being and for the great world separation; for the decline into sinfulness, because they did not fill themselves with my power; for the working of Man’s higher being, because I go to the Father and you see me no more; for the great world-separation, because the decision has already been made about the ruler of this world.

I have yet much more to say to you, but you cannot bear it now. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will be your guide on the way to the Truth that Embraces All. he will not speak out of himself, but what he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you what is to come.  he will reveal me, for what he draws out of my being he will proclaim to you. Everything that the Father has is also mine. That is why I can say, ‘He will draw upon my being and proclaim to you’.

Yet a short time you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me.”

Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying ‘Yet a short time you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me’, and ‘I am going to the Father’? They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a short time’? We do not understand his words.”

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him and he said, “You are wondering that I said, ‘A short time and you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me.’  Yes, the truth

Tissot

I tell you, you will weep and lament while other people will rejoice. You will be filled with sorrow, but this your grief will be turned into joy. A woman giving birth must bear pain, for her difficult hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer considers the anguish because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So it is with you. Now is your time of grief. But this your grief will become the power of Spirit-Birth, for I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one can take that joy from you. On that day, you will no longer need to ask me anything.

Yes, I say to you; from now on what you ask of the Father in my name, He will give to you. Until now, you have not been able to pray in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart so that your joy may be full.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you plainly about the Father, [so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness]. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world. I am leaving the [sense] world again and going to the Father, [of which you say that it is the world of death].”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. By this, we believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

5^th Easter

April 29, 2018

John 16:1-33

Spring blossoms are often called

ephemerals. Their beauty appears for a short time, bringing joy. But they quickly disappear. They must make way for the nourishing fruits of a later season.

The Easter season is almost over. Christ gives us, his disciples, foreknowledge that the beauty of His resurrection body is about to disappear from view. In less than two weeks He will ascend to his Father. He will still be present on the earth, but in a hidden way. He promises, however, to send His Spirit, the healing Spirit of love and understanding, to reside in human souls. From there, God’s healing Spirit will germinate in souls, setting fruit. These fruits of the Spirit, fruits of love, comfort, and understanding, will over time mature and ripen. In time they will become fertile seeds we sow as words and deeds of love in the world.

But meanwhile we disciples must all endure times of uncertainty, of anxiety and grief. Christ assures us that this is a necessary transition, a phase, when the joy and beauty disappear, and the coming phase of joy is not yet. One gateway closes; the other has not yet opened, and we seem stranded in between.

While conditions ripen, our task is to endure; to bear the lonely pain with hope and expectation, until the door of fruitfulness opens.

The poet gives us something of this in-between mood:

…I am very worried and happy

…And there is nowhere I would rather be

alive or dead

than in this world,

….meanwhile

housing perpetual births and disappearances

and [I] am glad (the wind is blowing, it is written, adore

the wind)

and am speechlessly grateful and glad and afraid

I don't mind saying that I am scared

to death of God: I am

afraid and blind and ignorant and naked and

I'll take it!…..

I can't grasp it, but I am so very glad.*

---

  *Franz Wright, “A Word For Joy” in God's Silence

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4th Easter 2018, Ecology of Love

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful. You have already been purified by the power of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit out of itself unless it is given life by the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you stay united with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me so that I can work in him, bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain united with me withers like a branch that is cut off. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words live on in you, pray for that which you also will, and it shall come about for you. By this my Father is revealed, that you bear rich spiritual fruit and become ever more truly my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

No man can have greater love than this, than that he offer up his life for his friends. You are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No longer can I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you my friends because I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father.

You did not choose me, but I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruits should live on after you, so that what you ask the Father in my name he should give it to you. I say to you out of the fullness of my power: Love one another.

If the world hates you with hatred, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them; but you do not belong to them because I have chosen you out of mankind. That is why people hate you.

Christ in the Winepress

Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have held on to my word, they will hold on to yours also. Everything that they do to you they will do as though they did it to me, for they do not know Him who sent me.

If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would be without sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who turns in hatred against me turns in hatred against my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them, deeds which no one else has ever done, they would be without guilt. But now they have seen me, and have still hated both me and my Father.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

But when the Comforter comes, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bring knowledge of me and will be my witness. And you also will be my witnesses, because you have been united with me from the very beginning.

4th Easter

April 22, 2018

John 15; 1-27

We have the tendency to see the world as a collection of separate things. The idea of ecology, that all creatures and their environments form a living entity, is relatively recent. Thinking ecologically, we human beings can learn to appreciate how life supports us in so many varied ways. It streams to us in the sunlight, in the watercourses, in the plant and animal life that nourish us. Life surrounds and supports us in the very air we breathe. And we too have our part in this great weaving of life.

Today’s reading reveals a great open secret: it is not merely mother nature who sustains us. It is Christ who carries the great all-pervasive life of the earth. As the True Vine, the sap of His life runs through the living earth and sustains all on it. And this sap of life has a cohesion, a kind of force of attraction to it. It draws all the parts together and fits them into an organic working whole. This force is the force of compassionate love. The world is held together, interwoven by a living love.

Compassionate love also radiates outward; it is a love that offers itself up to support, sustain and to strengthen. To connect with the essence of life that permeates the world is to connect oneself with the deep love and life that binds the world together. It is to connect with a love that offers itself to all, that all may exist. It is a love that supports all in deep compassion. What this deep compassion asks of us is to become likewise. 

In the words of Hafiz:

Arthur Ernst Becher

The Beloved has agreed to play a game

Called

Love.

Our sun sat in the sky

Way before this earth was born

Waiting to caress a billion faces.

The wise man learns what draws God

Near.

It is the beauty of compassion

In your heart.*

*Hafiz, “It is Unanimous”, in The Gift, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 170

3rd Easter 2018, Door after Door

3^rd Easter
John 10: 1-21

“Yes, the truth I say to you: Anyone who does not go into the sheep through the door, but breaks into the fold elsewhere, he is a thief or robber. Only he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep respond to his voice. He calls each one by name, according to its nature, and he leads them out into the open.

When he has brought them out, he walks before them, and the sheep follow after him, for they trust his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but rather flee, because they do not know the stranger’s voice.”

Thus did Jesus reveal himself to them in pictures, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Then Jesus went on. “Yes, the truth out of the spirit I say to you. I AM the door to the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them.

I AM the door. Anyone who enters through me will find healing and life. He learns to cross the threshold from here to beyond, and from there to here, and he will find nourishment for his soul. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I – I have come that they may have life, and overflowing abundance.

Yongsun Kim

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who works for wages, and who is no true shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, he sees the wolf coming, abandons the sheep, and flees while the wolf snatches them and scatters them. For he is only a hireling and he cares nothing for the sheep.

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD. I know who belongs to me, and my own recognize me, just as my Father recognizes me in the depths, and I know the being of the Father; and I offer my life for the sheep.

Other sheep have been entrusted to me who are not of this fold; I must also lead them. They too will listen to my voice, and one day there will be one flock, one Shepherd.

That is why the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up anew. No one can take it from me.  But in full freedom I myself offer it up. I have the power to give it away and also the power to receive it anew. That is the task given to me by my Father.”

Then there again arose a division among the people because of these words. Many of them said, “He is possessed by a demon and is out of his mind. Why do you listen to him?” Yet others said, “These are not the words of one who is possessed. After all, can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

3^rd Easter
Apr 15, 2018
John 10: 1-20

Observing our breath, we know that at the end of an exhale, there is a null point, a kind of a doorway we pass through in order begin inhaling again. We pass through this gateway, we inhale all we can; and then we pass through another null point, another gateway, and begin to exhale again.

With each inhalation we take in the world; at the same time, on a subtle level, we come to ourselves. In exhaling, we give something of ourselves (our breath, perhaps even our words) to the world. On a subtle level, we let go of ourselves as we exhale.

Birth and death are also gateways, part of a larger cycle of breathing. When we are born, those attending anxiously await our first intake of breath and its resulting cry. And at the end of our earthly life comes the final sigh as we exhale our soul and spirit out of our body and into the Father’s green fields.

In today’s reading, Christ calls himself the gateway, the door. He leads us through the gateway from breath to breath,

Yongsun Kim

through door after door, keeping us alive. And He is also the gateway into and out of earthly life. ‘Anyone who enters through Me will find healing and life, He says. He learns to cross the threshold from here to beyond and he will find nourishment for his soul….’ John 10:9

The astonishing fact is that Christ himself breathes. He became a human being in order to weave together human breathing with greater cosmic rhythms, to weave together human necessity with inner choice. He says, ‘I lay down my life to take it up anew. No one can take it from me. But in full freedom I myself offer it up. I have the power to give it away and also the power to receive it anew.’ John 10:18

During the Act of Consecration of Man, we hear in sevenfold rhythm ‘Christ in you.’ We breathe Him in; he is the life force, keeping us alive. We can breathe out his peace, his love, his encouragement, into the world. He is the healing force in the balancing of inner and outer. With Him we walk safely through door after door after door.