6th February Trinity 2019, Become His Likeness

February Trinity 

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11

Tissot

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

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.”

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. “

Tissot

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 again the angels as they came to bring him nourishment.

6th Feb Trinity

March 10, 2019

Matthew 4: 1-11

  

A tree lives and develops in three zones. It is rooted in the earth where it is nourished by the soil. It weaves and works in air and light; it blossoms and fruits in the warmth of the sun.

In overcoming the three temptations, Christ, the divine human being, clears the three basic areas in which our living souls develop. He reminds us to root ourselves, nourished ‘in the creative power that comes from the mouth of God.’ Matthew 4:4 That is, we are to recognize that we are not fed and sustained by the material nature of bread, but rather by the living power of the universe that God places in the grain.

Tree of Life

While rooted in God’s creative power, we are to weave in the light and air of the divine world and its lawful order, within the divine ‘ordering of space and course of time’. To make one’s ego supreme, to impose one’s own wishes and desires on the world, to test the divine order, is to be like leaves trying to fly—such leaves, separated from the tree, are in fact already dead.

And we are to blossom in the warmth of divine love, not in the heat of overbearing pride. For it is the wise guidance of God that brings us to our full glory and fruitfulness, not our own seeming mastery over the world.

Rooting our souls in God, working and weaving in His light, blossoming in His warmth, we will gradually develop into what God intends us to be—fully and divinely human. Overcoming the basic standard temptations, the temptations of materialism and egotistical pride, our true humanity will blossom.

We were created in God’s image. Through Christ’s strength of overcoming, we will weave and work His purpose, in His daylight. Through Christ, we will blossom into God’s purpose and promise for us: that we become His likeness.

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5th February Trinity 2019, Let It Go

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

Luke 18: 18-34 (adapted from Madsen)

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.”

[Jesus, looking at him, loved him… Mk 10:21] 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 man alone it is impossible; it will be possible however through the power of God working in man.”

Then Peter said to him, “Behold, we have given up everything to follow you.”

He replied, “Amen, the truth I say to you. No one who leaves home or wife, or brother or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in earthly life, and in the age to come eternal life.”

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.

5^th February Trinity

March 3, 2019

Luke 18: 18-34

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are anticipating the richness of spring and the fullness of summer; but below the equator, it is turning into autumn and winter is approaching. This great balance over the whole earth is a picture of a great truth that also exists on the soul level:  over the whole of a lifetime, no matter what our inner or outer riches, we must pass through loss and death to arrive at a new life.

In the gospel reading, Christ brings this home to the rich young man.

Heinrich Hoffman

The young man is rich, both inwardly and outwardly; he is in the summer of his development.  But Christ is asking him to take the next step—the step into an autumn shedding, the step into a winter sleep. The episode ends before we find out whether the rich one does carry out Christ’s request. At this moment in the gospel story, the young man is very sad—he already anticipates the grief of loss.

But when the young man summons the courage to follow through, he will leave behind his wealth for others and lay down his life. His loss and death will be real and complete. But so will his completely new and unforeseen life. He is to become a Lazarus. Christ will call him forth to a whole new level of being.  And Christ will intimately and continually accompany his further development – through loss and death, and into a further life. 

The recently deceased poet Mary Oliver* says:

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation

….

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

*Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods.”

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4th February Trinity 2019, Inner Household

February Trinity

Luke 12: 35-48

Burnand

“Be dressed and ready for service and keep your lamps burning. Be like men who are expecting their master back from the marriage feast, so that they can open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are the servants whom the master finds awake when he comes! Yes, I tell you, he will put on an apron himself and show them to the table and serve them. And if he does not come until the second or third watch of the night, and yet finds them awake: Blessed are the servants! You know: If the master of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would not let his house be looted. So be ready: The Son of Man comes at an hour that you had not thought.”

Then Peter said, “Lord, are you telling us this parable, or is it for all human beings?”

And the Lord answered, “Imagine a faithful and competent steward whom his master appoints to be in charge of the whole staff, to give to each one what he is entitled to. Blessed is that servant if the master comes and finds him carrying out his duties.  I tell you, he will entrust him with all his goods. But if the servant says in his heart, ‘My master will not be coming all that soon,” and begins to mistreat the other servants and the maids, himself all the while eating and drinking and becoming intoxicated, then the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour that he does not know. The master will virtually tear him to pieces; he will treat him as those deserve who have not proved faithful.

A servant who knows his master’s will but does not act according to it and so does not carry out his will deserves the severest punishment. If he does not know the master’s will and then does something that deserves punishment, he will escape more lightly. From one who has many gifts, much will also be expected; and from one who has been entrusted with much, much more will also be demanded.

4th February Trinity

February 24, 2019

Luke 12: 36-48

The theme of this gospel reading is service. It is easy enough to apply this parable to our outer lives. For we all have interactions with people who serve us—waitpersons, public servants the grocery store clerk. Obviously, we are to treat them well. Likewise, many of us may serve and direct others in some capacity.

But the characters in the parable could also be seen as the various members of our own nature. We could think of our own “I” as the faithful and competent steward whom the Master has appointed to be in charge of the whole internal household of the soul. It is our duty to treat the various parts of ourselves firmly but well, to nourish them and coordinate their working, so that our inner house functions smoothly.

Our wills need directing; our feelings need to be wholesome; our thinking pure and engaged. Even our lowliest servant, the body, needs direction, nourishment, and care.

Juan de Juanes

Our own Self, our I, is itself the servant of the greater Master. To most of us, the Master seems to be away just now. But His arrival is imminent. “The Son of Man comes at an hour that you had not thought.” Lk 12:40

In the story, the Master may appear harsh to those who are not ready for him. But it is easy to overlook the fact that here, the Master himself acts as a servant. When He comes and finds that his servants are awake to open the door, he offers to nourish those who have served him, who have taken good care of the inner household for him. The reading says, “He will put on an apron and show them to the table and serve them.” Lk 12:37 For it is within us, in the house of our Selfhood, entered through the door of our wakeful heart, that Christ would dwell. And even today, we hear Him say: Take bread; take wine. Be nourished by Me, and I will give you my peace.”