9th September Trinity 2015, Heart's Work

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6: 19-34

“Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where you have gathered a treasure, there  your heart will bear you.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

 “No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

Jane Halliwell Green

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9th August Trinity

September 20, 2015

Matthew 6: 19-34

In the Northern Hemisphere this is the time of harvest and of ‘putting by’. Older generations may still have experienced how families canned and preserved what they grew. August and September were times of intense and hot, hard work, work for the future.

In our time such work is largely done on a mass scale for us by others. Although we work hard now in other ways, we have the opportunity to examine our attitudes toward things of earth. Christ gives us some advice about our relationship to earthly things. First He begins by directing our gaze toward the way we perceive, and toward what it is that we value. For what is primary is what lives in our hearts. If we perceive in a clear and accurate way, then our inner life is full of light, enlightened. We will be able to see clearly in two directions.

First we will be able to see that an over-eager and hot pursuit of personal gain come from a spirit of greed that is demonically driven. And secondly we will be able to see the glorious beauty of the created world, and the care that our heavenly Father gives to all creatures, including us. And therefore our hearts can be striving, but in peace, even when we are hard at work. A poet says:

….I think all the time about invisible work.

…. all the while,

as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried

by great winds across the sky,

thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,

the slow, unglamorous work of healing,

the way worms in the garden

tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe

and bees ransack this world into being,

….

I stopped and let myself lean

a moment, against the blue

shoulder of the air. The work

of my heart

is the work of the world's heart.[1]

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[1] Alison Luterman, “Invisible Work” in The Largest Possible Life

8th September Trinity 2015, Fog of Old Unease

8^th September Trinity

Ten Lepers, James Christensen

September 13, 2015

Luke 17: 11 – 19

 And it happened as he was on the way to Jerusalem that he passed through the middle of Samaria and Galilee.

And as he was entering a certain village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and they raised their voice, saying

“Master, Jesus, have mercy on us!”

And seeing them he said, “Go, and show yourselves to the priests.” And it came about that as they went on their way, they were cleansed.

Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at his feet, and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan.

And Jesus responded and said, “Were not all ten cleansed? And the nine—where are they? Was no one seen returning to praise the revelation of God’s working in this event except this foreigner?”

And he said to him, “Rise, and go your way. The power of your trust has made you strong.”

8^th September Trinity

September 13, 2015

Luke 17: 11 – 19

Leprosy is a disease that is obvious to everyone, for it sits on the surface. And because of contagion, the lepers of Jesus’ time were sent away from their religious and social community.

In our time, it may be that we suffer from a kind of inner leprosy. It may be that our souls show a certain deformation, obvious to all – a deep and abiding anger, or an irresponsible flightiness, or an excessive degree of self-preoccupation. Or as one wisdom teacher puts it, Certainty can become an illness that creates hate and greed.[1] Aware of it in us, others are unable to maintain community with us, and we feel isolated.

The first step is to become aware of our inner illness. And then we can ask Christ, the Master Human Being, to help us. And like the lepers in the story, he will send us back to our religious community, to show that we are aware of our flaws and are working to change them. For the ills can only persist when we are unaware.

But before anything else, the true source of our soul healing lies the strength of our trust, and results in expressing gratitude, in a loud voice, and with deep humility. Thanks to our community for our awareness of soul sickness. Thanks to God for his merciful attention to our need for help in overcoming the sickness of sin. Thanks to our angel for progress made on the way back into the community of those who are aware of the health-giving power of Christ.  As the poet John O’Donohue says,

Leper Healed, Adriaen Collaert

May you use this illness

As a lantern to illuminate

The new qualities that will emerge in you.

May your fragile harvesting of this slow light

Help to release whatever has become false in you.

May you trust this light to clear a path

Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety…[2]

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[1] “Certainty”  Tukaram in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, versions by Daniel Ladinsky

[2]“ A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness”, John O’Donohue, in To Bless the Space between Us, p. 60

7th August Trinity 2015, Message in a Bottle

7th August Trinity

Good Samaritan, Corinne Vonaesch

Luke 10:25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

7th August Trinity

September 6, 2015

Luke 10:25-37

Someone well-read in scripture asks Christ how to attain eternal life.The man’s answers that to love God with one’s whole being and to love one’s fellow human beings as well as oneself  is to attain eternal life. And Christ affirms this; love directed outward, beyond oneself, overcomes the deadening effects of mere self- love. Yet there comes the man’s somewhat defensive next question: which of my fellow human beings am I supposed to love? Christ’s answer in story form is: Not just my family, not just my own tribe or those with whom I can identify. Any fellow human being whom I happen upon along the way can be the recipient of a love that expresses itself in concrete action. For it is our deeds, not our feelings, that live beyond the boundaries of this life. The key here is to regard others with an attitude of mercy, of loving kindness. And then we give and do what we can.

It may be that the priest and the Levite felt that they could touch the unclean man because they were on their way to a work that required their ritual cleanliness. The Samaritan, though despised by the Jews, was truly free to help (or not). He helps a stranger, in both a personal, hands-on way, and also by deputizing and paying the innkeeper to complete the work of healing. He is thereby encouraging others to help. And he thus also maintains his own freedom to help the next victim he finds, to further practice his love for his fellow human beings. Christ is saying that our neighbor is not necessarily one whom we know, the one who lives next door. It is the stranger whom we meet along the way. It is we who are to act neighborly. A poet expresses the universality of this:

Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper,

with these words: "Somebody save me! I'm here. The ocean cast me on this desert island.

I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I'm here!"

"There's no date. I bet it's already too late anyway.

It could have been floating for years," the first fisherman said.

"And he doesn't say where. It's not even clear which ocean," the second fisherman said.

"It's not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere," the third fisherman said.

They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That's how it goes with universal truths.*

*Wislawa Szymborska,  “ Parable” Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)

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6th August Trinity 2015, Hearing Loss

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6th Trinity August

August 30, 2015

Mark 7, 31-37

We can think of our senses as portals into the soul. They allow the outer world and our inner life to interact. Our sense of hearing brings things deep inside of us; it is also necessary so that we can speak properly. Our modern sense of hearing has lost its fineness. We no longer hear the music of the spheres, the singing of the stars. We are deaf mutes in the face of the higher worlds. The poet David Wagoner describes this:

When Laurens van der Post one night

In the Kalihari Desert told the Bushmen

He couldn't hear the stars

Singing, they didn't believe him.  They looked at him,

Half-smiling.  They examined his face

To see whether he was joking

Or deceiving them.  Then two of those small men

Who plant nothing, who have almost

Nothing to hunt, who live

On almost nothing, and with no one

But themselves, led him away

From the crackling thorn-scrub fire

And stood with him under the night sky

And listened.  One of them whispered,

Do you not hear them now?

And van der Post listened, not wanting

To disbelieve, but had to answer,

No.  They walked him slowly

Like a sick man to the small dim

Circle of firelight and told him

They were terribly sorry,

And he felt even sorrier

For himself and blamed his ancestors

For their strange loss of hearing,

Which was his loss now.  ....*

In the gospel reading the man’s lack of hearing and speech cut him off from his ability to interact with his fellow human beings. This must have resulted in an enormous sense of isolation. His own inner activity is severely hindered. And yet this deaf mute has a community of friends who bring him to Christ.

It is interesting that the first thing Christ does is to isolate him again – he takes him apart from the crowd. This probably serves to focus his attention and to emphasize his existence as an individual human being. Then Christ engages in a series of actions involving the sense of touch. He touches the man’s ears, his tongue. Then looking up to the heavens, from whence the life of our senses flow, he speaks the divine word that has the power to become reality on earth, the fiery word  - Be opened!

And the gateways are opened. The man can hear and speak. His isolation is overcome. At the same time Christ then asks the crowd not to speak. For we can both speak too little or too much. It is as though Christ is warning them against uncontrolled speech, which becomes just noise. Be opened, yet find the middle way.

*David Wagoner, "The Silence of the Stars" in Traveling Light

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