2nd November Trinity 2017, Stand in Awe

3rd Nov Trinity
Revelation 14,1-20   

And I looked, and there was the picture of the Lamb, standing atop Mt. Zion and with him one hundred forty-four thousand having his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.
     
And I listened and heard a voice from the heavens, a voice like a mighty rush of waters, and like a mighty thunderclap—the voice I heard was like the voices of harpists playing on their harps.

And they all sing a new song, there in front of the throne and in front of the four creatures and the elders, and no one could learn the song but the one hundred forty-four thousand ransomed from the earth. These are the ones who did not defile themselves by the straying, through which the spiritual in man is betrayed; they have remained virginal [pure] in their inmost being and follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were ransomed as the seed of a new humanity which belongs to the Father God and to the Lamb. Deceit and lies are not found in their mouths; pure and unblemished are they in their innermost being.

And I looked and saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, bringing the good news which is good news forever to those live on earth—to every race and nation and every tongue and folk. And the angel cried out with a great voice, saying:

“Stand in awe of God and turn to honor him. For we have come to the hour of his divine decision. Raise yourself in prayer to him who in truth created the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the springs of water.”

And a second angel followed, who said, “Fallen, fallen is the great city of Babylon, who made all nations drink of the wine of her sacrilege, in order to draw the holy into misuse.”

And a third angel followed them, who cried out with a powerful voice: “Whoever adores the beast and its likeness and accepts its stamp on forehead or hand, he will drink of the wine of God’s anger, thick and strong and undiluted, from the cup of his wrath. And in the presence of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb shall anger be transformed into pain like the pain of fire and sulfur.

Their suffering rises and darkens the encircling air like smoke through the cycles of time. And day and night those who made the beast into their god, who honored its picture as the highest, who took its being into their innermost being, find no peace. In this place however there works the power of the steadfast endurance of those who have taken the healing power of the Spirit into themselves, who have fulfilled the goals of the Spirit, and who have worked trusting in Jesus’ healing deed.

And I heard a voice out of the worlds of

Spirit which said, “Write this down: People of heaven are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit, let them rest from their efforts and labors, since their good deeds, the fruits of their lives, are not lost along their paths of soul, but have preceded them here.

And I looked, and suddenly I saw in the spirit a white cloud, and seated upon the cloud the figure of a son of humanity, with a golden crown upon his head and a sharpened sickle. And another angel stepped forth from the temple crying with a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud:

“Let your sickle go forth and harvest, for the hour of harvest has come; ripe and dry and firm are the crops of the earth.”

And the one seated on the cloud threw his sickle down upon the events on earth, and the earth’s crop was harvested.

And again another angel came out of the temple in the heavens, and he too held a sharpened sickle. And a further angel came out who tended the fire at the altar. He cried out with a mighty voice to him who held the sharpened sickle and said, “Let your sickle go forth and harvest the grapevines of the earth, for their grapes have reached their prime.”

So the angel threw his sickle down to the events on earth, and he harvested the earth’s vineyard and threw the grapes into the great winepress of God’s anger. And they took the winepress outside the city and trampled the grapes. Blood flowed from the winepress that reached to the muzzles of the horses for sixteen hundred miles around.

Nov 5, 2017
Revelation 14: 1-20
Revelations 14:7

“Stand in awe of God and honor him. For we have come to the hour of his divine decision. Raise yourself in prayer to him who in truth created the heavens and the earth….’ Revelations 14:7

This year’s leaves are falling from the trees. They have finished their work of drinking sunlight, and so the tree lets them go. But just where the old leaf attached to the branch, the tree has already formed the buds of next year’s leaves. The tree will remain standing bare, over-wintering, yet already equipped to be able to drink in the light of the future.

Our lives, too, have had their old leaves, long since left behind. Even our bodies have let go of old forms—infancy, childhood, youth, maturity—all give way. But the buds, the seed of the next phase are already laid down.

When the body itself falls away, we will find that we have already formed the buds for the next life. The reading hints at this: ‘Stand in awe of God and turn to honor him….Raise yourself in prayer….’ Rev. 14:7

Our prayers of praise and honor, our prayers of thanksgiving, form the buds for our future life after life. Praise and thanksgiving are the buds for a new humanity. Those who praise and give thanks in the purity of their inmost heart ‘…have been brought out of humankind to become the foundation of a new humanity, which belongs to God and to the Lamb. Rev. 14:4

And so we pray:

Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous…
thank you for such as it is my gift.

I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
'According to Thy will,' the thing begins….

I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.

…Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.*

*John Berryman, “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” in Collected Poems

1st Nov Trinity 2017, The Great Suffering

Durer

1st November Trinity
Revelation 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,
Yes, 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
Oct 29, 2017
Revelation 7:9-17

To extract the juice from the grape, it must be crushed. The useless is removed and the pure, and its strengthening essence is released. The grape must, so to speak, suffer so that its essence can flow outward.

In the gospel reading, we hear of those who have just come from the great suffering. From time to time, we too are crushed. It is not because we are evil and deserve punishment; it is because we are ripe. Our essence is ready to be separated out from the non-essential, from the useless in us. Meister Eckhart* writes:

   When I was the stream, when I was the forest….there was nothing
   I could not
   love.

   It was when I left all we once were that
   the agony began, the fear and the questions came
   and I wept, I wept, tears….

Christ is present within our suffering. He suffers within us. He wipes our tears.  He helps us separate the bitter from the sweet. He washes us clean and clear in the wine-blood of his lovingkindness. He leads us to the spring of ever-transforming life.  As Meister Eckhart continues:
 
   So I returned to the river, I returned to

   the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again.
   I begged—I begged to wed every object
   and creature,

   and when they accepted,
   God was ever present in my arms.

   …For then I knew my soul—every soul—
   has always held
   Him.*

Our purest essence, at the center of our being, is lovingkindness. Our true nature flows outward, to comfort and strengthen others. Our true nature is wise and knowing. Our true nature willingly undergoes a transformation so that the world’s evolution moves forward. We are crushed so that our pure essence, the lovingkindness of Christ in us, can flow out into the world.

*“When I was the Forest,” in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, pg. 91

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4th Michaelmas 2017, Faithful and True

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas Sunday
Revelation 19, 11-16

And I saw the heavens opening up. And behold, a white horse! And the rider who sat upon it is called faithful and true, who judges justly and battles for justice. His eyes are like flames of fire, and his head wears many crowns, inscribed with a name which no one knows but he himself. The cloak that covers him has been dipped in blood, and he is known by the name “Word of God”.
And the warriors of the sky ride behind him upon white steeds, clad in clean, white linen. And he has a sharp-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to subdue the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron. He treads on the winepress holding the wine of the wrath of the will of God, the ruler of all.

And written on his cloak and on his thigh is the name: King of all kings, Lord of all lords.

4^th Michaelmas Sunday

October 22, 2017
Rev. 19:11-16

Some plants bloom, set seed and die in one year. For a plant to exist for more than one year, to exist perennially, say a rosebush, a part of it must become wooden. It is the hardness, the thorny wood, that allows the plant to continue to live year after year.

There is a hard edge to today’s gospel reading. It speaks of sharp swords, iron staffs, winepresses. As paradoxical as it may seem, their very hardness is what makes our continued lives possible.

The sharp sword is the discerning word of truth from the mouth of God. We may prefer the soft greenness of our wishes and hopes, of our desires and illusions. But there is no progress, no growth or evolution of our being without the sharpness of truth.

The rod of iron is the starry iron in our own blood. It makes it possible for us to be upright, to rise above the forces which would chain us in slavery to the earth. Our uprightness, a gift from the stars, allows us to continue to grow toward the Sun-God.

The winepress is another instrument of discernment. It is the divine instrument that discerns how much of our blood’s uprightness has been dedicated to God’s will for our development, and how much of our blood’s self-will needs to be discarded as unfit.

A rose blossom is not possible without the support of the thorny wood. Without a hard-edged capacity for truth, without uprightness and discernment in our growth toward God’s will, the continuance and blossoming of our deepest and truest being is not possible. For true life is not about comfort. It is about overcoming—overcoming illusion and self-deception, overcoming being chained to the earthly, overcoming our little ego’s self-satisfaction. The deep life, the truly continuing life, is aligned with truth, with uprightness, with developing the wine of a true love for others.

When we have been cleansed, or have cleansed ourselves, of deception and illusion, we become trustworthy. We finally arrive at the place of our deepest and inmost soul, the place where Christ, the King of kings, he who is faithful and true, lives in us.

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3rd Michaelmas 2017, Dark Hours

2^nd 3^rd or 4^th Michaelmas
Revelation 12: 1-17

And a momentous image was unveiled in the world of spirit: a woman, clothed

Benjamin West 

with the radiant power of the sun, the moon under her feet, her head adorned with the crown of the twelve stars of heaven. And she is with child and cries out in the labor and pain of giving birth.

And at the same time. a second image was revealed in the heavens: a great fiery-red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On its head, it has seven crowns and its tail is sweeping a third of all the stars in heaven and dashing them onto the earth. And the dragon is standing before the woman about to give birth so that when she bears the child he can devour it. And she bore a child, a son ”who would shepherd all nations with a rod of iron.” And the woman’s child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place that God keeps ready there so that they can take care of her for days numbering one thousand two hundred sixty.

And a war flared up in the spirit world. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought in the midst of his own angels, but he was not strong enough, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. Down came the dragon, the giant, the serpent, the evil one called both Satan and the devil, deceiver of all the world. Onto the earth, he came hurtling down, and all his angels with him.

And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying:

Now can begin the working which proceeds from our God—
The power to heal the world,
The power to transform all being,
The power to draw everything into godly being.
Arisen is the spirit leadership of his Christ.
Overthrown is the accuser of our brothers,
He who accused them night and day before the countenance of God.
They have overcome him through the blood and the sacrificial power of the Lamb

And by the divine Word to which they bore witness.
They did not love their own lives too dearly, nor did they fear death.
Therefore, rejoice you heavens
And all who lodge therein!
But woe to the earth and the sea:
For the Adversary has come down to you,
And he seethes with measureless fury,
For he knows that his time is short.

And when the dragon recognized that he had been cast onto the earth, he began to persecute the woman who had borne the son. Then the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly into the desert to her appointed place, where she is to be nourished for a cycle of time, for cycles of time, and for half a cycle of time, far from the face of the serpent.

And the serpent opened his mouth and spewed out a river of water after the woman so she would be swept off her feet by the river. But then the earth came to the woman’s assistance; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon spewed from his mouth. And the dragon burned with fury against the woman. He stormed away to make war on the rest of the woman’s seed, people who keep to the divine world aims and who are united with the destiny and witnessing of Jesus. As I saw this I was standing on the sandy shore of the sea.

3^rd Michaelmas Sunday
October 15, 2017
Revelation 12: 1-17

The Book of Revelation describes mighty events. These are letters from the spiritual world to us. They apply both to great spans of time, and also to our individual lives. The cast of characters consists of both great spiritual beings and at the same time parts of our own souls.

There is the soul-woman in all of us who is about to give birth to the spirit child. The very existence of this child is opposed by destructive beings who once lived in spiritual realms and now live with us on earth. For the time came when the heavens had to send the forces of destruction to the earth so that we human being would grow strong in dealing with them. Heaven was cleansed so that the heavens were free to offer us the power to heal, the power to transform, the power to spiritualize both the earth and ourselves.

Bernhard Eyb

The dragon persecutes us, breathing destruction. But we are given wings of thoughtful prayer with which to rise to a place of nourishment and strength. The dragon seeks to drown us. But the absorptive power within our souls’ own groundedness in the earth keep us from being swept away. The dragon breathes a burning fire, but our soul’s solidity finds the cooling waters with which to smother the flames.

The forces of the soul with which we defend ourselves from the dragon are the forces of the Archangel Michael and Christ, He who lives in the deepest part of our souls. He gives us the resurrection force with which to rise above the dragon. He gives us the absorptive power to accept that we must battle evil. He gives us the power with which to subdue the dragon force within.

All this takes place at a depth within which is mostly for us a darkness. But it is

  Jean Bourdichon 

the darkness of a womb, that one day will give birth to light. We shall not fear the darkness.

In the words of Rilke:

I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.*


*Rilke, The Book of Hours, Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, p. 51