2nd after Easter II, April 29, 2020, Brilliant Angel Feathers

2^nd Sunday after Easter

John 10:1-16

“Yes, the truth I say to you: Anyone who does not go into the sheep through the door, but breaks into the fold elsewhere, 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.

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

Brueghel, Bad Sheperd

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, 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; 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.

2^nd after Easter II

April 29,2020

John 10:1-16

In this parable of the Good Shepherd,

Tissot

we might not like seeing ourselves cast as sheep. We might prefer the parable of the single lost sheep,* the one who is so important to the shepherd that he leaves the rest of the flock to go searching for it. But in today’s picture, Christ is speaking about his relationship to those who find themselves in communities, those who are gathered together. And he is looking at the ways in which His flock, His community is either protected or threatened.

What is it that holds His community together, gives it cohesion? It is Christ himself who holds His community together. The will of the group is to follow in trust Christ’s will: his being, his love.

It is He who knows what we need—when it is time to go out and be fed and when it is time to stay safe in the fold. We, the flock, know that we can trust and follow His voice. He knows us, individually and collectively. He speaks to us in the sacraments, in prayer. He continues to offer His life for us, to us, in physical and spiritual communion. It is He who cares for, protects, and guides the life of His community.

Christ gathers us into a community to protect us from the wolves of solitude, illusion, and untruth. Those wolves divide and scatter, snatch and devour. Christ keeps us together, saying, in the words of the poet:

Someone

Fra Angelico, Sheep and Goats

Will steal you if you don’t stay near,

And sell you as a slave in the

Market.

I sing to the nightingales’ hearts,

Hoping they will learn

My verse.

So that no one will ever imprison

Your brilliant angel

Feathers.

Have I put enough spiced manna

On your plate?

…If not, please wait

For more light is now fermenting. . . **

*Luke 15:3

**Hafiz, “Spiced Manna”, in The Gift, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 210

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2nd Sunday after Easter 2020, Come Unto Me

2^nd Sunday after Easter

  John 10:1-16

“Yes, the truth I say to you: Anyone who does not go into the sheep through the door, but breaks into the fold elsewhere, 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

Yong Sun Kim

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.

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, 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.

2^nd Sunday after Easter

April 26, 2020

John 10:1-21

Jorge Sanz-Cordona

A doorway is an opening that leads from one space to another. The door can either open or close off the access. In our everyday lives we encounter many doors; not only the physical ones in rooms and buildings, but also the portals between one state of soul and another.

One such doorway is waking and sleeping. At night we are meant to move calmly and easily through the doorway of sleep. The doorway to our earthly concerns closes behind us, and we move out into the starry pastures where our souls are nourished, and our bodies refreshed. And then, at the right time, we are called back to our earthly home.

But fear and worry, clinging to earthly concerns, can hold us back at the gateway to sleep, or bring us rushing back too soon.

At the beginning of our earthly lives, we stood before a similar portal. We were called into life, onto earthly fields. And at the end we will be called back again to our heavenly home.

Christ is the one who calls us to both our homes, the earthly one and the heavenly. For He Himself is at home both here on the earth and in the starry expanses. He is the one who leads us to the thresholds of sleep and of life. He is the one who opens the door. Day after day, night after night, life after life, we can follow His call. He walks in the spirit ahead of us. We can trust in the calling of His voice. For His is the voice that summons our deepest self. His is the voice of nurture, the voice of the purest, most accepting, all-forgiving love. 

So, as a ‘sleep aid’ we can say the following prayer:

May the events that seek me

Come unto me.

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

Jorge Sanz-Cordona

On which we walk.

May the people who seek me

Come unto me.

May I receive them

With an understanding heart

Through the Christ’s stream of love

In which we live.

May the spirits which seek me

Come unto me.

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s Light

By which we see.*

And then we can awaken from the Good Shepherd’s nourishing fields of sleep, the kind of sleep that

I sleep where I will

wake with the

strength to

deeply

love….**

*Adam Bittleston, Against Fear, in Meditative Prayers for Today. Available at http://shop.steinerbooks.org/Title/9781782504672

**Theresa of Avila, (1515-1582), “Clarity is Freedom” in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 279

Guardian Angel, Walk Angelward

Guardian Angels

We each have an angel assigned to us, a guardian angel, who accompanies us along our paths through lifetimes. Our angel has an overview that it is not possible for us to have. Angelic awareness sees, takes in, and remembers everything for us. As the carrier of our higher self, our angel can remember what we have been and who we want to become. Angels listen to our thoughts. Our angel’s eyes radiate love, recognition. To become aware of one’s angel is to feel oneself to be watched over, seen and deeply recognized.

 The Angel In You

   Rose Auslander

Elihu Vedder, The Sorrowing Soul Between Doubt and Faith

The angel in you

Rejoices over

Your light

Weeps over your darkness

Out of his wings whisper

Words of love

Poems, tender affection.

He watches over

Your path

Direct your step

Angelward.

 But our angel and the spiritual world have given all of us a particularly precious and important gift—our freedom. Nothing is determined. Opportunities are presented to us. Our angel may gently suggest through inspirations, thoughts, atmospheres, will impulses. But whether we respond, or not, and how we respond, is entirely up to us. How we play our life’s music is our choice.

How can we strengthen our connection with our own angel? How can we work in community with the world of the angels? Every quieting of feelings of irritation or anger or envy or fear creates space for our angel’s clarity of conscious and overview to enter our souls. All our efforts at meditation, all religious practice, contribute to this. (It is not important whether we judge ourselves to be successful or not in these endeavors; what angels can make use of is the strength of our striving; it is the activity itself that is of use to them.) All these help us in walking with our angel; they are ways of ‘directing our steps angelward’.

Cynthia Hindes

Second Easter Week, Stand It

1^st Sunday after Easter

John 20: 19-29

On the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Grunewald

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.”

 

Rembrandt

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.”

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.”

2nd Easter Week, II

April 22, 2020

John 20:19-29

In today’s reading Christ offers healing and peace to his suffering disciples. “He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing.” John 20:22 Madsen

Peace seems to have to do with a state of calm, equilibrium, and serenity. It is tranquil. Beyond simply not being ‘at war’, peace also has to do with harmony, accord, goodwill, and acceptance. In The Christian Community’s communion service, Christ says that he stands filled with peace toward the world. This is amazing if you think about it. How could He be at peace with all that is going on, with all the suffering and evil?

I think one of the key words here is ‘stand.’

Stephen Whatley

Christ is upright in His relationship to the world. He stands facing the world; he stands by it. He stands it. He doesn’t turn away from it. Instead, He radiates goodwill toward all of us. Always. That takes a deep capacity of endurance, which Christ Jesus earned the hard way.

Think of what He went through. Misunderstood, betrayed by his community, abandoned by his friends, persecuted, and though innocent, tortured and executed in a shameful manner, He nevertheless forgave, rose and continues to pour out the warmth of His love, His tranquility, His harmonious and harmonizing interaction with the world as it is. But He doesn’t stop there. He asks us what we, together with Him, can do to bring the world forward, to help it heal and evolve.

There is a spiritual law which says that anything that anyone accomplishes while in a body on earth is deposited in the spiritual treasure chest of humanity and is then available to all. Having inhabited Jesus’ body with all that He experienced in it, Christ’s love has already conquered that in the human constitution which leads to a lack of peace. He has conquered the human being’s natural egotism, aggression, our “against-ness,” the anger and fear and opposition that destroy our inner peace. He countered them with the peace that He generated through acceptance and, primarily through a deep love for humanity.

Stephen Whatley

Because Christ did so within the frame of a human body and soul, there is a peace-seed that has been planted deep within every human soul. No matter how rough the inner human terrain, how stormy the life, how full of the ‘weeds’ of worry, fear or anger, we can choose to cultivate this seed of peace in us, to nurture it, grow it in the warm light of His love. For as He says further in the service, He gives us His peace. Not as the world gives.

Christ’s peace is dynamic. It both calmly accepts things as they are and at the same time works to create healing solutions. Christ’s peace and love create unity; not sameness, but harmonizing the differences, like a chord of notes in music. We are all sundered, separated from the work of angels, from each other, from those who have died, even from Him. He waits for us to turn to Him, to ask for His peace. Praying the Lord’s Prayer is one way of asking.

If this sounds hard, it is because it is. The embodied Christ achieved what he did for humankind’s future. It will take us a while to catch up to Him. But meanwhile, He offers us His abiding love and support, His peace.

Rev. Cynthia Hindes

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