4th February Trinity 2007, Loneliness

3^rd, 4^th February Trinity

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Blake

Matthew 4:1-11

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.’”

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. “

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. 

4^th February Trinity

Blake

February 25, 2007

Matthew 4: 1-11

 In the desert, the cactuses don’t crowd together in groups. Each one has its own space; it stands out as a separate, individual entity.

In these times, human beings can feel a bit like being in a desert – alone, separated from others. This separation enhances our sense of ourselves as individuals – not a bad thing. But the shadow side of experiencing our uniqueness is loneliness.

As a human being, Christ Jesus experienced the loneliness of being an individual. Interestingly we are told that He was sent into this condition by the Spirit. To wrestle with the adversary in loneliness is a divinely intended experience. The adversary’s intention was to cut Him off from both from His divinity and from His humanity.

The temptation to work magic with stones would certainly have given a few hungry people bread in abundance, for a couple of years at least. But would Christ then have been able to offer to all of humanity the eternal bread of His divinely penetrated body?

Blake

In throwing himself down from the parapet, succumbing to egotistical pride in being God’s Son, Christ would simply have ended His human life prematurely. And of course, worshipping the adversary as the giver of the world’s kingdoms would have cut Him off from His Father. Through overcoming the temptations in loneliness, Christ Jesus establishes for all of humanity the middle way – of being a unique individual human being, who at the same time remains openly connected to the Father’s Spirit.

Christ’s experience in the loneliness of the desert gives us a key to the meaning of our own experiences of loneliness. Loneliness gives us the opportunity to meet our spiritual adversaries in full clarity. Loneliness provides us with the opportunity to become aware of our greater God-given task in life; it gives us the opportunity to cleanse ourselves of egotism and pride; to maintain and strengthen our connection with the Spirit of our heavenly Father. Overcoming the temptations in the desert is possible for us now through Christ, and prepares us, too,  for angelic nourishment.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

4th February Trinity 2009, The True Shape

3^rd, 4^th February Trinity

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11

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.’”

  

Carl Bloch

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. “

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. 

4^th February Trinity

March 1, 2009

Matthew 4:1-11

The story of Christ’s temptation is the archetype of the three areas in which all human beings are tempted.

The first temptation is to concentrate on the material aspects of life. The devil tries to tempt Christ into magic-ing stones into bread. Christ’s answer points to the fact that the magic is already there, in the food; it is God’s creative power that bids what we eat, and thus we ourselves, to live. It is the divine life that nourishes us, not the mineral.

Vasily Surikov

The second temptation is to believe that we can do anything we want and that God will save us. Christ’s answer: No arrogance: God’s love is unconditional; nevertheless, we human beings will ourselves have to bear the consequences of our own deeds.

The third temptation is to misunderstand where true power comes from. True power comes from freely and voluntarily letting ourselves be guided by the divine. Divine guidance will ultimately lead us toward the kind of sacrificing of personal power out of love of others. This is something that the devil, the prince of this world, cannot comprehend—the power of sacrifice.

Christ’s answers to these three temptations are all linked by one theme: to remember the divine world from which you come; to volunteer in humility to take the creative guidance and sacrificial power of God’s realm into our thinking. This has become all the more urgent in our time, since we Westerners have essentially been nourishing ourselves on the stones of usury, worshipping our own prowess and testing the limits for far too long.

The poet David Whyte says:

We shape our self 

to fit this world

and by the world 

are shaped again.

The visible 

and the invisible

work[ing] together 

in common cause,

to produce 

the miraculous….

So may we, in this life 

trust

to those elements 

we have yet to see

or imagine, 

and look for the true

shape of our own self 

by forming it well

to the great 

intangibles about us.[1]

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] David Whyte, “Working Together”, in House of Belonging

5th February Trinity 2011, Winged Energy

3^rd Feb. Trinity

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

Luke 18: 18-34

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.”

When Jesus heard this, he said, [Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said… Mk 10:21] “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 6, 2011

Luke 18: 18-34

Day follows night; spring follows winter. In cycles of time, the seasons follow one another, inscribing a great spiral.

In our lives too, there are seasons; youth, maturity, age; illness, health; life and death—greater and lesser cycles that carry their own greater meaning.

Christ asks those who believe in Him, trust in Him, to follow Him; to walk where He walks, to go where He goes. He asks us to engage our will, and our willingness. For He wishes to lead humankind into an ascending spiral, into a new kind of spring, a new kind of youth. But paradoxically this path leads Him, and us, first through winter, through illness, and through death.

And herein lies the problem; for everything in us strains away from suffering and death. And so His plea, that we follow Him, is a plea that we overcome our antipathy for the hard things. For suffering and illness can only bear fruit if we are willing. There is no resurrection without death; no love without sacrifice. Death can be inhabited by Life only if we love Him, and are willing to accompany Him there. Only through the working of God’s power in the human being is the great spiral of ascent even possible. Rilke said:

As once the winged energy of delight

carried you over childhood's dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed

in passing through the harshest danger;

but only in a bright and purely granted

achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between two

contradictions ... For the god

wants to know himself in you.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1]  Rainer Maria Rilke, in Ahead of All Parting, ed. and translated by Steven Mitchell

5th February Trinity 2014, Divine Angelic Nature

J. Kirk Richards

3^rd, 4^th February Trinity

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11

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.’”

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.’”

Arild Rosenkrantz

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. “

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.

5^th February Trinity

March 9, 2014

Matthew 4: 1-11

Storms can cause floods. Rivers jump their banks; trees and boulders are loosened. Sometimes the river’s course is changed forever as a new channel is cut.

We are all on a course toward developing our own divine angelic nature. For long stretches things flow along as usual. But sudden events and changes can divert our course, for good or for ill. Sometimes things open up, and we are propelled forward. Or sometimes we discover that we long ago strayed into some side channel and are no longer on the main route.

Christ began his life on earth with what is our goal: a fully developed divine nature. His path was to become fully human. And just after he arrived, after His Baptism, he experienced the flooding. The adversary tries to overwhelm Him with the novelty and power of the world seen from inside a human body. The adversary’s intent is to alter His course, to steer Him into a backwater existence or to strand him onshore. Christ avoids these dangers by steering His course firmly by the star of His own divine origin and purpose. He remains living within God’s own creative power; He quietly but firmly refuses to follow a false path of worship or of arrogance. And all the while He steers intently toward His own death. For He set as his task to cut a new channel forward out of the backwater, the mire, the death into which humanity had strayed.

Arild Rosenkrantz

Christ’s temptations are the temptations that beset every human being. Christ has made himself into a vessel, a ship by which we can keep to our own course through the deeps and shallows of life. He helps us steer through the floods, avoiding the sandbars and backwaters. He is our guide as we make our way toward our divine goal, through all of our lives. He helps us steer with confidence into and through our deaths.

www.thechristiancommunity.org 

4th February Trinity 2011, Listening

2^nd February Trinity

Luke 8:14-18

And as a great crowd had gathered, and ever more people streamed to him out of the cities, he spoke in a parable:

A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path. It was trodden upon, and the birds of the sky (air) ate it up. Other seed fell upon the rocks, and as it sprouted, it (the sprouting green) withered, because it had no moisture. Still other seed fell under the thorns; the thorns grew with it and choked what came up. And some fell upon good soil, grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold. When he had said these things, he called out:

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

His disciples asked him what this parable might mean. And he said:

To you it has been given the gift of being able to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to the others it is given in pictures and parables, for they see and do not yet see, and hear, although they do not yet understand with their thinking. The meaning of the parable is this:

The seed is the Word of God. That which fell upon the path are those who hear it; afterwards the tempter comes and tears the Word out of their hearts, so that they cannot find healing through the trusting power of faith working in them.

Those on the rock are those who, when they hear the Word, take it up with joy; but they remain without root. For a while the power of their faith works in them, but in times of trial they fall away.

What fell under the thorns are those who hear the Word from the spirit, and as they go on their way, the sorrows and the riches and the joys of life choke it, and they bring no fruit to maturity.

And the seed which fell in the good soil are those who hear the Word, and take it up into their hearts, feel its beauty, become noble and worthy and patiently keep it alive, tending it there until it brings forth fruit.

No one lights a light and hides it under a vessel or under a bench; instead he places it on a lamp stand so that all who come in see the light. For nothing is hidden which shall not be revealed, and nothing is secret which shall not be known and proclaimed.

So attend to how you listen. For he who has enlivened in himself the power to bear the spirit, to him more will be given. He however who does not have this power, from him will be taken that which he thinks he has.

4th February Trinity

February 27, 2011

Luke 8; 14-18

Before a gardener plants seeds, he makes sure that the soil is fertile and well tilled. Otherwise the seed has no chance to grow, thrive, and bear fruit.

In today’s reading, the seed that is sown is God’s Word—not just those words recorded from two thousand years ago, but also His speaking now. We ourselves are the gardeners responsible for fertility; for it is the ground of the heart in which the word seeds are sown.

Christ’s words in this parable are themselves seed words. They give us a hint about how to prepare the ground to receive His word-seeds: pay attention to how you listen[1], He says.

There are many ways of listening. We may pay no attention at all, so that we forget immediately. We may listen without depth of purpose, so that when things get tough, we abandon what we have begun. We may be so overwhelmed by the intensity of other experiences that inner growth withers.

Spiritual and religious growth requires cultivation—preparation, watchfulness, the offering of fruits in thanks. Over and over again. It requires inner determination and steadfast endurance. A Japanese poet said,

Let a stalk of wheat

be your witness

to every difficult day.

Since it was a flame

before it was a plant,

since it was courage

before it was grain,

since it was determination

before it was growth,

and, above all, since it was prayer

before it was fruition….[2]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Luke 8:18

[2] Ishihara Yoshiro, “Wheat,” translated by N. Koriyama and E. Lueders, in Like Underground Water

4th February Trinity 2012, Passing the Test

3^rd, 4^th February Trinity

Ilya Repin

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11

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.’”

Ilya Repin

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. “

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.

4^th February Trinity

Ilya Repin

February 26, 2012

Matthew 4:1-11

The gospel reading opens with Jesus being led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience the tempting power of the adversary. In a way, this is a description of a human life in general. We are led into the loneliness of earth existence. And we are all exposed to the tests of temptation that the Spirit allows the adversary to visit upon us.

The Spirit that leads Him, that leads us, is the spirit of God’s love; God’s love wants to incarnate, to become active within human beings. But we must pass three basic tests, overcome three basic hurdles.

The first is the temptation to regard our life, our work, our sustenance as self-produced. The spirit of God’s love reminds us that what truly sustains us is God’s creative power.

The second temptation goes almost in the opposite direction. We may consider ourselves so important in the grand scheme of things that we expect God’s love to protect us from all harm. But in fact avoiding harm isn’t the highest goal. Harm, even torture and death, can stimulate the greatest forces of love in us.

Our third temptation is to misplace the source of spiritual power; to place it in the world outside ourselves, to worship the illusion that someone else is ruling us, instead of connecting with the divine love and guidance placed within us.

Passing these three tests opens us, brings us into contact with the angels, those divine spiritual beings who, with God, nourish and sustain our souls and spirits. 

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

4th February Trinity 2014, Let It Go

Feb. Trinity

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

Luke 18: 18-34

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.”

When Jesus heard this, he said, [Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said… Mk 10:21] “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!

Hoffman

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.”

Collot d' Herbois

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.

4^th February Trinity

March 2, 2014

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 autumn and winter that are approaching. This is a picture of a great truth on the soul level:  over the whole of a lifetime, no matter what our riches, we must pass through loss and death to arrive at new life.

This is brought home to the rich young man in the gospel reading. He is rich, both inwardly and outwardly; he is in the summer of his development.  But Christ is asking him to take the next step—a step into an autumn shedding, the step into a winter sleep. He is to become a Lazarus, one who leaves behind a topside wealth for the good of others and lays down his life.

At this moment in the gospel, the young man is very sad—he experiences already the grief of loss. But in following Christ, he will be called forth to a whole new level of being. His loss and death will be real and complete. But so will his completely new and unforeseen life.  For Christ will intimately and continuously accompany his further development –through loss and death, and into a further life. The poet Mary Oliver says:

Every year

everything

Rembrandt

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.*

www.thechristiancommunity.org

*Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods”