Christian Community Homilies

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

4th Easter 2011, Transformation

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean, so that it will be even more fruitful. You have already been purified by the power of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit out of itself unless it is given life by the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you stay united with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me so that I can work in him, bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain united with me withers like a branch that is cut off. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words live on in you, pray for that which you also will, and it shall come about for you. By this my Father is revealed, that you bear rich spiritual fruit and become ever more truly my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

No man can have greater love than this, than that he offer up his life for his friends. You are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No longer can I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you my friends because I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father.

You did not choose me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruits should live on after you, so that what you ask the Father in my name he should give it to you. I say to you out of the fullness of my power: Love one another.

If the world hates you with hatred, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them; but you do not belong to them, because I have chosen you out of mankind. That is why people hate you.

Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have held on to my word, they will hold on to yours also. Everything that they do to you they will do as though they did it to me, for they do not know Him who sent me.

If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would be without sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who turns in hatred against me turns in hatred against my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them, deeds which no one else has ever done, they would be without guilt. But now they have seen me, and have still hated both me and my Father.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

But when the Comforter comes, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bring knowledge of me and will be my witness. And you also will be my witnesses, because you have been united with me from the very beginning.

4^th Easter

May 15, 2011

John 15:1-27

Grapevines can live hundreds of years. Those caring for them remove rank growth. This encourages the vine’s energy to be concentrated and multiplied in the fruit. The roots descend thousands of feet, drawing up water from deep in the earth. In the fruit earth’s water is transformed into mineral rich, sweet, nourishing juice through the power of the sun.

Our lives too are rooted in the earth. We draw life, strength and nourishment from her. Our task too, is cultivation, cultivation of the earth, cultivation of our own souls. We ourselves, or the Father’s angels guiding our destiny, will remove what is useless. For we are meant to transform substance of earth into fruits of pure spirit-awareness, into loving devotion.

Christ called Himself the True Vine, the Living Being of whom we are all branches. He has rooted Himself deep in the earth. He transforms work of earth into work of spirit. We, as His branches, are to concentrate and multiply His life energy into the fruitfulness of our own lives, our own souls. We are to be the bearers of His work of transformation.

When Christ’s fruit, our fruit is ripe, the angels will gather the clusters from the earth’s vine. (Rev 14:18) What will they do with the earth’s harvest? They will press out juice to become the blood of a new kind of human being, the water of a new kind of earth.

For as Rilke says:

Earth, is it not this that you want: to rise

invisibly in us? – Is that not your dream,

to be invisible, one day? – Earth! Invisible!

What is your urgent command if not transformation?

Earth, beloved, I will.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Rilke, from 9th Duino Elegy

Monday, May 12, 2014

4th Easter 2012, Timeless Life

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

Abide in me and I in you.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

4^th Easter

April 29, 2012

John 15:1-27

The vine begins its life in the ground of the earth. It first sends its roots down into the soil. Then it sends up shoots into the warmth and light of air. Eventually it flowers and fruits follow. Pulled out of the ground, or starved for light, it would die.

We too are planted on the earth. We are rooted in the ground of God’s universal love. We grow upward, seeking the light and warmth of the Christ-Sun. In His loving power we are to develop and blossom. Grounded in the Father’s love, developing and growing in Christ’s love, our own lives and souls become fruitful. They produce thoughts, words, and deeds of love. As it says in the children's service, without a grounding in love, our lives are a desolate emptiness.

This grounding of ourselves in the very being of love is a process of many seasons. It is a work in progress, as we grow and develop. For as Wendell Berry says:

As timely as a river

God's timeless life passes

Into this world. It passes

Through bodies, giving life,

And past them, giving death.

….The sun

Comes from the dark, it lights

The always passing river,

Shines on the great-branched tree,

And goes. Longing and dark,

We are completely filled

With breath of love, in us

Forever incomplete.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Wendell Berry,“III“, in Given

Sunday, May 11, 2014

4th Easter 2014, All Depends

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

Abide in me and I in you.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

4^th Easter

May 11, 2014

John 15: 1 -27

A good gardener removes dead branches. This is not only for esthetics. It is also because on some invisible level, a dead branch becomes something that prevents the plant or tree from filling out its own form properly. Something dead becomes a place the plant has to work around. It weakens the tree’s energy.

We too may have dead areas in our lives. On the physical level, the ‘dead branches’ are those things and objects we never use. We may even be paying rent, pouring out our monetary energy, to store them! Emotionally such branches may be relationships that are no longer living, perhaps even debilitating. Spiritually our dead branches may be practices in prayer or meditation or reading that have become stale and no longer vital. Once we remove what is no longer living, our life, on all levels, can take on its own proper form. For the essence of living things is change – new growth, another flowering, seeds for new life. And because we are all connected, this new life affects everyone. The poet says:

Vine and branch we’re connected in this world
of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple

belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
that claims it, then ground. Connections
balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,

hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends. [1]

Christ is the sap of our lives, individually and collectively. He bears and orders the life of the world. He would penetrate us, give us new living forces, so that we may truly live, so that our lives together are fruitful, physically, emotionally, spiritually. The Good Gardener helps us trim our lives clean, so that we all remain strong, healthy and productive.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Jeanne Lohmann , in Shaking the Tree

4th Easter 2013, A Great Need

4^th Easter

John 15: 1-27

Abide in me and I in you.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.

These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.

But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

4^th Easter

Corrine Vonaesch

April 21, 2013

John 15: 1-27

Once in a while an appliance fails to work. Experience has probably taught us that the first thing to do is to first check that it is plugged in to the power source.

We humans are ‘plugged in’ to two different power sources. One is a survival system that is set to save our individual lives. Fear is its early warning system. When activated, we either fight or run.

The other power source is aroused by seeing need in others. It activates nurturing and cooperation. It supports the good of the whole. Another name for this is love.

Interestingly this second power source can override the fear-based one. Sourced by love, people can do amazing and courageous things, things which may threaten or even end their own personal survival.

Christ is the energy source for this second power source in us. To choose to act out of love is to connect with the Source of Love itself. Connected with Him, motivated by His power, tendrils of love grow into the world. They blossom into nurturing deeds, based on working together. They bear its nourishing fruit to all who need it. The poet Hafiz says:

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.[1]

Amazingly, Christ also needs us in order to operate in the world. Without our being sourced in Him, He can do nothing. He also needs us, needs us to be connected to Him, so that He can operate in the world, so that He can continue to keep the world alive.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] “A GREAT NEED”, in The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky). Picture: The Good Samaritan, by Corrine Vonaesch.

Friday, May 9, 2014

3rd Easter 2008, City of Peace

3^rd Easter

John 10: 1-21

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

That is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up anew. No one can take it from me. But in full freedom I myself offer it up. I have the power to give it away and also the power to receive it anew. That is the task given to me by my Father.”

Then there again arose a division among the people because of these words. Many of them said, “He is possessed by a demon and is out of his mind. Why do you listen to him?” Yet others said, “These are not the words of one who is possessed. After all, can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

3^rd Easter Sunday

April 6, 2008

John 10: 1-21

A door has two functions. It can open to allow us to move from one space to another. Closed, that access is denied.

In life we often find ourselves at thresholds, a new phase of life, a new job, or even the ending of something. Doors open to us—or close. We have the choice to walk through such an opening—or not. We have the choice to try to create an opening—or not.

Our soul too has its own door. It is our ability to say yes, or to say no, to what comes to meet us. Saying yes, we open our soul to what wants to enter our inner space—an event, a person, a course of action. Sometimes it is necessary to say no and to close our self to something, say, unhealthy.

This capacity to choose, to say yes or no, is a gift from the Creator, in whose image we were made and in whose image we are remodeling ourselves. It is a function of the Self. That this is so is underscored by Christ’s own self-description—My I AM is a Door.

He who functions as the great Yes and the great No, the archetype of choice, can help us in our own yes’s and no’s. Together with Christ, our choices can be healthy ones. Together with Christ our decisions can be clear and move us fully along from one inner space to another. Christ encourages us: “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes, and your ‘No’ be ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one,” He says. Mt 5:37.

One of the saints said:

We should probably pause,

and discover where we stand and if

we at least stand facing

in the most likely direction.

Have we yet left our

fallen city, have we so much

as exited the gate?

…Have you, like me,

advanced, say, several

miles, and then retraced

the same distance in reverse?

Have we come so far

as the Holy City itself,

The City of Peace?

Have we entered its open

gate, or do we stand

cowering outside, unable

to enter it?[1]

Ironically, even with regard to the soul’s own relationship to Christ, the relationship between the little door of the soul to the Great Door, there exists a paradox. He who is himself the Door of the Self, has chosen to wait outside the door of the soul’s choice, the door of our heart. He knocks and waits to be admitted. For Christ Himself respects our freedom of choice. With Him too, our soul faces a choice. Will our heart choose to say yes, and open the door to Him? Will our heart say yes and cross the threshold into the space of His great heart, into His City of Peace?

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Dorotheos of Gaza (c. 490- c.560, “Where We Are”, in Love’s Immensity, Scott Cairns, p. 66.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

3rd Easter 2009, Another's Soul-Gate

3^rd Easter

John 10: 1-21

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.

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 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.

3^rd Easter Sunday

April 26, 2009

John 10: 1 – 21

“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 the shepherd of the sheep.” John 10: 1, 2

The gospels speak in symbolic language, the language of pictures. This parable is clearly speaking not only about how to care for lambs and ewes. It is also talking about how to care for the souls of others.

Christ describes first of all a walled communal sheep pen with a door. There is a doorkeeper. The shepherd approaches. The doorkeeper opens to him. The sheep who belong to the shepherd recognize his voice and follow him out to pasture.

On the level of soul, one could imagine that the sheep within walls are all the aspects of a single human being. There is a doorkeeper in us that opens and closes to the approach of another. Perhaps the doorkeeper is our fate or destiny; perhaps it is also that part of us that decides to pay attention to what is approaching us from without. It is that in us which discerns whose voice is calling us, and what the quality of that voice is. If something in us recognizes the voice as something familiar and caring, as something we belong to, we will emerge from our walls and join.

We would do well to approach other souls in the manner of a caring shepherd who wants to nourish them, rather than steal or possess.

This is important not only for them, but also for us. For with Christ, something in history changed dramatically. He Himself has become the true shepherd of our souls, the one who guides our destiny and leads us to what we need. He has replaced the institutions of family, tribe, nation and race. At the same time He Himself, the true I AM, has become in each human soul the doorway, that which opens and closes, that which pays attention, that which grants admission, or not.

We would do well to approach others in His spirit; to wait before the door of another’s soul until Christ, the gatekeeper in them, allows us admittance. For Christ is now the keeper of human destiny, the guardian over human decisions. To go around Him, to coerce, manipulate, to pressure, to ignore the closed gate, is to break and enter, to steal and possess another’s choice, their destiny.

This is the case whether the soul’s gate is another’s, or our own. For to some extent, the higher guiding aspect of our destiny also stands outside the door, waiting for the time to ripen, waiting for us to open the door, waiting for us to recognize the voice of Christ calling us forth. His voice is the voice who leads us out into the Father’s open fields. He lays down His life to protect us from the destructive forces that would tear and scatter our souls. He it is who brings us to nourishment and bids us live.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

3rd Easter 2010, Strength to Deeply Love

3^rd Easter

Sanz-Cardona

John 10: 1-21

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.

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 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.

3^rd Easter

April 18, 2010

John 10: 1-21

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 sometimes 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.

Josephine Wall

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, without fear, we can cross all thresholds, saying with the poet,

I sleep where I will

wake with the

strength to

deeply

love….[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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