Sunday, August 3, 2014

2nd August Trinity 2013, Pearls

Matthew 7, 1-29

2^nd August Trinity

“Do not judge your fellow man, so that your judgment will not someday be

Giusto

visited upon yourself. For with the judgment that you pronounce you also speak your own judgment, and the measure by which you measure will be the measuring rod for your own self. Why do you look to the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not become aware of the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: “Wait, I will pull the splinter out of your eye”--but mark it well, there is a log in your own eye. You hypocrite, first remove the log from your own eye, and then you may be able to see how to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor throw pearls to the swine, for these will tread them underfoot, and then turn upon you and tear you also to pieces.

Ask from the heart and it will be given to your heart; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you; for he who asks in uprightness will receive; he who earnestly seeks will find; he who knocks, to him will be opened. Or are there among you those who when his son asks for bread would give him a stone; or when he asks for a fish would offer him a snake? If then you who in spite of wickedness know how to give good things to your children, how much more goodness will your Father in the heavens give to those who earnestly ask him for it.

All that you want that men should do for you, do first for them. This is the true content of the Law and the Prophets.

Walk through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the path is easy which leads to ruin [the abyss] and many are they who walk it. But narrow is the gate and difficult the path that leads to Life, and it is only the individual who finds it.

Be on your guard against false prophets of healing. They come to you in the garments of peaceful lambs, but inwardly are rapacious wolves. You shall recognize them by the fruits of their deeds. Never will you harvest grapes from a thorn bush, nor figs from thistles. Every noble tree brings forth good fruit, but a wild tree only forms unusable fruit. A noble tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a wild tree cannot form good fruit. A tree that does not bring forth good fruit will be cut down and put in the fire. Therefore, recognize them by the fruits of their deeds.

Not everyone who addresses me with “Lord! Lord! “ can be taken up into the kingdom; only he who accomplishes the will of my Father in the heavens. In the future, when the light of God breaks over the earthly darkness, many will call to me. They will say, “Lord! Lord! have we not worked in advance for your revelation? Have we not driven out spirits of destruction in honor of you? Have we not gathered multiple powers for your word?”

Then I will freely say to them, ‘I do not know you. My paths are not your paths. Depart from me, for you serve the forces of chaos [the downfall of the world].’

Everyone who hears such words from me and acts accordingly will be like a man who wisely built his house on bedrock. The clouds burst, the waves rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not totter, for it was founded upon the rock.

He, however, who hears such words from me and does not act accordingly is like a man who foolishly builds his house upon sand. The rain comes down, the floods rise, the winds blow and beat upon the house, and it collapses with a great crash.”

When Jesus had completed saying this, the people were greatly moved, for he spoke to them out of spiritual authority, as if the powers of creation themselves spoke out of him, and not like their teachers of the law [canon-lawyers].

2^nd August Trinity

August 4, 2013

Matthew 7: 1 – 14

In last week’s reading, we saw how Peter caught the lightning flash of Christ behind the mask of Jesus, the humble itinerant teacher and healer. Such a lightning flash of insight sometimes happens to us. It can deepen our awareness and teach us to change our way of thinking and acting.

With insight we can come to see behind the mask that our fellow human beings seem to wear. We may come to realize that it is our own judgment of them that has placed a mask over them. And so we may learn to become more compassionately discerning.

With insight we may also come to see our own enthusiasm for sharing what we know and have discovered. At the same time, we may realize that we have been scattering spiritual treasures at the feet of those who are not yet ready to take them up. We may have caused them to reject and ridicule what we offer. And so we may need to learn to become more compassionately discerning.

In our own lives we may think we know what we need and want. Despite what we ask for, despite what we think we want, we may later realize that what actually happened, what we actually got, was something much deeper, much better. Insight may show us that we may have been asking for stones and the Father gave us bread. And so we have come to learn that the Father is compassionately discerning.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

Thursday, July 31, 2014

1st August Trinity 2009, Fields of Light

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi [ses’uh-ree’uh fi-lip’i] (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshipped as a divine being). And on the way there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Then Peter took him aside and began to urge him not to let this happen. He, however, turned around, looked at his disciples, and reprimanded Peter, saying to him, “Withdraw from me; now the adversary is speaking through you! Your thinking is not divine but merely human in nature.”

And he called the crowd together, including his disciples and said to them, “Whoever would follow me must practice self-denial and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of his own soul will lose it; but whoever gives his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, his soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that he damages his soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can a man give as ransom for his soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the shining revelation of the Father among his holy angels.“

And he said to them, “The truth I say to you, among those who are standing here there are some who will not taste death before they behold the kingdom of God arising in human beings, revealing itself in the power and magnificence of the spirit.”

1^st August Trinity

Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1

July 26, 2009

Sometimes an awareness dawns on us in a flash. We may have known someone a long time, when suddenly we realize something very basic, perhaps even sterling, about their character.

Peter has just such a flash about Jesus. He had known Him for a while; He even loved Him. But suddenly he realizes that this is not just a man, a great friend. Peter realizes that this is the Christ, the Son of God sent to redeem the people. He does not, however, for the moment, understand the how of Christ’s redeeming, for it would be so radical as to be unthinkable.

Today it is also possible for us to have a flash of awareness of Christ. In study we may come to realize the enormity of what Christ Jesus has done for the whole world. Or we may have a flash of the awareness of His presence, of being strengthened in an hour of need or despair. Or we may see the warm shining of His acceptance and love coming toward us through the eyes of another human being.

Such moments have a delicate tenderness that can soon be swamped, covered over in the everyday. We may forget them, or even explain them away. But when, after death, we look back on the inside of our lives, we will recognize these experiences as the defining ones. We will see them as the moments that influenced the course of our own destiny. So, in the words of the poet:

Awake awhile.

Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics

For Knowing Him,

For they are all just frozen spring buds

Far,

So far from Summer's Divine Gold.

Awake, my dear.

Be kind to your sleeping heart.

Take it out into the vast fields of Light

And let it breathe.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Hafiz, “Awake Awhile”, in I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 73.

1st August Trinity 2010, Give All to Love

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshipped as a divine being). And on the way there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Momsa

1^st August Trinity

July 25, 2010

Mark 8:27 – 9:1

The Sun in its course of the year has entered the constellation of Leo. It is the constellation of the heart, the house of the awakening of courage and love.

In today’s reading, Christ asks His disciples who they think He is. And Peter’s heart awakens: ‘You are the Christ!’ Then Christ proceeds to teach them about His coming suffering and death. He, the lion of Judah, is trying to show them that He is willing to undergo a human destiny. He, the lion, will become the lamb, sacrificed in love for the sake of humanity’s heart. He is trying to lay the groundwork for courage in the destiny that we will all share.

But Peter’s very natural reaction is to deny and reject the possibility that the Messiah will have to suffer and die. Christ is quick to point out that Peter’s fear-based thinking provides an opening for the adversary’s power. He says that through thoughts and actions based on fear, we will fail to measure up to our divine potential. We will fail to fully embrace our destiny.

Cranach the Elder

Through His own example, Christ encourages us to take up our own lives with courage, whatever life brings us. We are to stand firm and meet courageously life’s adversities. For suffering is a portal. Through His own suffering and death, Christ has opened this portal for us in the direction of the Father and His angels. He is, as He Himself says, the gateway. (John 10:9)

Fear keeps the gate locked, giving the adversary access to us. With Christ in our thoughts, with Christ in our hearts, we will find the courage to face our difficulties. With Christ in our hearts we may even find the courage to love our destiny. Through Christ we find the way back home to the Father.

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

’T is a brave master;

….Let it have scope:

Follow it utterly,

Hope beyond hope:

….But it is a god,

Knows its own path

And the outlets of the sky.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] “Give All to Love”, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

1st August Trinity 2011, The Task

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Peter

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

First August Trinity

July 24, 2011

Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1

In today’s reading we hear Christ’s mysterious words: ‘whoever is concerned with the salvation of his own soul will lose it.’ Strange— isn’t that what Christianity is all about? The saving of one’s soul?

There is a story of a man who awakens one night to the presence of an angel writing in a book. The man asks, with humble courage, what the angel is writing. The angel replies, ‘The names of those who love the Lord’. Yet the man’s own name does not appear on the list. So he asks the angel to write him down as one who loves his fellowmen. The next night the angel returns, showing the names of those whom God has blessed, and the man’s name shines at the top of the list.[1]

The Gospel, the Good News from the realm of the angels, is that through Christ, we are all given the power and strength to love our fellow human beings. For the salvation of our own souls is not the goal. It is the result, a sort of unintended consequence of loving others. Our task is not the salvation of our own soul; it is the salvation of the world, through love. For Christ did not say, ‘save yourself’. Instead He has given us all a task. He asks us ‘to love one another as I have loved you’ (John 13:34)

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] “Abou Ben Adhem”, by Leigh Hunt, in The Golden Treasury of Poetry, Untermeyer, p. 315

Monday, July 28, 2014

1st August Trinity 2012, Begin

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

Kings Library, The Hague

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Raphael

1^st August/September Trinity

July 22, 2012

Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1

We have passed the half-way point in the year. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are descending from the year’s zenith. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, the time of deepest darkness is past. Now begins the ascent into the light.

In today’s reading, Peter’s recognition of the Christ in Jesus is a kind of a high point. It allows Christ to further reveal even more of Himself—He says that the Son of Man must suffer much, be rejected, killed. But He will rise again. He speaks of a descent into the depths of human existence, into death, and beyond; for He will rise again.

This revelation seems to spur Peter’s thinking into a narrow abyss of fear—he urges Jesus to save His skin; but thereby Peter’s practicality misses the bigger picture, and he inadvertently opposes Christ’s mission. For in conquering death, Christ will ultimately make the earth itself into His body.

In our lives too, there are moments when the working of the divine reveals itself, often in the midst of an ordeal. We may not recognize it until later. And we may also then see how we resisted it out of fear or pride.

Though it is certainly human enough that we resist suffering, we ultimately need not fear it. These are indeed just the places where Christ is most easily found. For He has placed Himself forever into the depths of human existence. Whether we are ascending into the light, or descending into darkness, He always there to help us begin anew. As Vaclav Havel said,

Road to Emmaus, Bonnell

It is I who must begin.

Once I begin, once I try --

here and now,

right where I am,

….-- as soon as I begin that,

I suddenly discover,

to my surprise, that

I am neither the only one,

nor the first,

nor the most important one

to have set out

upon that road.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Vaclav Havel, “It Is I Who Must Begin’ in Teaching With Fire, ed. by S.M. Intrator and M. Scribner

Sunday, July 27, 2014

1st August Trinity 2014, Two Questions

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

1^st August Trinity

July 27, 2014

Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1

Changing our angle of vision brings us very different information. Looking at an object from below shows us a different aspect than from above; the right side may be different from the left, as inner is from outer.

Christ asks two questions of those following him. One is “Who do others say that I am?” And the answers are multiple: John, Elijah, a prophet. Then he asks, “Who do you say that I am?” It is a question that directs their attention within, to their hearts. And Peter expresses the recognition that in Jesus there lives the promised Messiah, Christ, the Son of God.

For all of us, what matters about Christ is not what others say about him, for there are as many opinions as there are people. What matters is our soul’s own inner recognition of who Christ Jesus is. For he wants to live in and light up each human soul. He wants to live in our thinking as the light of reverent wonder. He wants to live in our hearts as the light of compassion and empathy. He wants to live in our will as enlightened deeds that repair the past and prepare the future.

We can perhaps hear His voice in the poem by Rumi:

Jacopo Bassano

If you put your hands on this oar with me,

they will never harm another, and they will come to find

they hold everything you want.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,

the power that made the universe will enter your sinew

from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm

that lives in us.*

www.thechristiancommunity.org

*Rumi, “THAT LIVES IN US”, in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky

1st August Trinity 2013, Peter's Confession

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

1^st August Trinity

July 28, 2013

Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1

Sometimes things wear masks. The ugly bug in the garden turns out to be a beneficial. The carpenter building your cabinets turns out to have a Master’s in literature. If you can see beyond the surface, the world is full of surprises.

Christ Jesus wore the mask of a poor, homeless itinerant preacher and healer. It took a flash of moral intuition for Simon Peter to catch a glimpse of what vastness lay behind the mask. He caught the flash of the Messiah, the Son of God.

The world itself wears a mask, much of it pasted on by our own way of perceiving it and thinking about it. And so Peter, although he caught the greatness of Christ, rejects Christ’s prediction of what he will do and suffer. It is too radically different from Peter’s expectations. And so he pastes a mask of human reasonableness onto the vastness of a truth he cannot comprehend.

Sometimes we too have a flash of insight. It can be fearsome. What seems to matter to Christ is that we not set ourselves in opposition to what must be; that we surrender ourselves to what He means to have happen in the world, no matter how frightening or repulsive or puzzling the mask may seem to us. We need to be able to say in the words of Adam Bittleston:

May the events that seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

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 who seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s light

By which we see.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Adam Bittleston, Meditative Prayers for Today. Click here to purchase