3rd February Trinity 2015, The Quiet Mystery

Blake

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.’”

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."

Botticelli

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.

3^rd February Trinity

(Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4: 1-11

Monreale

We are spiritual beings living in earthly human bodies. Over the course of the ages, these bodies have become ‘infected. ’ To use a computer analogy, it is as though adversarial beings have inserted various viruses into our human constitution. They have so-to-speak’ corrupted our files’. They are attempting to commandeer them in order to make us do things not originally intended by the Maker. Jesus is our security adviser. He helps us figure out how to work around the problems.

First we are not to pay attention solely to the earthly side of things. We are to recognize that we are nourished not only by bread, but also by all that we take in of the earthly. But most importantly we are nourished and sustained by the intangible creative Power behind all that is, the very Source of our existence.

By contrast we are also not to rely solely or foolishly on the heavenly either. We are to use our earthly judgment and sense of responsibility, our capacity of clear thinking. If we keep visiting those internal sites of infection, if we listen to the illusions of pride, we will fall. We are not to put the heavenly world to the test.

And furthermore, we are to recognize and distinguish clearly between God and the adversary’s infections. We are guard against illusion and delusion. We are to serve and follow the Original Source.

The poet Denise Levertov describes our human condition, our position between heaven and earth:

Days pass when I forget the mystery.

Problems insoluble and problems offering

their own ignored solutions

jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber

along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing

their colored clothes; cap and bells.

And then

once more the quiet mystery

is present to me, the throng's clamor

recedes: the mystery

that there is anything, anything at all,

let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,

rather than void: and that, O Lord,

Creator, Hallowed One, You still,

hour by hour sustain it.[1]

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[1] Denise Levertov,  “Primary Wonder” in Selected Poems 

2nd February Trinity 2015, Fear Not the Pain

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

Luke 18: 18-34

One of the highest spiritual leaders of the people asked him, “Good Master,

Heinrich Hoffman

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.

2^nd February Trinity

Luke 18: 18 – 34

February 15, 2015

In spring the trees display the beauty of blossoms. Then there comes a point: the petals fall; the beauty fades into a kind of death; and ordinary green emerges. Yet where the blossoms spent themselves, hidden beneath the leaves, there lie the fruits. At first they are small and hard. But eventually, in the fall, the season of death, they will ripen to provide the new life of the next season.

The rich young man was in full flower. He had fulfilled all the commandments; he had accumulated all the cultural and spiritual riches of his people. He was ready for the next step. But instead of giving him more riches, more glory, Christ sends him on a path of descent, a path of sacrifice. He is to shed the beauty of his ‘petals’ for the sake of others. Sadness follows. At first the fruits of this path are small and hard. At the same time, it is the path that Christ acknowledges that He himself is taking.

What took place outwardly for the rich young man takes place for us now inwardly. We are not literally required to sell all our possessions, though there may come a time when that is appropriate.  Rather we are to be willing to inwardly sacrifice, to let go of everything we have accomplished, all the knowledge we have acquired, in order to take the next step in becoming fruitful to others. Perhaps this means that we let children assume more responsibility for their lives, for their sakes. Or we may recognize that we need to hand over some leadership responsibilities to others for the sake of the group’s further development. Or that we let go of the old ways in order to develop new ones.  In other words, we are being reminded that there comes a point where we need to descend, to sacrifice, in order that new life can arise.  As Rilke says:

….

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive

throughout a long and uncomplaining life,

committed to one goal: to give yourself!

And silently to grow and to bear fruit.[1]

….enter the breathing

that is more than your own.

….

Fear not the pain.  Let its weight fall back

into the earth;

…

The trees you planted in childhood have grown

too heavy.  You cannot bring them along.

Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.[2]

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[1] Rainer Maria Rilke,  “The Apple Orchard”, in Rainer Maria Rilke: Selected Poems, trans. by Albert Ernest Flemming

[2]  Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 1, 4”,  in In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

1st February Trinity 2015, Ploughed by Pain

1^st or 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.

1^st February Trinity

February 8, 2015

Luke 8: 14 – 18

Anyone who has tried planting a garden knows: the conditions must be right. The right season, the right temperature, neither too hot nor too cold. The right level of moisture, neither too hard and dry, nor too muddy. The right level of fertility.

Our hearts are also gardens waiting to be cultivated; cultivated through art, through truth, through spiritual and religious practice. Some of us may be just starting. Or maybe we tried before, but we lacked sufficient depth. Or maybe our hearts wandered off into the busyness of life. But there comes a moment.  The poet says:

My soul is a dark ploughed field

In the cold rain;

My soul is a broken field

Ploughed by pain.

Where windy grass and flowers

Were growing,

The field lies broken now

For another sowing.

Great Sower, when you tread

My field again,

Scatter the furrows there

With better grain.[1]

James Tissot 

Our hearts ploughed by life’s sorrows, broken open with gratitude, watered by tears. And the Word-Seed is sown. Recognizing our fertility, our heart’s potential, the Creator drops his Word – I AM – into our hearts.

And the Word-Seed takes root. We recognize that it has the potential to grow into a thing of beauty in us. And so we straighten up and do our best to cultivate the garden of our heart. With patient effort we tend the Word-Seed. We keep our hearts moist and soft. We weed out our bad habits. With patient effort we tend the creating Word in our hearts until it grows and blossoms forth in beauty of soul. Until it matures into fruitful deeds of love.

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[1] Sara Teasdale, “The Broken Field"

4th Epiphany 2015, Not My Will

Bloch

4^th Epiphany
John 5: 1-18

Some time later, there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep’s Gate, a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which is surrounded by 5 covered porches. Here lay a great many invalids, the blind, the lame [crippled], the weak [withered], waiting for the water to begin moving. For from time to time a powerful angel of the Lord descended into the pool and stirred up the waters. The first one in the pool after such a disturbance would be cured of whatever ailment he had.

And there was a certain man there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and became aware that he had been ill for so long, he asked him,

“Do you want [have the will] to become whole?”

The invalid answered him, “Lord [Sir], I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Rise up, take up your pallet, and walk.”  At once the man was healed and picked up his pallet and walked.

               

However it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jewish leaders said to the man who was healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your pallet.”

But he replied, “The man who healed me said to me, “take up your pallet and walk!”

And they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you ‘take it up and walk’?”

But the one who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, as there was a crowd in the place.

Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, “Take to heart what I say: Behold, you have become whole. Sin no more, lest your destiny bring you something worse.”

The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. That is why they persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

Then he himself countered them with the words, “Until now my Father has worked, and from now on I also work.”

Then they sought all the more to kill him, because not only had he broken the Sabbath, but also because he had called God his own Father and had set himself equal to God.

4^th Epiphany

Feb 1, 2015

John 5: 1-18

The man at the pool in Bethesda wants to be healed. But in  this circumstance, only one person at a time can be healed. And so an atmosphere of competition pervades. With each stirring of the water, egotism arises; each person rushes to be the first to claim the limited resources, so there is nothing left for the others.

Christ first asks the man if he really wants to get well. And then He gives him a direct infusion of His own strength through the power of His creating Word. Rise, He says. Take up your pallet – your true destiny – and walk forward on your path.

Yet the story has a complicated ending. It was the Sabbath. Carrying a pallet was forbidden. And when the man told the leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him and told him to do so, it further aroused their enmity toward Christ. As Jesus knew it would. As we say, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’.

Christ is the true self of humankind. He is also the Lord of Karma. If it is time for healing, it doesn’t matter what the rules are – He works. Knowing that those ‘in charge’ will oppose Him. Knowing that speaking the truth of calling God his Father will in fact cause him to be executed.

He fears not, because He lives and acts according to the Father’s will. As He says in the prayer that He gave us, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in the heavens”. Mt 6:10  As he will say in the face of his own death,” not my will but thine be done”. Luke 22:42  As we can say at any time, “May we so perform your will as you, Father, have laid it down in our inmost being.” (Esoteric Lord’s Prayer, Rudolf Steiner)

3rd Epiphany 2015, Give Wine

3^rd Epiphany

Wedding at Cana, Giotto

January 25, 2015

John 2: 1 -11

On the third day a wedding took place in Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.

When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

And Jesus answered her, “Something still weaves between me and you, o Woman. The hour when I can work out of myself alone has not yet come.”

Then his mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

There were six stone jars set up there for the Jewish custom of ceremonial washing, each containing twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with fresh water.”

And they filled them to the brim. And he said, “Now draw some out and take it to the Master of the feast. And they brought it to him.

Now when the Master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine, not knowing where it came from—for only the servants who had drawn the water knew—he called the bridegroom aside and said to him, “Everyone serves the choice wine first, and when the guests have drunk, then the lesser; but you have saved the best until now.”

This, the beginning of the signs of the spirit which Jesus performed among men happened at Cana in Galilee and revealed the creating spiritual power that worked through Him. The disciples’ hearts opened, the power of faith began to stir in them, and they began to trust in him.

3^rd Epiphany

January 25, 2015

John 2: 1 -11

Wine of course comes from grapes.  The vine draws the earth’s water up and transforms it via sunlight into the strength of juice and the sweetness of sugars. Fermented, it becomes ‘spirits’. In large amounts these spirits can displace our own spirit, our selfhood. It diminishes our capacity to make decisions, to control our impulses, to be in charge of ourselves.

At the wedding, Christ became the vine. He had water drawn up from the earth. He transformed it into wine. But this wine was different. Those attending took in the good wine, the best. Instead of robbing them of their selfhood, His wine enhanced it.

Christ, the True Vine, gives life and strength to our spirits. He enhances our ability to experience and act out of our true selfhood. At the wedding, Christ says,’ fill the jars’, and then ‘draw some out.’ Fill and draw. The wedding at Cana is a signpost, pointing to a fulfillment at the Last Supper.  Then Christ will pour his blood’s vitality, its very life, into the wine. He will say of it, ‘This is my blood’, my vitality, my life offered to you.

In the Act of Consecration, the communion service, we fill the chalice with water and the (unfermented) juice of the vine. We offer them along with our feelings of love for Christ. They are transformed. And in communion we are filled with the strength of his vitality, his blood. We fill and we draw. Give and take; offer and receive. And one day we will recognize that what we have been given is our true self. As the poet says:

The time will come

when, with elation,

…You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart…. [1]

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[1] Derek Walcott "Love After Love", in Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

2nd Epiphany 2015, Wise, Mature and Beautiful

2^nd Epiphany

Jesus with the Teachers, Durer

January 18, 2015

Luke 2: 41 – 52

Every year his [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they took him with them. Now after they had gone there and fulfilled the custom during the days of the feast, they set off on their way home. But the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know this; they thought he was among the company of the travelers. 

After a day’s journey they missed him among their friends and relations. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And those who heard him were amazed at his mature understanding and his answers.

And when they saw him, they were taken aback, and his mother said to him, “My child, why have you done this to us? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.”

And he said to them, “Why did you look for me? Did you not know that I must be and live in that which is my Father’s?”

But they did not understand the meaning of the words he spoke to them. And he went down with them again to Nazareth and followed them willingly in all things.

And his mother carefully kept all these things living in her heart. And Jesus progressed in wisdom, in maturity and grace [favor] in the sight of God and man.

2^nd Epiphany

January 18, 2015

Luke 2: 41 – 52

Finding the Boy Jesus in the Temple, William, Holman Hunt

You are likely familiar with the fairy tale in which what appears to be a duckling turns out to be a swan. In today’s gospel reading, the boy Jesus undergoes the first of many transformations. He comes into his own 'swan-hood': wise, mature and beautiful. His parents don’t understand how their ‘duckling’ could turn out so differently than they had known him to be, so unexpectedly.

There is a part of all of our souls which is like the boy. Our parents, our family, our society has laid certain expectations on us. But our true identity is swan-like. The boy Jesus is the archetype for how we deal with the possible conflict between the imperatives of our higher, developing swan- nature and the demands of our family and surroundings.

We firmly tread the path of our own higher development. And at the same time, we respect and honor those to whom we are responsible.

Soon enough the boy will leave home and embark on a world-shattering journey. But for now, despite a dawning self-awareness, he continues to develop quietly, inwardly. Perhaps he prays the words of Psalm 121:

I look deep into my heart,

to the core where wisdom arises.
Wisdom comes from the Unnamable
and unifies heaven and earth.
The Unnamable is always with [me] you,
shining from the depths of [my] your heart.
His peace will keep [me] you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
When [I] you find him present within [me] you,
[I] you find truth at every moment.
He will guard [me] you from all wrongdoing;
he will guide [my] your feet on his path.
He will temper [my] your youth with patience;
he will crown [my] your old age with fulfillment.
And dying, [I] you will leave [my] your body
as effortlessly as a sigh.[1]

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[1] Psalm 121,  from A Book of Psalms, trans. and adapted by Stephen Mitchell)(further adapted also by CH.)

Epiphany, January 6 and 11, 2025, Uses of the Stars

1st Epiphany

Adoration of the Magi, Burne-Jones

Matthew 2: 1-12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 6 and 11, 2015

Matthew 2: 1-12

“In the beginning… darkness was on the face of the deep…. And God said, ‘Let there be light’. Thus the very pattern of the world was stamped with primal pairings, pairings of light and dark – day and night, life and death.

These pairings live on in as the pattern of our souls, which swing between love and hate, hope and fear, good and evil. Herod represents that dark capacity in all of us which fears loss of position, which instigates our capacity for calculating secretiveness, for destructiveness. Yet we also have the three kings in us to balance out our inner darkness. They are the soul’s capacity to see the starlight of higher wisdom; to be devoted to God’s guidance; to willingly acknowledge the necessity of sacrifice.

It is the wise guidance of the star that leads them first to Herod, then to the Christ Child that prompts the gift of gold. It is their devotion to God’s guidance, sent to them also through the words of their dream of warning, that accompanies the gift of frankincense. It is their willingness to recognize the Child’s coming sacrifice that prompts the gift of myrrh.

The darkness of fear contends with God’s light in all of us. Darkness leads us to destruction. But God’s light leads to a great and holy joy. In the words of the poet we pray:

Lift up my eyes

Three Kings' Dream, David Newbatt

from the earth, and let me not

forget the uses of the stars.

….Let me not follow the clamor of

the world, but walk calmly

in my path.[1]

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[1] Max Ehrmann, “ A Prayer” in The Desiderata of Happiness