1st August Trinity 2015, Our Real Journey

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

1st 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.”

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.

Get Thee Behind Me, Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

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.”

1st August Trinity

July 26, 2015

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

Once again in the course of the year, we stand before a beginning. In this second half of the year, we are embarking on a ten week walk toward Michaelmas. It begins with Peter’s recognizing that Christ, the expected Messiah, the Anointed One, lives in Jesus. Peter’s acknowledgement allows Christ to reveal something more of himself. Contrary to expectations the Messiah will be rejected. He will suffer and die. And He will rise again after three days.

From our perspective, after the fact, Christ’s own path is obvious. But to the Hebrews of His time, such a revelation comes as a shock; the Messiah would be rejected and killed? So it is understandable that Peter objects and seeks to protect Him. But Christ adamantly rejects Peter’s well-meaning but purely utilitarian thinking. For Christ’s mission has a much broader and higher context. The revolution He leads takes place both in the cosmic dimension and within the most intimate depths of the human soul.

In our own lives we can have flashes of insight, inspirations coming from the future. But then objections arise: that’s not what I had hoped for….that would mean….but I can’t. We sense the difficulties and call it impossible. We are unwilling, un-willing what wants to be.

Christ takes a much broader and deeper path, a via negativa, a path of descent. Just as a mother must suffer birth pangs in order to bring forth a new human being, so too must He, and we, be willing to undergo rejection and suffering, and even the death of our hopes and dreams, in order to bring forth what really and truly needs to happen.  As the poet Wendell Berry says:

"It may be when we no

 longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey."

4th St. Johnstide 2015, Daughters of the Lamb

St. Johnstide

Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You are sons of the serpent yet! Who led you to believe that you can avoid the decline of the old ways of the soul? Produce true fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind. And do not begin excusing yourselves by saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that God can raise up sons for Abraham out of these stones. The ax is already poised at the root of the trees, so every tree that does not produce good fruit is felled and thrown into the fire.”

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

John answered, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Do not collect any more than you are authorized to do,” he told them.

               

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

St. Martin 

He replied, “Do not intimidate and do not accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ, the Messiah.

John answered them all, “I wash you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will wash you with the breath of the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, while he burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

And with many and various exhortations John preached the good news to the people.

St. Johnstide

July 19, 2015

Luke 3: 7-18

A son or daughter derives much of their way of being from their parents. In many respects, (though not all), the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as the saying goes.

Beatus Escorial, wiki

John the Baptist tells the people coming to him to be baptized that they are yet ‘sons of the serpent’. That is to say that their life is organized around the uprighted serpent of their earthly senses, housed in the brain and spinal column. In a certain very real sense, our inherited physical constitution goes back to Adam and Eve, when this ‘serpent’ inserted itself into human evolution. We are all sons and daughters of the serpent, living by the senses.

But John has seen in Christ a new kind of human being. Seeing Christ gives him the image of a lamb, a young innocent who will nevertheless take on the burden of the world’s sin, which are the results of living only by the serpent.

We are called upon to become sons and daughters of the Lamb. We are to share the burdens of our fellow human beings; share our outer and inner wealth with them. We are not to unfairly heap more weight on them than they can carry. We are not to intimidate them or tarnish their reputation.

Becoming a son or daughter of the Lamb is no easy task. It includes undergoing a kind of purification by fire – a burning out of all the old serpentine ways of thinking and of acting solely for our own advantage.  What is of value in us will be winnowed out from what is useless in our nature. We prune and shape and cultivate our soul life, our very sense of self, so that it produces good spiritual fruits to offer to God and to our fellow brothers and sisters. 

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3rd St. Johnstide 2015, Who Can Be Trusted

St. Johnstide

Florentine School, Wikimedia

John 3: 22-36

After this Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.

He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

But whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is true [truth] [that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. Whoever God has sent, his words are filled with the power of divine thought, for God gives the spirit to human beings not according to human rules, but according to the creative power that he awakens in man.

The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love, and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.

Whoever cannot trust in the power of the Son within will not behold the world of life; rather the working might of the spirit world must one day burn him like a fire that will consume him.”

St. Johnstide

July 12, 2015

John 3: 22-36

There is a part of ourselves that wants to make things happen. And to do that, we need energy and power. After all, we can’t use our power tools without plugging them into an energy source! In this earthly world, we have figured out how to create our own energy sources for our power tools.

John the Baptist also speaks about the uses of power and spiritual energy sources. ‘No one can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from higher worlds,’ he says. John 3:27 In the spiritual world we don’t create power; we receive it. For the energy source to perform spiritual deeds is generated in the heavens. We have to ‘plug in’ to a higher source.

When John says ‘I must decrease,’ he is recognizing the source and energy in the universe, which is Christ. John recognizes that he himself must depend less and less upon his own self-generated deeds and come to receive more and more of what Christ wants to generate through him. The course of John’s outer life, his beheading, seems tragic. But we know that his life continues on another , more angelic level. He is the guiding spirit of the circle of the disciples. He inspires John the Evangelist’s gospel and Book of Revelation. For within himself John the Baptist trusts in the power of the Son, the Bridegroom, and grows out of the earthly into timeless life. John 3:36  

As Psalm 15 says:

Lord, who can be trusted with power,

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.[i]

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[i] Psalm 15 (The Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell)

St. Johnstide

Lamb of God

John 1: 19-34

This is the testimony of John, when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly he made confession. He confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”

Then they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

Then they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?”

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [self].”

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I  [for he is ahead of me].’ [After me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know him; but for this I have come, and have baptized with water, so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”

And John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him as a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath of the] Holy [Healing] Spirit [and with fire].’ And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God’s Son.”

John and the Lamb of God

St. Johnstide

July 5, 2015

John 1: 19-34

In the ancient world view, the four primal states of being were arranged in ascending order. First was the solid state, called earth. Then came the fluid state – water; then invisible ‘thin air’ and finally radiant warmth, called fire. Fire evaporates water; water quenches fire. Air mediates between them. The elements exist within us as the solidity of bone, the flow of blood, the breath of air and our constant warmth.

John baptized with water. It was a ritual of purification. By being immersed in water, people had a glimpse of the flow of their lives. They recognized their failings and errors. It stirred them to change their ways. John indicates that Christ will bring with Him another kind of baptism – an immersion in the airy breath of a healing spirit, and the warmth of a purifying fire.

Were the element of a water baptism to prevail in our lives, we would likely drown in the enormity of our sins. But Christ brings with Him the means to overcome. He will help us carry the burden. And He will bring us the breath of His healing, comforting spirit, which breathes peace into our souls. And with it He kindles in us the fire of enthusiasm, which ignites our will to bring about the good. John the Baptist announces this with his health-bearing, guilt conscious fiery words.

Thus will all our elements, all our states of being, be brought into harmony. We will water the solid body of earth with our tears of remorse; and we will breathe in Christ’s peace, kindling in our spirits the purifying fire of love, a creative fountain of being. As the poet Rumi says:

The voice of the fire says:

“I am not fire, I am fountainhead,

Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”

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1st St. Johnstide 2015, Think Differently

St. John’s

Mark 1, 1-11

This is the beginning of the new word from the realm of the angels, sounding forth through Jesus Christ. Fulfilled is the word of the prophet Isaiah:

Behold, I send my angel before your face.

wiki commons

He is to prepare your way.

Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of the human soul

Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,

Make his paths straight, so that he may find entrance into Man’s innermost being!

Thus did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgement of sin. And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.

John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:

               

‘After me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down before Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’

In those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee, and was baptized in the Jordan by John.

And at the same time as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.

And a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:

‘You are my son, the beloved —in you is my revelation.’ [‘Today I have conceived (begotten) you.’ Luke 3:22]

St. John’s

June 24, 28, 2015

Mark 1, 1-11

Annual plants sprout and grow and grow, laddering out green leaf after green leaf. Then at a certain point, the activity compresses and finally comes to a standstill. What comes next is a transformation into something entirely different – a different form, color, scent, nectar and pollen – the blossom.  The perfume and pollen rise up. This in turn attracts bees and butterflies. It is as though the blossom has grown into a life beyond itself. Carried by the air, warmed by the sun and infused with the stars, the pollen descends and returns to the plant. It brings with the image, the archetype of next year’s plant, freshly created by the angels. This image is then bound to the newly forming seed. This is the gesture of summer: transformation, opening, encountering forces from above, the blessing of new life.

Christ’s baptism in the Jordan partakes of this great living summer process. The soul of Jesus had been broken open in sorrowing compassion for the state of humankind. He comes to the Jordan to offer himself – his bodily form, his compassionate soul, the fragrance and sweetness of his moral nature. The heavens open and the Holy, healing Spirit of the Father’s love descends into him. He has been made fruitful from above. The freshly created archetype of the true human being has created seeds of new life in him.

We know that we are needy of healing here on earth. In the Act of Consecration of Man , aware of our separation from the world of the divine, we open our hearts and minds. We offer our noblest and purest thoughts, the yearning of our hearts, our willingness. We hope that as the fragrance of our offering ascends, something, Someone will approach us from the other side. We hope that the grace of the Father’s love will descend upon us, enter into us. We hope to be made fruitful, that the seeds of real love will begin to form within us. For our deepest yearning is to be enkindled from above, united with our true nature.

John the Baptist reminds us that we must change. We must turn ourselves around inwardly. Think differently. Then the living light of the Christ-Sun can enkindle and ripen in us.

4th June Trinity 2015, Lifting our Hands

June Trinity

John 11: 17-44

When Jesus got [to Bethany] there, he found that he [Lazarus] had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary remained within. And Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know that he will rise again in the great resurrection at the end of time.”

Then Jesus said to her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever fills himself with my power through faith, he will live even when he dies; and whoever takes me into himself as his life, he is set free from the might of death in all earthly cycles of time. Do you feel the truth of these words?” And she said, “Yes Lord. With my heart I have recognized that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this she went and called her sister Mary and said to her privately, “The Master is here and is asking for you.” Jesus had not yet entered the town. He had stayed in the place where Martha had met him.

When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her. They thought she was going to the tomb to weep there. But Mary came to the place where Jesus was, and when she saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been there, this brother of mine would not have died. “

When Jesus saw how she and the Jews coming with her were weeping, he aroused himself in spirit and, deeply moved within himself, he asked, “Where have you laid him?” They answered, “Come, Lord, and see.” 

Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not he who restored the sight of the blind man keep this man from dying?” And again Jesus, deeply moved within himself went up to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. And Jesus said, “Take away the stone!”

Then said Martha, the sister of him whose life had reached completion, “Lord, there will be an odor [he has already begun to decompose], for this is the fourth day.” But Jesus said, “Did I not say to you that if you had faith, you would see the revelation of God?”

Then they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes to the spirit and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me; but because of the people standing here I say it, so that their hearts may know that you have sent me. Then he called with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of linen, his face covered with a veil. And Jesus said, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

June Trinity

June 21, 2015

John 11: 17-44

Every morning we waken from sleep and rise from our beds.  If we are laid low with the flu, or by soul events, eventually we recover and our spirits rise again. This is the power of resurrection, of rising and ascent, working subtly and unconsciously in us. It is a power we take for granted.

Today’s reading tries to make clear to us where this power of rising comes from.  ‘I AM the resurrection and the life,’ says Christ. I AM the force of levity that overcomes all of life’s graves. I AM the power that lifts toward the sun. Then He asks the Martha in us, ‘Do you feel the truth of these words?’ For it is important that we become conscious of this Source of Rising, that we feel and know its truth. For Christ wants us to work with Him, consciously. He wants to extend to us His resurrection power, the power to overcome death, so that we in turn can extend it to the earth itself.

Shuplyak Oleg

He has raised human beings. He can raise the Lazarus in us, the part of us that is joined with Him in love. But to raise the earth, to elevate its being, Christ needs the cooperation of humanity. Together with Christ’s power of elevation, we can work consciously for the future of the earth.

In the Act of Consecration of Man we raise our thoughts and feelings toward the spirit. We raise substances of earth, bread, wine, water, to the divine, so that they can be permeated with divine life and transformed. The power of resurrection, of raising, of levity and ascent, has been given to us –Let the bread be…..let the wine be…. Christ in the lifting of our hands.

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3rd June Trinity, New Light and Sound

June Trinity

Crijn Hendricksz

John 3: 1-17

There was a man in the circle of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus; he held high rank among the Jews. He came to Jesus in the night and said, “Master, we know that you are a high teacher of mankind, come to us from God, for no one can do such signs of the Spirit as you do unless God himself is working together with him in his deeds.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “The truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever is not born anew from above cannot behold the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he return to his mother’s womb to be born again a second time?

Jesus answered, “the truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever remains as he is, and does not come to a new birth out of the formative power of the water and out of the breath of the spirit [or, …and is not born anew out of the spiritual power of eternal becoming and out of being touched by the might of the spirit world] cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born out of earthly elements is of earthly nature. But what is born out of the breath of the spirit, is itself spirit. Do not wonder that I said to you that you must be born anew from above. The spirit wind blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born anew out of the breath of the spirit.

Nicodemus replied and said to him, “How can one attain this?”

Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and do not know? Amen, the truth I say to you: we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we have seen in the spirit, but none of you accepts our testimony. When I speak to you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how shall you believe when I want to speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ascended to the spiritual world who has not previously descended out of the spiritual world, that is, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses once lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who finds his power in their hearts can win a share in the higher life beyond time. God has so loved the world that he has given his only begotten Son. From now on, no one who fills himself with his power shall perish, for he will share in timeless, higher life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world be saved [healed] through him, and not fall prey to ruin.”

June Trinity

June 14, 2015

John 3: 1-17

Each human being has two sets of parents. Our earthly parents made possible the birth of our physical body. At the same time a second set of parents are also at work. Mother Earth offers her great body to support, to nourish and sustain all her children. And our Spirit Father sends our eternal spirits into the earthly body, again and again. Yet, as the poet says, ‘our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.[1] We don’t remember the spiritual home from which we have come.

Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus tries to indicate that there is yet another layer to being born, another way, while we are still in bodies on earth. Our spirits can be touched by the power of development, touched by the might of the spiritual world. And this is the birth of a second Man in us. It is an awakening and a remembering. We awaken to the reality of our spiritual nature; we remember our spiritual home; we move on the breath of love.

When Nicodemus asks how to accomplish this, Christ foretells the deed that will make this possible for all human beings. He is lifted up on the cross, arms outstretched, embracing the whole world in love. He ascends to the place where the world is eternally created and sustained. He sends the living spirit of love and understanding to enlighten our thoughts.

He, Christ, is indeed the renewer of the world. Through our love for Him, we too can be reborn, here and now, out of the might and power of the good beings of the spiritual world.

…for many now can hear again

the word of angels: Do not fear!

New light and sound in us appear

for strengthened heart and wakened ear.[2]

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[1] William Wordsworth. 1770–1850, “ Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

[2] Lent Song, German folk song, translation from Camphill