2nd Sunday after Easter 2020, Come Unto Me

2^nd Sunday after Easter

  John 10:1-16

“Yes, the truth I say to you: 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 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

Yong Sun Kim

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, 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.

2^nd Sunday after Easter

April 26, 2020

John 10:1-21

Jorge Sanz-Cordona

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 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.

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, as a ‘sleep aid’ we can say the following prayer:

May the events that seek me

Come unto me.

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

Jorge Sanz-Cordona

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 which seek me

Come unto me.

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s Light

By which we see.*

And then we can awaken from the Good Shepherd’s nourishing fields of sleep, the kind of sleep that

I sleep where I will

wake with the

strength to

deeply

love….**

*Adam Bittleston, Against Fear, in Meditative Prayers for Today. Available at http://shop.steinerbooks.org/Title/9781782504672

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

Guardian Angel, Walk Angelward

Guardian Angels

We each have an angel assigned to us, a guardian angel, who accompanies us along our paths through lifetimes. Our angel has an overview that it is not possible for us to have. Angelic awareness sees, takes in, and remembers everything for us. As the carrier of our higher self, our angel can remember what we have been and who we want to become. Angels listen to our thoughts. Our angel’s eyes radiate love, recognition. To become aware of one’s angel is to feel oneself to be watched over, seen and deeply recognized.

 The Angel In You

   Rose Auslander

Elihu Vedder, The Sorrowing Soul Between Doubt and Faith

The angel in you

Rejoices over

Your light

Weeps over your darkness

Out of his wings whisper

Words of love

Poems, tender affection.

He watches over

Your path

Direct your step

Angelward.

 But our angel and the spiritual world have given all of us a particularly precious and important gift—our freedom. Nothing is determined. Opportunities are presented to us. Our angel may gently suggest through inspirations, thoughts, atmospheres, will impulses. But whether we respond, or not, and how we respond, is entirely up to us. How we play our life’s music is our choice.

How can we strengthen our connection with our own angel? How can we work in community with the world of the angels? Every quieting of feelings of irritation or anger or envy or fear creates space for our angel’s clarity of conscious and overview to enter our souls. All our efforts at meditation, all religious practice, contribute to this. (It is not important whether we judge ourselves to be successful or not in these endeavors; what angels can make use of is the strength of our striving; it is the activity itself that is of use to them.) All these help us in walking with our angel; they are ways of ‘directing our steps angelward’.

Cynthia Hindes

Second Easter Week, Stand It

1^st Sunday after Easter

John 20: 19-29

On the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Grunewald

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.”

 

Rembrandt

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.”

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.”

2nd Easter Week, II

April 22, 2020

John 20:19-29

In today’s reading Christ offers healing and peace to his suffering disciples. “He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing.” John 20:22 Madsen

Peace seems to have to do with a state of calm, equilibrium, and serenity. It is tranquil. Beyond simply not being ‘at war’, peace also has to do with harmony, accord, goodwill, and acceptance. In The Christian Community’s communion service, Christ says that he stands filled with peace toward the world. This is amazing if you think about it. How could He be at peace with all that is going on, with all the suffering and evil?

I think one of the key words here is ‘stand.’

Stephen Whatley

Christ is upright in His relationship to the world. He stands facing the world; he stands by it. He stands it. He doesn’t turn away from it. Instead, He radiates goodwill toward all of us. Always. That takes a deep capacity of endurance, which Christ Jesus earned the hard way.

Think of what He went through. Misunderstood, betrayed by his community, abandoned by his friends, persecuted, and though innocent, tortured and executed in a shameful manner, He nevertheless forgave, rose and continues to pour out the warmth of His love, His tranquility, His harmonious and harmonizing interaction with the world as it is. But He doesn’t stop there. He asks us what we, together with Him, can do to bring the world forward, to help it heal and evolve.

There is a spiritual law which says that anything that anyone accomplishes while in a body on earth is deposited in the spiritual treasure chest of humanity and is then available to all. Having inhabited Jesus’ body with all that He experienced in it, Christ’s love has already conquered that in the human constitution which leads to a lack of peace. He has conquered the human being’s natural egotism, aggression, our “against-ness,” the anger and fear and opposition that destroy our inner peace. He countered them with the peace that He generated through acceptance and, primarily through a deep love for humanity.

Stephen Whatley

Because Christ did so within the frame of a human body and soul, there is a peace-seed that has been planted deep within every human soul. No matter how rough the inner human terrain, how stormy the life, how full of the ‘weeds’ of worry, fear or anger, we can choose to cultivate this seed of peace in us, to nurture it, grow it in the warm light of His love. For as He says further in the service, He gives us His peace. Not as the world gives.

Christ’s peace is dynamic. It both calmly accepts things as they are and at the same time works to create healing solutions. Christ’s peace and love create unity; not sameness, but harmonizing the differences, like a chord of notes in music. We are all sundered, separated from the work of angels, from each other, from those who have died, even from Him. He waits for us to turn to Him, to ask for His peace. Praying the Lord’s Prayer is one way of asking.

If this sounds hard, it is because it is. The embodied Christ achieved what he did for humankind’s future. It will take us a while to catch up to Him. But meanwhile, He offers us His abiding love and support, His peace.

Rev. Cynthia Hindes

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1st Sunday after Easter, 2020, Open the Door

1^st Sunday after Easter
John 20: 19-29

On the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you!”And while he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Full of joy, the disciples recognized the Lord. And again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit through which the world will receive healing. From now on, you shall work in human destinies with spiritual power so that they shall have the strength to wrest themselves free from the load of sin, and at the same time to bear the consequences of their offenses.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not there with them when Jesus came. Later the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “If I do not see in his hand the marks of the nails, and do not put my finger in the place where the nails were, and place my hand in his side, I cannot believe it.”

Eight days later, the disciples were again gathered in the inner room, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Stretch out your finger and see my hands, and stretch out your hand and put it into my side. Be not rigid in your heart, but rather feel and trust in my power in your heart.”

Then Thomas said to him, “You are the Lord of my soul; you are the God whom I serve.” And Jesus said to him, “Have you found my power in yourself because you have seen me? Blessed are those who find my power in their hearts, even when their eye does not yet see me.”


1st Sunday after Easter
April 19, 2020
John 20: 19-29

A door presupposes a wall. The door frame, the threshold, is an opening in what is otherwise a barrier between one side and the other.  But the door itself can be opened or closed, even locked. It is a metaphor for choice: Open? Closed? When locked, it becomes like the wall itself – a barrier.

The disciples had kept the doors locked for fear of the authorities. The locked doors were also metaphors for the state of their hearts locked in fear. But Christ had said of Himself, “I AM the Door.” He himself became the entrance to the locked room, to their closed hearts. He enters the room, enters them, bringing with him a deep atmosphere of peace. And the disciples recognize and receive His healing spirit. Eight days later, he will show to Thomas other more intimate doorways. He will show him His own wounds, the doorways through which

Grunewald

He was assaulted. He accepted them, suffered them, so that in His descent into hell, they too could be transformed into doorways of light. Light, warmth, and life now radiate from His wounds, light that can germinate trust within human hearts, light for our path forward. And so the poet advises us:

Open the door of your heartaches.
And step through the door of your betrayal.
Pass through the hole that is left in your heart
Pass through because it is a door.
… Open the door.

Grunewald

….
Anything that needs us, or calls us to God is a door.
…Open the door.
….
Same old story - all strong souls all first go to hell
Before they do the healing of the world they came here for.

Open the door.*

* Clarissa Pinkola Estes, “Abre La Puerta, Open the Door”

Posted by Cynthia Hindes

Easter Sunday 2020, Light Seeds

Easter Sunday

Mark 16:1-18 (adapted from Madsen)

St. Albans

And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb just as the sun was rising. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?”

And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back—and it was very large. And they went into the tomb. There they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clad in a white robe, and they were beside themselves with amazement. And he said to them, “Do not be startled; you seek Jesus of Nazareth the Crucified One. He is risen; He is not here; see, there is the place where they laid Him [his body]. But go and say to his disciples and Peter, “He will lead you to Galilee. There you will see Him as He promised you.”

And they went out and fled from the tomb in great haste, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and being awestruck, they were unable to say anything to anyone about what they had experienced.

When He had risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene from whom He had driven out seven demons. And she went and told those who had walked with Him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, their hearts could not grasp it.

Way to Emmaus, Albert Bloch

After this, He appeared in another form to two of them on the way as they were walking over the fields. And they went back and told the rest, but they could not open their hearts to their words either.

Afterward, He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were celebrating the meal. He reproached them for their lack of openness and their hardness of heart because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen Him, the Risen One.

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the new message from the realm of the angels to the whole of creation. Whoever unites his heart with it [believes] and is immersed in me [baptized] will attain salvation. But whoever closes himself against it [does not let the power of selflessness into his heart, or, does not let the power of My Self into his heart] will meet his downfall. And spiritual powers [these signs] will stand by those who [believe] unite themselves with it and will attend their path: Through the power of my being [in my name] they will drive out demons; they will speak a new language; serpents they will make upright, and poisons they are given to drink will not harm them. They will lay their hands on the sick and give healing forces to them.

Easter Sunday

April 12, 2020

Mark 16: 1-18

Grunewald

In the week before His death, Christ Jesus said “unless a kernel of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24

At His crucifixion, the living power of Christ’s blood entered the earth to keep it alive. And His body was placed into a cave in the earth, the earth’s communion. He, the great Light-Seed, died into the earth.

On Holy Saturday, like a seed, he rooted himself firmly into the earth, descending to the dead.

On Easter morning, the first new shoots of His new Life broke forth from underground. New Life, capable of reproducing itself infinitely, began to grow.

This happens again every year.

Ninetta Sombart

At Ascension, He will open himself wide to the cosmos, while still remaining connected to the earth. And so this new Life will blossom again into the whole world. At Pentecost, His manifold light-seeds will fall into the hearts of those who love him.

And now, today, we rejoice because new Life is flashing forth from death. It is emerging from its apparent demise; it flares up from the ground of our hearts. The Light-Seed is quickening in the earth, in us. For today, as the poet says,

Every man, plant and creature in Existence,

Every woman, child, vein and note

Is a servant of our Beloved -

A harbinger of joy,

The harbinger of Light.*

---

*Hafiz, “Guardians of His Beauty”, in The Subject Tonight is Love -- versions by Daniel Ladinsky

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4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2020, New Body

4^th Passiontide (Palm Sunday)
Matthew 21:1-11

And they approached Jerusalem and came to  Bethphage by the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two disciples ahead and said to them, “Go to the village which you see before you and at once you will find a donkey tied there and her foal with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will let you take them right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
 

Filipo Lippi

‘Say to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.
Gentle is He, and He rides on a donkey and a foal of the beast of burden.’

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the foal, placed their garments on them, and Jesus sat on them. Many out of the large crowd spread their clothes on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and followed Him shouted:

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the Name and Power of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest! [Sing to Him in the highest heights!]

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is he?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

4th Passiontide
Palm Sunday
April 5, 2020
Matthew 21:1-11

The images and pictures of Holy Week reveal a secret. In mythology, the donkey is a symbol for the physical body – Brother Ass, as St. Francis called it.

Buongiorno

Currently, concern for the body dominates our consciousness. Many of us may feel ourselves submerged, overwhelmed within our bodies. Perhaps the body feels like a runaway donkey dragging our spirits along. Or perhaps, if we are ill, and especially as we get older, we may feel our body as a burden that we are coaxing or even dragging along behind us like an unwilling and stubborn animal.

Christ came to help human beings establish a new relationship with their physical nature. The image of Christ riding the donkey and its foal in majesty is a picture of our own future. We will gradually lovingly and gently master our bodily nature. It will carry us where we decide to go. And at the same time, through Christ, we will each develop a new body, a resurrection body. The gospel image of the new young foal alongside its mother even hints at the future development of this new kind of body.
 

Grunewald

Here at the beginning of Holy Week, Christ directs His body toward Jerusalem and its Temple. He directs it willingly and knowingly toward the place His own death. After today He will enter and leave Jerusalem every day on foot until late Thursday, when he will remain, entering into the body’s death process. And at the moment of death, His birthing of a new kind of body, the resurrection body, will begin.  Step by step we can accompany this process, for

Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.
Gentle He is,
and he rides on a donkey
and on a foal of the beast of burden. Matthew 21:5

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3rd Passiontide II, 2020, Containing Damage

Rembrandt

3rd Passiontide
John 8:1-12

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but as soon as day dawned, he was already in the Temple court, where the people flocked to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees led in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand in the middle, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?” They said this only as a trap, in order finally to have a reason for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write something into the earth with his finger. When they kept on pressing him with questions, he stood up and said to them, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.” And again, he bent down and wrote into the earth.
 

Dore

When they heard this, their conscience began to stir within them, and they went out, one after the other, beginning with the eldest. And only Jesus was left and the woman who stood in the middle. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one passed judgment on you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

Then Jesus declared, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

And Jesus began to speak to them again: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light in which there is life.”

3^rd Passiontide
March 31, 2020
John 8, 1-12

A fruit-bearing tree goes through its stages. When the fruit is green, it may drop. When fruit is ripe, it will drop. When overripe, the fruit drops and spoils. We do not blame the tree for dropping its fruit. We do not pass judgment or punish the tree because of its overripe fruit spoils. The tree is bound to follow the natural course of events.
 

In a certain sense, our deeds exist in a kind of hidden natural realm, a realm that has its own lawfulness. Our sins, our errors, our failures are a bit like fruit. Some of them come from our greenness, our immaturity. Some of them come from our over-ripeness. It is as useless to pass judgment and dole out punishment as it is to stone a tree that has dropped its fruit. Punishment doesn’t change anything. What is needed is understanding, a kind of wisdom, and a desire to help.

When we understand where someone’s ‘sins’ come from, including our own; when we understand how the state of their inner nature, their weakness or misguided errors, led them to do what they did, then we can begin to let go of the need to accuse. We can let go of our demand for retribution. For just as fallen fruit contains a seed within it, so does our deed. The deed itself will, in time, call forth its own compensation.

All of our deeds, good and bad, contain within them the seed of their required compensation, the seed of their karmic balancing. Like the elders in the gospel story, we are not required to be the enforcers of others’ karma. The universe, as God created it will do that.

Our

Mariusz Lewandowski

deeds fall with their seeds literally into the earth itself. The earth is Christ’s body. He takes into Himself our fallen fruit, green, ripe, overripe. The great law of the universe says that all deeds call forth their compensation. So Christ does not, cannot remove the necessity of our compensating for our deeds in the future. But by taking on our sins, our propensity for evil driven by weakness, Christ sees to it that the damage to the earth and to ourselves is contained. He sees to it that we never lose the power to continue to grow and bear fruit, good fruit, no matter how rotten the things we have done.

A truly Christ-inspired attitude toward the sinner (ourselves included) is not to play judge and executioner, but rather to understand.  We need to understand that we all are flawed. We need to understand that the universe will provide the opportunity for balancing the deed in the future; to understand that it is far more helpful to work to overcome the causes of failures, errors, weaknesses in myself, for the sake of others. It is essential to strengthen myself and others through Christ so that like the woman in the Gospel, we can walk forward into the future in Christ’s light.
 
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