7th Trinity III, 2021, Here is Everywhere

7^th Trinity III

Luke 10:25-37 

On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;' and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself."

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this, and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

 In reply, Jesus said, "A man was going

Van Gogh

down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

"But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

7th August Trinity

September 5, 2021

Luke 10:25-37

Christ affirms that to love God with one's whole being and to love one's fellow human beings as well as oneself is the path to eternal life. Love directed outward, beyond oneself, overcomes the deadening effects of mere self-love. Yet there comes our somewhat defensive next question: which of my fellow human beings am I supposed to love? Christ's answer in story form is— Not just my family, not just my own tribe or those with whom I can identify. Any fellow human being whom I happen upon along the way can be the recipient of a love that expresses itself in concrete action. For it is our deeds, not our feelings, that live beyond the boundaries of this life.
The key here is to regard others with an attitude of mercy, of loving-kindness. And then we give and do what we can.

Corrine Vonaesch

It may be that in the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite felt that they could not touch the unclean man because they were on their way to do work that required their ritual cleanliness. The Samaritan, though despised by the Jews, was truly free to help (or not). He helps a stranger in both a personal, hands-on way and also by deputizing and paying the innkeeper to complete the work involved with the man's healing. He is thereby pulling in others to help. And he thus also maintains his own freedom to help the next victim he finds, to further practice his love for his fellow human beings.

Christ is saying that our neighbor is not necessarily one whom we know, the one who lives next door. It is also the stranger whom we meet along the way. It is we who are to act neighborly. The poet Wislawa Szymborska expresses the universality of this:

Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: "Somebody save me! I'm here. The ocean cast me on this desert island.

I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I'm here!" 

"There's no date. I bet it's already too late anyway.

It could have been floating for years," the first fisherman said. 

"And he doesn't say where. It's not even clear which ocean," the second fisherman said. 

"It's not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere," the third fisherman said.*

 

* "Parable," in Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh

 

6th Trinity III 2021, Ears of My Ears Awake

6th Trinity III

Mark 7:31-37 

Julia Stankova

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty and asked him to lay his hands on him. 

And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, "Ephphata, be opened." His hearing was opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he could speak properly. 

And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event and said, "He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak."

6^th August Trinity

August 29, 2021

Mark 7:31–37

Gem hunters look for a certain kind of rock formation, for certain round ball-shaped stones. These spheres are called thunder eggs. Cracked open, they have colored layers inside and often a hollow space filled with beautiful crystals. 

In today's reading, a deaf man is brought to Christ by his friends. Being hard of hearing makes it difficult to both hear and to speak. One of the unfortunate results of being deaf is that one becomes closed off from interacting with others. Christ softens the rock-hardness of the man's hearing, his tongue, with His own life-giving moisture. And like a gem hunter opening the thunderegg, Christ's words strike emphatically – Ephphata! – Be opened!

Christ also speaks to us today—be opened! For we have become hard of hearing, hard of heart. Yet we can be opened; we can become actively receptive. We can receive and bear the One who is himself the Word of God, the Logos. And we can actively bring Him forth, sending Him from within us, out to others on the stream of our own words. In the words of e.e. cummings, we can jubilate:

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

 

….how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

 

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)*

*e.e. cummings in Complete Poems 1904-1962

 

 

5th Trinity III, 2021, Unthinkable

5th Trinity III

Luke 18:35-43 

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of

Brian Jekel

Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, "What do you want that I should do for you?" 

He said to him, "Lord, that I may look up and see again." 

And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you." [or, your faith has healed you.] 

At that moment, his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being—and all who saw it praised God.

 5^th August Trinity

August 22, 2021

Luke 18:35-43 

Imagine only being able to look downward, to only see the ground under your feet. Certainly there are small miracles there—the beauty of sand grains or green grass. But looking up, elevating our gaze, opens up whole worlds. We can take in the majesty of mountains, the ever-transforming sky, the magnificence of the stars. We can perceive the wonders of all our fellow creatures. Whole levels of meaning emerge.

Jorge Coco Santangelo

The blind man asks Christ to help him look up and see again. He wants to elevate his gaze, to take in the expanse of the universe, to experience new levels of meaning. And Christ tells him that because he trusts that this is possible, the power to enlarge his vision is already operating in him, is already elevating his gaze. His openness allows him to receive his sight.

In a sense, we are all blind. Yet the ability to see, the power of vision, is not merely given to us from without. It is an indwelling capacity given to us by God, a capacity we can further cultivate. It is partly a matter of ignoring those inner and outer voices which would squelch our attempts to elevate our gaze. And it is a matter of trusting that it is possible, and listening for the Voice that says that we have the power to heal our own inner blindness, to raise our gaze upward.

And ultimately, when our eyes open and our gaze rises, we encounter the One speaking to us, the One who helps us heal, the One who gave us our sight.

And in the words of the poet, He tells us to look at the true yet commonplace miracles:

…a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

...

 A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

 An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable can be thought.*

---

*Wislawa Szymborska, "Miracle Fair"

 

4th Trinity III 2021, Star Bread

4th Trinity III

Luke 9:1-17 

He called the twelve together and gave them potent authority and formative power to work against all demonic mischief and heal all sickness.  And he sent them out to heal and to proclaim the Kingdom of God, appearing now on earth, the kingdom of human beings filled with God's spirit. 

Tissot

And he said to them, "Take nothing with you on the way: no staff for support, no bag for collecting, neither bread nor money, nor change of clothes. If you enter a house, remain there until you go further. And where they do not accept you, leave their city and shake the dust from your feet as a sign that they have refused community with you."
 

They left and walked through the villages of the country, announcing the joyful message of the new working of the kingdom of the angels and healing everywhere. 

Meanwhile, Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was happening, and he was very perplexed, for some said, "John has risen from the dead," and others said that Elijah had appeared, and yet others, "One of the Prophets of old has risen again." And Herod said, "John, I have had beheaded; who now is this, about whom I hear all these things?" And he wished to see him himself. 

And the apostles returned and reported to Jesus everything that they had accomplished. So he gathered them to himself and retreated with them to a city called Bethsaida for special instruction. But the people became aware of it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them of the Kingdom of God of the future, of the human kingdom on earth filled with the divine spirit, and he healed all who needed it. 

But the day began to decline. The twelve came up to him and said, "Send the crowd away so that they can reach the villages and farms in the vicinity and find food and lodging, for here we are in a deserted place." However, he said to them, "From now on, it falls to you; you give them to eat." 

They answered, "We have nothing but five loaves and two fish. Or shall we go and buy food for all of them?" There were about five thousand people. 

Then he said to the disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of fifty." And they did so, and all reclined. 

Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and, raising his soul to the spirit, gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. And they ate, and all were satisfied. And they took up the pieces that remained: twelve baskets full. 

4^th August Trinity

August 15, 2021

Luke 9:1-17 

When we go to sleep at night, our souls and spirits rise out of the body. We rise in sleep to the world of the stars. We commune with the angels. They feed us 'star bread' and 'star wine.' They nourish our souls and spirits so that we return to earth strengthened and refreshed. 

Even on earth during the day, when we are very hungry, we can feel how, with a good meal, body and soul come together again, realigning themselves. This happens not because of the food's material content but because of the life force it offers us. 

Woloschina

In today's reading, the crowds stay with Christ to hear the good news, the message from the realm of the angels. And as the day dims into night, the first stars appear, and Christ feeds them from the heavenly realm of the stars. For Christ's thanks and blessing bring down to earth the life force that streams in from the stars. With the food, the people take in 'star bread,' offered to them by the angels, distributed by Christ's disciples on earth. 

In the Act of Consecration of Man, with Christ's help, we too raise ordinary bread to receive the life of the universe. Though but little in material terms, we are fed in abundance. Our hearts, our souls, our spirits drink deep at the wellspring of life, and our spirits are satisfied.

 

 

3rd Trinity III, Slide Past Trouble

 3^rd Trinity III

Luke 15:1-32 

Now many customs officials, despised by the people, who called them sinners and expelled them from their community, sought to be close to Jesus. They wanted to listen to him. The Pharisees and teachers of the law, however, were upset by this and said, "This man accepts sinners and eats with them!" 

Tissot

So he told them this parable: 

"Who among you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open and go looking for the lost one until they find it? And when they have found it, they lay it on their shoulders rejoicing. And when they come home, they call together their friends and neighbors and say to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost!' 

"I tell you, there will be more joy in the heavens over one human being, living in denial of the spirit, who changes their mind, than over the ninety-nine righteous who think they have no need of repentance. 

"Or which woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one, does not light a lamp, sweep the whole house and carefully search until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost!' 

Tissot

"In the same way, I tell you, there will be joy among the angels in the world of spirit over one human being living in denial of the spirit who manages to change their heart and mind." 

And he said further, "A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Give me the share of the estate which falls to me.' And he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey to a far country and squandered his estate in the enjoyment of loose living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine came over the land, and he began to be in need. So he went and attached himself to a citizen of the country who sent him out into his fields and let him herd swine. And he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, but no one gave him anything. 

"Then he came to himself and said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here of hunger. I will rise up and go to my father and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against the higher world and against you. I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Make me one of your hired men [workers].' 

"So he rose up and traveled along the road to his father. When he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt his misery, ran toward him, embraced him, and kissed him. And yet the son said, 'Father, I have sinned against the higher world and against you. I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Make me one of your hired men [workers].' 

Kathryn Doneghan

"But the father called his servant to him.
'Quickly! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and slaughter the fattened calf. Then we shall eat and be merry. For this, my son was dead and is risen to life. He was lost and is found again.' And they began to celebrate. 

"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he returned home and came near the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants to him and asked him what it meant. He gave him the news, 'Your brother has come home again. So in joy, your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back again safe and sound.' 

"The son grew dark with anger and didn't want to go in. But his father came out and pleaded with him. He, however, reproached his father saying, 'Look! For so many years, I have been with you and have never neglected one of your commands. But you never gave me so much as a goat that I might be merry with my friends. And now comes this son of yours who has eaten up your wealth in scandal, and you offer him the fattened calf.'

However, the father said to him, 'Child, you are always with me, and all that I have belongs to you too. But now we should be glad and rejoice; for this, your brother was dead and lives; he was lost and has been found again.' "  

3rd August Trinity

August 8, 2021

Luke 15: 1-32 

In this series of stories, Christ frames the human condition. He is describing human souls as 'lost,' as having fallen like the coin, or as having wandered off, like the sheep. In these cases, the owner searches until 'the lost' is found. 

And then, there is the lost son. A poem by William Stafford* describes this way of being lost: 

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,

…you accept

the way of being lost, cutting loose

Bosch

from all else and electing a world

where you go where you want to.

 

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder

that a steady center is holding

all else. If you listen, that sound

will tell you where it is and you

can slide your way past trouble.

 

Certain twisted monsters

always bar the path—but that's when

you get going best, glad to be lost,

learning how real it is

here on earth, again and again. 

Christ adds another element, another aspect to being lost. In the story of the lost son, He shows us that we need not passively wait to be found or rescued. We are not coins; we are not sheep. There is a third way; we ourselves can recognize ourselves as lost and hungry and far from home. And we can make our own, sometimes difficult, way back. 

The journey back requires that we acknowledge that it is we ourselves who have wandered off course through our own choices.  We need to be willing to apologize and to make amends. This means we are willing to take responsibility for developing an active, healing relationship with the divine world. 

That is the good news. And the even better news is that God is willing to meet us more than halfway home. He is on the lookout for us. He senses that we have come to ourselves and recognized our situation. And when we turn our face to Him, move toward Him, He runs to greet us with great joy and celebration. 

 

---

*William Stafford, “Cutting Loose”, in Dancing With Joy, ed. By Roger Housden

2nd Trinity III, Up-Building

 2^nd Trinity III

Matthew 7:1-29 

"Do not judge your fellow human beings so that your judgment will not someday be visited upon yourself. For in the way you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, you too will be measured. Why do you look to the splinter in your brother's eye but do not become aware of the beam in your own eye? And how can you say to your brother: "Wait, I will pull the splinter out of your eye" while there is a beam 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.

Tissot

"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 whoever asks in uprightness will receive; whoever earnestly seeks will find; whoever knocks, to them will be opened. Or are there among you those who when their 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, despite 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 someone 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 that 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 whoever 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 someone who wisely built their 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.

"However, whoever hears such words from me and does not act accordingly is like someone who foolishly builds their 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 finished 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 [or, canon-lawyers].

 2^nd August Trinity

August 1, 2021

Matthew 7:1-29 

Living things always pass through three phases: first, the grounding or rooting, then the leafing, blossoming and fruiting, and finally the falling away. Or, one could say, the up-building, the peak, and the disintegration. 

The Father's will lives especially in the up-building toward the peaking phases of things, especially in the up-building of the next phase or situation, the forward-moving building of the future. The disintegration of the old happens on its own—it happens where life and spirit are no more. 

There are some places in the Gospels where Christ speaks in what are called "hard sayings." Today He says, "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. Matthew 7:21" In other words, only those who are building the Father's intended future. 

They say, "Lord! Lord! did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?"

Roland Tiller

Christ warns 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] Matthew 7:21-23."

Though well-meaning, they are serving in the place where life and spirit are no more, in the old places of power and hierarchy whose time has passed. They are serving what is disintegrating.

Meanwhile, a new living thing is being formed. It is grounded on the bedrock of warmth of heart, love, and service, rooted in Christ's heart. This is a kingdom whose fruits are visible as healing and peace, as an ennobling of souls. It is a kingdom that wants to grow out of the very inmost center of our being. 

The Act of Consecration helps us to dedicate ourselves to this new future kingdom of the heart. Through Christ, we are offering to the Father our noblest thoughts. We are offering Him the love that lives in our hearts. We are offering our willing work toward the up-building of His kingdom. Through Christ, whose very being is love, we receive back what we have offered, purified, strengthened, and renewed, as the Father's will for the future, to be carried out into the world as peaceful love and healing service.  

 

1st Trinity III 2021, The Power That Made the Universe

 

1st Trinity III

Mark 8:27 - Mark 9:1 

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. 

Then Peter took him aside and began to

Get Thee Behind Me, Tissot

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 their cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of their own soul will lose it, but whoever gives their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, their soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that they damage their soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can they give as ransom for their soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of them 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

July 25, 2021

Mark 8: 27 – Mark 9:1

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

If you put your hands

Rosenkrantz

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.*

 

 

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