9th September Trinity, 2009, Welcome the Future

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6:19-34

“Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole

body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9^th August Trinity

Sept 20, 2009

Matthew 6: 19 -34

In the agricultural world, it is the time of harvest, of storing in barns. We ourselves are buying boots and warm sweaters. There is a strong return to the earthly as we prepare for winter.

The gospel reading encourages us, along with these preparations, to awaken our self-awareness. We are to notice the soul mood that now creeps in. For there is a tendency toward a darkening of the soul’s inner light through worry; there is a fear that spreads beyond the moment to poison the future; there is an anxiety that causes us to enslave ourselves to the monetary.

He encourages us instead to notice that we do not have to do everything for and by ourselves. We belong to a large community of living beings. This community consists of the light, the birds, the plants. They, and we, are all carried in the Father’s warm living hand. Though the outer light is starting to withdraw, and nature is dying back, this is no cause for over-concern. There is an orderliness to this process, a larger rhythm that allows us to know that this is not permanent. We can see beyond today and know that what the future brings is part of a greater plan.

And so at any moment, in-self awareness, we can remind ourselves to welcome the future: may the events, the people, the spiritual beings that are approaching us, come. May they find in us quiet minds, understanding hearts and clear souls. We can achieve this inner state by ever and again calling to mind that we are grounded in the Father’s peaceful life, embedded in the Christ’s creative love, surrounded by the Spirit’s healing light.[1]

 “So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ …your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.”  Matthew 6: 32, 33.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Against Fear

Adam Bittleston, in Meditative Prayers for Today

May the events that seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

On which we walk.

May the people who seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With an understanding heart

Through the Christ’s stream of love

In which we live.

May the spirits which seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s Light

By which we see.

9th September Trinity 2010, Fortune-Telling

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6; 19-34

“Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9^th August/September Trinity

Sept. 19, 2010

Matthew 6: 19-34

The time from St. Johnstide in June to Michaelmas at the end of September is a time of being outward bound. It is traditionally the time for vacations, for travel, for time outdoors in nature and with family. It is also often the time when people move, to take on a new job, to start school.  But even if nothing changes outwardly, inwardly this is the time for the soul to tread a path; a time to open the soul, to see and hear freshly, and on new levels. It is a time for the healing our inner ills.

St. John the Baptist urged us to change our hearts and minds. With today’s reading, Christ urges us to take a closer look at our own interior landscape, to look at how we think. For the quality of our thinking, the quality of our hearts, seriously shapes our progress on the path of our healing.

We can entertain thoughts that are healthy, or those that are unhealthy. One unhealthy form of thinking is called, by those in the soul-work field, fortunetelling. This is our human tendency to extrapolate, to project what is happening today onto the future. It may well be naïve to assume that since everything is fine today, it will be fine tomorrow as well. But it is downright destructive to our mental and spiritual health to assume that since today is troubling, I have to worry and stress about tomorrow's troubles, and the next day’s, and the next as well.

Such unhealthy thinking is based on an untrue assumption—that I can already know what the future will bring. And it is supported by another sneaking suspicion—that I won’t be able to handle what the future brings without continuous rehearsals for supposed disasters.

Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom[1], whose family harbored Jews in Holland during the War, tells the story her own father used, to illustrate the wisdom of staying in the now, in the moment. When as a young girl she began to stress about the future, her father asked her to recall their train trips together. 'When do I give you your ticket?' he asked. 'When the train pulls into the station,' she replied. 'Indeed. I don’t give you your ticket when the train is still miles away. I give it to you when you need it, when the train arrives. When you worry, it is as though you grab your ticket long before the train is due, and run miles up the track to try to catch it before it arrives. God will give you your ticket for the future when the future arrives.'

We can be sure that we will meet the future with ripened capacities, especially if we can concentrate our efforts at solving today’s troubles, doing today what we can do today. For no pit is too deep that the love of God is not deeper still.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Corrie Ten Boom, Her Story, (The Hiding Place, Tramp for the Lord, Jesus is Victor)—three biographical stories in one volume. 

9th August Trinity 2011, Wholesomeness

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6; 19-34

   

  “Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and

drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9^th August Trinity

September 18, 2011

Matthew 6: 19-34

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are in the time of diminishing light. The days are shortening; the dark is rising. And what can follow in our souls, unconsciously, is the rising of a subtle level of anxiety.

Once again the gospel reading addresses our human tendency to worry, our fear of insufficiency. Christ encourages us not to diminish our focus, the range of our attention, through concentrating only on food and drink, clothes and riches. Rather we are to pay some attention to our own powers of perception. ‘If your eye is wholesome, your whole body will be filled with light’, He says. That is, if our way of seeing, our way of picturing the world is wholesome, then our body and our way of working in the world will be filled with light, radiant with love. What does a wholesome way of seeing the world consist of?

It consists of looking at what has already happened through the lens of gratitude. Gratitude expands and enlightens our vision. It widens the angle of what we see.

Wholesomeness also consists of imaging the future through the lens of trust; trust in God’s harmonious ordering of events, trust in the beneficence of His guidance. Correcting our vision with lenses of gratitude and trust lets the light into our bodies so that the light in us can radiate out into the world.

In the words of Anne Sexton:

 

….So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Anne Sexton, in The Awful Rowing Toward God

9th September Trinity 2012, Against Fear

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6: 19-34

  “Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9^th August Trinity

St George and the Dragon, Arild Rosenkrantz

September 16, 2012

Matthew 6: 19-34

Here in the North, the days are noticeably shorter. And with the growing darkness there arises a subtle measure of anxiety. Will I get everything done? Am I sufficiently prepared for what is coming? Will there be enough?

Fear and anxiety are part of the equipment that comes with being in a body. They help ensure our bodily survival. But when anxiety begins to grow and to infect our souls and gnaw at our spirits, it endangers our true life. We need to counter its working by remembering to trust in the growing kingdom of God within our hearts, by recalling God’s harmonious order, by trusting in His beneficence. God knows what we truly need. If we align ourselves with His higher purposes, then what we truly need comes to us. And the body survives as well.

Adam Bittleston gave us a prayer against fear. It helps us align ourselves with what God wants to send to us. It can be an antidote to our rising anxieties:

May the events that seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a quiet mind

Through the Father’s ground of peace

On which we walk.

May the people who seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With an understanding heart

Through the Christ’s stream of love

In which we live.

May the spirits which seek me

Come unto me;

May I receive them

With a clear soul

Through the healing Spirit’s Light

By which we see.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Adam Bittleston, "Against Fear" in Meditative Prayers for Today. Available at http://steinerbooks.com/Books/SearchResults.aspx?str=Meditative+Prayers

9th September Trinity 2013, Treasures of the Heart

9th August Trinity

Matthew 6; 19-24, 25-34

“Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where you have gathered a treasure, there  your heart will bear you.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

9^th August/September Trinity

September 22, 2013

Matthew 6: 19 – 34

Greed’s demon of riches makes slaves of us. It drives us like cattle with lashes of fear, of doubt, of envy. It drives us to be anxious and over-concerned, to worry. Christ encourages us to free ourselves from this demon, whose only real gifts to us are troubled hearts.

Christ is not saying that we should neglect to plan, or that we should not be willing to work for basic necessities. Rather He is saying that we should do what is necessary without anxiety, without fear or worry or over-concern. Worry is praying for what you don’t want.

God provides us with what we need. What we truly need may not be the same thing as what we want! Perhaps our soul needs a period of loss so that we learn how truly rich we are; perhaps we need to see and be grateful for all that we do have; much of it is non-material: the love of family and friends, a God who always knows our inmost heart.

Christ wants to strengthen our trust, our confidence.  He brings us confidence in the wisdom of divine order and harmony. He brings us trust in the superabundance of Cosmic Life.

The poet says:

Look at the birds. Even flying

is born

out of nothing. The first sky

is inside you, friend, open

at either end of day.

The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening

one heart to every falling thing. [1]

As Christ says, ‘Where you have gathered a treasure, there your heart will bear you.’ [2]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

[1] Li-Young Lee, ‘One Heart”, in Book of My Nights. Picture: Sermon on the Mount

[2] Matthew 6:21 

8th September Trinity 2007, Impermanence

8th September Trinity

Luke 17: 20-37

At that time the Pharisees asked him, “When will the Kingdom of God come?”  And he answered, “The Kingdom of God [The human Kingdom of the Spirit, permeated by God], does not come in a form which is outwardly perceptible. Nor does it come in such a way that one can say: Look, here it is, or there. Behold—the Kingdom of the Spirit will arise in your own hearts.

And he said to his disciples, “There will come times when you will long to experience even one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not experience it. Then they will say to you: Look—there! or Look—here!  Do not follow this call; do not go on their spirit paths. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning which flashes up in one part of the sky and yet instantly pours out its bright light over the whole firmament. But first he must suffer great  agony and be rejected by this present earthly humanity. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it again be in the day when the Son of Man will reveal himself: they ate and drank, they came together in marriage as man and wife, until the day when Noah entered the Ark and the great flood destroyed everything. It was the same in the days of Lot: they ate and drank, bought, sold, planted, built, until Lot left Sodom, and fire and sulfur rained from heaven and everything perished. It will be like that, too, in the days when the Son of Man will reveal himself.

When that time comes, let him who is on the roof of his house, having left his goods in the house, not go down to fetch them. And let him who is out in the open field not go back to what he has left behind. Remember Lot’s wife! For whoever tries to preserve his soul unchanged will lose it, and whoever is prepared to give it, will in truth awaken in himself a higher life. I tell you; then there will be two sleeping at night in one bed; when the power of the spirit comes, one is gripped by it, the other is left empty-handed. Two women will be grinding at one mill; one is deeply stirred, the other is left empty-handed.

And they said to him, “Where shall we turn our gaze, Lord? And he answered, “Become aware of your life body, and you will see the eagles that are gathering. [or, Where the formative forces in the human being begin to work in freedom, there the Spirit of the World reveals himself.] [or, Where there is descent and disintegration, there also is revelation.]

8^th Summer Trinity

September 9, 2007

Luke 17:20-37

  

Here in Southern California’s late summer heat, wildfires often ignite. A lightning strike, a stray spark and fields and forests are altered. We who build our homes in the hills are invested in not letting this change happen. But it is the way of nature’s life in this part of the world.

In today’s gospel reading, Christ talks about the nature of the Kingdom of God. His contemporaries were of course expecting the Messiah to establish an earthly kingdom. But Christ makes it clear that His is a kingdom of another order. It is the kingdom of the spirit that arises in human hearts.

A surprising characteristic of this kingdom is its impermanence. He compares it to lightning flashes which suddenly illuminate everything. It comes to individuals, not to groups, and seems to be connected with suffering. He warns us against trying to keep things unchanged, especially in our interior landscape. For in the inner realm of life, as in the outer, there is always the ongoing decay of old forms and the rising of new ones. And in the soul there is always the ongoing interplay between suffering and joy, between descent and revelation.

It is just in this interior landscape within us, this borderland of changing forms and phases of life, and the ups and downs of the soul, that the Spirit of the World reveals Himself. He comes and establishes his kingdom in us as a flicker of inspiration, as a flash of understanding, as a flaring of love. For the Spirit is like the play of fire and light – sometimes a small spark, sometimes lightning; sometimes painful, sometimes bringing joy. But always changing. It is the creating fire of love, helping to nurture the good into an existence that endures. This is the nature of His kingdom within.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

8th September Trinity 2008, Growth and Shedding

8th September Trinity

Luke 17: 20-37

At that time the Pharisees asked him, “When will the Kingdom of God come?”  And he answered, “The Kingdom of God [The human Kingdom of the Spirit, permeated by God], does not come in a form which is outwardly perceptible. Nor does it come in such a way that one can say: Look, here it is, or there. Behold—the Kingdom of the Spirit will arise in your own hearts.

And he said to his disciples, “There will come times when you will long to experience even one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not experience it. Then they will say to you: Look—there! or Look—here!  Do not follow this call; do not go on their spirit paths. For the Son of Man in his day

will be like the lightning which flashes up in one part of the sky and yet instantly pours out its bright light over the whole firmament. But first he must suffer great  agony and be rejected by this present earthly humanity. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it again be in the day when the Son of Man will reveal himself: they ate and drank, they came together in marriage as man and wife, until the day when Noah entered the Ark and the great flood destroyed everything. It was the same in the days of Lot: they ate and drank, bought, sold, planted, built, until Lot left Sodom, and fire and sulfur rained from heaven and everything perished. It will be like that, too, in the days when the Son of Man will reveal himself.

When that time comes, let him who is on the roof of his house, having left his goods in the house, not go down to fetch them. And let him who is out in the open field not go back to what he has left behind. Remember Lot’s wife! For whoever tries to preserve his soul unchanged will lose it, and whoever is prepared to give it, will in truth awaken in himself a higher life. I tell you; then there will be two sleeping at night in one bed; when the power of the spirit comes, one is gripped by it, the other is left empty-handed. Two women will be grinding at one mill; one is deeply stirred, the other is left empty-handed.

And they said to him, “Where shall we turn our gaze, Lord? And he answered, “Become aware of your life body, and you will see the eagles that are gathering. [or, Where the formative forces in the human being begin to work in freedom, there the Spirit of the World reveals himself.] [or, Where there is descent and disintegration, there also is revelation.]

8^th August Trinity

September 14, 2008

Luke 17:20-37

There are creatures which, when they reach a certain stage, have to shed their skins or shells, in order to grow further. This is one of the great themes of evolution. Again and again there come nodal points in development when what is no longer suitable is expelled or left behind. Children regularly outgrow their clothes. We will all eventually shed the shell of our material body. In the future, in order to progress, mankind will have to shed materiality altogether.

Today’s reading touches on this theme of growth and shedding. Christ says that the future kingdom of God, when human beings will be filled with the spirit of Love, is an invisible kingdom, not a material one. It arises in human hearts. He uses examples from ancient times to illustrate that the evolution toward this invisible kingdom always involves moments like the Flood, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,  when the inwardly unsuitable, the outgrown, the not-love, has to be destroyed and risen above.

Uncomfortably, this entails suffering. All the elements of our not-loving will eventually have to be ejected so that we can ascend to the next stage. For, as He says, “Whoever tries to preserve his soul unchanged will lose it, and whoever is prepared to give it [that is, to offer up the soul to be purified of egotism and filled with love] will in truth awaken in himself a higher life.” Luke 17:33  He goes on to tell us not to worry or be too anxious about the falling away and disintegration of the old, the painful shedding of the shell. For where this happens, the progressive evolutionary forces within the human soul begin to work in freedom. There, in the cleansing, the Spirit of the World, who is Love, reveals Himself. He is working to create a new kind of body for humanity, His Body, a living tender, invisible form in which we will dwell.  He couches this in the mysterious formulation, “Where the living body is, there the eagles will gather.” Luke 17: 37. Those souls who can rise above not-loving will gather within Him, in His name, in his power, in his radiance.

Perhaps the words of the poet can illuminate:

My heart sits on the arm of God

Like a feathered falcon….

My piercing eyes,

Which have searched every world

For Tenderness and Love,

Now lock on the Royal Target—

The Wild Holy One

Whose Beauty Illuminates Existence….

Quivering at the edge of my Self

And Eternal Freedom….[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Hafiz, “A Feathered Falcon”, in I Heard God Laughing, Renderings of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 97.