1st St. Johnstide 2009, Invisible Gold

St. Johnstide

Luke 3: 7-18

Tiepolo

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.

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?”

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

June 24, 28, 2009

Luke 3; 7 – 18

Very young trees need to be staked until they are strong enough to withstand heavy weather. And trees heavily laden with fruit may need their branches propped so as not to break. But full grown and post harvest, such external helps are no longer necessary.

The Mosaic law, the rules of proper behavior, were necessary when humankind was very young, to help it grow straight and strong. And it remained so when the people were heavily laden with the rich fruits of their own development.

John came to prepare us for the time when the fruits of the old ways would be harvested, and the old props would no longer be necessary. For we are all heavily laden.

Albert Einstein said,

"Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built

upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."

A new law being written, a law of gratitude and love. It applies to every human being, regardless of pedigree. It is to be a law of compassion and fairness. It is to be a new tree, a living tree planted in the human heart.

and this tree, behold,
    glows from within;
    haloed in visible
    invisible gold.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Denise Levertov, “Last Night’s Dream”.

1st St. Johnstide 2010, Devoted to Christ

St. John’s Mark 1, 1-11

Memling

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.

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:

           

Sombart

‘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]

1^st St. Johnstide

June 27, 2010

Mark 1: 1-11 

 

The cycle of the year is not a simple circle. It is more like two circles joined in the middle as a figure eight, like the symbol on the front of the chasuble. Now, in June, we have come to the crossing point in the middle.

During the first half of the year, we remembered and filled ourselves with the power of Christ’s life on earth. The second ascending circle now begins with John the Baptist, a human being who was himself an individual of transitions. He was the last and greatest of the old stream of humanity. And at the same time, he is one of the first of the new, a renewed angelic being, sent before us on the path.

He midwifed and witnessed the birth of Christ into the man Jesus at the Baptism in the Jordan. The gospel gives image of this in the descent of the spirit dove. John as the representative of the old way will bow out before the Christ—‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ John 3:30  But at the same time, Christ takes him under His wing. John’s spirit will be released from his body at his beheading. And through Christ his spirit will become the new protective angel for the work of the circle of Christ’s disciples, guiding their work from across the threshold.

At this nodal midpoint of the year, we too are encouraged to take stock of what we have made of ourselves through our past deeds. And we are to recognize that our own future and the future of humanity and the earth will depend on our humble connection with Christ, He who creates all things anew. Rev. 21:5 Following John’s example, we too are to work upon and out of our future angelic nature. We do so through our purity of thinking, through the love of our hearts, through our will, devoted to Christ.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

1st St. Johnstide 2011,

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.

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 befpre 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.’

Master of St. Bartholomew's Altar

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]

1^st St. Johnstide

June 26, 2011

Mark 1: 1-11

“Behold, I send my angel before your face. He is to prepare your way. Hear the voice of one crying in the loneliness of the human soul.” Mark 1:1, 2

These words of course refer to John the Baptizer, and his role in preparing the way for Christ Jesus. At the same time, we can certainly resonate with the mood of these words; for many of us, this desert loneliness of the human soul is how modern life feels. We all feel like John.

At the same time we each also have an angel that walks before us. This angel helps us make straight our own soul paths, so that Christ can find entrance into the depths of our hearts.

Franz von Stuck

Since the solstice, the year is turning. Now is the time to begin again; to turn around, to change our hearts and minds, to turn inward. As the poet says:

This is now.  Now is,

all there is.  Don't wait for Then;

strike the spark, light the fire.

….

The green earth

is your cloth;

tailor your robe

with dignity and grace.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1]  Rumi, “Begin”, (adapted by Jose Orez from a version by Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi). 

1st St. Johnstide 2012, Budbreak

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.

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 befpre 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]

1^st St. Johnstide

June 24, 2012

Mark 1:1-11

The plant sends forth green leaf after green leaf. Then quietly one day, something different appears at the growing point. It is a bud that will break forth into the color and beauty and complexity of a blossom.

John the Baptist announces the arrival of the new flowering of humanity. The old ways are completed. The new blossoming of humankind is a bud-break. And all of us are exhorted to make ourselves ready to join in the new way of being—to change our thinking, to let our hearts open.

In our lives there come moments, months, or even years, when we are called upon to open our hearts to something new, to frame our thinking in a different way. For the spheres of the heavens are open. Our future is descending upon us like a dove. In our loneliness may we hear the voice of the Father, calling us the Beloved, whom He is creating anew.

www.thechristiancommunity.org 

1st St. Johnstide 2014, Light Always Rises

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.

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 befpre 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]

1^st St. Johnstide

June 24, 2014

Mark 1: 1-11

Govert-Flinck

At Christmastime, we awakened into mid-winter darkness. The starlit heavens opened up, and a choir of angels announced the approach of the great Sun-Spirit who was to be born in mankind. Through late winter and spring, we watched him grow as Jesus of Nazareth, teaching and healing. He died. He overcame death.  And he appeared to his disciples as they learned to know him in a new way. He united heaven and earth in his Ascension. At Pentecost he sent his Spirit awareness to keep himself alive in the hearts of men.

Now we stand at the turning point of the year.  It is mid-day [midnight in the Southern Hemisphere] in the earth’s year. And oddly the gospel readings go back to the beginning.  The story seems to start over--Jesus is baptized.  It is as if the gospel readings would like us to take a closer look, to focus in on

Bellini

something.  We see the moment in which Jesus, the man, offers himself.  He steps into the streaming, living waters of the Jordan.  The heavens are torn open. He sees, he hears. The Fathers voice resounds, affirming His Son. The Sun-God himself enters him.  He becomes the Christ-bearer. 

At midpoint in the year, instead of a choir of angels, one lone human voice, John the Baptist, urges up to offer ourselves, as Jesus did, to the intimate working of Christ in us, through us.  Now it is we who are to become Christ-bearers.  Now it is we who are to become sons and daughters of the Father. 

From now on the outer sunlight will gradually lessen [or grow] as the days grow shorter [or longer].  But the Christ-Sun wants to rise within us.  He wants to irradiate our being as he once did the man Jesus.  He wants us to see and hear, to change.  Within us he wants to become the light that always rises.  

www.thechristiancommunity.org

1st St.Johnstide 2013, Ideal Future Self

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.

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 befpre 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. Johnstide

June 24, 30, 2013

Mark 1: 1-11

As we grow older, our awareness expands. Imagine going back in time to visit our younger self. Imagine what we would want to say to that younger self out of our years of experience since our youth. Imagine how possibly painful our older self-awareness would be in the face of our former innocent intentions. And imagine how terrified our younger self would be to encounter this someone from the future who is so strangely familiar, who so intimately knows us.

John the Baptist is humankind’s older self. He is the older self who has gone ahead of us. He has something he wants to say to us. He is acutely aware of his own and humankind’s failings. Out of his broader awareness, he encourages us to change our way of thinking, to undergo a change of heart. This is all in preparation for an encounter with Christ Jesus, the innocent younger self of humankind.

John encounters the innocence of Jesus, and the enormity of the spirit of God that descends upon Jesus like a dove. The result for this older self of John is a deepening of humility. ‘I am not worthy’, he says. I am doing my best to serve what God has as intention for humankind. But HE is the embodiment of the pure and grand intentions of the Godhead. He is the true prototype.  And thus He is even older than I. He is my own younger self as God intended me to be.

Painful self-awareness of our shortcomings, our failures to be what both God and we intended to be; and at the same time, this is a deep experience of God’s love for us, His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us, so that we can start over, begin again to be what we, and He intended to be. We shy away from such encounters; such painful self-awareness terrifies us; and to be so intimately known can be devastating. But it is a necessary step on the way to experiencing the mildness, the acceptance, the calm radiant forgiveness of the One who is our ideal future self. Such self-awareness is a necessary passage into the forgiveness that allows us to start over, to begin at the beginning again. It is the experience of what the poet speaks of when he says:

I am not I.

                I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And whom at other times I forget;

The one who remains silent when I talk

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk where I am not.

The one who will remain standing when I die.^[1]

^{www.thechristiancommunity.org}

---

[1] “I Am Not I”, by Juan Ramón Jiménez, in Risking Everything, ed. By Roger Housden, p. 19. Picture: Baptism in the Jordan, by Jacob de Wit.

2nd June Trinity 2014, Helping Guide

June Trinity

John 4, 1-26

  

At this time the Lord became aware that it was rumored among the Pharisees that Jesus was finding and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, though his disciples did.) Therefore he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.

Now he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was also there. Jesus was weary with the journey, and he sat down by the well. It was about midday, the sixth hour.

Then a Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink.” For his disciples had gone into town to buy bread.

Then the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” For the Jews avoided all contact with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew how the divine world now draws near to men, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me to drink’, you would ask him, and he would give you the water of life [the living water].

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where will you draw the living water? Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him, his thirst will be quenched for all time. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up as true life for eternity.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may never be thirsty again, and need never come here again to draw.”

He said to her, “Go call your husband and show him to me.”

“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You have well said that you have no husband. Five husbands you have had, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that only in Jerusalem is the place where one should worship.”

Jesus answered, “Believe me, o woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship a being you do not know; we worship what we do know. That is why salvation had to be prepared for among the Jews. But the hour is coming and has now come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father with the power of the spirit and in awareness [knowledge] of the truth.”

Then the woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will teach us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I AM he who stands before you and speaks to you.”

2^nd June Trinity

June 22, 2014

John 4: 1-26

If we wish to journey through an area foreign to us, we may engage a guide. The guide knows where best to stop for food and water, for shelter. We depend on his familiarity with the terrain to get us safely through to our destination.

There is a certain sense in which our own five senses are guides.  They each offer specific information about where we are. Taken individually each sense gives such different information that we cannot depend on them singly. We ourselves need to sift through what we receive from them. And further, their information is limited to the earthly, sense-perceptible world.

In the non-material world, the world of life and living beings, the world of love, we need another guide; someone who knows the territory, who will nourish and shelter us on the way; who will see us to our destination. The Act of Consecration of Man (communion liturgy) speaks of One who is our helping guide through the territory of our freedom.

The Samaritan woman meets him by the well. In tradition she is called Photina, ‘the luminous one’. In her conversation with him she realizes that relying only on the guidance of her five senses, (her ‘husbands’) is not taking her where she wishes to go. Her soul is parched. Christ offers himself as the living water, and as her guide on her journey. She recognizes that he knows, in fact is the way; that he stands before her and speaks to her of where she truly wishes to go; that He is her helping guide.

Psalm 121 speaks of this guide:

 ….The Unnamable is always with you,
shining from the depths of your heart.
His peace will keep you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
When you find him present within you,
you find truth at every moment.
He will guard you from all wrongdoing;
he will guide your feet on his path….*

*A Book of Psalms, trans. and adapted by Stephen Mitchell