2nd St. John's Tide 2014, Weight is Love

St. Johnstide

John 1: 19-28, 29-34, 35-39

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

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

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

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

And those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”

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

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

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

2^nd St. John’s Tide

July 6, 2014

John 1: 19-34

Today’s reading begins with questions about identity. The Hebrew leadership asks John the Baptist who he is. In all humility he acknowledges that he is not the Messiah, the anointed one of God. They ask him if he is Elijah, who was to precede the coming of the Messiah. And although Christ says later that ‘ he is Elijah who was to come’, [1] either John no longer remembers his previous existence, or else he is making the claim that he is no longer working in the grandiose style of the great prophetic leader of the Hebrews. Instead he claims to be a single voice, speaking from lonely and deserted place, saying: Make preparations.  John is who he is; he voices what needs to be said in the moment. He awakens our sense of personal responsibility.

In fact John the Baptist epitomizes the state of the modern soul. We are who we are, now. We no longer remember previous lives - we may not even remember our current yesterdays! John in us is the single voice in us, speaking  in the now, telling ourselves that we must prepare ourselves so that Christ can enter into us and abide in us.

We need to strengthen and create order in our thoughts, in our feeling life, so that an inner space arises, a space that stretches into a path for the entry of the Lamb of God. Christ came as the Lamb in order to carry the burden of human separation from the divine. This separation from the divine has created our capacity for our sins, our failings, our weaknesses. It creates our errors and our denials of the divine.

Christ, the divine Son, the God, would enter our souls so as to overcome our lonely separateness, and to reunite us with our Father. We open our souls to him. We strengthen and order our souls’ forces so that our thinking, our feeling and our willing can become strong, weight-bearing, enduring; so that we, with Christ, can peacefully and lovingly carry the burden of the sin of the world. For as the poet says:

Salvatore Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci

The weight of the world

is love.

Under the burden

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction

the weight,

the weight we carry

is love.[2]

---

[1] Matthew 11:14

[2] “Song”,  Allen Ginsberg , in Collected Poems 1947-1980

2nd St. Johnstide 2013, Attention is Interest

St. Johnstide

John 1: 19-28, 29-34, 35-39

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Egbert Codex

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

The next day John was again standing there, and two of his disciples were with him. And as he saw Jesus walking past, he said, “Behold, the [sacrificial] Lamb of God [through whom humanity’s sense of self will be purified.]”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?”

They answered, “Rabbi [Teacher], where are you staying [where do you live] [where do you take refuge]?”He said, “Come and you will see!”

And they came and saw where he stayed [lived], and remained with him all that day. It was about the tenth hour [four o’clock].

2^nd St. Johnstide

July 7, 2013

John 1: 19 – 39

Each of us, at the core of our being, has an eternal self. This eternal Self clothes itself in different personalities, with its own particular time and destiny. Our self-awareness is usually limited to our current incarnation. The eternal core self is hard to find, hard to recognize.

When John the Baptist is asked who he is, he answers from an awareness of his temporal self. ‘I am not Elijah, not the Christ, not the prophet.’ At the same time he is clear about his personal destiny - that he came to baptize.

He is also clear about Jesus’ identity. He sees past Jesus’ earthly personality to His eternal core as the Lamb of God, upon whom the Spirit of God descended and remained. And he is aware that his own destiny is to serve Christ Jesus.

Awareness of one’s own eternal core Self is a gift of grace. Perhaps it is more important to develop an awareness of the eternal selves of others than it is to look for our own eternal core. Perhaps it is more important for us to stand as witnesses for each other – to recognize, as John did, the eternal self of the other, to accompany their destiny. Perhaps this is part of the change of heart and mind that John advocates: that we turn away from self-involvement, toward a humble support of others. As someone said:

Attention is not concentration.  Attention is interest.  If you’re interested in something, then you’re attentive.  And if you’re attentive, you discover many things.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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1st St. Johnstide 2007, Body of Love

St. John’s
Mark 1, 1-11

Da Vinci

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]

1st St. Johnstide

Andrea del Sarto

June 24, 2007

Mark 1:1-11

The moment of Jesus’ Baptism is a crossover moment. For the man Jesus, it is the death of what he had been up until then. At the same time, for the Christ it was a moment of virginal conception. He was uniting for the first time with a human body and soul. Incarnating and excarnating, being born and dying, unite in a new way.

John’s form of baptism was a preparation of a vessel for Christ; for all those who had undergone his baptism were brought to the portal between life and death. There they could recognize their failings. But they could also sense the nearness of Him who would strengthen their powers of overcoming, who would guide them toward compensatory deeds in the future. Thus they were prepared to meet and recognize Him on earth. They would recognize Him who came to help us increase the power of the working of love.

Today we celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist, messenger and preparer of the birth of Love’s body on earth. After his death John became the inspiring and guiding spirit of a new body: the circle of the disciples. They were the first cells of the generating of a new kind of Christ-body, a body of love, composed of individuals united in His love, working together with peaceful hearts, as Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

May we be inspired by John to recognize our failings, and to overcome them through compensating in love. May we be a part of the community of the Christ, members of His body of Love, His hands and feet in the world.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

1st St. Johnstide 2008, Honey Flowing

St. John’s 
Mark 1, 1-11

Sombart

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 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 24, 29, 2008

Mark 1:1-11

Habegger

The zenith of the sun year has passed. It may seem as though all we have to look forward to are gradually shorter days and increasing darkness. But that would only happen if we were mere creatures of nature. As human beings it is our truly human spiritual task to interiorize the Sun.

Featured in this gospel reading are two human beings, John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus of Nazareth. John, the stern father figure, is the last of the old prophets. He recognizes that human beings stand at a threshold of something totally new; and that they need to prepare for it by doing some inner housekeeping, by straightening up inwardly and creating an open space.

And next to him is Jesus of Nazareth. While respectful of the old forms, He is ready to take the next step forward for humanity. John’s baptism of immersion breaks open the seal of Jesus’ human nature and allows Christ, the inhabitant of the sun sphere, to enter into Him. Jesus is the receptive one into whom the spirit dove descends, as it did with Mary at the annunciation. To her the angel announced, “You will conceive and bear a son.” At the Baptism the Father Spirit Himself announces to the one whom Mary conceived and who now receives the Christ. He hears “You are my beloved Son, in you is my revelation. Today I have conceived you.” Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22

John and Jesus, two human beings helping each other to advance humanity through their heart’s choice – preparing, opening, receiving.

A 14^th century English mystic wrote:

Sear my inmost being

with your fire and my heart

will burn on Your altar forever.

Come, I beg you,

O sweet and true glory!…

Come, my Beloved,…

to my soul

and slip into it with most

sweetly flowing love. Set ablaze

with Your heat every penetrable

place of my heart and, by filling

its inmost places with your light,

feed the whole with the honey-flowing

joy of Your love….[1]

During this second, descending half of the year, we are to practice what John and Jesus have modeled for us: preparing, opening, receiving the light and the love of the Christ-Sun.  In doing this we are working toward the day when we too have taken the light and love of the Sun into our hearts; when we, too, will hear, “You are my beloved son, my daughter. (With)in you is my revelation,” the light and the warmth and the love, the One who has come to us from the heart of the sun.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Richard Rolle of Hampole (1300 – 1349), “Invitation to the God”, in Love’s Immensity, by Scott Cairns, p. 106.

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

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