3rd August Trinity 2018, Purchased Dearly

Luke 15:11-32

Durer

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 to be called your son. Make me one of your hired men [workers].’

Kathryn Doneghan

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 to be called your son. Make me one of your hired men [workers].’

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.’

The father, however, 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.’

3^rd August Trinity

August 5, 2018

Luke 15:1-32

God created the world with a certain economy in mind. There are two forces at work in us. One is the burgeoning force of life. It is that in us which is warm and, ever-changing, generating the new. The other force is a cooler preserving force. These two forces are meant to work together in balance. Too much new, too much life, overwhelms awareness. Too much preservation gradually destroys life. Working together in balance, they help us along our path.

John Macallan Swan

In today’s reading, when his younger son asks for his share of the estate, the father generously gives it to him, even though it means diminishing his own goods. Those goods the son seems to have squandered. But in fact they have bought something very precious—they have bought experience. They have purchased the indelible experience of the limits of “the good life.” They have shown that there can be value hidden in want and need. And they have made possible the highly prized moment of the experience of ‘coming to oneself’. They have purchased a keen self-awareness, combined with deep humility, and the desire for reconciliation, to work off indebtedness.

The elder brother, in his narrow, small-heartedness, worked to preserve and accumulate only outer wealth. He never even threw a small party for his friends. The prodigal son, through his dearly purchased experiences, is ready to become truly responsive and responsible to the father in an open-hearted way that the elder brother could never be.

One theme of the story is generosity. It demonstrates the evolution and the workings of great-heartedness. The prodigal son may have been wasteful, but he spent freely on others. The father is lavishly magnanimous with both his goods and his forgiveness.

This is the picture of the Father of us all. Our Father has sent us all out into the world, loaded with His riches. He recognizes that we are all purchasing our experiences, partially at the expense of our relationship with Him. He feels our misery. He hopes with all his heart that we will one day come to ourselves. He waits for the moment when we can pray this traditional prayer from Ghana:

Journeying God,

pitch your tent with mine

so that I may not become deterred

by hardship, strangeness, doubt.

Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions,

toward a wisdom not based on books,

toward a strength not bolstered by might,

toward a God not confined to heaven.

Help me to find myself as I walk in other's shoes.*

* (Prayer song from Ghana, traditional, translator unknown)

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2nd August Trinity 2018,

Matthew 7, 1-29

2^nd August Trinity

“Do not judge your fellow man, so that your judgment will not someday be visited upon yourself. For with the judgment that you pronounce you also speak your own judgment, and the measure by which you measure will be the measuring rod for your own self. Why do you look to the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not become aware of the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: “Wait, I will pull the splinter out of your eye” - but mark it well, there is a log 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.

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 he who asks in uprightness will receive; he who earnestly seeks will find; he who knocks, to him will be opened. Or are there among you those who when his 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 in spite of 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 men 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 which 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. 

2^nd August/September Trinity

July 29, 2018

Matthew 7: 1-14

In ancient times, caves were often places used for certain kinds of initiations, through tests of courage. Even today, being in a cave, or any dark tight space, often brings one face to face with oneself. Often caves are places where the only light is the one you bring with you.

Our lives can also bring us to tight dark places, where the only light seems to be what we can bring to the situation ourselves. They often involve tests of our courage and our faith.

Today’s gospel reading is a kind of instruction on ‘soul-caving’. It encourages us to enter our perhaps dark and tight soul space. We are encouraged to notice the hindrances to seeing that exist within our own soul-eye; to turn our powers of discernment inward into ourselves, rather than on our fellows; to avoid the cynical, the broad and easy.

For what is to be learned is the courage to face one’s own inner darkness; to bring our inner light to bear upon ourselves. We generate light of trust toward the beneficence of our God. We generate the light of nourishing kindness toward our fellows, and even ourselves. As Naomi Nye says:

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness....*

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*‘Kindness’, by Naomi Shihab Nye, in Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems

1st August Trinity 2018, Not the First

Mark 8, 27-Mark 9-1 (Peter’s Confession)

1^st August Trinity

Tissot

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.

Tissot

Then Peter took him aside and began to 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 his cross and follow me. For whoever is concerned about the salvation of his own soul will lose it; but whoever gives his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, his soul will find power and healing. For what use is it to a human being to gain the whole world if through that he damages his soul, which falls victim to the power of an empty darkness? What then can a man give as ransom for his soul? In this present humanity, which denies the spirit and lives in error, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him 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/September Trinity

July 22, 2018

Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1 

We have passed the half-way point in the year. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are beginning to descend from the sun's zenith. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, the time of deepest darkness is past. Now begins their ascent into the light.

In today’s reading, Peter’s recognition of the Christ in Jesus is a kind of a high point. It allows Christ to further reveal even more of Himself—He says that the Son of Man must suffer much, be rejected, killed. But He will rise again. He speaks of a descent into the depths of human existence, into death, and beyond; for He will rise again.

This revelation seems to spur Peter’s thinking into a narrow abyss of fear—he urges Jesus to save His own skin; but thereby Peter’s practicality misses the bigger picture, and he inadvertently opposes Christ’s mission. For in conquering death, Christ will ultimately make the earth itself into His body.

In our lives too, there are moments when the working of the divine reveals itself, often in the midst of an ordeal. We may not recognize it until later. And we may also then see how we resisted it out of fear or pride.

Though it is certainly human enough that we resist suffering, we ultimately need not fear it. These are indeed just the places where Christ is most easily found. For He has placed Himself forever into the depths of human existence. Whether we are ascending into the light, or descending into darkness, He always there to help us begin anew. As Vaclav Havel said,

Tissot

It is I who must begin.

Once I begin, once I try --

here and now,

right where I am,

….-- as soon as I begin that,

I suddenly discover,

to my surprise, that

I am neither the only one,

nor the first,

nor the most important one

to have set out

upon that road.*

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---

* Vaclav Havel, “It Is I Who Must Begin’ in Teaching With Fire, ed. by S.M. Intrator and M. Scribner

4th St. Johnstide 2018, Drops of the Sun

Unknown Artist

St. Johnstide 

Matthew 11: 2-15

When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, and those who have become poor receive the message of salvation. Blessed are those who are not offended by my Being.”

When they had gone, Jesus began to speak about John. “Why did you go out into the desert? Did you want to see a reed swaying in the wind? Or was it something else you wanted to see? Did you want to see a man in splendid garments? Those in splendid garments are in the palaces of kings. Did you go to see a man who is initiated into the mysteries of the spirit, a prophet? Yes, I say to you—he is more than a prophet. He it is of whom it is written:

           

Elijah

            Behold it well: I will send my angel before your face;

            He shall prepare the way of your working in human hearts

            So that your being may be revealed.

The truth I say to you: among all who are born of women, not one has risen up who is greater than John the Baptist; and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist, and even more now, the kingdom of heaven will arise within human beings through the power of the will; those who exert themselves can freely grasp it. The deeds of the prophets and the content of the Law are words of the spirit that were valid [worked into the future] until the time of John. And if you want to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

4th St. Johnstide

July 15, 2018

Matthew 11: 2-15

The sun can shine mightily. Yet the bird in the covered cage will not sing. The plant kept in the dark will not thrive. Uncover the cage, place the plant near the sunlight, and they respond to the light.

When John the Baptist asks from prison whether Jesus is the Messiah, the answer is not a simple yes or no. Rather Jesus points to the effects of his deeds. He has uncovered the soul-cages, brought human souls to the spirit light.

Rembrandt

Not only those physically blind, but also the soul-blind and the soul-deaf can see and hear. Deadened souls are awakened. Weak souls can rise and move forward. The outcasts, the beggars for the spirit receive heaven’s healing richness.

The point is that the working of Christ was and continues to show itself as effective within human beings. “Through Him can the healing spirit work.” And those who choose to follow the Christ path become those who, through Christ working in them, are also effective among their fellow human beings in a healing and uplifting way. 

We can hear in a poem by Hafiz how the Spirit-Sun speaks to our souls:

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now

And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way

And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions' beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved…**

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---

* From the Creed of The Christian Community

** Hafiz, “Cast All Your Votes For Dancing”, in I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky

3rd St. Johnstide 2018, Invisible Gold

Ghirlandaio

St. Johnstide
Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds coming outto 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.

Buddha, Jan de Kok

3rd St. Johnstide
July 8, 2018
Luke 3: 7-18

Sometimes the sweetest fruit comes from an old tree; but usually, it is a tree that has been long cared for with thoughtful pruning and generous stimulus to growth.

One of humanity’s old ‘cultural trees’ is Buddha’s eightfold path. This path is a call to be mindful of how a one thinks and acts. Buddha encourages us to make rightful decisions based on appropriate strivings and to accurately recollect and contemplate our past thoughts and actions.

The eightfold path is echoed in today’s reading. John the Baptist’s suggestions for preparing our hearts and minds for an encounter with Christ is especially relevant for today: Share; don’t hoard. Don’t take advantage. Don’t intimidate. In other words, curb your selfishness. Be generous. Be content.

These

Tree of Life, Tiffany

heart generosities and soul prunings produce “good fruits in keeping with a change of heart and mind”. It doesn’t matter how young or how old the soul. Nor do one’s genetics, social standing or cultural heritage matter either. We all can practice cultivating our own hearts and minds. For every tree that does not produce good fruit is of no real use to the world. No matter how insignificant our outer lives may otherwise seem, our hearts and minds can become like the tree described by Denise Levertov:
 
    …this tree, behold,
    glows from within;
    haloed in visible
    invisible gold.*

---

*Denise Levertov, “Last Night's Dream”

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2nd St. Johnstide 2018, God's Voice

St. Johnstide
John 3: 22-36

After this, Jesus and his

Egbert Codex

disciples came to the land of Judea. There he stayed with them and baptized. John also baptized; he was at Aenon near Salim because there was much water there, and people came to him and were baptized. For John had not yet been imprisoned.

Then a dispute arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about the path of purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Master, he who came to you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness – here he is, baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

John answered, “No human being can grasp spiritual power for himself that is not given to him from the higher worlds. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’

“He who has the bride, he is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens to him, he is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He who descends from above, out of the spiritual world, is elevated above all beings of the earth. Whoever is only of the earth, whose being arises from the earthly, his word is also earthbound.

He who comes from the heavens is elevated above all who have arisen from the earthly. What he has seen and heard in the world of the spirit, to that he can bear direct witness, but no one accepts his testimony.

But

whoever accepts his testimony, sets his seal to this: that God is true [truth] [that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. Whoever God has sent, his words are filled with the power of divine thought, for God gives the spirit to human beings not according to human rules, but according to the creative power that he awakens in man.

The Father holds the Son surrounded in his love, and has given everything into his hands. Whoever trusts in the power of the Son within himself, he grows out of the earthly into timeless life.

Whoever cannot trust in the power of the Son within will not behold the world of life; rather the working might of the spirit world must one day burn him like a fire that will consume him.”

2^nd St. Johnstide
July 1, 2018
John 3: 22-36

Here

Workshop of Titian

in the Northern Hemisphere, it is high summer. The earth is in the sun’s embrace. Meanwhile, the other side of the earth is in midwinter. With both sides of her being, the earth is looking to her sons and daughters. Her greatest wish is that the soul of humanity be joined with the Sun-Spirit, just as she herself has joined with Him. In joining with Him we will become fruitful and fulfill our divine destiny.

It is no accident that the gospel reading mentions a bride and bridegroom. For it is the time when the soul of humanity is to wed its Beloved.


St Francis of Assisi said:

I hear you singing, dear, inviting me to your limb.
I am coming, for all that we do is a
preparation for love.

I hear you singing, my Lord, inviting me to your throne.
We are coming, dear, for all the toil you have
blessed us with is a preparation to know and hold the
sacred.

I hear you singing, my soul, but how can it be that
God’s voice has now become my own?
“That’s just a wedding gift for our
Divine Union,”
my Beloved
said.* 

*A Wedding Gift”, St Francis of Assisi, in Love Poems to God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 44. 

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1st St. Johnstide 2018, Tailor Your Robe

Mark 1, 1-13

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:

Tamara Rigishvili

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 acknowledgment 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, 2018
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

Klocek

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.

We are hovering at the solstice. The year is turning. As the outer light diminishes, it will turn into warmth. Now is the time to begin again; to turn around, to change our hearts and minds. It is time to begin to turn inward, to warm our hearts. 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.*

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

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