4th St. Johnstide 2019, Not the Only

4th St. Johnstide

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

  

And Jesus went on with his disciples into the region of Caesarea Philippi (in the north of the land at the source of the Jordan where the Roman Caesar was worshiped as a divine being). And on the way there he asked the disciples (and said to them), “Who do people say that I am?”

They said to him, “Some say that you are John the Baptist; others say Elijah, still others that you are one of the prophets.”

Then he asked them, “And you, who do you say that I am?’

Then Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”

And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them: “The Son of Man must suffer much and will be rejected by the leaders of the people, by the elders and the teachers of the law, and he will be killed and after three days he will rise again.” Freely and openly he told them this.

Then Peter took him aside and began to 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

Roland Tiller

, “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.”

4^th St. Johns

July 21, 2019

Mark 8:27 – Mark 9:1

We have passed the half-way point in the year. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have begun descending from the sun’s zenith. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, the time of the year’s 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. He speaks of a descent into the depths of human existence, into death, and beyond; but He will rise again.

This revelation seems to spur Peter’s thinking into a narrow abyss of fear—he urges Jesus to save Himself; but thereby Peter’s practicality misses the bigger picture, and he inadvertently opposes Christ’s mission. For Christ came specifically to conquer death from within. In descending to the depths of the earth, Christ will ultimately make the whole 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 on our path. As Vaclav Havel said,

Collot d'Herbois

It is I who must begin.

Once I begin, once I try --

here and now,

right where I am,

… 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

3rd St. Johnstide 2019, What You Do

St. Johnstide

Domenico Ghirlandaio

Luke 3: 7-18

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, “

Tissot

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.

3^rd St. Johnstide
July 14, 2019
Luke 3: 7 -18

Living things change and evolve. If a plant never put out new leaves, never flowered or produced fruit and seeds, we would wonder if it had died. Evolution, change, ultimately manifest

in outwardly visible ‘deeds’.

Joh

Wilhelm Steinhausen

n’s message about a change of heart and mind is an encouragement to us to keep on evolving. When the crowd asks him how to do this, he points to changes in behavior, to deeds done in the outer world. He encourages deeds of sharing, compassion and right relationship to our fellow human beings. He points to deeds motivated by social justice, by a respectful relationship to those who are not only our equals but also toward those over whom we have authority.

Six centuries earlier, Buddha had brought this teaching to humankind in

his eightfold path. John is exhorting us to take up this path again seriously, as a preparation for the One who fulfills all. By making our own inner and outer evolutionary steps, we will ‘make His paths straight’. Through transformative deeds, which demonstrate the transformation of our hearts, the ‘guilt-laden seed of mankind’ will be cleansed and made viable toward the future, and receptive to the Coming One.

For in the words of another ancient wise teacher, Lao Tzu:

            This is the profound, simple truth:
            You are the master of your life and death.
            What you do is what you are.

2nd St. Johnstide 2019, Free

John the Baptist Preaching, Rembrandt

St. Johnstide

John 5: 31-38

If I were only appearing as my own witness, my testimony would be without truth [real power]; but there is another who bears witness to me, and I know that the testimony He gives me is the full truth [possesses full reality].

You sent messengers to John, and he gave valid testimony. But human testimony is not enough for me, for I want you to find salvation [healing] through my word.

He [John] was the burning and bright shining lamp [fire], and you wanted nothing more than to bathe for a while in that light. A weightier testimony is at my disposal than that of John. The deeds which the Father has given me to accomplish, the deeds which I fulfill, they testify for me that the Father has sent me. And so the Father who sent me Himself testifies to me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form; the Word which proceeds from Him does not live in your souls, for you do not open yourselves to him whom He has sent.

4^th St. Johnstide

July 7, 2019

John 5: 31-38

There was a small curly-headed dark-haired child who loved fairytales. She lived in a home where the mirrors were all far above her head. Imagine her astonishment when her parent lifted her up to see her reflection and she discovered that she wasn’t golden-haired like the princesses in the fairytales! She was so disappointed. Did not being golden-haired mean that she wasn’t a princess after all?

Mirrors allow us to see ourselves from the outside. They enable a degree of objectivity. Mirrors can show us truth, at least on one level. Thinking and feeling human souls can also serve as mirrors for the truth.

In today’s Gospel, Christ talks about how spiritual truth operates. He affirms that John the Baptist recognized Him, that John’s testimony about the truth of Christ’s being was valid. But He urges us not to be satisfied merely with accepting John’s eyewitness account. He wants us to take into consideration two other levels of testimony.

One is the testimony that comes from His Father, who shines through the deeds of teaching and healing that Christ does. The other, perhaps more relevant for us, comes from within us, from within our own hearts and souls. Christ wants to be mirrored in us, to see Himself, hear His evolving Word in us. Without opening our souls, opening our thoughts and our feelings to Christ, He cannot find His truth or the truth of the Father in us. If we do not open our souls to Him, He says, we cannot mirror his working.

Catherine of Sienna writes of waiting for her father to return from work one night. She says:

I saw him coming. We ran into each other’s arms

and he lifted me as he so often had—

twirled me through the air,

his hands beneath

my arms.

That is what the truth does:

lifts us and lets us

fly.*

Grace and truth come from Christ, who is Truth.  John 1:17, John 14:6.  When we let ourselves mirror the truth, we are free to align ourselves with what He really is. “You shall know the truth”, He says, “and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32.

* Catherine of Sienna, “Smells of Good Food”, in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 202.

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1st St. Johnstide 2019, Reality

St. Johnstide, 

John 3: 22-33 (adapted from Madsen)

St. John the Baptist Church in Jordan

After this, Jesus and his 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.’

Carolsfeld

“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 Truth[that there is no higher truth than the reality of God]. 

1^st St. Johnstide

June 30, 2019

John 3:22-33

Pollen Cloud

At the peak of its development, the blossom releases its pollen into the air. The pollen rises toward the heights; the sunlight weaves its life into the pollen, which returns to the world of earth. It joins with other plants to form seeds that carry life into the future. It is important to note that when pollen grains soar, they do not return to their original flower. The invigorated pollen that enlivens a particular plant comes from somewhere else, possibly from far away.

Gratitude is the opening of our hearts, the blossoming of our souls. Warmly felt gratitude is an invisible spiritual substance that rises upward toward the Spirit Sun. His spirit light weaves into this substance of gratitude, enlivens and transforms it. Our gratitude returns to earth, transformed, as His power of light and life and love. Like pollen my prayers of gratitude, do not return to me; they enliven others. And it is the prayers of others that enliven me. Christ’s power in human hearts is what gives us all a future.

The Baptism of Christ, from Berry's Book of Hours 

Christ, the Spirit Sun, keeps His heart open toward the Father. For Him, the Father is His transforming sunlight. John, who announces Christ, is also connected to the Father’s Spirit. He too is surrounded by the Father’s love. John is a kind of human/angelic mediator, a messenger sent on ahead to announce Christ’s impending arrival. He would shake us awake. He bids us open our hearts, to stream forth gratitude, so that Christ may send his enlivening power into all of us, so that we may continue to live. 

“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.” John 3:35

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2nd June Trinity 2019, Helping Guide

June Trinity

John 4, 1-26 (adapted from Madsen)

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.”

Vonaesch

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 23, 2019

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 the guide’s 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, in 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 He 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

1st June Trinity, 2019, Wake Up

June Trinity

John 3: 1-17 (adapted from Madsen)

Nicodemus, Hendrik Crijn

There was a man in the circle of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus; he held high rank among the Jews. He came to Jesus in the night and said, “Master, we know that you are a high teacher of mankind, come to us from God, for no one can do such signs of the Spirit as you do unless God himself is working together with him in his deeds.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “The truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever is not born anew from above cannot behold the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he return to his mother’s womb to be born again a second time?

Jesus answered, “the truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever remains as he is, and does not come to a new birth out of the formative power of the water and out of the breath of the spirit [or, …and is not born anew out of the spiritual power of eternal becoming and out of being touched by the might of the spirit world] cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born out of earthly elements is of earthly nature. But what is born out of the breath of the spirit, is itself spirit. Do not wonder that I said to you that you must be born anew from above. The spirit wind blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born anew out of the breath of the spirit.

Nicodemus replied and said to him, “How can one attain this?”

William Blake

Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and do not know? Amen, the truth I say to you: we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we have seen in the spirit, but none of you accepts our testimony. When I speak to you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how shall you believe when I want to speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ascended to the spiritual world who has not previously descended out of the spiritual world, that is, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses once lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who finds his power in their hearts can win a share in the higher life beyond time. God has so loved the world that he has given his only begotten Son. From now on, no one who fills himself with his power shall perish, for he will share in timeless, higher life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world be saved [healed] through him, and not fall prey to ruin.”

1^st June Trinity

June 19, 2011

John 3:1-17

Cedar Pollen

We are approaching the longest day, the shortest night of the year. The plants have released clouds of pollen. Carried up by the wind and thermals, the pollen will be kissed by the life-giving power of the sun. When it returns to the plants, it will bring them the potential to create the seeds of new life.

We too have our times when we expand out into the universe. Mostly we do so unconsciously, in sleep. When we return to our bodies in the morning, blessed and strengthened by an encounter with our angel, we are refreshed and ready for the new life in a new day.

Nicodemus comes to Christ in the realm of night. And Christ tries to make clear to him that it is now necessary to become aware, to consciously work with these spiritual forces of new birth from above with our day-waking consciousness. The spirit breath, the spirit wind carries with it words of creation, the potential for the next step in the evolution of humankind. The spirit gives us the impulses for the new—a new way, a new direction, a new paradigm. For the old is falling away. But the spirit needs our voluntary cooperation.

As we approach the zenith of the year, it is time to open ourselves. It is time to receive the blessing and strength from the spirit, for what is coming. We may not know where exactly which direction the impulse for the new is coming from; we may not know where it will lead us.

It will most certainly at first lead us through the death of the old way, just as following Christ led Nicodemus through the events of Christ’s death and resurrection. For we hear of Nicodemus helping to prepare Christ’s body for the tomb. John 19:39 Nevertheless, we can listen for the sound of the spirit wind, and rise to hear the words of becoming, sounding on the breath of the spirit. As we do so, we will begin to share in Christ’s timeless, higher life. John 3:16

As poet said:

Beyond living and dreaming

there is something more important:

waking up.*

*Antonio Machado, The Winged Energy of Delight, translations by Robert Bly

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Whitsun (Pentecost) 2019, Baptism of Fire

Whitsun (Pentecost)

John 14: 23-31 (adapted from Madsen)

Jesus replied, “He who truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.

I have said this to you while I am still with you. But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid [have no fear].

You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I am.

I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me, he has no power.

But the world shall see in this how I love the Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here. [let us be on our way.]"

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

 “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 

Whitsun

June 9, 2019

John 14: 23 -31

In a children’s story, the element of fire asks the Son of God how it can serve Him. He tells the fire that in order to serve Him, it must cease to burn, cease to consume; it must die so that the Son of God can awaken it to a new life of service. So the element of fire dies down and is extinguished. Then it is resurrected, rekindled as warm flames of love for God in the hearts of those who love Him.

In our own lives, our hearts can burn for many things. Our desire life can consume us, consume our resources, consume our relationships.

But drawing Christ’s power of sacrifice into our hearts can help us to bank the fires of desire; we can voluntarily extinguish them so that they can be transformed into love; the warmth of a love that serves others, that serves Christ in his evolving of the world. For Christ’s love, His heart, is a fire at the center of the world. His is the fire that generates an existence beyond time.  A poet caught a glimpse of this creative fire:

Listen, I've light

in my eyes

and on my skin

the warmth of a star,

…..  And

everything alive

(and everything's

alive) is turning

into something else

as at the heart

of some annihilating

or is it creating

fire

that's burning, unseeably, always…*

* Franz Wright, “The Fire” in God's Silence

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