“Transforming Fear into Joy”

“Transforming Fear into Joy”

Isaiah 35: 1-10 and Luke 1: 26-33, 46-53
Rev. Alison Longstaff
Church of the Good Shepherd, Dec 12, 2010

Today my talk is about the transformation of fear into joy. Mary’s song, also known as “the Magnificat,” is the perfect text for this topic. Set in the Gospel of Luke, which is all about turning the tables on injustice, the Magnificat sings of hope for the future and joy in the promise that all that is wrong in the world will be set right.

I have to say, at the end of a very tough personal year, transforming anything dark into something joyful is a topic near to my heart. And regardless of the pattern of any of our personal lives, we all currently live in dark and uncertain times. The global recession is highlighting the already too wide gap between the richest and the poorest among us. Our leaders seem to be making repeated poor choices, and the good seem to have their hands tied. Wars and oppression, human cruelty and greed seem to continue unabated despite all our supposed human enlightenment and “progress.”

So how does one celebrate the advent of “Joy” in such bleak times?

We must remember that Mary sung the Magnificat into her own dark time. While today most Christians worldwide believe she was carrying God incarnate in her belly as she sang, to all worldly eyes in her time, she just was illegitimately pregnant, and was only alive thanks to Joseph’s forgiveness. Mary had just escaped a possible stoning to death, and yet she sings into this uncertainty the joy and peace of being in God’s loving care. She sings with hope of God’s power to set everything right in the world, no matter how things looked.

Wow. How many of us, in a parallel situation to Mary’s could display such faith and peace? As for me, to quote the parable of The Little Red Hen, “‘Not I,’ said the pig.” (Though I suppose if an angel actually appeared directly to me and told me the God of all creation wanted me personally to know that everything would be okay, it might be easier.)

But since most of us will need to get by this year without the personal reassurance of a heavenly being, how do we face our own dark times, and transform that bleakness into a time of joy? How do we celebrate the advent of Joy if we are struggling with darkness?

Let us look more closely at today’s text. Right away, I am struck by some of the angel’s first words to Mary. Do you remember what they are? After he says, “Rejoice! You are blessed!” he says, “Do not be afraid, Mary.” He calls her by name, and reassures her that there is no reason to be afraid.

Pay attention here. This is not just a reassuring word to Mary in that moment, this is a reminder to each of us that God knows us intimately, and cares deeply about every detail of our lives. God calls each of us by name. The angel tells Mary that she is favoured by God, and need not fear. Each one of us is equally favoured by God. Equally. No lie. In this confidence, we can sing bravely into our dark times, right?

Now I can tell you, in the days and hours of my life when things are going really wrong, I do not at all feel favoured by God. The very strong feeling indeed is that I am decidedly UNfavoured by God. My son has heard me more than once over the past year announce in frustration, “The universe HATES me!” When things go terribly wrong, we can feel not only forgotten by God, but almost as if some dark force has a particular vendetta against us. “Is there a target on my back?!” you might cry in dismay. When things are going really wrong, how easy is it, honestly, to feel blessed by God? When bad news upon bad news strikes our story, many of us experience instead a feeling of our profound vulnerability in the face of a cold and uncaring reality. It is during these times when we are most susceptible to fear and despair. And it is during these times that we must push all the harder to “Fear not.” In these times, believing in God’s benevolence and loving care has to become a choice.

Yes, we can choose not to fear. What does choosing not to fear look like? Choosing not to fear happens when we choose to focus on where we are headed and where our hope lies, rather than to look down and around at all that is going wrong. It sounds as if the angel tells Mary not to feel fear, but that is not what he is saying. The angel is reminding all of us that fear doesn’t have to dominate our consciousness.

This interpretation puts a spin on “Fear Not” that I hadn’t previously considered. It doesn’t mean “don’t experience the emotions associated with setbacks and misfortune.” It means, “don’t let fear drag your focus into all that has and can still go wrong; keep focused on God and the good outcome that is the goal.” Or, “Keep your eyes on the prize.” To quote Mark Twain, “Courage is resistance to fear - the mastery of fear - not the absence of fear.” Or to quote Dr. Robert Anthony, “Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway.”

Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway. Simple! Well it is, and it isn’t simple. Like any good spiritual discipline, this takes practice. Acknowledging the fear and taking conscious positive action anyway takes practice. Every true spiritual path involves the practice of some sort of discipline. Mastering our fears – that is, acting bravely despite their presence - takes discipline and practice too. That is true courage. It is not easy. But it is utterly worth it. It means the difference between being frozen with fear or able to keep going. It means the difference between being crushed by despair or moving forward. It means the difference between hiding in our comfort zone or risking a little in the name of love.

This reminds me of when I was learning to drive. I recall wobbling my way nervously down the road, obsessively aware of the ditches on either side. Then my instructor gave me a tip. “Look up to where you are headed, and aim there. Then staying straight on the road will take care of itself.” Well I tell you, my aim straightened right out and my course became straight and true with that advice. I just needed to lift up my eyes. The same principle applied when I was learning to walk a balance beam. When I worried about falling step by step I wobbled much more than when I looked to the end of the beam and headed there.

So can we do this in our faith walk too? Of course we can. What happens when we are able to choose to keep looking ahead and not down spiritually? Mary’s first response was wonder. From fear and insecurity she moves into a place of being able to watch the miracle at work. She becomes able to appreciate the details of what was actually happening in her life by not focusing on what bad things could happen. Curiosity emerges when fear is prevented from dominating. Suffering becomes wonder.

It is a Swedenborgian principle that removing the negative makes room for the good. It isn’t so much that we choose to “be good.” Instead, we must choose to remove those things that block the good from flowing in.

And so it is true with “fearing not.” When we can shift our focus away from the darkness, we are choosing to focus on the light. This makes is much harder for the fear to drain our resources, and creates space in our consciousness for curiosity, wonder, and hope.

Fear transforms into wonder. Wonder opens our hearts to hope. And hope is the antidote to despair. It is the positive spiral that continually strengthens us, opposing the downward cycle of fear and despair that can reduce all we hope in to ashes.

This conscious focusing on the positive goal is a way we remove the things that stand between us and trust in God. When we can choose for positive focus and not fear, even in the face of darkness, we are choosing for joy.

Christmas is a time of contrasts. Sadness, loss, and loneliness can seem even more painful when all around us is supposed to be merry and bright. But if there is one thing I have learned from walking a long time in the cold it is this, that when the warmth comes, it will be that much more appreciated, treasured, and rich.

David said, "What time I am afraid, I will…trust…in You" (Psalm 56:3). We need never fear, because God IS in charge and all WILL be well. We will fear, we will struggle, because we are mortal, but we have options in the face of fear. Try not to look down. Focus on your goals and on God’s promise of a happy ending. Turn the tables on fear and darkness and choose for joy. Block out the negative thoughts and sing into the storm, and hope and joy will become your steady companions.

I would like to close with a poem by American poet, Maury Merkin.

Sing!
If not forever, through the night;
If not together then alone;
If not in tune then with a hearty sound
But sing.

Or hum.
If all the words can't be recalled,
Syllables will do;
Or pluck upon an instrument.
The meter matters too.
Enliven it with pulse
And hum.

Then dance
If you can find it in your heart to.
Use a step you've used before
Or learn a new one.
More's the better.
Abandon comes in handy,
Prance!
It's Life Time.

“Why have you deceived me?” - When God Lets Us Down

“Why have you deceived me?” - When God Lets Us Down
Rev. Alison Longstaff, Aug 1, 2010
Church of the Good Shepherd
Genesis 29:14-30, and Luke 11: 5-13

‘So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?"’
Who can hear the story of Jacob and Rachel and not feel indignant on Jacob’s behalf? Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, the beautiful woman whom he loved, and yet the morning after the wedding, he discovers that it is Rachel’s older, less attractive sister Leah in his marriage bed and not Rachel.
(Okay, let’s not get into how Rachel felt about this arrangement, or the little cultural detail of women being property that can be promised, earned, swapped, and/or given away. Or how Jacob didn’t even notice the little switcheroo until the next morning---how drunk was he? Let alone how Leah felt about the whole thing! Stinks to be Leah! BUT, setting aside all that, and identifying with Jacob as we are intended to do-)
Who can hear this and not feel indignant on behalf of Jacob?
Jacob did everything he was supposed to do, and yet didn’t get the reward promised to him. It was a bait and switch. Yes, he got Rachel in the end, but this whole story just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Why is it in the Bible? What lesson are we supposed to learn from this story?

Are we to learn that we can do everything right and still not have our prayers answered? Are we to believe that God is fickle and arbitrary and we are simply at the Divine whim and mercy? That God can pull a bait and switch on us, and there’s nothing we can do?

No. That is not what we are to learn. This story is about persistence in the spiritual journey. This story is about shooting for a goal and falling short, and carrying on until we hit the mark. This story is about God’s mercy and loving kindness in not granting us something we desire until we, not God, are absolutely ready for it.

Take a look at the law of Divine Providence as printed on the cover of your bulletin…. (§221)
“The means by which a person is led by the Lord are what are called the laws of the Divine Providence; and among these is this, that a person is admitted interiorly into the truths of wisdom and into the goods of love only so far as he or she can be kept in them right on to the end of life.”

Note: it says a person is granted these good things “only so far as he or she can be kept in them right on to the end of life.” That means that God won’t allow us to achieve any spiritual milestone or earn any spiritual truth or goodness until we can hold on to it without backsliding---until we are spiritually mature enough to value it and maintain it from that moment on to eternity. That is a key thing to remember when studying our text for today. In the spiritual sense of the Bible, this story is about how God does grant us our dream come true, in its right time, and what that process looks like.

The Bible is always about the spiritual journey---yours, mine, and that of the whole human race. So though the stories are cloaked in physical/natural images and sometimes include some unpleasant content, the inner story is always about spiritual and eternal values and point to our greatest happiness.

The story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, among other things, highlights the value of our own persistence, and the necessity of absolute trust in the Lord’s leading. We don’t know when we are spiritually ready for something, no matter how we may feel personally, and it is a kindness, not an insult that God allows us to achieve new spiritual states only when we are completely ready.

God’s perspective always includes details that we cannot see. God ALWAYS says yes to every prayer when it is regarding our own or anyone else’s spiritual well-being. We often cannot see how God has said yes to our prayer until much later. And in the mean time, it often looks like God has said “no” and even sometimes puts massive setbacks in our path as well.

Since things can and do go wrong from our perspective, we sometimes find ourselves looking at God, as Jacob looked at Laban, and saying, ‘“What is this you have done to me?”’

Let me tell you a true story. A few years ago, a freaky thing happened. On the very same day, a whole bunch of people from the same work place were all late getting to work because of different, random set-backs.

One person was late because her alarm clock didn't go off. Another was late because of being stuck in a traffic jam behind a big car accident. One missed the bus. One spilled food on her clothes and had to go back and change them. Another one's car wouldn't start. Still another one couldn't get a taxi. One put on a brand new pair of shoes and walked only to develop a blister and have to stop at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. They were all much later to work than usual due to annoying little details and set-backs.

Each one of them is alive today because of those precise annoying little details and set-backs. It was simply not their day to die. You see, that day was September 11, 2001.

(I must interject here that the people who did die on 9/11 did not deserve to die more than the ones who were spared, nor were they less loved and cared for by God than the people who escaped. It was simply that God knew who could die at that point and who really needed to stick around on this plane a bit longer. It is from our perspective, not God’s that the ones who died had a worse day. God was caring equally for everyone.)

However, my point is this, that no matter how things may look, God does indeed have a plan for our well-being and not for our harm at every moment of every day. Period.

So let’s look at the Jacob story a little more closely.

Swedenborg takes the Jacob and Laban story sentence by sentence, and sometimes word by word explaining the internal meaning in his book Arcana Caelestia (or Secrets of Heaven). Just this one story goes on for pages and PAGES! Today I will give us all a very condensed summary, in as plain speech as I am able. Swedenborg’s abstract way of talking can be pretty heady, but I’ll do my best. So…..

“Laban” is the part of us that parents our various levels of spiritual love. 'And Leah's eyes were weak' means that our first capacity to see and respond to the Lord’s truth is relatively short-sighted. It is not a very beautiful form of spirituality, but it is a necessary step in our journey and cannot be bypassed. 'And Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance' means that the level of spirituality where we have a deep love for the Lord and therefore a much deeper understanding of life and truth is a much more desirable spirituality. Rachel is where we all want to end up. She is beautiful for good reason.

However, our first understanding of truth and what living a truly good life means is fairly shallow. It tends to be simplistic and more about rules. That’s Leah. Leah comes first because that is what we do first as spiritual beings---we can’t help it. Beginner violinists sound like beginner violinists and every one of us starts out spiritual life relatively short-sighted and spiritually dense. However, every aspect of what we learn in our “Leah” state of spirituality provides an essential foundation upon which God can build in us the more beautiful and mature “Rachel” spirituality. It is Rachel that we long for, and Rachel that God intends us to have.

There are so many great gems of wisdom in this story. I am skipping over so much so that we can get out of here before noon, but I want you to know how much there is I’m not even telling you! For example Swedenborg has a whole section on the difference between Leah and Rachel as they manifest in our lives, basically illustrating the difference between a ‘spiritual life” as guided by poor judgment vs. one guided by a much deeper wisdom and understanding.

Then there is a very beautiful section about the love Jacob has for Rachel. This is the strong desire God implants in each of us to seek an ever more wise understanding of life and God because of the tremendous comfort and beauty it brings to our lives.

Then we come to the discussion of finding Leah in the marriage bed instead of Rachel. Here Swedenborg tells us that to the extent that we continue to be attached to and care about materialistic and earth-bound values, to that extent the Lord will not allow us to attach to deeper, spiritual values, even though we want to. This is not a judgment on us but a protection. We don’t allow small children to play with the fine art and breakables, nor access to the sharp knives, etc. because they are not mature enough to use them properly. They could do great harm out of ignorance and clumsiness. It is the same with God and us and the great spiritual treasures that God so desperately wishes us to have. God is wise enough to keep us and them safely apart until we are ready.

And so periodically we, too, wake up to ourselves and realize that we are nowhere near where we wish we were spiritually. This is a deeply disappointing discovery and is represented by Jacob’s indignation.

So we come to the key lines that inspired me to dig into this subject matter: 'And he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? And why have you cheated me?”'

This whole story seemed so unfair that I had to know what was going on in the internal sense. It fascinated me to realize that the angels also feel similar feelings when they hear this story, though they understand it on a much deeper level.

“There are two parts to the internal sense of the Word - affections and subject-matter. The affections lying within expressions of the Word are not visible to humans but are hidden away deep within. Nor can they be visible since a person during life on the earth is governed by earthly and bodily concerns, which have nothing in common with the affections present in the internal sense of the Word. That sense contains a flow of feelings which belong to spiritual and celestial (the highest spiritual) love, feelings which people are scarcely able to imagine because they are so rare on earth. These affections that belong to celestial and spiritual love manifest themselves in lovingkindness towards the neighbour and in love to God. These are the affections, in great variety which have been stored away in the internal sense of the Word, residing not only in every sentence but also in every expression, indeed in every detail. And they reveal themselves to angels when the Word is read by humans from a state of simple goodness and innocence.” AC 3841

When we read the Word, the angels read it too, but hear it on an entirely different level. Perhaps that is why we can feel so comforted by it, even when we don’t understand it. The angels who are with us when we read the Word do understand and are filled with delight, for the spiritual meaning is always full of hope and promise. We may not understand it, but simply reading the Word still does a great deal of good.

Even reading stories as strange as this one.

So now when we read that Laban said, It is not done that way in our place,' can you hear it differently? Can you understand the meaning in a whole new way? This isn’t about an ancient custom of not allowing a younger sister to be married before an older one, nor is it sanctioning polygamy, nor is it sanctioning betrayal and trickery. In the inner meaning it is simply saying, “in the spiritual journey, you must pass through all the preparatory stages of spiritual growth before you achieve the highest and most blessed spiritual states.”

Well that seems fair and sensible.

In the natural story it is neither fair nor sensible, especially to our modern ears. But the inner meaning is telling an entirely other tale. It is the tale of God’s so very wise and careful leading of us and our preparation for heaven.

So Laban commands Jacob, 'Complete this week' which mean God is urging us to continue in our diligent pursuit of a truly spiritual and heavenly life. When we wake up to our failings, God encourages us not to give up.

This is where I must mention our quirky New Testament parable. It is a parable that basically says, “if you are irritating enough, God will answer your prayers.” A man has come late at night and is bothering his friend for help, knocking and knocking on the door until the homeowner gets up. Picture the homeowner opening his upstairs window and yelling at the man to go away in not so very gentle language. But the man just keeps bugging the homeowner until he gets what he needs. The quote from Luke is this: (11: 8) “yet because of the man's boldness he [the homeowner] will get up and give him as much as he needs.” The word “boldness” in the Greek is “Anaideia” which could also be translated persistence, shamelessness, or impudence. Essentially the quote says, “yet because of the man's impudence, persistence, and shamelessness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

What a funny parable! It implies that God is overwhelmingly busy and tired, and if we want to get our needs met, we must make pests of ourselves! What this text is really about is the necessity of our own persistence in the spiritual quest. WE are served by our own persistence. Our diligent labour towards something we desire teaches us on a cellular level how valuable is the goal. The harder won any prize is the more cherished it will be, yes? God knows this and uses for our own benefit too. And so, despite disappointments, we must persist.

'And he gave him Rachel his daughter for his wife' means the joining of the goodness achieved up to that point with the affection for deep, inner truth.

“The reason these shallow affections are means that serve in the joining of truth to good is that no matter of doctrine, nor indeed any item of knowledge, can enter anyone except by means of love or affections. For affections hold life within themselves, but truths which belong to doctrine and knowledge cannot hold any life within themselves apart from those affections.” Haven’t we all experienced this? We simply cannot learn or retain any knowledge unless there is some motivation or passion driving us to learn. So God makes sure that these deep inner truths will be joined up with good affections, and that takes time.

Genuine deep affections do arrive in the process of time, but not until a person is ready.

'And he came [in] also to Rachel' means finally we come into a genuine affection for deep inner truth. 'And he loved Rachel also, more than Leah' means we love that deep inner truth much more than the shallow, more external truth. And we are told, this love for genuine, inner truth is “holiness itself.”

What I’d like to leave you with is this: God never lets us down. Life throws a lot of stuff at us that looks pretty rotten, but God has a bigger picture in mind that involves bringing us to a place of being fully ready for our own intoxicatingly beautiful “Rachel” spirituality in our right time and place. God asks us only to persist, and reminds us that there are no short-cuts, no matter how impatient we may be.

Remember that story about the people whose lives were spared on 9/11 due to little set-backs? It closes with this reminder: “The next time your morning seems to be going wrong, you can't seem to find the car keys, and you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated; it may be just that God is at work watching over you. May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose.”

I would add to that the reminder that God’s plan is always bigger than we think. That God has plans for a future more beautiful than we dare dream, and all we need to do is persist in the journey and insist on God’s help. Life does let us down sometimes. People and circumstances can seem to be radically unfair sometimes. So trust in God’s plan, for God will never let you down. Amen.

What is the Bible For?

What is the Bible For?

Rev. Alison Longstaff, July 4th, 2010
Church of the Good Shepherd
Adapted from a paper for Inese Radzins, STHS-3780.SP09, TCR
Written May 21, 2009, adapted July1, 2010
Psalm 30; John 1: 1-5; TCR 235

I’m guessing that not a few of us have wished in exasperation that the Bible wasn’t quite so odd and archaic. It can be very hard to explain to the unchurched what (if any) value it has, let alone what value there might be in spending precious time reading it. Especially in this scientific day and age, when the mystical side of life is routinely dismissed and devalued, it can be hard to explain what value lies in the Bible at all.
What is the Bible for? We can say it is God’s Word. We can say it is God’s travel guide for this paradoxical life, but do we really know how and in what way the Bible serves its purpose, more than providing a basis for weekly morality lessons? In Swedenborgian circles, we believe it has an internal meaning, but does that really change how much time the average person spends reading it? What, exactly, is the Bible for?
The Bible, the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures---these are some of the names of this ancient collection of stories which have been cobbled together and edited and re-edited over the centuries. Even Christians can’t agree what books really belong in the Bible nor into what order they should be sorted. All Christians will agree that this thing that we call the Bible is sacred. However, how we hold it as sacred is another problem altogether. Increasingly, Christians today seem to be going one of two ways with this holy collection of books---either we view the written words as entirely infallibly literally true, or we supposedly “pick and choose”: ignoring the boring, distasteful, and puzzling parts while digging deep into the rich old stories and parables.
Since this congregation and denomination do not fall into the literalist camp, we tend toward the second option. Truth be told, I believe we have found a third way, but more on that some other day. Regardless, whole chunks of the Bible are almost never read by anyone anymore, except by the most devout readers or advanced Biblical scholars.
Looking at some of these ignored sections, it is small wonder!
Genesis 5: 18-24 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

Cue the crickets.
But the thing is, this is great stuff! How do I know? Well ... experience.
Okay. Think of someone you know and love well, someone whose outward appearance isn’t up to Hollywood’s standards, but whose inner character delights you. Let’s call this person “Cory” since that could be male or female. When you speak of Cory, you might say, “Oh, he’s awesome!” or “I love her. She’s so great!” Because of this, a friend meeting Cory for the first time might expect to meet someone with greatness tattooed on the forehead. Instead, surprised to find Cory ordinary or even eccentric in appearance might make them wonder what you were so excited about.
Or perhaps you yourself, after hearing glowing reports about some great person (we’ll call this person “Pat”) feel mystified by Pat’s unremarkable or even odd outward appearance. “This is Pat?” you might say inside yourself. “THE “Pat?” Really?”
Hasn’t this happened to you? The reality is that all of us, until we know the insides of a person, tend to judge by the outsides. First impressions are rarely the same as last impressions. But once we do know a person’s insides, we tend to forget the outsides, instead seeing their whole selves through the eyes of love.
So believe me, the same way that we can learn to love a human friend who comes in unusual physical packaging, we can learn to love the Word. The Sacred Scripture, much of it written over 2000 years ago, does indeed come in strange packaging. But to love it, we must get past appearances. We must get to know the magical, life-giving soul within its unusual packaging. How do we do this? The same way we do with any new friend. We spend time with it and we learn about it. So, meet the Bible:
Leviticus 14:34-40 When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house:” Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean : and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house: And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall; Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days: And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look : and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house; Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:

Yup. Laws about leprosy in a house. Try preaching a sermon on that! (Actually, Swedenborgians have all sorts of resources that allow us to preach a fascinating sermon on that. Hint: it is about healthy and unhealthy structural elements in a person’s belief system, and about how to determine if the crumbling and weakening is simply evidence of surface problems that can be renovated or a sign that the whole house---attitude, outlook, interpretation---is unstable and unfit and needs to come down. Cool, eh?)
But back to my point, it takes practice and education to learn to see through the strangeness in the Bible, but it is well worth the time it may take!
Now, tell the truth, how many of you have a habit of reading the Bible (almost) every day?
How many have ever read the entire thing, cover to cover?
If you do or have done either of these, pat yourself on the back! You have done a good thing, according to Swedenborg. If you haven’t, don’t worry yourself, you are in good company. We all have many things we are dealing with, and most of us have not realised just what encountering these sacred texts, either through listening to or reading them ourselves, can actually do for our souls. But not just for our own souls, when anyone reads the Sacred Scriptures, whether they know the internal sense or not, they contribute to the well-being of all of heaven. I repeat, when anyone reads any part of the Sacred Scriptures, whether they know the internal meaning or not, they contribute to the well-being of all of heaven.
So says Swedenborg, anyway:
I have been allowed to perceive that when I read the Word in its earthly meaning, communication is established with the heavens, at one time with one community, at another time with another. The words which I understand in their earthly meaning are understood by the spiritual angels in their spiritual meaning and by the celestial (highest) angels in their celestial meaning, and this instantaneously. I have observed and felt this communication some thousands of times. These direct experiences have shown me that the Word in its earthly meaning provides a marvelous way of being closer to the Lord and connected with the angels in heaven. True Christianity §235
It’s as simple as that. Simply reading the Word connects our spirits with heaven and invites the Lord to come closer. Memorizing parts or verses can actually give us spiritual touchstones or amulets of comfort which we can pull out of our memories and recite to ourselves in the midst of hard times. And if we are so lucky as to have time to really learn some of the correspondences in the Word in detail, we can begin to unearth revelations upon revelations of meaning. It’s really cool! Light shines even onto the dark and mystical stories of the Apocalypse, transforming those threatening tales into a love story of tremendous beauty. Even in the Apocalypse, behind the dire prophecies, we find the story of the Lord as the Lover and Bridegroom, and each one of us as the beloved or bride. God woos us, and we respond. God, like a prince or knight in an ancient fairy tale comes to rescue us, from monsters, beasts, and seven-headed dragons. The process of getting to our happy ending---which is heaven, which is a state of true happiness based on true personal integrity and loving-kindness---can feel pretty dire and hopeless sometimes. This is represented in the book of Revelation by all the frightening drama and prophecies of doom. But it is the story of how human life tends to go, not how it will go at some time in the future. We are already living through these dramatic events in our personal lives. This is God’s word of comfort saying, “I see that it will sometimes feel like the sky is falling, but you will be okay. I know that it will sometimes look like your every hope for the future is going to be devoured by dark circumstances beyond your control, but fear not! There is no reality or power outside of my love; and all of the drama will be transformed into peace, welcome, safety, and home. Just hang in there. Trust me.”
I need to wrap this up. There is so much more to say! But I close today’s message by saying again: Swedenborg tells us that whether we understand correspondences or not, simply reading the Sacred Scriptures for ourselves or listening to someone else read them feeds our souls. It provides a connection with God, and nourishes the angels in heaven. Even if we are reading a long list of who begat who, or a list of building materials in cubits, or what to do with a stray ox on the Sabbath, every word---every verb, every noun---contains deep spiritual gems that nourish the angels and connect us all with God. We don’t have to know what vitamins and minerals are in each bite of food for it to be able to nourish our bodies, and Swedenborg is telling us that we don’t have to understand the spiritual sense of the Word for it to be feeding our spirits.
If you aren’t in the habit, consider starting a small practice of tossing a crumb or two to the angels each day. Each verse is associated with a different society in heaven, so even if you spend time with only one verse, the connection is happening and joy is being communicated.
In some magical way, the Bible is the very presence of God with us. It is a lifeline of communication with all the spirits of heaven. Yet it is cloaked in a mystical, magical packaging of ancient stories, so humble and plain as to appear to the uneducated eye as uninteresting as a common stable. The stories can be appealing, like the sweet smell of hay, as warm as the collective heat of stable animals, or as off-putting and distasteful as the by-products of those animals. All the while it is the Word of God and God with us. How paradoxical.
Come, spend more time in that stable, it is where God is born in you.
I promise you, if you take the time to really get to know this remarkable book, you will find your life transforming and healing in subtle, remarkable ways.
So, what is the Bible for? Why don’t you tell me in a few months? I’d like to hear how it goes.




Psalm 30
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. 4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. 5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. 6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved." 7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. 8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication: 9 "What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? 10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!" 11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

True Christianity §235 "I have been allowed to perceive that when I read the Word in its earthly meaning, communication with the heavens is established, at one time with one community there, at another time with another. The words which I understand in their earthly sense are understood by the spiritual angels in their spiritual sense, and by the celestial angels in their celestial sense, and this too upon the instant. Since I have perceived this communication some thousands of times, I have no doubt left concerning it. These direct experiences have enabled me to know that the Word in its earthly meaning provides a Divine means of being connected with the Lord and associated with the angels in heaven."

Mother's Day Sermon 2010

“Is the Church A Mother?”
Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 9, 2010
Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, ON
Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Revelation 22: 6-17

“The primal call is the call to love. It is the call to be loving and to accept love in return. It calls us beyond rhetoric, beyond excuses; it calls us out of ourselves.” David Spangler

Here we are in church on Mother’s Day, and I am charged with the yearly privilege of preaching a sermon that manages the confluence of Christian worship with the widely secular but not unworthy commemoration of “mother” in our calendar year. Mother’s day as a national holiday in North America is credited to the American Anna Jarvis, who fought and succeeded in seeing a day set aside for honouring one’s mother, singular, in the American calendar year. But the roots of “mother’s day” go back even beyond the “Mothering Sunday” found in the British isles---originally the day established by the Catholic Church to honour the Virgin Mary and the Mother Church. Though today the British Mothering Sunday looks very much like to our North American Mother’s Day, in medieval times worshippers returned from smaller surrounding parishes to worship in the central “mother” cathedral.
But before the advent of Christianity, a day to honour mothers finds its origins in pagan traditions from Greece, Rome, and Egypt. All of these womb countries of the birth of Christianity originally had a day set aside to honour the mother-goddess of their tradition: Cybele in Greece, Juno in Roman culture, and Isis for the ancient Egyptians. It seems it is in our DNA to want to honour the great mother.
So here we sit together in 2010 in this Swedenborgian church building---Swedenborgians from different branches worshipping beside each other, with semi-Swedenborgians and non-Swedenborgians---on this strangely commercial yet anciently grounded day for mothers. How do we worship well together on such a day? How do we honour “mother church” together today?
Good question.
Let us begin by exploring deep into the origins of Christianity. From whom did we inherit the identification of God as Father and the church as Mother? Is such identification a manifestation of the natural order of the universe, or a reflection of the language and thought of a particular culture in a particular time? There are many female images of God in the Hebrew Bible. However, time and culture have veiled them so completely as to leave only a thoroughly male face in the Jewish narrative. This Male-Divine imagery carries forward into the Greek Testament, and is reflected in today’s Scripture reading from Revelation. We see the Divine as the Husband and the church as the bride---a metaphor which has an important resonance for us, but which has unfortunately been used to prescribe the dominance of the human male gender over the human female throughout Christendom ever since.
Is it really true that God is all-male and the church female?
Swedenborg tells us that neither gender was created to be nor ever should be considered superior or dominant over the other, but are one in God and perfectly balanced. So if they are balanced in God, my guess is they ought to be balanced in the church. And if they ought to be conjoined and balanced in both, how did they get so terribly out of balance? Weel we did it. Again and again we humans make our earthly religions reflect our own imbalance, in the name of doing God’s will. And these sad imbalances perpetuate harm to both genders, rather like an improperly supported foot or a slight twist in the pelvis will eventually damage ankles and knees, hips and back.
I submit that we will keep ourselves in balance when we let charity, or love, or the Golden Rule be our guiding principle. In other words, I submit that we do church best when we come from love.
Did you know that many of our earliest Christian leaders were women---wealthy patronesses who hosted the followers of “The Way” in their homes for communion and worship? These early followers of Jesus were banned from worshipping in the synagogues, and were generally persecuted for being so different, and they needed somewhere safe to congregate. It was primarily wealthy women of some status in Roman society who had resources enough to harbour this prohibited group. These women, wealthy enough to have time and resources at their disposal, embraced Jesus’ guiding principles of social justice and reached out to the poor, the sick and the enslaved, as Jesus had done. This was the earliest expression of “mother church”. These early Christians were very motherly; unlike modern Christians there were no great houses of worship to keep up or maintain, and they had only the simplest of worship rituals based on Jesus’ words to be baptised and to share communion in remembrance of him. They spent their time reaching out to the most broken, the sick, and the marginalized. They included everyone, even the slaves, who in turn learned to feed, shelter and comfort the lost and the sick. They were small and terribly persecuted, yet continued to live Jesus’ message the best they knew how. This is our ancestry.
How much doing church has changed in 2000 years!
You see, not too long after Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity in the Roman Empire, the early political leaders within what was to become the Roman Catholic Church used the dominant male imagery of the Scriptures to justify equating the male gender with God and the female gender with human weakness, and gradually pushed the rich and educated women out of all leadership roles, claiming church leadership as the sole realm of the male. All too quickly, doing the Christian religion began to be about property, ambition, hierarchical power structures, and arguing over who had the right doctrines, and not about helping the outcast or the wounded.
I am reminded of one Brother Cadfael episode in which the head Abbot of the monastery upon hearing there is a possible plague in the village, cries for the doors of the monastery to be shut against a throng of injured and sick peasants seeking refuge in their walls. Brother Cadfael says, “But what of these poor people in need of our aid?” The Abbot replies in agitation, “What does the church have to do with helping people?”
This is unfortunately what church can become in the hands of an exclusively male leadership. Don’t get me wrong! If women were solely in charge, things would be equally twisted in a different way. I submit that it is only when our two genders work together in mutual respect that we can be the most balanced “body of Christ” in the world.
So here we are today, honouring Mother, and originally the mother-goddess---the Divine Feminine---yet I am guessing that some of you in the pews are squirming to even hear the word “Goddess” spoken in a Christian church. As if the loving side of God was somehow unchristian. As if there was no feminine sphere which emanates equally from the sun in heaven.
I am here to assert that speaking of the Creative, nurturing, “congugial” side of God as “the Goddess” is not unchristian, and certainly not unSwedenborgian. I say, “Let’s stop getting caught in stereotypes and limited thinking and acknowledge the wholeness of our Great Creator!”
We know from Swedenborg, (and also in our heart of hearts) that the Divine transcends gender. The source of all that is truly masculine and truly feminine exists in the One Source of all life. We are all made in God’s image, be we black or white, red or yellow, child or adult, rich or poor, male or female. In fact, Swedenborg tells us that Goddess worship, while abhorred in most Christian circles is traces back to our most ancient human worship of God, in which we honoured all aspects of the Divine. Goddess worship was an expression of gratitude and respect for the creative, abundant, nurturing, or “congugial” face of God. Only later did humankind get mixed up, (like we always do!) and think that the feminine aspect of God was a separate entity from the masculine aspect of God. Once we then divided God, we assumed there must be a hierarchy, and that one aspect of God must be superior to or better than another, and the mess just grew from there. But the masculine and feminine are most perfectly one and inseparable in the Divine. The Creator is ever and always both God and Goddess equally. It is we who separate them and then put them at odds with each other, not God.
Our limited human understanding struggles to comprehend how both genders can become one human form. We long for---we need---a face for the Divine. We need to have something warm and living with which to connect. And since most of us recoil at an androgynous picture of God, we innately pick one gender or the other to embody the Divine for us. The Divine did indeed come down and manifest in human form---in the male form of Jesus, for all sorts of correspondential and cultural reasons. This face of God is deeply satisfactory for many. But the incarnation of God in the form of our Lord Jesus need not limit us to thinking that both genders are not equally created in the image and likeness of God.
There is a reason Mary was virtually deified in the Roman Catholic Church. As spiritual children we need, not just a heavenly Father, but a spiritual Mother too. One that transcends and is not limited by the flawed and imperfect face of the church on earth. In fact, some people have been so traumatized by male caretakers or so indoctrinated by horribly twisted teachings about the nature of the very male Christian God, that they need a female face on the Divine if they are to feel that God is even remotely trustworthy or caring. Do you think God, who is all love, really minds what vehicle we use to approach, so long as we approach at all?
So, is God male or female? The answer is “yes.” Is God a God of love, or of strength? The answer is “yes.” Should the church be unconditionally loving and giving and selfless, or strive to protect its children and provide for them and its future well-being? The answer is also, “yes.” The Divine is neither male nor female, but transcends and encompasses ALL aspects of everything that is both loving and wise. The Church as well, though made of mortals, still should strive to be in God’s balanced image: creative and protective, giving and guarding, loving and firm.
The church needs to be balanced and united even as God is. The yin and yang appear connected on every level. If the church is a broken female, then it is equally a broken male. If it is a embodies a beautiful and tender mother, it can equally reflect the strong and reassuring embrace of a good father.
I entitled this sermon “Is the Church a Mother” to encourage us to examine the question on all levels. Does it help us or hamper us to view ourselves as a mothering energy, or is that an old model that needs to be updated? How motherly are we as a congregation? How fatherly? Indeed, in this changing age, where fewer and fewer families attend church at all, when society is hyper mobile and all of us are over-scheduled, do we even know what the purpose of church? Is traditional Sunday worship more and more an out-dated old grandmother, parked in the corner in a wheelchair waiting for her last days? Can we possibly be reborn to become something truly new---something that lives in our hearts and touches all the travellers we meet---something that calls in and offers respite and healing to the spiritually broken and lost of today?
This congregation has been in the process of trying to answer that question for several years now. I think we are on the right track in choosing the mandate of Love as our foundation, God’s Word as our means, and healing activity in the world as our goal. Love is the face of the Mother, yes, but increasingly the face of Fathers today too. Love, the very essence of our life and the source of all our deepest joy is the heart and soul of the Divine. Love, not doctrinal battles, nor even repeating the name of Swedenborg will be the birth mother of the New Church in Swedenborg’s prophesy. May we each be part of that great mother.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another.”
Amen

Isaiah 2: 1-5 1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 5 Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Rev 22: 6 Then he said to me, "These words are faithful and true." And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. 7 "Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." 8 Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. 9 Then he said to me, "See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God." 10 And he said to me, "Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. 11 He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still." 12 "And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last." 14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. 15 But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. 16 "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star." 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Emanuel Swedenborg Divine Love and Wisdom 47 “To be loving is to love others outside of oneself, and to be close to them because of that love. A fundamental of love is also to be loved by others, for without this, there is nothing reciprocal in the relationship. The essence of all love comes from this reciprocal connection, it is indeed its very life, and the source of all pleasure, enjoyment, delight, sweetness, blessedness, and happiness.”

Listen to my most recent sermon :)

http://www.sfswedenborgian.org/Sermons/sermons.asp

Hear "The Way Through the Wilderness"Sermon by The Rev. Alison Longstaff, March 21, 2010 Scripture readings: Isaiah 43:16-21 and John 12:1-8

"Alison Longstaff is employed at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Kitchener, Ontario as the music director and the head of family outreach."www.shepherdsway.ca