Encountering the Divine - June 21

 “Encountering the Divine”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, June 21, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Exodus 3: 1-7, 10, 13-14; Matthew 17:1-8; AR 56

Many pastors across this country are preaching about racism today as the United States reels from yet another violent slaughter.  Here I am, a white pastor in front of a white congregation in a very white town in one of the top four whitest states in this country.  It is easy to feel removed from the racism and violence, as if it is somehow someone else’s problem somewhere else.

But if we could imagine such a thing happening here, perhaps it might help us to pause and to walk beside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in sorrow and empathy.  The black populations of this country live with the daily possibility of such violence in a way most of us (all of us?) here simply cannot imagine.  So sit for a minute and be with the possibility.  Imagine a visitor coming to worship with us, and we welcome him, and he spends time with us. Then this visitor pulls out a gun and shoots nine of us dead right there in front of our eyes. Go ahead. Look around. Pick a random nine. One would be me, because the pastor was killed.  Which other eight? These loved people can’t be dead just as a concept, imagine their bodies slumped where they were sitting, their blood splattered on the walls.  I’m sorry.  But there’s no polite way to go there.

Please, just sit with that for a moment. How enraged and vengeful would you feel?  Could you forgive the shooter within days?  Whatever your emotions, let us all take a moment to surround the whole Charleston, South Carolina community with love and empathy.

I will now continue with the sermon I did write, and pray that the miracle of God’s encompassing love can bring some insight and healing to the helplessness and pain of that event.

“He put His hand on me saying, ‘Do not be afraid.’” This symbolizes spiritual encouragement, and then, because of deep humility, profound adoration. Genuine holy fear comes over us when the Lords life encompasses us, pushing aside our feelings of being in charge. Such an experience can cause an inner trembling and even our hair to stand on end. When we are full of our own sense of life (being in charge), we look at the Lord from our own perspective. But when we are filled with the Lord’s life, we see all things from the Lord’s perspective, (yet somehow retaining a sense of separateness). When we are so encompassed by the Lord’s life, we realize that we are nothing, and that the Lord is everything. (Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Revealed #56)

“The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it … is the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.” (Eben Alexander, “Proof of Heaven” p 76)

Would you say you have ever had an encounter with the Divine?

If you have, how did it affect you?

My very first class in seminary was “Christian Doctrine.”  It was required for my degree so I had to take it despite being sure, as a (young and arrogant) Swedenborgian, I had a thing or two to teach the professor but very little to learn from him.  I was wrong.

We had to write a four page paper every other week for Professor Kelly.  The course was two semesters long, so we ended up with twelve papers, the final one being, “Why Am I Christian?”  After we handed in each paper, we divided into groups to read and discuss our papers with each other.  I learned and learned and learned.

When discussing, “Why Christian?” it turned out that all three of us in our group were Christian because we had experienced what I can only call a “Divine Encounter.”  Each one of us not only was Christian but was in seminary because we had had a transcendent experience that left us changed, and left us longing for more.

When our small groups returned to the main classroom I began a quick survey of how many other classmates were in seminary for the same reason. Of over twenty-five students in the class, about ninety percent named some sort of Divine encounter as their main reason for being there. It was an epiphany.  I realized that I was not alone. 

When I was thirteen something profound and life altering happened to me, but I rarely speak of it.  It is a sacred memory still, and feels private.  I share the story rarely, and only when it feels safe and worthwhile. 

I was going through some very hard and lonely things.  It was the middle of the night and I was weeping and praying, when suddenly I was in the presence of something wise and loving and powerful beyond imagining. I knew without doubt that I was utterly loved, completely understood, and that every single thing would be okay.  I could see in some unimaginable way how everything would work out, and it all made sense. I felt “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”  And ever since that moment forty years ago I have longed to encounter that Presence again. I also felt completely clear that there was nothing more important than to serve that Presence and help others find it too. 

Many people who have had such experiences have tried to describe it, and they all end up saying that our earthly language is utterly inadequate. And yet we cannot but try to put words on these experiences anyway. My heart shouts with joy and recognition whenever I find these attempts.  I recognize the experience, and it is like hearing a deeply familiar description of a beloved but long-lost friend.

Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander writes about his encounter with the Divine in his memoir, “Proof of Heaven.” 

… the “voice” of this Being was warm and—odd as I know this may sound—personal. It understood humans, and it possessed the qualities we possess, only in infinitely greater measure. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I’ve always associated with human beings, and human beings alone: warmth, compassion, pathos . . . even irony and humor.” (p 47)

I absolutely know and absolutely love that God has a great sense of humor.

Renowned life coach and frequent Oprah contributor, Martha Beck, writes with her own humor and candor about her several profound spiritual experiences:

If there were a drug that could reproduce the same effect, I would be on that drug right now, and damn the side effects. Imagine a blend of all your favorite things…. Picture these … combined, boiled down into their most concentrated elements of pure joy, then multiplied by trillions and injected into every one of your cells. That might begin to help you imagine what I felt when the sense of Something Bigger emerged in the hurricane’s eye of my life…. The peace and joy were so dazzling, so potent, that I thought they would never fade.” (Leaving the Saints, p 26)

Is it any wonder prophets and angels fall prostrate before this Being?  It isn’t fear that throws one down, it is adoration and genuine humility.  One is swept away by love, encompassed by peace, and able to comprehend the answer to every single “why” ever asked.  Remember this the next time you hear an account of someone falling on their face in “fear” before an angel of the Lord.  Perhaps they are actually afraid.  But just maybe it is an entirely sensible response to finding oneself in the presence of the Source of all Love and Wisdom. The overwhelming sense of great love and care tends to result in worshipful adoration.

There are more marvelous descriptions of these spiritual encounters.  Here is another from Eben Alexander:

Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it’s the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions. (p 161)

Alexander sums up the Divine One’s message to every one of us this way: “You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.” (p 71)

 

The first time I read this, I found myself abruptly sobbing. I think it was the sense of recognition, and the deep homesickness for that Presence.  But it was also relief.  Though I have known this truth; though I have experienced this truth; I continue to find myself unable to believe it.

This message of unconditional love is available to each one of us at every moment.  It is we who are unable to hear it—we who are unable to believe it.  I am not even sure this inability is our fault.  It is as if the nature of these bodies dulls our spiritual senses—the density of this physical plane produces heavy static on our spiritual tuners.  But for whatever reason, probably connected with Providence and our freedom, most of us miss the message most of the time.  If I could find the frequency of that Divine Being again, I would do everything in my power to stay tuned in as long as possible.  There is a deep longing to feel that Presence again that has never gone away. This residual longing seems to be a universal legacy of a Divine Encounter.

Accounts of an encounter with God are everywhere, if one is open to finding them.  This is another description from Eben Alexander:

… the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, color, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave. Thoughts entered me directly. But it wasn’t thought like we experience on earth. It wasn’t vague, immaterial, or abstract. These thoughts were solid and immediate—hotter than fire and wetter than water—and as I received them I was able to instantly and effortlessly understand concepts that would have taken me years to fully grasp in my earthly life. (p 46)

A sense of being deeply loved.  A sense of being completely safe.  Every horrific injustice is made right and everything ever lost is restored for all time.  “No more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain.” (Revelation 21:4)

“You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.”  

Have you had a Divine Encounter?  How did it leave you changed? 

Amen

The Readings

Exodus 3: 1-7, 10, 13-14

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.  Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” 6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

And God said to Moses, “I AM the I AM.” 

Matthew 17:1-8 

Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.  And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.  Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”  And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.  But Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

Apocalypse Revealed 56

“He put His hand on me saying, ‘Do not be afraid.’” This symbolizes spiritual encouragement, and a resultant profound adoration from deep humility. Genuine holy fear comes over us when the Lords life encompasses us, pushing aside our feelings of being in charge. Such an experience can cause an inner trembling and even our hair to stand on end. When we are full of our own sense of life (being in charge), we look at the Lord from our own perspective. But when we are filled with the Lord’s life, we see all things from the Lord’s perspective, (yet somehow retaining a sense of separateness). When we are so encompassed by the Lord’s life, we realize that we are nothing, and that the Lord is everything.