Divine or Human? - Communion sermon Sept 20, 2015

“Divine or Human?”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Sept 20, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Psalm 8; Matthew 16:13-17; Doctrine of the Lord 29 

 I am going to say a big word.  Brace yourself.

“Christology.”

 

We learned lots of big words in seminary.  Christology was one of them. All of those big words annoyed me at first, because I felt left behind whenever someone used one.  If didn’t know the meaning, I felt stupid.  I didn’t want to have to ask, and honestly, in that first year there were so many new words, I got tired of asking what they all meant again and again and again.

Hold on. Here it comes again: “Christology.”

 

Big words are invented for a reason.  They don’t exist just to make some people appear super educated in relation to everybody else, though sometimes it may seem that way.  Big words sum up a complex concept under one name. 

For example, instead of saying, “That flower that represents love and has thorns and sometimes has a long stem,” when we want to talk about one of those things, we just say, “Rose.”

 

So “Christology” is a fancy word that just means “how we understand who Jesus Christ was.”  Was Jesus more Divine or more human?  Was Jesus more Human or more Divine?  This debate has existed since the very beginning of Christianity—yes, all the way back to the disciples.  This debate is summed up under the word “Christology” and the two apparently opposing perspectives are called, “High Christology” and “Low Christology.”  Both perspectives have good aspects and not-so-good aspects.  Listen up.

High Christology likes Jesus to be as Divine as possible.  It puts distance between Jesus and the human condition.  Baby Jesus smiles with eternal wisdom from the manger.  Teenager and adult Jesus moves serenely and calmly through his already-wise life.  High Christology art has Jesus looking mildly uncomfortable in Gethsemane and a bit unhappy on the cross.  In movies, Jesus is played with almost no emotional expression. In one movie, his hair didn’t even move when the wind blew. 

High Christology shows up in the Vertical beam of the cross. The Vertical beam represents the Divine in relationship with humankind.  God is “up there” and we are “down here.” High Christology architecture has lofty pulpits from which the preacher looks down upon the people.  The churches tend to be linear in architecture with straight-backed pews and straight lines.  The buildings are straight and narrow.  There is often high ritual, with incense and statuary, pomp and circumstance—illustrating the exalted status of God as our Divine ruler.  After all, how else does one venerate the King of heaven?  How does one approach the royal court?  What does one wear?  How does one behave?  Disapproving stares teach children and fellow church worshipers to keep themselves in order, because “heaven forbid” one should be poorly dressed or wiggle or cough when the Great King passes by.

 

While the reformation pared down the fancy dress, pageantry, and gilded accessories of High Christology worship in favor of simplicity, nevertheless it still kept God on high and humanity down low. “Worm” theology appears during this time period.  Rather than emphasizing the Glory of God, worm theology focuses on the sinfulness of humans. We are “worms,” therefore sinners, filth, excrement, and nothing but evil in relationship with God.  A lot of shame and guilt and “fear of the fires of hell” enter the discourse at this point.  Corrective doctrine, extreme reverence, and purity of life become the path to salvation.  Striving for perfection in the face of our human depravity become the stark black and white focus of this perspective.  It is so important to be in right relationship with God that service to the neighbor becomes almost irrelevant. It is in there somewhere, but it is not a big focus.

Very few churches are this extreme.  Most have a blend of High and Low Christology.  Do you have any sense of where you would be most comfortable?

The things that I treasure about High Christology is the respect and reverence for all things Holy.  I love the vaulted ceilings and soaring stained glass windows of the ancient cathedrals.  I love how the very movements of the bodies in the high ritual communicate respect and reverence for the Creator.  I love listening to Gregorian chant in a dim and cavernous cathedral. I love the way a great organ work vibrates right through my body as though the earth itself was moved to praise God.

 

High Christology produced some of humankind’s most remarkable buildings. That grandeur—that imposition of the sacred on our senses was born from a focus on the Divinity of God.  Where would we be without our great cathedrals, or even the sacred peacefulness evoked by this graceful and airy space?

A down-side to high Christology is that Jesus can be kept so Divine that his temptations become an intellectual exercise.  Feelings are too human for this most perfect man.  He was born from the Divine, walked around already Divine and went back to the Divine.  This sets up Jesus’s human experience as something other than what we experience, which misses the most fundamental significance of his incarnation. If we push Jesus too high up, there really is no “God with Us.” We must watch out for this pushing away of God. When we hold God far away, religion stays as an intellectual exercise—rather like doing jigsaw puzzles—satisfying in some way, but having little effect on how we live.

Low Christology sees Jesus as right down at our level. With low Christology Jesus is someone just like us, who laughed and cried, was confused sometimes, sweated, bled, and even needed the latrine. In low Christology paintings, Jesus looks like he is suffering.  In the movies he has human feelings and does human things.  He smiles, dances, laughs, and plays with the children. His hair moves in the wind.  And during the whippings and torture and crucifixion, he bleeds and he cries out in pain. Mel Gibson’s “The Messiah” is so very low in its Christology the viewer is wading in the blood and gore. The Divine purpose was so far removed from the story that the resurrection was the merest whiff of an afterthought—it is barely acknowledged.

  

Low Christology is shown by the horizontal beam of the cross.  That beam symbolizes the human plane and human interconnection—“we are all in this together.”  Where the vertical beam represents our relationship with the Divine, the horizontal beam is our call to live in good relationship with each other.  That beam represents Creation, in all its messiness and imperfection and beauty. Low Christology architecture tends to be circular and communal.  If there is a pulpit at all, it is lower or right down at ground level with the people. The circular arrangement of the pews allows worshipers to see each other’s faces as they worship together. 

In Low Christology Jesus is seen as our friend.  He is right down here in the muck with us, and completely understands what we go through in this life.  Low Christology Christianity doesn’t care so much what someone wears to church.  It tends to emphasize social justice and service to our fellow human beings.  There is a strong sense of connection to Jesus as he walked among us—with an emphasis to do as he did and live as he lived.  There is no need to hold God at arm’s length or to feel unworthy or to worry about our sinfulness.  That is not where the energy and attention go.  It goes toward service to the neighbor and toward connection and community as the Body of Christ.  It is not about whether people feel “worthy or unworthy” in relationship to God.  Helping each other is the purpose.

I treasure the warmth and, well, the humanity of low Christology.  I almost never see disapproving stares.  Having spent so much of my life in a very high Christology, the relaxed and kindly lack of perfectionism has been a refreshing and healing corrective for an overly worried and “uptight” spirit.  I love the focus on service and the easing up on the constant self-flagellation and soul-bleaching efforts that was part and parcel (for me!) of feeling forever not good enough, as a result of the long-term effects of my high Christology childhood.

A down-side to low Christology is that Jesus can become so human that we lose any sense of his power to make a difference in our lives (save).  He is so “down here with us” that He is in the same sinking boat with us, unable to calm the wind and waves.  We can make Jesus “just another human,” which loses the most fundamental aspect of this ancient story.  If there was no miraculous birth nor resurrection, he was just a really good guy, but no more special than any other great prophet.  We can become so comfortable with Jesus, that he ceases to be able to perform miracles in our lives, because we have no sense of his Divinity.

The main reason to learn about Christology is that how we understand God affects how God can come into our lives.  Any recovering addict can tell you the powerful effect of asking God into one’s life. No matter what name or face you give that Higher Power, that Love awaits your simple invitation.  God will sweep you off your feet, or move you gently along a quiet river of transformation, according to your need, but you must ask.  God will wait forever for you to ask. A simple, “Yes please,” will invite that extraordinary power down into your ordinary life.

The two beams of the Cross: the vertical beam—Divine, and the horizontal beam—Human.  Only where these two meet do we have that potent point of intersection—when the Divine breaks into our human experience.  That powerful moment, that “Big Bang,” is where it all happens.  It happens every single time we invite God into our imperfect lives.  But if Jesus is too Divine, we won’t let Him near.  If Jesus is too mortal, we don’t believe he has the power to save.

The Divine/Human tension shows up even in the two creation stories.  In Genesis 1, God thinks, things happen, and God is pleased.  It is a sort of remote-control creation—very tidy. Male and females are created in one “poof”.  God thinks, and we are, and it is very good. 

In the second creation story, found in Genesis 2, God is down in the muck, shaping things with the Divine hands.  (Notice, the Divine has hands.) God tries things out, tips his head, and then makes improvements.  It is a process, and it evolves. Humans are shaped from the dust (and perhaps some Divine spittle) and called “AdAM” (dust) because he was made from the “AdaMAH” (dust of the earth).  But the Man is “lonely.” (Did the Divine make a mistake?) So God throws together a solution on the spot.  God creates a woman from a spare piece of the man and fixes things.

Which of these stories would you say aligns with high Christology and which with low Christology?  It is a pretty big difference, and most people are not even aware that there are two creation stories.  And yet the tension between the different ways we understand God is right there, at the beginning of the Bible—one might say, “From our very creation.”

These two general perspectives, these two ways of seeing the Divine, are not meant to oppose each other.  Like the left and right sides of the body, we need both all the time and we function best when they are balanced and working as one.  Like maleness and femaleness, High and Low Christology can often seem to be completely different animals, and it is only from the point of their union that the Divine can burst on the scene with transformation and new life.

The Divine IS Human.  The Human IS Divine.  When we invite God into our run-of-the-mill lives day after day after day, our very ordinary lives increasingly sing of something Divine.  When we allow God’s transformative love to crack us open, we become increasingly ready to say, “Yes please!” again and again to the Divine, drawing closer with each encounter.

As we celebrate the Holy Supper following the sermon, I encourage you to invite the Divine into your life, however you might understand that.  Each one of us that comes to this table understands the symbolism differently.  Whether you believe the elements are truly the body and blood of Christ, purely symbolic, or some version of a blend of those, you are welcome at the table.  You are not just welcome, God waits, God asks, God desires to come into your life through the bread and the wine.  However you understand it, the Holy Communion is an enactment of the Divine entering into its beloved Creation. It enacts the Infinite touching the finite, with all the impossibility of that.  As you feel the bread and wine change your body, know that God desires to change your life for the miraculous, that you might be blessed.

Welcome to Christology.

The Readings

Psalm 8

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place, what is humankind that you are mindful of them, or human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Matthew 16:13-17

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven has revealed it.”  

The Doctrine of the Lord #29

a.       The Lord from before time, sometimes called Jehovah, took on a human body to reconnect with the human race and turn us back to goodness. 

b.      The Lord turned that human body into something Divine because He was Divine.

c.       The Divine became human by taking on human mortal temptations through that body.

d.      He then completed the uniting of the Divine with that Human by the last and fiercest temptation which was the passion of the cross. 

e.       Step by step, through his life on earth Jesus transcended the merely physical/animal aspect of human nature, and this way united his human body with the Divine within Him. This is the Divine Human, and this is what we call the Son of God. 

f.       This is how God became fully Human, from the most initial elements, all the way down to this very flesh and blood existence.

“The Intimacy of God's Love” a sermon

“The Intimacy of God's Love”

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24; True Christianity 498:1

By Rev. Alison Longstaff

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Revised For Feb 16^th 2014, preached March 2^nd 2014

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.’”

Today’s story is about an “aha!” moment.  But this isn’t your average, run of the mill “aha!” moment. This is the sort of aha! that makes the hairs rise on your arm, and your stomach drop. This sort makes one feel shaken and profoundly humbled.  We have all had such moments.  For some of us they can be as dramatic as this dream of Jacob’s.  For others they may be more subtle.  But they come to each of us.  These are encounters with the Divine.  They are moments in which we walk in a “thin place”—a place in which we can see beyond the veil—and by which we are moved and changed.

Today’s story starts out with movement.

 

“Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.”

 

In Swedenborgian thought, Jacob signifies our attempts to live our beliefs. Jacob isn't just a desire for God (Abraham), nor an active intellectual curiousity about God (Isaac).  He is the fruit of these: the way these two produce changes in our behaviour.  The north/south continuum in the Word is describing our intellectual side, where the east/west continuum is describing our motivational side.  So, since Beersheba is on the southernmost boundary of the Promised Land, it could be said to represent a time in our faith-journey where we have gone as far as we can go using just our intellect. 

Haran, which is the direction in which Jacob decides to head, was the land of Jacob’s family of origin and so represents our spiritual state before we began our journey with God.  Beersheba is in the middle of the desert, but it has a well. Leaving Beersheba means Jacob is heading into the desert first, which represents a wandering in faith.  So Jacob leaving Beersheba to go toward Haran implies that he is entering a time of spiritual regression.  Perhaps the well there ceased to be enough to satisfy his needs, the way using our intellect alone in our faith journey eventually ceases to be enough to satisfy our spirit. 

Swedenborg describes Haran as representing “idolatrous worship” which implies that you and I at this point are beginning to revert to some old survival techniques for comfort.  This could be something as simple as avoiding facing something uncomfortable in our lives, or as serious as a full-out relapse in an addiction.  It is all the not helpful ways we seek to get away from our problems.  These are escape attempts, and not actually solutions.  We have lost our spiritual focus and have begun looking for quick-fixes to our spiritual emptiness.  In any case, in our story, Jacob is on the move. 

“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set.”

The Hebrew word for “came” here has a definite meaning of arrival.  It has a sense of meeting or encounter.  This cues us to know that Jacob has arrived at a significant place in his journey.  The English translation here says that the sun has set, but the Hebrew word is actually more like “arrived,” or “done its thing.”  So in the story, the sun could be said to have arrived and done its thing.  Since the sun represents the Lord, this could be saying in the spiritual meaning that the Lord has drawn near and this has done what the presence of the Lord does.  It produces a change.  The Lord drawing near tends to do that.  And like most of us, Jacob doesn’t even see that anything is different.  In fact, it seems to him that the sun has “set,” and he is more alone than ever. How wrong he is.

“And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.”

It is so interesting to see how the translators handle some of the unusual Hebrew wordings.  The Hebrew here is more literally translated, “and he took a stone of that place and used it for his head-place and lay down in that place.”  There is a using and re-using of the word for place.  It is the Hebrew word makom, which is no average Hebrew word.  The Hebrews have a way of saying “Let us go to THE Place,” and they are using this word makom.  When they say that, they are meaning, “Let us go up to The Temple.” This “place” isn’t just any old place.  This is an important place, a holy place.  The use and reuse of the word here is telling us that this is a very significant moment in Jacob’s story.

 

“Pillow” here means literally “head-place.”  There are a myriad implications in that meaning alone, but we can simply know that this story is still all about Jacob’s head, not his heart so much.  This is about the intellect-journey so far.  We are reading about a significant moment in each and every person’s faith development.  Jacob’s laying down implies a humbling in his spirit, very likely as a direct result of God’s having drawn near.

“Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

Oh, this is so beautiful.  This is the beginning of an intimate spiritual moment for Jacob.  It is showing him that there is a direct connection from where he is to the very dwelling place of God.  The word for “reach” here in the Hebrew carries the meaning of arrival. The ladder didn’t just reach toward heaven, it arrived.  There was a touch down.  “Houston, we have contact.”  Jacob realizes that God is very near.  Angels are coming and going from his very location on earth to the presence of God.  And there is contact.  Jacob is touched.

The Hebrew word for angel really means “messenger,” or communicator.  Frequently in the Old Testament, angels are God’s voice and face and hands on earth.  When an angel shows up, it is God.  So God is no longer “up there” but right in the presence of the characters in the story.  This communication is way beyond prayer.  This is an encounter.

Now notice something:  The word used for the God at the top of the ladder that Jacob saw is “Elohim” which is an ancient word carrying the reminder that we once worshiped many Gods.  It is implying that, at the beginning of the dream, Jacob hadn't really understood God.  The God that Jacob knows is pretty much still in his head.  His heart has yet to meet God.  So, from Jacob’s point of view, the God at the top of the ladder is still an intellectual concept.  He hasn't actually met God.  This will be a time of significant change for Jacob.

And behold, the Lord (Jehowah) stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God….”  (Jehowah-Elohim)

Jacob sees “Elohim” at the top of the ladder, but it is “Jehowah” who speaks to him. The Hebrew word translated “Lord” here is Yod Heh Vav Heh, the four sacred letters of the name of the Divine which the Hebrews are forbidden even to pronounce.  It is vocalized by non Hebrews as Jehovah, or Yahweh.  These four letters stand for the very Divine, the Source of all, the God of Love. This is the God of our heart and soul, not just our heads.

“I am Elohim-Jehowah.” The Divine identifies Itself as the God of both head and heart, of Love and Wisdom.  Up to this point Jacob knew God only intellectually, but this encounter touches his heart.  He is deeply moved, and he realizes into every cell of his body the overwhelming intimacy of God’s great love for him.  This is about a profound shift in our relationship with God.  An encounter with the immensity of God’s love, tends to have that effect on us. 

Let’s continue. “Jehowah … said….”  The Hebrew word for “said” here holds the meaning of a vow, an absolute promise.  Let’s face it, whenever God says something, it is a guarantee.  There is no pussy-footing around here.  There is no dodging this one or interpreting it differently.  God is indelibly impressing upon Jacob that He/She is Love and Wisdom inseparable.  And God is about to promise a whole lot more.  So it is time to listen up.

I am the Lord God (Elohim-Jehowah) of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Quick translation? The God of every step of our way, from our earliest beginnings and through all our growing, plans to use our new awareness, this realization that the God of Love is the foundation and crown of our spiritual life, to springboard us into our future. We will grow spiritually in every direction now, in kindness and fairness, in great love and great wisdom, until we are blessed beyond measure. This is the promise.

But wait!  There is more. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised for you.

To rephrase this according to the spiritual meaning: “Now you realize that I am with you. I will never leave you.  I treasure you, and will guide and protect your every step.  Even if you wander very far from the path, I will turn you around.  I will bring you back.  I won’t leave you.  There is nothing you can do to turn me away.  I will stick with you until every good thing which I have promised comes to pass.”

Wow.  That is God’s promise.  This is God’s unconditional, unequivocal promise.  What God promises, God will do.  God will bring us home.  God will bless us.  This is profoundly personal.  This is as personal as it gets.  The God of all the universe, the Source of Love and everything Good will never leave us.  No matter how alone you or I may feel, God is always immediately present.

 

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Jacob awoke.  This is a wake-up moment, a transformative spiritual event. Jacob in the story, and you and I in this stage of the spiritual journey, will never be the same. This is a new spiritual day.

There are so many layers of meaning here.  I am just skimming the surface of all that there is. Up to this point in our spiritual journey, God and faith have mostly been intellectual activities.  But this encounter wakes us up to the reality that God is not just “up there.”  God is right here, right now, in this place, in this moment.  “The Lord is in this place, and I didn't know it.”  This place.  This one.

Here is that Hebrew word makom again. Place.  It is that same word used to refer to the temple.  A sacred place.  Because if God never ever leaves us, every place is a sacred place. 

"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

We are always in God’s presence.  We never leave it.  We mortals decided there was a separation between the religious and everything else, between the sacred and everything else, between what is holy and everything else.  But there really isn't.  God doesn't need that.  It just makes us more comfortable to have those divisions.

And he was full of reverence and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.

How cute is that?  God just finished declaring to Jacob and showing him that God is right with him at every moment and will continue to be with him no matter where he goes, and Jacob decides that that physical place is the house of God.  Awww.  Oh well.  It is what we do.  Of course we do!  We all have a God-hunger in one way or another, and whenever we find something or some activity or some place that evokes that sense of nearness to God— tremendous well-being, peace, joy, reverence, great beauty—we tend to want to nail it down somehow.  That way we can repeat it, you see.  It is as if we can just name it and mark it, then we can access it at will.  This is still under the illusion that it will go away.

…and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.

Bethel means “house of God.”  Jacob names that place House of God, and sets up a monument right there.   What is fun is that there is a play on words in the Hebrew which shows up in the English too.  In English we read that Jacob’s pillow became a pillar.  In Hebrew his mer-ah-ash-aw becomes a mats-tsay-baw.

Pouring oil on the stone is yet another image of love joining with faith, of heart with head.

Jacob’s story, like every story in the Bible, contains a message for you and for me.  Jacob is lost and wandering.  He’s even kind of regressing, spiritually, because face it, we all do from time to time.  He arrives at what he thinks is a pretty empty place, with nothing but a stone for his head.  He has no idea that it is actually the house of God.

This is your story and mine on so many levels.  How much are you aware on a daily basis that God is right with you in every action and every moment?  If you are like me, the answer is: “Not aware much at all!”  In fact, I believe that many of us kind of squirm at the idea of God being right with us in the very flesh of our lives.  God is with us in church, but not in the bathroom! God is with us when we are singing beautiful Bach choruses, but not when we are burping! Right?

Well guess what, God became incarnate for a reason. Our connection with God is absolutely and always rooted in the right here, right now; in our breath; in our heartbeat.  God’s love is always with us and then deepens and becomes grounded when we live that love into action with our voices, hands, and lives.

Never forget it.  No matter where we go, God’s protecting love is right with us.  There is nothing so terrible that we can do, that God cannot forgive and heal.  There is nothing so horrific that we can suffer that God cannot transform into a greater power for love in the world.  We may give up and lose hope, but God never will.  God will turn us back and wake us up to beauty and love again and again and again, until we realize we are whole.  How is that for an aha!?

God’s immense and intimate love is right here, right now. 

Amen

Revised from a sermon called “Surely The Lord Is In This Place” preached July 10^th, 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a
10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you." 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." 17 And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" 18 Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Bethel;
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

TCR 498:1

My paraphrase

True spiritual freedom resides in each person's soul in full perfection. From the soul this freedom flows into both parts of the mind—the will and the understanding—like a fountain of water into a pool. And through these it flows into the body and into the speech and action. There are three levels of life in each person: the level of the soul, the level of the mind, and the level of the physical, sensate body. All the perfection of the higher levels flows down by degrees into the lower levels, affecting them.  Each person enjoys such perfect spiritual freedom, and the Lord’s Presence can be felt by means of, within, and because of this freedom.  The Lord presses to be received without ceasing, but never sets aside or does away with our freedom, (because nothing which a person does without spiritual freedom can last). It could be said that it is this very freedom itself which is the Lord’s dwelling within a person's soul.