Dealing With Despair - sermon March 15

“Why Is My Pain Unceasing?” - Dealing With Despair

Rev. Alison Longstaff, March 15, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Jeremiah 15:15–21, Matthew 16:21–28, DP 214

Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?

One nice thing about pain is that it feels so good when it stops.

In our Scripture readings, we heard a lot about suffering.  We heard a pain-filled cry to God to end the suffering in Jeremiah.  In the gospel reading, Jesus is warning the disciples about the terrible suffering he will endure.  Peter objects, and Jesus shouts at Peter, “Get behind me, you Satan!” in a shocking, very un-Jesus like moment.  He says, “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter was the voice of the tempter when he declared that such suffering and death should never happen to Jesus.  Jesus knew it was imperative to focus on the spiritual work about to be accomplished and not on the suffering.  He had to focus on His Divine mission and not be distracted.  Perhaps Peter was the voice of the demon attacking Jesus, trying to convince Jesus to opt out of the suffering.  This would explain the intensity of the rebuke.

Jesus had to keep his eyes set on the Divine, to accomplish his mission.

Life on this earth includes suffering.  Even here in North America, with our insurance policies, relative wealth, and myriad safety measures, we can’t seem to escape suffering.  We often think we shouldn't have to suffer.  We keep creating more ways to protect ourselves, as if constant comfort and total security were the answer to all our problems.

So why are we still so restless and unhappy?  Some of the countries that rank highest for overall national happiness are places like Nigeria and Bhutan.  What’s that about?  Nigeria suffers from extreme poverty, and many people live in mud huts.  How can they possibly be happier than us?  Well, it seems they have a deep reliance on God.  They are a very Christian country, and they live their faith in every way they can.  They are desperately poor, yet they sing and pray and share the little they have with each other, and they are happy.

Toronto journalist Jonathan Power interviewed Olusegun Obasanjo, a Nigerian who became a Christian and a preacher after being unjustly imprisoned.  In his three years of captivity, Obusanjo became a sort of chaplain to his fellow prisoners. He says, “The time I had real joy in my life was when I was in prison.  I felt then that there was just God and me, and my fellow prisoners whom I must try and help." (Power, 2003)  Extreme hardship robs us of everything … but God.  Perhaps this is why some of the most loving and deeply spiritual people are also people who have suffered great hardship.

In the midst of the deepest suffering God becomes all we have left, and this breaks ground for a deep and rich faith to grow.  I’m not saying we should all discard our current lives and go live in a third-world country so as to really suffer so we can experience God. Suffering will find us, no matter where we live, nor how much money we have.  I am saying that it is good to remember that suffering can be our greatest teacher.  God wouldn't allow anything to happen if it didn't serve some purpose for good.  So even the painful times in life—perhaps especially the painful times—are carefully overseen by God to deepen us and eventually bring us joy.

My one objection to books and philosophies like The Secret is the way they can promote the idea that we are solely responsible for what happens to us in our lives.  The idea is that if we cultivate a good attitude, we invite good things into our lives, and conversely that we invite misfortune by having a bad attitude.  The logical conclusion to this is that if we just work hard enough to have a great attitude, nothing bad will happen to us.  But if that were true, those Indonesians and Japanese must have had terrible attitudes to invite such massive tsunamis onto themselves.  The Hebrew nation must have somehow invited the Holocaust. Every victim of every tragedy could be blamed for their misfortune.  Such a belief might give the rest of us some sort of security, but I can’t believe in a God or universe that works so simplistically (and harshly).  We mortals are simply not that powerful.

 

“It must be their fault.  If only they were positive like me, they’d be okay,” is the underlying thinking  when we judge victims of hardship and illness.  This thinking is problematic, in that it promotes a strong reliance on our own efforts for “salvation”, and there's no mention of reliance on God (or Spirit or Higher Power or anything outside of oneself).  I understand the appeal of this idea.  But it falls flat whenever we come up against anything more powerful than our own positive thinking.

My mother lived in chronic physical pain for many years of her life.  She had fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and depression, which meant that everything hurt, inside and out.  She was on all sorts of pain medicines, which only helped a little, had their own strange side-effects, and caused other problems.  I don’t know how she managed.  I can’t handle chronic pain for even a day.  I get grumpy and whiny and can be very impatient when waiting for my next dose of pain reliever.  She had chronic pain for over twenty years!  Did I mention that she also got regular migraines?  She tried every treatment in the world, from steroids to vitamins to acupuncture to moose meat, and nothing helped.  She was told again and again that it was all in her head and that she “should” be happy.

She died in 2008, in terrible pain to the bitter end.

I loved her.  It was terrible to watch her suffer.  I admit that sometimes I got impatient with her.  I thought, “Surely she can do something differently!”  I judged her for not trying hard enough, and for not trying the right things long enough.  My judging came from how hard it was to see her in such pain. 

But my judging never helped her. My impatience never helped her.  No one’s judgment or “should”s helped her.

Again and again, the best and only thing I could do for her was to love her to bits, and spend time with her, and believe with my whole heart that God had a plan.  Period.

Have you ever heard someone say, in the midst of some awful situation, “I suppose God has a lesson for me,” as if he or she could stop the suffering if they could simply figure out what the lesson was and learn it?  I don’t think God works that way.  I don’t think God ever sends suffering to teach us a lesson.  I think God allows it sometimes, only when He can also bring some long term good out of it for everyone involved.

Did my mom suffer for over twenty years because there was some lesson she was refusing to learn or because she didn't have the right attitude?  I can't believe that.  I know she did the best she could.  She got dealt a rotten hand.  She didn't invite her pain onto herself any more than she invited the childhood abuse she suffered at the hands of her father—any more than my classmate’s two-year-old son invited death from liver cancer onto himself either. 

Sometimes terrible stuff just happens.

Yes, a positive attitude can greatly improve certain aspects of our lives; it can improve our coping, and can spin off some terrific side effects.  Optimism and hope are our wings, and when we have them, they lift us up and over a multitude of life’s hurdles.  But sometimes, through no fault of our own, our wings get plucked or broken.  Sometimes a hoard of locusts swoops down on our rich and thick harvest of positive thinking and in a heart-beat, strips it to dead stalks.  Sometimes we are left walking or crawling down life’s muddy road, not flying, experiencing every bump and ditch and thorn and mud puddle.  “The rain falls on the just and on the unjust,” says God in the Gospels.  Or, to quote contemporary wisdom, “Shit happens.”

So we must set our minds on divine things, and not on human things.

There is so much in this life over which we have no control.  There are all sorts of forces at work around us, and we are far less powerful than we think. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.

We want a happy, comfy life now.  God wants us to have a happy, comfy life for eternity. 

From The Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg, passage number 214:
The Lord’s Divine Providence pays attention to things that matter forever, and pays attention to short-term things only so far as they work in unison with the things that matter forever.  Short term or temporal matters usually have to do with earthly wealth and status, which is fame and fortune in the world. But what matters forever is our spiritual well-being and our spiritual character, which have to do with our becoming ever more loving and spiritually wise—these impact our eternal happiness.  We mortals see the worldly values of wealth and social standing as disconnected from our eternal happiness, but the Lord sees that they are connected.  And so the Lord’s Providence must give our eternal well-being priority over our earthly fame and fortune, until they work in unison.

We are part of a great tapestry.  Stuff that looks bad to our eyes now is allowed to happen because God sees a bigger picture.  But don’t forget, God isn't some cold, distant artist.  When we suffer, God suffers along with us.  S/He knows what it is like to be a mortal.  He was one, in Jesus.  Jesus suffered to bring a much better outcome for every one of us down the road.   And in the very same way the disciples couldn't see why Jesus allowed Himself to suffer, we often can’t see why we or our loved ones are allowed to suffer.  We can’t see God’s plan, but it is there.

Bad things happen, and not all the positive thinking in the world can save us from it.  No one is that powerful, no matter what we'd like to think.  All twelve steppers can tell you that powerlessness is the first and most important thing to learn.  We have to embrace and face life on life's terms, not ours.  Facing our powerlessness throws us finally and completely into God’s arms.

“Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?”  Set your mind on divine things, and not on human things.  Spiritual growth or personal growth involves finding our relationship with suffering, not avoiding it.  Why else would God invite us to take up the cross to follow Him?  Jesus fought through temptation after temptation on his journey to the cross.  He showed us the way.  AND He showed us that it will come out all right, no matter how hopeless it looks along the way. 

God loves us desperately.  S/He doesn't want us to suffer.  But sometimes the most loving thing He can do for us is to let us have our experiences, good and bad.  Eliminating the struggle for us eliminates the joy and triumph we will feel when we finally arrive at the finish line.  Suffering calls forth qualities in us like endurance, stamina, and patience. It frequently teaches us compassion and opens us up to the Holy Spirit.  It is like spiritual roto-tilling, breaking up old and set things inside us, turning us upside down, and making room for new and wonderful things to grow.

Suffering helps us to appreciate more fully the truly good things in life.  It also teaches us how precious are the times of peace and good fortune.  We no longer take them so much for granted.  Suffering deepens us, whether we like it or not.  And it reminds us who’s really in charge of the universe, and that it is not us.  It teaches us to trust in God; and to set our sights on divine goals and not on human ones.

For those of you who are in the midst of suffering, take heart.  Every single thing in life is in God’s hands.  Not one hair of your head falls without notice.  No matter how long the night may seem, the spiritual morning always brings comfort and joy.  You are intimately loved and cared for, and every single detail of your life is being woven for your eternal blessedness.  Even if you cannot see it; even if you rail against God for your suffering, it is all covered.  Your spiritual insurance policy is in God’s Divine Providence, which is wise beyond all human wisdom and compassionate beyond all human understanding.

All manner of things WILL be well.

           

 Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?

“…They shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the LORD.

 I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.” (Jeremiah 15:20-21)

“Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who trust in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)

Then surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life;
And you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23)

Amen

Revised from a sermon preached August 2008

Reference: Nigeria: Happiest Nation on Earth?

by Jonathan Power, Published on Monday, December 29, 2003 by the Toronto Star

The Readings

Jeremiah 15:15-21

O LORD, you know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
In your forbearance take me not away; know that for your sake I bear reproach.
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.
I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice;
I sat alone, because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?

Therefore thus says the LORD: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me.
If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth.
They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.
And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you,

for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the LORD.
I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

The Divine Providence 214

The Lord’s Divine Providence pays attention to things that matter forever, and pays attention to short-term things only so far as they work in unison with the things that matter forever.  Short term or temporal matters usually have to do with earthly wealth and status, which is fame and fortune in the world. But what matters forever is our spiritual well-being and our spiritual character, which have to do with our becoming ever more loving and spiritually wise—these impact our eternal happiness.  We mortals see the worldly values of wealth and social standing as disconnected from our eternal happiness, but the Lord sees that they are connected.  And so the Lord’s Providence must give our eternal well-being priority over our earthly fame and fortune, until they work in unison.

Why Are You Here? sermon March 8 2015

 “Why Are You Here?”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, March 8, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem
1 Kings 19:4,9-13; John 1: 35-38; HS 2693

 What brings you to this spot on this day?  Are you here from habit?  Are you here with deep intention?  Did you wander in?  Perhaps you don’t even know why you are here?  Perhaps something just impelled you to come—something you can’t describe?  Maybe you were mildly curious what happens in this church?  Or are you here because of some commitment to yourself and your spiritual development?  There could be as many reasons as there are people in this room.

So let’s start with why I am here.  The most shallow reason is that it is my job to be here. It is part of my contract to lead worship and deliver a Swedenborgian message each Sunday in this building. 

An even deeper truth is that I just love Swedenborgian theology.  I have been steeped in it from the cradle, and it makes my life immensely richer, more comforting, and more blessed.  But perhaps the deepest truth is that I am on a spiritual journey just like everyone else in this room.  And I need spiritual support and spiritual community just like everyone else.  I would be here anyway, even if I wasn't preaching.

I do believe, for what it is worth, that we were each meant to be here today.  To be here.  Today.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Emanuel Swedenborg was a man who was constantly searching for the deepest truth.  He knew that there was something underlying the outside face of the Bible, the same way there is always a lot going on behind and underneath what the world sees of you and me.  There is what we wear and what we say and how we act and what the camera sees; but there is always so much underneath.  So much that can be quite different from what the world sees.  Did you know that Mother Theresa was depressed a great portion of her life? I wouldn't have known that if someone didn't tell me.  There is so much that we don't see.

So much that we don’t see—within the Bible, within each other, within our own selves—at least, not without help.  Swedenborgianism encourages us always to look deeper; to ask ourselves what is going on inside—inside the Bible, and inside you and me—within our thoughts and feelings. 

Whoever first said or wrote “Know thyself” was a Swedenborgian (well, inside, anyway).

Because the truth will make you free. 

So when I ask you, “Why are you here?  I’m meaning it on every level, but especially the deeper ones.  Why you are here? 

In our Hebrew Bible reading, God asks Elijah not once, but twice, “Elijah, what are you doing here?”

In the Bible, when God asks a question, it represents an encounter with God. God calls us to observe ourselves in a deeper way—which is often what happens when God draws near.   It represents a moment of self-reflection.  Think of all those times when you were a kid just goofing around, and then some adults drew near, and suddenly you looked at what you were doing a little differently.  You paid attention in a new way.

God’s presence calls us back to ourselves, back to our sense of connection and our sense of meaning and purpose.  God calls us back to our intentions and dreams, back from distractions and digressions, back to our intended path.

Elijah was running for his life when God asked him what he was doing.  Elijah was exhausted and discouraged and felt out of options.  When God asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” the first things out of Elijah’s mouth was discouragement.  Elijah had done everything right, and everything that had been asked of him.  He had worked hard for the Lord, bringing God’s message to the people.  And for his efforts King Ahab and Queen Jezebel have ordered him killed.

Elijah is in a deep spiritual crisis. This crisis calls him back to his center the same way many of our extreme life experiences can call us home to our true center.  Elijah’s crisis invites an intimate encounter with the Divine the same way a profound life crisis can call you and me back to what matters most in life. 

Up to this point, Elijah was on the run.  Just like Elijah, we can spend a lot of our time and energy running from the things we don’t want to face—the things we think will “kill” us—be it doing our taxes, or having that hard conversation with a loved one, or trying to make amends with that person we have harmed, or facing some other personal demon…

But we can only run so far.  Eventually exhaustion will force us to face that thing from which we run.  God—Life itself—continues to call us to emerge from our hiding places the same way the womb contracts to push us out into a bigger reality.  We will repeatedly be called to face those things that are blocking our growth until we are ready to face them. The arc of spiritual growth, the hero’s journey, regeneration—call it what you will—moves inexorably along like the seasons, and like the birth process itself. The call to new spiritual birth comes again and again like the return of spring.  If we refuse one opportunity, there will be another and another until we are ready.

In Elijah’s case, he was running from despair and fear of death.  He had to name these things and face them in order to be ready for God to help him move beyond them.  In the meantime, God provided food, safety, and rest; all the while calling him to wake up—to pay attention.  We, too, must become more self-aware to grow.  We do this through self-observation, self-reflection, and a return to our created purpose.  We can do this through prayer, reading sacred Scripture, or meditation in one of its many forms.  Indeed, we invite spiritual growth by attending a place of worship on Sundays.  Greater self-awareness is not always comfortable, but it is always rewarding.

Especially when fear and despair haunt us, God’s question, “What are you doing here?” invites us to name and face the things from which we run.  Simply naming what we fear gives us power over them, or rather, it invites God’s power over them.  God always has the power to defeat any demon, but we forget that again and again.  We get stuck in the belief that we are all alone in our battle and it is all up to us.  God always knows what troubles us, but waits for us to ask for help, because it helps us to speak, to name, and to ask for help.  It helps us to remember that we deserve help, no matter what we've done.

Elijah believed he was a failure at this point in the story.  However, when Elijah was able to name his despair before God, Elijah brought God back into the equation.  Once God is invited to help, we not only survive the battle, but we will thrive beyond it, no matter how scary things look at the time.

We humans, and North Americans perhaps in particular with our strong valuation of individualism, resist at every turn any realization of how dependent we really are on God and on each other. We love taking pride in our might and power and competence.  We love thinking that we don’t need anyone. It is so much more comfortable not to need help—to be self-reliant! The problem is, this illusion of our own strength and competence stands between us and the truth.  We could neither think, nor breathe, nor move without God’s life and love flowing through us.  Accepting that is one of the first steps toward happiness.  We started out utterly helpless and we will end that way. 

And “being invulnerable” is not why we are here.

We are not here to become powerful or “be safe.”  We are not here to be secure.  We are not here to accrue wealth or to be the best or be the most impenetrable. 

We are here to become as wise and compassionate as we possibly can.  We are here to have joy and to have it more abundantly, which comes, not through greater wealth or greater security, but through greater inner wealth  which is personal wisdom, and greater inner security which comes from compassion, vulnerability, and service.  We are here to learn and grow and help each other.  “Whoever wants to be great among you must be as the servant.” (Mark 10:43)

No matter what your journey has been like up to this point, stop just for a moment.  Breathe in this moment.  Take a look at yourself and ask yourself why you are here.  Ask it on every level.  Feel God standing next to you, and gaze with curiosity and compassion at your life.  What has your dream for your life been up to this point?  Is it worthy?  Will it lead you to genuine happiness, or is it calling you to a false security? 

Whether you feel purposeful or lost, energized or exhausted, or somewhere in the middle, remember that the God of all love and wisdom stands ready to help.  You are here to be birthed into an ever better future.  You can face that thing from which you run, and be transformed by the experience.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Whether you have been coming a long time or are relatively new here today, you are welcome to be here.  Right here. Right now.  Stay here, and get to know yourself better.  Stay here, and get to know God better.  And if you go, go in peace, and with God’s blessing.

Amen.

Originally preached February 3^rd, 2013, Wayfarer’s Chapel, California. Revised almost beyond recognition.

The Readings:

1 Kings 19 4, 9-13  But [Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!”

And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

So he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”

Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

John 1:35-39

The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus.

Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.

They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

“Come and see,” he said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.

Heavenly Secrets 2693

In the literal sense of the Word the Lord is asking a question, but in the internal sense it means that the Lord already perceives everything we think and feel in infinite detail.  We read in various places in the Word of people being questioned about their state. But they are questioned for the reason that each person believes that they are all alone in their thoughts and feelings. Besides, many are helped by being able to express their feelings, which usually does them good.

The Way Through the Wilderness

“The Way Through the Wilderness”

“Streams in the Desert; Joy in the Journey”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, March 1, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 43: 16-21, Matthew 4:1-11, Secrets of Heaven, Paragraph 2334

The hardest thing about writing a sermon is not “what to say” but “what NOT to say.”  There is so much bounty in God’s Word.  So many gems of wisdom!  This thing was ten pages long when I started it, but fear not, I did some relentless trimming.  I pray that the outcome is a lovely bonsai, not a… well, mangled bush.  So here we go.

“I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

In 2007 I had the privilege of going to the Holy Land. I breathed in the clear, clear air and walked under the brilliant blue sky.  The air is clear and the sky so blue because there is almost no humidity—no airborne water vapor at all.  You see, most of southern Israel is a desert.  Water is a rare and precious commodity.  Unless regularly irrigated, or immediately after a rain, nothing grows.  Nothing, except the occasional most drought-resistant shrubs. Maine is a lush rain forest in comparison to southern Israel.  There is simply NO WATER.  For miles and miles there is nothing but rough, extremely rugged rock.  This isn't a soft, sandy desert, but a deeply ridged and rocky landscape. 

The craggy mountains are sliced and intersected by “wadis,” or deep gullies carved by rare flash floods.  Crossing this landscape before the advent of modern highways involved a lot of climbing and descending into steep ravines, stumbling over large boulders, or taking repeated wide detours to find a less challenging path.

  Think about it: John’s prophesy that “every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill made level” takes on a whole new meaning when one  considers what must have been involved in trying to navigate such a hostile geography.  This is the wilderness the Children of Israel wandered in for 40 years; this is the wilderness in which our Lord Jesus suffered his forty days of temptation.

But that’s not all.  Being a desert, not only do the temperatures rise to scorching highs in the day, they plummet to near freezing at night, because, with no suspended water vapor trapping the heat near the surface, all the accumulated heat disperses back into the atmosphere at nightfall.  The lack of water in a desert impacts every aspects of the environment, rendering it shockingly inhospitable to human life. 

You and I may never have to contend with the actual Negev wilderness, but each one of us is called to cross our own spiritual Negev.  To make our own journey from the spiritual Egypt to our personal Holy Land, you and I must traverse this spiritual wilderness.

Saying “yes” to this journey invites intense spiritual work. No amount of physical wealth or powerful technology or top-notch insurance can make any difference when we face this personal gauntlet.  Only one thing can help us on that journey, and that is the presence of God—the original local nomadic guide, with his wisdom and compassion.  God’s love and wisdom are the only things that will get us through.  These show up in the Bible as the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that guided the children of Israel in the wilderness. 

So where do I get me some of them?

As I've said before, Swedenborg talks a lot about love and wisdom.  He tells us that they are two distinctly different things that are in relationship inside us.  He tells us that the bread of communion represents God’s love, and the wine represents God’s wisdom.  In another place he says again the bread represents God’s wisdom, and the wine represents God’s love.  Wait….

Is the bread the love, or the wisdom?  Is the wine the wisdom or the love?  Huh?

The answer is: “Yes.”

Deeper study of Swedenborg’s material shows us the very yin/yang relationship between these two essential capacities of our nature. Wisdom holds deep within it tremendous love (or it isn't real wisdom), and genuine love is always guided by a deep inner wisdom. The two capacities mirror each other and work together in a profound and miraculous way.  This means we can always find BOTH qualities in every correspondence.  Wine or bread can represent love or wisdom, depending on the context and the emphasis.  The same is true with many other representatives in the biblical narrative.

So, I submit that though Swedenborg tells us repeatedly that water corresponds to truth, when we are looking at a rocky, sun-baked landscape, where rocks represent truth, and sunlight represents truth, the thing that is needed for survival in this case is possibly not more truth.  In considering the wilderness and surviving spiritual temptation, it is entirely possible that our need for water could represent our need for supportive, utterly essential life-giving love.

Can water represent love?  Well, think about it.  Love, feelings, and emotions—are they static and solid, or fluid and difficult to restrain? What is more likely to swamp us, ideas or feelings?  We can “drown” in emotions, be “flooded” with feelings and “filled” with love—all language that suggests a fluid nature more like water than rocks. Our bodies are 98% water, and Swedenborg tells us love is our very life.  We are gestated in water, baptized in water, and will die without water long before starvation can carry us off.  So for me at least, water and our need for water images our need for love far more than truth, and this is NOT contradictory to Swedenborg’s message.  You don’t have to agree with me, but when it comes to crossing my spiritual wilderness, nine times out of ten it is love and comfort I need to get me through.  It is the warmth of a hug, the reassuring squeeze of the hand of friendship—not a book or a quote or a lecture.  Honestly, when you are truly hurting, which is more helpful, a hug or a platitude?  A Kleenex or being told, “Don’t cry?”  A silent, sympathetic, non judging presence or a sermon?

Secrets From Heaven, Paragraph 1690:3 says, “Every temptation [which is what the “wilderness” corresponds to] is an assault upon the love in which a person is, and the temptation is in the same degree as is the love. If the love is not assaulted, there is no temptation. To destroy anyone's love is to destroy their very life; for their love is their life.” Emanuel Swedenborg

We are in temptation when our love is under attack---not our ideas, our love.  Love manifests and cloaks itself in ideas, but never let us mistake the fact that any genuine temptation is an attack on what we love, not what we think.  Confusion and deep questions and a crisis of faith will only occur in the midst of such a temptation, but they are not the real issue.  Genuine spiritual temptation means what we love is under attack.  And love is always good.  

Even twisted love, otherwise known as evil, derives any power it has from the kernel of goodness at its core.  And it is the attack on that goodness that creates the suffering.  It is the attack on God-with-us that creates the pain.  Jesus suffered because this is what suffers in us.  We are not wrong when we are suffering temptation.  It means that we are spiritually alive.  It means we are responding to God’s call to live and love more deeply!  It hurts like…well, hell but please don’t waste one scrap of energy beating yourself up for being in temptation if you are.  As Winston Churchill said, “When you are going through hell, keep going.”  Don’t beat yourself up for being there, keep going!

So, knowing all that we know about spiritual temptation, what do we do to prepare ourselves?  Given our Swedenborgian-status-special-Biblical-knowledge, how do you and I prepare to be Swat-team buff and ready to face our personal wilderness crossing?  How do we become wilderness-crossing-ninjas—not only surviving but ready to rescue everyone else?

Step one, we get over ourselves.  The twelve steppers have it right: “We admitted we were powerless before our personal wilderness….”

The truth is we will probably survive about as well as anyone else does.  We may even end up whining and complaining as loudly and often as the most cantankerous of the children of Israel.  We may give up again and again on God, even having seen the miraculous provision of water and manna for our survival in every prior experience. 

Because the story of the Children of Israel in the wilderness and their repeatedly failing faith and almost ADD inability to trust in their God isn't in the Bible to shame us into doing better than they did.  It is there to say, “This is what the journey looks like.  This is what mortals do in this process.”

We are the ones who get stuck on thinking we’re supposed to be better than we are.  We are the ones who think that somehow, because we supposedly “know better,” we should be able to do better.  That’s called pride.  Honestly, looking at the whole of human history, how often has “knowing better” ever meant we chose to do better?  Our idealism is adorable, but rarely realistic.

The Lord’s miraculous love and tremendous wisdom knows that we have lousy spiritual attention spans.  God is way ahead of us.  It is kind of darling how earnest we are and how hard we try to be perfect.  But the truth is, we are two-year-olds trying to do quantum physics here.  It is important to us that we try, and it is good for us to try, but the victory ever and always belongs to God. It is probably good for our pride that we don’t realize just how powerless we are.  But the truth is, despite all their shortcomings, God brought the Children of Israel through the wilderness intact, and God will do it for you and me as well no matter how inept we might feel.  We just have to show up.  We just have to say, “Yes,” to the journey. Then the only thing that might make the journey more comfortable is letting go of doing it more perfectly than anyone else.  You won’t.  I won’t.  We are not that powerful.  And that is perfect.

God’s power.  God’s love.  The spiritual journey to which our God calls us is the journey to venture more deeply into love.  Love equals compassion, and the one who needs compassion the most from you and me is not our lousy neighbor, not the idiot from our work-place, not even Hitler.   The one who needs compassion the most from you and me is our own, broken selves.  Yourself.  Myself.

I’m going to share something with you:  My particular heredity gifted me with an inner critic so harsh as to rival the most abusive nasty parent.  It never was and probably never will be more criticism that I have needed, but more compassion, more gentleness, and far more patient loving-kindness than I would ever naturally give myself.  I have had to get over an enormous pride—pride, I tell you, that was not because I ever truly felt I deserved it, but pride that is a massive defense against the relentless, merciless, profoundly abusive inner critic (that I now know is a legacy of my particular genetic line).  A cruel personal demon.  A nasty hereditary trait that is not unusually special by the way—I don’t even get to take pride in how harshly that inner critic can abuse me.  Dang!  Because a vicious inner critic is not even as rare or special as my pride would like to think.

But the point isn't whether I'm prideful or special.  The point is that what has helped heal me—what has helped get me through that leg of my wilderness—was not stones.  Which is to say, not criticism or advice.  Not the stone of “I shouldn't be so proud.”  Not the stone of “I should love God more.” Not the stone of “I should try harder;” but the life giving, miraculous experience of being radically loved in the midst of feeling so miserably unlovable.  Immense, overwhelming, utterly delighted tenderness.  Being bathed in that cleansing benevolence when we are so utterly dry is what saves you and me, and continues to save us in the midst of the glaring sun and harsh and scraping landscape of personal temptation. 

That God loves you and me even in our profound brokenness is the saving truth of God’s love.  It is true for me, and it is true for you.  Show up. Care.  And forgive yourself for being so imperfect. Who did you think you were, God?  We are so cute.

“I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,” says our God.

It is the Lord’s bounteous, miraculous love that lifts the valleys before us and turns the mountains into plains, not our preparedness, not our amassed store of wisdom, not how many bible quotes we have memorized or how much Swedenborg we know.  It is God’s love that does that work—the spiritual water that fills every cell of our spiritual bodies and that sustains us and operates at levels far beneath our conscious control.  That is what wins the victory and transforms the desert.  If we can just let go of thinking we have to do it perfectly—when we can stop judging ourselves so harshly and stop trying so hard, we just might open ourselves into relaxing into God’s providence.  And when we can do that, then, then we will see how the river of God’s love lifts up and softens that barren rock and causes the desert to bloom with joy and life.  Amen.

The Readings:

Isaiah 43:16-21

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, and a path through the mighty waters,
Who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power (They shall lie down together, they shall not rise; They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick):
“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  The beast of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.

Matthew 4:1-11 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Secrets From Heaven, Paragraph 2334 “All temptation includes feelings of doubt about the Lord's presence and mercy, about salvation, and so on; for people who experience temptation suffer great emotional distress, even to the point of desperation. They are kept in this state primarily so that they may eventually be confirmed in the certainty that all things are governed by the Lord's mercy, and that they are saved through Him alone….” Emanuel Swedenborg