Wrestling With God - sermon March 9th

Wrestling With God

Genesis 32:22-31, Matthew 14:13-21; Secrets of Heaven 4572:2

Rev. Alison Longstaff

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem, March 9, 2014

     

Raise your hand if you've ever wrestled with insomnia.  There’s nothing like insomnia, especially before a big event.    You toss and turn and can’t get comfortable.  Maybe you’re all sweaty and tangled in the sheets.  Maybe you just begin to doze off and then something jolts you awake—a strange noise, or your partner’s snores, or maybe you have that half-dream where you step off something and wake yourself up trying not to fall.

How are we to take our issues with insomnia to God?  After all, the Bible doesn't talk about something as mundane as insomnia, does it? 

Actually, it does.  Today’s story is about natural and spiritual insomnia. It is about a part of our nature that just can’t let go and rest.  Today’s story shows us a man so inwardly tortured he can’t sleep. 

Jacob is definitely facing one of the biggest days of his life.  He is about to be reunited with his brother Esau.  Esau, whom he hasn't seen for at least twenty years.  Esau, from whom he stole the inheritance and then fled from.  Esau who wanted to murder Jacob the last time they were together.  Esau, who is on his way, with 400 men.

Yes, Jacob is facing a big day.  He may not be alive when it is over.  His wives and children may not be alive when it is over.   Jacob has sent waves and waves of gifts to Esau ahead of his party on the road.  He has sent camels and flocks of sheep and flocks of goats, which in today’s economy would be a little like sending several Mercedes Benz, a packet of high value stocks, and the deeds to a few castles in Europe; just in case he can appease Esau.

But Jacob is still afraid.  His company has just forded a large stream, but he decides to send his wives and children and servants—in fact, everyone and everything—back across the river to safety. And he, alone, will spend the night on the dangerous side—the side from which Esau is approaching.  Jacob is scared for his life.  He does not sleep well.  The text says a “man” wrestled with him until daybreak.  Insomnia can feel like that sometimes.

One thing that makes the Swedenborgian church different is that we have a systematic approach to interpreting the inner meaning of the Word.   Swedenborg tells us that crossing this particular stream in this story represents our approach to our spiritual work, pretty much at the beginning, when we have mostly been ignoring it.  The river Jabbok is a tributary to the river Jordan.  It is not the Jordan, but it feeds into it. So when we cross the Jabbok, we are just starting to prepare for the walk to heaven.  And when we are starting the journey toward heaven, we tend to be ashamed and embarrassed and afraid that we won’t make it. 

Biblical scholars cannot agree on the identity of the “man” who wrestled with Jacob here.  I suspect it was an angel of the Lord---one who represented God.  For after it was over, Jacob names the place Peniel, which means “the face of God.”   Wrestling represents temptation, and night represents temptation, so wrestling all night is one TOUGH temptation.  And if Jacob was wrestling with God, this probably represents a temptation regarding our relationship with God.  Do we even believe in God?  Do true followers ever doubt the existence of God?  Absolutely.  Should we feel guilty that we sometimes doubt God’s love and even God’s existence?  No.  It is actually a very normal and healthy part of our spiritual journey.  It is how we develop strong spiritual muscles.  It is how we grow.

Jacob represents our most natural level.  Our right-here, sensing, feeling level.  Jacob is the part that insists the sun goes around the earth, because that is what it looks like.  Jacob does not like abstractions.  Jacob wants everything to be at this level.  This part of us wants everything to be measurable and provable. It loves written-down rules.  It wants worship to be measurable and provable: “I sat in the pew, I said the words, I listened to all the talking; now I can check off ‘worship’ for this week and feel good about myself.” 

We all have this part of us, the part that struggles to believe in the mystical side of life.  Anything that can’t be measured, that is not concrete, feels out of control.  It is this part of our nature that is most attached to this physical reality. 

Don’t misunderstand me. “Jacob” is a really important part of us.  It is not bad.  It helps us navigate this crazy external reality.  And, this most external part of us is the means through which we can have such pleasure in a hug, a kiss, a belly-laugh, a baby’s weight in our arms.  It produces goose-bumps in response to transcendent experiences and usually loves those encounters, even as it struggles endlessly to understand them.

So Jacob wrestled all night with God.  This lasted hours, and neither one prevailed.  You know how long a night can feel.  This is just how much the natural part of us struggles to comprehend and find peace with the spiritual reality of our existence.   The two wrestled until daybreak, and—picture them in some sort of painful clinch-hold: go ahead and make it silly, because life is often silly—their arms and legs are all tangled and one has got hold of the other’s nose while the other is pulling the first one’s hair and they are both going, “ow, ow, ow….”   They are at an impasse.  It is a stalemate.  And the dawn approaches.

So, what happens?   The “man” strikes Jacob in “the hollow of his loin.”   Now, think about that.  This is a knock-down, drag-out fight.  What is the one defensive move that invariably gets a dude to let go?  You hit him where it hurts.  It is amazing how we can read these stories and romanticize what they are really saying.  And yet so much of the spiritual sense is found in the emotional content of a story.  In this fight, no blow was too low, it seems, even for the angel of God. I don’t mean to be irreverent here.  This is written this way because of its inner meaning.  The soft part of the loin, whether of male or female, corresponds to the union of love and wisdom in our soul.  This union is the goal of all creation.  Each one of us is on a journey to having our love and wisdom united, which is to become whole and integrated—like the angels, in heart and mind—to become people of genuine integrity and wise loving-kindness. 

Yet there is something about this “Jacob” part of us that will forever resist the descent of this love and wisdom into our lives.  This most natural part of our mind really wants physical, measurable proof of God’s love and God’s existence.  It wants concrete evidence and concrete tasks, so that there is no room for doubt or mistakes—see it as terribly insecure and needing constant reassurance.  But God cannot give this part of us such unassailable proof.  God can’t, because that would destroy our freedom. And God will never, ever destroy our freedom.

So we have on the one side, this desperation for proof, and this desperation for a guarantee of salvation.  This is illustrated by Jacob refusing to let go, even when he has been kicked “in the hollow of the loin”.  Ouch, ouch ouch!  Now that’s tenacity. Jacob won’t let go, even though holding on is hurting him a LOT.

How will this end?  In the story, we read that day is breaking, which means, this temptation is coming to an end.  Jacob, injured and refusing to let go, tells the “man,” “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”   This is the desperation for reassurance.  We want to know we are still loveable; we want to know we will be okay.  Instead of answering the “man” (angel) asks, “What is your name?” which, in the spiritual sense is asking, “what is your spiritual quality?”  And Jacob says, “Jacob,” which means, “really external.” 

In response, the angel doesn't shame him or blame him or curse him for being so natural and external, he gives him a new name: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with mortals, and have overcome.”  “You have struggled with God and with mortals, and have overcome.”  And this is what happens to us because of this temptation.  This natural part is given the ability to be more than it has been.  It begins to be able to transcend that very concrete nature.

In the spiritual sense the angel is saying: “You have showed great perseverance in this struggle between the mortal plane and the spiritual plane, and have transcended it.”  Swedenborg tells us, (in Heavenly Secrets 4570, if anyone wants to go look it up) that the changing of the name of Jacob to Israel represents a progression from a more external state to one more spiritual, and a lifting up of the natural towards heaven. “Israel” is when we have done our best with that wrestling and have overcome.  The struggle transforms us.  Still, forever after in the story, Jacob limps, and the name switches back and forth, sometimes Jacob and sometimes Israel.  Isn't that just like us?  Throughout much of our spiritual journey, we vacillate.  Sometimes we are in a more transcendent state, and sometimes we are back limping and struggling, doubting and fearing.       

Anyway, at this point in the story Jacob asks the “man” (note that it is Jacob, not Israel), “Please tell me your name.” In other words, “reveal your nature or essence.”  In many cultures even today, knowing someone’s name offers a certain power over them.  The natural is asking again, “Give me something I can write down and measure and argue about.”  It really wants that concrete stuff!   It wants a way to have power over the spiritual things.  But the “man” says simply, “Why do you ask for my name?”  And then, he blesses Jacob. 

It is as if God ruffles our hair and says with humor and mild exasperation, “Oh, you.”  And then gives us a big hug.

This life, this walk on this earth involves struggling to reconcile being both spiritual and natural at the same time.  We question the existence of God.  We question the benevolence of God.  We can’t help it.   We are stuck in time and space and are trying to comprehend the great I Am—Omniscient, Omnipotent, and utterly apart from time and space.   Jacob’s “thigh” is put forever “out of joint” by this struggle.  Jacob’s is.  He represents the part of us that just can’t quite get it.  Nevertheless we are blessed by this struggle: we become Israel, (which means God Triumphs or Transcends,) We develop the ability to transcend the merely natural. When it comes to living out a life of love and wisdom in conjunction in action, Jacob is resistant. But Israel can manage it.

Jacob’s approach to Canaan and approach to reconciliation with Esau corresponds to when we draw closer to God’s goodness on our journey.  God invites us to a new level of spirituality and a closer walk with God.  And Jacob—this most external part of us—becomes crippled by the contact.  Jacob limps forever after.  Israel goes on to establish a great nation. 

We can’t be legalistic when it comes to spirituality.   We can’t measure it or “prove” it.  It is not of this plane.  We are “spirits in a material world” indeed, and that is a baffling reality that trips up our concrete-mindedness on a regular basis.

But God doesn't condemn us for struggling this way.   He (or she) designed it this way.  It’s not our fault.  This story is in the Bible because this is what our spiritual journey looks like.  Jesus Himself eventually comes all the way down to this physical plane in a real way, and walks with us right here, right now.  And Jesus does not come to condemn us, but to save us and lift us up.

In our story. Morning has come.  Esau approaches.  Jacob, going on no sleep at all, faces the approach of his murderous brother, not just exhausted, but injured.  Crippled. 

And what happens when Esau finally comes upon Jacob?  Esau throws his arms around his brother, weeping for joy.  Esau has forgiven and forgotten long ago.  Esau, the red one, represents God’s love.  We often feel like sinners, sure that an encounter with God will kill us.  We hesitate to draw near, too aware of our own history, too ashamed.  We aren't at all sure that the camels and goats we have accrued along our journey (through trickery, I might add) will be enough to please God.

But God rushes past the gifts and embraces us.  God doesn't want our offerings.  Our gifts are not who we are.  It is you and me as we are that God is interested in embracing, not the show we put on, not the riches we hide behind.

We come broken and limping to God, and God sweeps aside all the distractions and swings us up into his arms laughing and weeping for joy.

Amazing.

So next time you are staring at the ceiling wondering when or if sleep will grace your eyelids, remember Jacob.  Know that no matter what you face the next day, it won’t kill you.  It can’t kill you, because God loves you.  It may be scary, it may be a struggle, it may leave you feeling small and inadequate, but you will live through it.  It is just the here and now, and it will pass.  It all will pass.

After all, you were born for God’s eternal love, not the job interview from hell, not that scary exam in your worst subject, not that threat of bankruptcy, or that cancer treatment, or whatever else you might be facing.  Those are the hills and mountains, the valleys and swamps along the way.  They build up our spiritual muscles.  They are making you and me spiritually buff!

The truth is, God loves each one of us more deeply than we can imagine. He is always pressing to draw us closer and to bless us more richly with His love.  In response, we wrestle with God and pull his nose and yank his hair.   And what does God do?  He blesses us! 

Amen.

Originally, When We Wrestle With God. Preached August 3^rd, 2008

The Readings

Genesis 32:22-31 ²² And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. ²³ He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. ²⁴ Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. ²⁵ Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the hollow of his loin; and the hollow of Jacob’s loin was injured as He wrestled with him. ²⁶ And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” ²⁷ So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”

²⁸ And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

²⁹ Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.”  And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.  ³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” ³¹ Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip.

Luke 7: 20-22  ²⁰ When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’” ²¹ And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.  ²² Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

HS 4572:2  Every joining together of goodness and truth within a person happens through temptations. This is because unhealthy attachments and wrong ideas resist and rebel against healthy and useful attachments and ideas (aka goodness and truth).  These unhealthy habits and thought patterns try by every means possible to prevent the joining of good to truth (or good emotions to right-thinking) or of truth to good (right-thinking to healthy emotions). A battle actually takes place between the spirits present with the person: that is to say, between the dark spirits (those governed by evils and falsities) and the angelic spirits (those governed by goodness and truth). But the person feels like that conflict is inside and calls it temptation. When the angels (spirits governed by goodness and truth) finally conquer and drive away the harmful spirits (governed by sick attachments and lies) the angelic spirits are filled with joy. This joy is also felt by the mortal as deep inner comfort. Yet the joy and comfort do not come because a victory has been won, but because new goodness and truth become joined in marriage inside their soul. There is joy every time good and truth are married, for each little marriage is a step toward the heavenly marriage, in which the Divine is present.

“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. 

Rev Dr. George F. Dole's sermon from Sunday, Feb 23, 2014

Rev Dr. George F. Dole supply-preached while I took my first research Sunday.  Here is his sermon.

JESUS ONLY

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Rev Dr. George F. Dole

Feb 23, 2014

Amos 3:1-8                                                                                                       

John 14:1-7                                                                                                                   

Divine Providence 326:10

Jesus said to him, "I am the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

It is more than sad, it is tragic that the second part of this text has so often been divorced from the first. The insistence that only those are saved who believe in Jesus Christ, that all others are damned to hell, may have led to some noble and self-sacrificing missionary efforts, but it has also provided a rationalization for such atrocities and the Inquisition and the holocaust. On a smaller scale, it has closed minds against inquiry and learning. Eric Hoffer's description of the mass movement mentality is painfully appropriate:

All active mass movements strive . . . to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it."[1]

It is little short of miraculous, in a way, that many Christians who believe that all non–Christians are damned to hell are in fact thoroughly decent, caring individuals. The only way I can explain this is to assume that they have not divorced the second half of our text from the first. They have taken seriously Jesus' statement that he is "the way," and have tried honestly and humbly to follow that way, to follow that example. They take seriously Jesus' question, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I command you?" (Luke 6:46). Yes, they believe that they are saved because of their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Savior, but they believe that this entails a call to do his will; and they recognize that their own understanding of his will leaves a lot to be desired. If you realize that you have a lot to learn, it makes sense to turn to the best teacher there has ever been.

The connection between the two halves of our text is a little clearer in Greek than in the usual translations. In the second section, the King James version has "except by me," and the New Revised Standard Edition has "except through me." The preposition is question is dia, and one of its commonest meanings is "by way of." It is the preposition one would use to describe the route taken from one place to another—"I came dia Route 1 rather than Route 195," "by way of Route 1." In our text, then, Jesus is saying, "I am, the way, the only way that leads to the Father," which clearly calls us to see both his truth—his teaching—and his life as showing us that way, the Tao of the Gospel, if you will.

For a description of that way, perhaps the most obvious place to look is the Sermon on the Mount, bearing in mind that this was delivered not to the multitudes (who would hardly sit still for such an extended discourse) but to the few disciples who followed him up the mountain, thirsty, we may suppose, for the amazing, gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth (Luke 4:22).

The Sermon begins with the Beatitudes, which stand in striking contrast to the fundamental laws of the Torah, the Ten Commandments, without in any respect contradicting them. They contrast not in substance, that is, but in two other respects. First, the Commandments focus on our behavior, the Beatitudes on our attitudes. Second, the Commandments are cast largely in negative terms, telling us what we must not do, while the Beatitudes are uniformly affirmative.

This does not mean, though, that the Beatitudes are all sweetness and light. Far from it, the qualities that mark the way start with spiritual poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, and thirst. In a way, these qualities boil down to the single quality of recognizing our inadequacy, acknowledging our need. This is presented in stark terms in a familiar little parable (Luke 18:10-13):

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood off by himself and prayed like this: "God, I  thank you that I am not like other people—thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I tithe all my income." But the tax collector would  not even look up to heaven. He just beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." I tell you, this man went back home justified, and not the other.

On reflection, it looks very much as though the tax collector was on the right way without realizing it. By the same token, we ourselves may be so absorbed in trying to do and be our best that there is no tendency to stop and think, "How'm I doing?" This would be to stray from the way onto the detour of self-evaluation, a detour that may lead either to despair or to self-congratulation. There may be time for that when the task is done.

In the course of the task, this peculiar unconsciousness does not leave us without guideposts, though. We can be quite sure that we are not on the way if we find ourselves feeling self-satisfied. In fact, if we look at those first beatitudes, each had an opposite that is all too clearly recognizable. Self-satisfaction is the opposite of poverty of spirit. Callousness is the opposite of mourning. Arrogance I the opposite of meekness. Self-righteousness is the opposite of hunger and thirst for righteousness. If you try to exit a turnpike by an on-ramp, you may see a very obvious sign that says "Wrong Way." Have you ever seen a sign that said "Right Way"? That, it seems, you are entitled to take for granted, offering no pretext for self-congratulation. Remember Amos: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

The next Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful," might be taken as a response to the preceding four. That is, a genuine awareness of our inadequacy will necessarily press us to be understanding and constructive in our reactions to the inadequacies of others. "For they shall obtain mercy" conveys the message that we are all in this together. In strictly Swedenborgian terms, wherever we may be on any absolute scale of virtue, there is a sense in which we are all midway between heaven and hell and therefore able to turn in either direction. We need to recognize that we can choose only between alternatives that we can see, and that we do not understand the choice someone else has made if we do not know what the perceived alternative to that choice was. If we want a most extreme example of this kind of relativism, we need only look at Jesus' words about the one who was to betray him: "It would have been better for that man not to have been born" (Matthew 26:24, Mark 14:21).

Then we come to "Blessed are the pure in heart." This is the kind of purity that we mean when we speak of "pure gold," and there is an ironic sense in which we can also speak of "pure filth." That is, it is purity in the sense of the absence of any inconsistency, the kind of purity of intent that rules out deceit or hidden agendas. Here, it seems most obvious that we are talking about a lifelong process, because the fact would seem to be that we do have mixed feelings and that we often do not understand ourselves all that well. Thoughts and feelings arise in us from depths that we cannot plumb, and from time to time we surprise ourselves—sometime for better, sometimes for worse. It is entirely natural in this noisy and confusing world that negative feelings arise, and the clear, insistent message of our theology is that we cannot deal with them unless we recognize them. We cannot destroy them, but we need not let them take center stage. If we see them—and only if we see them—we can turn away from them, centering in what we know to be better. The "shunning" of "shunning evils as sins" is less fighting against them than turning our backs on them: the basic meaning of the Latin verb is "to flee."

Perhaps that is why the next Beatitude is "Blessed are the peacemakers." We know this to be true on the small scale of our own lives. When there is conflict in a marriage, for example, there is no way to come to a lasting resolution by having one side win and the other side lose. The effective marriage counselor will help the couple identify the legitimate needs that underlie the conflict, distinguish the needs themselves from the strategies that have been adopted to meet them, and discover strategies that rely on mutual understanding and cooperation rather than conflict.

This is no pipe dream. This is how heaven works, with the joy of all being felt by each and the joy of each by all. Experience will teach us, if we let it, that this is occasionally possible here and now; and the true "peacemakers" are the people who nurture this hope and seek this kind of mutual understanding. We might well bear in mind that this applies on all scales, from the individual to the international; for the whole human race, in the Lord's sight, is like a single individual.

To bring us down to earth with a thud, the Beatitudes conclude by telling us that we are blessed when we are persecuted, when we are reviled and falsely accused. Most of us, I suspect, would have a hard time coming up with examples of times when we felt that we were qualifying for this blessing, but we have only to look at the prevalence of political trash-talking to realize that "reviling" is all too often the name of the game, and that truth all too often takes a distant second place to "spin." How may individuals have remained silent in the presence of corruption for fear of the consequences of speaking out? There is good reason that we have laws to protect whistle blowers, and when they remain silent, we all suffer the consequences.

The Beatitudes are only the introduction to the Sermon itself, and a hasty survey like this can do no more than hint at the depth of its articles, the extraordinary way in which they enrich each other, and the appropriateness of the distinctive rewards for each one. We could take any one of them and apply it to a multitude of different situations; and if we were to do so, we would soon find that they have to be translated, so to speak, into the particular strategies that suit particular circumstances. What works for peace in a kindergarten class may not work in a corporate boardroom. What works in a technologically sophisticated culture may not work in a tribal one. That is what our third reading is telling us—that the variety of people requires a variety of religions. Our text insists, though, that all such religions must have certain essential qualities, however different the may be the outer forms in which those qualities are expressed. There can be no tolerance in any religion for avarice, indifference, arrogance, self-righteousness, cruelty, deviousness, ruthlessness, or cowardice.

There is not the slightest hint of any of these qualities in the life and teaching of Jesus. When he told the disciples that he was the way, he was saying that he himself had been on a path, straying neither to the right or to the left, constantly finding and following that narrow way where justice and mercy are at perfect peace with each other. The apostle Paul got the message, and passed it on to the Philippians: :"Let that same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5).

Oddly, perhaps, this sounds terribly demanding when it is put in affirmative terms, but when we look at the pure ugliness of the alternatives, it is departing from the way that makes no sense. "Wrong Way!" There really is no alternative path. No one comes to the Father except by this Way.

                                                                                                Amen.

  

Divine Providence section # 326:10  Emanuel Swedenborg

We know that there are within us not only the parts formed as organs from blood vessels and nerve fibers—the forms we call our viscera. There are also skin, membranes, tendons, cartilage, bones, nails, and teeth. They are less intensely alive than the organic forms, which they serve as ligaments, coverings, and supports. If there are to be all these elements in that heavenly person who is heaven, it cannot be made up of the people of one religion only. It  needs people from many religions, so all the people who make these two universal principles of the church central to their own lives [loving God and living a good life] have a place in that heavenly person, that is, in heaven. They enjoy a happiness that suits their own nature.

---

[1] Eric Hoffer: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York" Harper Perennial, 2010), p. 79.

For a similar sermon, see: http://alisonlongstaff.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-names-of-god-or-is-jesus-christ.html