From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Jan 6 17:05:43 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 12:05:43 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "The Government of the Lord," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030106120335.02c0c910@mail.leewoof.net> The Government of the Lord By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, January 5, 2003 Readings: 1 Samuel 8: Israel asks for a king When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, "You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have." But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do." Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your young men and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you on that day." But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles." When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, "Listen to them and give them a king." Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Everyone is to go back to his town." John 18:33-37: Jesus the King Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?" "Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?" Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." The Heavenly City: #322 Authority and law Authority comes from running the country according to its laws, and giving judgments from a sense of justice. Rulers who consider the law to be above themselves are wise. But those who think they are above the law are not wise. Rulers who consider the law to be above themselves place government in law, and the law rules them. They know that the law is justice, and that all true justice is divine. But rulers who consider themselves above the law think they themselves are the government. They either think that they are the law, or that the law, which is justice, comes from themselves. In this way, they claim for themselves something that is divine, to which they should be subject themselves. Sermon: But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. (1 Samuel 8:6, 7) Government as we know it is a human invention. When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he didn't create a king or a president to rule over them. When he preserved Noah and his family from the flood and sent them out to repopulate the earth, he didn't issue a Constitution for them to follow. When the Israelites had their great exodus from Egyptian slavery, God had called a single person--Moses--to lead them, with Aaron his brother as his aide. It was the idea of Jethro, Moses' father in law, to set up a hierarchy of judges who would handle all the easier questions, while sending the more difficult ones to Moses (Exodus 18:13-26). A good idea? Probably! But it was a _human_ idea. Of course, the Lord did set up the priesthood to be ritual and spiritual leaders for the people. But on the political side of the ledger, throughout the entire history of the Israelite people up to our story for today, the most the Lord had done was to call a particular person to lead some or all of the Israelites, for a shorter or longer time. Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, and a number of less familiar names all took their place as leaders in Israel one after another. The last of these leaders called by the Lord--and the first since Joshua to be recognized throughout the entire land of Israel--was Samuel. Though Samuel grew up in the temple from the time he was weaned, he was not a priest. He had been devoted to the Lord by his mother Hannah in fulfillment of a vow she had made to the Lord when she had prayed for a son. Her prayer was answered, and she fulfilled her vow, and Samuel grew up under the tutelage of the priests at the temple in Shiloh. Especially, he grew up under the guidance of Eli, the chief priest. In this way, Samuel was prepared by continual instruction in the law of the Lord, and by continual ritual and devotion to the Lord throughout his boyhood. Being a person of good character and high principles, and willing to listen to the Lord's guidance and follow it, Samuel grew to be recognized as the leader of the Israelites. Not king. Not president. Simply a leader who carried God's word and God's guidance to the people. Unfortunately, Samuel's sons did not follow in his footsteps. They were dishonest and corrupt. When Samuel, probably blinded by a father's devotion, set them up as judges for Israel, the people rebelled against their rule. And they asked for a king. Later in human history, a theory of the "divine right of kings" was developed. But here in 1 Samuel, it is made crystal clear that the very _idea_ of having a king in was not God's but ours. When Samuel, troubled by the people's rejection of him and his sons as leaders, came to the Lord, the Lord's first words sounded supportive of their request. "Listen to all that the people are saying to you," the Lord replied. However, this was not an approval, but a concession. He went on to say to Samuel, "It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king." Then he told Samuel to warn the people about what a foolish idea this was, and all the ways that their king would progressively use, abuse, and finally enslave them. But the people would not listen. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles." Up until this time, the Lord himself had been their king. The Lord himself had been their true leader, with the human leader simply being the conduit for God's leadership. But the people wanted to be just like everyone else. (Sound familiar?) They wanted a king like all the other nations, to lead them into battle. They wanted to take orders from a human being, and not from God. Three kings later, the Lord's warnings through Samuel had already come to fruition. There was the briefly successful kingship of Saul that quickly disintegrated and ended in disaster. There was the militarily brilliant and successful kingship of David. And then David's son Solomon, basking in the glory and wealth that his father had won, let the power go to his head. He laid progressively heavier taxes on the people to support his burgeoning--and increasingly immoral and corrupt--government. (Sound familiar?) When the fourth king, Solomon's son Rehoboam, promised to make the people's load even heavier and more burdensome than his father had, the northern tribes seceded. And appointed their own king There was a succession of kings in both the north and the south, and the nation of Israel never recovered. But their fate had already been sealed many years earlier, in our story from 1 Samuel, when they rejected God as their king, and insisted on being led by human judgment rather than by God's word. The Lord had warned them that having a king was not a good idea. But they insisted. They demanded a king. And though it took a few generations to play itself out, things turned out just as the Lord said they would. (No surprise there!) The question naturally comes to mind: If God knew what a disaster it would be for the Israelites to have a king, why did he allow them to have one? One answer to this question is that it was clear that the people had already rejected the Lord as their leader, and if he had refused to grant them their demand, they would have gone ahead and chosen a king anyway in explicit violation of God's command, causing an even greater rift between the people and the Lord. And if they had chosen a king themselves, they probably would have gotten an even worse result than they did with God in on the plan. As things unfolded, God did at least have a hand in choosing _who_ would be their king. However, there is another, and perhaps deeper, reason why the Lord allowed them to have a king even though he knew it was not a good idea. And it applies just as much to us today as it did to the ancient Israelites. As long as we are willing to humbly and innocently follow the will of the Lord, we are in good hands, and our lives, though sometimes difficult, can proceed on the path that the Lord has laid out for us--and all will flow toward our eternal good. But as soon as we start to think that perhaps we know better than God, then God can no longer lead and guide us the easy way. We have to learn the hard way, through learning from our mistakes. In the case of the Israelites, since they wouldn't listen when God told them what a bad idea it was to have a king, they had to find that out for themselves. They had to try it their way, and learn by experience what they were not willing to hear from God's own mouth. Since they weren't willing to follow the divine instructions, they had to figure it out by trial and error. As learning goes, trial and error is a fairly inefficient way to do it. It works much better to follow the instructions. In fact, even with the instructions, it can sometimes be tricky to get it right. I found that out the day after Christmas, when my son Chris asked me to help him build his new working model of an internal combustion engine. He did some parts of it himself, but other parts were more complicated. As it turned out, some parts were even a bit too complicated for _me_ to get it right the first time around, and I ended out taking several sections back apart and reassembling them . . . the _right_ way this time. Now just imagine what it would have been like if I had opened up the box, taken one look at the instructions, and said, "Why should I bother with these?" (I bet _that_ sounds familiar to some of you!) I don't like to think about how many times I would have had to take it apart and put it back together. And I bet that occasionally I would have been reduced to peeking at the instructions when I got things hopelessly mixed up. This sounds a bit silly when we are talking about building model kits; but it is just about the way we tend to proceed when it comes to how we govern our affairs. On the large scale, in the course of human history, hundreds, perhaps thousands of nations, empires, and regimes have risen and fallen. All have had their beginnings and their rise to power, after which followed bloating, excess, and corruption, followed by decline and overthrow. I suspect that the people every one of those nations and empires thought that _theirs_ would be the exception. We probably think that _our_ country will be the exception. But there haven't been any exceptions yet. Given time, all human nations and governments have met their eventual end. And we appear to be following the course of all the rest. Turning to the individual level, how many of us have "read the instructions" first before we have gone about the business of our lives? How many of us listened to God's way right from the start, rather than trying it our own way first? How many of us have had to realize by hard experience that our way wasn't working? And how many of us have then gone on to try it several _other_ ways, hoping we might eventually get it right? And how many of us then only grudgingly peeked at the Lord's instructions just enough to get ourselves out of the particular mess that we happen to have gotten ourselves into this time around? As we look at the Bible story, we may shake our heads in disbelief at how often the people of the Bible were given clear instructions by the Lord, only to violate them and discover the hard way that the Lord was right all along. Many have even rejected the Bible as a book of divine instruction because so many of the people in it are so consistently stubborn, false, and wrongheaded. How could the Lord pick people like these to use as examples in the very Word of God? How could he have as his "chosen people" a crowd that so often rejected the government of the Lord in favor of human government? The answer to that question lies in our own souls. The answer lies in our own lives. The story of the Bible is not the story of a people who lived thousands of years ago. It is the story of the unruly crowd of stubborn, false, and wrongheaded desires and attitudes that dwells within each one of us. It is the story of our own rejection of the Lord as our personal king, and our insistence on following human opinions and human values instead. In the affairs of our nation, each of us is only one voice. But in our own personal affairs, ours is the one voice that counts. It is our choice whom we will have as our king. Will we insist on being the rulers of our own lives, and take the hard path of trial and error, and learning by painful experience? Or will we listen to the Lord first, do it the Lord's way first, and let the government of our lives rest on the divine shoulders of the only true, eternal king? ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Jan 12 23:17:53 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:17:53 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Halfway Measures," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030112181612.029a5520@mail.leewoof.net> Halfway Measures By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, January 12, 2003 Readings: 1 Samuel 15:1-23: Saul spares Agag Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim--two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men from Judah. Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. Then he said to the Kenites, "Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites. Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs--everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: "I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night. Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, "Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal." When Samuel reached him, Saul said, "The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions." But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?" Saul answered, "The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest." "Stop!" Samuel said to Saul. "Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night." "Tell me," Saul replied. Samuel said, "Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.' Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?" "But I did obey the Lord," Saul said. "I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal." But Samuel replied: "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." Luke 9:57, 61, 62: Looking back As they were going along the road, someone said to him, . . . "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Arcana Coelestia #1659.3: Spiritual wars In ancient times many things were represented by wars, which people called "The Wars of Jehovah." These wars meant nothing but the conflicts fought by the church and by those who belonged to the church. In other words, it meant their temptations, which are nothing but battles and wars against the evils present within themselves. So they are against the devil's crew, who stir up evils and attempt to destroy the church and the member of the church. Wars in the Bible have no other meaning. Sermon This is what the Lord Almighty says: "I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Samuel 15:2, 3) No halfway measures here! With the Lord, it's all or nothing. "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." (Matthew 6:24). "Anyone who comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even life itself--cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). And even more graphically: If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. (Matthew 18:8, 9) If we take such passages literally, then this business of religion is not merely impolite, but downright shocking. Perhaps that's the idea: to shock us out of our complacency. To goad us into the realization that our spiritual life is serious business. It is not something we can attend on Sunday and then figure that we've done our job. Religion, and especially Christianity, demands the total commitment of our entire life to God--no ifs, ands, or buts. Saul, the first king of Israel, clearly did not understand or accept this. When he was first chosen as king, he was young, innocent, and humble. But once he got a taste of military victory, he was never again willing to follow the instructions and do it the Lord's way. Thinking his victories were his own, rather than God's, he began to cut corners, do things his own way . . . and then make excuses for his failure to follow God's commands. In today's story, the prophet Samuel had given Saul a commandment from God to completely destroy the Amalekites. The Amalekites were a particularly devious foe. They had been the first to attack the Israelites after their exodus from Egypt. Their general _modus operandi_ was to avoid open conflict with the main body of their enemies, but to sneak around from behind, picking off the weak and the stragglers, and thus sapping both the numbers and the spirit of their foes. With the Lord's help, Israel had defeated the Amalekites in that first battle. But the Amalekites had continued to harass them. Now Saul was commanded to eliminate this ever-present and secretly menacing threat by attacking the city that was the Amalekites stronghold, and killing every living being in it. To this day, many Christians take this story literally, believing that God actually would and did command the wholesale slaughter of a city--men, women, and children, and even the domesticated animals. And many skeptics point to gruesome passages such as this to prove that the God of the Bible is not worthy of our respect, let alone our faith. There have been some attempts to explain the warlike nature of the Israelites and their God by resorting to the stage of psychological development of the Israelites. The Israelites, so the theory goes, were at an earlier stage of development, in which people are not yet able to distinguish the evil from the person. So if they saw an individual or a nation practicing evil things, they considered those people to be evil. And if they believed that evil was . . . well . . . evil, then their natural response was to punish and destroy those who had committed the evil. There certainly is something to this theory. God wants us to devote ourselves to fighting what is evil and doing what is good. And if we are not able to make the finer distinctions between the person and the evil actions committed by the person, then it is still better for us to act according to our conscience, even if our actions themselves are not good in an ultimate sense. In other words, if the Israelites believed that fighting against evil meant eliminating the surrounding nations--who tended to be immoral and idol-worshipers--then God allowed them to "do what was right" in the way they conceived of it. However, to be clear, our belief is that God would never command people to engage in slaughter and destruction. Yes, these things are stated quite clearly in the literal sense of the Bible. But such statements are "appearances of truth," meaning they are the truth as seen through human eyes and minds, rather than as it comes pure from God. The commandment that came from God may have been something like this: "You shall eliminate all evil from within and around you." But to the mind set of the Israelites, that came through as, "You shall kill everyone who engages in evil practices." We humans are limited and faulty in many ways, and we tend to hear God's commandments through the filter of our own ideas, attitudes, and stages of development. And God allows us to hear the divine commands through those filters because hearing them in a tainted form is better than not hearing them at all. If our intention is to do God's will, then we can gradually learn what God's will actually is, and correct our mistaken ways of hearing God's commandments. Yet even this does not get at the heart of why so many wars and so much violence appears in the literal sense of the Bible--especially in the Old Testament. Part of the limited and tainted way that we tend to read the Bible comes from assuming that it is talking about physical, material, and worldly things. We tend to read it like a history book, thinking that its point is to tell us about God's interaction with a particular "chosen people" thousands of years ago. But if we believe that the Bible is God's Word, then we must adopt a much higher view of its subject matter. If God has gone to all the trouble of having a book written for us, then it must be about things that are more important--and closer to God's heart--than the history of a particular nation. In fact, its subject matter must go beyond everything of this world, and speak to us, not of physical or even social realities, but of spiritual realities. This is precisely what Emanuel Swedenborg says the Bible is all about--and not just here and there, where it is obviously "spiritual," but everywhere, throughout the entire Bible. If the Bible is the Word of God, he says, then it must be about God and spirit, and not about physical and earthly things. Looked at in this light, the wars and conflicts of the Bible are not talking about physical battles at all--even though physical battles may have provided the imagery used in expressing the Bible's real subject matter. Like a child's story that uses animal characters to talk about various human traits, the Bible uses human events to talk about spiritual issues. So wars in the Bible are not about physical wars, but about spiritual ones. "These wars," Swedenborg wrote, "meant nothing but the conflicts fought by the church and by those who belonged to the church. In other words, it meant their temptations, which are nothing but battles and wars against the evils present within themselves." Once we realize that the wars in the Bible are not about physical wars, but about spiritual wars--wars against the evil within ourselves, and against the evil in our communities and our society--then instead of seeing them as the barbaric commands of an archaic God, we can read them as wonderful symbol stories giving us critical instructions for our own spiritual lives. With this in mind, let's look again at the story of Saul attacking the Amalekites, but sparing Agag their king and the best of the sheep and the cattle, contrary to the commandment of God to utterly destroy that nation. If this story is really about spiritual wars, then the enemy that God commanded the Israelites to completely wipe out must represent some particularly deep and troublesome evil within ourselves. In fact, given their _modus operandi_ of attacking their enemies, not openly, but secretly from behind, they must represent some hidden, deep-seated evil within us that attacks us when we are not fully aware of what is going on, and in this way sapping our will and our dedication to God's way. Kings, we know from Jesus' words to Pilate (John 18:37), mean truth ruling in our lives--or in the opposite sense, when we are corrupt, they mean falsity ruling in our lives. So Agag, the king of the Amalekites, would represent a falsity that rules our lives, and that comes from some deep-seated, hidden evil within us. The nature of that evil is suggested by Saul's attitudes and behaviors. It is a general principle in the spiritual sense of the Bible that every enemy that the Israelites face represents an evil or a falsity that corresponds to the particular evil or sin that the Israelites are involved in at that time. In Saul's case, his shortcoming was thinking he could decide for himself what was best to do, rather than listening to God's commandments. In other words, Saul represented an early, headstrong way of thinking and running our lives, in which we judge by outward appearances and by present expediency rather than by the deeper and longer-term principles that come from God. Even when we have received a clear commandment from God to wipe out some particular evil in our lives, some particular fault in our character or behavior, we tend to think we can handle it in our own way rather than doing it God's way. And when we attack our evils with this attitude, we inevitably take halfway measures, rather than doing the whole job that God commanded us to do. Like Saul, we "spare Agag and the best of the cattle," thinking we can just get rid of the parts of ourselves that look bad, but keep the faulty attitude within ourselves that leads us to act in that way (represented by Agag), and also any outward behavior that looks good to us and to the society around us (the best of the cattle). An example may help to see how this works out in practice. Imagine that your primary goal in life is to make money. You get the training you need and set off in the business world to make a killing. And you have some success at it. Perhaps you have had to cut some corners along the way, and perhaps the company you are working for is not exactly an ethical company providing a truly useful service to humanity. But you're not worried about that. The money is pouring in, and you're moving up the social and economic ladder. And yet, you think of yourself as a religious person. And you know in your heart of hearts that God is commanding you to destroy the greed--the inner desire for wealth--that is driving your life. You know that you must live from different motives: from concern for your fellow human beings rather than from desire for wealth and luxury. Like Saul, you may go at this with gusto, attacking your obvious greed and selfishness, and changing some of its worst manifestations. You no longer act in such a cut-throat way, but begin to treat others in your company as colleagues rather than as competition. You clean up some of the questionable practices you've engaged in. You figuratively "destroy everything that was despised and weak" by getting rid of everything that looks bad. But underneath it all, you are still driven by money. You spare the "king" of your love for money, and you keep "the best of the sheep and cattle": you still engage in business primarily to make money--but you do it in a more ethical way. You may even make the excuse that the more you make, the more you can give to the church and to charity. "Honestly," you say, "I'm doing it all for the Lord. See how much I am giving away?!" But the Lord is not satisfied with halfway measures. When the Lord commands us to totally destroy our love for money, or our self-centeredness, or our contempt for people who aren't like us, or any other deep-seated drive that conflicts with putting the Lord first and our neighbor next, then he means just that: we must totally destroy that inner enemy, and devote our lives entirely to the Lord--no ifs, ands, or buts. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Jan 19 20:44:26 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 15:44:26 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Turning the Tables," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030119154254.0250c058@mail.leewoof.net> Turning the Tables By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, January 19, 2003 Readings: 2 Samuel 12:1-15: Nathan reprimands David The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him." David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity." Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.' "This is what the Lord says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.'" Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Matthew 7:1-7: As you judge, so will you be judged "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Arcana Coelestia #9051.3: A speck and a plank "Seeing a speck in a brother's eye" means seeing something erroneous in a person's understanding of truth. "The plank in one's own eye" means a huge evil that comes from false thinking. In the inner meaning, "wood" means goodness, and in the opposite sense, evil. . . . If "eye" and "plank" did not have these meanings, would "seeing a plank in an eye" have any meaning at all? Sermon: Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7) After last week's sermon on "Halfway Measures," I had planned to offer you something a little more cheerful this week. However, our Bible story for this week (as we follow the Sunday School's lesson schedule) simply isn't a very cheerful one. And next week's is even more of a downer! So you'll just have to bear with me as we continue in a wintry, introspective mode for a little while longer. After last week's Bible story about Saul disobeying the Lord's commandments, Saul's situation went from bad to worse. I won't burden you with the whole sordid tale. Suffice it to say that in the end, it got so bad that Saul, losing in battle and impaled by the arrows of the enemy archers, literally fell on his own sword and killed himself so that his enemies would not have the glory of dealing him the final blow. Not long after Saul's death, David was anointed king over the southern region of Judah. Seven and a half years later, he was anointed king over the northern region of Israel also, and thus became king of all the Israelites. Unlike Saul, David was careful to follow the Lord's commandments in everything he did. Well . . . almost everything. There was that little matter of Uriah the Hittite. The Hittites, though not Israelites, were friendly to them--and had been all the way back to the time of Abraham, who purchased from the Hittites a burial plot that became the first piece of ground in the Holy Land to be owned by the Hebrew people (Genesis 23). In David's day, the Hittites apparently lived peaceably among the Israelites. In fact, Uriah the Hittite was a soldier in David's army--so the Hittites and Israelites must have been closely allied. The story of David and Bathsheba that led up to today's Old Testament reading is familiar. One evening David was strolling on the (flat) roof of his palace, and looking down, saw a beautiful woman bathing. Though he found out that she was married, he had her brought to him. He slept with her, and she became pregnant. David called her husband Uriah back from the front lines and tried to get him to sleep with Bathsheba to make it look like the child was Uriah's. But this would have been a violation of the soldier's code--to take his ease and sleep with his wife while his fellow soldiers were on the front lines fighting. So even when David got Uriah drunk, he refused to go home, but slept near the palace. He was too honorable a man to make a good pawn in David's dishonorable secret plan. So David took more drastic measures. He had Uriah himself carry a letter to Joab, the commander of the army, with instructions that were intended to bring about Uriah's death. The plan worked. After the prescribed time of mourning for her husband, Bathsheba--who apparently was a willing participant in the illicit liaison--became David's wife. The previous chapter ends by saying, "But the thing David had done displeased the Lord." The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to skillfully induce David to see the error of his ways by telling a story that seemed to be about someone else. Nathan was barely able to finish his story about the rich man stealing and slaughtering the poor man's ewe lamb to prepare a meal for his guest. "David burned with anger against the man," we read. And then Nathan spoke the famous words, "You are the man!" This tale of blatant sin, involving both adultery and murder by proxy, was the one major lapse of David's career. And the difference between David and Saul is told in the simple, single sentence spoken by David after Nathan had reprimanded him. Unlike Saul, who made excuses and tried to justify himself, David flatly admitted, "I have sinned against the Lord." No excuses. No qualifications. A simple admission that he had done wrong in the Lord's sight. And this was why David, unlike Saul, could continue as king. He was willing to see the error of his ways, humble himself before the Lord, and return to fully following the Lord's commandments. As with all the stories of the Bible, the story of David and Bathsheba, and of Nathan reprimanding David, is not really about events long ago. It is about what goes on within each one of us today. As I have said many times before, the Bible, as God's Word, is not a mere history book. It is a book in which the Lord speaks to each one of us personally, guiding us, chastising us, correcting us, and giving us insight into the ways of the Lord and our own spiritual states. If we are willing to accept it personally, then the Lord will speak to us, giving us a critical message that we need to hear if we wish to go forward toward the kingdom of God rather than going astray into our own wrongful ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. David was willing to listen. And though he still had to suffer the consequences of his evil actions, the Lord forgave him, and continued to be with him. Are we willing to do the same as we look at our own lives? In fact, this story tells a deep psychological and spiritual truth about each one of us. And in our reading from the New Testament, the Lord helps us to see just how it does speak to us. He asks, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" David pronounced swift judgment on a man who had merely stolen and killed his neighbor's sheep. Yet he himself had committed adultery and arranged for the murder of a human being--the woman's husband--in order to cover his crime. He clearly saw the speck in the eye of his brother (the rich man in the story), but until Nathan pointed it out to him, he missed the fact that there was a plank in his own eye. How about us? Do we have keen eyesight to pick out the faults of others? Are we quick to pass judgment on them for their offenses and their failings? It certainly is easier to see that speck in the eye of our brother or sister! When we discern and point out other people's faults, there is no requirement for action or for change on our part. It's all their problem and their fault, and they are the ones who have to change. The deeper truth in the story of Nathan's parable to David is that when we pronounce harsh judgment on others, we are really pronouncing judgment on ourselves. The Lord put it succinctly: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." This does not mean we are to uncritically accept everything everyone else does. We can and must make judgments on people's behavior, both to protect ourselves and those we love, and for the good of society. The Lord's commandment on this is found in another passage in which he says, "Do not judge according to the appearance, but make righteous judgments" (John 7:24). The judgments that we cannot make are judgments about a person's spiritual state. We can and must judge others' behavior, but we cannot jump to the conclusion that because their behavior is wrong, they are spiritually evil and are going to hell. This is the kind of judgment that belongs to the Lord alone. In our New Testament reading, the Lord is especially addressing the _type_ of judgments we make. Are we hard on others, but easy on ourselves? Are we quick to point out every little flaw in the people around us, but quick to justify even the worst lapses on our own part? And most of all, do we, as David did, "burn with anger" against those that we perceive to have done wrong? This "burning with anger" is a telltale sign. Making a rational and righteous judgment about someone's wrong behavior is one thing--and it is a necessary part of our existence in human society. But if we find ourselves flaring up and lashing out against the wrongs of others, whether that flaring up involves physical aggression against them or merely a torrent of angry words--or even if we merely _feel_ the crimson anger boiling up within us, but don't express it outwardly--when that anger boils up and boils over in us, it is a telltale sign that there is more involved than the wrong that the other person has committed. That wrong is getting into us and burning. And it is showing us that there is something within ourselves that we need to look at and deal with. Though the act may be the other person's act, the anger is _our_ anger. And though it may not seem so at first, when we find ourselves in the midst of burning, semi-rational anger, underneath it all there is usually something within ourselves that we are angry at. We are simply directing our anger outside of us, where we have no responsibility to deal with it. David provides a perfect example of this. Throughout his entire bitter struggle with Saul, David showed the greatest of restraint and respect for Saul. He never flew off the handle and lashed out at Saul. He even had several opportunities to kill Saul, but he never did. He handled the whole thing coolly and rationally, even though Saul was bent on David's destruction. Why could he handle this with such calm detachment? Because David was a very different character from Saul. Therefore, though he knew that Saul's actions were irrational and wrong, he could take them in stride and deal with them in a constructive way. Not so when Nathan came to him with the story of the rich man who stole and kill the poor man's one ewe lamb. In this case, David burned with anger--even though earlier he had calmly dealt with Saul's repeated attempts to murder him. Why did he burn with anger? Because Nathan's story was really about David himself. David himself was the rich man. And his swift and harsh judgment was driven by his own inner, but suppressed, awareness of his own crime and his own sin. Saul's wrongs had nothing to do with David, and he could deal with them rationally. The rich man's crime struck a little too close to home--and David lashed out in anger. But he was really lashing out at himself. How often have we done this? How often do we continue to do this? Perhaps when we find ourselves really flying off the handle at some real or perceived wrong that someone has done, it is time to look within our own soul, and seek out the inner source of that burning anger. If we find that we are unable to control ourselves in the face of particular "offenses" committed by the people around us, perhaps it is time to take a closer look at ourselves, and see whether we are really angry at ourselves for our own wrong feelings, faulty attitudes, and hurtful behavior. Does this mean that what the other person has done is not wrong? That it's all in our head? Maybe and maybe not. The other person may be entirely innocent. On the other hand, the other person may be dead wrong. Recall that there _is_ a speck in the other person's eye in Jesus' parable. And we may need to help that person remove the speck from his or her eye. We are here to help one another, as well as to correct ourselves. The issue here is not so much whether the other person is right or wrong, as it is the way in which we respond to the other person. Do we pronounce harsh judgment with indignant anger in our voice? Or do we approach the other person with mercy and forgiveness, and an effort to separate the wrong from the person? If we cannot keep our cool and act from motives of love, it is a telltale sign that we have a plank in our own eye that is in serious need of removal. I am reminded of a short story by Edgar Allen Poe in which a man is sitting by his window looking through a telescope at a nearby mountain. Suddenly he sees a huge, hairy, and very scary monster rushing headlong-down the mountain straight toward his house! He is about to sound the alarm to the household and to the whole town when he notices that there is a fly crawling down the other end of the telescope. Perhaps the plank in our own eye is a matter of perspective. Perhaps we have the same speck of sawdust in our eye that our brothers and sisters have in theirs. We think it's "out there," which makes it look huge. But it's really very close to home--right on the pupil of our own eye. Let's work on getting that plank--or speck--out of our own eye first. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Jan 26 21:14:48 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 16:14:48 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "After Me, the Deluge," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030126161350.02ac7a28@mail.leewoof.net> "After Me, the Deluge" By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, January 26, 2003 Readings: 1 Kings 11:1-13: Solomon's wives and their gods King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth, and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's command. So the Lord said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen." Matthew 24:1-8: Signs of the end of the age Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains." Arcana Coelestia #842.3: Chaos and order Before anything is restored to order, it is very common for everything first to be reduced to a state of confusion resembling chaos. In this way, things that are not compatible may be separated from one another. Once they have been separated, the Lord arranges them into order. Events like this take place in nature also, where every single thing is first reduced to a state of confusion before being put in its proper place. Unless atmospheric conditions included strong winds to disperse contaminants, the air could not possibly be cleared, and toxic substances would accumulate in it. The same applies to the human body. All things in the bloodstream, both contaminants and normal constituents of the blood, flow together continually and repeatedly into the same heart, where they are mixed together. Without this, the vital fluids would be in danger of clotting, and each constituent could not be precisely organized to perform its proper function. The same thing applies to our spiritual rebirth. Sermon: The Lord said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates." (1 Kings 11:11) Have you ever had one of those times when you felt that your whole life had come to an end? A time when everything that mattered was lost, destroyed, crushed, ruined? I suspect every one of us has experienced a time like this--and many of us more than once in the course of our lifetimes. It is a terrible, sinking feeling. It's like in the old movies where one of the characters is galloping madly along on a horse, and sees the cliff too late to rein the horse in, and both horse and rider go hurtling over the edge of the cliff to their deaths. It is the feeling of having gone off the cliff, and now there is nothing we can do but wait, in those frozen moments that seem like hours, for our own inevitable end. It is even worse when, as we go over that cliff, we realize that it's our own darn fault that we're there. As we contemplate the abyss rushing up on us, we realize that we got to this point-of-no-return by ignoring all those warnings, by pressing on ahead against the advice and even the pleading of our family and friends, and by silencing our own higher self, which had been trying desperately to get us to take a better path. So as we rush toward our doom, we engage in a sort of deathbed repentance, in which we finally (when it seems too late anyway) castigate ourselves for our obstinacy and our wrongful behavior. We may even promise we'll change our ways if we miraculously manage to survive. Or, we may still not see the error of our ways, and go out blaming our destruction on everyone else _except_ ourselves. It doesn't matter. Our life as we knew it is over, no matter whose fault we think it is. Whether we got ourselves into this mess, or we are a victim of someone else, or it was just circumstances, or some combination, if we survive the crash at all, everything will be different. Our old life will be gone. We will have to start over. And it certainly looks like even if we do survive, things will be a lot worse than they were before. In our Old Testament reading for today, King Solomon was looking over just this kind of cliff. Solomon had had a glorious reign. His father David, who was the most successful military leader in Israel's history, had greatly enlarged the kingdom, expanding it to reach lucrative seaports and control crucial trade routes. Solomon's wealth and splendor was built on the conquests of his father. And as so often happens when we are living off the labor of others, Solomon began to take all that wealth and power for granted. And he began to abuse it, increasingly focusing his life on glory and pleasure rather than on the wise governing of his kingdom. Thus he set himself--or rather, he set up his son Rehoboam--for the inevitable collapse of the kingdom. There is an old French saying (which I won't attempt to repeat in French): "After me, the deluge." It is said that France's King Louis XV made this remark when taken to task for his extravagance; but it was probably his mistress, the dazzling Madame de Pompadour, who actually said it. Either way, it turned out to be prophetic. Louis XVI, the grandson of Louis XV, reaped the whirlwind sown by his predecessors, and was swept away in the French Revolution--even though he himself was relatively modest, unassuming, and moral. By that time the die had been cast. The burden of ostentatious and wasteful spending, and continued ruinous wars, had stretched the country's economy and the people's patience to their limit. The monarchy had sown the seeds of its own destruction. And though France's subsequent history was quite turbulent, the country eventually settled down to become a parliamentary democracy, its monarchy a thing of the past. The deluge had swept away the old, and made room for the new. It would be nice if the story of Solomon's kingdom and nation had a happy ending. Alas, Israel never recovered from the deluge that followed his reign. After Solomon, the northern kingdom was torn from the hands of his son Rehoboam, just as the Lord had predicted to Solomon. The kingdom continued divided until the northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive by the Assyrian Empire, and never heard from again. In course of time, the southern kingdom of Judah was also taken captive, by the Babylonian Empire. And though a group of Israelites did return after seventy years and rebuild the temple, Israel as a nation was never revived in Biblical times. The Israel of New Testament times was not a sovereign nation, but a province of the Roman Empire, ruled by Roman governors and by local puppet kings. And as predicted in our New Testament reading, even these last vestiges of the nation of Israel came to an end in 70 AD, when, responding to a Jewish rebellion, the Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and banished the Jews from Palestine on pain of death. If there had been any doubt before, it was now clear that Israel was finished. It would be nice if I could stand here and tell you that whenever we have a major crisis in our lives, it is always leading toward something good. But neither history nor individual experience bears that out. All the crisis does is sweep out the old, so that our lives can never be the same again. What happens next--whether our lives go in a good direction or a bad one from there--depends very much on how we respond, and what we do next. Yes, the crisis is useful and necessary. Generally we come to one of those cliff-edge experiences when our life has settled into a pattern that is inherently unstable, or even toxic. And that means we will be destroyed if something doesn't break up our pattern. As Swedenborg says in our reading from _Arcana Coelestia_, "Before anything is restored to order, it is very common for everything first to be reduced to a state of confusion resembling chaos. In this way, things that are not compatible may be separated from one another." And though it may feel like the Lord has struck us a blow due to our thoughtless and evil ways, in fact it is the thoughtlessness and evil itself that has brought about the crisis. To use the example of another modern nation, when the Soviet Union collapsed a little over a decade ago, our country enjoyed taking credit for its demise. It was because of our steadfast resistance to communism, we said, and our military buildup, which the Soviet Union couldn't match without crippling its economy. But the Soviet economy was already crippled by the contradictions within its own system of government. The Soviet Union did not collapse because of outside pressure, but because the economic and political principles it followed were unsound. In other words, the Soviet Union internally sowed the seeds of its own destruction, and those seeds ripened in, yes, about seventy years. Though the Lord does not bring about these crises that sweep out the old, they _are_ a part of the Lord's providence in keeping humanity as a whole, and each of us as individuals, moving forward instead of stagnating socially, politically, and--most important of all--spiritually. Evil is inherently self-contradictory and unstable. And to the extent that we participate in it--whether consciously or unconsciously, whether intentionally or not--our lives will carry seeds of instability and contradiction that must eventually end in a crisis, a chaos, that will break up and sweep away our old, unworkable patterns of living. When that inevitable breakup happens; when we find ourselves sailing over that cliff, it certainly does look like our life is over. And in a sense, it is over. A death is taking place. It is the death of our old self. Yet our church teaches us that death is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is a normal and necessary part of existence. Our old self must die if we are to be reborn as a new person. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" (John 12:24). Just as our former life carried the seeds of its own destruction, so the death of our old life carries the seeds of a new and more abundant life. Will those seeds grow and bear fruit? That, as I said, is up to us. It is quite possible for our old self to die, and for us to continue clinging to it so tenaciously that we die right along with it. Some alcoholics, for example, never give up their drinking even when they have lost family, friends, work, health, and everything else. They go to their grave with a bottle in their hand. Rebirth is not inevitable. But it is possible. And it is not our work, but the Lord's. This is the crucial matter to understand. We cannot cause our own rebirth, any more than we can cause a seed to grow. We can only let go of our old, destructive feelings, attitudes, and habits, and allow the Lord not only to plant the seeds of the new, but cause them to grow and be fruitful in our lives. The crisis, the deluge, is precisely about letting go of our own control of our lives, and turning our lives over to God. Only the Lord's way is eternal. Our own way is temporary, and must eventually come to an end. Every time we go through a crisis, and it shakes us loose from controlling one more part of our lives in favor of putting the Lord in charge there, we replace the temporary with the eternal, and allow the Lord to prepare eternal mansions for us in heaven. "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains." Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Feb 9 20:54:36 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2003 15:54:36 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "The Labor of Love," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030209155255.02804d68@mail.leewoof.net> The Labor of Love By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, February 9, 2003 Readings: Genesis 2:18-24: The creation of Eve The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for the man no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Luke 20:27-36: Marriage in the Resurrection Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?" Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. Arcana Coelestia #10367: The seventh day of rest "The seventh day" means the stage of goodness that has been our goal. The six days that come before it mean our earlier stage of preparing for the heavenly marriage, and the seventh day means when we actually have that marriage within us. The heavenly marriage is when the truth and goodness within us join together, so that we become an embodiment of the church and enter heaven. Arcana Coelestia #8888: The six days of labor The conflict that comes before the heavenly marriage, and prepares us for it, is spiritual conflict, or temptation. Before we enter into the heavenly marriage--meaning before we are reborn--we are engaged in a struggle against the evil and false things within us. These have to be removed before we can receive truth and goodness from the Lord. And they are removed by means of the true ideas we get from faith. These true ideas not only teach us what is good, but also lead us to engage in that good. This is the first stage we go through when we are being reborn; it is the stage that comes before the heavenly marriage, and prepares us for it. When we are governed by what is good and are led by the Lord through it, then we have entered into the heavenly marriage. This means we are in heaven, since the heavenly marriage is heaven. Sermon: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24) Over a dozen times in his theological writings, Emanuel Swedenborg states that marital love is the fundamental love of all heavenly and spiritual loves. That is quite an unusual thing to say--especially when most traditional Christians believe, based on our reading from Luke, that there is no marriage in heaven. And yet, Swedenborg calls that love fundamental, and also insists that it is eternal, and not limited to this earth. For now, though, let's stick with this "fundamental love" business. How could marital love be the fundamental of all loves? What about love for the Lord and the neighbor? Aren't those the two most important loves in heaven and on earth? Well . . . yes. However, even these two rest on marital love. To see how this is true, we need to take a higher view of marriage. We need to consider where marriage comes from. From a purely biological perspective, marriage is simply a human cultural and legal manifestation of the urge to mate and procreate that is one of the basic drives throughout the entire animal kingdom. Like all the other higher animals, humans come in male and female. And the continuation of the species depends on the two coming together and mating, and then protecting, nurturing, and raising their young through the greatly extended time that human babies take to reach maturity. A long term commitment between a male and a female of the species is one of the best ways to make sure that happens--and marriage is the result. However, as Christians and Swedenborgians, we do not look at anything from a purely biological perspective. In our view, everything in the material world--including the entire realm of biology--is an expression of deeper, spiritual realities. And since humans come in male and female, and the two are clearly designed to mate, produce offspring, and raise them to maturity, this also must reflect a deeper, spiritual reality. When we consider the spiritual reality that marriage reflects, we can understand why marital love, spiritually speaking, is the fundamental love of all loves--just as in biology, without the mating of male and female, all other loves would come to an end because the species would cease to exist. To get to the root of the matter, we must go on beyond even the spiritual level of reality right to the nature of God. If, as we believe, the universe and everything in it was and is created out of the Divine Being, then marriage, too, must reflect something about the nature of God. And what it reflects is the fundamental nature of the Divine Being. Marriage, Swedenborg tells us, is a human manifestation of the core marriage in God: the marriage of God's infinite love with God's infinite wisdom. These two, perfectly united or "married" in God, are God's being and essence. And from this divine marriage come everything God does and everything God says. God's words and works are the "children" that come from the marriage of love and wisdom in God. Now we can begin to see why Swedenborg could be so bold as to say that marital love is the fundamental love of all heavenly and spiritual loves. In human beings, marital love is the primary expression of the union of love and wisdom in God. It is the primary expression of the divine marriage that is the source of everything in the universe. Even our ability to love God and the neighbor depend on marital love. But this is easier to grasp if, instead of trying to derive those loves from the marriage between a man and a woman, we trace them instead to the marriage that takes place within each one of us. Just as God is a marriage between infinite divine love and wisdom, so each one of us, spiritually, is a marriage between the love and wisdom within us. Or to use more popular terms, each one of us is a marriage between heart and head--which leads to all that our hands do. Whatever in us is head only or heart only is not fully real. Either it's "all in our head" or it's just a vague emotion without any means of expressing itself. Only those parts of ourselves where our head and our heart get together--"get married," so to speak--do we have any reality. When we love something and we also understand it, then we are able and willing to express it in words and actions, and it becomes real. An example might help. Let's say I have a great desire to share spiritual truth with you through preaching sermons, but I don't know the first thing about how to research and write a sermon. I may have all the desire in the world, but until I learn to write and deliver a sermon, you're not going to get anything from me on Sunday morning. On the other hand, I may have all the training and knowledge I need, but have not the slightest desire to share any of my spiritual understanding with you. In that case, the motivation is lacking, and you're not going to get a sermon, either. It is only when I have both the motivating love and the enabling understanding that I will prepare and deliver a sermon for you to learn from and (I hope!) enjoy on Sunday morning. The same goes for anything else we may want to do. Only when love and understanding, heart and head, get together and are "married" within us does anything about us become real, and get expressed in our words and actions. This is just as true of loving the Lord and our neighbor as it is of writing sermons, building houses, raising children, running a business, or any of the other things we do. Only when the love and wisdom, the goodness and truth within us are married do these become real. That marriage does not happen automatically, and it usually doesn't happen easily. The first few practice sermons I wrote in seminary have, thankfully, disappeared into the dustbin of history. There is a learning curve in everything we do, and our early efforts tend to demonstrate just how much work remains before we become proficient. In learning a musical instrument, we spend years practicing and struggling to master the music and the instrument before we can play beautiful music for all to enjoy. The same is true of every other significant thing we do, from walking to building skyscrapers. It is even more true of becoming angels. Though we come into this world innocent and in some ways angelic, we also come into this world largely wrapped up in our own feelings, wants, and needs. For most of us, it takes a lifetime to get things turned around so that instead of thinking of ourselves and our own comforts, possessions, status, and influence first, we think of our fellow human beings first, and finally of the Lord first, in everything we think and do. We have to clear out a lot of self-centeredness and overcome our inherent focus on material pleasures and possessions in order to refocus our lives on loving the Lord above all and our neighbor as ourselves. Engaging in this process of bringing our lower desires, related to the world and ourselves, under the rule of those higher loves and motivations is the "labor of love" that we are engaged in throughout our lives on earth. While we are going through that struggle, that labor of love, our head and heart are often at war with one another. Our old, unregenerate heart says, "that person hurt me; I'm going to strike back," while our new, reforming head says, "No, retaliation and revenge just make things worse, and they are wrong." Or our new heart says, "I want to love others as much as I love myself," and our old, unregenerate head says, "That's ridiculous. You have to take care of number one first. If you don't take care of yourself, no one else will." From these inner battles of our head with our heart, and of our old head and heart with our new head and heart, come all our outer battles. The Apostle James pointed this out nearly two thousand years ago: "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" he asked. "Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" (James 4:1). Until our new, higher head and heart prevail in these battles, there can be no marriage of the love and wisdom within us--no marriage of heart and head leading to the spiritual "children" of kind and useful actions that come from love for our neighbor and for the Lord. This battle within us--and the marriage of head and heart that comes when, with the Lord's help, we prevail in the battle--must take place while we are still living here on earth. Spiritually, if we do not "get married" within ourselves while we are living in the body, we will never enter the great wedding feast of heaven that Jesus refers to in his parables (Matthew 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Luke 12:35-38, Revelation 19:7, 9). It is _spiritual_ weddings that Jesus is speaking of in our reading from Luke. Although the common description of this passage is "marriage in the resurrection," the Greek words used are about _getting_ married--or weddings--not about the state of _being_ married. Jesus is saying, "If you want to enter the heavenly marriage, you must get married in your soul here on earth. Once you get to the other world, it is too late to get married spiritually. Getting married in our souls is something all of us can do, whether or not we happen to be married in the usual sense of the word. We can all fight the inner battle against our old, unregenerate selves, and bring our heart and head into the inner union of marriage. And if we wish to be in a happy and growing marriage here or in heaven, we must fight that inner battle and achieve that heavenly marriage within ourselves. The quality of our relationships with others depends upon the quality of the relationships within us. If we do not have marriage and friendship within, we will never have true marriage and friendship outwardly. Now we are finally ready to talk a little bit about our marriage relationships. Fairy tales and romance novels generally end with a wedding, and we are told, either explicitly or implicitly, "And they lived happily ever after." For those of us who actually get married, though, the story doesn't end on the wedding day. It keeps on going--and somehow the "happily ever after" part usually doesn't quite turn out as advertised. When we are living at such close quarters with another person, very soon the social veneer we've managed to put on for outward consumption wears thin, and we come face to face with the person underneath the veneer--and I'm speaking not just of our partner, but especially of ourselves. This is when the labor of love begins. The struggles and difficulties we have with our marital partners are, at root, really not battles _between_ us, but battles _within_ us. To repeat the words of James quoted earlier, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" It is when our own remaining self-centeredness rears its ugly head that we butt heads with our partners. And learning to get along with and love our partners is also a process of overcoming the faults within us--of "repenting from our sins," to use the Bible's language. We must take our natural, inward-looking love for ourselves and redirect it toward our partner. And if our marriage bears the "fruit" of children, we must redirect that love toward our children as well. This is the deeper meaning of the story of Eve's creation out of Adam. Remember that God had already created humans male and female in Genesis 1. So the building of Adam's (or more accurately, "the human's") rib into Eve must have a different meaning. Spiritually, it refers to the difficult and painful process of ripping our self-centered love out of our chest, away from our heart, and loving instead another person who is close to us--who is our counterpart and our "soul mate." This is true whether we happen to be male or female. Our labor of love is to fight the inner battle against putting ourselves and our own comfort and pleasure first. It is also the struggle to unite our heart with our head, our motives, feelings, and emotions with our thoughts, understanding, and wisdom. Only as we fight these inner battles and make that spiritual marriage within ourselves will we be able to experience a full, deep, and happy love in our marriages, and in our other relationships as well. When we have gotten married in our souls here on earth, we are prepared for the great wedding banquet of heaven. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Feb 16 23:26:10 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:26:10 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Powerful Innocence," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030216182518.02737df8@mail.leewoof.net> Powerful Innocence By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, February 16, 2003 Readings: Daniel 6: Daniel in the lions' den It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred twenty satraps, stationed throughout the whole kingdom, and over them three administrators, including Daniel; to these the satraps gave account, so that the king might suffer no loss. Soon Daniel distinguished himself above all the other administrators and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to appoint him over the whole kingdom. So the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for complaint against Daniel in connection with the kingdom. But they could find no grounds for complaint or any corruption, because he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption could be found in him. The men said, "We will not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God." So the administrators and satraps conspired and came to the king and said to him, "O King Darius, live forever! All the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an decree, that whoever prays to anyone, divine or human, for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked." Therefore King Darius signed the document and decree. Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. The conspirators came and found Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God. Then they approached the king and said concerning the decree, "O king! Did you not sign an decree that anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human, within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions?" The king answered, "The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked." Then they responded to the king, "Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you have signed, but he is saying his prayers three times a day." When the king heard the charge, he was very much distressed. He was determined to save Daniel, and until the sun went down he made every effort to rescue him. Then the conspirators came to the king and said to him, "Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed." Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, "May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!" A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him, and sleep fled from him. Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?" Daniel then said to the king, "O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found innocent before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong." Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions--they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces. Then King Darius wrote to all peoples and nations of every language throughout the whole world: "May you have abundant prosperity! I make a decree that in all my royal dominion people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions." So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Matthew 10:16: Wise as snakes, innocent as doves I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as snakes and as innocent as doves. Arcana Coelestia #5608.9: Innocence of ignorance and of wisdom The innocence of little children is all on the outside, and not on the inside. Since it is not on the inside, it cannot be united with any wisdom. But the innocence in angels, especially angels of the third heaven, is on the inside, so it is together with wisdom. We have been created so that when we grow old and become like little children, the innocence of wisdom unites itself to the innocence of ignorance that we had when we were little children. In this state we pass over into the next life as true little children. Sermon Daniel said to the king, "O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found innocent before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong." (Daniel 6:21, 22) Not many people these days want to be thought of as innocent--unless, of course, they happen to be a defendant in a court case. Come to think of it, innocence other than the legal kind has rarely been considered a highly desirable character trait. Innocence brings to our mind naivet?, childishness, weakness. And in this world of money, power, and business, we generally prefer to project an air of sophistication, maturity, and power. If someone were to say to us, "You're so innocent," it would probably not be meant as a compliment. And the last thing we want to be called is "childish." Yet Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" (Mark 10:15). And Swedenborg, echoing this teaching of Jesus in more abstract language, says in several places, "No one can enter heaven without some measure of innocence" (Arcana Coelestia #2780, 3519, 3994.2). Elsewhere he reports that the higher the heaven, the greater the innocence of the angels who live there. Yet contrary to the world's viewpoint, he says that along with the increase of innocence in the higher heavens, there is also an increase in power. This is not the weak innocence that the world holds in contempt, but a powerful innocence. How could innocence be powerful? And why should it be so desirable, so essential, that we cannot get into heaven without it? To get at the answers to these questions, it might help to explore more fully the meaning of innocence. My dictionary gives no less than six definitions of innocence. Two of them relate to the na?ve kind of innocence that our society finds so undesirable. They can be summarized by the words "inexperienced" and "unaware"--or to use a somewhat less positive word, "ignorant." Another definition deals with the legal meaning of innocence: being not guilty of a crime or of unethical behavior. Related to this is the sense of innocence as being not dangerous or harmful. There is also the sense of being simple, honest, and without guile. And closest to a more spiritual definition of innocence is the first definition in my dictionary: "Uncorrupted by evil, malice, or wrongdoing; sinless; untainted; pure." Most of these definitions stay fairly close to the derivation of the word "innocent" from two Latin words that mean "not to harm." And if we consider innocence of character as the source of innocence in our actions, then all of these definitions have to do with not doing any harm. If we are uncorrupted by evil and malice, we will not do harm. And if we are inexperienced and unaware, we generally don't have the capacity to do harm--or at least, not to do intentional harm. Most of these definitions also verge toward what Swedenborg would call "the innocence of ignorance." This is the innocence of young children who can't be charged with wrong because they don't know any better. Even being "uncorrupted by evil" can imply that we simply haven't dealt with evil so far, and therefore have not been corrupted by it. This kind of innocence could be called "negative innocence," in the sense that we are innocent because something is lacking. And the something that is lacking is the knowledge or experience of what evil is. This is the innocence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Until they had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they had neither a concept of evil nor any experience of evil. Unfortunately, this kind of innocence tends to be quite fragile. The innocence of young children requires the protection of parents and other responsible adults to protect it. Without that protection, if children are exposed to human evil, they can sustain profound damage whose scars may persist throughout their entire lifetimes. Na?ve adults are also subject to deception and abuse, and can often be led astray by cunning people with ulterior motives. Whole populations that are mired in ignorance or misinformation can be carried along by unscrupulous and self-serving leaders, who paint a false picture for the people, and induce them to support and to do things they would reject if they knew their true character. A parallel to the innocence of infancy is the innocence of isolated, primitive tribes of people before they have come into contact with more civilized cultures. Even if they have continued in their tribal ways and their harmony with nature for thousands of years, these cultures tend to disintegrate fairly rapidly when faced with modern civilization. In North America, the Native Americans were decimated by alcoholism, disease, war, and oppression, so that within two centuries of the arrival of Europeans in the New World, their cultures were a shadow of their former proud selves. Similar fates have overtaken many ancient cultures in South America and Africa. Like the innocence of infants and young children, these fragile cultures in the early stages of human development depend on the protection of a large buffer zone of wilderness isolating them from corrupting influences. This is why Swedenborg, in our reading from _Arcana Coelestia_, says that the innocence of little children is all on the outside. There is a shell--almost a halo--of innocence surrounding infants and young children. And yet, it is a shell that is easily pierced, and a halo that can be quickly snuffed out. It is an innocence based on inexperience and lack of knowledge. It is the innocence of not knowing any better, and of not having the capability to do any harm. Physically, babies and small children do not have the strength to inflict any real harm on those who care for them, or even on their older siblings. Even though they may flail their fists around and sometimes connect, no one gets hurt. This is a physical image of their spiritual state: their minds and their wills are still undeveloped, and do not yet have the knowledge or the force to do any harm. Parallel to this, primitive societies are generally unable to do great damage to the ecosystem because they lack the scientific knowledge and the technology that is required to inflict major ecological damage. Back to the individual, as babies and small children grow into older children, teenagers, and adults, this all changes. Spiritually, we grow in knowledge and in the power of our will. Physically, we grow in height and strength. When we reach the traditional age when our schooling begins, we are beginning to have the ability to inflict real pain. By the time we reach our pre-teen and teenage years, that ability has become an established fact. At the same time, we are continually gaining in our knowledge and awareness of what is right and wrong, so that when we do hurt someone else--either physically or emotionally--we are often quite well aware of the fact that we are doing so. As this change takes place in us, our early innocence of ignorance wanes. Those cute things we did as babies stop being so cute, and instead of having a childlike innocence, we can become just plain childish. The early but external innocence of our infancy is gone. Yet even in the innocence of ignorance--the innocence of not knowing any better--there is a certain spiritual power. Even the most hardened person will occasionally feel some tenderness in the presence of a baby. I am reminded of a story about an Eastern master training a strong and proud young warrior, who believed he was more than a match for any possible opponent. When his master informed him that there was someone far more powerful than he in the room, he bristled, raised himself up to his full height, and demanded to be brought to this worthy opponent so that he might show his prowess in combat. When brought to the opponent, this muscle-bound warrior was soon crouching on the floor, reduced to cooing and making silly faces. You see, his opponent was a little baby, whose aura of innocence completely overcame the young, headstrong warrior. Swedenborg also tells us that because of their innocence, all babies and children who die are brought to heaven, raised there, and become angels. Since they have done no wrong from moral choice or evil intent, but rather any wrong they have done was done in ignorance of its true nature, and in mere reaction to their inborn natures and their social environment, no evil has become permanently attached to their souls. Therefore the evil spirits who would attack them and drag them down to hell can have no power over them, and any evil acquired in the world is shed relatively easily, just like the clothing that children outgrow so quickly. Moving a little beyond the pure innocence of ignorance, there is also a certain power in the (still negative) innocence of having done no wrong. Yes, courts can be corrupt, or simply mistaken, and innocent people do sometimes get wrongly convicted and punished for crimes they did not commit. Still, an innocent person going into a courtroom as a defendant has a much greater chance of being acquitted than a guilty person. And outside the courtroom, in human relations generally, if we are innocent of any wrong, and keep our hands clean, then like Daniel, though the attacks may come and we may have to spend our night of darkness in the den with the fearsome lions, the night will finally be over--whether it takes days, weeks, or years--and we will emerge shaken, but unscathed. However, there is another, higher meaning of innocence that may be implied, but is not spelled out in the common dictionary definitions. There is a positive kind of innocence that is not merely a lack of knowledge and experience, nor even a lack of wrongdoing. The innocence of young children comes not only from their lack of knowledge and experience, but also from their realization, consciously or unconsciously, that they need to follow the guidance of their parents, teachers, and other caretakers who are older and wiser than they are. Young children will, without any sense of embarrassment, come and ask to have their shoes tied, or for something to eat, or to be comforted when hurt. In our early stages, we have not yet built up the pride and pretensions of ego that prevent us as adults from asking directions or allowing ourselves to be led and guided by another person. In children, this type of positive innocence, which is the willingness to be led by another person, is still largely based on ignorance and inexperience. Still, it is an early manifestation of a far more powerful innocence that can develop in us only over a lifetime of experience in the struggles of this world and the struggles of our soul. You see, as we move on in this life, the pride and self-assuredness of our adolescent and early adult years takes a severe beating. We encounter experiences in life in which even if we use our greatest mental powers and focus all our energies on accomplishing some goal or overcoming some bad habit or addiction, we fail. And through those failures, we learn a crucial lesson: that we are not self-sufficient; that we do not have the intelligence nor the strength of will to go it alone. We discover that we need to rely on a wisdom and a power greater than our own. It is only through the experience of painful defeats in this world that we finally come to this realization. It is only when we have tried our best from our own strength, and have been defeated, that we begin to recognize our own human weakness and ignorance. For most of us, it is only after we have passed through the greater part of our working life that we truly "get it," and realize that we cannot rely on ourselves; that we must, instead, put our trust and reliance in the Lord's greater power and wisdom. This, my friends, is the innocence of wisdom. It is the innocence of having seen all the evil that the world has to offer, of having suffered at its hands, and coming out from that crucible a transformed person, ready at last to trust and follow the Lord in everything we do. It is the innocence of Daniel that saves us from the jaws of the devouring lions of evil ways and false ideas, not by our own power, but by trusting in the infinite power of the Lord. It is the powerful innocence of being in the flow of God's providence and God's love. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Feb 23 20:07:37 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 15:07:37 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "The Lesson of a Vine," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030223150637.02ad6e28@mail.leewoof.net> The Lesson of a Vine By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, February 23, 2003 Readings Jonah 4: Jonah and the vine But this was very distressing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, "O Lord! Is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And the Lord said, "Is it right for you to be angry?" Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a shelter for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a vine, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the vine. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the vine, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint, and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" Luke 11:29-36: The sign of Jonah and the Ninevites As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. "No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hiding place or under a bowl, but on a lamp stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you." Apocalypse Explained # 401.36: The meaning of the vine The vine, which the worm attacked so that it dried up, symbolizes selfish love and the false ideas that come from it--especially the selfishness of not wishing well to anyone but ourselves. The sun that beat down on Jonah's head symbolizes self-love, and the scorching east wind symbolizes the falsity that comes from it. The worm that attacked the vine symbolizes the destruction of this evil and falsity. Sermon Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" (Jonah 4:10, 11) Noah and the Ark. David and Goliath. Daniel in the Lion's Den, Jonah and the Whale. These and other memorable stories in the Bible read as if they were deliberately constructed to stick in our minds and carry with them a moral and spiritual lesson. And of course, from our perspective, they _were_ deliberately constructed for those purposes--and more. Whether they literally happened as described or not, each carries a clear message, even on the literal level. Noah and the Ark encourages us to follow God's directions, and hold on through our times of struggle. David and Goliath helps us to have courage when we face seemingly insurmountable odds. Daniel in the Lion's Den tells us to be true to our convictions, even when it looks like we will be destroyed as a result, and the Lord will protect us. And Jonah and the Whale (or Big Fish) tells us . . . well, what _does_ the story of Jonah tell us? The book of Jonah consists of four short chapters. We can easily read the whole thing in five or ten minutes. Here is the gist of it, as expressed by the Rev. Louis G. Hoeck in _The Sower_ Bible Study Notes: Jonah is commanded to pronounce judgment upon Nineveh for its wickedness. He fears that the Lord will be merciful, and that his message of judgment will be futile, and therefore disobeys the command. He goes down to Joppa, and takes ship for Tarshish, or Tartessus in Spain. A storm overtakes the ship. The sailors cast lots to find out the cause of their misfortune. The lot falls on the unconcerned Jonah. He confesses his disobedience, and counsels the sailors to cast him into the sea. They seek to avoid this, but they are compelled at last to follow his counsel to save themselves. The sea becomes calm. A great fish swallows Jonah. He prays to the Lord, and after three days, the fish casts him forth upon the land. Again the Lord commands Jonah to go to Nineveh. He proceeds thither. The Ninevites repent, and the Lord has mercy on them. Jonah is angry because his mission seems to have failed. He goes outside the city and asks to be allowed to die. The Lord prepares a gourd to protect the prophet from the sun's heat, for which he is very thankful. The gourd perishes the following night. Jonah has pity for it. Yet he has no sympathy for the ignorant living souls in the city. It is an engaging tale in itself. But it takes on even greater meaning when we realize that Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire, which eventually conquered the Jonah's nation, the Kingdom of Israel, and carried away as captives its people, who were never heard from again. In other words, Jonah was asked to preach repentance to the mortal enemies of his own nation. This explains why as soon as the command came from the Lord, he got on a ship, intending to go as far as he could in the opposite direction! Of course, he didn't get away with it. After his famous three days and nights inside the fish, Jonah figured he might as well obey the Lord's command to go and preach repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh. Much to his dismay and disgust, the Ninevites actually listened to him, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. Still, Jonah hoped against hope that the Lord would carry out his threat anyway, and destroy the city, ridding Israel of its most dangerous enemy. And so he took up his position east of the city to see what would happen. There he built a shelter to protect himself from the elements. Apparently it wasn't quite sufficient for that purpose, since the Lord helped him by making a vine (traditionally a "gourd") grow up as a shade and a comfort to Jonah. Finally God had done something Jonah liked! But just as fast as the vine grew up, God sent a worm to chew the vine and kill it. And as if that wasn't enough, God also sent a scorching east wind, which, added to the blazing sun, brought Jonah to the brink of heat prostration. Meanwhile, the city of Nineveh just sat there, with no fire and brimstone raining down from heaven to consume it. So much for God doing things that Jonah liked! Jonah was definitely having a bad day. Well . . . we sometimes have those kinds of days, too. Days when everything seems to go right for the people we think are wrong, and everything goes wrong for us. That's not how it's supposed to work! God is supposed to take care of us and blast our enemies, not the other way around! And when God doesn't do what he's supposed to do, that can make us mighty cranky. It certainly made Jonah cranky. After all, his people were the chosen people. They were God's own nation, set aside from all the others for God's special care and love. As far as Jonah was concerned, the world revolved around his people, and all other nations were an afterthought, if not an anathema. In fact, the story of Jonah, like a number of the other prophets, is part of a crucial turning point in the history of the Hebrew people. Throughout most of the historical books in the Old Testament, Israel is portrayed as God's special, chosen people. Other nations are to be avoided or, if they happen to get in the way, subjugated and exterminated. We are good, they are evil. Of course, the Israelites were not unique in this. Most nations had the same belief about themselves--and this continues to be true of many nations today. However, by the time of the divided kingdom, when many of the prophets were active, that sense of ultimate superiority on the part of the Israelites was beginning to show cracks. First, in the Biblical view, God began to use other nations to punish the Israelites for their violations of his commandments--for their spiritually "adulterous" ways. Instead of always giving Israel the ultimate victory, as God had in the past, God now allowed Israel to suffer defeats from which it never completely recovered. Whole chunks of territory were torn away from the once proud and locally powerful nation, now hopelessly divided into two kingdoms that did not always stick up for each other. Then the threat of total defeat and captivity was first warned of by the prophets, and then actually took place, first in the northern kingdom, by the Assyrians, and then in the southern kingdom, by the Babylonians. Jonah's story takes place in the context of this gradual slide into corruption and eventual defeat. And as in all such episodes in our lives, the Lord uses our discomfort and anguish as an opening to attempt to reach us with a new and changed view of life, and our place in it. For the Israelites, though they made heroic efforts, it was awfully hard to maintain the idea that they were God's special people, chosen above all others, when they seemed to be continually on the defensive, continually losing ground to other nations. And their prophets began giving them a new message: God is not only with our people; God is also with the other peoples of the world. This is one of the clear messages in the book of Jonah. When God sent Jonah to prophesy to Nineveh, the capital city of Israel's archenemy, this was a shocking departure from God's usual ways. In the past, the prophets' work had always been with their own people. Maybe they were preaching fire and brimstone to the people, but even that was a sign that God cared enough about his special people to rebuke and chasten them. It was _our_ fire and brimstone! In sending Jonah to rebuke and chasten an enemy of Israel, God was saying, "I care about your enemies just as much as I care about you." This, Jonah simply couldn't accept. It went against everything he understood about the history of his people and their relationship with God. So he first ran away from the call, and only after being softened up by a hurricane at sea and three days confined inside a fish did he grudgingly go and preach to the people of Nineveh, as commanded. And the worst thing was that they repented! This meant that God would not destroy them after all--which was the only part of his mission and message that gave Jonah any pleasure. This was the context of our story for today, which is the fourth and final chapter of the book of Jonah. His job of preaching to Nineveh completed, Jonah went outside the city to see what would happen. There, he built himself a shelter. God made his shelter better by sending a fast-growing vine (or bush) to grow up and provide him shade and comfort. So Jonah sat down in the comfort of his shelter and of the soothing vine, safely isolated from these people whom he hated, but whom he had been all but compelled by God to serve in his role as a prophet. He had done what he was supposed to do, and now it was God's turn. But God's work in Nineveh was finished for the moment. They had already repented. Now God had a tougher nut to crack: Jonah himself. And since Jonah was not in any state to listen to reason, God instead sent a vine to teach Jonah the lesson he needed. It is a lesson that all the rest of us need as well--especially those of us who consider ourselves, for whatever reason, to be special in God's sight and set apart from others. The vine grew up quickly and provided Jonah shelter. And Jonah was very happy about the vine. He loved the vine because it served his own comfort. The worm that chewed on the vine, killing it, was an evil thing as far as Jonah was concerned. It destroyed what had given him comfort. And now, with the vine dead, and the blazing sun and scorching east wind assailing Jonah in his own ineffectual shelter, Jonah decided that things were so bad it was time to die. Then came the pointed closing dialog of the chapter: God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" Jonah never answers God's question. The question is left hanging for him to answer for himself. In fact, it is left hanging for all of humanity, in all following ages, to answer for ourselves. Will we care more about the ephemeral vine that gives us temporary shelter than we do about the masses of humanity, struggling in spiritual darkness, that we have been put here on earth to serve? Both the shelter that Jonah built and the vine that God sent are pictures of Jonah's self-satisfaction in his own righteousness. It is easy for us to be self-righteous as well. After all, we know the truth, and they do not. We are enlightened; they are ignorant--and probably evil. Especially if they have said or done things that have hurt us, making them our enemies. When we are in that frame of mind, in our self-absorption we develop justifications for doing nothing for all those people whom we inwardly despise, but who so greatly need our help. Even religious justifications. "They're reaping what they have sown," we may tell ourselves. "It's their own fault. Why should I help them? Am I my brother's keeper?" Though we may not admit it even to ourselves, just as Jonah never explicitly invoked God's wrath and destruction on the Ninevites, we secretly hope that those bad people will get their comeuppance--that they will suffer for their evils and for their ignorance. This is when we ourselves sorely need a lesson in the greatness of God's love and compassion. The blazing sun and scorching east wind picture Jonah's own resistance to God's universal love. God's love seems wrong to us when it extends to those people that we think God should be busy destroying. But that is not God's way. God's way is to love all people, both the "good" and the "bad." In the words of Jesus, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). And now God is asking us: Will we hide away in our shelter of self-righteousness? Or will we put our light on a lamp stand for all to see--both the people we love and care for and the people we feel we have reason to despise and avoid? Once again, Jesus said: No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hiding place or under a bowl, but on a lamp stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Mar 2 21:08:38 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 16:08:38 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "An Amazing Transformation," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030302160710.025850b8@mail.leewoof.net> An Amazing Transformation By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, March 2, 2003 Readings Joel 3:17, 18: Blessings for God's people Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord's house, and will water the valley of acacias. John 2:1-11: The miracle at Cana On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what is there between me and you? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the master of the banquet." So they took it. When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. The Heavenly City #179-82: Reborn inside and out Each of us has an inner self and an outer self. The inner one is our spiritual self, and the outer one is our material self. For us to be reborn, both of these have to be reborn. When we have not been reborn, our outer, material self is in control, and our inner self works for it. But when we have been reborn, our inner, spiritual self is in control, and our outer self works for it. So you can see that our life is arranged upside-down from birth. What should be in control is just a worker, and what should just be a worker is in control. For us to be set free, this arrangement has to be turned the other way around. This cannot happen unless we are reborn from the Lord. I will show through examples what it means for our inner self to be in control with our outer self working for it, and the other way around. If pleasure, money, and pride are all we think of as good, and we feel pleasure in hatred and revenge, and search deep inside ourselves for excuses to support all of this, then our outer self is in control and our inner self is working for it. But if we feel goodness and joy in thinking and wanting what is good, honest, and fair, and in saying and doing these things outwardly, then our inner self is in control and our outer self is working for it. Our inner self is reborn from the Lord first, and our outer self is reborn through it afterwards. This is because our inner self is reborn by thinking things that have to do with faith and kindness, but our outer self is reborn by a life in harmony with them. This is what the Lord meant when he said, "Unless you have been born from both water and spirit, you cannot enter God's realm" (John 3:5). In the spiritual meaning, "water" is the truth that goes with faith, and "spirit" is a life in harmony with it. When we have been reborn, our inner self is in heaven, where we are angels together with the angels we will live with after we die. We can then live a heavenly life, love the Lord, love other people, understand what is true, sense what is good, and feel happy because of this. Sermon Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the master of the banquet." (John 2:7, 8) The Gospel of John, like the Gospel of Mark, does not start with the story of Jesus' birth--at least, not in a literal sense as it is told in Matthew and Luke. Instead, John starts with a philosophical and spiritual account of the Jesus' origin in God as the eternal Word, and of "the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us." It proceeds to an account of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord, and then the Lord himself comes on the scene in the flesh, calling the first of his disciples in preparation for his public ministry. As Luke tells us, this took place when Jesus was about thirty years old (Luke 3:23). In the Gospel of John, the story of the miracle at Cana (or of changing water into wine) is presented as the first act of Jesus' public ministry after the calling of his first disciples. And it is significant that it is with deeds, not words, that Jesus begins to show his divine nature to the world. It is also significant that his first miracle takes place at a wedding. Literally and socially, a wedding is one of the most joyful and one of the most life-changing events in any person's life. Once married, for good or for ill, nothing will ever be the same again. If the marriage is a good one, two lives have begun to coalesce into one, transforming both into something that they never were before. In many places throughout the Prophets and the Gospels, marriage is invested with a deep spiritual significance. This seemingly human ritual is given a meaning far beyond the physical and social plane that it is ordinarily associated with. The spiritual marriage, we are told, is between the Lord and the church. The Lord desires to have a close and intimate relationship with the gathering of his people, his followers throughout the world. It is this spiritual body of believers, and not any human organization, that is truly the church of the Lord. And we are told that the Lord wishes to get engaged and then married to this church, seen as a vast human spiritual organism. That spiritual marriage is a reflection of the divine marriage that takes place eternally within the Divine itself. The Lord's divine love, which is the very substance of God, is eternally betrothing and marrying the Lord's divine wisdom. The universe and everything in it is a child of that divine marriage. And on a deeper level, all the love we feel and all the truth we know and understand are also children of that infinitely fruitful divine marriage. This means that marriage is at the very core of ultimate reality, and is the source of all that exists. Therefore in the Gospel of John--the deepest and most philosophical of the Gospels--Jesus chooses to begin his public ministry where everything in the universe begins: at the celebration of a wedding feast. At this wedding, unfortunately for the bridegroom and his master of ceremonies, the wine has run out. This may not seem like such a big deal--especially since the guests have apparently already had a bit too much anyway. But in ancient Near Eastern culture, hospitality to guests was considered a sacred duty. Running out of anything while entertaining guests--and especially running out of wine--was a great disaster and a great humiliation. Apparently this particular wedding involved friends of Jesus' family of birth, since his mother was there, and he and his disciples were invited as well. And apparently Mary, the mother of Jesus, believed he could do something about this minor catastrophe. She said to him, "They have no wine." Jesus, not recognizing her as his mother, but instead with the respectful title of "woman," seems to put her off. But she is not put off, and instructs the servants to do whatever he tells them. Her belief in his abilities is not disappointed. But how subtly Jesus works the miracle! He does not make a great show of it. Instead, he tells the servants to fill with water the six stone water jars standing at the house--jars whose use is identified as vessels for water used in the Jewish rites of purification. The servants, eager to do their duty well, fill the jars right to the brim. Even then, Jesus does not wave his arms and utter magic words, but simply instructs the servants to draw some out from the jars and bring it to the master of the banquet--whose job it was to see to it that all the guests were well fed and entertained, and that everything in the feast went smoothly. We are left with the impression that it was when the water was drawn out of the stone jars that it became wine. And when the master of the banquet tasted the wine, he marveled at its quality, saying to the bridegroom, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." He did not know where this fine wine had come from. The story closes by informing us that this was the first of Jesus' signs (or miracles), which he did in Cana of Galilee--only about seven miles north of his home town of Nazareth. And through this miracle of transformation, he revealed his glory, and his newly called disciples believed in him. Though this miracle did serve to solidify the faith of the Lord's disciples, as with everything else in the Word of God, in addition to that immediate effect it has a deeper, spiritual significance for people in all time and in all places. It was not only to help the Lord's disciples strengthen their faith two thousand years ago, but also to help us grow in our faith and spiritual life today. So let's take a deeper look at this miracle of transformation that the Lord performed on the joyful occasion of a wedding feast, as the first sign that began to reveal his glory. Just as there is a marriage within the Divine Being, and between God and humanity, so there is a spiritual marriage within each one of us. We are, after all, created in the image and likeness of God, so that anything that exists in God must also exist in us--though in a finite, limited, and imperfect form compared to the infinite, perfect nature of God. Just as there is a divine marriage of love and wisdom in God, which _is_ God, so there is a spiritual marriage of love and wisdom, or of goodness and truth, in us--and that marriage _is_ our true, inner nature. It is our actual being; the substance of who we are. Though this sounds abstract, it is, in fact, part of our daily experience, if we will pause and reflect on it for a moment. Everything we think or do comes from some motive, some love within us, whether we know what it is or not. If we had no motive, no desire, we would have no life. We would have nothing to move us forward on the course of our lives. Our motives are the love that is the substance of our being. Yet a motive by itself is ineffectual without a means to accomplish its desires. That means is our thinking mind--the things we know, understand, and believe. In other words, it is the truth that we know, the knowledge we have gained, the information we have stored in our memory to draw back out for use when it is needed. Our loves and motives work through the truth that we know, and this gives us both the drive and the capability to say and do the things that make us the person we are. And it is in this context that an amazing spiritual transformation takes place. This wedding was among friends of the Lord and of his earthly and spiritual family. It was among devout, practicing Jews, who had six stone water jars used to observe the Jewish rites of purification. It was among good people; among believers in and practicers of the faith. Our transformation also takes place when we have become believers and practicers of our faith. It comes when we have made a commitment to put both our heart and our head into living out our beliefs. It comes when we are ready to participate in the spiritually fruitful marriage to which the Lord calls each one of us. In other words, it comes when we are already committing ourselves to being active, practicing Christians. When we make this commitment, and become actively involved in our church, it is like attending a wedding feast. We have a sense of joy, of community, and of deeper usefulness that we have not felt in our lives before. We celebrate and enjoy our new and deeper life, and it gives us great satisfaction. Yet very often, something happens along the way. After the initial joy of discovery and new life, as time goes by, we find our first zeal waning. Like a new toy that is the greatest thing in the world when a child first receives it, after the novelty wears off, we tend to lay it aside, and get busy again with our other concerns. We may still be attending church and doing our duty, but somehow there just isn't the same life in it that there was at first. Figuratively speaking, we have run out of wine. Yes, there is still the food of daily goodness, but the wine of deeper inspiration is gone. We go through our daily rounds, we do our daily tasks, but we do not feel the deeper sense of joy and fulfillment in them that we felt when we first began on our new spiritual path. And like running out of wine at the wedding in Cana, this is more than a minor inconvenience. It is a building spiritual disaster. After all, presumably we got involved in the church because we felt a lack of deeper inspiration in our lives, and wanted something more, something higher, to move us along and give us a reason to live. We wanted a sense of joy in life. And if we lose that sense of deeper life and higher joy, how is it so much different from the life we were living before? Perhaps our outward behavior is better--more moral, ethical, and generally more healthy than it was before. But what about our spirit? It is when we are feeling this sense of loss, this sense of spiritual emptiness within, that we realize our need for new inspiration and new life. And if, like Mary, we have the presence of mind to turn to the Lord, we will find the satisfaction of our inner thirst. Notice, first, that the Lord doesn't make any promises. Instead, he asks a puzzling question, and makes a mysterious statement. Both of them are designed, not to put us off, but to get us thinking more deeply. What _is_ there between us and the Lord? And when _will_ the Lord's time come in us? Notice, next, that the Lord does not do anything himself. Rather, he instructs the servants what to do. Fill the stone water jars--and they fill them to the brim. Now draw some out and bring it to the master of the banquet. They do so, and in the act, the water is transformed not just into ordinary wine, but into the finest that has yet been served at the wedding feast. An amazing transformation has taken place, but in the simplest of ways. When we come to the Lord seeking new life after our initial zeal wears off, he does the same with us. He does not wave his arms in grand fashion, pronouncing some magic words and transforming us in a poof of light. Rather, he gives us simple instructions. Fill the jars with water. These are the jars used in the Jewish rituals of purification--reminding us that to prepare for the Lord's miracles in our lives, we need to purify ourselves of thoughts and feelings that are unworthy of the Lord and of spiritual life. Then we are to fill the jars with water. When our spiritual life has become stale, it is time to go back to Word of God, to our sources of spiritual wisdom, and fill the empty vessels of our minds with new stores of truth and understanding about the things of faith. And finally, we are to draw what we have learned out of our minds, and put it to use in our lives. This is when the transformation takes place. It is not when the truth is stored in our minds, but when we draw it out, using it to bring joy and comfort to the people around us, that it is transformed from the water of ordinary understanding to the wine of a new and deeper vision of life. And as we serve others with new willingness and new joy, we find that this new wine that the Lord has given us is the finest of all. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Mar 9 23:24:11 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 18:24:11 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Worshiping in Spirit and in Truth," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030309182310.02ab1a00@mail.leewoof.net> Worshiping in Spirit and in Truth By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, March 9, 2003 Readings: Micah 6:6-8: What does the Lord require of you? With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. John 4:4-24: Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman Jesus had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drink this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is quite true." "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." Arcana Coelestia #1083: Inner and outer worship Where there is a church, there must be an inner level and an outer level, since human beings, who are the church, has both an inner self and an outer self. . . . The inner level of the ancient church involved everything relating to kindness and the faith that comes from it, all humbleness, all worship of the Lord that comes from kindness, every good feeling toward the neighbor, and other qualities like these. The outward aspects of that church were sacrifices, drink offerings, and many other things. All of them looked to the Lord and kept him in view by what they represented. So the inner things were within the outward ones, and they made one church. The inner aspects of the Christian church are just the same as those of the ancient church, but the outward expression has changed. Sacrifices and such been replaced by symbolic rituals that look to the Lord in a similar way. So in the Christian church the inner and outer levels also make one. Sermon The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23, 24) If you look at the front of your service bulletin, you will see that it says, in great big letters, "Sunday Morning Worship." However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I feel compelled to inform you that this headline verges on false advertising. We have become very accustomed to thinking that what we are doing in church every Sunday is worshiping the Lord. That may or may not be true. And even if it is true, it is true in a secondary sense. There's an old advertising slogan, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." What we do here in church on Sunday may be the sizzle of worship, but it is definitely not the steak. This issue is central to Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar. In reading the story, we may tend to focus on the water in the well versus the "living water" that "wells up to eternal life." And of course, that is a central theme of the story. Yet it is leading up to something even more central. In the geography of New Testament Palestine, there were three political divisions. In the south was the region of Judea, taking its name from the Jews. Jerusalem was in this region, and it is where the bulk of the Jewish people lived. These were the Jews of the former southern kingdom of Old Testament times, who had been taken captive to Babylon and then returned seventy or more years later, to rebuild the temple and re-institute their rituals, sacrifices, and overall religious life. Judea, and especially Jerusalem, was the center of that Jewish religious life. At the northern end of Palestine was Galilee. As far as the Judeans were concerned, Galilee was the boondocks--a rough-and-ready place where the more adventurous Jews might go to live. And yet, Galilee was, in fact, much more of a crossroads, and much more cosmopolitan, than Judea. The southern region of Judea was mountainous and forbidding to travelers, and off the beaten track of the trade and travel routes of the day. Galilee, on the other hand, lay right across some of the most well-traveled routes. So Galilee was where Jews met and lived with people of all different backgrounds and nationalities. Between the two was Samaria. Travelers from and to other parts of the ancient world did also pass through Samaria, but not through its center as they did through Galilee. However, anyone traveling from Judea to Galilee had to pass through Samaria--and, like Jesus traveling through Sychar, would likely go right through the heart of Samaria. Now to the Jews, the Samaritans were neither fish nor fowl. That was their problem. The Samaritans were, in fact, a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry. When the people of the northern kingdom of Israel were taken captive by Assyria in Old Testament times, all the nobles, the educated, and the skilled were carried off into exile in a foreign land, where they apparently melted into the local population and were never heard from again. But moving the entire population was too large a task for a conquering empire, so the poor and unskilled were generally left in the land, while the ruling and skilled classes of other conquered nations were, in turn, imported from their native lands. This was a standard way of breaking the resistance of conquered peoples and making sure that, displaced as they were in unfamiliar territory, they would have neither the will nor the means to rebel. As a result of this practice, and Israel's history in relation to it, the Samaritans were, as I said, a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry. As a result, their religious life was a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish practices. This is reflected in the story, in which the Samaritan woman at the well recognizes Jacob as her ancestor, and yet she relates how her ancestors worshiped on the nearby mountain, whereas the worship of the Jews was restricted to the city of Jerusalem--where the temple was. This mix of Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry and practices was precisely why the Jews held the Samaritans in contempt. Central to Jewish religion and life was keeping both the stock and the religion pure. Jews were strictly forbidden to intermarry with people of other nations and religions. The only circumstances under which they were permitted to do so were when their intended spouse completely renounced the old religion and practices, and became a fully believing and practicing Jew. The Jews were also strictly forbidden to mix their own religious practices with those of any other nation--which would have involved worshiping other gods besides Jehovah, the God of the Jews. The Samaritans had both intermarried with gentiles and mixed Jewish and gentile religious practices. Therefore, to a devout Jew of Jesus' day, they were to be condemned and shunned. This was the religious and political context in which Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman took place. This is the background of the woman saying to Jesus, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" This woman was used to being avoided and condemned by Jews, and couldn't quite get her mind around this Jewish rabbi asking her for a drink. In particular, the Jews would not share dishes and other utensils with Samaritans; so for Jesus to take a drink out of the woman's pitcher would have been a violation of Jewish religious traditions. Therefore, right from the start of the conversation, when Jesus said to the woman, "Give me a drink," she became acutely aware that this was no ordinary Jew. This, apparently, was no ordinary Samaritan either. This woman (we are never given her name) was eager to engage the unorthodox Jewish rabbi in religious conversation. And Jesus drew her deeper and deeper into it. First, as they conversed by Jacob's well, he began lifting her mind above material things by his talk of living water welling up to eternal life. The woman did not understand at first, thinking he was still talking about literal water that she could drink with her physical mouth to satisfy her physical thirst. But that was not the kind of water Jesus was talking about. Then Jesus began to show her that his knowledge extended beyond the realm of the ordinary. "Go, call your husband and come back," he said to her. "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is quite true." And then: "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet." Now that the woman began to realize that she was indeed talking with no ordinary teacher, but with a man who saw beyond the surface of things to the realities within and beyond, she brought up an issue that was a major religious stumbling block between the Jews and the Samaritans. "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain," she said," but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." This gave Jesus the opening to offer the teaching that is our theme for this morning: "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." This was certainly not accepted Jewish teaching--a fact that the Samaritan woman could not have missed. In the story line of the Hebrew Bible, Jerusalem increasingly becomes the focus as the only place where the Jews were permitted to engage in their worship of burnt offerings and other sacrifices. Engaging in sacrifice and ritual worship anywhere else was strictly forbidden. Yet now Jesus was saying that not only was the time coming, but was now here, when the true worshipers would worship neither on the mountain, as the Samaritans did, nor in Jerusalem, as the Jews did. This new form of worship would transcend all the outward customs and rituals of Jew and non-Jew alike. This new form of worship would not consist in ritual actions. Instead, the true worshipers would worship "in spirit and in truth." Ah! Now we are finally getting back to where we started! Worship as ritual--what we do here in church--versus worship in spirit and in truth. The Samaritan woman and the Jews both shared a common attitude toward worship. Worship was a ritual that one engaged in. You did it on a mountain, or in a temple, and it involved various prescribed words and actions. We Christians of today tend to think the same way about worship. But listen to what Swedenborg has to say about this: People who thought that divine worship consisted in sacrifices, and in religious ceremonies and rules--which represented the spiritual and heavenly realities of the Lord's kingdom--were concerned with external things. Those who thought that divine worship also consisted in the heavenly and spiritual realities that were represented were concerned with internal things. It is similar today. Some people think that divine worship consists in going to church, listening to sermons, attending the Holy Supper, and doing these things devoutly--yet think of them merely as duties to be done regularly because they have been instituted and commanded. These people belong to the external church. Others, however, also believe that such duties should be attended to, but that the essential element of worship is the life of faith, which is kindness towards the neighbor and love to the Lord. These people belong to the internal church. (_Arcana Coelestia_ #8762) In another place, he expands on this meaning of true worship: True worship consists in engaging in useful services, and thus in showing kindness. Anyone who thinks that serving the Lord means merely going to church regularly, listening to the preaching, and saying prayers, and that this is enough, is very much mistaken. True worship of the Lord means engaging in useful service. This service, during our life in the world, involves the proper fulfillment of our duties, whatever our position may be. In other words, it involves serving our country, our community, and our neighbor with all our heart. It also involves honest dealings with our fellow human beings, and the conscientious performance of our duties, with full consideration each person's character. These useful deeds are the primary way of showing "charity" (or kindness), and the primary way of worshiping the Lord. Going to church regularly, listening to sermons, and saying our prayers is also necessary; but without useful deeds these things have no value at all, for they do not form our life, but rather teach what our life ought to be like. (_Arcana Coelestia_ #7038) These passages from Swedenborg's writings, as long as they are, represent a far larger body of teachings about worship, all of which center around this concept: "Inner worship, which is from love and kindness, is real worship. Without this, outer worship is not worship at all" (_Arcana Coelestia_ #1175). Or to put it in more practical terms, "True worship of the Lord consists in living according to his commandments. This is also true love of God and true faith in him" (_Arcana Coelestia_ #10143.5). Now, at last, we can understand those strange and mysterious words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Going to church, listening to sermons, and offering prayers, as useful as they are in reminding us of the Lord and his presence and teachings, are not in themselves true worship. To worship the Lord in spirit and in truth is to love him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And as Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. And we worship the Father in spirit and truth when our gathering here in worship is part of a wider life that is fully devoted to living in the way that the Lord has taught us: serving one another from love, and with joy. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Mar 16 21:17:20 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 16:17:20 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "I Was Blind, but Now I See," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030316161645.02c45640@mail.leewoof.net> I Was Blind, but Now I See By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, March 16, 2003 Readings Isaiah 42:6, 7, 18-25: Israel blind and deaf I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. . . . "Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see! Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant of the Lord? You have seen many things, but have paid no attention; your ears are open, but you hear nothing." It pleased the Lord for the sake of his righteousness to make his law great and glorious. But this is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They have become plunder, with no one to rescue them; they have been made loot, with no one to say, "Send them back." Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to come? Who handed Jacob over to become loot, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned? For they would not follow his ways; they did not obey his law. So he poured out on them his burning anger, the violence of war. It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart. John 9:13-25: I was blind, but now I see They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided. Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened." The man replied, "He is a prophet." The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?" "We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him." A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man is a sinner." He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!" Arcana Coelestia #4302.7: Blindness, good and bad In a good sense, "the blind" refers to people who have no knowledge of the truth. But in the opposite sense it means people who are caught up in false ideas. Arcana Coelestia #5037.2: Opening the blind eyes "Opening eyes that are blind, freeing captives from prison, and releasing from the dungeon those who sit in darkness" refers to people who have no knowledge of what is good and true, and yet have a desire to know and be taught these things. Sermon One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!" (John 9:25) For the man born blind, a miracle had taken place that day. For the first time ever in his life, his world was not one of total blackness. Things he could only imagine before were now parading before his eyes in all their vivid shapes, colors, and details. Faces of friends he had known for years, but had never seen, were now a reality to him. His life was transformed from that very day, never to be the same again. But what did the Pharisees care about that? The healing had been done on the Sabbath--and that was against the rules. Their blindness was far greater than that of the man who had been born blind. Their blindness was spiritual blindness. It was a blindness of mind and spirit to the glorious and powerfully healing truth of God. And so, instead of rejoicing with the man whose life had just risen from the ashes of his blindness, they questioned and cross-examined him, trying to get him to admit that the person who had healed him was a sinner, and thus someone to be shunned and avoided--and certainly not to be believed. To the man whose blindness had been healed, this was all nonsense. He answered simply, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!" That was a fact that the Pharisees could not argue away, even with the fanciest of legal pleadings. The man had been healed of a lifelong blindness. Once the Pharisees had grown exasperated with him and thrown him out, Jesus found him again, and he became a believer. So a second miracle took place--one even greater than the first. Not only was this man healed of physical blindness, but he was healed of a far more profound spiritual blindness. Before, he had labored under the legalistic and burdensome teachings of the Pharisees. Now his eyes were opened to the healing and enlivening teachings of the Lord. Where everything had been dark to his mind before, now all was seen clearly in the light. I can't help thinking of the parallel of Helen Keller. She was never healed of her physical blindness here on earth. But she was healed of her mental blindness by her teacher, Anne Sullivan. And then she was healed of her spiritual blindness through her encounter with the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and her wholehearted acceptance of the new and deeper light that she found there. She tells the story herself in her moving spiritual autobiography, first published under the title _My Religion_, and more recently re-edited and published under the title _Light in My Darkness_. Helen Keller considered her liberation from spiritual blindness to be the greatest miracle in her life. Though she never regained her eyesight and hearing to the day of her death, she lived a busy, productive, and useful life, full of the light of understanding and wisdom. While the light of this world remained blackness to her, the deeper light that comes from above and within surrounded her being with a special, powerful radiance. We have now talked about someone born physically blind who gained both physical and spiritual eyesight. And we have talked about someone who had lost both eyesight and hearing, and never regained them while she lived on earth, yet was healed of her spiritual blindness. What about those of us whose physical senses are working quite well--or at least, well enough to live a relatively ordinary life in the world? It may be harder for us to feel the tremendous force of Jesus' opening the eyes of man born blind than it is for someone who has actually experienced blindness. And yet, we each do have our own experience of moving from blindness to seeing. Unlike every other animal on the face of the earth, we humans are delivered into the world with almost no innate knowledge--almost no instinct. We are, in fact, born entirely ignorant and completely helpless. Few of us remember anything from those first months and years of our lives, because there wasn't much in the way of coherent thoughts for us to carry with us in memory. Any memory that we did have would consist of largely unorganized and rather fuzzy sense impressions. At that point, our minds simply haven't yet been organized to the point where we can distinguish and categorize things, and so file them away in our memory some orderly fashion for later recall. In other words, we are mentally blind. Our process of moving from those early mental clouds of darkness into the light of knowledge and understanding is a long, drawn out one. Lower animals that are born with a full complement of instincts take at most a few years to reach physical maturity. By that time they have learned almost everything additional they will need for their entire life span. We, on the other hand, take sixteen to twenty years to reach full physical maturity. And though we have perhaps done our most concentrated learning in that time, in the best case it is still only the beginning of a lifetime process of learning and growing mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In other words, our whole life is a process of moving from blindness to seeing. This is the glory of being human. Lower animals are born with most of the knowledge they will need to live their lives, and never move beyond the nature into which they were born--at least, not without human intervention. Human beings, on the other hand, are born with almost no knowledge. That leaves the field open for limitless learning, and for growing far beyond the confines of our physical nature and biological urges. Instead of being a limitation, our mental darkness at birth is what makes it possible for us to grow into beings of light--or to use the more popular word, into angels. Now, if this were a nice, smooth, incremental transition, how pleasant it would be! Each day we would learn a little more and grow a little more, and our whole life would be one long, gradual dawning of a new day, with all its beauty. But that is not how life works. In the world of nature, there are cycles of day and night, and larger cycles of the seasons--spring, summer, fall, winter, and back to spring again. Just so, our spiritual progression is not one long, gradual dawning from darkness to light, but a continual series of cycles in which we move from darkness to light in our understanding and our faith, and then back to darkness again before the next dawning of the day. And in our longer cycles, we move from warmth and closeness to one another and to the Lord, into periods of waning love and emotion, and through our winters of coldness and darkness of the soul, in which we feel cut off from one another, from life, from love, from God. Even these cycles, though, are simply the normal and natural cycles through which we grow and live. Though we humans go through these cycles on a higher level than other animals, yet we share them in common with all animal--and plant--life. And because these cycles are normal and natural, they are also good. They are part of the regular cycle of birth, death, and rebirth that keeps both the world of nature and the world of the human spirit continually renewed and refreshed, and continually moving forward to new things. The darkness that we go through in these cycles involves the kind of darkness, or blindness, that Swedenborg says is the good sense of blindness. It is good that we are born in complete ignorance, because this gives us the potential to grow into a much fuller level of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom than is possible for any of the lower animals. And it is good that we go through our periods of mental and spiritual dimness, because this opens our minds to receive new and deeper enlightenment from the Lord. In a good sense, we are blind when we become aware of our lack of understanding, and wish to be enlightened. This is when the Lord can come to us and open our eyes. Isn't it curious that the Lord did not heal every blind person in Palestine? If we read the stories of those he did heal, we find that he could do miracles of healing only where he found faith, and a willingness to be healed. This morning we read only part of John chapter 9. If we were to read the whole chapter, we would find that this man born blind grew rapidly in his faith, and in his willingness to stand up for it even in the face of withering criticism and abuse from the religious authorities. Jesus saw this quality in him from the start, and knew that healing him of his physical blindness would be the means for a far greater healing of his spiritual blindness. The Lord's work on earth was not merely to bring about temporary, physical healing, but to bring about the spiritual, eternal healing of human beings. What does it matter if we are healed physically, and yet we are still blind in our soul? The Pharisees, on the other hand, represented blindness in the opposite, negative sense. Their physical eyes were perfectly functional. But their spiritual eyes were stopped up, and they walked the earth in a blindness far more profound than the blindness of the man who was healed that day. They saw a wonderful, healing miracle--the freeing of a man bound in blindness since birth--yet all they could think about was the fact that the healing took place on the Sabbath. Instead of rejoicing with the healed man, they were driven by their jealousy and anger against the one who had done the healing because he showed greater wisdom and greater power with the people than they themselves possessed. This is the blindness spoken of in our reading from Isaiah. The Lord had called the people of Israel in righteousness. He had taken hold of their hand and led them out of slavery. He had made a covenant with them that would be a light to the Gentiles--meaning the non-Jewish nations. This was not merely for their own benefit, but so that they would be a light to the world. They were to open eyes blinded by falsity and ignorance, free people from the prisons of slavery to their passions and prejudices, and release people from the dark dungeons of their servitude to material desires and the cravings of their ego. This was what the ancient Israelites were supposed to do with the new light they had been given by the Lord. Instead, they became ingrown, proud, contemptuous of other nations, and used their greater light to look down on and condemn others rather than to raise them into a similar light. The people that the Lord had enlightened descended into the greatest blindness of all: the blindness of those who have the ability to see, but refuse to do so. And as our passage from Isaiah goes on to inform us, as a result, they were given over to the violence of war, to plunder and looting. Their own willful blindness brought upon them the consuming flame of hatred, jealousy, conflict, and eventually captivity and slavery to foreign powers. Yet through all this, they still did not learn. "It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart." And so we find them in New Testament times steeped in just as much darkness as they had labored under when the last of their prophets had stopped prophesying four centuries earlier, because no one was listening anymore. Finally, the darkness had become so profound that even those who were blind but wanted to see could not find the light they sought. And then the Lord came, to shine a new light into the darkness of humanity--a light that could never be overcome. Each one of us has our own blind spots, too. Looking back over our lives, we can see the times when we were blind, and then saw the light. We can see the times when we simply didn't understand, and we sought out knowledge, and gained new light that guided us on our next steps. And we can see the times that we could have seen and understood, but refused to do so, and reaped the bitter consequences of our willful blindness. Are we blind now? Of course we are! Compared to the infinite light of the Lord, we are all wandering in darkness and obscurity. The question is not whether we are blind, but what kind of blindness. Is it a blindness that we cling to, unwilling to see the light because we would have to change our attitudes and our behavior? If so, we are in for some very hard experiences. But if we are ready to recognize our own blindness, and to humbly seek the Lord's help, then we, too, will be able to say, "I was blind, but now I see." Amen. From leewoof@leewoof.net Thu Apr 3 17:26:22 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 12:26:22 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Resurrecting the Church," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030403122536.08122a80@mail.leewoof.net> Resurrecting the Church By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, March 30, 2003 Readings: Haggai 1:2-8: Rebuild the temple of the Lord! This is what the Lord Almighty says: "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built.'" Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the Lord. John 11:1-15: The Death of Lazarus Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory, so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Arcana Coelestia #2916.4: Resurrecting the church When the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead, it symbolized rebuilding the church among the gentiles. Since all the miracles that the Lord did were divine, they symbolized the stages that his church passes through. Sermon: When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory" (John 11:4) Today we hold the last session in our four-part series of visioning and planning workshops for our church. For our last session, on March 9, our facilitator, the Rev. Dan Hotchkiss, joined us for our morning service. In the session afterwards, I was struck by one phrase he used. He spoke of dealing with "your crisis." I was tempted to say, "What crisis?" For those of us who have been with this church for many years (and I count myself among that number, having been a member since I was a teenager), our church does not seem to be in crisis. In fact, compared to the last decade, it seems to be doing fairly well. We have new faces in church. We have added a class to our Sunday School to accommodate the larger numbers and wider age range. What crisis? And yet, putting myself in Dan's shoes--or the shoes of a newcomer to the church--the crisis is obvious. As Dan sat in one of the side pews, he shared the church with a lot of empty pews. There were our usual thirty or so people in church. And when the Sunday School children and teachers went out to their classes, there were perhaps fifteen or sixteen worshipers scattered around the pews in this church that can seat two hundred fifty people. To those of us who have become used to it, this looks like a fairly normal Sunday. But to someone coming in from the outside, it might very well look like a . . . crisis! One of the most striking moments for me during our visioning and planning series took place in an earlier session. Dan asked us to arrange ourselves around the circle by how long we had been part of this church. That left me with a bit of a conundrum. Should I seat myself according to when I had first come to this church as a youngster in 1971, or according to when I returned as pastor in 1996? But I was startled to discover that it didn't matter. Whichever date I chose, I would be sitting in the same position, since everyone present (and this represents almost everyone active in our church) had either been in this church before 1971, or had come since 1996. The room was neatly divided: one half had been here "almost forever," and the other half had been here from one to five or six years. And Patty and I were sitting right in the middle, between the two groups. That is the situation in our church today. After a long fallow period, when the slow, steady decline of our church continued year after year, decade after decade, we have made some progress in the last few years. And our church consists of two groups: the long-time members and the newcomers. There is almost no one in between. And as we went around the church and expressed our hopes and aspirations for our church, it became clear that the two groups had quite different perspectives on our situation. It was apparent that the long-time members were veterans of the war, having fought the good fight for many years--and that they were tired. The energy level on that side of the room was reserved and cautious, unsure of what future our little church has. By contrast, the other side of the room was hopeful and optimistic, full of a sense that our church can have a good and growing future, and wanting to express thoughts of how that might happen. Though some of you who were there might describe the contrast between the two sides of the room differently, it was apparent to everyone that the two groups had very different perspectives on our church. Now, for whatever reason, in our last session, on March 9, very few of our core, long-time members were present. The gathered group consisted mostly of relative newcomers. We had a good and constructive session, with many positive ideas and suggestions for ways we could reach out and grow, and more effectively welcome newcomers into our church. However, there was also a pervasive sense among the people present that we could have a good discussion, but when it came right down to it, it wasn't up to this group what the church would do--that the critical decisions were in the hands of the other group. And I could sense frustration over that. My own belief is that both groups are essential to the future of our church. We need the long-time members for their experience and knowledge of this church's history and traditions, as well as for their solid track record of doing the steady, ongoing work of keeping this church open and running week in and week out, year after year, decade after decade. We also need the newcomers for the sense of new energy and vision for our church, and for opening up possibilities of new activities and new programs, new outreach into our community. For the long-time members, this church as it has operated for many years provides satisfaction in itself. For the newcomers, it is the potential of our church for moving forward and growing and reaching out to new people that is especially exciting. All of these things were on my mind as I turned my thoughts to what I would say to you during our service this morning. And when I turned to our scheduled Bible story for today, it was the story of the Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. Wow! At that point I knew that divine providence was working. Because I'm not sure I would have dared to make that connection on my own. But the message to me was clear: we, as a congregation, are engaged in the task of resurrecting our church. To his family and friends, Lazarus looked quite solidly dead and buried. In one sense, our church never got that far. But a church can be dead even when there are still people in the pews. When the vision is gone, and a church is on a long, steady decline, there is the smell of death about it. And this church has experienced that smell of death--and the sadness and fear (perhaps suppressed) that come with it. This church has experienced decades at a time of having no new faces in the pews Sunday after Sunday. Or if there were new faces, they have departed after a longer or shorter time, leaving the same group gathered to worship together. Even today, I sense that we are holding our breath, wondering if we can sustain this new growth that we have been experiencing for the last few years. And for some, there seems to be a sense that perhaps we have hit a wall. Lately, I sense that our new energy has been flagging a bit. There is a pause, a plateau, and we are all wondering, "What next?" A story is passed down in our family lore of what led up to my grandfather, the Rev. Louis A. Dole, taking on a new pastorate in Bath, Maine. At the time, he was serving our church in Fryeburg, Maine. But he saw the desperate condition of the Bath church, and cast his eye in that direction, wanting to rebuild that church. Still, he couldn't just go there. He had to be invited. And at their annual meeting, the seven remaining members of the church voted four to three not to call a new minister. In the course of time, two of those seven members died, so that only five members were left. And they held another vote on whether to call a minister. This time the vote was three to two in favor. They promptly called my grandfather as their minister, and the church experienced new phase of steady growth into a solid, stable, and useful congregation, during which it doubled its membership several times over. Now, the moral of this story could be that all you have to do is decide to call a good minister, and you can grow your church. But I see a different moral. When there were seven people in the church, there was not the collective will to take the steps needed to grow the church. But when there were five--when the church was almost dead--a change had taken place. Perhaps the change was that two of the people who had voted against calling a minister had died. Or perhaps the overall feeling in the group was changing. What is certain is that this tiny group of five people made the decision to move forward. And it was on the strength of that decision that they were able to rebuild their congregation. Back when I was finishing my degree in preparation for attending seminary, I recall a book on one of my class reading lists titled _Surplus Powerlessness_. I'm not sure I ever made it through the book. But the title has stuck with me. It is true that our power is limited. We can't do everything we would like to do. However, too often we limit ourselves by thinking we are unable to do anything at all. Our sense of powerlessness is greater than our actual lack of power. In other words, we could do a lot more than we are, but we hold ourselves back because we think we don't have the power in our hands to move forward. We now have sixty-four members. And on an average Sunday, we have about thirty people in church, including the Sunday School children. If a church that is down to seven members . . . and then five, can make the decision to move forward, how much more can we with the larger and more active congregation that we have here? We think we are limited by money or by numbers. But we are really limited only by our vision and our commitment, and our decision to listen to the Lord's call that he makes to us, as he did to Lazarus, to "come forth!" And as Jesus said a little earlier in the story, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory." Next week, as we look at the story of the Parable of the Vine, we will explore the real source of power for rebuilding our church. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Apr 6 22:13:41 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 18:13:41 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "I am the Vine, You are the Branches," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030406181238.0271b180@mail.leewoof.net> I am the Vine, You are the Branches By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 6, 2003 Readings: Deuteronomy 7:7-14: The Lord will love, bless, and multiply you It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you--for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that I am commanding you today. If you heed these ordinances by diligently observing them, the Lord your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you. You shall be the most blessed of peoples. John 15:1-12: I am the vine, you are the branches "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch, and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; now abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Heaven and Hell #230: All power is from the Lord Angels have no power at all on their own. All the power they have comes from the Lord--and they are powerful just as much as they recognize this fact. Any of them who believe that their power comes from themselves immediately become so weak that they cannot resist even a single evil spirit. This is why angels take no credit at all for themselves, and will not accept any praise or admiration for anything they have done, but attribute it all to the Lord. Sermon: I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5) If only we believed these words--truly believed them--what tremendous power we would have at our fingertips! Jesus said in another place, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, . . . nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). Nothing will be impossible! If we truly believed from our soul, and with all our heart, that the Lord is the vine and we are the branches, nothing we wanted to do would be impossible for us. Why? Because the only things we would want to do would be those that are according to the Lord's will--and the infinite power of the Lord's will is available to accomplish all of God's purposes. If we were to put ourselves fully in harmony with the Lord's will, and draw all our strength from God, each of us as individuals, and all of us together, would become powerful centers from which the Lord's love and truth, the Lord's understanding and kindness, would flow out to everyone around us. If only we truly believed. During the last three months, we have gone through a series of four visioning and planning workshops for our church. And in truth, the results seem rather modest. I am a person who likes visioning and planning. When I took the Myers-Briggs personality type test back in seminary, I came out in a very small (just 2% of the population) sector of the personality map that includes people who tend to be visionary thinkers. That's good to know, since it explains why ever since I've been involved with this church, and with our Massachusetts Association--not to mention our denomination--I have struggled to develop or draw out a common vision for how we as a church can move forward strongly into our future. So far, this effort doesn't seem to have gone very far. In fact, to be honest, it's been quite frustrating. There are a few exceptions here and there around our denomination. However, as I survey our church, I don't see a clearly articulated vision and plan at any level--not for our denomination as a whole, not for our Massachusetts Association, and not for our church here in Bridgewater. And I'd like to dispose of one fallacy about this right away. I can't count how many times I've heard it said that we "don't have the money" to do this or that. First of all, the Swedenborgian Church has got to be one of the wealthiest churches per capita in the entire world. At least, we have more money for fewer people than any other church I am aware of. One of the earlier leaders in the Swedenborgian Church was fond of saying that we would run out of people before we ran out of money. Collectively, we have tens of millions of dollars at our disposal. The question is not where the money will come from, but whether we have the vision, the plan, and the commitment to use our money wisely and effectively in doing the work of the Lord. But there is a deeper fallacy in the common idea that our money determines what we can do. Money, in itself, is nothing. It is simply a means of exchange--a tool to help us accomplish our purposes and our goals more efficiently. Money has no reality of its own. It is simply a representative of the things we value and the things we want to do. From a spiritual perspective, money is simply a representative of our thoughts and our desires. It is a physical symbol of what we believe and love. If we trace where our money comes from and where it goes, we will have a good picture of what we believe, what we love, and what we value. Money is simply a tool in our hands. It is meant to be our servant, and we are to be its master. It is to do our will--not dictate to us what we will or won't do. And as Jesus said in yet another place, "You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). Especially since we are a church, our decision should always be to serve God, and not to serve money. If our concern and our care is focused on where the money is going to come from to survive as a church--to keep our doors open, to pay for the salaries, building maintenance, insurance, utilities, and so on--we have begun to serve money. We have made money our God, instead of serving God, and making the Lord our God. Yes, of course we do have to be practical and take care of the financial side of being a church. But this is a secondary consideration, not a primary one. Our primary concern as a church is how we are called upon to do the work of the Lord. Everything else--including money, property, salaries, building maintenance, and all the rest of those things that "the world runs after" (Luke 12:30)--are simply a means to accomplish the Lord's work. We are so concerned with whether we will have the money to do this or that. But we shouldn't be. We are a church. We believe in the Lord, and in the Lord's care and provision for us! And the Lord knows that we need all these things (Luke 12:30 again). However, the Lord has given us a deeper vision of the spiritual realities and the spiritual power available to us. "I am the vine, you are the branches." For the branches, the nourishing sap that comes to them from the vine is money. It is their sustenance. It is their lifeblood. And the Lord tells us where the true nourishment, the true lifeblood comes from. The Lord is that lifeblood. The Lord is the source of everything we have and everything we are. The Lord is our spiritual "money tree," providing for all our wants and needs--and doing it freely, out of pure love. As the Lord said in our reading from Deuteronomy: It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you--for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. When the Lord chose Israel to be a special, dedicated nation, it was not necessary that they be rich or numerous or powerful. Only that they be willing to listen to the Lord, and obey the commandments that the Lord gave them: Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. . . . Therefore, observe diligently the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that I am commanding you today. And the passage goes on to say that if we will do this, the Lord will love us, bless us, and multiply our fruitfulness to a great abundance, so that we would be the most blessed of people. And I state it this way intentionally, because even though the promise was originally made to the ancient Israelites, it is enshrined in the Word of God because it is a promise made not just to one people and one nation, but to all people, communities, and nations everywhere, throughout all time. "Your word, O Lord, is eternal" (Psalms 119:89). That promise is made to us today just as much as it was made to the ancient Israelites. The Lord tells us--tells you, tells me, tells this congregation, our Association, our denomination--that if we will obey the divine commandments, we will be richly blessed with all the abundance we could ever want. And though that especially means spiritual abundance, I believe that if the Lord sees that we will use it well, then it also includes material abundance. The Lord wants to give us every gift! The Lord wants us to have everything we need to do the good work of the kingdom of God. And the Lord will give those things to us--including the money--if we are ready and willing to use them prayerfully, wisely, and generously in serving God's children here on earth. "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit." What is the fruit that we wish to bear? What is the work of the Lord that we wish to do? Simply keeping our doors open and our church in existence; simply paying the minister's salary and taking care of the building maintenance as needed; simply providing for our own continuation as a church is doing the Lord's work only in the most minimal way. What is the work of the Lord that we want to do for this community? Why are we here as a church? What is our mission? Why has the Lord entrusted us with this building, and with the money that flows through our treasury? And are we using that money well and wisely? Are we loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength as a congregation? Are we loving our neighbor as ourselves? How are we serving our neighbors here in Bridgewater and the surrounding communities? How are we called to serve them in our own unique way? So many questions. And if we truly wish to be a church; if we truly wish to be a center from which the Lord's love and truth flows out into this human community, then we need to ask ourselves these questions. The power is available. Infinite power is available from the Lord. And it will flow to us when we dedicate our lives and our church to serving the Lord fully. It will flow through us when we focus our church, not on our own survival as a church, but on the work for our community, for our neighbor, that the Lord has put us here to do. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Apr 13 21:58:48 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:58:48 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Irresistible Force," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030413175652.027f5ce0@mail.leewoof.net> Irresistible Force By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 13, 2003 Palm Sunday Readings: Isaiah 55:6-11: The Lord's word will accomplish its purpose Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them; and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire, and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. John 12:12-19: The triumphal entry into Jerusalem The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!" Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt." At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him, and that they had done these things to him. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!" Divine Love and Wisdom #221: The Lord's omnipotence The Lord entered the world and took on a human nature in order give himself the power to conquer the hells and put everything in order in heaven and on earth. . . . By taking on this human nature, he acquired a divine omnipotence capable not only of conquering the hells and setting the heavens in order, but also of keeping the hells under control forever, and of saving humanity. This power is meant by his sitting on the right hand of God's power and might. Sermon: The Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!" (John 12:19) To the Pharisees who were looking on that day, it certainly seemed as if Jesus were an irresistible force. Palm-waving crowds of people surrounded him shouting "Hosanna," and hailing him as the king of Israel. Nothing the Pharisees had done to try to stop this powerful, charismatic, and heretical leader seemed to have accomplished a thing. He only grew more popular. And we can imagine the Pharisees in something of a panic as their city, the center of their religion and their authority, was engulfed by the uproar of the crowds running after this Jesus. They must have felt as if they were being swept away by an overwhelming human tide. Have you ever felt that way? I certainly have. As those of you who have been following the recent events in our church on the state level know, practically everything I have worked for over the past six months has come to nothing as I--and others with me--fought against a tide of events that was apparently unstoppable. Sometimes no matter how much we do and how hard we try, things just don't go our way. That's how it was for the Pharisees on that day when Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph. It looked to them as if the whole world had gone after Jesus. Yet as Jesus himself knew, the crowds are fickle. Less than a week later, this crowd of supporters had melted away, and was replaced by a hostile crowd that clamored for his death. Then the Pharisees had their day, and it was the turn of Jesus' followers to be scattered and disheartened by the crush of terrible events that they could not stop. In just a few days, the tide turned yet again for the followers of Jesus, as the news of his resurrection reached them, and then they saw him in person. And less than forty years later, when some of those Pharisees who bitterly opposed Jesus and masterminded his death were likely still alive, the worst fears of those Jewish leaders were realized. The Romans sacked Jerusalem in the year 70 AD, and just as Jesus had predicted in the ears of these now elderly Pharisees, not one stone of their temple was left upon another. The Jews themselves were forced out of the Holy Land and scattered in all directions, both their temple and their nation having been taken away by their Roman conquerors. And the story moved on. These are the tides of human events. Sometimes our tide is rising, our life is full and strong, and we feel effective and in control of our lives. Other times our tide is ebbing; we can feel our life and our love draining away as people and things we hold dear are pulled away from us one by one, and we are left feeling emotionally empty and spiritually abandoned. There is an ebb and a flow, a tide of events that we can do very little about; all we can do is move along with it, knowing that this, too, will pass. And yet, underneath that ebb and flow of life there is a deeper and more powerful force. The Pharisees did not realize how true their words were when they said, "Look how the whole world has gone after him!" They were not, as they thought, dealing with a mere human being, a mortal, but with the Son of God--one who expressed God's wisdom and God's will here on earth. They were dealing with the Eternal Law made flesh and dwelling among them. They were, in truth, dealing with an irresistible force. It was the force of the omnipotent divine will acting through ultimate divine truth. And it could not be stopped any more than we can stop the rising of the sun. Yesterday, when I went downstairs to pump the water out of my basement after the heavy rains that had fallen in the previous twenty-four hours, I had a simple experience that illustrated this irresistible force--this inevitable flow--of the divine will and the divine purpose. Though I don't have a regular sump pump, I do have a small submersible pump set up in the front corner of the basement, where an opening was left in the poured concrete floor at the place where the water pipe comes in and the sewer line goes out. This hole in the floor fills up with water as water from the rest of the basement spills into it. When I plug in the pump, all of the water in the basement starts flowing toward that corner, to replace the water being pumped out onto the street. As I watched that nice, smooth flow of water toward the corner, I noticed that the water didn't really care where I put my feet. If I stood in one place, the water flow simply took a detour around my feet and kept right on flowing by. When I picked up my feet, the water immediately flowed through the place where my foot had been. There was no struggle, no contention. The water simply flowed effortlessly along the path of least resistance, continuing on its journey toward the pump and the great outdoors. The will and wisdom of God is like that water in my basement. God's purposes may be accomplished one way, or they may be accomplished another way, but they _will_ be accomplished. "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire, and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." The Lord is infinitely patient, but also infinitely persistent. With our human will, we may be able to block the Lord from flowing through the space that we personally inhabit. But the Lord will simply flow around us, and accomplish his will in some other way. Jesus said in another place, "What is the meaning of that which is written, 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? [Psalm 118:22]. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and those on whom it falls will be crushed" (Luke 20:17, 18). We cannot thwart God's will. Yes, we can turn our own lives against that great force; but we ourselves, and not God, will be crushed and broken in the process. This will happen, not because God is angry with us, but because we have set ourselves against the irresistible force of the universe. When we break divine law, we are the ones who get broken. All the world _does_ go after the Lord. All the world, including both the good and the evil in it, is governed by eternal, divine laws that cannot be broken. Yes, we can act against the commandments of the Lord. We can live in evil, selfish, and destructive ways. Yet the divine laws of the universe will continue to bring upon our own heads the consequences of our actions. We will be just as subject to the higher divine law as ever. As we celebrate this festival of the Lord, let us be both warned and instructed by the prophetic words of the Pharisees. If all the world has gone after the Lord, shouldn't we, also, put our own will, our own thoughts, our own actions into harmony with the irresistible force of the Lord's will and wisdom? Shouldn't we resolve to walk with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength on the path toward eternal life that the Lord has placed in front of us? ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Apr 20 17:26:55 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 13:26:55 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "My Lord and My God," By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030420132612.027f5ce0@mail.leewoof.net> My Lord and My God By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 20, 2003 Easter Sunday Isaiah 45:20-25: There is no other god or savior Assemble yourselves and come together. Draw near, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge--those who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that will not return: "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." They will say of me, "In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength." All who raged against him will come to him and be ashamed. And in the Lord all the offspring of Israel will triumph and glory. Sermon Introduction: There is only one God and Savior Today being Easter Sunday, I suspect that there are some of you in church today who are a little out of practice in listening to sermons . . . and that's all I'm going to say about that. For your sake, and for the sake of the children who are staying here in church with us, this Easter I am breaking the sermon up into a series of three bite-sized pieces. I also suspect that many of you have heard quite a few Easter sermons focusing on the Lord's resurrection--as Easter sermons tend to do (for some reason). This Easter, as we celebrate the Lord's resurrection with hymns and readings and choir anthems, our sermon series will focus on the Lord himself: who he is, and what that means for us. Though many Christians focus primarily on the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles in the New Testament, it is only when we put both the Old and the New Testaments together that we can see and appreciate who the Lord Jesus Christ was and is. God, in his respect for our human freedom to think and believe as we wish, does not bang us over the head with the truth. Instead, he sets it up for us just like an Easter egg hunt: as we search through the Scriptures, we find nuggets of wisdom and kernels of insight hidden here and there throughout the mass of stories, poetry, and prophecy. And like a person who is very good at hiding the Easter eggs, knowing that some of us are good at searching out the truth, while others need it laid out before us a little more clearly, the Lord places some of these "eggs" of truth in plain sight, while others are more hidden and require extra effort. One of the eggs of truth that is hidden in plain sight is in our reading from Isaiah. Here, the Lord sets it right out before us. He invites us to present our case--if we have one--on any alternatives to his own declaration. And what is his declaration? "There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other." Could the Lord have said it more plainly? There is only one God and Savior. And it is critical that we understand this if we are to know who the risen Lord is. John 20:24-28: Jesus appears to Thomas But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. And do not doubt, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Sermon Continuation: My Lord and my God Here we have another one of those Easter eggs hidden in plain sight. The scene takes place after the Lord's resurrection. Just before this reading, the Lord has appeared to the disciples in a locked room, where they were hiding for fear of the Jews. But Thomas was not with them; and he did not believe the rest of the disciples when they said they had seen the Lord. He needed to see and touch for himself. A week later, the Lord appeared to the disciples again, and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus spoke to Thomas directly, inviting him to touch him, overcome his doubt, and believe. And with the risen and glorified Jesus standing in front of him, the formerly doubting Thomas spoke the clearest words in the New Testament about who Jesus was: "My Lord and my God!" he exclaimed. I have read some traditional, Trinitarian Christian commentaries on this passage that attempt to put this particular Easter egg right back into hiding. They attempt to explain it away, saying that Thomas was getting just a little bit too excited, and blurted something out that we, on calmer reflection, should realize is a bit overstated. In their view, God is God, and Jesus is his son--a separate person who is Lord, but not God. I beg to differ. I believe that Thomas knew exactly what he was saying. After all, he had been with the Lord in person throughout the three years of Jesus' public ministry. And he certainly knew him better than any fancy theologian who came along two thousand years later. Besides, if God in his providence allowed Thomas's statement to remain in the Gospel, can we really think of it as a mistake? I believe the Lord was hiding one more Easter egg for us to find in the Scriptures. He was telling us the most vital message that Easter has to give us. The Jesus that stood before Thomas and the rest of the disciples was not some mystical second Person of a divine Trinity, somehow together with, but still separate from, the Father and the Holy Spirit. This Jesus, as Thomas said, is not only our Lord but our God. This Jesus is the one God who created us all. This Jesus is God himself come into the world--as the ancient prophets had predicted--to share our human struggles, sorrows, and joys. This Jesus is our Lord and our God--for as the prophet Isaiah has told us, there is no Lord and Savior but Jehovah God. Doctrine of the Lord #21: The Lord is God Many people these days think of the Lord [Jesus] as being an ordinary human being like themselves. They think only of his human side, and not at the same time of his divine side. Yet his divine and human sides cannot be separated. The Lord is God and human at the same time. And in the Lord, God and the human side are not two, but one person--yes, entirely one, just as the soul and the body are one human being. Sermon Conclusion: Our Divine Human Lord Over the centuries since Jesus Christ walked the earth, a multitude of Christian theologians and preachers have struggled with the question of who Jesus Christ was and is. They have come to many different conclusions, some of them directly contradicting others. And in the end, it is up to each one of you to make up your own mind what you believe. My own belief is that after we humans (in the West) had spent seventeen centuries getting completely off track and totally missing the point, the Lord finally gave Emanuel Swedenborg the task of giving us the message that will straighten out the Christian world--if we are willing to listen to it. Hidden in the voluminous, and sometimes dry, writings of Swedenborg, we have the clearest, deepest, and most beautiful expression of the Christian message that exists anywhere. And if you truly want to understand who Jesus Christ is, and what this means to you, I would be happy to help you search out the answers. For some of you, this may seem like a side issue. We all have busy lives. Who has time to look into fancy theology? And yet, what is more important than knowing who created us, and why, and what that Divine Being has in mind for us? Does it really make sense to spend all our lives providing for our brief time on earth--a few decades, a century or so at most--but have not prepared for the life we will live forever afterwards? And how meaningful is even our brief life here on earth if we cannot look to some deeper meaning and higher calling that simply eating, sleeping, working, and getting what pleasure we can out of life? Our beliefs about God will determine the course of our lives. If we don't believe in God at all, our life will be a materialistic one, limited to the things of this earth. If we believe in a distant God, an angry God, a punishing God, our life will be lived in fear and trembling, always trying to appease a potentially hostile omnipotent being that we cannot control. Our church offers something far more beautiful, healing, and soul-satisfying. We believe in a God of pure love and pure wisdom, who created the universe and each one of us in it to give us love and joy. When God saw that we had wandered so far into error, pain, conflict, and sorrow that we would never find our way back, the Creator of the universe came to us personally to show us the way back to life and love. God came to us as a human being, Jesus Christ, and lived among us. And now the Lord God Jesus Christ is ready and waiting for each one of us to overcome our doubts and say, "My Lord and my God." Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Thu May 1 12:57:42 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 08:57:42 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "The Woman and the Dragon," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030501085655.077893f8@mail.leewoof.net> The Woman and the Dragon By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 27, 2003 Readings: Genesis 3:1-7 The woman and the serpent Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden; but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Revelation 12 The woman and the dragon A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short." When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. Apocalypse Revealed #533 The woman clothed with the sun "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet" symbolizes the Lord's new church in heaven, . . . and the Lord's new church about to be on earth, which is the New Jerusalem. Sermon A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. (Revelation 12:1-3) Women and reptiles go a long way back in the Bible story. In fact, they first square off against each other in Genesis chapter 3, very close to the beginning of the Bible. In that encounter, the woman loses. She is taken in by the serpent, eats the forbidden fruit along with her husband, and as a result, they both experience shame for the first time--not to mention bringing various curses down upon themselves and getting thrown out of the Garden of Eden, where they had lived innocently and happily up to that time. And now in Revelation chapter 12, very close to the end of the Bible, they square off against each other again. The lowly serpent of Genesis has grown monstrously large, becoming an enormous, many-headed red dragon. We know it is the same character, since in verse 9 of our chapter, the dragon is identified as "that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray." However, the woman has also grown much more powerful. The Eve of Genesis is a simple woman, created out of a bone taken from Adam's chest. The woman of Revelation 12 is a glorious being, clothed with the sun, standing upon the moon, and with a crown of twelve stars adorning her head. And this time the woman holds her own against the mammoth reptile--with a little help from her friends. In the Bible, women--especially women of stature, and most especially women of cosmic status--regularly represent the Lord's church. This does not mean the institution of the church so much as it means the whole community of people who believe in the Lord and in the Lord's Word, and live according to that belief. In many places throughout the Bible, especially in the Prophets and the book of Revelation, the Lord's church is presented as a woman who is the bride and wife of the Lord God. For example, several chapters later in Revelation, an angel says to John, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (the Lamb being a reference to Christ). And then the angel shows him "the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Revelation 21:9, 10). A few verses earlier, John had already mentioned seeing "the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband" (Revelation 21:2). This is the same holy city that has twelve gates to receive the redeemed from all the nations of the earth. It is an obvious symbol of the human community of faith, also referred to as the "body of Christ" and simply as the church, which is the bride and wife of the Lord. The woman clothed with the sun has the same representation as the holy city New Jerusalem that is the bride and wife of Christ. She represents the body of believers that is part of the new era of genuine Christianity that we believe has now begun both in heaven and on this earth. The name of our church, "The New Jerusalem Church," is a reference to this new Christianity. Not that we believe we _are_ the new church that the Lord is forming in our day, but that we _believe_ in it, and aspire to be a part of it. This is a grand and glorious vision for our church! And it is a vision that can inspire us as we struggle along, dealing with prosaic issues of building and grounds maintenance, budgets, and the question of our church's programs, growth, and outreach. It can inspire us as we deal with the inevitable frustrations, friction, conflicts, and disappointments that accompany every human institution and every human community--including the church. As we face our own internal issues here in the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church, and also the issues now facing the wider bodies of our Association and our denomination, this vision of the woman clothed with the sun can give us inspiration on how to be a church that is a part of the wider body of Lord's new church on earth and in heaven. The first thing we notice about the woman is her dazzling attire. She is wearing the sun itself as her clothing. She is a being of intense light and intense warmth. The sun, we know both from Swedenborg and from ancient tradition, is the primary symbol in nature of the Lord God, the creator and ruler of the universe. Our little cosmos--or solar system--centers on and revolves around the sun, which is not only the focal point, but also the binding force that holds together all the planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and other bodies that inhabit our solar system. Its heat and light are the source and engine of all life on earth. Without the sun, this earth would be a cold, dark, dead rock--if it existed at all. The sun's heat--its primary life-giving attribute--not only represents, but corresponds in a living way to the intense love of God, which is the central essence, the very being of God. It is God's love that both creates and sustains us as living, spiritual beings. And sun's light, which comes to us blended with its warmth, is the Lord's eternal truth, enlightening our minds and guiding us in everything we do. So the first attribute we notice about the woman, spiritually speaking, is that she is fully wrapped in the Lord's love and truth, a being of light and love. This means that our church, also, is to be wholly wrapped up in the Lord's love and truth. In Biblical terms, we are commanded to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5), and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). If our lives, both individually and collectively, are not centered on the Lord's love and on loving and serving our neighbors here on earth, then we are not a part of this woman who represents the new Christianity that the Lord is forming on this earth. The woman is also supported by the moon, which is under her feet--the foundation, as it were, on which she is standing. The moon shines by reflected light from the sun, and is a visible, guiding light when the sun itself is not in our sky. It represents our faith in the Lord, which carries us through our darker times when we do not feel the Lord in such a living way as in our times of spiritual daylight. Even when our lives are centered around the Lord, we do not always feel the Lord's love burning in our hearts. Yet if we have developed a strong and true faith, it can carry us through our times of darkness. And the stars that crown the woman's head--all those tiny, beautiful points of light that stud the night sky and guide us in our times of darkness--are the eternal, spiritual truths, the principles of spiritual living, that we discover and learn, and that guide us when our hearts are not so warm, and our mind not so enlightened as in our emotional daytimes. This is the vision provided in Revelation 12 of the new Christian Church as it is meant to be: centered on God's love and wisdom, sustained by faith, and guided by all the beautiful eternal spiritual truths that the Lord gives to all whose minds are clear. This is the vision of powerful spiritual life to which we can aspire as a church. The woman is pregnant, and about to bring forth a male child. Spiritually, children represent new births within us--births of new feelings of love for the Lord and for one another, and of new understandings of the truth. These, especially, are the spiritual fruit that we bear when we are spiritually married to the Lord, and living a life of faith and kindness. The child that the woman is about to bear is a male child; so he represents a new spiritual understanding. Specifically, since he is the child of the woman who represents the new Christian church, he symbolizes that church's newborn understanding of spiritual truth. In other words, the male child is the teachings, or in traditional terms the doctrine, of the new church that the Lord is forming both in the spiritual world and in the material world. In our church, we believe that the primary visible form of that new doctrine is found in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, whom the Lord commissioned to deliver to the world a renewed and deepened understanding of the Christian faith, of the spiritual world, and of the life we are to lead as Christians. The teachings of our church are, in a special sense, the male child that has now been born into the world, and that will, in due time, "rule all the nations with an iron scepter." One day, I am convinced, the teachings given to the world through the pen of Emanuel Swedenborg will be the reigning theology and faith of the entire world. This I believe, not just because Swedenborg said so, but because the spiritual philosophy presented in Swedenborg's writings represents the best and the highest of all spiritual truth found throughout all the ages of humanity's searching for enlightenment and for God. Things are not true because Swedenborg says so; rather, Swedenborg says things because the Lord showed him the truth, and he expressed that truth to us in the clearest form possible for a human mind of the time and place in which those truths were published. However, though Swedenborg's writings are an especially potent manifestation of the male child born to the woman, they are not the only way that this child appears in our world and in our lives. Every time we as individuals or as a church community bring forth new truth, new understanding, new enlightenment that we had not grasped before, and offer it to the world around us, we are bringing forth the male child. Every time we as a church offer to the people of our community the spiritual wisdom that we have been given by the Lord, we _are_ the woman clothed with the sun, giving birth to a child whose destiny is to reign in the hearts and minds not only of the people of our community, but of all people of faith throughout the earth. Please understand, this does not mean everyone on earth will become Swedenborgians! But it does mean that the core principles of our church will be the reigning principles of all genuine religions throughout the earth. Those principles are a belief in one God, who is pure love and pure wisdom; a belief in the inspired Word of God, containing depths of truth that go beyond all human understanding; and a dedication to living a life of love and service to our fellow human beings according to the teachings of our religion. These principles will, I believe, reign in the human community on earth as we are ready to receive them. Unfortunately, this does not happen without powerful resistance. The woman is crying out in pain as her child is about to be delivered. And who wouldn't cry out when there is a huge, seven-headed dragon standing by to devour the child as soon as it is born? The dragon, that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, represents everything that resists the birth of the new Christian church within us, and in our world. For Eve, it was especially the desire to base her life on the evidence of her physical senses rather than on the spiritual inspiration that came from God. She disobeyed God's words in order to eat a fruit that looked pleasing to her eyes. And ever since, when we humans have followed the lead of our senses rather than listening to the voice of God from within, we have come to know pain, shame, conflict, and spiritual death. In our day, there is enormously more material knowledge that can lead us away from God and toward materialism and selfishness if we let it rule us instead of serving us. The simple serpent of Eve's far simpler day has grown into an huge, threatening dragon. It is very difficult to maintain our faith and our love for God in the face of the powerful, many-headed voice of materialism and materialistic science and philosophy that pervades our world. That dragon of faith in the material world and in human ingenuity and technology is doing its best to destroy all faith in the Lord and in spirit. And it has made great inroads. But the destiny of our new Christian faith is not to be swallowed up by materialism and greed. The moment the child is born, it is caught up to heaven--to our deeper, spiritual minds--out of the reach of the devouring dragon. And the woman herself finds a place in the desert, where she is protected from the dragon. Our church, too, has found itself in a desert of small numbers and struggling congregations. Often we have felt the need to hide our precious, beautiful new beliefs away from the crowd of religious fundamentalists, traditional Christians, and secular skeptics that would chew it up and destroy it before it has a chance to grow to a powerful adulthood in our minds and hearts. For so many decades, we have faced the question, "Why are we so small, when our teachings are so incredibly powerful and beautiful?" We have been, and in many ways still are, facing a dragon of resistance to the truths of the new Christianity that have now been born into the world. But we can take heart from our story. The beliefs we hold so precious will not be destroyed from this earth, even if they must remain hidden for a while. Our church will not perish--even if it must spend some time in the desert. This, too, shall pass. And when the battles are fought and the old ways of the world are overcome, the woman and her child will re-emerge as the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. What Jesus said to his little band of disciples two thousand years ago, he also says to our little band of believers today: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun May 4 18:48:41 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 14:48:41 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "The Alpha and the Omega," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030504144652.020826f8@mail.leewoof.net> The Alpha and the Omega By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, May 4, 2003 Readings: Isaiah 44:1-8 The first and the last "Listen, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. This is what the Lord says--he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. One will say, 'I belong to the Lord'; another will be called by the name of Jacob; still another will write on the hand, 'The Lord's', and will take the name Israel. "This is what the Lord says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let them proclaim it. Let them declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come--yes, let them foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." Revelation 22:7-17: The Alpha and the Omega "See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me; but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant a with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!" And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. "Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." "See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. "It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let everyone who hears say, "Come." And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. Doctrine of the Lord #36: God is human from inmost to outmost God became human on the outmost level, just as he is in the first principles. God is human, and every angel and spirit is a human being from God. . . . From the beginning, however, God was human in first principles, but not on the outmost level. After he had taken on the humanity in the world, he became human on the outmost level as well. This follows from what I have already demonstrated: that the Lord united his human side to his divine side, and in this way made his humanity divine. This is why the Lord is called the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. Sermon I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 22:13) Is God a distant, unattainable God, or a close, personal God? Is the Lord far above the daily grind of human labor and conflict, or right here with us, facing the struggles of life just as we do? Do we have an abstract Creator, or a flesh-and-blood Savior? In philosophical language, is God transcendent or immanent? Questions such as these have been debated by theologians and mystics throughout the ages. Yet from the perspective of the Bible and the teachings of our church, there is no need to debate. The simple answer is, "All of the above." Our reading from the final chapter of Revelation, which is the final book of the Bible, echoes passages in Isaiah, including the one we read this morning: "This is what the Lord says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God." And Jesus, speaking to John in the closing words of the powerful vision he received while in exile on the island of Patmos, affirms that he is that same God: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." For those of you who haven't studied Greek, Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last letter. Both are vowels, Alpha being equivalent to our letter "A," usually pronounced as it is in the word "father," and Omega having a long "O" sound, as in the word "home." The Alpha and the Omega are depicted right here in our chancel, above the altar, in an insignia made of the two letters intertwined. This symbol expresses our belief in the Lord God Jesus Christ as the beginning and the end of all things, who is both the high and mighty Creator of the universe, far above all human conception, and our own personal Savior, right here with us every day and every moment. And yet, it wasn't always that way. For the people of Old Testament times, God was a high and mighty God, the Creator of the universe, but not a close and personal God as Christians experience him. Yes, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and others heard God speaking to them, and even on occasion had the experience of speaking with God face to face. But if we look into the matter further, we find that they were speaking, not directly to God, but rather to the "angel of the Lord's presence" (Isaiah 63:9). For in the Old Testament the Lord plainly states, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). The great figures of the Old Testament knew a God who occasionally filled an angel with his presence, and in this way spoke to them through the angel. In other words, in Old Testament times, God was a high and mighty God, a transcendent God, but not a close, immanent, personal God--except by proxy. It was necessary to have angels, priests, and prophets standing between God and human beings. With the New Testament, this all changed. With the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God added time to his eternity, flesh and blood to his infinite divine essence. In Jesus, God became both divine and human, both transcendent and immanent, both distant from us and close to us. Ever since then, there has been no need for intermediaries between us and God--no need for angels, priests, or prophets to stand between us and our Lord, carrying God's messages to us, and interceding for us before God. The Lord is now his own intermediary, and we can be our own priests and prophets. In other words, each one of us can now have a direct, personal relationship with our Lord and our God. And my job as a minister is not to stand between you and God, but to invite you to form your own direct relationship with the Lord God Jesus Christ. Of course, the nature of the Lord our God is a vast teaching! I could spend the rest of our time here this morning expounding on the intricacies of our church's theology on the nature of God, and of his incarnation as Jesus Christ. And for any of you who would like to delve more deeply into such things, I am always happy to oblige. If there is interest, perhaps our beliefs about the Lord would be a good topic for a small group series, or even a publicly offered workshop. This morning, though, I would like to offer a few thoughts on what it means that we worship a God who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last--who is both almighty God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The very first thing to emphasize is that we believe there is only one God. This means God is not three Persons, as in the traditional--but non-Biblical--doctrine of the Trinity. There is no mention of a Trinity or of Persons of God anywhere in the Bible. Everywhere the Bible makes a statement on the issue, it says that God is one. It took fancy theologians to get confused enough to invent the idea of three Persons in one God. Our belief is that God is just as fully one Person as each of us is one person. Just as each one of us has a soul, a body, and the words and actions that flow from us, so the Lord has a divine soul, called the "Father" in the New Testament; a body, or presence, called the "Son"; and words and actions, called the "Holy Spirit." Using these three names for God doesn't make three persons any more than our having a first, middle, and last name makes us three persons. Whether you call me "Lee," "Mr. Woofenden," or "Reverend," I am still the same person. Those names and others simply emphasize different roles and different parts of my personality. It is the same with the many names for God given in the Bible: each refers to a different role or a different aspect of the one and only God. For us, this means that our minds and hearts don't have to be torn between different beings and different personalities of God. We don't have to worry about an angry God the Father, and turn to a loving God the Son for protection from that angry Father. We don't have to be fearful of some divine debate among the various personalities of God over whether we are worthy of heaven or deserving of hell. We don't have to feel ourselves at the mercy of conflicting, and possibly hostile, omnipotent beings deciding our eternal fate. The one God that we believe in is a God of pure love, pure wisdom, and pure compassion. The wrath, condemnation, and destructiveness attributed to God in the Bible is how God looks from our perspective when we have turned our backs on God. And the Bible speaks in those terms to those of us who need to believe in an angry, punishing God in order to have the motivation to change our wrong ways and follow the Lord's way instead. You see, the Lord loves us so much that he will even allow us to have a misconception about his true nature if that misconception will do a better job of getting us to repent and turn to him. David expressed the same thought this way in Psalm 18:25-27 (and in 2 Samuel 22:26-28): With the loyal you show yourself loyal; With the blameless you show yourself blameless; With the pure you show yourself pure; And with the crooked you show yourself perverse. For you deliver a humble people, But the haughty eyes you bring down. I recall very vividly a conversation I once had with a conservative Christian pastor. When the subject turned to my belief in a God of pure love, and I mentioned our church's view that God is never angry, but the "wrath of God" is simply what God's love looks like to us when we are opposed to God, I found myself on the receiving end of this pastor's anger! She told me in no uncertain terms that she could never believe in a God who is not angry with the wicked for all the terrible things they do to innocent people. Seeing that I would make no progress on that particular subject, I beat a hasty retreat! But inwardly I was thinking: This is why the Bible speaks of God's anger--some people just have to believe in it! And God loves us so much that he will allow us to believe even things that are not true if it will help us to feel God's presence more strongly in our lives. However, for those of us who have accepted a God of pure love, wisdom, and compassion, there is no need to be fearful of an angry, vengeful, and punishing God. If, as the Bible says, God is one, and God is love, then the one God loves each one of us with a total and eternal love that can never change, no matter how badly we stray from the paths of the Lord. Whether we are an enlightened spiritual leader or the worst criminal offender, God's love for us is constant. There is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us. In the Lord's own words, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). So the Lord is also Alpha and Omega in this way: he is with us in our best times and in our worst, when we are walking in his paths and when we are straying far from them. As the Psalmist says, "If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there" (Psalm 139:8). This is a very comforting teaching. Sometimes we may find ourselves with not a friend in the world--or at least, feeling that we have no friends. We may find ourselves in conflict with our family, our friends, our coworkers, and even the whole world. We may think that we are all alone. But we are not. The Lord is always with us, following each of our thoughts and feelings, helping and leading and guiding us, loving us with an intense and compassionate love that goes beyond anything we can ever conceive of. The only thing missing is our awareness and acceptance of the Lord's presence with us and love for us. And if we can then draw on our faith, and realize that we are the Lord's beloved, our burdens will be lifted off our shoulders, and we will know the inner peace of the Lord. Of course, sometimes we may not want to believe that the Lord is with us, following each of our thoughts and feelings. Because let's be honest: some of our thoughts and feelings are not the sort of thing that we would want anyone to know about! Sometimes we have jealous, angry, and hateful feelings towards others and even towards ourselves. Sometimes our minds are full of foolish ideas, black thinking, and sordid thoughts that we would be embarrassed to have anyone else know about. But consider this. The Lord knows about every one of these thoughts and feelings in us, and still loves us! Whether we want to believe it or not. The Lord is fully aware of even our most deeply guarded secrets and our most shameful and embarrassing thoughts--yet still feels nothing but love and compassion for us. There is nothing we can feel, think, or do that will make the Lord stop loving us! And when we realize this, we can lay down all those inner burdens at the Lord's feet and accept his salvation, which liberates us from our slavery to all our inner demons. The Lord Jesus Christ willingly accepts our confessions and our prayers, invites us to lay everything out before him, and to receive from him the peace and the joy of knowing that he is with us through our best and our worst, loves us tenderly, and is willing to bear our burdens of darkness and pain in order to lift us out of them. The Lord God Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. This is the God we love and worship. This is the Lord our God, who has the power to save us from all our darkness and sin, and lead us into eternal life. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun May 11 18:06:15 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 14:06:15 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "All God's Relations," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030511140538.0444d980@mail.leewoof.net> All God's Relations By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, May 11, 2003 Mother's Day Readings Psalm 68:1-6: God sets the lonely in families May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away; As wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds-- His name is the Lord-- and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. Mark 3:20, 21, 31-35: Jesus' mother and brothers Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." . . . Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." Marital Love #120: All God's relations The children of the Lord as husband and father and the church as wife and mother are all spiritual. In the Bible's spiritual sense, this is the meaning of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and other family relationships. Our rational mind can see without any explanation that no children but these are born of the Lord through the church--so no explanation is necessary. After all, everything good and true comes from the Lord; and the church is what receives them and puts them into action. And everything spiritual that has to do with heaven and the church relates to goodness and truth. That is why in the spiritual meaning of the Bible, sons and daughters stand for different kinds of truth and goodness. . . . The Lord also calls people who are part of his church brothers and sisters. Sermon "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Jesus asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:33-35) Picture the scene. Jesus, who has recently come out of his quiet years and started his public ministry, has had yet another crowd gather around him. The people are eager to see one of the miraculous healings they have heard about, and to hear his strange teaching--so unlike the pedantic teachings of their religious leaders. People crowd around him, press in upon him, pushing their way into the house where he and his disciples have gone. The mass of people is so tightly packed around Jesus and his disciples that they cannot even eat their meal. From the looks of it, Jesus' ministry is really taking off! But his family has a different view of things. For them, Jesus is not some new phenomenon on the scene--the latest wonder to appear in Israel. Rather, he is their son and their brother, whom they have known for years. But did they really know him? He is too familiar to them. They can't see him as a charismatic spiritual leader. Instead, they think he has gone off his rocker. So they come to take charge of him, figuring that since he is a member of their family, they are responsible for him. His mother and brothers don't go into the house. Instead, they stand outside and send someone in to call him out. And Jesus calmly and pointedly disowns them: "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." In many ways, this was a shocking statement for Jesus to make. Then, even more than now, the members of a person's family were the most important people in his or her life. Family stuck together. Family was the bulwark against an often hostile and usually uncaring world. And here was Jesus, publicly disowning his family. How could he do such a thing? How could he turn his back on those who had cared for him all his life, who had grown up with him, who had shared all his earlier years with him? The fact is, it was not Jesus who turned his back on his family, but his family who turned their back on him. Apparently they had not known him all that well after all. Despite the incident at the temple when he was twelve years old--probably just a bit of family lore by now--they simply couldn't picture the oldest son and brother in their family as a popular and powerful spiritual leader. And knowing the rigid religious hierarchy of their day, they were probably a bit frightened that Jesus' fame might bring down persecution on his family--namely, on themselves. So they came, not to hear what he had to say, but to take charge of him and put a stop to all this nonsense. Jesus knew very well why they were there. He knew that his family had rejected him and did not believe in what he was doing. Later on, some of them, including Mary, his birth mother, became his followers. But at this time they were fulfilling a statement Jesus would soon make in his home town of Nazareth. We read a few chapters later in Mark: Jesus left there and went to his home town, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. "Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What is this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, "Only in his home town, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." (Mark 6:1-4) Jesus knew why his family had come. He knew they had rejected him. Perhaps some of you have had the same experience. Perhaps some of you have had your family, the people you grew up with all your lives, turn their backs on you when you went in a direction that they did not approve of. If so, then you know the pain that Jesus must have been feeling when his family members arrived that day. You know the feeling of deep pain that David expressed in the Psalms: "Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, with whom I shared bread, has lifted the heel against me" (Psalm 41:9). For many of us, rejection by our families is--or would be--a crushing blow. Some people never quite recover from the experience. Many give up on the new life course they had set for themselves, and run back to their families with their tails between their legs. Others continue on their unapproved paths, but carry the raw and painful wound of family rejection with them throughout their lives. For those of us whose life decisions carry us away from our families, Jesus presents another, more emotionally healthful course. Perhaps we must leave our family of origin behind. But that does not mean we must be forever without a family. Even as the members of his biological family were turning their backs on him, Jesus was building a new, spiritual family. The members of his new family were gathered close around him--not standing outside, safely at a distance, sending a messenger to make the contact for them. The physical distance from his former, biological family showed through body language the emotional and spiritual distance that now stood between them. Meanwhile, the members of his new family showed their emotional and spiritual closeness to him through their physical closeness. These were the people with whom Jesus would spend the rest of his life. These were his true family. If we have found ourselves in the painful position of having to leave our biological family behind, we, too, can build a new and deeper family around ourselves. If our family does not share our values, we can find others who do, and build ourselves a new, spiritual family with them. For many of you, I know that this church is a second family. These are people with whom we can share our beliefs and our values, people who understand us and support us in the course of life we have taken. And if we can share our church with some of our biological family, that is so much the better. Now, perhaps I shouldn't be saying this on Mother's Day, but as strong as our family bonds are here on earth, in the wider scope of human life our biological relationships are not primary, but secondary relationships. Our biological family relationships are like a womb in which we spend our early, formative years. Their influence on us is critical and profound. We will always have the mark of our family of origin on us. Our earthly, biological mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers will always be within us, however deeply buried in our consciousness, affecting the course of our lives. Yet we are not primarily biological beings. We inhabit this physical body for a few decades, and maybe even for a century if we are of particularly hardy stock. Sooner or later, though, we will leave this physical body behind, and never return to it. Then our true life--the life that we were designed for from the beginning--will begin. That life does not last just a few decades or even a century, but throughout all the ages of eternity. In that life, we do not live in the physical body that developed in our mother's womb, but in the spiritual body that developed in the womb of our life here on earth. When we enter the next life, we are born into the spiritual world from the womb of the material world. There we live as spiritual beings with spiritual bodies, freed from the confines of this material world and our physical body. And our families there will not be determined by blood relationships, but by spiritual relationships. Jesus was speaking of these spiritual relationships when he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." And this gives us the key to how we can become the brother and sister and mother of the Lord--and become true family to one another as well. If we have had to leave our family of origin behind emotionally, it is because we do not share their values, and have chosen a different life for ourselves. If we have been able to stay close to our family emotionally and spiritually, it is because we continue to share basic life values with them--especially spiritual values. And the Lord is pointing out that it is not only sharing spiritual values, but acting on them that makes us family to one another. How do we become part of the family of the Lord? Jesus tells us very plainly. We become the Lord's family by doing God's will. If, like Jesus' biological family, we turn our backs on the wonderful work of preaching and teaching and healing that the Lord wishes to do in our lives, then we stand spiritually outside the household where the Lord dwells with his true family. But if we are willing to accept the teachings of the Lord and put them into practice in our lives, then we have moved into the Lord's house, and have become his mother and sister and brother. As we celebrate our family relationships today, let us also keep in mind our spiritual family. We are all children of the Lord. And we become the Lord's true children when we "hear the word of God, and keep it" (Luke 11:28). Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Jun 2 00:26:21 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 20:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Who Are We, and Where Are We Going?" by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030601202533.03e9faa0@mail.leewoof.net> Who Are We, and Where Are We Going? By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, June 1, 2003 Readings: Micah 6:6-8: What does the Lord require of you? With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Matthew 28:16-20: The Great Commission Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." True Christian Religion #3: The faith of the new church The particular details of faith for human beings are: 1. God is one, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and he is the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ. 2. Faith leading to salvation is believing in him. 3. Evil actions must not be done because they are the work of the devil and come from the devil. 4. Good actions must be done because they are the work of God and come from God. 5. We must perform these actions as if they were our own, but we must believe they come from the Lord working in us and through us. Sermon "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19, 20) Ten years ago, in 1993, the theme of our annual Swedenborgian Church Convention was "Who Are We, and Where Are We Going?" I have often joked since then that this has been our church's theme all along. And yet, these are serious questions for our church. As a denomination, we are a church blessed with physical and spiritual wealth--but also with so many different visions of who we are and where we are going that we have been unable to come together around a specific vision and plan for our church. On the Association and local level, we have also tended not to have a clear vision and plan, or not to come together around any particular vision and plan. I believe this lack of a common, coherent vision and plan for our church is one of the major reasons we have remained a small, niche church. There are many other reasons, of course--including the continuing materialism of our society and our world. We can't change the world (at least, not directly). But we can change ourselves. This afternoon, many of us are heading to the annual meetings of the Massachusetts Association and its financial arm, the Massachusetts New Church Union. As we prepare for those meetings, it may be useful to revisit the question of who we are, and where we are going. We have had a troubled year in our Association, and still face some major issues that must be resolved. But I believe that if we can come together around a common vision and plan, our church has the potential to become a far stronger and more effective presence in this state, and in each of the communities where we have congregations. First, a look at who we are. The historical facts of our church are known and well-documented. It all started when, as we believe, the Lord called a man named Emanuel Swedenborg to explore the spiritual world and, under the Lord's personal direction, publish for the world not only new light on the spiritual world, but also a whole new, revitalized theology for the Christian Church, together with a new and deeper interpretation of the Word of God. Over the centuries since the Lord first came to the earth, the Christian Church had become corrupted, both in its doctrine and in its life. Swedenborg's task was to provide the teachings that would be the basis of a renewed Christianity. Swedenborg often talked about a new church that was now beginning on this earth. However, he never made any move to found a church organization. The new church as he presented it was a spiritual entity composed of all who believed and lived according to the fundamental principles of genuine Christianity. He never specified what the external form of that church would be, and his followers have debated the question ever since. Still, we humans seem to need to form and belong to organizations. And an organization was founded within fifteen years of Swedenborg's death, by a small group of dedicated readers of his teachings. This organization became the General Conference of the New Jerusalem in Great Britain, which is the oldest denominational body of Swedenborgians in the world. Yet even before this body was founded, an Anglican minister, the Rev. John Clowes, had established a New Church society in his Anglican church near Manchester, England. Clowes, who thus became the first Swedenborgian minister in the world, remained an Anglican organizationally until the day of his death, and believed that forming a separate organization of the New Church was a big mistake. We are the inheritors of the organization that Clowes so strongly believed was an error. The General Convention of the New Jerusalem, covering the United States and Canada, was organized in the early 1800s based on books and missionaries that arrived from England, largely sponsored by the British Conference. Other Swedenborgian denominational bodies have spun off from the British Conference elsewhere around the world. And our own organization has spawned a more conservative dissenting body in the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which formally separated from us in 1890, and continues as a separate church headquartered just north of Philadelphia. The roots of our disparate visions go all the way back to the beginning of our church. And yet, there are common themes that bring us together. Those common themes are the reason there is a new church in the first place. Organizationally, we are not all that different from the various Protestant and Catholic churches from which the bulk of our membership has been drawn in the West. We have even loosely been called a Protestant church. In terms of church polity and culture, that identification is largely accurate. We look, feel, and act like a Protestant denomination. It is our theology, our beliefs, that set us apart from our Protestant roots, as well as from the Catholic Church against which the Reformers were protesting. Though we share a common Christian heritage and faith, we differ from our friends in the Protestant and Catholic Churches on so many fundamental points of doctrine that we can hardly be called a variation of either one of them. In terms of our faith, we stand distinct from any of the previous churches. In our theology we are, in fact, a new church. What is this theology that we hold so dear, and that defines our distinct existence as a church? The opening paragraphs of _True Christian Religion_, Swedenborg's extensive overview of the theology of the new Christian church, provide a brief summary--or should I say, several brief summaries--of the faith of this new church. Our reading from _True Christian Religion_ is the summary most focused on human belief and life. Another summary is contained in the statement of faith that we offered earlier in our service. This statement is a condensation of a somewhat longer statement found on the back of each issue of _Our Daily Bread_, the monthly devotional magazine of our church. It reads (in the shortened form): We believe that there is one God, known by many names. We worship Jesus Christ as our Lord and our God. The Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are aspects of God just as soul, body, and activities are aspects of each one of us. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Within the literal story, there is a deeper account of our spiritual journeys. Thus the Bible is alive and fresh today, speaking to us about our own spiritual growth, and showing us the way to live better lives. We believe that people are spirits clothed with material bodies. At death, our material body is put aside, and we continue living in the other world in our spiritual body, according to the kind of life we have chosen while here on earth. We believe that religion touches all areas of our lives. Our responsibility is to put what we believe into practice in our daily lives. All who do this, of whatever faith, are saved, since they are living in the spirit of Christ's name. These are the defining points of who we are as a church. Let's take a brief look at the three most basic ones of them in turn. The core of any church's faith is its belief about God. Traditional Christian belief, both Catholic and Protestant, holds that God is a Trinity of Persons, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each being a distinct Person of God, yet somehow also being one God. Our church rejects the Trinity of Persons, believing instead in a Trinity in the one Person of the Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. Just as we humans--created as we are in the image and likeness of God--have a soul, a body, and words and actions that make us the total person we are, so the Lord God has a divine soul, a human presence, and the words and actions that define and express the Divine Being. These three aspects of God are identified in the New Testament as "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." The fact that God has several names doesn't mean that God is made up of several persons any more than the fact that most of us have three given names, not to mention various nicknames, means there are several persons in each one of us. Another way of expressing the Trinity in God is to say that God is made of pure love, which is formed and directed by pure wisdom, and these together result in all the words and actions that come from God. So we reject the traditional wrathful, punishing God, and believe instead in a God of pure love, wisdom, and creative, saving action. Our beliefs about the Word of God diverge similarly from the currently reigning traditional beliefs of the Catholic and Protestant Churches. While those churches tend to focus on the literal words of Scripture and their literal meaning, we see the literal sense of Scripture as a gateway to a boundless, infinitely profound deeper meaning--or rather, to several layers of deeper meaning. At its deepest level, the Bible speaks wholly about the nature and activity of the Lord our God. This is the heavenly, or "celestial" meaning. And just below its surface the Bible speaks of the spiritual journey and development of all of humankind together. This is the "internal historical" meaning. But the meaning that concerns us most directly is what Swedenborg calls the "spiritual" meaning. This is the level of meaning that tells the story of our own individual rebirth and spiritual growth. This is the level of meaning that we focus on in our sermons, Bible studies, and--whether we realize it or not--in our own reading and living of the Bible. The third and most practical of our church's fundamental teachings has to do with living a spiritual life--a life that leads to heaven. Unlike the traditional creeds of the Catholic and Protestant Churches, we believe--and always have believed--that good people of all faiths are saved, and will find their place in heaven after their lives in this world are over. Yes, we are Christians ourselves, and we look to the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Yet we also believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is also the one God of the universe. This means that from our perspective, people of every faith, when they worship God and live by God's commandments as they understand them, are in fact worshiping the same Lord and God that we do, even if they perceive that God differently. For us, though, the most important issue is not how _others_ believe and live, but how _we ourselves_ believe and live. Our church explicitly rejects the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, widely believed in the Protestant Church. This doctrine is erroneously attributed to the Apostle Paul (who never said that faith alone saves), and is explicitly rejected by the Apostle James, who said that we are saved by what we do, and not by faith alone (James 2:24). So for us, faith is not a theoretical thing to be believed in our heads, but a practical thing to be followed in our lives. In the Great Commission, which we read from the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord tells us not only to make disciples of all nations, but also to obey everything he has commanded us. This should be a sufficient basis for us to answer the question of where we are going as a church. We are to make disciples of all nations, and to teach them to obey everything that the Lord has commanded us. Now personally, I will be happy if we as a church can focus on making disciples in our own community, our own state, and our own nation. Everything we do will expand outward in wider circles than we can imagine. Yet we need to first direct our efforts to doing the work of the Lord's realm right here in our own neighborhood. Our church does not exist for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all the people whom the Lord has placed us in this world to serve. Our church has a wonderful, broad, warm, and life-giving faith. We have each been blessed by that faith. Now the Lord is giving us a Great Commission to offer the blessings of this beautiful faith to all people who are seeking a deeper spiritual faith and life. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Jun 8 17:17:36 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 13:17:36 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Ruler of All Nations," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030608131110.02b00fc8@mail.leewoof.net> Dear Sermon Service Subscribers, I hope you have been enjoying the sermons this year. Since the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church is now moving into its schedule of summer informal services, this will be the last sermon sent out until the next church year starts in September. To tide you over the summer, I invite you to visit my sermon and lecture website at: http://www.leewoof.org/ And also the Online Edition of Our Daily Bread at: http://www.swedenborg.org/odb/index.cfm There you will find sermons by many different Swedenborgian ministers and lay people. Have a wonderful summer! --Rev. Lee Woofenden ------------------------------ Ruler of All Nations By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, June 8, 2003 Readings: Psalm 67: God rules the peoples, and guides the nations May God be gracious to us and bless us And make his face to shine upon us, That your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, For you rule the peoples justly, And guide the nations of the earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us. May God continue to bless us; Let all the ends of the earth revere him. Revelation 19:11-16: The rider on the white horse I saw heaven opened, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: "King of kings and Lord of lords." Apocalypse Explained #726.2: The Lord's infinite power The Lord has infinite power. We can see this from these considerations: He is the God of heaven and of earth. He created the universe filled with numberless stars, which are suns; and in the universe so many systems and earths in these systems--these systems and the earths in them numbering many hundred thousand, and more. He alone preserves and continually sustains these because he created them. Further, just as he created the natural worlds, so he created the spiritual worlds above them, and these he continually fills with millions and millions of angels and spirits. Under these he has also hid away the hells, as many in number as the heavens. He alone gives life to each and every thing in the worlds of nature and in the worlds above nature. And because he alone gives life, no angel, spirit, or person is able to move a hand or foot except from him. . . . These and many other things too numerous to be mentioned could not possibly be so if the Lord did not have infinite power. The Lord himself teaches in Matthew that he alone rules all things: "All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). Sermon: Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly, and guide the nations of the earth. (Psalm 67:4) Throughout recorded human history runs the thread of human beings trying to rule and control as much of this earth as we are able. Nation rises against nation, there are wars and rumors of wars, empires rise to control vast territories, enduring for perhaps a hundred, perhaps a thousand years, and then they are gone, surviving only in the history books and in the collective consciousness of the human race. Right now, the United States is the dominant power on this earth. Some people think this is great. Others think it is terrible. Still others are of two minds about it. And though I have my own opinion, I am not here today to say whether this is good or bad, but to remind you that it is temporary. Every human work is temporary. We may build great buildings that last centuries, and great empires that last centuries, but in the end, everything we humans do here on earth will crumble into dust and be gone. We may gain control over a large part of the world's territory and wealth, but that too is only temporary. It may last for our lifetime, or over many lifetimes, but sooner or later the wealth and lands will pass out of our hands, or out of the hands of our descendents. We humans on our own are mortal--creatures of time. And in particular, everything about us that dwells in and relates to this material world will live out its life, and then die. We can have no permanent memorial here on earth. Even if we manage to build physical or cultural monuments that last thousands and thousands of years, we know that in the end, the earth itself will be swallowed up by our dying and expanding sun, and even the entire universe will eventually either collapse back on itself, or dissolve into a thin film of inert matter, dead stars, and random energy, incapable of supporting any further life. All things of this earth live out their lives, and then die. It is only in a temporary sense that any one of us, any group of us, any human government can be said to rule any part of this earth. We may have the reins of power in our hands for a time, but then they are gone. Yet even when we apparently have the reins of power in our hands, much of that power is illusory. The United States is now the most powerful nation on earth. Recently we militarily crushed the governments of two nations with ease. Then we discovered the same thing that the North Vietnamese discovered after they defeated us: that winning the peace is much harder than winning the war. With our overwhelming military superiority, breaking the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq was not difficult. Establishing reasonable governments to replace them is turning out to be far thornier a task than we had imagined. Even here in our own land, with our government wielding the most sophisticated means ever devised of tracking its people's movements and their economic and recreational activities through computerized databases reaching into many of the things we do each day, our government remains in power only as long as the people want it to. The power that our leaders feel they wield is not their own, but is only donated to them for a time. Those who were in power ten or twenty years ago are now simply private citizens, if they are not already in their graves. In the end, all human power--whatever effects it may have for a time--is merely an illusion. It is real for a time, and then it is not real. And it depends on so many factors beyond human control that the power can hardly be considered our own. Even the President himself depends for his power on thousands and millions of others who could at any time decide that they do not want to do what he wants them to do. Above and beyond that, we may have the strings of military and economic power in our hands for a time, but we do not create or control the physical, economic, biological, and social laws that govern all human action and interaction. In fact, any human law we make can be successful only to the extent that it abides by and harmonizes with higher laws that are not merely legislated, but are built into the very fabric of existence. If we abide by these laws, our actions gain a certain long-term staying power. If we violate them, we are fighting against the very nature and structure of the universe--which is a battle we cannot win for long. We are all subject to laws that we did not create and that we cannot change. The Author of those laws is the only true ruler of the universe and everything in it. The Creator of the physical and spiritual worlds, who established their foundations and delineated all their laws, is also the supreme and only ruler of all that exists. Our power is secondary, derived power. God's power is the original and real power, because God is the source of all that is. Now, many of us will accept that theoretically. "Yes, of course, everything comes from God." But we think that God has done his "creation thing," and has now given us the power. And there is a sense in which that is true. God did put us in charge of the garden, to tend it and care for it (Genesis 2:15). And he gave us dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28). Yet God still retained ultimate control. When we violated the one prohibition that he had given us--against eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil--he expelled us from the Garden of Eden, where all had been provided for us in luxuriant fashion, and began the existence that we still know today: scratching out a living for ourselves through laborious work, in the sweat of our brows. Dominion was only lent to us as long as we tended and cared for the garden according to the higher law established by God. And to this day, all of our power is merely lent to us by God. Jesus, when he was before Pilate, said to him, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" (John 19:11). Even the idea that the power is ever actually ours is an illusion. We may think that God hands power over to us, just as an employer writes a check so that the money (or the power) is now ours. And God purposely gives us the illusion that this is how it works. If we knew that, as Swedenborg says, "no angel, spirit, or person"--that means us!--"is able to move a hand or foot except from him," we would rebel against God, continually resentful of and resistant to God's minute awareness and rule over even the most trivial aspects of our lives. God knows that if we have a sense of personal power and control, we will work and struggle to move forward and achieve the purposes that we believe are ours. So God allows us to think that we are autonomous; that we control our own lives; that everything we do is from our own will and through our own power. But it is not true. Not only were we originally created by God, and from God's substance, but every ounce of capability and power that we now have comes from God, moment by moment. We literally cannot move a hand or a foot unless God gives us the power to do it in that very instant. We may think that it is our brain and nervous system and muscles that enable us to lift a hand or a foot, but that is true only in a limited sense. First, we now know that even this physical body of ours, which looks so solid, is mostly empty space. It is made of infinitesimally small bundles of energy and matter--electrons, protons, and so on--whizzing around and giving the illusion of solidity. When we touch one another, it is not physical "stuff" touching physical "stuff." Rather, it is energy and force fields approaching one another. The engine behind all that energy and motion is God. If God were not continually flowing into the material world, sustaining every particle and keeping them all in motion, they would instantly cease to exist. Our very bodies, and everything we touch and see, are continually held in existence by the power of God's love. If God's presence in and around us ceased even for an instant, we would instantly cease to exist. And second, even the impulse to move our muscles comes from within. Without a mind inhabiting this body of ours, it would be a lifeless mass of flesh. Without a spirit, the body is motionless and dead. The impulse to move our hand or foot comes from within--from our will, which is part of our spirit. And though we may think our thoughts and feelings are our own, in fact, every one of them comes from the angels and spirits around us, and through them from God. So even if the physical means exists to move a hand or a foot, it will not be moved except at the command of our spirit. And our spirit also was created by God, and is continually sustained in existence by God. Now let's look around at this world of ours again. Doesn't it look a bit different? Suddenly the weight of human wealth and dominance seems light, fleeting. Even the most powerful people on earth are merely children playing with their toys for a time, until their toys are taken away from them. There is only one ruler of all nations, and of all the universe. Whatever the appearance may be, God is in control of our world. We may not always see God's purposes, but we can take comfort in knowing that God's purposes are eternal, not temporary, and that they will be accomplished. And we can take even greater comfort in knowing that the God who rules the earth with infinite power is also a God of infinite love and mercy. "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly, and guide the nations of the earth." ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 We also accept credit card donations via PayPal: https://secure.paypal.com/affil/pal=LarryC%40TMLP.com New PayPal users must complete a simple sign-up. Make your donation to LarryC@TMLP.com (Treasurer), Bridgewater Society of the New Jerusalem. Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Sep 7 18:25:48 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2003 14:25:48 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "On Earth as it Is in Heaven," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030907142230.028acea8@mail.leewoof.net> On Earth as it Is in Heaven By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 7, 2003 Readings: Genesis 28:10-13 A stairway from earth to heaven Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord. Matthew 6:7-13 The Lord's Prayer When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from evil. For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever. Amen." Arcana Coelestia #1285.3 On earth as it is in heaven In the first Ancient Church, though there were many forms of inner and outer worship, . . . still they all had "one language" and "their words were one." In other words they all shared one doctrine in general and in detail. Doctrine is one when all have mutual love, or kindness. Mutual love or kindness causes things, though varied, to be one, since it makes one out of many different things. If all the people, no matter how many there are--even ten thousand times ten thousand--are governed by kindness and mutual love, they have only one goal in view, namely, the common good, the Lord's kingdom, and the Lord Himself. Differences in matters of doctrine and in forms of worship are like the differences among the physical senses and among the inner organs of the human body, which all contribute to the perfection of the whole. The Lord flows in and works by way of kindness, though in different ways according to the character of each individual. In so doing he arranges every single person into a proper order, on earth as in heaven. In this way the Lord's will is done, as he himself teaches, "on earth as it is in heaven." Sermon: Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10) Here we are, back in the sanctuary at the beginning of another church year. With Bet Giddings, our summer pianist, playing our service for us today, it feels a little like a continuation of our summer services. And as another way of easing you into our regular church year, my remarks today will be a bit shorter than is usual for our services here in the sanctuary. In fact, what I mostly want to do this morning is introduce the theme that we will be following in our services and sermons this fall. For the past few years, since we integrated our Sunday School with the adult worship service, I have been following the readings in our Sunday School lesson schedule from the _Bible Study Notes_ by Anita S. Dole. This has had the beneficial effect of coordinating the adult sermon with the children's Sunday School class, so that parents and their children would usually be following common themes. This year, as we re-start the four year cycle of the Dole Notes from the beginning, I have decided to "fly free" from the Sunday School lesson schedule, and instead follow various themes throughout the church year. Not every sermon will necessarily be on the theme. There will be holidays and special occasions when we will focus on something else. But for the regular services, we will follow our own series as the children progress through the Bible story from beginning to end throughout the year. Once I decided to follow themes, the obvious next question was what theme to start with. To make a long story short, _Heaven and Hell_ has always been Swedenborg's most popular book--and for good reason; so I decided that it would be hard to go wrong using heaven as our theme for this fall. And yet, here we all are, living on earth, not in heaven. What good is talking about heaven going to do us if it doesn't make a difference for our lives here on earth? As I was mulling these things over, the theme for our fall sermon series came to me: "On Earth as it Is in Heaven." We say these words each week in church. And you can think of the upcoming sermons as one great big commentary on that one line from the Lord's Prayer. What does it mean for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? What is God's will, anyway? And how do we do it here on earth? Another way of asking this question is, "How do we make earth more like heaven?" Of course, Swedenborg wasn't the first person to realize that heaven was a popular topic. Many centuries earlier, Jesus spoke about the kingdom of heaven over and over again. But instead of writing voluminously as Swedenborg did, he condensed his teachings about heaven into short, pithy parables. Each one of them provides a memorable image that we can unpack to learn something about what heaven is all about--and how we can make things more like heaven here on earth. My plan is to spend the next few months with you unpacking some of the Lord's parables of the kingdom of heaven one at a time, using other Bible passages as well as Swedenborg's book _Heaven and Hell_ to shed light on each one. And along the way, I hope we will all discover some hidden treasures that will help us to make life better both for ourselves and for the people around us. In doing this, we build a heaven within and around ourselves right here on earth. Though the relationship between heaven and earth has not always been clear to humans on earth, that relationship has always been there. The very first words in the Bible are, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1) And though to get the visual picture, this should probably have been translated "the sky and the earth," humankind has since time immemorial taken the sky as a symbol and a reminder of heaven. Ever since the beginning, the earth has also started out "formless and empty," and in need of light shining into it from God and heaven, to bring order and harmony into the chaos of material reality. The lights in the expanse of the sky are needed to separate day from night, to mark seasons and days and years, and to govern all things below. Even when humankind had fallen away from the primeval closeness to God depicted in the second chapter of Genesis--in the Garden of Eden story, when God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden--there were still glimpses of that ancient relationship between heaven and earth. Jacob, son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, got such a glimpse during a time of great personal struggle, and it gave him the strength to continue on his journey toward becoming a great nation. At the time of his famous dream of a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, Jacob was fleeing his home and family in fear for his life after tricking his father and cheating his brother Esau out of the blessing that was due to the elder brother. Just when Jacob's life seemed to have reached its low point, God gave him, in his dreams, that wonderful vision of angels ascending from earth to heaven, and descending from heaven to earth, with the Lord himself standing above it. And Jacob knew then and there that his life here on earth had a higher meaning than anything he had conceived of before. God had put him on earth for a greater purpose--and his job was to follow God's will for his life by continually working toward that greater purpose. Heaven had been opened to him, and his life would never be the same again. In the New Testament also, the Lord reminds us over and over again that we are not living for this earth only; that our life has meaning only when we are seeking the kingdom of heaven in our life here on earth. And he reminds us in the prayer we use every week that we are to seek out God's will as it is done in heaven, and carry it out on earth. That is why each one of us was placed here: to be an angel-being, first ascending to heaven in our spirits to discover the true and deeper realities of eternal life, and then descending back to earth to put those higher lessons into practice in our everyday lives. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." What will the earth look like when God's will is done here as it is in heaven? Swedenborg gives us a glimpse of it in the passage we read from _Arcana Coelestia_. Heaven on earth does not mean everyone thinks and acts the same way. Far from it! In fact, in heavenly society there is a great variety of beliefs, a great variety of worship styles, and a great variety of personalities. Heaven on earth does not mean a boring sameness! What it does mean is that people of different beliefs, different churches, different worship styles, different personalities do not clash with one another, but instead work together in a harmonious whole. The differences do not divide; instead, they add to the perfection of the whole. This is the thought I will leave you with today. Over the coming weeks, we will discover many more pearls of wisdom about the kingdom of heaven. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Thu Sep 18 02:44:48 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 22:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "The Kingdom of Heaven is Near!" by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030917224336.037a1c10@mail.leewoof.net> The Kingdom of Heaven is Near! By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 14, 2003 Readings: Deuteronomy 30:11-14: My word is very near to you Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it. Matthew 3:1-3: The kingdom of heaven is near In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'" Matthew 4:12-17: The kingdom of heaven is near When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali--to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles--the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." Matthew 10:1, 5-8: The kingdom of heaven is near He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. . . . These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Heaven and Hell #302: Our close connection with heaven I have talked with angels about the union of heaven with the human race, and have told them that people in the church do say that everything good is from the Lord and that there are angels with us, but that very few people really believe that angels are so close to us, much less that they are in our thoughts and feelings. . . . Yet in fact the union is so vital that we could not think the least thought apart from the spirits who are with us. Our spiritual life depends on this. . . . And if this connection were severed, we would instantly drop down dead. If we believed the way things really are, that everything good comes from God and everything evil from hell, then we would not take credit for the good within us, nor take blame for the evil. Whenever we thought or did anything good, we would focus on the Lord; and any evil that flowed in we would throw back into the hell it came from. But since we do not believe in any inflow from heaven or from hell and therefore believe that everything we think and intend is in us and from us, we make the evil our own, and defile the good with a feeling that we deserve it. Sermon: From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." (Matthew 4:17) Most of the people living on this earth probably do not spend a lot of their time thinking about heaven. In fact, I would venture to say that even for the people attending church today, heaven is not a primary subject of everyday thought. Most of the time, we are too busy focusing on getting along in this world to have much time left over for contemplating the other world. Of course, there are certain occasions when we spend more time thinking about the afterlife--such as when we have lost someone close to us. And if it is someone in our own household and our own immediate family that we have lost, our thoughts may linger in heaven much more. After all, when a piece of our heart is in heaven, our mind will naturally follow our feelings of love and closeness to the one who is no longer with us. Yet for most of us, heaven is something far off, over the horizon. In our younger years death is usually far from our minds. That's something that happens to much older people. As far as we're concerned, our own death is so far away that it's not even worth thinking about. Even in the middle years of our lives, we are usually so busy with work, family, and community responsibilities that our minds are very firmly anchored in this world. Our elder years, as we move closer to death, would naturally be a time to think about what comes next. But especially in this culture, many people avoid thinking about death as long possible. For many of us, I'm afraid, it is only when death is staring us right in the face that we start thinking seriously about what might come next. The fact is, none of us knows what the day of our death will be. We probably have in our mind some estimate of how long we're going to live, and as we go about our daily lives, we presume that we'll have about that much time left to accomplish what we want to accomplish here. As long as we are young, it seems very likely that we will be able to do a lot of great things with our lives, and we may go out into the world with great idealism. It is often only when we have left the halfway mark of our lives behind that we realize there simply won't be enough time to follow all our dreams--and that we're no longer quite as healthy and adventurous as we used to be, anyway. And then we may make some wild attempts to grasp something of heaven for ourselves right here. A new sports car. A new face. A new career. A new husband or wife. Time is running out, we realize, and if we are going to experience any of our dreams, we'd better get going on it before it's too late! Sooner or later, though, as another decade or two goes by, we reluctantly realize that most of our life is behind us. We may still be able to do some wonderful things here on earth. Even if we are not physically as strong as we once were, our retirement years can give us some of that precious time to ourselves that we never had enough of before. In that time, we can choose to follow some of the interests and dreams that before would have been impossible. We can also have the pleasure of watching the younger generations coming along, without so much pressure of responsibility keeping us from savoring each moment with those whose bodies are as young as their minds, and who are still full of wonder at the miracles happening all around us. For many in the older generation, all of this is enough to keep the mind, most of the time, off of the inevitable approach of death and our entrance into whatever comes next. Yet for all of us, the time will come when, quite literally, "the kingdom of heaven is near." However long or short our life here on earth may turn out to be, from the moment of our birth there is one fact that cannot be avoided: each one of us will die. When we do die, if all the prophets, mystics, and other travelers into the spiritual realm are right, our lives will continue uninterrupted in a world that is both above and within this earthly world. And whatever our outward accomplishments may have been in this world, in that world only our inner character will count. If we have devoted our lives here on earth to gaining possessions, pleasure, and power, without developing the inner qualities of understanding, kindness, and love for our fellow human beings, that inner emptiness will follow us into the other world. We will find out too late that we have "gained the whole world, and lost our own soul" (Matthew 16:26). The course we have set for ourselves here on earth continues into the other life--and once we have left our material bodies and the physical world behind, our direction becomes set, and we can no longer change course. To quote "The Teacher," King Solomon: "Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie" (Ecclesiastes 11:3). Now we begin to see the force of the words spoken by John the Baptist, by the Lord himself, and by his disciples when they went out to preach the good news: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." The word "repent" may be a little old-fashioned, but it simply means to change our attitudes, change our direction, change our ways. It means to turn away from the direction we have been going so far, and start out in a different direction. It means to aim our lives toward the things of God and spirit, instead of toward the things of this world. When we realize that our entrance into the kingdom of heaven (or the "other place") is getting closer and closer, these words gain more and more weight for us. As we grow older and, we hope, wiser, we begin to realize that the things of this world can never satisfy us. We begin to think that perhaps we should turn away from temporary, material things and toward the eternal, spiritual things of love, wisdom, understanding, and compassion for the people who share our world with us. We begin to realize that the kingdom of heaven is near, and it is time to turn our lives toward preparing ourselves not just for life in this world, but for eternal life in the spiritual world. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near! Yet there is another sense in which the kingdom of heaven is far closer to us than the day of our death. The Lord tells us in our reading from Deuteronomy: Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it. In terms of time, we tend to think of heaven as something for a future time, and not as a present reality. In terms of space, we tend to think of heaven as something far above us, and not as something right here within us. And yet, the Lord tells us that his word, which comes down through heaven, is not at some great distance in heaven where it is inaccessible to us. No, it is very close to us. It is in our hearts, in our minds, right in our own mouths, where we can feel it and know it and express it to one another. And like the Lord's words, the kingdom of heaven is not some distant, abstract dream. In Luke 17:20, 21 we read: Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." We think of heaven as a place where we go after we die. But do we think of it as something that is with us right now? Swedenborg tells us that even while we are living here on earth, we are inwardly inhabiting the spiritual world. He says that we have both good spirits and evil spirits with us all the time, influencing our feelings and desires, and through them our thoughts. In fact, if we did not have this connection to the spiritual world, our minds would go completely blank, and we would not be able to feel a thing in our hearts. Further, if we lost our connection to the spiritual world, we could not even continue to live; we would instantly drop down dead. This is what Jesus was referring to when he said to Pilate, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" (John 19:11). Whether we want to believe it or not, all of our power, all of our thoughts, all of our desires, come from the spiritual world every instant. Our very life, our very bodies, are continually held in existence from the spiritual world. So it is not only when we approach our death that the kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of heaven is always near, in our heart and in our mouth, calling to us, bending our will--but never breaking it or forcing us--toward God and heaven. We are continually in the hands of both good spirits and bad, continually in a balance between heaven and hell, so that we can freely choose which path we will take, and what direction we wish the tree of our life to fall when we do, in the course of time, cross the threshold of death and enter fully into the spiritual world. We are not merely creatures of this world. Right now we are living in the spiritual world as well. And if we can keep this in mind as we go about our daily lives, it will help us to stay focused on the things that really matter. It will help us to focus each day and each moment, not only on the things of this world, but on the higher, more beautiful, enlightening, and loving things that lead to eternal life. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near! ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Sep 22 18:48:28 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] Wheat? Or Weeds? By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20030922144747.02e51890@mail.leewoof.net> Wheat? Or Weeds? By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 21, 2003 Readings: Hosea 10:1-4 Disputations like poisonous weeds Israel was a spreading vine; he brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased, he built more altars; as his land prospered, he adorned his sacred stones. Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones. Then they will say, "We have no king because we did not revere the Lord. But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?" They make many promises, take false oaths, and make agreements; therefore disputations spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field. Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43 The parable of the wheat and the weeds He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" . . . Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! Heaven and Hell #491, 502 Our second stage after death We go through three stages after death before we come into either heaven or hell. The first is living in our outer self, the second is living in our inner self, and the third is getting ready. We go through these stages in the world of spirits. . . . After the first stage is over--the stage of living in our outer self--we are brought as a spirit into a stage where we are in our inner self. This is a stage of our inner motivation, and the thought that comes from it. In the world, we were in this state of mind when we were by ourselves in freedom and without anything bridling our thoughts. Just as in the world, we lapse into this state without realizing it when the thought closest to our words--meaning the thought from which we speak--withdraws toward our inner thought, and we linger there. When we are in this state of mind, we are in our real self and in our real life. Our real life--our real self--is thinking freely from our own feelings. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. (Matthew 13:24, 25) For the last two weeks, we have been warming up to our subject of heaven on earth. We started two weeks ago by highlighting the words from the Lord's Prayer, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." From these words it is clear that we are not meant to wait until we die before tasting anything of heaven; rather, we are here on earth to see that God's will is done here just as it is in heaven. In other words, our task here involves bringing something of heaven to this earth. Then last week we explored the words that John the Baptist and Jesus and his disciples used when they preached to the people: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!" Heaven is not some far-off place that we may experience some time. It is right here within us and among us. And it is within and among us whenever we leave our own ways behind, and follow the Lord's ways instead. With these thoughts as background, today we take up the first of the Lord's parables of the kingdom of heaven that will provide the themes for the rest of our fall series. These parables of the kingdom of heaven form a sequence that takes up most of Matthew chapter thirteen, and then reappears from chapter eighteen to chapter twenty-five of the same Gospel. And it is interesting that where Matthew speaks of "the kingdom of heaven," the other Gospels speak of "the kingdom of God." Of course, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are one and the same, because it is God's presence--the presence of God's love and wisdom within and around us--that makes heaven. Now let's dig into the parable of the wheat and the weeds--or "wheat and tares," as you may be more used to hearing. One of the things I love about this parable is that it points out so clearly that we do not have to be perfect to be in the kingdom of heaven. In fact, this parable makes it clear that we do not even have to be in heaven to be in the kingdom of heaven! Here is why the parable says this: In this parable, the kingdom of heaven is first compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field. Well, that does sound like heaven. The field is the world of our lives, and the good seed is the Lord's truth that causes us to be children--or citizens--of his kingdom. But then the parable goes on to say, "but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away." Why is this surprising? Because Jesus is still talking about "the kingdom of heaven!" The kingdom of heaven is not only like having good seed sown in the field of our lives, but also like having bad seed sown in our lives by an enemy--which Jesus identifies as "the devil," a personification of hell. So while we are in heaven in our spirits, we have not only good seed sown in us, but also bad seed. Now, I'm not advocating that we get comfortable and friendly with our evils and vices. After all, eventually they're going to have to be rooted out. But this parable should help us to relax a bit, and not be so hard on ourselves if we are not perfect. In every single one of us, the Lord has sown good seed. The Lord has given us good qualities, good character traits, good potentials and skills that fit us for heaven if, like wheat sown in the field, we allow them to grow in our lives. But the Lord also knows--and we ourselves are often painfully aware--that in each one of us there are also bad seeds sown. These are our tendencies toward being selfish, uncaring, greedy, and focused on physical things, and all the character flaws, bad habits, and outright offenses that flow from these bad seeds. Every single one of us has weeds growing up with our wheat. Yet as long as the good seed is growing in us as well, we are still in the kingdom of heaven. Now, truth be told, while we are mixed up between good and evil, we are still in the earth version of the kingdom of heaven. And our teachings tell us that on earth, heaven is the church--or the community of believers and followers of God. And every single one of us who is part of the universal church, or the Lord's kingdom on earth, has both good seed and bad growing in us at the same time. So we might as well just accept that we are not going to be perfect. It was not we, but an enemy who sowed that bad seed in our lives. And the sooner we get out of our personal guilt trip and realize that in fact, we are under attack by outside forces, the sooner we will be able to loosen the grip of that evil on our lives. Who sowed the bad seed? "An enemy." It was the devil, or hell, who sowed us full of the seeds of bad tendencies and character flaws. This happened while we were spiritually asleep, and didn't realize what was happening. And those seeds will grow up in us, whether we like it or not. We'll just have to get used to not being perfect. And the next surprising thing about this parable is that we are not commanded to immediately root out the evil in ourselves the moment we notice that it is there. We have generally been advised that whenever we see anything wrong, we should "nip it in the bud." For heaven's sake, get rid of it before it takes over! But I would suggest that this does not apply to all the flaws we notice as they are sprouting up in our minds and hearts. These are not coming from buds, but from seeds. The buds we are to nip are the poisonous flower buds of fully grown weeds in our character that are about to blossom out into actions and words that are damaging and destructive to the people around us, and to ourselves. Now why, when we see a wrong thought or feeling sprouting up in ourselves, should we not instantly rip it up out of the field of our minds? Wouldn't that be a safer course? The Lord, in the parable, says, "No; for in gathering the weeds, you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest." What could this mean? Isn't it obvious that when we weed our garden, it is best to get the weeds when they are small? Aren't they much more difficult to uproot when they are full-grown? In many cases, this is true. And if we have obviously evil, vile thoughts and feelings cropping up within us like broad-leafed weeds that will quickly shade and choke out the good plants, it probably is a good idea to pull them up right away, before they can take over. But in the case of wheat and these particular weeds, that would not be a wise course of action for two reasons. First, unlike most garden plants, wheat is a grass, and it grows packed closely together. With the root systems similarly packed together, and even intertwined, pulling up the weeds would inevitably uproot the wheat as well. Second, the particular weed that Bible scholars believe Jesus was referring to is the darnel plant, which looks very much like wheat, especially in the early stages of growth. Unlike nutritious wheat, its seeds are poisonous. But as it is growing, it is hard to tell darnel from wheat. So in our attempts to root it out, we would be likely to pull out a lot of wheat plants thinking they were darnel, and leave behind a lot of darnel plants thinking they are wheat. In other words, in the early stages, it is hard to tell the difference between the wheat and the weeds, and we would likely pull out many of the wrong plants. What does this mean in our lives? It is true that some parts of our mind and lives are like a vegetable or flower garden, in which the good plants and the weeds are obvious, and we can root out the bad right away. For example, if we are in business, and we are thinking that perhaps just this month we should cook the books a bit to make things look a little better than they really are, that's an obvious violation of the Ten Commandments, and we can just pull that weed right out. But what about when things aren't so clear cut? Perhaps an example outside of ourselves may help to make the problem stand out. Let's say once again that we are in business, but this time we are a manager in charge of hiring and firing. We have just hired a new crop of workers. Some of them look very promising; others look like they may not cut it, or may even be dishonest. In this situation, one course of action we might take would be to immediately give the pink slip to those we suspect are going to be a problem. But in so doing, we run the danger of letting go people that might turn out to be very good workers. Perhaps some of the ones we see problems with are simply new to employment, or new to this particular line of work. They may be struggling to get oriented, and be a bit inept and inefficient at first. These people do not need to be fired; they need to be helped along. And if we do help them along, many of them will become fine additions to our work force. On the other hand, some of the ones who look great at first may, in fact, be quite competent--but also untrustworthy and apt to cheat the business. We might leave them in place because of their good showing, only to find out later that they have a tendency to help themselves to money or merchandise when they see an opportunity. Of course, there may be some obvious bad apples that we need to get rid of right away. But in this situation, it is better to give our new crop of employees some time, and see how they turn out. In the language of the parable, we "Let both of them grow together until the harvest." Only when we have seen them "grow to maturity" in their job can we clearly distinguish between the wheat and the weeds among our employees. The same is true of many of our everyday thoughts and feelings. We have a multitude of thoughts and feelings cropping up within us every day--and it isn't always easy to tell which ones are good and which are bad. For example, we may have a bad feeling about a particular person, and be ready to shut that person out. And our feeling may be right! On the other hand, it may be based on prejudices that we need to overcome, or even a bad experience we had with someone else who looked a bit like that person. In this case, it is best to let our feelings "mature" a bit, and see if our initial reaction is well-founded--or if, in fact, this is a case in which we need to change our attitudes and broaden our minds. The message here is not that we should be careless and unconcerned about dealing with our wrong thoughts and feelings. It is, rather, that when thoughts and feelings are growing up within us that are new and untried, it might be best to see where they lead us before making a decision about whether they are good or bad. New ideas that at first seem crazy may, in fact, be leading us in a whole new and better direction. And new feelings that at first seem beautiful and appealing may, in fact, be leading us in a bad direction. As those thoughts and feelings mature, their true nature will become clear to us, and then we will be able to "harvest" them together, keeping the good, and rejecting the bad. Some of this we can do right here on earth. The more we do allow our thoughts and feelings to grow to maturity, and then "collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to be burned," while "gathering the wheat into the Lord's barn," the better off we will be even while we are still living in the physical world. For each one of us, though, there is also a "final harvest" after we leave the physical world for the spiritual world. There, in a place called "the world of spirits," all our thoughts and feelings come to full maturity. There, whatever we have truly believed and been motivated by within ourselves will come out into the light. We will no longer be able to think one thing and do another; and the true nature of each one of our thoughts and feelings will become obvious in the brilliant, clear light that comes from heaven. Whatever outward show we may have made here on earth, our real inner nature will come out, and we will speak and act outwardly exactly as we have thought and felt inwardly. This can be a scary teaching. Most of us have well-hidden thoughts and feelings that we would be embarrassed or scared to have generally known by the people around us. But as Jesus said, what we have said in the darkness of our own hearts will be heard in the daylight, and what we have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms of our minds will be proclaimed from the rooftops (Luke 12:3). This should give us some incentive to gradually let those inner thoughts grow up into the light, where we can clearly distinguish the good from the bad, and then reject the bad, while taking the good to heart. But the teachings about our final harvest in the spiritual world can also be comforting. What if we do want to be good, but we are still a bit mixed up? What if we have a good heart, but find ourselves drawn into thoughts, feelings, and ways of living that we do not feel good about. While we are here on earth, because of our outward circumstances and our ingrained habits, we may not be able to live the life we truly want and believe in. All is not lost! When the fields of our lives come to their harvest in the world of spirits, these things will all be sorted out--no matter how hopelessly tangled a mess they may be in now. If we are good at heart, Lord's angels are very skillful in seeing our true nature, our true feelings, and helping us to "gather into bundles" everything evil and false that does not agree with them, so that they can be sent down to hell where they belong, and not trouble us anymore. "Do you want us to go and gather them?" "No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn." Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Oct 6 16:05:03 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 12:05:03 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Littlest to Biggest," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031006120422.03f891a8@mail.leewoof.net> Littlest to Biggest By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 5, 2003 Readings: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 Gardens of righteousness and praise The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. . . . For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed. I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the young plant come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. Matthew 13:31, 32 The parable of the mustard seed He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." Heaven and Hell #475-77 Our life stays with us after death We present our whole person in our works and deeds. Our motives and thoughts, or the love and faith that are our inner parts, are not complete until they are embodied in the deeds and works that are our outer parts. These latter are in fact the outmost forms in which the former find definition; and without such definitions they are like undifferentiated things that do not yet have any real presence--things that are therefore not yet in us. To think and intend without acting when we can is like a flame sealed in a jar and stifled, or it is like seed sown in the sand that does not grow, but dies along with its power to reproduce. Thinking and intending and doing, though, is like a flame that sheds its light and warmth all around, or like seed sown in the soil, which grows into a tree or a flower, and becomes something. . . . We may gather from this what the life is that stays with us after death. It is actually our love and our consequent faith, not only in theory but in act as well. So it is our deeds or works, because these contain within themselves our whole love and faith. There is a dominant love that remains with each of us after death and never changes to eternity. We all have many loves, but they all go back to our dominant love and form a single whole with it. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches. (Matthew 13:31, 32) As many of you know, I grew up in a family of ten, along with seven brothers and sisters and, of course, my parents. One of the practical ramifications of this was that with ten people sitting around the dinner table, it made a big difference--to us, anyway--who got served first and who got served last. In fact, by the time the last person was served, if the first person was a fast eater, he or she might already be coming back for seconds. Because of this, we had several schemes for determining the order in which we would be served. The most common were "biggest to littlest" (or oldest to youngest) and "littlest to biggest" (or youngest to oldest). Of course, for those who were in the middle, neither one of these was all that great; so sometimes there would be lobbying for "middlest to outsidest." But for me, being number six, I usually figured that "littlest to biggest" was the quickest route to getting my supper--so that was the one I'd generally root for. This should explain how I got such a funny sermon title out of the parable of the mustard seed. Like all children who reach full adulthood, each one of us little Woofendens did grow up to be big Woofendens, and now there are a whole bunch more little Woofendens running around--some of whom aren't little anymore themselves. And so the cycle of life goes on. The human seeds planted by my parents--and their parents and grandparents before them--keep on growing and producing more human seeds. Add all of the families of the world together, and we can see why this earth and its human population is called "the seedbed of heaven." But I'm getting ahead of myself! The parable of the mustard seed is a parable of the smallest becoming the largest. Though mustard seeds were not literally the smallest seeds that the people of ancient Palestine were aware of, they were one of the smallest of the seeds that people commonly planted for their use--and the mustard seed had become proverbial for its smallness. And further, though the variety of mustard Jesus was probably referring to (black mustard), when planted in the garden, will usually grow only about three or four feet high, when it has enough water, sunlight, and soil, it can and does grow to be ten or even fifteen feet high--which approaches the size of many of the common trees that grow in that part of the world. But unlike trees, the mustard plant, which is an annual, does this in a single season. In other words, given the right conditions, it is a phenomenally fast-growing plant. All of this--not to mention the hot and pungent flavor of the seeds themselves--made the mustard seed an ideal image for Jesus to use in showing how the initial seeds of spiritual love and understanding that are sown in us grow up into lives of "righteousness and praise" to use Isaiah's words. If we look at the world around us, spiritual truth and love do, indeed, seem like "the smallest of all seeds." What are most people engaged in most of the time? From the look of it, most people are engaged most of the time in making money and pursuing enjoyment, pleasure, or power. We have built up vast economic and governmental systems that are geared almost entirely to providing for our material well-being, and asserting our economic and political power as far as it will extend. In the face of that huge machine, what hope do truth, spirit, and love for God and the neighbor have? They seem almost to be swallowed up in the human hubbub--tiny, insignificant seeds that almost disappear because their presence and influence is so slight in our ordinary, worldly consciousness. And yet, those tiny, insignificant looking seeds have a quality about them that causes us to "plant them in the field" of our minds. When the pursuits and pleasures of this world begin to lose their savor, we are attracted to the heat and pungency of spiritual ideas that challenge everything our materialistic mind takes for granted, and promise a very different life than the one that has already begun to grow old and stale for us. We plant those seeds of spiritual possibility in our minds and hearts, and wait to see what will come of them. It's important to notice that this parable of the mustard seed is one of the early ones in the Lord's series of parables on the kingdom of heaven. Even when the mustard plant has grown, it does not represent our full, mature state of spiritual development, but rather the time when spiritual life first begins to spring up and grow in us. These first few parables deal with seeds and plants growing. Later they move on to themes of treasure and wealth. And the latest in the series deal with human beings--first workers in the vineyard, and then people attending weddings. And we will see as we move along in our series on parables of the kingdom of heaven that this progression moves us through the stages of our spiritual growth to full spiritual maturity, in which we participate in "the wedding supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:19). So as I said, here in the parable of the mustard seed, we are dealing with the earlier stages of our spiritual growth. And this brings us to another, more personal reason why the mustard seed is called "the smallest of the seeds." When we first begin on our spiritual journey, we are fresh from our previous lives where the main focus of our lives was our own comfort and possessions, and those of our families. Our habit is still to think of ourselves first, and others after we've gotten enough for ourselves. Because of this, when those first seeds of new spiritual truth and life are sown in us, we tend to be focused on what we are going to get out of this new, spiritual life, and how things are going to be better for us. We also tend to think that our new spiritual understanding makes us pretty darn good--and certainly much better than all those selfish, materialistic, unenlightened people milling around out there. In other words, there is still a lot of ourselves and a desire for our own advantage in the beginnings of our spiritual life. We are still a long way from being angels of love and light. And the goodness and truth in us is still very small. But it's a start. And having some spiritual life--even if it's a rather smug and self-satisfied spiritual life--is better than having no spiritual life at all. We all have to start somewhere; and we start from where we were before. So even though we may recognize, in our clearer moments, that we are still messed up, selfish so-and-so's, we should still go ahead and plant those spiritual seeds in our minds and hearts, and let them grow. Perhaps an example might help to see all of this more clearly. Consider a young (or not so young) married couple who are having a rough time of their marriage. They seem to argue and fight more than they support and love one another. Things are looking bad, and divorce crosses their minds more and more often. Each one of them is thinking, "Why should I stay in this marriage? I'm not getting the love and affection that I'm supposed to get out of marriage. Mostly I just get a lot of grief. What good is that?" And so the relationship grows more and more strained and cold. This is a situation that seriously needs some spiritual input. Now let's consider that for this couple, the "mustard seed" they plant in their field is the idea from the church that marriage is meant to be a spiritual and eternal union. Now, they could just say to themselves, "Well, I picked the wrong person; maybe I'll try someone else." But they do still have some affection for each other, and they did, after all, have enough love for each other to get married. So they decide they need to work on this marriage and overcome their difficulties. Still, a lot of the incentive for doing this is often expressed in the thought I just mentioned: "I'm supposed to get love and affection out of marriage." In other words, marriage is supposed to make me feel good! I suspect that for most couples who have not progressed very far emotionally and spiritually in their marriage, the thought of what I'm going to get out of the marriage is the major driving force pressing them forward to see if they can get their relationship fixed. If I have a better relationship, I'll have a more enjoyable life. That is the mustard seed. Getting a more enjoyable life for ourselves is not a very noble or spiritual motive. In fact, by itself, it's a fairly selfish motive. True marriage love is not about getting pleasure for ourselves, but about giving love and happiness to our partner. Still, we have to start somewhere. And likely as not, in this example of marriage it will be the spiritually tiny, but hot and pungent (in our hearts) mustard seed of wanting a better, more enjoyable, and more affectionate relationship for ourselves that gets us moving. In fact, with this goal in mind, we may vigorously pursue ways to improve our relationship with our partner. So that mustard seed grows fast and big as it causes us to work on our relationship. In the process, we make things better not only for ourselves, but also for our partner, our children (if we have them), and everyone else among our family and friends. More importantly, as we work on our relationship from what may be less than noble and altruistic motives, we begin to learn that relationships are not about getting pleasure for ourselves, but about giving love and happiness to our partner and our children. And then we can begin moving on to the next stages, not only of our relationship, but of our spiritual life. This, I hope, gives a clearer picture of how those early mustard seeds of not yet mature spiritual life first spring up and become an active force in our lives. What does all of this have to do with heaven? Of course, every time we grow in new ways in our understanding, our emotions, and our spirits, we are entering more fully into the kingdom of heaven even while we are here on earth. So in that general sense, this parable is all about our place in the kingdom of heaven. Yet our reading from _Heaven and Hell_, and the whole chapter in which it appears, give more urgency to the question of just what seeds we will plant in our fields. Swedenborg writes, "There is a dominant love that remains with each one of us after death, and never changes to eternity." Last week we spoke of a "final harvest" that comes when our life here on earth has ended, and we enter the spiritual world. There, our true inner nature will come out--however well we may have hidden it from sight here on earth--and we will become exactly what we are like in our heart of hearts and in our inner mind. The process of sorting out that I mentioned last week involves discovering and disclosing what our "dominant love" is. It involves opening up our heart of hearts, and bringing our whole life--from our innermost thoughts and feelings right into our words and actions--into harmony with whatever it is that we love most of all. Do we love ourselves most of all, and consider others to be no better than servants to our will? Then we will become devils of hell, continually struggling for dominance over others who are equally intent on dominating and subjugating us. Do we love money, possessions, and physical pleasure most of all? Then we will become satans of hell, always grasping for others goods and possessions, and stealing them when we can--and suffering a similar fate at their hands. Or do we love the Lord and our fellow human beings most of all? If so, we will become angels of heaven, at a higher or lower level depending on the depth and strength of our love. We will spend eternity in the joy of love and service, in community with people who get just as much pleasure out of loving and serving us as we do out of serving them. As we consider the parable of the mustard seed, we do well to consider just what kinds of seeds we are planting in our lives here on earth. Whatever seeds we sow in the fields of our minds and hearts, those are the seeds that will grow up into the largest of garden plants, and finally become trees firmly rooted in our lives. Let us resolve to plant good seeds of love, kindness, and understanding, so that we may become angels of love and light. Amen. ____________________ Pastor's email address: leewoof@leewoof.net Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Oct 13 05:10:13 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 01:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Trials and Fermentations," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031013010917.02901048@mail.leewoof.net> Trials and Fermentations By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 12, 2003 Readings: Psalm 78:1-8: I will open my mouth in parables Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, Things that we have heard and known, That our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; We will tell to the coming generation The glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, And the wonders that he has done. He established a decree in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which he commanded our ancestors To teach to their children; That the next generation might know them, The children yet unborn, And rise up and tell them to their children, So that they should set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep his commandments; And that they should not be like their ancestors, A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation whose heart was not steadfast, Whose spirit was not faithful to God. Matthew 13:33-35: The parable of the yeast He told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world." Heaven and Hell #510, 511: Separating evil from good After we die, we each go to the community where our spirit was while we were living in the world. In our spirit, we are actually united to some community, either heavenly or hellish. Evil people are connected with hellish communities, and good people with heavenly ones. As spirits, we are gradually brought there, and eventually we move in. . . . The separation of evil spirits from good spirits takes place in our second stage after death. In the first stage, everyone was together. The reason is that as long as spirits are focused on external matters, it is like the situation in the world: evil people are together with good ones, and good people with evil ones. It is different when we have been brought into our inner nature, and are left to our own character and intentions. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. (Matthew 13:33) Our sermon series this fall has been focusing on heaven, as expressed in images in Jesus' parables of the kingdom of heaven in the Gospel of Matthew, and in plain language in Emanuel Swedenborg's book _Heaven and Hell._ In a picture, dark lines and backgrounds bring out the lighter foreground image by providing contrast. In the same way, hell brings heaven into sharper relief. If we never experienced anything but good, we probably would not appreciate in. When we have experienced evil, pain, and sorrow, the good times are so much sweeter by comparison! So today, along with our consideration of heaven, we're going to bring in a little of hell also. Even though it may not seem like it, that is what the parable of the yeast is all about. We usually think of yeast as something good. After all, it is yeast that makes our bread rise, so that we don't have to eat flat, hard bread, but can have nice, soft risen loaves that both look and taste better. It is true that the results of yeast are good. But one of the surprising revelations of the Bible's spiritual meaning is that it is actually evil that brings out this goodness. Yes, in God's economy, even evil is made to serve some good purpose. This morning, as we explore how this works, let's look at the spiritual world first. Earlier in this series, we have talked about the approach of death, our passage into the other world, and the final judgment that each one of us faces there. Last week I mentioned that whatever is our "dominant love"--whatever we love most of all--will come out into the open there, no matter how well we may have hidden it from others here on earth. Then we will become entirely formed and driven by that dominant love, inside and out. However, this does not happen all at once. When we first come into the spiritual world, we enter a place that Swedenborg calls the World of Spirits, which is halfway between heaven and hell, and not really a part of either one of them. Like earth, the World of Spirits has a mixture of good and evil, because like earth, heaven and hell meet and mix there. In fact, as we first start out our lives in the spiritual world, we return to what we were used to here on earth, and begin living exactly as we had lived before we died--and even in similar surroundings. You see, everything in the spiritual world is determined by our state of mind. And the mere fact of dying does not change the way we think and feel. We are still exactly the same person we were here. Our thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes, skills, ineptitudes, and the type of work we can do are all exactly the same as they were before we died. So naturally, we go back to a life like the one we had before. This is our first stage after death, which Swedenborg calls the "stage of externals." At this point, if we weren't paying a lot of attention to what was happening as we died, we may think we are still here on earth, since things are so familiar to us. Before long, though, the social masks we had learned to wear during our life on earth begin to wear away, and both we and others begin to see just what we are like inside. At the same time, we also begin to see just what our friends and companions are like. This is a time of change--and it can be quite uncomfortable. In fact, it could be called a time of trials and fermentations. While we are on earth, we keep our social masks on most of the time while we are out and about, and for some things, even at home. There are things about ourselves that we want to hide from others, and even from ourselves. It can be an uncomfortable for those masks to come off out in public--as they do in the World of Spirits. Then we are confronted with exactly what we are like inside, both the good and the bad, and there is no concealing or minimizing it. It is the ultimate state of "what you see is what you get." Of course, some people will already have done most of the work of getting rid of their evil and destructive thoughts and feelings--with the Lord's help, of course. Their process in the World of Spirits will be short, as they slough off the remaining scraps of obvious thoughtlessness and self-centeredness, and move quickly to their places in heaven. Others, though--and I suspect this means most people who leave this earth--are in a mixed state, and have more work to do to get it all sorted out. This work is done in a way that exactly corresponds to the process of fermentation. Yeast is a fungus. It is a very tiny, one-celled fungus, but it works about the same as the mold, mushrooms, and other larger fungus that we see throughout nature: it takes complex organic compounds and breaks them down into simpler ones. Specifically, yeast consumes sugar, and produces carbon dioxide gas, which is what causes the bread to rise, and alcohol, which is burned off during the baking process, but leaves behind a distinctive flavor. The fermentation takes place before the bread is baked. While it happens, the bread is just a lump of soft, sticky dough, with many biological and chemical reactions going on in it. If this doesn't sound very appetizing, it's because it _isn't_ very appetizing. It is only after the heat of the oven kills the yeast, stops the fermentation process, and burns off the alcohol--while causing the loaf to become firm--that the bread becomes edible and nutritious. Right about now, some of you may be thinking that our worship service has adjourned, and reconvened as a chemistry class. And you might be right! But it's all in the cause of understanding our parable--the parable of the yeast--and its spiritual significance for our lives. Because what happens chemically in the process of fermentation and bread-baking is exactly what must and will happen in us spiritually. The fact is, while we're here on earth our motives are mixed. The "sugar" in our dough--what we love and enjoy--is partly self-centered, and partly focused on others. For example, most of us do our jobs just as much, if not more, for our own benefit (to support ourselves!) as we do for the sake of the useful services we provide for others. Under ordinary circumstances, these mixed motives are fairly harmless. Even if we may be working just to make a living, we still are doing useful work, serving people, and generally doing it with reasonable thoughtfulness for others. Our employment requires this--and most of us do also do want to treat others right. But as we go along, there are times when those mixed motives keep us from progressing any further in our spiritual life. We are held back from rising to a higher level of love and service by our focus on ourselves and our material possessions and pleasures. We may even be dragged down to a lower level by our more corrupt desires. Before we can progress, we must separate out the good from the bad in ourselves, and leave the bad behind. This does not take place without a struggle. The struggle is pictured in the process of fermentation, where there is a "struggle" of chemical reactions as the sugars are broken down into things that aren't nearly so sweet: carbon dioxide gas, which is a waste product that is purged from our body through our lungs--and will suffocate us if we are immersed in it--and alcohol, which is a systemic toxin in the human body. These toxic compounds must be driven off by the heat of baking before the bread becomes edible and nutritious. We go through similar struggles as we undergo the painful process of separating our good motives from our bad ones, rejecting the bad and keeping the good. What corresponds to the physical process of fermentation is the spiritual process of temptation. Let's turn to the spiritual world for an example. In the World of Spirits sorting out these mixed motives can take some hard and painful forms. One particular form that Swedenborg mentions is when people who are good at heart have taken up with friends and associates who are not good at heart. While we are here on earth, we often form friendships and associations based on outwardly held common interests. Let's look at such a situation, and see how it might fare in the World of Spirits. Consider a man who has been a member of the local country club all his life. Fred (as we'll call him) goes there regularly and golfs with his buddies. And of course, it is on the golf green that the real business decisions get made! Fred is an ordinary fellow. He makes his money in various business ventures, and his connections on the tee are critical to his financial well-being. The club is also where all his closest friends are. These friendships form the basis of his own and his family's social life around town. Unfortunately, though Fred himself aims to be good and honest in his business, and to serve his clients and customers well and fairly, some of his associates are merely putting on an outward show of honesty in order to get as much as they can for themselves. And though Fred has occasionally felt a twinge at some of the stories of sharp business dealings he has heard from his friends, he has just chalked it up to the "realities of the business world." In the course of time, Fred's generation moves on, and he and his friends find themselves in the spiritual world. They get back together there, and carry on their friendships and their dealings as they had before. Life seems very much the same, and Fred figures that his life will continue to be smooth sailing. However, this is only a temporary situation. As this group passes out of their stage of externals in the World of Spirits, and into their stage of internals, the true character of Fred's friends starts coming out. Some of them are fine. But others become increasingly sharp in their dealings, and move into open cheating and stealing. Now Fred is in a very painful position. These are the people that his life has been intertwined with for many years. The bonds of friendship are strong, and Fred is nothing if not loyal to his friends. So he excuses and covers up what they are doing. He justifies their actions, arguing to himself that the people that his friends took advantage of were even worse, and they deserved it, or some such thing. Truth be told, Fred himself occasionally bent the rules, and engaged in practices that his better self knew were not right. As his friends begin their downward spiral toward hell, Fred spirals down with them. He simply cannot let go of his best buddies, his lifelong friends. So he approaches hell along with them, and there, among the dregs of the World of Spirits--a place sometimes called the "lower earth"--he goes through many hard experiences. He himself is attacked and cheated. Finally, even his own friends turn against him when he keeps balking at their increasingly devious and destructive schemes to engage in fraud and theft of all kinds. Fred is now faced with the hard reality that he must abandon these erstwhile friends of his. He realizes that his heart is heading in a different direction than theirs. And so he takes his leave, and heads back upwards to where he belongs. But the experience was not in vain. Through it, he has realized just how wrong some of his own motives for mere self-advancement have been, along some of the things he has done pursuing them. His former mixed motives have been broken down. Through this hard experience, he has rejected the bad, and gone wholeheartedly with the good. He now does his work not at all for his own advantage, but out of a love for serving his fellow human beings, and the Lord. This is the process of trial and fermentation that we go through here on earth as well. It is a process of breaking our loves and motives down into their component parts. We don't like going through it! And the "dough" of our lives becomes quite sticky and acrid while it is happening. But in the end, this great ferment within us purifies our souls. In the end, our spiritual character is transformed from being a rather unpromising lump of dough to being the bread of life, purified from our evils, and well baked in the heat of God's love. Amen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Oct 19 22:33:22 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 18:33:22 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Finders Keepers," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031019183213.07876bd8@mail.leewoof.net> Finders Keepers By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 19, 2003 Readings: Psalm 119:65-72: The Lord's law is more precious than gold You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, For I believe in your commandments. Before I was humbled I went astray, But now I keep your word. You are good and do good; Teach me your statutes. The arrogant smear me with lies, But with my whole heart I keep your precepts. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, But I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was humbled, So that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me Than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. Matthew 13:44-46: The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When someone found it, he hid it again. Then in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything he had, and bought it. Heaven and Hell: #365 Rich and poor in heaven Rich people go to heaven just as much as poor people do, one as easily as the other. The reason people believe that it is easy for the poor and hard for the rich is that the Bible is misunderstood when it talks about the rich and the poor. In the spiritual meaning of the Bible, "the rich" means people who have a very full understanding of what is true and good--that is, people in the church, where the Bible is. "The poor" means people who lack this understanding, but who long for it--or people outside the church, where the Bible is not found. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When someone found it, he hid it again. Then in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything he had, and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46) In the past two weeks, as we have explored the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast, we encountered the surprising teaching that evil can actually accomplish some good in us. More specifically, we looked at how the motives of self-preservation and gaining happiness for ourselves can drive us forward toward a state of greater spiritual goodness, in which we are less concerned with making ourselves happy, and more concerned with giving happiness to others. But we also considered the fact that this change in us doesn't happen without struggles, trials, and temptations--pictured by the clashing of chemical reactions in the fermentation of bread, as it rises under the influence of the yeast. Today, with the parables of the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great value, we move on from those times of spiritual struggle to the great joy of spiritual discovery that awaits us on the other side. And yet, these discoveries also cause us to go through great changes, giving up many things we have held dear. And that can be a challenge in itself! As we move from the struggles of the parable of the yeast, we find that at the start of the parable of the treasure hidden in the field, we are still laboring. Yes, I know, the verse doesn't actually say that. But the Greek word used for "field" is a word that means a cultivated field--in other words, a farm. And who would be out digging around in a field, who is not the owner of the field? It is fairly clear that the person who found the treasure was a hired agricultural laborer, out working the fields. And this means it was a poor person. Who but poor people would be out tilling fields they don't own? This is the same state we are in when we have just gone through the great spiritual struggles symbolized by yeast, fermentation, and the rising and baking of the bread. We have cleared away some of the most obvious selfish desires and wrong thoughts, and have turned our lives away from living purely for our own pleasure and gain. The satisfaction this gives us, like bread, is nourishing to our souls. Still, we find that when we have turned away from our old motives of pleasure and gain for ourselves, there is often a certain emptiness inside. Yes, we feel cleaner in our soul than we ever have before. But like a house that has been cleared of all its old, broken down furnishings and swept clean, the rooms and hallways are empty, and in need of new furniture and new life. We feel a poverty of having turned our lives around, but having no idea what to do next. In our old life, we knew what we wanted, and how to get it. But this business of living spiritually is all new to us. So we labor at it, like that hired hand out in the field, digging and scratching for our spiritual "living," wondering what it's really all about. It is as if we had spent years in prison, after more years of living a life of crime, and during our time behind bars had decided to go straight and make an honest living once we got out. This decision would have come through hard experience on our part. But as good as we would feel about ourselves in our new commitment to straightening up our act, it would still leave us with a problem. We have never made an honest living before! So we no experience to tell us how to go about it. From having seen a great deal of easy money going through our hands, we find ourselves at the bottom of the employment ladder, doing hard work for meager wages, and sorely tempted to go back to our life of crime. This is how the beginning of our new and hard-won spiritual life can feel. It is like that laborer out in the fields, toiling away in the dirt and sweat. Yet perhaps through frugal living we have metaphorically managed to acquire a few things for ourselves: a very modest house, some furniture, kitchen utensils, and a few of the pleasures of life. Even the early beginning of spiritual life has its rewards: a new sense of self-respect; a new feeling of satisfaction in life; friendships based, not on what advantage each can get out of the other, but on genuine thoughtfulness for one another. Being a laborer has its own rewards, even if they are fairly modest. It is precisely when we are engaged in this labor of spiritual growth that we come across a treasure we had never expected or dreamed of before. You see, when we have spent all our lives engaged mostly in taking care of our own wants and needs, without much thought of a higher purpose in life, we don't have much idea of what spiritual life is all about, nor any conception of how rich and deep its rewards can be. We think that without the old physical and material pleasures that we have gone after all along, our life would be a real drudge. We think we will be laboring away forever, toiling in that field, and never getting anything like the pleasures and thrills that used to keep us going. Swedenborg expresses it this way: When selfishness and materialism are our reasons for doing things, we cannot possibly be kind people. We do not even know what kindness is. We have no concept at all that wanting and doing good things for other people--and not just to get something out of it--is heaven in us. We cannot comprehend that there could be as much happiness in the desire to do good things as the angels in heaven have--and the happiness of the angels cannot even be described! We think that if the enjoyment from the prestige of status and wealth were taken away from us, there would be nothing left to enjoy. Actually, that is where heavenly enjoyment first begins--and it is infinitely greater. (_The Heavenly City_ #105) If we are sincere and hard-working in our new life of honesty, integrity, and actively loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, we will, indeed, discover a hidden treasure that we had known nothing about. Right there in the fields of our new commitment to a religious way of life, the shovel of our seeking mind will strike upon something solid hidden in the deeper levels of our mind--something that will bring us great joy. The field we are laboring in is the field of spiritual goodness in our hearts, minds, and lives, which is the true church of the Lord. We have made a commitment to live as Christians, according to the teachings of the Lord given to us in the Bible. And we labor in our minds and hearts to figure out just what the Lord would have us do in each of the situations we face. We work the fields of religious life, planting the seeds of truth that the Lord has given us, and cultivating those fields so that we may bring forth crops of goodness and love. There in our labor we discover that completely unknown to us, the Lord has hidden far deeper knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We thought that the spiritual life would be hard work . . . and for quite a long time, it is! What we didn't expect was that a whole new level of our mind and heart would be opened up, containing greater treasure than we ever imagined. What is this treasure hidden in the field? One way to look at it is to consider that as we do our work in the spiritual fields of life, what is guiding us is the Lord's Word. For Christians, that Word of the Lord is contained especially in the Bible. And when we become Christians, we are eager to know what the Bible teaches about how to live in God's way. Yet when we first encounter the Bible, it may look like a fairly dry document full of a lot of rather rough history and primitive rituals, and as a stern document full of many "Thou shalt nots." When we first start out, the Bible is a book that tells us that we can't do all the things that we always used to do and enjoy! Or at least, that's how it feels to us. But as the kingdom of heaven is opened to us, we discover that this is only the external crust of the Bible. Within those outer stories and stern laws lies the treasure of the spiritual meaning, which is all about the infinite love and wisdom of God, and how we can bring our lives into harmony and relationship with that love and wisdom. Especially today, now that we are living in a new Christian era, the treasure for us is the great discovery that within all the history, law, poetry, prophecy, and parable there are deeper and deeper levels that open up to us the kingdom of heaven, and our own souls along with them. The treasure hidden in the field is the deeper truth and wisdom we gain as we persist in living from spiritual motives and principles. This is expressed well in the book of Proverbs: My child, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 2:1-6) You see, the treasure spoken of in the Bible has nothing to do with earthly treasure--with becoming materially wealthy. As Swedenborg explained in our reading from _Heaven and Hell,_ when the Bible speaks of rich people, it is really talking about people who have gained a wealth of knowledge and understanding of what is true and good. Wisdom is the true wealth that is most worthy of our seeking and finding. If we become wealthy in money and material goods, we will leave it all behind when we die. But if we become wealthy in understanding of the ways of God and spirit, and use that wealth well, it will remain with us to all eternity. If we are truly seeking this kind of treasure, we can find it here in the church, and in our own reading of the Bible and of spiritual literature. We can also find it as we take what we learn and put it to use in our lives. Because the truth does not become ours until we have made it a part of our lives. In the language of the parable, we must buy the field in which the treasure is hidden in order for it to become our own. As the parable says, in order to do that, we must "sell everything we have." This does not mean giving up all our worldly possessions, as many have believed from a literal and materialistic reading of the Scriptures. Rather, it means that we must give over to the Lord, who is the owner of the fields in which we labor, all of our previous misconceptions and misguided desires. Before we turn our lives over to the Lord, "everything we have" is the self-centered and materialistic desires that have been our primary motivation, and all the false and deceptive ways of thinking that we have used to justify those desires. We cannot gain the field of spirituality in which we have found the treasures of deeper wisdom until we "sell off" all those old desires and attitudes. Then we will have the spiritual "capital" to buy the field, and make those spiritual treasures our own. And notice that in the very next verse, we have become, not a laborer, but a merchant in search of fine pearls. With our newfound treasures of understanding and wisdom, we have set ourselves up as a comfortably well-off merchant trading, not in material goods, but in the knowledge of God's ways. Like a trader buying and selling merchandise, we seek spiritual wealth not merely for our own use, but to pass it on to others, while having our own spirit and life enriched in the process. Though we have already hit upon the treasure of deeper wisdom and understanding of the ways and the joys of spiritual living, we still have a greater treasure to discover. We are in search of fine pearls--beautiful gem-like spheres of insight built up through applying spiritual principles to all the gritty realities of life. As we search for that spiritual beauty, we find the greatest beauty of all. The one pearl of great value--the greatest treasure in the Christian religion--is the knowledge and experience of the Lord God Jesus Christ as our master and our friend. When we have found the Lord Jesus in our hearts and lives, we will once again be ready to sell everything we have, and inwardly buy that precious pearl, which will supply all of our spiritual needs forever. Amen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Nov 3 03:48:28 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 22:48:28 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "A Fish Story to End All Fish Stories," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031102224642.03f708e8@mail.leewoof.net> A Fish Story to End All Fish Stories By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, November 2, 2003 Readings: Ezekiel 47:6-12: The river from the temple Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, "This water flows towards the eastern region, and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh. So where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore. From En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds--like the fish of the Great Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food, and their leaves for healing." Matthew 13:47-52: The parable of the net "Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous, and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked. "Yes," they replied. He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." Heaven and Hell #425: Sorting good from evil So that we may gain either heaven or hell, after death we are first taken to the world of spirits. There, if we are going to be raised into heaven, goodness and truth are brought together in us. But if we are going to be cast into hell, evil and falsity are brought together in us. No one in heaven or in hell is allowed to have a divided mind--to understand one thing and intend something else. Whatever we intend, we understand; whatever we understand, we intend. So if we are in heaven and our intentions are good, we also understand what is true. And if we are in hell and our intentions are evil, the things we understand are false. If we are good, our false ideas are taken away, and we are given true ideas that go with our virtue. If we are evil, our true ideas are taken away, and we are given false ideas that go with our vice. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. (Matthew 13:47, 48) It has been a long time since I caught a fish. Probably over thirty years, in fact. And I don't intend to take up fishing now! But I do remember walking down the path along the Saco River, headed to the little spring-fed sand bar at the river bend where we kids used to go fishing during camp in August. For me, going fishing was not so much about catching fish as it was about being down on the river with my friends. I loved that little sand bar--and I was very disappointed when, some years later, I went back and found that in the ever-changing river, that special spot of my boyhood memories was no longer there. Of course, none of us was all that good at fishing anyway--except my cousin, who actually knew what he was doing, and generally caught the best fish. Most of the fish we caught were too small, and we just threw them back in. Even when we did catch something big enough to eat, it was usually a chub--which was nowhere near as cool as catching a "real" fish like a trout or a bass. Still, we would put any eatable fish we caught into our bucket or fishing basket, take them back to camp, and the cooks were nice enough to cook them up for us. As I remember, those chub had more bones than flesh. But at ten or twelve years old, we thought it was pretty great to eat something we had caught ourselves. We were never able to parlay our catches into much of a fish story, but we certainly had a lot of fun! The Bible, on the other hand, does have some great fish stories. In fact, the first four disciples Jesus called were fishermen. Three of them, Peter, James, and John, became his closest followers. And when he called Peter and his brother Andrew from their fishing nets, he said that from then on they would fish for people. And that is exactly what they did. Jesus himself explains that the parable of the fishing net is about catching people for the kingdom of heaven. And the results of that fish story will last to eternity! Let's explore the meaning of this parable. We'll do it on two levels: what the parable means for humanity as a whole, and what it means within each of us as individuals. In each one of us, "the sea" represents our memory of everything we have learned in life. Water is truth, or understanding. Rivers of flowing water are the things we are actively learning and experiencing. And all that knowledge and experience flows into the vast reservoir of our memory, where it is available for our future use. However, as long as it remains in our memory, even if the particular things learned are about spiritual living, it remains on a natural, worldly level because it is not being actively used for our spiritual life. On a collective level, the sea, as compared to the land, represents the entire vast sum of human culture that is focused on the things of this world rather than the things of heaven. As we look at the human world around us, there is a whole sea of work, recreation, and leisure activities that focus primarily on our material needs and on physical and social pleasures. And it is right and proper that this vast sea should exist. As long as we are here on earth, we do need to take care of our physical and material needs. And having done our work, it is also good and healthy for us to enjoy this beautiful earth that God has given us, take full advantage of these incredible bodies God has blessed us with, and enjoy the company of the friends and family members that God has provided for us. For those whose lives are built around spiritual motives and values, the sea becomes a place of recreation and a source of supply for spiritual living. In comparison to fish, spiritual people are represented by the land-dwelling animals, and by human beings. Personally, though I don't go fishing anymore, I love to go to the beach and romp in the water! And as I said, God does want us to take a break from time to time, and enjoy the pleasures of this life. Yet swimming in the world of earth-bound work and play is a vast school of human fish: thousands and millions of people whose entire lives are focused only on the things of this world. The job Jesus sent his disciples out to do was to catch as many of these human fish as they could, and draw them out of the sea of worldly life and onto the dry land of spiritual life. It is the same job that the Lord, through the church, sends each one of us out to do. Those of us who have committed our lives to the church are also disciples of the Lord. And it is part of our job as disciples to reach out to others who may be receptive to a more spiritually oriented way of life. What is the "net" that we are to use in this work of spiritual fishing? Let's think about it. A fishing net consists of a whole system of cords knotted together in a highly regular and orderly way to make a container that will capture fish, while letting the water they swim in flow through. In precisely the same way, our personal faith--the system of beliefs we have woven for ourselves according to the orderly divine pattern found in the Bible and the teachings of our church--is the "net" that we can use to capture worldly people's minds, and draw them out of purely materialistic living into a more spiritual way of life. In the New Jerusalem Church, we have an especially good net. All of the beautiful teachings of our church fit together to make a broad and comprehensive system of spiritual and natural thought that applies to all areas of life. This can be very attractive to people who would like something more out of life, but must have something that satisfies their minds as well as their emotions. It is true that most of us first came to this church either by family connections or through friends who invited us. Yet what holds many of us here is the reasonable and soul-satisfying answers we can find for our deepest and most difficult questions in this church, in a way that no other church can quite equal. This is the net that each one of us can equip ourselves with for the job of fishing for people. The more we learn about the teachings of the new Christianity, connecting them with all our other thoughts, and the more we ponder those teachings and make them an active, working part of our lives, the bigger and more effective a net we have at our disposal. As we go out among family, friends, co-workers, and other acquaintances, we can be casting that net out into the world, seeking other souls who might also be captured by this net of spiritual doctrine, just as we ourselves were. And the parable is quite clear in saying that we are seeking to catch fish of all kinds. We never know who will end out being receptive to a higher way of life, and who will not. So we must spread our nets broadly, and not count anyone out--even if he or she looks like a poor prospect for the church. Later in the parable, the good fish are sorted from the bad. But we have to catch them first! I encourage you, then, to engage the people you see each day in conversation, and let the subject move to deeper and more spiritual subjects when it is appropriate and there is a willingness to go in that direction. Be willing to look below the surface of people's lives, and listen for their deeper struggles and questions. If you find you have something to offer from your faith, have the courage to offer it with no strings attached, simply as a possible pathway of thought or action that might be helpful to them. As time goes by, you will find out which ones also get "caught up" in this wonderful faith that means so much to us. Now let's get back to the individual level. I mentioned that the "sea" in us is the reservoir of our memory--the gathering place of everything we have learned and of all our experience. Our mental fish, then, are those parts of our learning and experience that have come alive for us. And what comes alive for us are those thoughts, ideas, and experiences that relate to things we love and enjoy. We can tell where our mental fish are from the things we pay attention to and gravitate toward in the sea of information and activities around us. It is like standing in front of a big magazine display rack in a store. Which magazines catch our interest? Which ones do we take off the rack? Sports? Cooking? Science? Politics? People? Nature? Expand that to all the things we encounter in the world around us each day that engage our mind, and we have identified our mental fish. As with fishing for people, fishing for living ideas in our minds involves forming some orderly, coherent principles of life that we can use as a net to draw out of our memory those particular living ideas and experiences that will feed our mind and heart, and help move us forward on our chosen path. Each of us has many life experiences; each of us has learned many things. All of them form a part of our memory and our life. But some of them will stand out for us especially strongly, and become an integral part of how we live each day. Others we will throw back into the sea of our memory, perhaps to catch again some time in the future when it has matured or perhaps to leave behind for good. We will need to sort one from another, and decide which, for us, are the good fish, and which are the bad. This time of sorting is a time of judgment. When speaking collectively of humankind, as Jesus does in his explanation of the parable, the time of judgment is the time when we are gathered into the spiritual world after death, and our true, inner character becomes known. Then we will each find ourselves sorted out according to our own desires, inclinations, loves, and actions. If we enjoy serving our neighbor and doing the Lord's will, we will feel more and more strongly drawn toward heaven, where others like us live. But if the only things we love are having others serve us, and gaining money, power, and pleasure for ourselves alone, then we will find ourselves drawn strongly toward hell, where others live who care only for themselves, and not at all for others--and who actively hate and reject God because they have chosen a path contrary to God's way of love. If we do choose hell, the fire we encounter there will not be literal fire burning our bodies, but the fire of our own burning hatred for others who stand in our way, and the flaring of anger and revenge against one another. The weeping is our frustration at never being able to fully satisfy our destructive desires. And the gnashing of teeth is the continual clash of one person's false, self-serving beliefs against the conflicting false beliefs of others. Within ourselves, we also need to sort out our thoughts and our desires. There are many things we enjoy; some of them are good, and some of them are not so good. Some of them lead to health and happiness, to peace and mutual love with the people around us. Others lead to sickness and sorrow, and to interpersonal conflict, anger, and ruptured relationships. As we gain more experience in life and a greater knowledge of the ways of God and spirit, we come to turning points, to times of judgment in our lives, when we must evaluate and sort out our thoughts and desires. At times of major life change, we must make choices about which of our ways of thinking and acting we will keep, and which ones we will reject--just like those ancient fishermen, who collected the good fish into baskets, but threw the bad ones away. Perhaps some of you are at such a time of change and personal re-evaluation right now. Perhaps you are facing these kinds of choices. If so, you have a great opportunity to begin a new stage in your life; to leave behind thoughts, feelings, and habits that are dragging you down, and move forward on a path of higher and more spiritual principles and motives. Just as he asked his disciples, the Lord will ask each one of us, "Have you understood all these things?" If we have been doing our spiritual fishing, we will be able to answer, "Yes." Then, nourished and enriched by the new knowledge and understanding we have caught for ourselves, we will become like the homeowner, bringing out of our storeroom treasures both new and old. The old treasures are the good experiences of our earlier life, before we embarked on a spiritual path--such as my memories of youthful days fishing in the river. The new treasures are the greater depths of spiritual life and joy that we gain when we turn our soul toward the Lord, and our lives toward willingly serving our fellow human beings. Amen. ____________________ Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! P.S. To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Nov 9 23:47:15 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 18:47:15 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] Debits and Credits, by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031109184402.02eca810@mail.leewoof.net> Debits and Credits By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, November 9, 2003 Readings: Deuteronomy 15:1-11: Be generous with your neighbor At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan made to a neighbor, not requiring payment from the neighbor or community member, because the Lord's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt that a member of your community owes you. However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God, and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. If there is a poor person among your community members in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. Rather be open-handed and freely lend enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful not to harbor this evil thought: "The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near," so that you do not show ill will towards your needy neighbor and give nothing. Your neighbor may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously, and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed towards the members of your community, and towards the poor and needy in your land. Matthew 18:21-35: The unmerciful servant Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. "His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Heaven and Hell #357: Rich and poor: literal or spiritual? There are various opinions about acceptance into heaven. Some people think that poor people are accepted but not rich people; some think that rich and poor alike are accepted; some think that rich people cannot be accepted unless they give up their assets and become like the poor--and all of them support their opinions from the Bible. However, as far as heaven is concerned, people who differentiate between the rich and the poor do not understand the Bible. At heart, the Bible is spiritual, though it is material in the letter. So if people take the Bible only in its literal meaning and not in some spiritual meaning, they go astray in all kinds of ways--especially regarding the rich and the poor. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. (Matthew 18:23) This morning I am going to talk about debits and credits. In other words, I'm going to talk about money. I will also talk about that paper stuff that's in your pocket or pocketbook. There is a great misconception floating around that money has little or nothing to do with religion, the Bible, and God. But in fact, one of the Lord's favorite topics was wealth and poverty, great treasures and small pittances, gold and silver, and little copper coins. More than once he compares the kingdom of heaven to treasure. And in today's parable, he speaks of heaven as a king settling his accounts. You don't have to be an accountant to know that account books consist primarily of debits and credits. Debits are everything that goes out, or debts that are (or must be) paid by us. Credits are everything that comes in, or debts that others pay (or owe) to us. Debits go on the minus side, and credits on the plus side. And even though it doesn't make much sense in reality, at a gut level we like credits, and we don't like debits. In other words, we think money coming in is good, and money going out is bad. That is because we tend to focus on the money itself, and not on its usefulness. After all, what is money? Today we do not actually have money in our pockets--except the coins. Instead we have "notes," or "bills," both of which mean debts. In our current monetary system, it is hard to figure out exactly what debt is represented by a "dollar bill." However, the bills are issued under the auspices of the U.S. government--which is trillions of dollars in debt. So the paper bills in our pockets and pocketbooks are essentially debt that we have all agreed to use as a medium of exchange, so that they represent money. Money itself is a store, not of debt, but of positive value. In the earlier history of our country--and throughout the history of civilization--that store of value was primarily gold and silver. These metals provide an excellent store of value because they are durable, easily carried, have intrinsically useful qualities, and are sufficiently plentiful to provide enough to go around, but scarce enough that that the law of supply and demand keeps their value high. In material terms, gold and silver, and to a lesser extent other useful metals such as copper and iron, have real value in themselves, while providing a convenient medium of exchange. That is why gold and silver are the most frequently mentioned, and the most desirable, forms of money in the Bible. Gold and silver are used in the Bible to mean something valuable. But what is the Bible really talking about when it mentions this money? Of course, on the strictly literal level, when the Bible is talking about money, it is talking about what we ordinarily think of as money: a material thing that we use as a store of material value, with which we can buy material goods and services. But the Bible itself also points to a deeper meaning of money. In the Psalms we read: The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. (Psalm 19:9, 10) And the Lord tells us: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19, 20) Now we can begin to understand Swedenborg's statement in our reading from Heaven and Hell about why people are so confused by the Bible's teachings about money, and about rich people getting into heaven. As Swedenborg points out, when the Bible talks about money--about gold and silver, treasure, pearls, diamonds, and so on--it is not really concerned with material money, but with spiritual money. Spiritual wealth is real wealth, whereas what we have here on earth is only a crude and temporary form of that real wealth. We are back to the question, "what is money?" We can find out what real, spiritual money is by learning the spiritual significance of gold and silver in the Bible. Gold, Swedenborg tells us, corresponds to the goodness of love, while silver corresponds to our understanding of the truth--especially spiritual truth. In other words, real money, real wealth, is the only real value in the universe: love and truth. And these come from God. All of the "money" that we carry with us physically is only a material shadow of that real wealth, which we carry, not in our pockets or pocketbooks, but in our hearts and minds. This can be hard for people to accept in this materialistic culture. But the old saying "you can't take it with you" sums it all up. When we die, we will leave behind all the "treasures on earth" that we may have built up here. But we will carry with us all the "treasures in heaven"--the love and goodness, the truth and understanding--that we build up within and around ourselves while we are here on earth. Swedenborg expresses it this way in an entry in his diary of spiritual experiences: Being promoted to honor and wealth in the world are not real gains or real blessings, both because they seduce us and lead us away from heaven, and because they are temporary and thus nothing in eternity. Therefore, relatively speaking, they have no reality in themselves. The Lord's gifts are eternal gifts, and he gives these gifts by means of things that lead us to heaven--and riches and honors do not lead us to heaven. (Spiritual Experiences #5710) To borrow a phrase from Paul, the wealth we possess materially here on earth is only a "copy and shadow" of the wealth that is in heaven (see Hebrews 8:5). And we are being rather foolish if we work only for temporary wealth that we know we will eventually lose, and neglect working for eternal wealth, which we will continue to enjoy forever. That eternal wealth, as I already mentioned, is God's love in our hearts, and God's truth in our minds. With all of this in mind, we can begin to understand what the Lord was talking about in our parable from Matthew--the parable of the unmerciful servant. This parable is prompted by a question from Peter: "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" And the Lord's answer means, in essence, that there should be no limit to our forgiveness. Jesus answered Peter, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times." He then went on to tell the parable of a man who was forgiven a huge debt (millions of dollars in today's currency) by his king, but who then turned around and refused to forgive a small debt (a few dollars in today's currency) to someone who owed him--and the consequences of that man's lack of mercy when he himself had been shown great mercy by his master. As Jesus indicates in the final line of the story, the king in the parable is none other than God, our heavenly Father. The fact is, all of us owe a huge debt to God. If you have any trouble accepting this, here is a simple demonstration: That big old universe out there, and the earth that we live on, the air that we breathe, the sunshine that sustains life on earth, and all the plant and animal life that we depend on for our sustenance? God created them all. It's simple, folks. If God hadn't made the universe and everything in it, including us, we wouldn't exist. So we owe our very life--everything we have and everything we are--to God. This is a debt that we can never repay. We simply don't have the ability to create a universe and give it back to God in payment for the one God gave us. Every single one of us is in the position of that servant who owed the king millions of dollars. When the Lord settles spiritual accounts with us, we will have to admit that we simply cannot repay all that the Lord has done for us. In fact, each one of us would have to admit that not only can we not repay the Lord, but we have actually squandered much of what the Lord has given us. Instead of using all of our abilities and all of this world's goods to do good to others as the Lord has done to us, we have used much of it to gain benefits for ourselves, even at the expense of others. We humans have laid up a lot more treasure here on earth than we have in heaven. We are all hopelessly overdrawn on our spiritual bank accounts, and we can never catch up on our own. If the old Christian theology were correct, and God was a God who condemns us, we would all be heading straight to hell, and all we could do would be to beg God's mercy and hope for the best. But the parable clearly shows that the old theology is not correct. It shows that God is not a God who condemns us, but a God who has mercy on us, and forgives us our debts. When the man who owed the ten thousand talents fell on his knees and begged the king to be patient, and promised to pay it all back, the king took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go. This is how God will treat us, also, if we recognize that we are hopelessly indebted to the Lord, and commit ourselves to at least do what we can to repay that debt. We'll get to that in a minute. But first, a word about the nature of God's forgiveness. The parable makes it sound as if God's forgiveness is changeable and conditional. First the king demands repayment of the debt, then he forgives the debt, and then, when he sees how hypocritical the servant is, he demands the debt again, throwing the debtor into prison. The story gives the impression that God's forgiveness is conditional because when Jesus spoke to the people--and when the Lord speaks to us--he has to do it in terms that we will understand. So he uses human character traits to illustrate divine ones. In this case, he uses the character of a king whose forgiveness is conditional. In fact, it is not the Lord's forgiveness of us that is conditional. God forgives everyone "until seventy times seven times," meaning always, continually, forever. In the words of Jesus, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). It is our acceptance of God's forgiveness that is changeable and conditional. The servant who owed the ten thousand talents was happy to have his debt forgiven. But he turned around and refused to show the same mercy to someone who owed him a far smaller debt. Spiritually and psychologically speaking, we cannot accept the Lord's forgiveness when we do not have forgiveness in our own heart. If we are hard-hearted and unforgiving of others, we simply will not believe in our heart of hearts that the Lord forgives us for the wrongs we think and do. And so we will laugh at the idea of God's forgiveness, and close our minds and hearts against accepting it. We will spiritually condemn ourselves to prison. Like the unmerciful servant, we will find ourselves "turned over to the jailers to be tortured, until we have paid back all we owed." In other words, if we refuse to learn love, mercy, and forgiveness the easy way by listening to the Lord, we will learn it the hard way: through pain, struggle, trial, and temptation, until through hard experience, our hearts soften and our minds open to the Lord's truth, the Lord's love, and the Lord's forgiveness. The parable does speak according to how we see things. When we are facing the pain and struggles of this life, we tend to blame it all on God. When something particularly hard has happened, we even say things like, "Why is God doing this to me?!" But God does not do anything evil to us. God merely allows us to experience the results of our own individual and collective actions. When those actions are wrong, they bring pain and suffering not only on us, but on those around us. That is why the Lord wants us to build up our spiritual capital. The Lord offers us rich treasures of love and understanding. We do not have to repay that incredible debt. We are simply asked to show our fellow human beings a tiny bit of the infinite love and mercy that God has shown us. Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Mon Nov 17 02:19:58 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:19:58 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "Buying Into Heaven," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031116210927.02bcd7a8@mail.leewoof.net> Dear sermon recipients, A few notes before this week's sermon: I hope you are enjoying the sermons. If you are receiving them directly from me, and no longer wish to receive them, please let me know and I will take you off the list. If you are receiving them through the Sermons list at newearth.org, you will need to unsubscribe yourself directly with newearth.org in order to stop receiving them. On the other hand, if you know of other people who might like to receive the sermons, feel free to pass my email address on to them, and I will put them on my sermon list at their request. If you wish to read back sermons on the web, or contribute to the church that sponsors these sermons, please see the links at the end of this sermon. Thank you! If you would like to discuss Swedenborgian ideas with others online, I invite you to join in the discussion at the Swedenborgians / New Church boards at Beliefnet by following this link: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 Blessings, --Rev. Lee Woofenden Buying Into Heaven By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, November 16, 2003 Readings: Psalm 103:8-14: The Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve The Lord is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, Nor will he harbor his anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve Or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is his love for those who fear him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; For he knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust. Matthew 20:1-16: The parable of the workers in the vineyard The kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right." So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?" "Because no one has hired us," they answered. He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard." When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first." The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the householder. "These who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day." But he answered one of them, "My friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?" So the last will be first, and the first will be last. For many are called, but few are chosen. Arcana Coelestia: #9180 Working to deserve heaven There are people who learn and absorb true ideas from the Bible, or from the teachings of the Church, or from various other people, or even from themselves by drawing their own conclusions--but they do it for the sake of personal gain. In other words, they do it to earn important positions, to gain wealth, or so that they will deserve heaven. In the deeper meaning these are symbolized by "hired servants who will come for their hire"---that is, who must submit themselves and serve. For religious people, personal gain should be the last priority, not the first. When it is the last priority, it is a servant; but if it is the first priority it is the master. People who consider personal gain to be the first priority are upside-down people. In the next life, they appear upside down, with their head in hell. But people who see kindness and faith, and therefore the Lord and the neighbor, as the first priority are right-side-up people. In the next life, they appear upright, with their head in heaven. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. (Matthew 20:1) Here we are a week later, and we're still talking about money! Last week our parable of the kingdom of heaven was about the great debt we owe to the Lord, which we can never repay, but which the Lord forgives if we do our best to use what we have been given in acts of mercy and kindness toward our fellow human beings. In our parable for today--the parable of the workers in the vineyard--we have gotten to work doing just that. We have allowed the Lord, who is the "householder" of the parable, to hire us to work in the vineyard of spiritual life. And the hook embedded in the parable is all about the payment we will receive for our labors--and our attitude both toward the rewards and toward the labor itself. Of course, the most obvious zinger of the parable is that Jesus, in telling it as he does, is blatantly flouting the laws of fair wages and equitable hiring practices. Obviously those who work more should get paid more, and those who work less should get paid less. It's only fair. And for the Lord to construct a story in which people who have worked just one hour, in the cool part of the day just before sunset, are paid the same as those who have worked twelve back-breaking ours through the heat of the day . . . well, how else can we say it? This guy would have the labor unions picketing his house in short order! That was exactly the effect that the Lord intended the parable to have on his listeners, and on us today as well. Parables are not meant to soothe us and confirm us in the things we already "know" and believe. Instead, they are meant to jar our sensibilities, to shake us up, to get us moving beyond the boundaries of our habitual ways of thinking, to expand our level of love and compassion beyond their current smallness. The parables are meant to be subversive. They are intended to break up all our comfortable, habitual, worldly patterns of life. If this parable annoys you; if it causes you to protest--to inwardly shout, "That's not fair!" . . . wonderful! It has done its job! It has gotten your attention. It has found a chink in your armor, and is worming its way into your psyche to turn things upside-down there. The ways of the Lord are radical and revolutionary. They are in direct opposition to many of our most ingrained attitudes and beliefs. They run counter to the world's values. And the point of this particular parable is that the attitudes common to this world will end out last and lowest, while the spiritual principles that "practical people" see as impractical, if not downright unjust, will be first and highest in the end. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8, 9) Let's get specific. The "common sense" attitude of the world is, as I mentioned before, that the more we work, the more we get paid. We earn our money through the work we do. And it is obvious to us that if we do more work, we deserve to get paid more. That is what those workers who were the first to be hired thought. Notice that it says, "He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day." This implies that there was some bargaining, and he agreed to the rate of pay that the workers bargained for. For those hired later in the day, the householder simply told them, "I will pay you whatever is right." There was no bargaining. They simply went and did the work, trusting that they would receive just compensation. But not the first to be hired. They had to make a deal, assert their rights, get the promise of a specific rate of pay from the householder before doing a lick of work. That is where we are when we first start out on our spiritual life. Up to that point, we have been living and working for what we can get out of life. For our earlier, materialistic self, the main focus is the reward, the pleasure, the money, the power that we will get if we expend our energy and do some work. The work itself is just a means to that goal. And our goal is satisfied every payday, when we get our wages and can enjoy--for ourselves and our own family and friends--the fruits of our labor. When this is our mindset, the most important thing is that we get paid as much as possible for the work we do. We will take a higher paying job even if we don't like the work as well, because more money is obviously better! And like the laborers who were hired first, we will be very jealous of our right to receive what we consider to be just compensation for our work. Spiritually speaking, this means that as we start out on our course toward heaven, we are focused primarily on heavenly (and material) reward for ourselves. And if we can get some immediate benefits and satisfactions, so much the better! The main idea for us at that time of our lives, is that if we are going to go through all the trouble of living according to God's rules instead of our own, we had darn well better get handsomely rewarded for it! We speak of "having our priorities backwards," but in Swedenborg's colorful language, this attitude describes a person who is upside-down. Our feet are where our head should be, and our head is where our feet should be. In other words, we put our own happiness and well-being--which, for truly spiritual people, are at the low end of the priority scale--right up at the top of our priority list. And what should be at the head of our priority list? We could all answer in unison: loving the Lord and loving our neighbor. Jesus himself said that these are the most important of all the commandments. This means that we are not fully reborn--not fully angels--until our primary goal in life is to love the Lord by loving and serving our fellow human beings, and putting their happiness before our own. When we are still materialistic in our thinking and motives, this looks completely na?ve and ridiculous--and we think it would lead to great injustice and harm if we were to adopt it. But the main harm we are worried about is harm to ourselves. "If I don't stick up for myself, who will?" That's how the reasoning goes. And so, as long as we are in the grip of this mindset, we continue to agitate for our own rights, privileges, comforts, and happiness, thinking we are just being "fair," and doing what "anyone would do." But notice that the Lord calls us to work in his vineyard anyway! When those morning workers bargained with the householder, he didn't say to them, "Well, if that's your attitude, I don't want you working in my vineyard anyway." No! He went ahead and hired them. And in exactly the same way, the Lord "hires" us to work in his spiritual vineyard even if we start out with many faulty attitudes. The point is to get us moving, get us working toward spiritual life--and let the rest sort itself out along the way. Now let's consider the workers who were hired during the day. Their work day was twelve variable hours, reaching from dawn to dusk. In the summer, the hours would be longer, and in winter they would be shorter, in order to fill the day. The grape harvest in Palestine begins in August, the hottest month of the year, and reaches into October. So it spans the fall equinox, when days and nights are of equal length. Roughly speaking, then, the workers we have been focusing on so far--those hired at the beginning of the day--started at our six o'clock AM, and worked until six o'clock PM, a full twelve hours that stretched through some of the hottest days of the year. Then more were hired at the third hour, our nine o'clock AM; the sixth hour, our twelve o'clock noon; the ninth hour, our three o'clock PM; and finally the eleventh hour, our five o'clock PM, just an hour before the workday ended. And not only were they all paid the same wage that the twelve hour workers, but the last hires got their wages first, and those who had started first had to wait until last! From a material world perspective, this is all wrong. But it all begins to make sense when we think of each crop of workers as a new development in our spiritual life and growth. As I already mentioned, those hired at the beginning of the day represent the beginnings of our spiritual life, when we are still thinking, "What's in it for me?" We bargain with God, trying to get the best eternal deal for ourselves. So as we start out, we are still thinking of ourselves first, and of God and other people afterwards. And notice that these workers later complain that they "have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day." When we are in our natural state of thinking of ourselves first, spiritual growth is, indeed, hard, hot labor! We face many struggles in overcoming our natural selfishness and our societally approved materialism. It is a burden to us not to think of our own advantage first, but to give others equal consideration. We get hot under the collar at the thought that others might get spiritual benefits without all the struggles we have to face in order to "get paid." Or to put it another way, we have to face the heat of our own desires for lower things--physical pleasures, money, and personal power--in order to make it through to the point where we are focused on higher things: God's love in our hearts leading us to love and care for the people around us. The workers hired at various hours of the day represent our progress from our upside-down spiritual beginning. Each of them is a multiple of three. And three represents a state of completeness, when our heart, head, and hands--or love, understanding, and actions--are working together. So each time we complete a phase in our spiritual development, we metaphorically hire a new crop of workers within ourselves appropriate to our new phase. As far as I know, Swedenborg doesn't give a specific meaning for each set of workers. In fact, he simply says (in Apocalypse Explained #194) that three, six, and twelve have a similar meaning. But the meaning he is referring to is the general meaning of completeness. However, based on the general stages of spiritual development we go through, we could assign these meanings to the three sets of hires: 1. Those hired at the third hour could be seen as the time when we willingly obey the Lord's commandments, whether or not we understand them. 2. Those hired at the sixth hour could be seen as the time when, through working in the vineyard of learning from the Lord and the Bible, and making what we have learned a part of ourselves, we follow the Lord's commandments based on an intelligent understanding and appreciation of them. 3. Those hired at the ninth hour could be seen as the time when we begin to follow the Lord's commandments not from mere obedience, nor even from mere understanding, but because we are beginning to love doing what the Lord leads us to do. In the story, none of these bargained for their wages. In any one of these states--acting from obedience, from understanding, and finally from love--we are not so concerned about what we will get out of doing the right thing. Instead, we are concerned to do the right thing. The work itself, and serving the Lord and our neighbor, begins to be our first priority. In Swedenborg's words, be are turning right-side-up by getting our priorities straight. Finally, we spiritually hire our "eleventh hour workers" when at last we realize that in ourselves we are nothing, and the Lord is everything. We are nearing the end of our spiritual work day when we are willing to simply listen to the Lord, and humbly and innocently be led where the Lord wants us to go. Then our work is light; we work one short hour, and immediately get our reward. At that point in our lives, we are no longer trying to buy our way into heaven. Instead, we are allowing the Lord to spiritually buy our life from us, so that it is the Lord's and not ours. And the beautiful thing is that once he has bought our life, he gives it back to us with rewards richer than we could ever have imagined. Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Nov 23 23:27:17 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:27:17 -0500 Subject: [Sermons] "The Biggest Banquet Ever," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031123182613.04ae2920@mail.leewoof.net> The Biggest Banquet Ever By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, November 23, 2003 Thanksgiving Sunday Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9: A feast of rich food for all peoples On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. On that day they will say, "Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord; we trusted in him. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." Matthew 22:1-14: The parable of the wedding banquet Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. "Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' "But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, ill-treated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "For many are invited, but few are chosen." Heaven and Hell: #274 Spiritual food Wisdom perfects angels and makes their life--and heaven with its blessings flows into them according to their wisdom. Because of this, all the angels in heaven long for wisdom, and seek it out almost the same way a hungry person seeks out food. In fact, information, intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual nourishment just as food is physical nourishment. They correspond to one another. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. (Matthew 22:2) You are all invited to the biggest banquet ever. In fact, everyone in this town, everyone in this state, everyone in this country, and everyone in this world--and for your fans of extraterrestrials, everyone in this universe--is invited to one great big huge banquet! If you take Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter dinners and roll them all into one, it doesn't come anywhere near this banquet. The banquet we are all invited to is the banquet of heaven. Jesus says so right in the parable. "The kingdom of heaven," he says, "is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son." At first only a certain number of invited guests were called to the banquet. But soon, anyone and everyone was brought in, to make sure that the wedding hall was filled with guests. And you know what? There's a lot of room in that heavenly banquet hall! Our sermon series this fall has been on the general theme "On Earth as it Is in Heaven." We have been using the spiritual meaning of Jesus' parables of the kingdom of heaven from the Gospel of Matthew, together with passages from Emanuel Swedenborg's most popular book, _Heaven and Hell,_ to bring some light from heaven into our lives here on earth. And of course, when we make our life here on earth a heaven, we are also being prepared for life in heaven forever. In other words, we are becoming angels. There are only two parables of the kingdom of heaven left in our series, and both of them tell the story of a wedding banquet. On December 7, our final sermon on the series will look at the parable of the ten virgins--five foolish and five wise--and how they fared getting into a wedding banquet. And this week, we take our theme from the parable of the wedding banquet thrown for a king's son. Why would Jesus, in his final, crowning parables about the kingdom of heaven, use the metaphor of a wedding banquet? Is heaven really like a wedding banquet? You bet it is! First of all, heaven is like a wedding. This metaphor is used in many places in both the Old and New Testaments. The God of Israel is said to be the husband of the people Israel in many powerful passages from the Prophets. Usually, Israel is portrayed as an unfaithful bride and wife. In the New Testament, these two final parables of the kingdom are only two of many references to marriage and heaven--which, toward the end of the final book of the Bible, is called "the wedding supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9). For us on earth, weddings are one of our most joyous occasions. They are celebrations of love. In fact, they are celebrations of the deepest and most intimate type of love that one human being can have for another. Our church's belief is that if a couple is truly married in their souls, and if they grow in love for one another, and grow together in love for the Lord and their fellow human beings, then the marriage begun here on earth continues to grow in mutual love, intimacy, and joy forever. From our perspective, heaven can be seen almost as a literal wedding banquet, since the angels live in a continual celebration of the joys of marriage in heavenly community with other joyfully married couples. For the people of Palestine two thousand years ago, a wedding was also one of the most joyous occasions. To be invited to a wedding feast--especially one given by a wealthy person or a king--was considered a great honor. The festivities often went on for days, and the guests themselves would be treated royally, with no expense spared to bring them the finest foods, drinks, and entertainments. It was an all-out celebration! For Jesus' hearers, then, it would have been truly amazing, even shocking, that none of the guests invited to the banquet for the king's son were willing to come. Not only would they miss a tremendous party, but in refusing to attend, they would terribly offend the king--who was not a good person to offend! Any one of the crowd of common people in the Lord's audience would have been overjoyed to take their place at the wedding feast. And in the parable, that is exactly what happens. The common people were used to coming in after the invited guests had their fill, and finishing up the leftovers. But to be the first seated at a wedding feast thrown by the king? This was something few of them would ever aspire to. Of course, at the time it was told, the barb in Jesus' parable was aimed at those well-to-do, powerful, and self-satisfied Jews of the ruling classes who refused to hear his word and join the spiritual wedding banquet that he was offering first to the Jews, and then to the people of all the other nations and clans as well. And the part about sending his army to destroy those murderers and burn their city was literally fulfilled four decades after the Lord's death when the Romans besieged and sacked Jerusalem in 70 AD. And of course, the people of the highways and byways, both good and bad, who were invited into the banquet hall to replace those rude and ungracious invited guests referred to the crowd of common people who heard the Lord's words gladly, and from whom most of the converts to Christianity came. Even the man without a wedding garment had its fulfillment in Jesus' immediate circle. Judas, one of the twelve disciples, showed himself not to be truly in the spirit of the kingdom of heaven at the banquet of the Lord's last supper with his disciples. At that time, he went out into the darkness, both literally and in his spirit, and thus shut himself out of communion with the Lord. Yet as with all of Jesus' stories and teachings, this parable refers to much more than the immediate situation in the Palestine of his day. If these parables are, indeed, part of the eternal Word of God, then their meaning must also be timeless and eternal. That means they must speak to us today just as much as they spoke to the Jews and Gentiles of two thousand years ago. That is why I opened by telling you that you are all invited to the biggest wedding banquet ever! The invitation that the king extends to his invited guests is extended also to each one of us, and to all of us together. The king, of course, is the God of the universe, who invites us to his own wedding banquet. It is the banquet in which we, as his congregation, are invited into spiritual and eternal union with our Creator, and into joyous community and celebration with one another. What is the banquet of heaven? In our reading from _Heaven and Hell,_ Swedenborg tells us that information, intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual food for us. And unless our minds have gone completely dead, it is very true that we seek information, understanding, and wisdom the way a hungry person seeks out food. This is true both on the material level and on the spiritual level. For example, if we are in the market for a new car, what is the first thing we do? We look into the various makes and models, and find out which ones would meet our particular needs. For a family, seating and cargo capacity are essential! For a commuter, something smaller and more maneuverable might be the ticket. For a contractor, the vehicle of choice will likely be a truck. Once we have narrowed it down to a particular type of car, we search out the best comparative information we can find on the various models in that category. Which is the safest? The most reliable? The best on gas mileage? What features do they have? We know that if we don't do our homework, we might get stuck with a purchase we regret. So we spend hours researching the various models, visiting the car lots, and educating ourselves so that once we make our choice, we will be happy with the vehicle we buy. Moving up a level, we spend many years educating our children and ourselves for life in this world. Twelve years of grade school is just the beginning. Then there is college, and for many, graduate school. That is a tremendous chunk of our lives spent gaining knowledge and understanding for our life's work! And it doesn't stop once we leave school. We continue with on-the-job training, continuing education, reading, and many other ways of seeking out and gaining fresh knowledge that will be useful and enjoyable to us. Isn't the same true if we are seeking eternal life in heaven? If we want to develop our spirit, and live in the ways of the Lord, don't we also need to seek out spiritual information, intelligence, and yes, wisdom? Today more than ever, people are seeking out spiritual understanding. Mainstream bookstores that used to have perhaps a shelf or two of religious books now have major sections devoted to spirituality. In greater numbers than ever before, people are realizing that the things of this world--money, power, physical pleasure--have their limits, and do not bring real happiness or satisfaction. And so there is a great hunger for spiritual knowledge and insight. In other words, people are hearing God's invitation to the spiritual wedding banquet. Never mind that the political and intellectual leaders of our country and our world have refused God's invitation to live for love, peace, justice, and integrity, and have chosen instead the way of wealth, power, greed, and war. These are the invited guests--those who had access to all the social advantages and all the leading-edge knowledge of the world. And they have made excuses--one going off to the fields of power and influence on the international stage, another to the business of corporate profits. Meanwhile, the common people, traveling the highways and byways of life, are responding to the call. Not all, of course; but enough to make the quest for spiritual growth one of the fastest growing trends in our culture. Within each one of us there is a similar choice. Each one of us also has our worldly-wise self, educated in how to get more and better for ourselves--the part of us that considers a real commitment to spiritually based living to be a hindrance to our ambitions. Each one of us has reasons why it would be more convenient to refuse the Lord's invitation to the great wedding feast, and focus instead on the business of getting along in this world. And each one of us, at times, has made excuses, and gone our own way instead of the Lord's way. Yet if we lift our minds to a higher level, and look at what we humans are doing when we refuse the Lord's invitation, it really does look ridiculous. In fact, it looks just as crazy as being invited to a banquet at the king's house, and refusing it. How many of us, if invited to dinner at the White House, or at one of the country's wealthiest homes, would send our regrets? Who wouldn't cancel whatever we had scheduled, if only for the experience? Refusing the Lord's invitation is even crazier. This invitation is not just for an afternoon and evening of fine food, drink, and entertainment. It is an invitation to an eternity of love, joy, satisfaction, mutual companionship, and fulfillment of our deepest desires. Here on earth, the Lord's invitation is to a way of life that goes beyond the temporary satisfactions of money, power, and physical pleasure. It involves becoming people who can be in loving and lasting relationships that don't break up and go sour. It involves finding the life's work that we love most, and that will give us continuing satisfaction and joy as we serve our fellow human beings in ways that are truly constructive and good. It involves having the peace of knowing deep within ourselves that whatever we may go through in this life, the Lord is always with us, and always guiding us toward greater joy and happiness. We are all invited to the biggest wedding banquet ever. The Lord is sending out messengers to us in the Bible, in the teachings of our church, in our teachers, mentors, and friends. Will we answer the call? It would be foolish not to! What we leave behind will be nothing compared to the rich blessings that the Lord will give us. Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Dec 21 16:39:20 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 08:39:20 -0800 Subject: [Sermons] "Answering the Lord's Invitation, " by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031221083231.028b7b10@mail.leewoof.net> Dear Friends, Here is last week's sermon, a little delayed because it was originally to be transcribed from tape, but the batteries on the tape recorder ran out right in the middle of the first sentence! So this is a newly written version of a sermon that was originally delivered from notes. This is also the last sermon in my series on the theme "On Earth as it Is in Heaven," using Jesus' Parables of the Kingdom from the Gospel of Matthew and Swedenborg's _Heaven and Hell_ to offer insight on how we can build heaven within and around us while we are still here on earth. Within the next few months, this series will become available as an eBook in the Online Swedenborgian Library (http://www.swedenborg.org/library.cfm). I hope you have enjoyed the series. My next series, starting with a Christmas Eve sermonette, will be on the inner life of Jesus Christ. Advent blessings to you and yours, --Rev. Lee Woofenden http://www.leewoof.org Answering the Lord's Invitation By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, December 14, 2003 Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5: God will rejoice over you like a bridegroom For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Forsaken, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called My Delight Is In Her, and your land Married. For the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your Creator marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. Matthew 25:1-13: The parable of the ten virgins At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps, but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: "Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!" Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out." "No," they replied, "there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves." But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. "Sir! Sir!" they said. "Open the door for us!" But he replied, "I tell you the truth, I don't know you." Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Heaven and Hell #366-67: Marriage in heaven Heaven comes from the human race--which means that there are angels of both sexes there. And by creation itself, woman is for man and man for woman, each for the other; this love is inborn in both sexes. It follows, then, that there are marriages in the heavens just as there are on earth. However, the marriages in the heavens are very different from earthly ones. . . . Marriage in the heavens is the union of two people into one mind. . . . In heaven, this is called "dwelling together," and they are not called "two" but "one." Therefore two married partners in heaven are not called two angels but one angel. Sermon: The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. (Matthew 25:1) Have you ever noticed that in the movies, novels, and fairy tales the favorite "happy ending" is that the couple gets married and lives happily ever after? I must admit, this used to annoy me. Sure, it's great that the two finally fall in love and get married, but "happily ever after?" What about all the rest of those years of marriage? Where are all the movies, novels, and fairy tails that deal with all those years of happy married life? I suppose there are a few, but most of the stories seem to end just when things are really beginning. That's frustrating for those of us who are now married, and find that the "happily ever after" isn't exactly as advertised. Of course, there are many happy times in a good marriage. But there are also struggles, disappointment, pain, and some unhappiness along the way. Even the best marriages have their down times. That's why that "happily ever after" bothered me. It just didn't seem all that realistic--and it didn't tell the rest of the story. However, it recently dawned on me that the "happily ever after" isn't talking about marriage on this earth at all. What it's really talking about is heaven. Our "happily ever after" comes at the end of our story here on earth. At the end of our struggles and sorrows, trials and triumphs of this earthly life, we enter into a new phase of life in the spiritual world. And if we have done our work here, it is indeed a case of getting married and living happily ever after. Not that we don't have challenges in the other life, too; but they are the challenges that come with doing the things we love and enjoy. Since I had that thought, the "happily ever after" ending doesn't bother me so much anymore. Because of course, the end of every story is when the conflict is resolved, the struggle is over, and we go on to enjoy the fruits of our labor. The human mind and spirit knows the truth of this, and almost instinctively tells its stories that way. And the human heart knows that the happiest ending is a marriage that is the beginning of eternal love. That's why the Bible also ends with a marriage. "Wait a minute!" you might say. "The Bible doesn't end in a marriage. It ends in the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven." The Bible begins with a garden, and ends with a city. But take a look at Revelation 21:2. In the verse that introduces the New Jerusalem, we read, "I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." The Bible _does_ end in a wedding. The bride is the New Jerusalem itself--which stands as a symbol of God's universal church, made up of all the people throughout the world who believe in God, love God, and live according to God's commandments. So the Bible begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve in the garden, and ends with the marriage of the Holy City, New Jerusalem. And who is the bridegroom in those last chapters of Revelation? As the Bible makes clear in many passages, the bridegroom is none other than God himself. This metaphor of God marrying his church is found in many places throughout the Bible, and especially in the Prophets. But for now I'll just mention one passage from two chapters earlier in the book of Revelation, where a great multitude shouts in a thunderous voice: "Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) By the end of the book of Revelation, the wedding of the Lamb--who is the Lord God Jesus Christ--has come. And the bride who has made herself ready is the Holy City itself, which comes down out of heaven from God as a bride beautifully dressed for husband--who is the God from whom she came. In other words, heaven itself is a marriage! That's why the last two of Jesus' parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew are about weddings. Now let's talk about marriage and heaven. Swedenborg departed from traditional Christians by saying that angels are married, and that marriage is, indeed, eternal. This is one of the beautiful jewels of our church. Even today, most traditional Christians--especially the more conservative and literalistic ones--will tell you that there is no marriage in heaven. This is based on a misunderstanding of a single statement of Jesus recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (22:30), Mark (12:25), and Luke (20:35): "In the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." This isn't the place to give a full exposition of the Lord's words here. However, it is important to realize that the Greek words used this passage are not talking about the state of _being_ married, but about the act of _getting_ married. And spiritually speaking (and Jesus does speak spiritually in his teachings and parables) getting married is something we must do here on earth if we are going to be married in heaven. We'll return to that in a minute. Those who think this saying of Jesus applies to the state of being married aren't paying attention to what he said a little earlier in Matthew, in his teaching about divorce: Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let humans not separate. (Matthew 19:4-6) Now, the things that God does are not temporary, but eternal (see Ecclesiastes 3:14). So if God created male and female, and joined them together into one, then marriage is not merely a temporary joining that lasts for our lifetime here on earth only, but an eternal union that lasts forever in heaven. This is assuming, of course, that a particular marriage is a relationship that was truly made by God, and not a mismatch made by human beings. Further, as I've already mentioned, in the Bible heaven is often compared to a marriage. And of course, this refers to the marriage of the Lord with the church. But we humans, created in the image and likeness of God, also have in our own individual relationships a likeness of that eternal union of Christ and his bride, the church: we have the marriage relationship of a man and a woman. And like the marriage of Christ and the church, the marriage of man and woman is also eternal. This teaching can be gained from a broader-based and more careful reading of the Bible than traditional Christians usually engage in. It is also the testimony of Emanuel Swedenborg, who tells us from his personal experience in heaven that angels are married. We gain the insight from Swedenborg that being "like the angels in heaven" means being married, since in heaven, a married couple is not called two angels, but one angel. As taught throughout the Scriptures, the whole atmosphere of heaven is an atmosphere of marriage! And this teaching that we will spend eternity with the person we love most in a heavenly, God-given marriage is indeed one of the precious gems of genuine Christianity. If you'd like to learn more about this, Swedenborg devotes a whole chapter in his book _Heaven and Hell_ to marriage in heaven--not to mention an entire volume, _Marriage Love,_ (traditionally titled _Conjugial Love_) to marriage as an eternal, spiritual union. What is marriage, from a spiritual perspective? Between two individuals, it is "a union of two people into one mind," as Swedenborg says in _Heaven and Hell_ #367. But there is also a "marriage" within each one of us. And that inner marriage, which comes from the marriage in God, is the source of our outer, interpersonal marriages. These days, it is universally understood that we humans have two fundamental parts to our nature, popularly known as "head and heart," or more abstractly as "love and understanding." We have loves, feelings, motives, emotions, and desires. These are our spiritual "heart." And we have knowledge, understanding, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. These are our spiritual "head." Everything we say with our mouth and do with our hands comes from these two together. In fact, it is only when our heart and head, or our motivation and understanding, are "married" to one another and working together that we can say or do anything at all. For example, if we want to bake a cake, but don't have the faintest idea of how to use an oven, we will not be baking any cake. On the other hand, we may know perfectly well how to bake a cake, but have no desire to do so. Again, no cake gets baked. But if we both want to make a cake and know how to make a cake then all that's needed is ingredients, utensils, and an oven, and soon there will be delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen! Now, a marriage is an equal relationship of the two--in this case, of our head and our heart. And it is quite possible for us to be unbalanced--to not be truly "married" within ourselves. If our head gets too far out in front, we may be convinced that we are "right" about everything and have all the answers, but be lacking in love and compassion for others. In this case, our intelligence is hard, cold, and unyielding, because it has not been balanced by the soft, warm influences of love. On the other hand, if our heart gets too far out in front, we may "love, love, love" ourselves into all sorts of foolish relationships that turn out to give us far more pain than joy. A year or two ago, when I was teaching a class on love and marriage to the teen group at Fryeburg New Church Assembly, I mentioned that if we have lots and lots of love, but don't think about it and make smart choices, we can get ourselves into a lot of trouble. As I was saying this half the girls in the class were shaking their heads "yes" and saying, "I've done that!" The warmth of our love also needs the guiding direction of our understanding if it is going to result in genuinely good relationships and good ways of living. We are "married" inside of ourselves when we have a love for God and for our fellow human beings in our hearts, together with a wise and thoughtful understanding of God's truth so that the things we say and do are truly good, constructive, and useful. This is the "heavenly marriage" that we must make within ourselves here on earth if we are going to be "like the angels in heaven." We also need this kind of marriage of head and heart within ourselves if we hope to be in a loving, happy, growing marriage relationship here on earth. This is what the parable of the ten virgins is all about. The ten virgins represent all people who are part of the Lord's church. But notice that some of the virgins were wise, and some were foolish. Not everyone who goes to church and professes to be spiritual and religious is truly, inwardly a part of the Lord's church! The wise virgins brought both lamps and extra oil, whereas the foolish ones brought only lamps with a bit of oil in them, but no extra to keep their lamps going once that oil burned out. The lamps that the virgins were carrying were not the traditional "Aladdin" type lamp that we often think of from Biblical times. Rather they were a special torch type lamp that consisted of a short pole with a shallow cup on top that had a bit of rag or wicking material in it, which could be kept burning by replenishing its oil from a flask that was carried separately. So the foolish virgins had light for only a short time before the bit of oil in their torches burned out, and they had no more to refill it with. The lamps in this parable represent our understanding, which is a container for all of our knowledge and experience. The oil, which is the fuel for the lamp, represents our love, which fuels everything we say and do. So the message of the parable is, once again, that we must have both understanding and compassion if we are going to answer the invitation and enter into the wedding feast of heaven. No matter how deeply we may have studied the Bible and the teachings of the church, and no matter how comprehensive our doctrinal understanding may be, if we do not have love for God and compassion for others in our hearts, all of that religious knowledge means nothing. Without love, compassion, and kindness, we are the foolish virgins whose oil quickly burned out, and who found the door shut to them when they tried to enter into the banquet and enjoy the wedding festivities. If we are not married within ourselves, there is no way we can enjoy the heavenly marriage. From all of this, we can understand what it means to answer the Lord's invitation. The bridegroom in the parable is the Lord himself, who invites us all to enjoy his wedding feast. No one is excluded from that invitation! If we do not go, it is not because we weren't invited, but because we failed to respond to that invitation. And what do we need to do to answer the Lord's invitation? We need to have both lamps and oil. We need to both learn the spiritual teachings of the church and love God and our fellow human beings. The foolish virgins weren't ready to answer the invitation. They had lamps, but no oil. And if we have plenty of knowledge, but have neglected to love and serve our fellow human beings, we will not answer the invitation either. We may think that we will be ready for heaven when the time comes; but we will have a rude awakening when we find the door closed, and ourselves on the outside. And this will not be because God is unwilling let us in, but because we ourselves have rejected the heavenly marriage within us. But if our lamps are filled with oil--if everything we learn is filled with love, kindness, and compassion, and we spend our lives actively doing what we can to give comfort, service, and happiness to others--then we will be ready and waiting, our torches burning bright, when the call of the bridegroom comes. We answer the Lord's invitation to the wedding feast of heaven when we have become inwardly "married": when our heart and head work together to show God's love to one another. Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 From leewoof@leewoof.net Thu Dec 25 07:52:17 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 23:52:17 -0800 Subject: [Sermons] What Child Is This? by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031224235128.0275bd68@mail.leewoof.net> What Child Is This? By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, December 24, 2003 Christmas Eve Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7: Unto us a child is born The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Matthew 1:18-25: The birth of Jesus Christ Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way: When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will name him Emmanuel," which means "God with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no union with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. Apocalypse Revealed #281: God himself came to earth Jehovah himself came into the world and was born as a human being. He became the Redeemer and Savior of all people who are united with his Divine Humanity by a life of kindness and faith. Jehovah is the Lord from eternity. . . . Here are some Bible passages showing that Jehovah and the Lord [Jesus] are one; and showing that since they are one and not two, the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah himself, became the Redeemer and Savior by taking on a human nature: You, O Jehovah, are our Father, our Redeemer. Your name is from everlasting. (Isaiah 63:16) Thus says the king of Israel and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts: I am the First and the Last, and besides me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6) . . . And all flesh will know that I Jehovah am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. (Isaiah 49:26; 60:16) . . . Let Israel hope in Jehovah, for with him there is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all their sins. (Psalm 130:7, 8) . . . Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. (Luke 1:68) There are many other passages showing that the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah himself, came into the world and took upon himself a human nature in order to redeem humanity. Sermon: All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will name him Emmanuel," which means "God with us." (Matthew 1:22, 23) "What child is this?" asks the beautiful old Christmas carol. "What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?" A simple, tender domestic scene--one that has been repeated by the billions in thousands of cultures throughout the world, and throughout human history. A newborn baby lies sleeping in a mother's lap. It is a miracle in itself. No matter how much we study it, we still don't know just how it happens. And no matter how many times it happens, the fact that this incredibly complex biological, psychological, and spiritual being has come into existence is so mind-boggling that the safest thing for us is just not to think about it too much. Every new birth, every new human being, is a work of science and art far, far more advanced than the human mind has even been able to conceive, let alone create. If we think about it too much, our minds may be in danger of expanding beyond any reasonable boundaries, and coming face to face with the infinite Creator whose work of science, art, and spirit each one of us is. What child is this? Is this truly a child who brings us face to face with our Creator? Is this truly a child in whom the Infinite One has come to meet us and dwell among us? If it is dangerous to our mental complacency to think too much about the birth of a human child, what about allowing ourselves to consider the possibility of a divine birth? How risky might that be? Our culture has made Christmas its biggest holiday, and gives lip service to Jesus Christ, for whom the holiday is named. But to teach that the birth of Jesus Christ was a spiritual event, a divine entrance into our world--that is forbidden in our schools, in our government, and for the most part, in the commercial and corporate world as well, where Santa wins out over Jesus hands down. Why? Of course, one reason is that not everyone in our culture is Christian. But this doesn't explain why _all_ religious teaching is banned. There is a deeper reason: it is dangerous to the values of our culture, our government, our corporate world to contemplate too deeply the birth that took place two thousand years ago. In a society and a world that values power and money above all, it is dangerous to consider that there may be something far more powerful than any human power, and far more valuable than all human wealth. It is dangerous because it calls into question the very foundations of this world's values. And it is dangerous to each one of us because considering--truly letting it sink into our hearts, our minds, our souls--that our Creator may have visited us two thousand years ago calls into question our own fundamental values. It makes us evaluate our beliefs, our loves, our goals, our lives. It is far safer to treat Christmas as a secular holiday; to put out of our mind any possibility of a miraculous divine entrance into our world. Then we can have our holiday celebrations, and continue on afterwards as if nothing more has happened than a big festival, a big family gathering, a big exchange of gifts and good will among our family and friends. And all of these are good for us to enjoy. Even the shadow of Christmas that is our society's secular celebration of the event brings its own blessings and renewals to a tired world. Yet through it all, the Gospels continue to pull us back to that dangerous question, "What child is this?" "What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?" What child is this that the angels heralded, prompting those shepherds to come visit a newborn in a stable? What child is this whose birth prompted wise men to travel from a distant land to offer him costly gifts symbolic of a great king's birth? What child is this whose birth was originally celebrated by both the simple and the wise, and is still celebrated two thousand years later by people of all types and all races? What child is this whose birth is now celebrated by millions, even billions, compared to the few dozen people who were even aware of it long ago when it actually happened? A human birth is miracle enough. Yet this was no ordinary human birth. This was a birth that so changed the course of human history--especially human spiritual history--that it became the turning point of the calendar that is now used almost universally throughout the world. This is a birth that instead of fading into the mists of time, has become more and more powerful as the centuries have gone by. This is a birth that no human being could have achieved. This is a divine birth. What child is this? Even Christians themselves have debated this question ever since Jesus Christ came among us. Complex doctrinal systems and vast ecclesiastical bodies have been built around particular answers to the question, "What child is this?" The religious debates have raged for centuries: Was he divine or human? Was he the son of Mary or the Son of God? And was he the Son of God, or was he God himself? My answer . . . our church's answer, is "All of the above." Jesus Christ was divine and human. He was the son of Mary and the Son of God. And he was and is God himself. Jesus Christ was and is God himself, Jehovah from eternity, come to earth in human form, as "the Babe, the son of Mary." He was God himself, who loved us so much that he came from his place of pure divine love and wisdom, of infinite heat and light at the center of the universe, and traveled all the way down through the spheres of heaven and earth to visit us here at the cold, dark fringes of Creation. He was the Divine Being, the Creator of the Universe, who had such yearning compassion for his creatures that he could not leave us here to suffer in our human darkness and cold. From his infinite mercy, he came among us, became as human as one of us, was born from a simple, humble human mother into a life of poverty, at the lowest, darkest, and most violent point in human history. This is the Child whose birth we celebrate. This is the Child whose message--whose very presence--challenges everything this world stands for, down to its very foundations. This is the Child who, if we allow him into our mind, into our heart, into our soul, will completely transform us, turning all our old values on their head, and making us a new person inside and out. This is the dangerous child whom the world and its governments must eliminate, but who triumphed and continues to triumph over all of them, and who is still fighting the battle for each one of us, and for all the nations and peoples of the world. This is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And they will name him Emmanuel, which means "God with us." Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From leewoof@leewoof.net Tue Dec 30 02:35:13 2003 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:35:13 -0800 Subject: [Sermons] "The Divine Birth," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031229183415.0296eee0@mail.leewoof.net> The Divine Birth By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, December 28, 2003 Readings: Isaiah 63:1-9: The day of God's vengeance and redemption Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward with tremendous strength? "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? "I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and stained all my clothing. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeeming work had come. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled that no one gave support. So my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me. I trampled the nations in my anger; in my wrath I crushed them, and poured their blood upon the ground." I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us--yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses. He said, "Surely they are my people--children who will not deal falsely." So he became their Savior. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Luke 1:26-38: An angel foretells the birth of Jesus In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was very perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. True Christian Religion #92: The Son of God The Lord said on many occasions that the Father sent him and that he was sent by the Father . . . . He said this because "being sent into the world" means coming down and associating with human beings. He did this by means of the human nature that he took upon himself through the Virgin Mary. And this humanity really is the Son of God, because it was conceived from Jehovah God as the Father, as is stated in Luke 1:32, 35. The Lord's human nature is called "the Son of God," "the Son of Man," and "the Son of Mary." "The Son of the God" means Jehovah God in his humanity; "the Son of Man" means the Lord as the Word; and "the Son of Mary" means the actual human nature that he took upon himself. Sermon: I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled that no one gave support. So my own arm worked salvation for me. (Isaiah 63:5) At our Christmas Eve service on Wednesday, I responded to the question "What child is this" by saying that this child Jesus was and is "God with us," as the prophet and the Gospel say. With that as a preface, this week I would like to introduce the new series we are now beginning on the inner life of Jesus Christ. I was inspired to this theme by the beautiful little book A Life of Jesus Little Known, by the Rev. William L. Worcester, originally published in 1905, and still available in a 1980 reprint edition. In this series, we will follow the Lord's life as told in the Gospel stories, together with the deepest level of meaning in the Bible story as illuminated by Emanuel Swedenborg in his great work Arcana Coelestia, or Secrets of Heaven. For today's introduction, I would like to look a little further into the question of who Jesus was, where he came from, and why he came to earth. Without knowing these things, we cannot possibly understand what was going on within the Lord's mind and heart during his life here on earth. Of course, we limited humans can never do more than scratch the surface of the divine depths of the Lord's mind and heart. And I don't expect to do any more than that in this series. But on our own human level, we can, with the help of the Bible and Swedenborg's writings, gain some understanding and appreciation for who the Lord was, what he went through during his life here on earth, and why. My hope is that this will help all of us to increase our understanding of the Lord, and our love for the Lord, so that we may have a closer and deeper relationship with the One who is both our Creator and our Friend. Our starting point this morning is where we left off before: that Jesus Christ was "Emmanuel," which means "God with us." And as I mentioned before, even this has been a matter of debate among Christians ever since the Christian era began. Traditional Christian theology holds that Jesus represented the second Person of a three-person God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each seen as distinct persons . . . and yet, in contradictory fashion, God is said to be one God. One of the problems that may have led to this irrational belief is a confusion between names and persons. There is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clark called "The Nine Billion Names of God" in which a group of monks in a remote monastery buy an advanced computer in order to list all the names of God, believing that once they do, the purpose of Creation will have been fulfilled, and the universe will come to an end. I'm not sure there have been nine billion names used for God. But without too much exaggeration, I think I could say there have probably been a million. And in some parts of the world at some times, each of those million names was considered to be a separate deity. The Bible, too, has many names for God--Jehovah, God, Lord, and so on--including the ones we read last time: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. If each name that the Bible gave for God were a separate person, we Christians would be polytheists with the best of 'em. Traditional Christianity has gotten it down to three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each considered God by themselves. The New Church gets it down to one God, where it belongs, by understanding that a distinct name does not mean a distinct person. Our reading from Swedenborg mentions three other names of God, each focusing on the "Son" aspect: "the Son of God," "the Son of Man," and "the Son of Mary." It then goes on to say: The Son of the God" means Jehovah God in his humanity; "the Son of Man" means the Lord as the Word; and "the Son of Mary" means the actual human nature that he took upon himself. In other words, even though these names sound like they are describing a separate person, they are, in fact, describing different aspects, or "essentials," as Swedenborg says, of one Divine Person. In the case of names that involve the "Son," it is talking about the human side of the Lord, as compared to the divine side. These are not two, but one, as the Divine Humanity. Yet we can think of them distinctly in our minds. And when we do, metaphorically speaking, the human side is the "son" of the divine side, since it comes from the divine side. Even physically, Jesus Christ was the Son of God, since it was from God that he was conceived, and his soul came. Yet unlike human souls, which differentiate themselves from their parents, the divine soul is infinitely one, and cannot be divided. So in the unique case of the Son of God, the Son, rather than separating from the Father as human children do, remained together with the Father. In the course of his life on earth, Jesus Christ left behind everything that didn't come from the Father, and in the process become fully one and the same Divine Person with the Father--only with a human nature that he had not possessed before. This is the first and most basic concept we must understand if we are to even begin to grasp the process that Jesus went through inwardly while he was here on earth. Jesus was the Son of God, meaning that his inner soul was God himself, while he, as a human being here on earth, came from that divine soul. This is not merely an abstract, theoretical idea. It assures us that the Jesus Christ we pray to, and who comes to us, guides us, strengthens us, and leads us in good times and bad, is, indeed, both our Creator and our Friend. When we pray to Jesus, we are praying to one who loves us with an infinite love, who understands us with infinite understanding--and with personal experience of what we go through here on earth--and who has infinite power to lift us up and lead us toward heaven. However, Jesus Christ also came from Mary--a finite human being. And this is also essential to grasp in order to understand what he accomplished here on earth. Our reading from Swedenborg last time mentioned that Jesus came in order to redeem and save humankind, and that he did this by taking on a human nature. The human nature that he took on came partly from the divine soul, as the "Son of God." But it also came partly from his human mother, as the "Son of Mary." And where these two human natures met, he was also able to meet all of human evil . . . and conquer it. Human evil cannot approach God directly, nor can God approach human evil directly. If he did, it would be like the sun approaching the earth in order to "cleanse" it. The "cleansing" would utterly destroy the earth. In the same way, if God came to us pure, as he is in himself, in order to cleanse us of our evils, he would destroy us in the process. It would be like encountering the sun by flying directly into it: we would be instantly vaporized! So God had to come to us in "accommodated" form--a form in which he could approach us finite human beings, approach the evil that had accumulated among us, fight against it, and conquer it without destroying us in the process. He did this by taking on a finite, fallible human nature from Mary, and using that as a field where the combined human evil that we know of as the Devil, Satan, and hell could approach and attack him, and where he could, from his divine power, overcome that evil and bring it into subjection to the divine will once and for all. This is a second concept that we must understand in order to grasp the process Jesus went through here on earth. We see in the Gospel stories Jesus battling the entrenched religious orthodoxy of his time. And we get a few brief glimpses of the corresponding inner battle: his temptations in the desert after his baptism; his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and the crucifixion itself. These are brief glimpses of a war that was going on within him throughout his life on earth. Jesus Christ was fighting continual battles against hell and evil almost from birth. And Swedenborg gives us a much more sustained look at these inner battles in Arcana Coelestia. This, too, is not merely some theoretical concept. It tells us that in all the inner battles we go through in this life, as grievous, painful, and harrowing they may be, the Lord is with us every step of the way. The Lord went through things far worse than we will ever face, and came through them victorious. And he will give us the victory in our spiritual battles, too, if we turn to him, have faith in him, and fight from the power of his truth and his love. And that is a final concept that we must understand in order to grasp the inner life of Jesus, and the Lord's relationship with us. Everything Jesus did, everything God does--whatever the outward appearance may be--comes from love, and is expressed through truth. Some churches and Christians view God the Father as angry, vindictive, imposing harsh penalties on those who do not live up to his standards. If the Bible is interpreted in this way, it becomes the story of God the Father's "wrath and justice," eventually tempered by the love of God the Son. Our reading from Isaiah this morning then becomes the story of God literally engaging in "a day of vengeance" against all his enemies. But these words are spoken according to the human appearance of things, in order to reach us where we are when we are far away from God. In the deeper meaning, God's wrath becomes what it really is: God's love. It is a love that motivates and drives everything God has done throughout history, everything God did while he was on earth as Jesus Christ, and everything God does for each one of us every day of our lives. Amen. ____________________ These sermons are a ministry of the Bridgewater New Jerusalem Church. If you wish to support the church that sponsors them, please send your contribution to: New Jerusalem Church 88 Central Square Bridgewater, MA 02324 To make a donation or monthly pledge via PayPal with your credit card, or from your bank account, please go to: http://www.leewoof.net/ministry/churchdonationform.html Thank you! Church web site: http://www.ForMinistry.com/02324NJC Denominational web site: http://www.swedenborg.org To learn about and discuss Swedenborgian ideas on Beliefnet, go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=132