From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Sep 17 23:46:50 2006 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 19:46:50 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Creator of the Universe," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060917194558.03d16e58@mail.leewoof.net> Creator of the Universe By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 17, 2006 Readings: Genesis 1:1-8: Creation (first two days) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day. And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. John 1:1-14: In the beginning was the Word In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. True Christianity #19: God is being itself The one God is called Jehovah from "being," that is, from the fact that he alone is and was and will be, and that he is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. "Jehovah" means "I am" and "to be," as is generally known. . . . Since God alone is "I Am" and being, or "Jehovah," therefore nothing exists in the created universe that does not derive its underlying reality from him. Sermon: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) If we look beyond the surface of the solid objects around us, we find that things are not as they seem. The page in front of me right now looks like a simple, smooth, white surface with black letters on it. Yet if we were to take a look at it with a microscope, we would find that the surface is full of mountains and valleys--not at all smooth and simple. And the ink that looks so black and solid would start breaking up at high magnification, with splotches of pigment here and there. Look even deeper, and we find that this paper is not even solid. It is made up of molecules and atoms that have nuclei with tiny electrons whizzing around them, forming force fields that give an appearance of solidity while actually being mostly empty space. And we can go even deeper than that, and find that the protons, neutrons, and electrons themselves are formed of still tinier particles that just seem to get stranger and stranger. If we look inside our own minds, there, too, we find that everything is not as it seems on the surface. When we say "Good morning," for example, we just think of it as a pleasant salutation. Yet beyond even the miracles of the brain pathways and incredibly intricate physical organs of speech that make it possible for us to say "Good morning," there are all the thoughts and feelings that go into that "Good morning." How do we feel about the people we are saying "Good morning" to? What is our relationship with them? What is in our tone of voice when we say it? If we were to analyze that simple salutation, we would find that it has thousands of thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires behind it that we are only dimly aware of, if we are aware of them at all. Nothing around us or within us is quite as it seems. As we look beyond the surface, we find layers and layers of different realities within, some of which bear little resemblance to what our eyes see and our hands touch. We find that reality as we know it is not quite as real as we thought. Apparently solid objects are force fields operating in mostly empty space. Simple greetings have complexities of human psychology behind them that would take years to fully analyze. And each time we peel off a layer of reality, thinking we have gotten to the root of it, we get a glimpse of many more layers yet to be peeled away. We find that the reality we see is not only not so real as we thought, but that no matter how deeply we look, and no matter how far out into the universe we peer, we still see only a surface of reality that hides a still deeper reality that we can't fully grasp. Where does it all end? Is there anything that is truly real? Or are we doomed to keep searching for, but never finding, something truly real? Some would say that there is no absolute reality: that life simply creates itself as it goes along. We can create our own reality that has just as much status of reality as anything else. In terms of human society, we create our own standards, and those standards become the only social reality that exists. Some would insist that although we can, indeed, look beyond the surface and see deeper layers of reality, those layers all exist in this material world. The fundamental substance and laws of the material universe, they say, are all the reality we will ever find. And if we were to fully grasp and comprehend the basic substance and form of the material universe, we would have arrived at reality itself. We haven't gotten there yet, despite centuries, even millennia, of searching. Even the most sophisticated modern scientific instruments and techniques just keep turning up ten more questions for every answer they yield. Each time scientists think they may be close to the fundamental reality and the grand unifying theory they seek, they make some new discovery that turns all the previous theories on their heads. Where does it all end? Will we ever find anything that is truly real? From a spiritual perspective, that truly real thing has been there, has even been reaching out to us, all the way along. There is only one truly real Being in the universe, and that is God, the creator of the universe. And we will never rest in true reality until we come in contact with the Divine Being from whom all else comes. Not that we can ever grasp the fundamental being of God and hold it in our minds. God is infinite and eternal, whereas our minds are finite and limited. To hold the being of God in our minds would be like trying to hold the ocean in a drinking glass. It just won't fit. And yet, the infinite being of God does throw shadows and send out messages into our minds, so that we can gain some sense of who and what God is. As we begin to look at the being and nature of the Creator God, it is good to remember that although we are contemplating reality in itself, we are seeing only its shadow and its reflection on our minds. And the humility of knowing that we don't truly know will help us open our minds to continually see deeper and deeper into the unfathomable reality of God. In Exodus 3:13-15, during Moses' conversation with God out in the desert of Sinai, at the burning bush, we find this exchange between Moses and God: Moses said to God, "What is your name?" God said, "I Am I Who Am. So you will say to the Children of Israel, "I Am sent me to you.' And you will say, 'Jehovah, the God of your fathers, sent me to you.' This is my name to eternity, and this is how I will be remembered from generation to generation." This passage contains a play on words. In the original Hebrew, the name "Jehovah" looks and sounds very similar to the word for "I am." If it were written in modern philosophical language, it might read, "Ultimate Reality is my name," or "Reality Itself has sent me to you." God is telling us in this passage that God is the core reality of the universe, the Being from whom all other beings come. Only in this spiritual perspective can the human mind rest in finding the Reality beyond which there is no other. God is the eternal "I Am." God is uncreated, infinite, eternal. Unlike everything else, God simply is, and there is no farther to go beyond this. And if God is, if God is the ultimate, uncreated reality, this must mean that everything else comes from God. We can dig deeper and deeper into everything we see around us, and into our own minds. Where the digging stops is not with some fundamental material substance and grand unifying theory, and it is not even in some fundamental spiritual psychology that makes us all tick. It stops when we finally uncover God, who has been there within and above us all along, reaching out to us and waiting to be discovered. And of course, because our minds are finite and can't grasp the infinite, uncreated Reality as it is in itself, we can just keep right on digging to eternity, and never reach the core of God. But that core is there. If it weren't, nothing else could exist. There has to be something that everything else comes from. And even though we can never quite reach its center, even though we can never fully grasp God as God truly is, we can still look toward God, be enlightened by God, receive warmth and life from God, and continually gain more and more understanding of who God is. We can do this by looking at nature: at the material universe, which comes from God and expresses God's nature. We can do this by looking at ourselves: at the human being who is created in the image and likeness of God. And we can do it by searching the Scriptures, looking beyond their surface, and discovering the spirit of God shining through from within. This implies that God expresses the divine nature in all the created things that come from God. If God is the source of all being, then the universe and everything in it was not created from nothing, as some religious traditions hold, but rather was spun out from the very being of God. And as with a painting or sculpture produced by an artist, God's artwork, which is the universe, expresses within itself the nature and character of God. And God's book, the Word of God, must also express within itself just what God is like. Like all the created things that reflect God's nature, God has substance--the stuff God is made of--and a form that this substance takes on. The next chapter will look more deeply into that substance, which is divine love, and that form, which is divine wisdom. For now it is enough to know that all of our own substance and form come from that divine substance and form. Externally, though the matter we are physically made of looks solid and stable on the surface, its deeper reality is very different. And if we were able to keep peeling the layers of reality from those infinitesimally small electrons whizzing around the protons and neutrons in the center of the atoms, and giving the illusion of solidity, we would eventually find that they are continually powered and kept in existence by the infinite, creative love of God. Yes, even solid matter has love--divine love--as its underlying substance and reality. Internally, if we look beyond the outward, visible the human mind, which is formed by our words and actions and the immediate thoughts and feelings behind them, we find millions of thoughts and feelings that continually act and interact with one another in patterns so complex that our most advanced psychology can barely do more than grasp some of the overall types and categories of human thinking and emotion. Yet here, too, if we were able to dig more and more deeply into the drives, the loves, that make us who we are, we would find that every one of them is continually powered and kept in existence by the infinite, creative love of God. We often think of creation as something that happened long ago, at the very beginning of time, when God spun the universe out, creating everything in it one by one. Yet even time itself is not as real as we think it is. In fact, there is no such thing as "before creation," because time itself came into existence with creation. Some modern scientific theories say that the universe has no beginning and no center. Some of the scientists who hold to these theories believe this does away with the need for a concept of a God to create the universe. But the creation of the universe is not something that happens within time. It is something that comes from beyond time into this time-bound world. Creation is something that happens in the beginning of reality, not in the beginning of time. Creation is not something that happened once upon a time in the distant past, but something God is doing right now, and has been all along. Whether or not the universe has a beginning in time, the universe has a beginning in the reality of God. Another way of saying this is that creation is not horizontal, but vertical. Yes, we can trace the development of the universe from a primordial Big Bang if we like, and go through the stages of the formation of stars, galaxies, and solar systems. But the real creation is from within, throughout all those stages of development. The real creation is God continually expressing the divine nature by creating and holding in existence, each moment, the entire universe and everything in it. This means that every new moment in time as we experience it is a new creation of God. Every new birth and every new event in nature is a new creation of God. Every thought and feeling we have is a new creation of God, flowing through the spiritual atmospheres into our consciousness. Creation is not just something God did long ago, setting things in motion and letting them run. God is infinitely and eternally creative, and never stops creating. Every moment God is expressing the love that is at the core of God. Every moment God is creating and developing the entire universe. And every moment, God is creating and renewing each one of us. Every day and every moment of our lives is a new creation of God. What new things will God create in your life today? ____________________ 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 website: http://www.forministry.com/USMAINDPTNJCNJ Lee Woofenden's Sermons: http://www.leewoof.org Denominational site: http://www.swedenborg.org Purchase the Rev. Lee Woofenden's book of sermons, "On Earth as it is In Heaven," on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595261753/wwwswedenboro-20 From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Sep 24 23:59:43 2006 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 19:59:43 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "God's Theater of Nature," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060924195825.03a52d68@mail.leewoof.net> God's Theater of Nature By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 24, 2006 Readings: Genesis 1:9-23: Creation (days 3 to 5) And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day. And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." So God created the great sea creatures and every living, moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day. Luke 13:18-19: The parable of the mustard seed Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches." Arcana Coelestia #3000: The universe is a theater Each and every thing in the universe represents the Lord's kingdom. Yes, the universe with all its constellations, its various atmospheres, and its three kingdoms is nothing but a kind of theater representing the Lord's glory as it exists in heaven. In the animal kingdom, not only humans, but also each living creature, even the smallest and least important of them, is representative. Take caterpillars, for example. They crawl on the ground and feed on plants, and when the time to mate is at hand they become chrysalises. Soon after this they are furnished with wings, and are lifted up from the ground into the air, which is their heaven. There they enjoy freedom of movement as they play together, get nourishment from the best parts of the flowers, lay their eggs, and so produce a future generation. This is when they achieve the stage that is their particular heaven, and also their beauty. Anyone may see that these things represent the Lord's kingdom. Sermon: Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. (Genesis 1:11) As the old saying goes, "We see what we want to see." Some people look out at the wonders of nature and see a merely physical universe, amazing in its vast complexity, its intricacy, and its beauty, but going no farther. Others look into that vastness, complexity, intricacy, and beauty, and see a reflection of spiritual things, and of God. For those of us who think this way, all of nature, the entire universe, is like a theater representing the glory of God. This is how things are presented in the Bible, which begins with the story of God creating the vast universe, the earth, and the plants, animals, and human beings that live on it. In reference to the human being God created, says, "In the image of God he created him" (Genesis 1:27). And we read in the Psalms, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge" (Psalm 19:1-2). Yes, in the Bible, all of the created universe describes in silent words the nature and beauty of God. If we take this view of nature, we can enjoy it not only for its intrinsic beauty and its great wonders, but also because everything we experience in nature also speaks to us of deeper things: of spirit and of our loving Creator. A walk in the woods becomes not only a relaxing and esthetic experience, but also an experience of finding God's spirit close to us, with God's love and wisdom expressed to us in the many and varied sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures that burst forth around us. Like God's written Word, God's book of nature has meanings far beyond the surface, and is always offering us deeper enlightenment. This way that nature represents God could be called a spiritual symbolism--and yet it is much more than symbolism. We humans make up symbols to represent and express various thoughts, feelings, concepts, and loves to one another. We have invented many written alphabets, which we use to express our ideas and our motives to one another. This works quite well. Yet the letters and symbols we use are largely arbitrary, and only mean what they do because we have assigned those meanings to them. For example, we have generally agreed in this culture that an octagonal red sign with the letters S T O P on it means that we should take our foot off the gas and put it on the brake instead, stopping the vehicle we are driving. But that is simply a social convention: something we have agreed on. There is nothing intrinsic in the sign itself that means stop, and a person from a completely different culture would have no idea of its meaning. On the other hand, a hug is an example of something that does not merely symbolize the thoughts and feelings behind it, but expresses them in its own nature. A hug brings people into close contact with one another, expressing the closeness of love that they feel for one another. Nature is not merely a sign or symbol of God and heaven; it actually represents God and heaven in its own nature. A stronger word for this relationship is that nature corresponds to the things of God and spirit. It responds in a living way to deeper the realities from which it comes. It is less like a stop sign and more like a hug, showing in its own nature what God and spirit are like. For us, it is a little easier to see how the things in nature correspond to our own spiritual experiences and growth than if we jump right to God's nature. So let's look at a couple of examples, one from the vegetable kingdom and one from the animal kingdom. We humans seem to have a special kinship with trees. We often seek out the woods and forests in our vacation trips. Even when we cut down the trees to build houses, stores, factories, and so on, we plant trees around these buildings to make ourselves feel more at home. Though most of us have left the forest as our dwelling place, we still bring something of that ancient forest with us. Even in our cities we plant trees along the roadways, giving each their own small patch of soil, to remind us of where we came from. And a tree does give us a picture of our own spiritual life and growth. Like a tree, each one of us comes from a kind of seed--an egg--that sprouts and grows. Our infancy is like the tender shoot of a tree sprouting from that seed out of the ground of our mother's womb and our parents' care of us. As we grow, we branch out, like a tree, into various areas of knowledge and experience, our minds becoming more complex as we go along. The leaves of the tree speak to us of all the different facts and ideas that flesh out and give body to the underlying concepts that have their image in the branches. But a tree doesn't stop there. It produces blossoms, with their stamens and pistils, showing forth the marriage of love and understanding within us, and also giving us an image in nature of the marriages we enter into with one another as adults. These blossoms lead to fruit. Physically, that fruit is our children. Spiritually, our relationships with one another produce the fruit of new knowledge, new understanding, new love, new compassion for one another. We humans do become like trees, firmly rooted in the ground of our experience, with a trunk that represents our core, unchanging values in life, branches that reach out from that core into all the different areas of our lives, and leaves and flowers representing the many different ways we express our ideas and our loves to one another. Yes, we have a special kinship with trees because trees provide us with a living representation of how we grow into the person we are, and are becoming. From the animal kingdom, caterpillars also show our nature, and the nature of the God who created us. Physically, if we look at the early stages of an embryo and fetus in the womb, it does not look much like what it will become. It is a little, bulbous, lumpy thing, with stubs and buds sprouting out where our legs, arms, and head will be. A caterpillar doesn't look anything like a butterfly. And yet, it is the early stage of a butterfly. In our inner development, we start out spiritually unformed. Like a caterpillar, we inch along in life, seeing only what is right in front of us, unaware of our higher potential. Yet we eat and sleep and keep hope alive, always moving and growing, preparing for the great change even when we do not realize it is coming. And the day does come when we begin to sense something higher in life. And the day comes when we are transformed by forces beyond our knowledge and comprehension into something so much more beautiful than a caterpillar! This process can be quite ugly as we go through it. Yes, on the surface we present a beautiful, but blank, face. The chrysalis of a caterpillar is beautiful in its own way, but gives us no idea of the amazing transformation going on within. Inside that chrysalis, the caterpillar is turning to mush, and being re-formed into an entirely new creature. This is how our own spiritual transformation often feels: everything we were before, everything we were sure of before, is reduced to mush in our minds and hearts. This can be a very uncomfortable process! Yet we emerge from it with a whole new body, and with wings that carry us up into the air--the air of spiritual knowledge and enlightenment. No longer do we inch along the leaves, chewing our way through them. Instead, we fly in the sky, which for us is the heaven of spiritual life, seeing the world spread out around us. And we find our spiritual mates as well, both within ourselves, as our heart and head finally come together into one, and with others with whom we can form new, spiritual relationships. Just as the caterpillar achieves its heaven as a butterfly, so we achieve our heaven when we have gone through a transformation that brings us to new, spiritual heights of enlightenment and love. There are as many more examples as there are creatures and wonders of nature. Every single thing that exists in the kingdom of nature represents the beauties of the spiritual kingdom in which we are living all the time. How does this reflect the nature of God? Earlier we heard from Genesis that God created human beings in his own image. This is not a static process, in which we suddenly pop out looking just like God. Rather, it is a process of new beginnings, growth, and development in which we are continually becoming more and more like God. As we look at every new development in our spiritual life, we can see God's nature being expressed more and more fully in our lives. Before we begin the process of spiritual growth, we express God's nature in largely physical ways. We eat and sleep, we mate and bear children. Yet each of these represents deeper process going on within. Our eating and drinking correspond to receiving from God the inner nourishment of understanding and love that sustains our spirits. We have times of rest and relaxation that restore our souls, just as God restores our souls from within with regular times of rest from our spiritual labors. We form relationships that sustain us emotionally, and it is in these relationships that we bear fruit and multiply, passing our own growing loves and beliefs on to the next generation. Spiritually these and many other events and activities of our lives are forming us into new beings, with our physical senses seeing the world around us, and our spiritual senses looking through those physical realities to the deeper realities within. And those deeper realities are, in turn, continually bringing us closer to the God of love and wisdom who created us, and who continually sustains us. When we grow in understanding, we are becoming more like God, who not only has, but is, all knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. When we grow in love for one another, we are also becoming more like God, who is pure, infinite, warm, and compassionate love for all the beings that God has created. And when we "bear fruit and multiply," we become co-creators with God, bringing forth and raising new human beings who can each, in their own unique way, show something of the nature of God. Yes, everything in nature, and everything in nature that is reflected in us, is also a reflection of God. When we look around ourselves at the wonders of nature and the vast complexity of this universe, we are not only looking into our own souls; we are also looking into the face of God. ____________________ 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 website: http://www.forministry.com/USMAINDPTNJCNJ Lee Woofenden's Sermons: http://www.leewoof.org Denominational site: http://www.swedenborg.org Purchase the Rev. Lee Woofenden's book of sermons, "On Earth as it is In Heaven," on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595261753/wwwswedenboro-20 From leewoof@leewoof.net Sun Oct 1 21:35:24 2006 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:35:24 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "Divine Love and Wisdom," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20061001173428.01a1cd90@mail.leewoof.net> Divine Love and Wisdom By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 1, 2006 Readings: Genesis 1:24-31: Creation: day six And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock and creeping things and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created human beings in his own image; in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Mark 10:2-9: Divorce and marriage Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" "What did Moses command you?" he replied. They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' '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 man not separate." True Christian Religion #37: God is love and wisdom All the infinite things radiating from God relate to two essentials: love and wisdom. . . . God is substance itself and form itself, and is therefore the first and only substance and form, whose essence is love and wisdom. All things that were made, were made by God. It follows, therefore, that it was from love by means of wisdom that God created the universe and each and every thing in it. As a result, divine love together with divine wisdom is present in every single thing that has been created. Furthermore, love is the essence that not only forms all things but also bonds and unites them to each other; therefore love is the force that holds all things in connection. . . . Countless examples in both worlds, spiritual and physical, can convince us that love produces or begets all forms like a bridegroom and husband by means of wisdom as a bride and wife. Sermon: So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27) God is love. And God is wisdom. We say these things; we sing them in traditional and popular hymns and spiritual songs. And we can probably never fathom just how fully and deeply true they are. Divine love and wisdom are not just aspects or attributes or character traits of God. They _are_ God. To expand on what the apostle John said in one of his letters, if we do not have love and wisdom, we do not know God, because God is love and wisdom. In the deepest sense, "God is love," as John said (1 John 4:8). This is the substance of God; the very stuff that God is made of. And in the very first verse of his Gospel, John also says that in the beginning the Word--which is the divine wisdom--was with God, and was God (John 1:1). This is the shape and form of God. This is God's face, which we can see and know: "And the Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we have seen his glory" (John 1: 14). It is God's love and wisdom that is presented in the theater of nature we spoke of last week. Everything in nature expresses God's love, and shows God's wisdom. Let's look at a few examples to see just how true it is. At the center of our solar system is the sun. The sun not only keeps our planet on its track, but is also the source, either directly or indirectly, of almost all the energy that drives the living and non-living processes of our earth. If the sun were a cold, dead mass, this earth would be a cold, dead mass. But since it is a ball of intense radiant energy, this earth lives and breathes. When we go outside on a beautiful, cloudless day, we feel the sun's heat and we see its light. The heat is God's love in physical form, and the light is God's wisdom in physical form. So we can experience in our own bodies here on earth something of what God's love and wisdom are like. The candles that are lit in churches and other sacred spaces bring something of this love and wisdom into our experience of worship and of communion with the Divine. Within our own bodies we also have God's love and wisdom made physical. The heart is a universal symbol of love. And it is more than a symbol. It actually corresponds to, or expresses physically, the nature of God's love. Just as the sun is the center of the solar system, our warm and beating heart is the center of our body. It circulates the lifeblood that keeps our body alive and moving. When the heart stops, and does not start up again, our physical life stops. The heart is the physical form of the love that is the center of our life. Surrounding the heart are the lungs. These supply our lifeblood with life-giving oxygen drawn from the air around us. Just as our heart is the love that is our life, so the lungs are the mind, the intellect or wisdom, that feeds our love. We draw in life-giving knowledge, information, and understanding from the natural and human environment around us, and feed our minds and hearts with the truth and wisdom that we need to stay healthy, strong, and spiritually growing. In the Creation story from Genesis, God's crowning creation is human beings. Humans clearly do show forth God's nature: Genesis says we are created "in the image and likeness of God" (Genesis 1:26). It then goes on to say, "In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Why male and female? Because not only within ourselves, but also in our relationships with one another God has expressed the divine love and wisdom in physical form. In the pairing of male and female, God has once again shown forth the love and wisdom that are God's being. In outward form, the female shows God's love. In general, woman is softer, more beautiful, and more affectionate than man. Man, in outward form, shows forth God's wisdom: generally harder, more angular, more driving and decisive than woman. But I hasten to add that if we look deeper into the character of man and woman, those roles are reversed, and man expresses God's deep love, while woman expresses the deep wisdom of God. Yes, everywhere we look in nature, in the Bible, in the human being, and in human relationships, we find God's love and wisdom expressed to us in infinite ways. This is the love and wisdom that created us. This is the love and wisdom that sustains us. And though we humans may sometimes receive it in a different spirit, infinite and unconditional love, in all its varieties, is the only emotion God feels for us. And this love is always expressed with infinite, all-seeing wisdom--a wisdom that is always providing for our eternal happiness and joy. ____________________ 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 website: http://www.forministry.com/USMAINDPTNJCNJ Lee Woofenden's Sermons: http://www.leewoof.org Denominational site: http://www.swedenborg.org Purchase the Rev. Lee Woofenden's book of sermons, "On Earth as it is In Heaven," on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595261753/wwwswedenboro-20 From leewoof@leewoof.net Tue Oct 17 21:43:17 2006 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:43:17 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "God's Goal in Creation," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20061017174225.02ceaab8@mail.leewoof.net> God's Goal in Creation By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 15, 2006 Readings: Genesis 2:4-15: The Garden of Eden This is the account of the heavens and earth, when they were created: In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet on the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground--then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx also are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden, to work it and to take care of it. Revelation 22:1-5: The River of Life Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the great street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there anymore. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night. They need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. Divine Providence #27.2: The Goal of Creation Since heaven comes from the human race, and since heaven is living with the Lord forever, it follows that this was the Lord's goal for creation. Further, since this was the goal of creation, it is the goal of the Lord's divine providence. The Lord did not create the universe for his own sake, but for the sake of people he would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others, and to the extent that it can do so, it is totally present, experiencing its peace and bliss. Spiritual love gets this quality from the Lord's divine love, which is like this in infinite measure. It then follows that divine love (and therefore divine providence) has the goal of a heaven made up of people who have become angels and are becoming angels, people with whom it can share all the bliss and joy of love and wisdom, giving them these blessings from the Lord's own presence within them. He cannot help doing this, because his image and likeness is in us from creation. His image in us is wisdom and his likeness in us is love; and the Lord within us is love united to wisdom and wisdom united to love, or goodness united to truth and truth united to goodness, which is the same thing. Sermon: Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7) From the divine love and wisdom, God spun out the universe, with all its galaxies, stars, solar systems, and planets--on at least one of which God created intelligent, human life. Why did God do this? When we humans set about doing some task, large or small, we generally have a purpose or goal for what we are doing. If we head out to work in the morning, our goal may be to serve people in whatever our chosen job or profession is, or it may simply be to provide the means to support ourselves and those we care for; or it may be both. If we build a grand skyscraper or an apartment complex, our goal may be to provide space for people to live and do their work, or it may be to make a profit on the project; or it may be both. Even simple acts such as watering a house plant or doing the dishes have goals. We water the plants to keep them living so that we may enjoy them. We do the dishes so that those in our household can have clean utensils for our meals, helping us to stay alive and healthy. If everything large and small that we humans do has some purpose, doesn't God also have a purpose in the grandest project of all: the creation of the universe? In philosophical language, another word for goal is "end," as in the series "end, cause, and effect." And though the "end" in this series is actually where things begin, it also has the results, or "effect," in mind. If we use the word "end" in both its philosophical meaning and its common meaning, we can get some hints from the Bible story as to what God's goal in creation was and is. Whatever God had in mind in beginning the work of creation will also be the result of God's creation. So if we look at the final results of creation, we should get a good idea of God's goal. And what do we find was God's final, crowning achievement in creation? In the creation story of Genesis chapter 1, God's final creation is the human being, male and female, created in the image and likeness of God. And in the second creation story found in Genesis 2, that crowning achievement is placed in a garden, called Eden, which God planted in the east. The humans that God had created and placed there are given the job of working the garden and taking care of it. And if we read on in the chapter, we will find that God was accustomed to walking in the garden, and visiting and talking with the human beings there. God did not simply put us on earth and leave us here by ourselves. God is interested in a close, personal relationship with the people on earth. So what is God's end, or goal, in creation? It is a community of human beings, represented by Adam and Eve in the Bible story, with whom God can have a close and personal, loving and wise mutual relationship. There is a word for this kind of community: heaven. Heaven is not a place where you go after you die. Heaven is a state of being in a loving and wise relationship with God and with our fellow human beings. Jesus said, "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 [or among] you" (Luke 17:20-21). The kingdom of God, which is the same as heaven, is not a place, but a state of mind, and a state of community--or communion--with one another and with God. This was what God had in mind in creating the universe. And it almost worked right from the start. But we humans had other ideas. Just when God was coming to visit Adam and Eve (who represent the first human community), they made a choice to listen to their own lower urges rather than following what God had told them. This created a breach between God and human beings. Next week, when we consider "God's Gift of Freedom," we'll talk more about the choice humanity made, and still makes. For now, it is enough to say that if God's goal of a heaven from humanity is to be achieved, we humans here on earth have a lot of work to do! Let's look a little more closely at the goal of human beings who can be in loving and wise relationship with God. In our relationships with one another, we tend to seek out people who have similar interests, similar beliefs, similar loves. We do also seek out relationships with people who are different from us--especially when we need something done that we are not good at, or need someone to explain something that we do not understand. Yet those we bring closest to ourselves are the ones with whom we share the most personality traits, beliefs, loves, interests, skills, and so on. People who love nature tend to spend time with other people who love nature. People who love science and technology spend time with others who love science and technology. People who love child care, nursing, human services, auto repair, operating heavy machinery, gardening, football, and so on, tend to find others who share those particular interests. God also wants to spend time with others who share God's own interests. That's why God created human beings "in the image and likeness of God" (Genesis 1:26). We each are limited, mini-versions of God. And we each express in our personality--in our thoughts, our feelings, and the things we love to do--something of the character and personality of God. We are created as much like God as it is possible for finite, created beings to be. Because of this, we can each have our own personal relationship with God. For Christians, this relationship is with the human side of God, whom we call Jesus Christ. We are each offered a personal relationship with the God who created us--and in this relationship, we will find our greatest fulfillment and joy. This relationship may start at a basic level of simply hearing the Lord's commandments and obeying them. But it can also progress to higher and higher levels. Yes, the Lord does want us to obey the Ten Commandments and the other laws of life found in the Sacred Scriptures simply because God has commanded them. Obeying God's commandments out of a sense of duty is what we might call the "earthly" level of heavenly life. And it is good. However, God would prefer more than simple, unquestioning obedience. God has given us thinking, rational minds, with which we can learn and understand the reasons behind God's commandments. When our spiritual eyes--the eyes of our minds--are opened to see and understand the wisdom behind God's commandments, and we follow them not only from a sense of duty, but because they make sense to us and we know life is better when we follow them, then we have progressed to the "spiritual" level of heavenly life. Sometimes it is still a struggle for us, as our mind tells us what we ought to do, but our gut desires urge us to do something else. Yet we do eventually overcome in those struggles, with God's help, and we do live according to God's wise and loving laws. And this is good. Yet even this is not God's greatest desire for us, nor is it our greatest joy. We have our greatest joy, rather, when we do not only obey God's commandments from a sense of duty, or even only because we know and understand that it is the wisest and best course, but because we love living in God's way; we love following the divine promptings that come from within, and the divine teachings that come from the Holy Word. When we reach the stage of loving to live in God's way, we have reached a truly "heavenly" heaven. We no longer struggle to do what is good and right; it just comes naturally to us. Breaking any of the commandments would feel painful, sad, and horrible to us. Yet it is not just "natural"; it is very spiritual, because we have gotten our earthly urges into their proper place, and we are now in a close, personal, and loving relationship with God. And when we love someone, we love to make that person happy. And we do make God happy when we love to live by the divine laws of life--which always involve loving and serving God and our fellow human beings. Yet however personal our relationship with the Lord our God may be, we may wonder how we can love and serve God when God is the ultimate "person who has everything." God is infinitely loving, wise, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and all those other "omnis." What could we possibly do for God? There is one thing God wants, and even needs, that we can provide: love and companionship, both with God and with one another. It makes God happy to make us happy. Without us, and without our choosing to be in loving relationship with God and with one another, God cannot have that happiness. So there actually is something we seemingly small and insignificant humans can do for the infinite God. We humans are in the position of being the hands of God, with the ability to carry God's love, wisdom, and care to our fellow human beings. When we share our thoughts and feelings with others, when we serve others in many different ways because we care about them, when we form communities based on enlightened, spiritual understanding and mutual concern for one another, we are making it possible for God to feel greater joy in giving us joy through one another. God's goal in creation is a heaven made of human beings whom God can love, care for, and take joy in forever. And this heaven does not have to wait until after we die. This is a heaven we can be building every day right here on earth. Yes, it is often a struggle. There are so many things we want for ourselves first. Yet if we can look beyond our personal needs, and begin living for others and for God more and more, we will find that all our own needs are met, and we have meanwhile gained God's greatest treasure and gift to human beings. That gift is the gift of a heavenly community with one another and with God. ____________________ 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 website: http://www.forministry.com/USMAINDPTNJCNJ Lee Woofenden's Sermons: http://www.leewoof.org Denominational site: http://www.swedenborg.org Purchase the Rev. Lee Woofenden's book of sermons, "On Earth as it is In Heaven," on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595261753/wwwswedenboro-20 From leewoof@leewoof.net Tue Oct 24 19:52:01 2006 From: leewoof@leewoof.net (Lee Woofenden) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:52:01 -0400 Subject: [Sermons] "God's Gift of Freedom," by the Rev. Lee Woofenden Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20061024155016.03c171c8@mail.leewoof.net> God's Gift of Freedom By the Rev. Lee Woofenden Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 22, 2006 Readings: Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-19: The fall of humankind And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat of it, you will surely die." . . . 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. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbirth; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." John 8:31-36: Freedom and slavery To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we will be set free?" Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." True Christian Religion #371.2: Freedom of choice The partnership between the Lord and human beings is mutual. This means that we must unite ourselves with the Lord so that the Lord will unite himself with us. . . . To allow this partnership to be mutual, we have been given free choice. With it we can travel the road to heaven or the road to hell. Our ability to act mutually is a result of the freedom we have been given to unite ourselves to the Lord or unite ourselves to the Devil. Sermon: The Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat of it, you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17) Deep within the human heart there is a sense of freedom, and a desire for freedom. Over the course of human history, and especially in recent centuries, many despotic empires and governments have been overthrown due to the human drive for freedom, and new nations have been born with freedom as an ideal. All the way back in ancient Biblical times, the northern kingdom of Israel rebelled against the southern kingdom of Judah when a new king, Rehoboam, son of the great but lavish king Solomon, promised not a lighter, but a heavier burden of taxation and government on the people. This resulted in two separate nations instead of the former united kingdom. (See 1 Kings 12.) And in our own day, when the burden of government and taxation becomes too heavy in any nation, people tend to rise up and either peacefully reform or violently overthrow that government. The resulting government may or may not be to the people's liking; but regardless of what comes next, judgment is passed on the previous government that had gotten out of bounds. This deep-seated human drive for political and economic freedom comes from even deeper roots. Before nations even existed, in the mythological stories of the earliest beginnings of humankind, God's provision for human spiritual freedom, and our use and abuse of that freedom, form the basis for the very first human drama in the Bible. In Genesis 2:8-9 we read: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Notice that God plants the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and at the same time plants the tree of knowledge of good and evil in an unspecified location. This has sometimes been mistranslated as God planting both trees in the middle of the garden, because later on, in Genesis 3:3, Eve refers to the tree of knowledge of good and evil as being in the middle of the garden. But there is a message in this: although God clearly plants the tree of life in the middle, humans see the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and what it represents, as being the central reality instead. If we think of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as being planted at the same time as the tree of life, we can see that the underlying reality behind these two trees is the human freedom that we prize so much. And the first message of the story is that God has placed this freedom in our character--which is represented in early humans by the Garden of Eden--and that this freedom is a core part of who we are. This kind of freedom is not political or economic freedom, but spiritual freedom, from which our drive for the other types of freedom comes. To be more specific, there are two basic kinds of freedom. The one that is truly at the core of our life is the one represented by the tree of life. It is the freedom to receive and live out God's love and wisdom, without being prevented by any inner or outer forces. This is the kind of freedom Jesus was speaking of when he said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). When we freely follow God's way of love, truth, and service in our lives, then "the Son has set us free, and we are free indeed" (John 8:36). But we humans tend to put the other kind of freedom in the center, just as Eve placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the center, instead of seeing the tree that God had planted there as central. The freedom that we often see as central is not so much the freedom to live in God's way, but the freedom to choose between whether we will live God's way or our own way. This freedom, which we call freedom of choice, is represented by the choice God put before Adam and Eve in placing both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. Even though freedom of choice is not the fundamental human freedom, it is still critical to our existence as human beings, rather than as animals. God's gift of freedom does include the freedom to choose between God's way and our own way because without this freedom, we would not be human, and nothing we did would have any eternal reality. Only what we freely choose becomes an integral part of our character, and remains with us, as part of our character, beyond our life here on earth. Why did God give us this freedom? And what does this have to do with the character of God, which is our main subject? If God, in the Bible story, did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, why did he plant it there in the first place? Didn't he know that the very act of commanding them not to eat it would make it look, in their eyes, like the most desirable tree in the garden, exactly because it was forbidden? Didn't he know that the human drive for freedom would practically ensure that they would break his commandment and eat from the tree? Yes, God knew all this, and planted the tree anyway. God has known from eternity all of the ways we humans would abuse our freedom. God knew that we would use it to harm ourselves and others, to engage in wars of domination, conquest, and economic gain; to abuse one another physically and emotionally in our drive for our own power and pleasure; to seek pleasure in the abuse, overuse, and misuse of our physical capabilities and the pleasures offered by this world. God knew all of these things, and still planted the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden, along with the tree of life. Why? Wouldn't it have been better only to plant the tree of life, and let it go at that? Wouldn't this have avoided many millennia of human pain, suffering, and sorrow? Yes, God knew that we would abuse our freedom of choice, choosing the slavery of addiction to everything from power and money to drugs and sexual overindulgence. We think of our ability to engage in these choices as freedom, yet as Jesus said, "everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (John 8:34). When we choose our own way instead of God's way, it becomes addictive, both physically and psychologically, and we become slaves to the destructive choices we have made. Yet God allows us to make those choices. God allows us to make even eternal choices that are not part of God's own will for us. Why? Because without the freedom to choose between good and evil, between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, nothing that we did would have any spiritual significance; nothing that we did would be real in human terms. Lower animals do have a kind of freedom. They are free to roam their habitat seeking food, shelter, mates, and the simple pleasures of life. Yet their freedom is limited: without human intervention, they cannot go beyond the instincts that are programmed into them at conception, and become something other than what they were designed to be. Their freedom is a freedom of this earth, and not a freedom of spirit and of heaven. So their life is a life of this earth, and not a life looking to eternal life in heaven. But our freedom as humans extends not just to freedom in seeking out food, shelter, mates, and the pleasures of life. It extends to making ethical, moral, and spiritual choices about who and what we wish to be as people. Unlike lower animals, we are able to consider what God created us to be, and choose to be something different. For example, in terms of careers, if God has made one of us good at numbers, we could choose not to have a career as an accountant, a mathematician, or anything that involves numbers. We could choose instead to work in counseling or human services, and not develop our talent for numbers. But more fundamentally, even though God has created each one of us to have love for God and love for our fellow human beings as the central reality of our lives, we can choose to put the love of money, power, or simply our own pleasure at the center of our lives instead. Again we ask, why? Why did God allow us to make these destructive choices? The answer to this question brings us full circle back to the nature and character of the God who created us. Our God is a human God, who desires human relationships. And human relationships can be real only if they are freely chosen, and not merely instinctual. In our relationships with one another, how real is it if we are forced to be together, but would not choose it on our own? We have probably all had the experience of being in the same workplace with someone we would never spend social time with, unless it was work-related. Our relationship with these people is based on economics, not on our choices of who we wish to spend time with. And as soon as that professional connection is over, our relationship with that person will end. It is only the relationships we freely choose that last. The people we choose to be with are our friends, our partners, our confidantes, our lovers. God is human and personal. And God does not want merely forced or "professional" relationships with us. God wants to have a mutual relationship with us--one that is freely chosen on both sides. This is why God placed both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. This is why God gave us not only the freedom to live in God's way, but also the freedom to choose whether we would live in God's way or in our own way. This is why God allows all the pain and suffering that comes as a result of our abuse of our freedom--when we do evil and destructive things instead of good and loving things to ourselves and to one another. If we do abuse our freedom, it is truly lamentable. The huge amount of human pain, suffering, and misery that we see in our world today is a result of billions of individual choices to follow the way of self-centeredness instead of the way of neighborly love. The wars, the famines, the disease, and even the death toll from many "natural" disasters are the result of our stubbornness in flouting the laws of spirit and nature instead of living in harmony with them. But if we use our freedom of choice to choose true freedom, we have a destiny far beyond that of any other created being. If, in the end, we choose to have the tree of life at the center of our lives, we are offered nothing less than a personal relationship with the infinite Divine Being who created us. And we are offered the joys of eternal, loving, and wise community with one another in the joyful state of being that we call heaven. This great destiny of human life is possible only if the choice is in our hands whether or not we wish to receive the great gift of God's love. Without that freedom of choice, what we do with our lives would be predetermined, and therefore meaningless in eternal and spiritual terms. But since we are able to freely choose whether to be in a loving relationship with God and with one another, the choice that we do make becomes an eternal part of our character. And when we do choose the way of God's love and wisdom for our lives, the relationships that we form with God and with our fellow human beings become real; they become deep; they become personal; and they become the most joyful and fulfilling thing that any creature of God can experience, thus increasing God's own joy. God wants to give us this joy, because it is the nature of God's love to share that love with others. And so God says to each one of us, "Choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19). ____________________ 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 website: http://www.forministry.com/USMAINDPTNJCNJ Lee Woofenden's Sermons: http://www.leewoof.org Denominational site: http://www.swedenborg.org Purchase the Rev. Lee Woofenden's book of sermons, "On Earth as it is In Heaven," on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595261753/wwwswedenboro-20