" So What Is The Soul?"

Do you know someone who has an answer for everything? How does that make you feel?   So then what about a good honest question to which you do not know the answer.  Where do you think that will lead you?

Oct 29, 2017: Readings: 1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8 Psalm 90, Matt 22: 34-46

“In school, you were rewarded for having the right answer to questions, but were you ever rewarded for asking a good question?” 

 In Warren Bergers book “A Beautiful Question” he explains that a good question sparks breakthrough ideas because it sends us on a treasure hunt for truth and discoveries.     One of the great Theological minds of our time was once asked, “what was it that brought you to be a notable biblical scholar.”   The man replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his day. She always inquired, "Did you ask a good question today?"  "Asking good God questions," replied the man, " was the door that  allowed me to go on a treasure hunt for the truth and that journey lead me to a study of biblical history, it religions, it origins, and it cultures."  He went on to say: “In order to ask a good question your motive must be free of ego.  It is the humble "soul" that learns. 

If you ask a question to which you already know or think you know the answer, you will learn nothing and your question will not lead you to new discoveries.   
I remember my first good faith question to my minister as a child,  "If God made everything, Who made God?"  Can you believe, that question started me on a spiritual treasure hunt that eventually lead  here to be your minister here Bermuda in July of this year, now isn't that incredible.  I just didn’t realize it back then.  Now may I suggest that if you ask a question to which you already know the answer or think you do, no journey no treasure hunt begins there?  
And so a good question concerning the reading from Matthew today might be this:   How do I love God? 

In the Gospel reading this morning the Pharisee ask a good question but his motive was wrong.  He was not asking in order to discover or learn something new.  He was trying to trap Jesus, to discredit his reputation and cause his followers to doubt his authority and his teachings.   Jesus understood his alternative motive and answers him with a blast from the past.  He said: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, this is the greatest commandment" Deuteronomy 6:5.  Jesus also knew that LOVE didn’t stop there either so he added a quote made by Moses found in Leviticus 19:18  and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself."  Jesus also knew that if we could keep these two commandments, then all 10 which were given to Moses on tablets would be fulfilled.  So then the good question!!  “How do I Love GOD”?

Is there any material thing I could buy or give to God, to illustrate how deep my love is?    How many good deeds do you think I would need to do, in order to prove my unfailing love?  
Let us turn to the prophets and hear what they have to say:  The Prophet Micah answered this with these words:   "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)  The Prophet Isaiah   expresses loving God in these words “Maintain justice and always do what is right and good. {Isaiah 56:1}  The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 tells us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God in service to one another.   And of course we hear Moses In Leviticus 19:18  one of the greatest principle of the Torah, expressed by Moses,  "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."    How many of us thought these words came originally from Jesus?   More astonishing is the fact that all the principals for Jesus’ teaching find their foundation within the Torah which was written in Hebrew and make up the first 5 books of the Bible.   

Jesus often pointed out in His teaching that all had been said or done before He came into the picture.  This is why Jesus makes the claim that he did not come to change the Laws of Moses but to fulfill prophesy that is found within them.   So then, “how do I love God?  May I suggest to you that you just cannot say the words, “I love you”, you must put the love words into love actions, just as the Prophets suggested.  In order to do that you must learn to love and care for yourself first, so you can then do the same to God and then to your neighbor.   Here are three points for you to take home and think about this week. 

Point # 1: To Love God with all your heart means: take care of your body, your health.   1 Corinthians 6: 19 tells us  “ that our body is the temple where the Holy Spirit makes its home.   So then, we must respect and  take good care of God’s temple.   Now I don’t know about you but I was, for a long time, under the impression that the church building was where the Holy resided.  I was wrong!!! It’s just a building folks.    

Point # 2: To Love God with all your soul, is to understand what the word soul really means.  Here we need to look at the original Hebrew word, “nephesh”.  Translated into English was written as soul.  Nephesh  was the word used to describe the animated living being God created from the dust of the earth. Genesis 2: 7   “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”  Please note here that it does not say that God put a soul into the man.  Many make the mistake of claiming the soul to be eternal, not so according to this scripture.  It says after God put breath into the man, he became a living being, a soul.  We often confirm that when we say he or she is a good old soul, meaning he or she is soul as the Hebrew states.  Let us not confuse soul with Spirit.  Although they co-exist together, your living presence or soul is mortal and your Spirit or the breath that gave life to the soul is immortal, therefor they are not the same.  At Death the good old soul {you, the dust of the ground} returns to the earth from whence it came and the Spirit returns from whence it came.  Read it for yourself in Ecclesiastes 12: 7  King James V:  "Then shall the dust {the living soul} return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
 May I suggest that Jesus knew the answer to my question:  "OBEDIENCE" to His Fathers will, even unto to death upon a cross. 
Therefore, to Love God with all my soul means to show continuous OBEDIENCE with gratitude for life and breath for as long as it lasts.   This is no easy task folks, our soul is rooted in God but the soul is also motivated by sight, hearing, speech, intelligence, emotions, will and desire.  It exists with the breath of life, {the Spirit} but its desires often clash with the Spirit when it come to choices.  The soul is subject to both physical and spiritual death while you are alive!! see Matthew 10: 28.  The Spirit on the other hand is eternal, many often feel like their Spirit is being held hostage in a physical body that became a living soul.  Only your Spirit knows where it's true home is and to whom you really belong.   

Point # 3:  Love God with all your strength meaning, be mindful of what you allow your soul and mind to feed on Folks.   You must be mindful of your words and actions that feed the minds of others.  
The mind has a great influence on our behavior and the deeds we perform.  The events of this last year which have taken place in Britain, US, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North Korea and China are great examples of how our souls {our lives} can be controlled and manipulated by others.  

To LOVE GOD with all your heart, soul and strength is to be obedient to God’s word, to pray for and forgive our enemies; take care of the poor, the hungry, cloth the naked, administer to the sick, and be a friend to the outcast.    
                                              "You need a Friend"

                                               

"A Work In Progress"

What comes to mind when you hear the word “immature?”  In Hebrew it is translated as:  not fully developed or unfinished

In Greek the translation is a little broader:  childish, babyish, infantile, juvenile, inexperienced, unsophisticated, and unworldly.   As we move into the message today let us think of spiritual immaturity as in Hebrew, Not fully developed or unfinished

Oct 22 2017 Matthew 22: 15-22

As I mentioned let us think of spiritual immaturity as translated in Hebrew 
meaning, not finished or not fully developed yet!  In other words " a work 
in progress" 

According to some theological writers, one of the sign of spiritual immaturity is dualistic thinking.  In other words, seeing everything as either black or white, right or wrong, true or false, proper or improper.  The immaturity part of one’s spiritual life shows up when someone insists that their opinion, or their actions speak to the truth.      

Spiritual immaturity is a sign of not completely understanding or accepting the principals of God's kingdom.  Within the Kingdom of God, it is Jesus who holds the truth, knows the way and lives the life.  All others can only be a reflection of the one, therefor they cannot be the one. 
Folks I have to admit that I have often gone my own way in my thinking and doing, but I am not without a reminder, my wife is great at keeping me in check and yes I have to admit, I too am infected with this immaturity to some degree, hopefully not totally.   

A good example would be when I personally look at someone else and I consciously or unconsciously declare within my own mind that he or she is either sinner or saint.   The immature part here is, not heeding to one simple biblical principle found within the gospel of Matthew 7: 1-2,   “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.   A simple sound principal, yet so hard for our human nature to adhere to.

The biggest mistakes we make in personal judgement often happen because of a person’s outer physical appearance, their behavior, or their idiosyncrasies, preventing us from getting to know the person from the inside out.  This form of Spiritual immaturity helps us to hide behind our own idiosyncrasies?   Some might want to label immaturity as spiritual blindness which probably wouldn’t be too far from the mark.  I don’t know about you but Paul, in Romans 7: 14-20 rightly reads himself, when he said that even though he wants to do the good and right thing, he admittedly tells us that his human nature gets the best of him.   Here I believe Paul is talking about the unconsciousness factor of missing the mark as the Hebrew Scriptures call it.  Our curiosity gets us every time, doesn't it.   Something we all need to be aware of if we are to strengthen our Spiritual nature.   We truly need to understand that we too, haven’t gotten it all right yet either, that we are all too some degree an immature work in progress. 

The story in Matthew today is a classic example of the elite well educated, religious folk back in Jesus’ day who are really confused about who Jesus is and about some of his teachings.  They are judging Him with their own prejudices, and discrediting Him with their own man made laws.  The Pharisees who are trying to trap Jesus once again appear to be displaying what we might see today as spiritual immaturity or spiritual blindness.  Jesus taught some things about the Kingdom of God they would agree with like, God will judge and condemn evil doers. Yet Jesus befriended and was associated with people who were obvious doers of evil; murders, thieves, prostitutes, tax collectors, and adulterers.   The Pharisees could not understand that.  In fact many of us today still struggle with his teaching about loving the outsider, or praying for our enemies.  But, Jesus never just assumed from a person’s exterior or from the life that they were presently living that they were inherently bad or evil.  He was able to look inside the person to find the potential good that His Father had placed there in their conception and awaken it.  You see we were all meant for good, from our very beginning.  Genesis 50:20
We just need a drink of His living water to awaken the goodness within us too. John 4: 9-15.     

The teachers of the law were also uncertain about how to classify Jesus because He taught that obedience to God and the 10 commandments were to be adhered to, yet he continually broke the Jewish Laws and the Sabbath.  Allowing His disciples to eat with unclean hands on one occasion and then He heals a blind man on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees rejected Jesus because He was continually challenging their man made Jewish religious laws and rituals, those which allowed people to think they had become the righteous.  Did you know that there were 613 Jewish laws that they were required to adhere to, 613?   These laws gave them a false sense of security believing that they spoke to the truth and that their way, was the way of God.  Jesus upset the religious world they had created for themselves.   May I suggest that Christianity needs to examine itself folks, for we too have fallen into the trap of man made church rules, policies and rituals that do not honor the Lord Jesus either. 

They rejected Jesus because of what He said, who He associated with and how He acted.  It clashed with what they understood as good or bad, holy or unholy.  Now folks let us remember that if you cannot fit yourself into this gospel story, your learning will be impaired.  May I suggest that one of the most obvious lesson for us here today is this:  to grow in spirit “CHANGE” is required.    We have to stop looking through such a narrow lens and surrender our old ways of doing, living and responding to life, for the ways of Jesus.   Jesus’ way is that of radical hospitality, acceptance of all people and a non-judgemental attitude towards all.  Meaning He sought the child within the person, He was not concerned about their outward appearance.

The religious establishment of our time is no different from time of Jesus.  We today are often stuck in spiritual immaturity and blindness when it comes to the changes needed in order to grow personally.  There is an old saying and I am sure you know it:   “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” But when it is obviously broken why are we still ignoring it?  

Folks it takes faith and great courage to change.  Change requires vision.  With help and the sharing of our individual gifts, that is what will lead us into the future, both personally and as a church.  Isn’t that what life’s journey is all about?  Why then do we resist it?  Nothing is certain in this life accept this “things will change”.   We can either resist it or embrace it.   Jesus said “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be”.   And where Jesus is, there is always hope for a new day.  Let us pray.      

"The Kingdom Of God Is A Party"

When you hear the words the Kingdom of God, what images come to mind for you? 

When you hear the words the Kingdom of Heaven do the images change?

The phrase “kingdom of God” occurs 68 times in 10 different New Testament books, while “kingdom of heaven” occurs only 32 times, and only in the Gospel of Matthew.

Oct 15 2017 Matthew 22: 1-14

Jesus uses the parable of the wedding feast to give us a glimpse into the reign of the New Kingdom, the Kingdom of God or as referred to in this story as the writer Matthew accounts Jesus  saying:  Kingdom of Heaven is like this.

The listeners, not just those who heard Jesus speak but we who are now reading and hearing this parable today also have an invitation to join the wedding feast.  If you have not read the book entitled “The Kingdom Of God Is A Party”  written by Rev. Dr.  Tony Campolo may I suggest you take the time.  Find it at your local library or on line and give it a read?  It will open the pours of your soul that allow true joy to come to the surface, rejoicing will be the result!!   The party is near and it is happening right now in our time, amidst all of the kayos of this worldly kingdom we live in.  Jesus uses the metaphor of a wedding feast, to illustrate a The Kingdom of Heaven.  The party is ongoing, because it is in celebration of all those who have accept the Masters invitation to be part of the feast.    May I suggest that Jesus points out "for us" using the metaphor, that most invitees today reject the idea of a New Kingdom to replace the worldly one we are so comfortable with, mainly because we simply do not like change?  We find comfort and some sort of acceptance even though our worldly kingdom is falling apart right before our eyes.  You know the old saying: "we are going to Hell in a hand basket."   In the story those invited become complacent, ignoring the invitation, others become hostile.  There hostility turn into a killing spree of the messengers.  As we examine more closely the reflection of what has happened here, we can see the Gospel story being played out can’t we.  In the gospel story one of the messengers killed would be John the Baptist.  John preaching the message of the coming messiah literally loses his head over the message as he extends the invitation.  Jesus knows His life will end shortly upon a cross and still later, He also knows all of his apostles who carried the message and extended the invitation will be killed.   Here we can clearly see Jesus is telling his listener not only about the then and know, but is also telling them about their future, our future!!

In the parable and in Dr. Compolo’s book, the festive party is used to illustrate to us an entry point into this New Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven.  Which by the way Jesus tells us is at hand.  Mark 1: 15.  Why then are so many of us not heeding his words and taking him up on his invitation?  The celebration truly is then, for all those who have accepted His words and His invitation.  Once you do, the truth about the Kingdom of God will begin to come shining through for you.

Gradually you will recognize that God and Jesus are one within each other.  “I am in the father and the father is in me.” John 14: 11 One with each other does not mean one replaces the other.  Jesus “The Christ”, is a visible reflection and the presence of God in our world but also makes it very clear that He does not take His Fathers place within the Trinity.   John 4: 34, 6:38, 7:16, 12:49,  Luke 22:42.    Jesus is the same as God but the Father remains as God. The truth is, that they remain one with each other.  John 14: 10.

When counselling couples for marriage, I would sometime interject some humor with this quote”  “In marriage you will be joined together and become one.  Now that is usually where your troubles will really begin!  Why?  Trying to decide which one of you, you will become!  Now think about that for a moment folks.  A marriage would be destroyed in the end if one were to give up their personal identity to become a clone of the other?  And so it is with God and Jesus, neither replaces the other but become one with each other.  Therefore the unconditional love, respect, loyalty, compassion joy and truth that is shared one to the other is the same!

This is so important to understand that the love Jesus and God share with us are the same. It is not like the human love we share with it hidden conditions, but a love that is totally and completely unconditional for everyone who accept it.  It is the reason for the party folks!!!  It is a love feast, a wedding feast where God and Jesus’ love is wedded with you.  May I suggest that if you are feeling unloved you have not yet accepted the invitation. You do not need another person or a gift from another person to know this most profound truth.  You either have it, or you’re still looking for it. And if so, then be persistent, continue your quest, for you will find it.  “Seek and ye shall find knock and the door will be opened, ask and it shall be given and love will come tumbling down. “

Every one of us here today has been invited by God to meet Him and His Son, and to enjoy His wedding banquet.  I know that when I am down, when I am feeling lost in my own tiredness, troubles or fears and someone reminds me that God cares for me, that God is near to me, I can't hold on to those feelings. 

When I really think about it -  when I am reminded by someone that Gods love is for me, or when I begin to think about what Jesus has done for me, I am moved towards joy.  I begin to rejoice. I can see the Kingdom of God is a party folks!!

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!

That is a part of the clothing we can wear to the wedding banquet.  Nothing shines or looks as good as rejoicing; and nothing is quite as infectious as rejoicing.  Knowing that God is near, Paul then goes on and says:  Philippians 4: 6-7    Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Let us Pray. 

Love Love Love

 

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) has long been an important teacher for me. The French Catholic Church of her time emphasized an ideal of human perfection, which took the forms of legalism, perfectionism, and immense self-preoccupation. Yet Thérèse humbly trusted her own experience, as mystics must always do, and taught the spirituality of imperfection instead. She called it her “Little Way.”

Thérèse is one of my favorite mystics, perhaps because I am an Enneagram Type One. The trap for the One is a self-created perfectionism, which makes us always dissatisfied and disappointed in just about everything, starting with ourselves. Our inner critic is quite well-trained and practiced, and it takes years of inner work to recognize how completely this critical worldview impairs our perception and keeps us from our natural compassion. We eventually see that we are not really loving God or others, but merely our own self-image.

Thérèse has often helped me in this inner work. As Brother Joseph Schmidt writes:

Thérèse shifted her focus more and more from attaining perfection or acquiring holiness to the attitude of the publican (see Luke 18:9-14): She let God’s mercy be her perfection, her holiness. “I desire, in a word, to be a saint,” she prayed, “but I feel my helplessness and I beg you—Oh my God!—to be Yourself my Sanctity!” [All true holiness is mirrored and reflected, and Thérèse allowed herself to enjoy that.]

“Jesus, draw me into the flames of your love,” she wrote. “Unite me so closely with you that you live and act in me.” [1]

These prayerful sentiments expressed her solution to the problem of perfection. Thérèse came to a complete reversal of her original idea of what it means to be on the path of holiness and undid centuries of Catholic legalism. And against all odds, this 24-year-old, formally uneducated French woman, has now been declared a “Doctor of the Church” (meaning her teaching is entirely trustworthy). She showed many of us that Gospel holiness has little to do with moral achievements or the elimination of defects (those are ego needs). It is almost entirely about receiving God’s free gift of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. We know God by participation in God, not by trying to please God from afar. Please think long and happily about that! “Let the one who would boast, boast in God,” as Paul says (1 Corinthians 1:31). It is our faults and our weakness that bring us to God, not our perfection and our strength. What a surprise for most people! I believe this is the heart of the Gospel.

 

Gateway to Silence:
We are all one with You.

References:

[1] Joseph F. Schmidt, “Perfection: A Problem and a Solution,” “Perfection,” Oneing, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2016), 29. Emphasis mine. These prayers of Thérèse are from her Offering to God’s Merciful Love (June 9, 1895), and from her final notebook (June 1897).

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “The Trap of Perfectionism: Two Needed Vulnerabilities,” “Perfection,” Oneing, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2016), 73.