The Stream of Providence

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; January 28, 2024

Readings: Psalm 46; True Christian Religion §766

Today’s sermon is about the stream of providence. We’ll begin by reading forty-sixth psalm [read].

This psalm is a psalm of reassurance—a promise that the Lord is God, and that because He is God, it’s okay if we aren’t strong enough. Often when we turn our thoughts to religion, we end up focusing on what we need to do—or on what we’re supposed to do. We hear God’s ideals, and we try to measure up to them, and we worry that we can’t. It’s easy for us to feel inadequate, or overwhelmed by what we have to do; it isn’t as easy for us to recognize the power of the ally that we have in God. His providence is overall—everywhere, in all things (AC §8478.4). “His providence” means everything that He does to provide for us, everything that He does to care for us. If we want to, we can be in the stream of that providence.

The words “the stream of providence” come from the Heavenly Doctrine, from the book Arcana Coelestia, in which we read, “People in the stream of providence are being carried along constantly towards happier things…. Those in the stream of providence are people who trust in the Divine and ascribe everything to Him” (§8478.4). Another passage from the Heavenly Doctrine says: “The Lord does not clearly appear in His Divine providence, but draws a person along by it as silently as a hidden current or favorable stream draws a ship” (DP §186). There’s a lot that this image suggests to us, if we unpack it. If you’ve ever had the experience of being carried by a river current, you’re off to a good start. That feeling of being borne along by something bigger than you that’s all around you is evocative. The question is, how powerful is that current? When we say “stream of providence” we can be picturing a mountain brook or a mighty river. How strong is the stream of providence?

            Another way to ask the same question is to ask, how persistent is the Lord? In the book of Revelation He says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20). How persistently does the Lord knock? How long will He wait outside the door before He gives up and goes away? The underlaying question here is, how hard does the Lord try to have things go His way? How long does He knock? How hard does He push? How strong is the current that flows from Him?

We’re taught over and over in the Heavenly Doctrine that our freedom is sacred, and that the Lord guards it fiercely. He will not let anyone make our spiritual decisions for us, and He certainly won’t overrule or overpower them Himself. He keeps our spirits in a state of equilibrium, so that the forces pushing us towards hell are perfectly matched by forces pushing us towards heaven; and that means that we are totally free to go whichever direction we choose. This teaching sometimes leaves us with the impression that the Lord is hanging back—that He’s staying out of our lives, letting us work it out on our own.

What the Doctrine actually tells us is totally different. Our next reading is from True Christian Religion. We read: [§766].

This idea that the Lord is urging and pressing to be received is connected with the idea that He is knocking. In another passage we read, “That the Lord continually urges and presses a person to open the door to Him is apparent from the Lord’s words in the book of Revelation: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock’” (DP §119). He is urging and pressing at the door. He isn’t hanging back, waiting to see if it occurs to us to get up and check the door. He is making Himself known, making Himself felt. In the Word He teaches us to be persistent, and knock until we’re answered (Luke 11:5-8). Surely He’s going to take His own advice. And because He’s God, He is endlessly patient. If you were waiting on a doorstep and no one was answering, how long would you stand there before you gave up? Two minutes? The Lord is truly willing to stand on our doorstep for our entire lives. He is not going to give up on us.

He’s also never going to open the door without our permission. He always honors our freedom, and that idea is so important. Without freedom we’d be nothing. He could break down the door in an instant. The stream of providence could be a flood that washes everything away. But who wants their door to be broken down, or to be swept away in a flood? If the Lord were to force His will on us, He’d destroy His relationship with us, and that’s the opposite of what He wants. So He always honors our freedom.

Besides, it would be too easy for Him to break down the door, or turn the stream of providence into a tsunami. When you’re God Almighty, blunt force isn’t impressive. What is impressive is His ability to guide us powerfully and constantly without ever forcing our hand. He never pushes us to take a step that we haven’t consented to. It’s that combination of power and precision, strength and a tender willingness to yield, that makes His providence astonishing.

Our freedom is so important to Him that by default He leaves us with the appearance that the ball is in our court—that it’s on us to take the initiative. The truth is that He’s always seeking us, always knocking at our door, but in the Gospel of Matthew He says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (7:7). He tells us to seek Him out. The truth is that He always acts first, but He doesn’t force us to see that. He doesn’t reveal the power of His presence in our lives until we have freely chosen to seek Him out, to open our eyes to Him. And in the meantime He’s willing to be invisible, for the sake of our freedom.

This idea is important, because it explains why we tend not to see the hand of God at work in this world. The thing is, because we tend not to see Him, we also tend to forget just how much He wants to save us. He loves us too much to overturn our freedom; He also loves us too much to give us up without a fight. In the Heavenly Doctrine we’re told:

[The Lord is] love itself, to which no other attributes are appropriate than those of pure love and so of pure mercy towards the whole human race, that mercy being such that it wills to save all people, to make them eternally happy, and to impart to them all that is its own—thus out of pure mercy and by the mighty power of love to draw towards heaven, that is, towards Itself, all who are willing to follow. (AC §1735)

We know that the Lord is love. We also know that love is gentle. How often do we acknowledge what a force to be reckoned with love is? Think of your own deepest loves—they don’t back down. Not when the thing you love is at stake. The Lord’s love is as patient and as gentle as we need it to be; but His love is also a mighty stream, an unstoppable stream. All that power is striving to save us. He wants what He wants; He’s not going to back down, not going to quit just because we’re stubborn. He’s going to stand at the door and knock; He’s going to wait at the edge of our experience, pressing and urging to be received.

            When we look at the world, we see a lot that isn’t what God wants. We see wars and greed and corruption. We see people who are hurting, and often we’re among them. The arc of our lives doesn’t always look great. And sometimes, when we’re looking at the messes, the only true thing that anyone can say is, “the Lord didn’t want this.” There are a lot of things that happen in this world that He doesn’t want.

But is it possible that, in spite of that, the Lord’s will is done far more often than not? Because if a person struggles in this world, dealing with heartache and loss, but underneath it all the Lord is making them into an angel, then is there more sorrow or more joy at the end of that story? Is that story a tragedy or a triumph? When we look at the world it’s easy to see the things that God doesn’t want; it isn’t as easy to keep sight of the things that He does want. His goal is to teach us to love. His goal is to heal our souls. His goal is to lift us up from the dust of this world and make us angels. And how much of that is going on right now, right before our eyes, while we’re distracted by traffic and taxes? Isn’t it possible that most of the time He’s taking us exactly where we need to go, in spite of all the pieces on the outside that are out of place?

            After all, He is Almighty God. He wants to save us—He wants it very much—and He’s good at what He does. He is willing to admit defeat, as it were—willing to let us go, if that is truly what we choose. But how often do you think He has to?

            For our part, we do have work to do. Religion is about what we do. We have to seek the Lord; we have to get up and open the door for Him. But it’s also true that this world is in really good hands no matter what we do—no matter how badly we mess up—and sometimes what we need to do is let go and fall back on the knowledge that God has got this, and He is good at what He does. Sometimes we need to hold still and feel the current that is carrying us. That’s why Moses, at the edge of the Red Sea, told the Children of Israel, “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (Ex. 14:13). And in the forty-sixth psalm the Lord says, “Be still and know that I am God” (v. 10).

            That Psalm also says, “There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God” (46:4). That river flows through our lives from the moment we’re born, even to eternity. It’s a river of truth, a river of mercy, a river of love flowing out from God, and the current is strong. It’s stronger than politics, stronger than war, stronger than death; it’s stronger than our griefs and our failures. It’s sweeping by those things, passing them by on its way to something far more permanent. It will carry us, as long as we’re willing; and the Lord will never stop urging us to step into the stream. He says:

Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; and I will carry, and I will deliver you. (Is. 46:3, 4)

Amen.

Sometimes Temptation Means that You’re Doing it Right

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; January 21, 2024

Readings: Genesis 39:1-23; Arcana Coelestia §§5036.3, 4274

Our next reading is a continuation of the story of Joseph in Potiphar’s house. As we’re starting to see, the whole first half of the Joseph story is made up of a series of rapid ups and downs. His brothers sell him as a slave, but he rises up and becomes Potiphar’s greatest servant. Now, in the part of the story that you’re about to hear, Joseph is cast down again. We read: [Gen. 39:7-23].

The teachings of the New Church tell us—unsurprisingly—that this story is about temptation (AC §4961). So today’s sermon is going to be about temptation. And the idea that we’re going to focus on today is that if we find ourselves in a state of temptation, that doesn’t have to mean that we’re doing everything wrong or that our lives are a mess—though we may feel that way. Strange as it may seem, temptations often arise because we’re doing the right thing. When we’re in temptation, we might feel like our spirit is in a hopeless condition. But the truth is that that temptation probably means that at some point we started doing something good—and we need to hold on to that good thing.

People sometimes speak as though the word “temptation” means “feeling naughty feelings,” or “being seduced by naughty desires.” But temptation is both simpler and more serious than that. A temptation is a spiritual test, or a spiritual conflict. To put it simply, if we’re in a state of temptation, that means that good loves and evil loves are duking it out inside of us. These battles are uncomfortable; they’re attended by feelings of anxiety and unrest. But they need to happen. Temptations are about making choices. Good and evil are clashing within us, and we’re put on the spot: which side are we going to put our weight behind? The purpose of temptation is to enable us to confront and reject our evils. If we don’t confront our evils this way, they stay with us. So, in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, we’re told that “no one can be regenerated unless he also undergoes temptations” (AC §5036.2, see §8403.2). Temptations aren’t fun, but they’re a necessary part of spiritual growth. They’re also a sign that spiritual growth is happening.

We’re going to use the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife to illustrate two different aspects of temptation. First we’re going to look at “the bad guys”—or what it is that we fight against in temptation. Then we’re going to look at the course of temptation, or the way that temptation tends to unfold within us.

As far as the “bad guys” are concerned, the thing to note is that temptations aren’t about fighting evil in theory—they’re about making actual changes in our lives. Which means that temptations are likely to center around specific patterns or behaviors that we need to change—specific evils that we need to shun, specific ideas that we need to let go of, and so on. The enemy—or the changes that we need to make—might be really obvious, or they might not. The evils that we need to fight might be behaviors that are visibly wrong, or they might be more subtle.

In the literal sense of today’s story, Joseph has to resist an obvious evil: he is invited to commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:7, 12). Lots of people have fought that battle, and it’s a good battle to fight. Or they’ve fought to quit pornography, or to control their temper and stop yelling at people, or to escape an addiction, and so on. Sometimes the battle is about an action that we wish we could take.

But in the internal sense of today’s story, Potiphar’s wife stands for something much more subtle: she symbolizes “unspiritual natural truth” (AC §4988). What this means is that she stands for ideas that were good enough, or true enough, once upon a time, but aren’t good enough or true enough anymore. The Heavenly Doctrine gives us two examples of unspiritual natural good: the first is getting married to someone because you’re physically attracted to them, and not for any spiritual reason (AC §4992.2). The second example is doing good to someone because they’re your friend, without giving any thought to what this friend is like—whether they’re a good person or a bad person (ibid.). In both of these examples, there’s room for growth, but the problem is subtle. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you realize that your marriage is founded on a shallow kind of attraction, the solution isn’t divorce—the solution is to invite the Lord to bring new life to your marriage. If you realize that your relationship with a friend is persuading you to endorse that friend’s bad behavior, the solution isn’t to shun your friend—the solution is to learn how to love someone’s good qualities, while at the same time resisting their bad qualities.

In the internal sense of the Word, Potiphar’s wife stands for truths—or ideas—that support the old patterns that we need to let go of. So she might stand for the assumption that physical attraction and physical intimacy are the “point” of marriage. She might stand for the belief that friendship involves absolute loyalty to your friends, no matter what those friends do (see AC §5008.3). At a certain point in our lives, ideas like these are acceptable. But then we grow a little more, and we find that they aren’t acceptable any more—they’re unspiritual, and they’re holding us down. We have to let go of them. But that involves separating ourselves from our old way of thinking, and that’s hard. So we fall into temptation.

A lot of temptations are centered around these kinds of internal shifts. Often we don’t even see what it is that our spirit is wrestling with—we just know that something’s going on. One takeaway from all of this is that we shouldn’t expect temptations to look a certain way. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes we’ll know exactly what they’re about, and other times we’ll feel lost. One way or another, the point of temptation is to give us the opportunity to reject our own junk and turn to the Lord. We can’t go wrong with choosing to put it all into His hands.

But now I want to look at what the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife has to teach us about the course of temptation, or the way that temptation tends to unfold within us. If we look at this story superficially, it’s the archetypal temptation story—a story about seduction. Potiphar’s wife tempts Joseph with her beauty. But if we look more closely at the story, it becomes obvious really quickly that Joseph isn’t tempted by Potiphar’s wife’s beauty. He flat-out refuses her the first time she approaches him (Gen. 39:8, 9). When she physically takes hold of him, he physically runs away from her (v. 12). This isn’t an illustration of temptation—this is an illustration of rejecting evil. The part of this story that illustrates temptation is the part that comes next—when Potiphar’s wife accuses Joseph of approaching her inappropriately (vv. 14-18), and Potiphar’s anger is aroused (v. 19), and Joseph is thrown in prison (v. 20). Being falsely accused, having someone else be angry with you, and being put in prison are three things that symbolize temptation—three things that illustrate what temptation feels like (AC §§5035-5037).

The point is that this story isn’t about Joseph doing the wrong thing—or even wanting to do the wrong thing—and plunging into temptation as a result of that. On the contrary, this story is about Joseph doing the right thing, and getting put into a situation that represents temptation because he did the right thing. If Joseph had done what Potiphar’s wife wanted him to do, she wouldn’t have gotten him in trouble. When we do what the hells want us to do—that is, when we do evil—they do their best to keep quiet. They don’t want to interrupt us. They don’t want us to reflect on what we’re doing.

But when we do the right thing, they attack us. If they can’t lead us into evil, they try to at least tear down our efforts to do good. If they can’t find any actual dirt on us, they start inventing dirt—they come at us with false accusations. They dredge up every bad inclination and every unclean feeling that we’ve ever had, and treat us like we are those bad desires. In fact, the Heavenly Doctrine says that evil spirits will plant evils and falsities within us, and then turn around and accuse and condemn us for the very evils and falsities that they whispered to us (AC §§761, 1917). Which is pretty much what Potiphar’s wife does: she tries to commit adultery with Joseph, and when he refuses her, she turns around and accuses him of trying to commit adultery with her.

So if we find ourselves in a state of temptation—if we find ourselves being persecuted by evil spirits—that probably means that we’ve been doing something right. The hells wouldn’t feel so threatened if they liked the direction that we were moving in. Of course being in a state of temptation doesn’t mean that we’re saints. Temptation is a conflict between good and evil—a real conflict, a conflict that could go either way. If we’re in temptation, that means that hell still has power in our lives. But it also means that heaven has power in our lives. Here are two different passages from the Heavenly Doctrine that speak to this idea. Both of these passages are printed in the worship handout. First we read: [AC §5036.3].

What we’re being taught in that passage is that we aren’t allowed to enter into temptation until we’ve experienced enough spiritual growth that it’s possible for us to actually “win.” That is, we aren’t allowed to enter into temptation until it’s possible for the angels to defend us in temptation; and they aren’t able to defend us until something spiritual has started to take hold within us. The next reading from the Heavenly Doctrine makes this idea even clearer: [AC §4274].

If we don’t care about anything good or true, we won’t be tempted. If we don’t care about anything good or true, then there’s nothing to fight about. Hell will just have its way with us. If we find ourselves in a state of spiritual turmoil, that means we’ve got some work to do. But it also means that something good is putting up a fight within us.

And this is why the Lord, in the New Testament, tells us over and over to endure, to carry on, even in the face of persecution. When we start trying to do the right thing, hell will try to stop us. And the Lord’s message is “stay the course.” He says, “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:21, 22). And in the Sermon on the Mount He says: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5:11, 12).

            As for Joseph: Joseph was put in prison, and in that prison the Lord was with him (Gen. 39:20). The Lord was able to make him a blessing to the people around him, even while he endured the tribulations that he had to endure (vv. 21-23). And the Lord had no intention that Joseph should move backwards—that he should go back to being a slave in Potiphar’s house. The path forward took Joseph through that prison to something better on the other side.

Amen.

The Power of Simplicity

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; January 14, 2024

Readings: Genesis 37:18-36; Arcana Coelestia §589

            To begin with, I’m going to read the next part of the Joseph story, picking up exactly where the reading for the children left off. This next part of the story is about Joseph’s brothers breaking the news to their father. We read: [Gen. 37:29-36].

            This story is sad. There really isn’t anything happy about the passages we’ve heard today. Of course Joseph is liberated much later on, but we’re not there yet. One of the challenges of doing a long series, like the series we’re doing on Joseph, is that you have to dwell on the sad parts of the story as well as the happy parts. As I said to the children, it’s hard to find any moral or lesson in today’s readings other than, “don’t do any of the things you see here.”

Joseph’s brothers go to some lengths to conceal the crime that they’ve committed. They want to make Joseph disappear—they want to be done with this dreamer, this boy who dares to tell them that they will bow down to him (Gen. 37:5-9, 20). They also want to appear innocent after the crime is over. Which is what criminals usually want. We aren’t going to focus on the evils of murder or slavery, because we already know how we should hold those things. Today’s sermon is about the deeper meaning of this story, which is, in a nutshell, that people sometimes treat the truth the same way that Jacob’s sons treated Joseph.

Last week we talked about what Joseph symbolizes, in the internal sense of the Word. Broadly speaking, he stands for the internal person, or the higher regions of our minds; his brothers, on the other hand, stand for the external person, or the lower levels of our minds. More specifically, Joseph stands for truth from the Lord, also called “the Divine Spiritual” (AC §§4669, 4724). And more specifically still, he’s said to symbolize “the heavenly of the spiritual” (AC §§4286, 4592, 4675). When the teachings of the New Church use terms like this, the word “heavenly” refers to something that has to do with goodness, and the word “spiritual” refers to something that has to with truth. So Joseph stands for the goodness or the blessings that flow from the Lord’s own truth.

If all of this sounds kind of lofty, or if we look at our own lives and wonder where this thing that Joseph represents actually shows up, that’s to be expected. The whole point is that Joseph stands for something higher, something heavenly, something transcendent. The natural mind—which is the mind that most of us live in most of the time—doesn’t “get” Joseph. Joseph’s brothers, who represent the natural mind, don’t get Joseph. They don’t realize that God has chosen him to rule over them; they think he’s just a kid with delusions of grandeur. Joseph stands for something that most of us probably don’t see very often—a flash of heavenly light and heavenly warmth that our minds aren’t always open to.

And the story we read today is about what happens to that higher truth when our natural minds are full of falsities. Those falsities don’t just fail to understand the spiritual thing that Joseph symbolizes: they are actively hostile to it. They actively try to bury it, and erase the memory of it. The thing is, these falsities then try to pass themselves off as innocent, just as Joseph’s brothers did. They concealed what they had done from their father. When we’re in a state that’s hostile to the Lord’s truth, we conceal that hostility from ourselves. We convince ourselves that we’re blameless.

What’s so tricky about this is that Joseph’s brothers stand for things that should be true. They stand for truths known to the church (see AC §§5403, 5409, 5741)—that is, they stand for ideas that come from the Word. These ideas are true… unless they’re separated from the thing that Joseph symbolizes. Joseph stands for the Lord’s truth, or the Lord’s presence within the truth—the Lord’s spirit infilling the truth with heavenly goodness. When ideas from the Word are used against Joseph, they become falsities.

In order to understand all of this properly, we need a more grounded idea of the kind of truths that Joseph symbolizes. The passages from the Heavenly Doctrine that discuss today’s particular story associate Joseph with two specific truths (see AC §§4723, 4747). The first of these is that the Lord’s Human is Divine. Jesus Christ, who is revealed to us in the Gospel, is God. In other words, as He Himself says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him (Matt. 28:18). If we let that truth soak in and carry weight with us, then that’s a “Joseph” truth: it opens the door to heaven and to God Himself. The other truth that comes up again and again in the explanation of today’s story that the works of charity do contribute to our salvation. In other words, what we do matters. Religion can’t just be a spiritual thing—it has to “show up.” The Christian church has a history of attacking these two truths, which is one of the reasons why the Heavenly Doctrine focusses on them. You may also have noticed that these two truths resonate with the two great commandments, which are that we’re to love the Lord above all things, and our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27). Joseph is connected to the two great commandments. These two commandments are the soul of the Word and the soul of the church; so if we take a truth from the Word and use it against the great commandments, that truth becomes a falsity (AC §4776).

The world we live in likes to celebrate love—which makes it easy for us to champion the two great commandments, which are all about love. But love as the light of heaven reveals it to us and love as we understand it aren’t always the same thing. Teachings or messages about what we call love can be falsities, such as Joseph’s brothers represent. The Lord says, “If you love Me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If we wave the banner of love to the Lord, and yet live a life that goes against His commandments, we’re burying the light of heaven.

We can do the same thing with love for the neighbor. Love for the neighbor is one of the things that the world around us celebrates the most loudly—and it’s worthy of every bit of that celebration. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” can feel like a tired message, but it’s still exactly what we need to hear. The thing is, the Lord says that the first step on the road to loving the neighbor is to cease to do evil to the neighbor (see Is. 1:16; TCR §435). Sometimes we convince ourselves that we want to love people, yet we reject the Lord’s definition of love. If we, for example, were to say to ourselves, “the Lord told us not to judge, because judging is unloving; and that means that no one is allowed to judge me; and that means that I’m allowed to live whatever life I want, even if the Lord says otherwise,” that would be taking something that once was true and using it to throw Joseph into a pit.

As I said before, when we do this kind of thing, our reflex is to hide it from ourselves. Joseph was hidden in a pit; out of sight, out of mind. When we do this kind of thing, we argue with ourselves until we’ve convinced ourselves that what we’re doing is just; and anything that speaks out against our conclusions gets buried. The symbolism of what Joseph’s brothers do to his tunic is especially interesting. That tunic—or coat of many colors—stands for the external truths that clothe the heavenly truth that Joseph symbolizes. The Heavenly Doctrine says that the tunic stands for appearances of truth: in other words, the tunic stands for those higher truths once they’ve shone down into the external mind, and appeared to us in ways that we can see and understand (AC §4677, 4741). To put it simply, the tunic stands for everything that confirms and supports those higher truths.

Joseph’s brothers strip him of his tunic (Gen. 37:23). To strip Joseph of his tunic is to hide the evidence—to get rid of everything that confirms that higher truth that we don’t want to listen to. And later on, his brothers paint the tunic with blood (v. 31): they paint it the color that they want it to be. This stands for taking the truth and making it look the way we want it to look: making it mean what we want it to mean (AC §§4769, 4770). When we do this sort of thing, we do violence to the Lord’s truth. We do violence to the spirit of the Word. The bloodstained tunic is a representation of that violence.

What’s the remedy to all this bad stuff? Well, the rest of the Joseph story is about the remedy to the problem that emerges in today’s story. As I said before, the trouble with moving slowly through this story is that it’ll take us a while to get to the happy parts. But who comes to church to hear exclusively about problems?

Today’s readings do give us a hint of a way forward. When Joseph’s brothers sell him, they sell him to some Ishmaelites. What happens next is a little confusing, but it seems that those Ishmaelites then sell Joseph to some Midianites, who sell him to Potiphar in Egypt (Gen. 37:28, 36). In the literal sense, these Ishmaelites and Midianites don’t seem like such great people, since they’re buying and selling slaves. But we can also think of them as the people who take Joseph away from his brothers—or even, the people who rescue Joseph from his brothers—and if we hold the story this way, then the symbolism of the Ishmaelites and Midianites makes a little more sense.

In the internal sense of the Word, the Ishmaelites and Midianites symbolize people who are in simple good and simple truth (AC §§4747, 4756, 4788). That is, they stand for people who are a bit simplistic—people who don’t have an expansive or nuanced understanding of the teachings of the Word. What these people have going for them is that, in their simplicity, they accept the authority and the basic message of the Word.

Most people would prefer not to be simplistic. Most of us want to learn and understand. After all, here we are in church; people come to church for lots of reasons, but one of them is to learn. Clearly learning and understanding are good. But there is an inherent danger in being learned, which is that we’ll get carried away by our own cleverness. The Heavenly Doctrine regularly makes statements like, “It is a common and well-known fact that the learned have less belief than the simple in a life after death, and that in general they see Divine Truths less clearly than the simple do” (AC §4760.4). Of course, this statement was written a long time ago; whether or not it’s still true today is something that we’re left to ponder on our own.

What certainly is true is that all of the mental gymnastics that we looked at earlier—hiding Joseph in a pit, painting his tunic with blood—everything that Joseph’s brothers do to hide their crime, relies on cleverness. Everything that twists the message of the Word away from the Lord, away from the two great commandments, and away from the Lord’s definition of love and charity relies on cleverness. If we simply assert that the Lord is God; that our job is to obey Him; and that the Word is His Word, and is therefore true, whether we understand it or not, then we can’t hurt the truth that Joseph represents. We might not fully grasp that truth; but we won’t hurt it either.

But it can be difficult for people—especially for educated people—to make their peace with this kind of simple faith. Maybe we want to insist that we’re too smart to accept something just because somebody else says it’s true. And yet, the smartest people of all are the ones who are able to recognize when they’re out of their depth. There is more truth in this world, and especially in heaven, than we can possibly comprehend. And as we’ve all experienced, we don’t always know how to make ourselves happy. The smartest thing of all is to recognize that we need a teacher, and to put our faith in the right Teacher.

And of course the Lord wants to open our eyes—we will get there. For now, accepting that He is the Shepherd and we are the sheep is a good start. Our final reading for today is about this kind of simplicity [read AC §589].

Amen.

Keeping Watch

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; December 17, 2023

Readings: Luke 2:8-20 (children’s talk); Isaiah 21:11, 12; Apocalypse Revealed §158

            As far as we know, the shepherds were the only ones who received the joyful news on the day that the Lord was born. The angels didn’t sing to the whole of Bethlehem: they sang to the shepherds. This must have been because the shepherds were ready to receive this news in a way that the rest of Bethlehem wasn’t. In this sense we want to be like the shepherds: when the Lord makes His advent—when He draws nearer to us—we don’t want to miss it. We don’t want to sleep through it. The Lord is offering us heavenly gifts all the time; wouldn’t it be wonderful if we actually heard that good news?

            The quality that probably stands out the most in the shepherds is the simple joy that we considered during the children’s talk. When the angels went away from them, the shepherds didn’t discuss what they should do: they went into the city “with haste” (Luke 2:16). And then they told everyone what they had seen (v. 17). There’s something wonderfully innocent about their eagerness and their lack of self-conscious doubt. And it’s clear that when it comes to receiving the Lord, innocence is the most important quality. The mind does matter; but in the end it is the heart that receives Him or doesn’t receive Him. The angels came to the shepherds because the shepherds’ hearts were open.

            But we talked about this during the children’s talk. There is another dimension to the shepherds, and that’s what we’ll be focusing on for the rest of this sermon. In the deeper sense of the Word, the shepherds stand for people who are paying attention. At the start of their story, we’re told that the shepherds were, “living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). They were literally awake when almost everybody else was asleep. And they weren’t just awake: they were watching over their flocks. They were protecting something. They were standing vigil in the darkness.

            There are a lot of passages in the Word that associate watching, or being watchful, with the coming of the Lord. For starters, in the Gospel the Lord says over and over that His people should watch, because they do not know the day or the hour in which He is coming to them (Matt. 25:13; cf. 24:42; Mark 13:35; Luke 12:40). And He says, “Blessed are those servants whom the master, when He comes, will find watching” (Luke 12:37). These teachings are associated with the Lord’s second coming. But if we go back to the Old Testament, we find teachings about watching that were given long before the Lord had even made His first advent. For example, here’s a prophecy from the book of Isaiah: [read 21:11, 12].

            By themselves these words are fairly mysterious; but in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we’re told that this is an advent prophecy (AC §8511.4; TCR §764). Specifically, the morning that comes symbolizes the coming of the Lord. He is the morning. As Zacharias says, He is “the Dayspring from on high” (Luke 1:78). In the second book of Samuel He is said to be “like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds” (23:4; cf. AC §§22, 2405; DLW §233; TCR §§109, 764). When the Lord was born on earth, He created a new morning for the whole human race. Ever since then, this process has played out over and over on an individual scale. Sometimes our hearts and minds are in darkness. When the Lord breaks through that, there is a morning within us.

In the prophecy from Isaiah, the watchman is the one who sees that the morning is coming. Which makes sense: a watchman on a city wall would be able to see that daybreak was near before the people below him, in the shadow of the wall, could see this. Besides, the watchman would be awake as day began to break; almost everybody else would be asleep. This prophecy seems to be set at nighttime: it begins with that cry, “Watchman what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” (Is. 21:11). This watchman is standing vigil in the darkness, waiting for the coming of the morning.

            The watchman has a lot in common with the shepherds from the Christmas story. Both were protecting something: the shepherds guarded their sheep, and the watchman guarded the city. Both had to peer out into the darkness. And both were awake when almost everybody else was asleep. And these qualities have something to do with being able to recognize the presence of the Lord. This state of mind is connected with the ability to receive good news from heaven.

            What does this really mean? Surely the Lord isn’t saying that He wants us to be suspicious—that He wants us to fixate on the shadows because bad things might be coming. Being watchful isn’t the same as fixating on the bad stuff. Being watchful just means paying attention—to the good and the bad. What the Lord wants is for us to be spiritually awake. We’ll turn now to our next reading, which is from the Heavenly Doctrine, from the book Apocalypse Revealed [read §158].

            To be watchful—or to be spiritually awake—is to have truths and live in accordance with them. But what’s the point of saying that we should do that? Isn’t that what everybody who comes to church is already trying to do? The contrast that this passage sets up is between those who do these things—those who learn truths and live them—and those who think that they’re doing these things, but in reality are only going through the motions. The reading says that the ones who are “asleep and dreaming” are the ones who lack truths, and are “engaged simply in worship” (AR §158). Another passage from the same book says that the kind of worship that’s being talked about here is “lifeless worship,” and that lifeless worship is what we’re engaged in when we go to church and do churchy things, “yet without desiring to know any truths of faith or wishing to do any goods of charity” (§154).

            In other words, lifeless worship is the state of just not wanting to go very deep. It’s a state of more or less doing what we’re supposed to do: doing enough stuff that looks good on the outside that we can convince ourselves that we’re good people—or at least, convince ourselves that we’re doing fine—even though, on the inside, we have no interest in learning about spiritual things, no interest in changing the way we see the world, and no real interest in letting our hearts be changed either. We’re just going through the motions. We’re like sleepwalkers: our spirit—the part of us that’s actually alive and conscious—is not present in the things that we do.

            This state is called a state of “lifeless worship,” but obviously it isn’t the “worship” part that’s the problem. Going to church and praying and reading the Word are never bad things to do; it’s just that these things don’t do much for us if we aren’t awake while we do them. It should be obvious as well that we can be spiritually asleep—or sometimes people say “dead inside”—even if we virtually never do churchy things. If going through the motions of a religious life isn’t enough to wake us up inside, then not even bothering to go through the motions probably won’t be enough either. The less thought we give to spiritual things, the less likely we are to realize that the world in front of our noses is only the outmost edge of the real world, and that we were designed to engage with spiritual reality, and that there’s just no way for us to be truly happy as long as most of what we are is mothballed or sound asleep.

            To wake up is to realize that there is more—more than the shell that is life in this natural world—and to want to understand it. This is why the reading says that “watchfulness… is obtained only through truths” (AR §158). Truth is light; truth is what reveals the world within. Of course merely hitting the books isn’t enough to wake us up: the reading says that to be watchful is to have truths and live in accordance with them (ibid.). Truths that are never allowed to be more than ideas are inert and dead: we discover the power of spiritual truth when we try to live it, when we step into the stream, as it were. The reading says that truths “appear in their own light and in their own clarity when a person lives according to them” (ibid.). When we try to live as though we are spiritual beings—as though we are God’s creatures—and we seek the truth that makes that life possible, that’s when we wake up.

            This is what it really means to be watchful. This quality is what we’re meant to understand by the watchfulness of the shepherds and the watchman from the prophecy. These figures stand for people who are spiritually awake—and especially for people who choose to remain awake even when much of the world around them goes to sleep. And it just makes sense that these are the ones who recognize the Lord when He draws near. He won’t appear before the eyes of our bodies; so if the eyes of our spirits are shut, how will we ever see Him? When we’re spiritually asleep, the truths of the Word are just ink on a page, or like boring presenters mumbling over the radio. But if we’re awake, the truths of the Word are like messengers from heaven—and sometimes they sing together, like a multitude of the heavenly host.

            There are two more things that I want to say about watchfulness. First, I said earlier that being watchful isn’t the same thing as being suspicious or paranoid. That’s a true and important distinction. Being watchful doesn’t mean that we see evil where it doesn’t exist; but it does require us to be honest about evil when we do see it. Sometimes night falls. When that happens, we can either go to sleep, or we can look boldly into the darkness. For the most part the darkness that we need to be concerned with is the darkness within. But that stuff is hard to think about; that’s the stuff that makes us feel that we’d rather just remain sleep. The natural mind says, “Why would I be spiritual if being spiritual is hard? Why would I be spiritual if that means that I have to reflect on evils within myself?” But is hiding our faces really better than facing the darkness? Besides, if we can’t acknowledge the night, how will we ever notice the coming of the morning?

            The second thing that I want to say about watchfulness is that the shepherds and the watchman from the prophecy weren’t just watching out for themselves. They were protecting someone else. They were watching over their flocks—or their people—by night. In addition, the Heavenly Doctrine says that both shepherds and watchmen symbolize those who teach and lead other people (AC §§343, 8211.5). The significance of this is that being spiritually awake goes hand-in-hand with living for more than just ourselves. When we’re asleep we live in a small world: we see ourselves and our own desires, but everyone else is more or less hidden by a fog. Waking up involves recognizing the real humanity of the people around us, and with that recognition comes a certain responsibility: a shift from looking to be fed to being the one who tries to feed someone else; a shift from always asking, “how do I get through this” to looking up and asking “what does this person need?”

            Waking up is a slow process. And maybe when we do wake up, we’ll discover that we’ve woken up in darkness—that the spirit we’re now aware of is a spirit that needs help—and that the morning is only a promise. But the morning always comes. And those who keep watch are those who see the break of dawn.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:9-11)

Amen.

The Messiah We Expect

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; December 10, 2023

Readings: Isaiah 9:2, 6, 7 (children’s talk); Luke 1:67-79; Mark 14:55-64; True Christian Religion §205

Our topic today is waiting for the advent of the Lord. Before He was born there were so many people who longed for His arrival. Yet when at last He did make His advent, so many people were disappointed. There were people who believed in Him—who recognized Him for who He was. But there were others who felt that He wasn’t what they’d been waiting for. So what we’re really talking about today is expectations. Many of us, in one way or another, are waiting to feel the presence of God. But how often do we end up waiting for the wrong thing—for a Savior that we’ve invented, instead of the one who is actually coming to us? Maybe sometimes we long for the Lord to come to us, even though He is already here.

Our next reading is the prophecy that Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, delivers after his son is born. This prophecy is all about the recognition that the moment has come: the promises are being kept. The Messiah is about to be born. We read: [Luke 1:67:79].

Clearly, Zacharias gets it. He says that the Lord has “visited and redeemed His people” (Luke 1:68); he says that the Lord has “raised up a horn of salvation in the house of His servant David” (v. 69). That horn of salvation means Jesus Christ—the Savior, who came to deliver His people from the hand of their enemies (v. 74). And Zacharias says that the Lord is doing as He has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets, who have been since the world began (v. 70). Zacharias recognizes that thousands of years of prophecies are now being fulfilled. The Lord is doing what He said He would do. This is the moment.

This prophecy gives us a picture of the way that the world was meant to receive the Lord. Zacharias’s words are full of joy and hope, and that’s what everyone should have felt. Of course, Zacharias wasn’t the only one who “got it.” His wife Elizabeth got it. The wise men who crossed desserts to find the Lord got it. So did the shepherds and Simeon and Anna. And obviously Mary and Joseph knew that a miracle had happened. But that list might be it; as far as we know, the rest of the world had no idea that anything special had happened.

When Jesus was born, His mother laid Him in a manger, “because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). In the internal sense of the Word, an inn symbolizes a place of instruction; so it symbolizes the church (AE §706.12; De Verbo §7.5). When the Lord was born, there was no room for Him in the church.

And the fact that the church that had longed for Him also wasn’t ready to receive Him only became clearer after He began His public ministry. There were people who believed in Him. But others complained that His teachings were too hard (John 6:60). For the most part, even those who did recognize something good in Him weren’t quite sure who He was; they scratched their heads and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” (Matt. 12:23). On Palm Sunday a crowd sang and shouted for the Lord, and all of Jerusalem was stirred up (Matt. 21:9-11; John 12:12, 13). But a short while later the crowd turned against Him, and the people of Jerusalem shouted out that He should be crucified (Matt. 27:20-22; Mark 15:11-14; Luke 23:18-23; John 19:13-15)

And the fact that the Lord was crucified is the final proof that the church He was born into didn’t to receive Him as its God. The movement to get Him crucified was spearheaded by the leaders of that church. Our next reading is part of Mark’s account of the Lord’s trial before those leaders. The thing to bear in mind, as you listen to this, is that these people trying the Lord knew all of the prophecies. They’d heard the reports of Jesus’ mighty works. They’d been given every opportunity to know that the Man before them was the One whose coming had been foretold. We read: [Mark 14:55-64].

The moment described here is tragic. Jesus, standing before the high priest, is asked a direct question: “Are you the Christ?” (Mark 14:61). And He answers, “I am” (v. 62). In just two words He tells those men that the One they’ve been waiting for is standing in front of them. Everything has been fulfilled; the Son of God is before their eyes. And they don’t just fail to recognize Him: they decide that He has told a blasphemous lie, and is deserving of death (v. 64).

How did these people miss the mark so completely? The Gospel paints a pretty clear picture of their mentality, so it isn’t too hard to figure out where they went wrong. But here’s a clear, succinct statement from the teachings of the New Church, from the book True Christian Religion. This is describing the general state of the people of the church at the time the Lord was born. [Read §205].

The Lord’s people missed Him, when He came to them, because they were waiting for someone who would lead them to worldly glory, not someone who would lead them to heaven. They wanted a Messiah who would exalt them above all the nations of the world (TCR §205)—and the key word there is “wanted.” They missed the truth, not because they were incapable of seeing it because they had set their heart on something different. To be fair, many of the prophecies of the advent are hard to understand, and many of them do seem to speak of the Messiah establishing a glorious kingdom. So it’s hard to blame the people—especially the common, uneducated people—for having some misguided expectations. The real problem was that so many of them refused to adjust their expectations after the Lord came to them, and showed them who the Christ really was. And of course, Zacharias and other learned people, like the wise men, were able to recognize that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of those prophecies. So people like the chief priests and the Pharisees, who were also learned, could have understood a little better. But they didn’t want to.

It might seem like we’re picking on a specific group of people who lived a long time ago. But this problem isn’t unique to a specific group of people—this is a human phenomenon. Not the part about hating the Lord, per se, but the part about false expectations. Surely all of us have, at one point or another, been disappointed by a good thing, because we were expecting something different. This can happen in small ways and in big ways. Children are sometimes disappointed with their Christmas presents, if they don’t get what they wished for. Maybe this happens to adults too—though if we step back and think about it, it’s absolutely outrageous to be disappointed with a gift. Expectations are also notably problematic when it comes to relationships, such as marriages. It’s easy for people to form unreasonable expectations for their partners, or to expect their partners to be someone other than who they are. It’s not that all expectations are bad: there are things that we should expect of the people who are close to us. It’s just that we human beings are good at taking what we want—what we wish for—and turning it into an expectation.

And we certainly can do this to the Lord. He made His advent two thousand years ago, but on another level His advent is ongoing. He is constantly reaching out, pressing and urging to be received; and when we receive Him, it’s as though He comes to earth all over again (TCR §766, see §774). Just on a smaller scale. From time to time, in varying ways and to varying degrees, we recognize that we need Him. We feel like we’re out of answers, and we long for light. We feel tired, or grief-stricken, or just plain overwhelmed, and we long for comfort. We celebrate Christmas, and we long for that special feeling—that warmth that let’s us know He’s here.

Sometimes we get what we want. Other times we wait and wonder. God alone knows what we really need, and He alone knows the plan for getting it to us. Maybe sometimes we just need to wait a little longer. But it’s perfectly possible that God is already here—that what we need is knocking at the door—and that we’ve been missing it, because we’ve been looking for the wrong thing. We’ve been waiting for the Savior we want, the Savior that we’ve fashioned in our heads, instead of the Savior who is actually coming to us.

There are lots of different ways that we might do this. We might be waiting for a Messiah who will dazzle us with holy feelings—a Savior who will hurl out the old and usher in the new with spiritual thunder and lightning. When yet God might be speaking to us not with thunder, but with a still small voice (cf. 1 Kings 19:12). Or it could be the other way around: we could be waiting for a quiet God, a God who will pat us on the back and say that everything is okay, when in fact God is here, but what He’s saying is, “You need to take up your bed and walk; there’s something you need to do, before your heart can be at peace again” (cf. John 5:8). We could be waiting for God to show up and fix everybody else, and be completely tuning Him out because He’s trying to tell us that our energy and attention need to be directed within. We could be waiting for a God who cares just as much about worldly things as we do, or a God who is all about our cause—who sees the world through the lens of the political campaign or social crusade or even the religious mission that we’re invested in. When yet God might be saying, “This cause is worthy, but there are good things beyond this, and My kingdom is not of this world. The place where you will meet Me face-to-face is deeper within” (cf. John 18:36).

The list could go on. We could invent a thousand different saviors; but there is only one Lord. If we’re waiting for the wrong thing—if we’re being blinded by our expectations—how do we recognize that? How do we penetrate that fog? The answer, for good or for ill, is that it’s a process. Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father, recognized that the prophecies were being fulfilled and that the Lord was about to be born. But before that happened he was punished for being unwilling to believe the angel Gabriel: for nine months he was unable to speak (Luke 1:20) In that time he must have learned some humility, because when at last he spoke, he spoke out in praise of God (v. 64). People tend not to learn much without hitting some bumps in the road. That’s part of the process; we go through our trials and tribulations. There is no silver bullet. As we keep trying, the Lord leads us into clearer light.

But trying means doing. We won’t “get” the Lord just by sitting around and pondering Him. If we want to recognize Him when we find Him, we need to live as He teaches. The life that fills the teachings of the Word is the Lord Himself; when we’re in that life, we know the Lord. One thing to bear in mind is that the life He calls us to live certainly does involve serving our neighbors, but it also involves giving Him some of our time. We need to do good things; but we also need to stop, and hush the voices of the world, and listen to Him. We need to practice setting our stuff aside, so that we can simply receive what is. This is exactly what church is for: church services are meant to be moments in which the Lord speaks more clearly than we do. This is why it’s so important to spend time reading the Word, and talking to God. You can’t get to know someone without putting some effort into getting to know them.

Mercifully, the Lord has no desire to remain hidden. He is reaching out to us; and if we reach out to Him, and stay the course, we will meet Him. In a prophecy of His advent from the book of Isaiah we read: “And it will be said in that day: Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (25:9).

Amen.

Our Intentions vs. Our Impact on Others

A sermon by Rev. Michael Gladish

Pittsburgh, October 18th, 2020

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’”   – Matthew 18:15-16

Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “What you think of me is none of my business.”  It’s a catchy phrase and it seems like a reasonable concept, but think about it.  If I made a true but critical comment to someone without regard to their feelings about it, would that be none of my business?  Or if a woman were to dress in a revealing or suggestive manner in a gathering of men, would their responses be none of her business?  What if I paid what to me was a genuine compliment to someone in a way that the other person considered to be flirting, or even harassment?  Would that be none of my business?  Finally, if I said something clever, or even brilliant, and someone misunderstood me, would that be none of my business?  What do you think?

The question raises all sorts of issues about personal responsibility, judgment, ethics, decorum, psychology, communication, and, yes, plain old hypocrisy!  In short, it’s complicated!

Certainly, we know that our intentions are critical in any evaluation of our spiritual states – which is why it’s so hard for us to make authentic judgments about other people’s spiritual states.  Even in civil law motives are considered important, and can seriously affect the judgments in a court of law.  For example, first degree murder is homicide committed with intent, and may result in life imprisonment, whereas second or third-degree murder may be accidental, and may result in a much lighter sentence, or even a judgment of innocence.

On the other hand, people with really good intentions can do a lot of harm.  For example, as is illustrated in a couple of stories in the Word, a man may be cutting wood with an axe only to have the axe head fly off the handle and kill somebody.  The intention is good and useful, but the lack of appropriate caution has a devastating effect.  Again, many books have been written recently about intentional and unintentional, systemic racism in our country.  Like it or not, the lack of real, personal awareness of how our speech and actions can affect people coming from different racial or cultural backgrounds can be hurtful and insulting.  Whose problem is that?

Will and Understanding Work Together

Before you answer, remember what the Writings say about the vital importance of the conjunction of the will with the understanding, so that real uses can be performed.  We surely can be saved and get to heaven based on our good intentions, but in the end, where knowledge has been lacking, this can only occur after a period of instruction in the spiritual world.  Meanwhile, in this world, in order to serve others well, it is imperative that we know and understand what we are doing, including its possible impact on others.  In other words, we need to be able to anticipate the outcome of what we say or do, and that requires two things, education and an abiding sense of humility.

This is not a novel concept.  All commercial advertising, for instance, is premised on this principle: how can we come across to potential customers in ways that will make our product or service attractive to them?  So, in preparing an ad, the writer or producer will first think carefully about what the prospects might be willing and able to hear, and then try VERY hard to set aside any personal bias about what approach seems smart to the company.  The same applies to the product or service itself.  It’s all very good to have a fine idea, but if people don’t see it that way then it’s all for naught.  After all, as a colleague once put it, you can make the best dog food in the world, but if the dogs don’t like it, you’re not going to sell much of it.

Likewise, a young man seeking the attention of a young woman will take care to consider how he comes across to her.  He will not just blurt out anything that comes into his head, but he will present himself to her in ways that he thinks that will appeal to her, and he will try hard not to do anything that might upset her, make her nervous, or drive her away.

Since racism is such a hot topic these days, let’s pursue it a little further – as another illustration.  Many people evidently don’t know that centuries of legislation right up until recent decades, included laws that effectively perpetuated segregation of blacks in low-income neighborhoods with low civic budgets for education and many other services, and these neighborhoods in turn were red-lined by lending institutions as bad places to offer mortgage loans.  The result was not just segregation but an almost hopeless perpetuation of black poverty, since one of the primary ways people gain financial equity is through home ownership.

This is not to suggest that anyone hearing this sermon is to blame for that situation, but it’s a fact of life that influences all our impressions of our neighbors (and theirs of us), whether we realize it or not.  So we all need to be very careful about any assumptions we might make about whether someone knows enough, cares enough, or has tried hard enough to be successful, and whether or not some systemic bias has provided advantages to some over others.  Learning about all this will inform our speech and actions in ways that can build community through mutual respect – provided that we hold the information with humility and a willingness to understand.

Practical Considerations

This all raises the issue of self-examination, one of the key steps in our spiritual growth or regeneration.  But – and this is important – whereas we often think about this as a process of examining our motives and trying to discover and ask the Lord to improve our ruling loves, there’s another side to it that would be easy to neglect, and that is the business of examining the effect our speech or actions have on others.  Now, this is complicated, but really no more – nor less – difficult than looking at our motives.  Of course we can’t control what other people think of us, or of what we say or do, but we can at least observe the impact we have on them and consider whether we may have some responsibility for that reaction.

Seeing that it is often very difficult for us to recognize our own faults – or even our accomplishments – objectively, it is also important for us to learn how to accept the counsel of others about that impact.  As we all know, this can be embarrassing, and a very natural response to anything negative is to become defensive, to make excuses, or to try to explain why our words or actions may have been misunderstood.  Sometimes this can be really helpful, but sometimes it can just make matters worse by implying that there’s something wrong with the other person involved, putting him or her on the defensive and so increasing rather than decreasing the stress and concern.  In fact, getting back to race relations, this may be one of the big problems we’re facing in America today.  But it also applies in our everyday lives at home, at work and in the church.

To combat this risk one of the best things we can do is simply, calmly, as dispassionately as possible, ask a lot of questions.  Perhaps surprisingly, this is one of the things that is clearly implied in our second lesson about how to deal with someone who offends us.  First of all, if we are to go and tell a person his (or her) faults, that means that when we offend, we must be prepared to hear their complaints.  But something else that most people don’t realize is that the word, tell, in this lesson, which can also be translated show, or, point out, is closely related to a word that means to examine or to question.  The point is, when we go to a person to complain about some offense, our position should be one that invites a dialog, a mutual consideration of what has happened so that we can gain back a “brother,” that is, a relationship of love and respect.

But the really important thing is that when we are on the receiving end of this confrontation we need to be prepared to listen, and not just hear the initial complaint, but give the extra garment, go the extra mile, and inquire further as to what else might be involved.  “Can I ask what you mean by [this or that]?  Is there anything more you’d like to tell me, that might help me understand this better?”  Or “Is there anything I can do now to make this better?”  The farther back we can go into the history of the issue the better we will be able to understand the context and our own role in the problem.  That said, when we are confronted it’s important that we simply apologize, and not try to make excuses or explain ourselves unless we are clearly invited to do so.  If we do it may send the message that we’re more concerned about ourselves than about the other person, or that we don’t value his or her input.  This is part of the problem referred to in our lesson today from Heaven and Hell, namely, that we can’t know our faults if we are full of ourselves, but if we are willing, we can know them from others.  The problem is, we are all naturally full of ourselves, and we need help to get over it.

All this may seem pretty intense, and, yes, of course it is.  Which is why we need to choose the appropriate time and place to have such conversations.  Choosing a time also gives us an opportunity to reflect in preparation, and not come on with too much anger or resentment.  It also gives us a chance to pray for the other person, which the Lord has pointedly told us we must do even for our enemies and those who persecute us.

Why What Others Think of Us Matters

No doubt one reason for saying that what others think of us is NOT our business is the concern about hypocrisy.  We all know we should not be putting on a show for the purpose of misleading people, and by the same token we need to have some confidence that others will have the integrity to see our words and actions in the larger context of our lives, and not judge us for some unintended slight.  But if what others think of us truly is “none of our business,” how can we escape the idea that nothing we say or do really matters to anyone but ourselves?

In fact, nothing could be much clearer in the letter of the Word and in the Writings for the New Church than this: what other people think of us does matter, and we have a responsibility to help them think about us charitably.  Why?  Because true charity is not just love for the neighbor, it is love for the good in the neighbor, and so in order to facilitate that love we have to present something worthy of it.  This is what the parable of the good Samaritan is all about: the story in Luke, chapter 10 is about loving one’s neighbor, and was told in answer to the cynical question, “But who is my neighbor?”  The Lord’s response was that it was not the robbery victim, but the Samaritan who helped the robbery victim who was the neighbor to be loved.  In saying this He was not at all suggesting that we should not help those who suffer misfortune, rather, just the opposite: He was saying that when we do something truly helpful we become loveable.  And this inspires everyone.

It is often said that it’s important not just that justice be done, but that it be seen to be done.  But again, why?  Well, one simple reason is that we all have a natural tendency to judge situations by appearances, and it’s just not fair to expect or demand that other people overcome this in order to get along with us, especially knowing that we have the very same tendency.  In any case we can’t control them, we can only try to inspire them, and we do that mainly by doing our own work to make our speech and actions reflect a genuine state of charity.

It’s all very well to say that we should assume the best of one another, but when we send signals – even unintentionally – that can easily mislead, we show a dangerous disregard for other people’s feelings.  This can even include misguided humor.  Obviously, what’s funny to one person may be confusing at best, and quite possibly hurtful to another.  – Not that we can’t have some fun with each other, but we need to be careful, especially when crossing linguistic or cultural or even gender boundaries.

In the end, taking care for another person’s thoughts and feelings reflects a real concern for a number of the moral virtues listed in the heavenly doctrines, including modesty, sincerity, courtesy, generosity and prudence, among others (CL #164).  It lets the Lord’s light shine through us, it builds trust and a sense of community through unambiguous communication, and it makes real co-operation possible.  But most of all it reflects the humility that recognizes: we have a LOT to learn about others AND ourselves, we do not live in isolation from others, we are not perfect communicators, and in order for civil society to work we need to cultivate mutual understanding.

And again, this is hard work!  Our pride and sense of self can easily get in the way, even when we’re not conscious of it.  But doing it is important.  In fact our lives depend on it.

Speaking of life, remember Cain’s reply when the Lord asked him about Abel, whom he had just killed?  He said - and it wasn’t really a question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9).  In the spiritual sense this passage shows that faith at that time despised charity and did not wish to serve it (AC #370-372).  And so it is in our lives today when we think we know the truth, but we have no patience or concern for helping other people see it, or for their sensitivity about our speech and actions.  In short, the lesson is that what other people think of us is very much our business, as is what we think of them, for without the sincere effort to promote mutual respect and understanding society as we know it breaks down, and there can be no heavenly life.

Amen.

Lessons:          Genesis 4:1-13

                        Matthew 18:1-20

                        Heaven and Hell #487 (see next page)

Heaven and Hell #487

“Only from a knowledge of correspondences can it be known into what spiritual delights everyone's natural delights are changed after death, and what kind of delights they are.  In general, this knowledge teaches that nothing natural can exist without something spiritual corresponding to it.  In particular, it teaches what it is that corresponds, and what kind of a thing it is.  Therefore, anyone who has this knowledge can ascertain and know what his own state after death will be, if he only knows what his love is, and what its relation is to the universally ruling loves spoken of above, to which all loves have relation.  But it is impossible for those who are in the love of self to know what their ruling love is, because they love what is their own, and call their evils goods; and the falsities to which they incline and by which they confirm their evils they call truths.  And yet, if they were willing, they might know it from others who are wise, and who see what they themselves do not see.  This, however, is impossible with those who are so enticed by the love of self that they spurn all teaching of the wise. 

“On the other hand, those who are in heavenly love accept instruction, and as soon as they are brought into the evils into which they were born, they see them from truths, for truths make evils manifest.  From truth which is from good anyone can see evil and its falsity; but from evil none can see what is good and true; and for the reason that falsities of evil are darkness and correspond to darkness; consequently, those who are in falsities from evil are like the blind, not seeing the things that are in light, but shunning them instead like owls.  But as truths from good are light, and correspond to light (see above, n. 126-134), so those who are in truths from good have sight and open eyes, and discern the things that pertain to light and shade. 

“This, too, has been proved to me (Swedenborg) by experience.  The angels in heaven both see and perceive the evils and falsities that sometimes arise in themselves, also the evils and falsities in spirits in the world of spirits who are connected with the hells, although the spirits themselves are unable to see their own evils and falsities.  Such spirits have no comprehension of the good of heavenly love, of conscience, of honesty and justice, except such as is done for the sake of self; neither of what it is to be led by the Lord.  They say that such things do not exist, and thus are of no account.  All these things have been said to the intent that a person may examine himself and may recognize his love by his delights; and thus, so far as he can make it out from a knowledge of correspondences, may know the state of his life after death.”

A Prayer for this Service

Heavenly Father, grant that we may truly recognize and honor You as the source of all the good in our lives, and the one who alone can show us the way to lasting peace and blessing.  Teach us, we pray, about ourselves, and what we can do to receive a little more perfectly each day the love and wisdom You provide for us – directly through Your Word and indirectly through the people You send to help us.  Grant that we may be patient and genuinely thoughtful of those around us, that we may serve them well as an expression of our love for You.

Amen.

Saul's Dilemma

A sermon by Rev. Michael Gladish

Pittsburgh, September 27th, 2020

“Then David said to Saul, ‘Let no man’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.’

“And Saul said to David, ‘You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth’” (I Sam. 17:32-33).

One aspect of the story about David and Goliath that doesn’t get much attention is the role of poor Saul, the king.  Of course, it is true that Saul got himself and the armies of Israel into this predicament with the Philistines in the first place by turning away from the Lord, but if we think about Saul under the threat of Goliath we could have a great deal of sympathy for him since, in some ways, we often find ourselves in exactly the same situation!  – We turn away from the Lord, doing something we’re not supposed to do, and then maybe we even try to gloss it over or cover it up as Saul did.  But when finally confronted we recognize our evil and acknowledge it and pray for forgiveness.  Meanwhile, life goes on.  We find ourselves in positions of responsibility sometimes involving many other people, and we have to make tough decisions that could affect these people either very well or very badly.  How is our judgment affected in these circumstances?  How can we know with confidence what we should do?  (And even if we do know what to do, it’s fair to say that having made major mistakes in the past our credibility on any new decisions will be suspect.)

In the story Saul stands alone, accountable in many ways for the lives of thousands, and it at least seems that he really wants to do the right thing.  The Philistine giant has been challenging his army for more than forty days, morning and evening, and he (Saul) hasn’t been able to find anyone to take him on.  Suddenly the young shepherd boy who had played the harp for the king in his distress appears in the camp and volunteers.

What is he supposed to think?  Is this brash, ruddy, bright-eyed musician/shepherd capable of such a fight, or is he just carried away by the promise of the great reward Saul had offered?  Can he really take on a seasoned warrior twice his size and win, or is he simply overcome by the pride of youthful zeal?  Saul isn’t convinced.  He says,

 “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth” (I Sam. 17:33).

What would YOU think if you were Saul?  Would you trust the lives of all the armies of Israel to this one eager boy?  Would YOU gamble everything on one fight between a teenager you had never seen in battle and a defiant hulking veteran?  I doubt it.  But of course David was ready for the king’s objections.  He told Saul how as a shepherd he had fought wild animals, rescuing lambs of the flock single-handedly from both lions and bears.  So he spoke of his experience, courage and strength.

Still, Saul was in a difficult position.  Even if he did believe the story, lions don’t wear armor and bears don’t carry swords, and spears the size of weavers’ beams.

Now all this is not to say you should feel sorry for Saul or in any way doubtful of David.  The point is to think a moment from Saul’s point of view.  Why?  Because only when we get inside of a character like Saul can we begin to feel the impact of the lesson that the Lord presents in the story for the purpose of our spiritual growth.  We need to feel Saul’s doubt; we need to feel his insecurity; we need to feel his sense of guilt and fear and responsibility for what is going on.  THEN, when we learn the spiritual significance of Saul and understand the Saul in us, we are at last in a position to know what WE must do in our doubt and fear, and how we may summon the confidence of David – and ultimately of Saul – against the arrogant Philistine.

So let’s be clear first that ALL the characters (and even the material places and things) in the story are representatives of spiritual things in us.  We’re not just Saul; we’re not David or Goliath; we’re a combination of all these characters and more – very complex, very active and volatile, so that only the Lord Himself can really know the whole quality of our lives.  But we can certainly appreciate the feelings that belong to each character and the thoughts they represent.

In a way, we can appreciate the tension as we consider the ongoing conflicts in the middle-east.  For in the end, apart from everything else we may say about it, one thing for sure is that these illustrate the very challenging and difficult spiritual battles we must face within ourselves.  Try as we might to simplify it, the situation is very complex.  It’s hard to tell the good from the evil; the true from the false.  And that’s the way it is in most of our temptations, for apart from the atrocities themselves committed in war probably the most horrible aspect of it all is the doubt, the uncertainty, the threat to our own (and our nation’s) integrity, the never-ending challenge to understand the issues correctly and to fight unselfishly for what is good.  Think about it.  If you knew absolutely, without any doubt that this or that was the right course of action to take in ANY conflict wouldn’t it be a lot easier?  If you could identify entirely with only one side and not the other, wouldn’t it simplify everything?  (In some ways, this is how it was in WW II.)

Getting back to our story, this is exactly the challenge King Saul faced as he contemplated whether to send David out to confront the giant.  And as we dig down into the spiritual meaning of the challenge, we find that it represents something fundamental to our personal experience of life.  For Saul as the first king of Israel stands for the truth that governs the Lord’s kingdom in us.  Unfortunately, at this stage it is not a very deep or enlightened truth.  In fact, it seems to be a very external, natural and literal form of the truth corresponding exactly to the character of the man.  Remember? – Saul was tall and good looking, outstanding among the children of Israel.  But he was unstable, inconsistent, prone to rash judgments, and in the stories before this conflict he showed that he did not have the ability to provide real leadership.  So he LOOKED good but he didn’t DO well in the stress and confusion of the nation’s daily struggles.

And that pretty well describes an external or literalistic understanding of the truth, actually the truth as it comes across in appearances rather than in real life.  Oh yes, we may know things from the Word – or think we know them – but if this knowledge is not informed by rational understanding born of deeper perceptions and application to life it breaks down in conflict and cannot help us in our times of spiritual need.  Then an opportunity is given for our spiritual enemies to challenge and threaten us.  And in that situation Goliath particularly stands for the pride of our own intelligence.

You see, the Philistines in the Word generally represent “the knowledge of the interior truths of faith” (AC 9340:4) that can help us through life.  They were in fact clever people, aggressive, warlike and skilled in working with iron, using chariots for battle on the relatively flat plains of their territory.  You may recall, too, that both Abraham and Isaac, and even David himself at different times lived among the Philistines and made covenants with them (Gen. 20 & 26).  So, representatively, we see that our own spiritual life at times depends on a healthy relationship with such knowledge – knowledge that provides a fundamental strength for overcoming obstacles.  But when knowledge is separated from a life of charity it can easily lead to arrogance and conceit, taking form as it has done in many churches in the concept of “salvation by faith alone” – salvation based on what you know rather than on how you live.  And that is nothing but trouble.  It generates false confidence and contempt for others, it is often belligerent, and it can be mean.

This is the giant, Goliath, within us.  It is not somebody separate from us, outside of us, threatening us as if we were completely innocent.  It is a part of us that seeks to dominate over the other parts that remain loyal to the Lord.  It claims our attention morning and evening, that is to say, in our morning states and in our evening states, when we are alert and when we are tired or confused.  It says, “I know, I know; I understand; I’m not stupid!  I don’t need any help; and not only do I not need religion but I find it annoying – naïve, simplistic, impractical, foolishly sentimental or maudlin, taking up important time and energy.”

In fact this is a sort of spirituality without the Lord, a sort of enlightenment without any real concern for the neighbor; it is what we call “enlightened self-interest,” true and valid insight that is used, unfortunately, merely for purposes of self-promotion.  And of course, it actually separates us from the Lord.  It causes us to pull away from the protecting sphere of His love and if it is allowed to dominate our thinking it leaves us spiritually weak and helpless.

This was the situation on the battlefield of Judah, where Israel was camped on one side and the Philistines on the other side of a great valley.  And here’s an example – just to get you thinking – from ordinary life today: you know that the Word says “Judge not that you be not judged,” but you are struggling with what to do about a situation in which a neighbor or a family member is making bad decisions.  Or again, you’re struggling with how to vote on a particular issue that involves a judgment on the behavior of others.  It’s hard.  You don’t know what to do.  Love and compassion seem to suggest that you cannot judge, and that you must accept whatever decision others make in freedom, but then, common sense tells you that without any judgment or discernment at all there would be anarchy and a lot of people could get hurt. 

The Philistine argument in this case might be that the Word teaches not to judge.  And in a sense it’s true.  This idea comes from a knowledge of the interior truths of the Word.  But it’s not related to life, is it?  Life requires us to make judgments, or to use a more neutral-sounding word, decisions about what we will or won’t support.  Knowing that the Lord loves what is GOOD and wants us to make GOOD decisions for ourselves and others we try to argue, to make a case, but we get nowhere.  We are like Israel, helpless before the Philistines. 

What can we do?  In the story it is a young shepherd who comes in to save the day.  David, the son of Jesse, bringing food for his soldier brothers, is amazed at the situation and looks around in wonder, saying, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

Circumcision for the Jews was a rite of purification, protection from disease and a sign of commitment to the Lord.  The fact that the Philistines were uncircumcised represents the fact that this Philistine attitude is impure, defiled in fact by the love of self, lacking in any real commitment to the Lord or the neighbor.  In our example it represents the easy way out: don’t take a stand, don’t risk your reputation, don’t worry about anyone but yourself.   David, on the other hand, represents all that is clear and strong and insightful with a view to defending what is good and true from the Lord.  He represents the deeper spiritual truths that come with the acknowledgment of the Lord and with a real appreciation of the spiritual sense of His Word applied to life.  The fact that he was young – like Joseph when he was thrown into the pit by his brothers, or like the Lord Himself when He taught the teachers in the temple – represents the innocent idealism he brings to the story.  And the fact that he was a shepherd represents his desire and ability to care for the human flock that is the church – all the elements of faith and charity that are in us. 

Recall the 5 smooth stones of the brook with which David approached the giant.  These represent the simple, basic truths of the Word that have been polished in our minds by consistent application to life.  What we see now in the story is that when Saul after forty days of harassment comes to realize that he is helpless (representing our own experience when we are exhausted by the doubts of temptation) at last he agrees to let this confident young lad face Goliath with these little stones.  (Well, almost.  At first he tries to cover him in the chain mail and armor that represents our old superficial understanding, but when David sees that this only makes his life difficult he casts it off and runs without it to meet the giant.)

Just so when we come to the point in temptations where we realize that we are getting nowhere, if we will open our hearts and minds to a deeper understanding of the Word in its spiritual sense and innocently, simply commit that understanding to doing what is right, we will be able to overcome the enemies of our spiritual life no matter how intimidating they may seem.

In our example David represents the Lord Himself showing us that true love to the neighbor is loving what is good IN the neighbor, and that true judgment is not condemning any person but rather condemning the evil IN a person - to the extent that we can see what that is.  Remember, the Lord also said “Judge righteous (or “just”) judgment,” in other words, make FAIR judgments, always giving the benefit of the doubt (CL 523). 

Of course, since our lives are complex, we can’t always expect the resolution of a conflict within us to be as clear as it is shown in this story.  But the story shows us the principles that are at play, and it shows us that if we stay focused on one problem at a time – the main problem, the BIG problem – and let the Lord address it through a spiritual understanding of His Word, the giants of our own spiritual arrogance will fall and the perception of interior truths – truths that flow from the Lord’s love – will grow in strength even as David’s reputation and power grew in the kingdom of Israel where he became a great conquering hero.

Amen.

Lessons:          I Samuel 17:17-36      

Children’s talk on David’s Courage and his 5 Smooth Stones

Matthew 10:16-31 & Apocalypse Explained #817:6-7

The Third Lesson

(Speaking of the Philistines) these in the Word represent faith separated from love.  It was for this reason that they were called the "uncircumcised;" for "one uncircumcised" signifies one who is destitute of spiritual love, and is solely in natural love, and with that love alone no religious principle can be conjoined, much less anything of the church; for every religious principle and everything of the church has regard to the Divine, to heaven, and to spiritual life; and these cannot be conjoined with any other than a spiritual love; but not with a natural love separated from a spiritual love; since natural love separated from spiritual love is man's own [proprium], and this, regarded in itself, is nothing but evil. All the wars that the sons of Israel waged against the Philistines represented the combats of the spiritual man with the natural man, and thence also the combats of truth conjoined with good against truth separated from good, which in itself is not truth but falsity.  For truth separated from good is falsified in the idea of the thought respecting it, and for the reason that there is nothing spiritual present in the thought to enlighten it.  For the same reason those who are in faith separated from charity have no truth, except merely in their speech or in their preaching from the Word, the idea of truth instantly perishing as soon as truth is thought about.

Because this religion exists in the churches with all who love to live a natural life, so in the land of Canaan the Philistines were not subjugated, as the other nations of that land were, and consequently there were many battles with them.  For all the historical things of the Word are representative of such things as pertain to the church; and all the nations of the land of Canaan represented things heretical confirming either the falsities of faith or the evils of the love; while the sons of Israel represented the truths of faith and the goods of love, and thus the church….  This is why the sons of Israel whenever they fell away from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of other gods were given over to their enemies, or were conquered by them:

Thus (in Judges 10; 13) they were given over to the Philistines, and served them eighteen years, and afterwards forty years.  This represented their departure from the worship from the good of love and the truths of faith to worship from the evils of love and the falsities of faith.

Likewise (in 1 Sam. 4) the sons of Israel were conquered and distressed by the Philistines.  But when they returned to the worship of Jehovah, which was the worship from the good of love and the truths of faith, they conquered the Philistines (1 Sam. 7, 14; 2 Sam. 5, 8, 21, 23; 2 Kings 18).

The Challenge of an Uncertain Future

A sermon by Rev. Michael Gladish

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.  And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.”  ~ Exodus 16:4

Probably more energy is wasted worrying about the future than anything else in our human experience.  We worry about our health, our careers and our finances; we worry about time, opportunities and decisions; we worry about whether people will like us or not, and whether we’ll succeed or fail at any given task.  We worry about ourselves, we worry about others, we worry about the nation and the church, we worry about the future of the whole planet!  To top it off probably most of us at one time or another have worried about our spiritual lives.

And yet the Lord says, “Do not worry...” for your heavenly Father knows all the things that you need.  He says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

So the question is, given all the uncertainty that does exist in our lives, given the responsibilities that we feel for ourselves and our families, how can we learn to live in the present without worry?  How can we meet the challenge of the unknown with equanimity and peace?

There are hundreds of stories in the Word that speak to this question, and even more passages in the heavenly doctrines that help us to understand the issues involved.  Perhaps this morning we can take a careful look at just a few critical lessons and how shed light on the way the Lord provides for us every day.

The first lesson is about the manna, the peculiar bread provided for the Children of Israel that we just illustrated for the children.  One of the things that was so powerful about that was the recognition that to do it they had to get down on their hands and knees, a real representation of the humility we all need if we are to gather up what is good from the Lord.

This is discussed at length in the Arcana, as you heard in our lessons this morning.  The point of reference is that in gathering the manna the people were told to gather just so much and no more each day, trusting the Lord to provide for the next day – and the next, and so on for forty long, brutal years in the wilderness (Num. 14:34).  So the difficulty of this is also represented. 

Our experience with other people often teaches us that we can’t trust them to do what they promise, and that experience can make it hard for us to trust the Lord.  But, we read, “Those who trust in [Him] are constantly receiving good from Him; for whatever happens to them, whether it seems to be advantageous or not advantageous, is nevertheless good, for it serves as a means contributing to their eternal happiness” (AC 8480:3). 

The problem with the Israelites, of course, is that they didn’t trust the Lord.  And so they

suffered.  The extra manna that they gathered in anticipation of the next day bred worms, representing falsities arising from their self-concerns, and they were constantly having to fight against various enemies, and to endure other consequences of their grumbling and disobedience.  The worms are particularly interesting – if that’s the right word – because they ate at the manna– just as worries about the future eat at the good the Lord provides us.

But the question is, what can we DO about this?  What can we learn from the Lord about how to face the challenges of an uncertain future – for ourselves, our families, our church, and even the earth itself, as we confront one natural and spiritual crisis after another?

The Lord speaks to this in our other lesson, the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:25-34) urging us not to worry about our lives – what we should eat or what we should drink or how we should be clothed.  And what could be more BASIC than these needs?  Yet He said, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”  Now the Greek word for “stature” can mean length, age, or time of life, as well as size.  So we may ask, will worrying make you grow – or live longer?  The truth is, No.  Studies have shown that even mild anxiety can actually shorten a person’s life.  “Therefore,” the Lord said, “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34).

Okay; easier said than done.  So what are the practical tools we can apply to this challenge?

Well, as usual the Lord does not leave us guessing.  In telling us to “look at the birds of the air” He reminds us that birds have no thoughts about the future, they just DO what they know how to do; the instinct is built in.  How much better off would we all be if we just DID what we know we should do, and let the Lord look after the rest?  But of course beyond this we know that birds correspond to thoughts, and the ability to “look” at our own thoughts is a uniquely human trait that provides us an opportunity to think differently, according to what the Lord teaches instead of from ourselves.  We all know that the worst fear is the fear of the unknown.  So if we can identify and name the fears that we are experiencing, and counter them with the truths of eternal life, is there anything we can’t face? 

But the Lord goes on in Matthew, saying, “Why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field....”  Naturally these are very beautifully “clothed,” (even though they are not the lilies we normally think of, but more like the poppies in a meadow).  But the deeper spiritual point is that all flowers represent the truths of faith and wisdom gleaned from the Word and applied to life.  If we look to these truths surely we will be encouraged about the Lord’s providential guidance in all things toward eternal life in heaven, and not be so consumed by our challenges in this world. 

Are you, for example, worried about your health?  Think.  What good does it do to worry?  Just do something about it.  Resources are everywhere at hand today, thanks to modern science and the Internet, and even if there’s no known cure for what ails you there are support groups for every conceivable disorder.  This is not to say that overcoming the anxiety (and pain) that comes with illness or disability is easy, and it certainly does not mean that you are a failure spiritually if you can’t do it.  But your point of view matters, and if you point your view toward eternal values, that is, toward what really matters in your life, then some of this, at least, may be easier to bear.  And in the meantime you can take some comfort from the teaching that you are not really you, not truly free or fully responsible for your emotions under the influence of sickness or drugs.  Yet even so, you can train your thoughts and discipline your actions for the best possible results under the circumstances.

Turning back, now, to the manna in the wilderness, let’s remember that the real lesson here is to take things one day at a time.  We don’t live in the past; we don’t live in the future; we live in the NOW, hour by hour, day by day – which is why we ask the Lord to “give us this day our daily bread,” meaning day by day.  As Swedenborg wrote in the Arcana #2493,

“I have spoken to angels about the memory of things of the past and about consequent anxiety concerning things of the future, and I have been informed that the more interior and perfect angels are the less do they care about things of the past or think about those of the future, and that this is also the origin of their happiness.  They have said that the Lord provides them every moment with what to think, accompanied by blessing and happiness, and that this being so they have no cares and no worries.  This also is what is meant in the internal sense by the manna being received ‘day by day’ from heaven, and by the ‘daily [provision] of bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer, as well as by the statement that they must not worry about what they are to eat and drink, or what clothes they are to put on.”

Does this mean that no one should ever think about the future?  No, of course not!  In fact the passage goes on to say, “...although angels have no care about things of the past and are not worried about those of the future they nevertheless have a most perfect recollection of things of the past and a most perfect insight into those of the future, because their entire present includes both the past and future within it.”

Note, this does not imply clairvoyance or any certain knowledge of the future!  It is always conditional, and is a view based on current states, that is, it “predicts” the future to the extent that the future is an extension of the present.  But we are free at any moment to make new choices that provide for new insight and a new, different future.  The key is that rather than concerning ourselves with all the things we think we need we should be turning to the Lord to ask Him what it is we really need.  And given that He asks us to lay down our lives for His sake, should we be surprised if He doesn’t provide everything we want?

This business of living in the present is terribly important.  Of course we need to provide for our futures: we don’t go grocery shopping every day, much less for every meal.  And yes, it is good to save up for old age, health contingencies, retirement, and so on.  Even ants do that.  But there’s no point in worrying about it.  We just need to DO it.  Make a plan and do it.  And if we’re in trouble for any reason, what good does it do to imagine that trouble going on forever?  Nothing in this natural world goes on forever; only our spirits do, and there is no time in the world of our spirits, only states, and these states only exist in the present. 

But suppose what you’re worried about is your spiritual state.  Suppose you have a problem that is so overwhelming that you really feel you’re not able to rise above it even for a day.  Then you worry that you don’t really trust the Lord, that your faith isn’t strong enough, that you’re not being useful to anyone – yourself or others, and ultimately that you’re on the road to hell.  This may sound melodramatic, but there must be at least 20 people here today who have felt this way at one time or another.

So if any of this sounds familiar, the following quotation, which occuirs in numerous places throughout the Writings, may also be familiar, but there’s something at the end that may surprise you.  We read,

“That it is not so difficult to lead the life of heaven as some believe, is now clear from this, that when anything presents itself to a person that he knows to be dishonest and unjust, but to which his mind is borne, it is simply necessary for him to think that it ought not to be done because it is opposed to the Divine precepts.  If a person accustoms himself so to think, and from so doing establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually conjoined to heaven; and so far as he is conjoined to heaven the higher regions of his mind are opened; and so far as these are opened he sees whatever is dishonest and unjust, and so far as he sees these evils they can be dispersed....  This is meant by the Lord’s words, ‘My yoke is easy and My burden light’ Matt. 11:30" (HH 533).

The words, “dishonest and unjust,” in what follows may not seem relevant in this way, but actually, given the Lord’s wisdom, mercy and providence in every aspect of every life, along with this insight about the influence of spirits, condemning yourself is both dishonest and unjust. 

Again, though, the key is not to worry about the future or the past: our job – our spiritual work – is to shun the evil of a given moment and ask the Lord for help to do what is good, not this afternoon, not tomorrow, not “forever,” but right now, right here, even as we see and feel our choices coming up: will we direct our thoughts this way or that way?  Will we nurture this attitude or that one?  Will we focus on the negative or on the positive?  How do we want to BE right now? 

Remember, it’s not YOU who thinks it’s too hard, or that you’ve made too many mistakes, or that bad or even well-meaning people, friends, family or fellow church members make it too hard; it’s the spirits from hell who have taken you captive.  But you can be free.  You can make a decision right now to BE positive, just for this moment.  And you can enjoy that.  You can be sustained by it.  And you can know that this afternoon, tomorrow, the next day and the next you will have the SAME opportunity, the same new moment in eternity, and the same “Word” from the Lord to make it possible and the same support from heaven – if you choose it.

The manna in the wilderness was not to be saved up.  It was given to the people of Israel day by day, every day for forty years – which means the whole state of temptation that anyone has to endure.  Will we get down on our hands and knees and gather it up or not?  Let’s do it, and see how He can sustain us.

Amen.

Lessons:          Exodus 16:1-21 with a Children’s talk on Gathering Manna

                        Matthew 6:25-34

Arcana Caelestia #8478

“[the verses in Exodus 16 about the manna] refer in the internal sense to concern for the morrow, a concern which was not only forbidden but also condemned.  The forbiddance of it is meant by their being told not to leave any of the manna till the morning, and the condemnation of it is meant by worms breeding in any they did leave and its becoming putrid.  Anyone who does not view the matter from anywhere beyond the sense of the letter may think that all concern for the morrow is to be avoided, which being so, people should then await their requirements every day from heaven.  But a person who views it from a position deeper than the literal meaning, that is, who views it from the internal sense, may recognize what concern for the morrow is used to mean - not concern to obtain food and clothing for oneself, and also resources for the future; for it is not contrary to order to make provision for oneself and one's dependents.  But people are concerned about the morrow when they are not content with their lot, do not trust in God but in themselves, and have solely worldly and earthly things in view, not heavenly ones.  These people are ruled completely by anxiety over the future, and by the desire to possess all things and exercise control over all other people.  That desire is kindled and grows greater and greater, till at length it is beyond all measure.  They grieve if they do not realize the objects of their desires, and they are distressed at the loss of them.  Nor can they find consolation, for in times of loss they are angry with the Divine.  They reject Him together with all belief, and curse themselves.  This is what those concerned for the morrow are like.

“Those who trust in the Divine are altogether different.  Though concerned about the morrow, yet are they unconcerned, in that they are not anxious, let alone worried, when they give thought to the morrow.  They remain even-tempered whether or not they realize desires, and they do not grieve over loss; they are content with their lot.  If they become wealthy they do not become infatuated with wealth; if they are promoted to important positions they do not consider themselves worthier than others.  If they become poor they are not made miserable either; if lowly in status they do not feel downcast.  They know that for those who trust in the Divine all things are moving towards an everlasting state of happiness, and that no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state.”

The Ten Commandments

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

A sermon by the Rev. Lawson M. Smith – 1998, 2011, 2020

Lesson:

THE DECALOGUE TEACHES WHAT EVILS ARE SINS.

Doctrine of Life 53. What nation in the wide world is not aware that it is evil to steal, to commit adultery, to murder, and to bear false witness? If men were not aware of this, and if they did not by laws guard against the commission of these evils, it would be all over with them; for without such laws the community, the commonwealth, and the kingdom would perish. Who can imagine that the Israelitish nation was so much more senseless than other nations as not to know that these were evils? One might therefore wonder why these laws, known as they are the world over, were promulgated from Mount Sinai by Jehovah Himself with so great a miracle. But listen: they were promulgated with so great a miracle in order that men may know that these laws are not only civil and moral laws, but are also spiritual laws; and that to act contrary to them is not only to do evil to a fellow-citizen and to the community, but is also to sin against God. For this reason those laws, through promulgation from Mount Sinai by Jehovah, were made laws of religion; for it is evident that whatever Jehovah God commands, He commands in order that it may be of religion, and that it is to be done for His sake, and for the sake of the man that he may be saved.

Doctrine of Life 57. As by means of this Law there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord, it is called the “Covenant” and the “Testimony,” the “Covenant” because it conjoins, and the “Testimony” because it bears witness, for a “covenant” signifies conjunction, and a “testimony” the attestation of it. For this reason there were two tables, one for the Lord and the other for man. The conjunction is effected by the Lord, but only when the man does the things that have been written in his table. For the Lord is constantly present and working, and wills to enter in, but man must open to the Lord in the freedom which he has from Him; for the Lord says:

               Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will have supper with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20).

Doctrine of Life 58. In the second table, which is for man, it is not said that man must do this or that good, but that he must not do this or that evil, as for example, “Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet.” The reason is that man cannot do any good whatever from himself, but when he no longer does evils, then he does good, not from himself but from the Lord.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Happy is the man who fears Jehovah; in His commandments he delights exceedingly.” (Psalm 112:1)

There are people who act as though the Ten Commandments are good for children, but that when you become an adult, there are more practical rules for behavior. In business, in government, in family life, and so on, people seem to think they have outgrown the Ten Commandments. Even in religion, some churches have taught that Christians are not under the law. They go so far as to say that human beings cannot obey the commandments because we are so weak and sinful.

This attitude is a great pity, because everyone would be so much happier if we kept the Lord’s commandments. We could avoid so much grief, pain, crime, sickness, expense, even accidents, if we would just put some sincere effort into keeping the commandments. The economy would be so much more productive. There would be plenty for all, and good employment for all. Marriages and homes would be strong, loving environments where children could grow up in a healthy way. The generation of the upright would be blessed. Wealth and riches would be in our houses, and our justice would stand forever (Ps. 112:2-3). The Lord was quite serious when He gave us the words of the psalm, “Happy is the man who fears Jehovah, who delights greatly in His commandments” (v. 1).

All things of religion are gathered together in the Ten Commandments. They are the first principles of the Bible. They were the first part of the Old Testament that the Lord gave to Moses. God spoke the Ten Commandments in a living voice from Mount Sinai, amidst thunder, lightning, smoke, earthquake, and a loud trumpet, to emphasize that the idea of not murdering, committing adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting are not mere man-made rules, but Divine laws (Life 53, 62). They are the path to eternal life, not just to a peaceful society. All religions everywhere around the world include these laws. And all who keep these laws for God’s sake are saved, no matter what other beliefs they may hold. After death, they gladly receive instruction from angels, because a person living a good life loves the truth (Life 65). “To the upright, light arises in the darkness” (v. 4). But all who do not live according to them for religious reasons are damned, because they are unwilling to be taught, nor to give up their harmful ways.

The Lord gave us the Decalogue to show us what evils are sins, that is, what harmful behaviors and attitudes create barriers between us and Him. We learn that all kinds of murder, adultery, theft, and false witness, with their lusts, are evils that we must shun as sins against God (Life VII). To the extent that we get involved in these evils, we close the Lord out of our lives with His love and wisdom. Spiritually, we live in the cold and dark of hell.

On the other hand, the wonderful truth is that so far as anyone shuns or flees from all kinds of murder as sins, he grows in love towards the neighbor. Murder includes hatred, revenge, grudges, resentment, contempt, all kinds of verbal and physical cruelty, character assassination, and so forth. In the spiritual sense, murder involves wishing to destroy a person’s soul. In the deepest sense, it is hatred of the Lord. All the different levels of murder are closely linked. If we harbor a serious grudge against someone, inside we also hate the Lord, though we may not realize it. The Lord warns us to watch out for these attitudes and habits in ourselves, because all human beings have a weakness for hatred. From the time we’re children, we are taught to cover our murderous feelings with the civil and moral principles of life among other people. But if we only cover them up for the sake of our reputation, we remain devils on the inside, however nice we may be on the outside.

But the Lord provides us freedom to see the truth and to make a choice. If we recognize an evil to be a sin and deliberately turn away from it, not just in our outward behavior but in our thoughts and intentions, then the opposite good qualities automatically begin to flow in from the Lord. “His heart is supported; he shall not fear, until he shall look upon his adversaries” (v. 8)

The Lord is like the sun of heaven, radiating the warmth of love and the light of truth to us. As God is love itself, He is always reaching out to share His love and light with us. As soon as we turn away from the opposing evils, our minds and hearts open up to His gifts, and they pour in. So we read, “When a person is no longer in the evil of murder, but in the good of love towards the neighbor, then whatever he does is a good [result] of that love, so it is a good work…. A magistrate who is in that good, as often as he… pronounces judgment, does a good work, because he acts from the love of caring for the good of his country, of the society to which he belongs, and of his fellow citizens. In like manner a merchant [or businessman] does a good work; if he is in that good, every one of his business transactions is a good work. There is in it the love of the neighbor, and the neighbor is his country, his society, his fellow-citizens, and also his servants [or employees], whose welfare he cares for along with his own. A workman also who is in the good of love towards the neighbor, under the influence of that love works faithfully for others as for himself, fearing his neighbor’s loss as his own. The doings of all these people are good works because so far as anyone shuns evil, so far he does good… And a person who shuns evil as sin does good not from himself, but from the Lord” (Life 72). “The good man is gracious and lends; he shall maintain his affairs in judgment” (v. 5).

Similarly, as far as anyone shuns all kinds of adultery as sins, so far he loves chastity, that is, cleanness of mind and heart. Not chastity in the sense of abstinence from physical relations, but abstinence from any intimacy outside of marriage, for true married love is holy, pure and clean above every other love. No one can know the blessed cleanness of marriage unless he shuns all kinds of obscene speech, actions and stimulation as sins against God. But the more a person first turns away from such things, and then flees from them, and finally fights and abominates them in himself or in herself, the more such a person comes to perceive the blessedness and peace of true married love. Obscenity, lasciviousness and adultery are hell with a person, so as we deliberately turn away from them, the Lord is able to open heaven in us, and let the sweet fresh air of springtime in heaven flow into our spirits. “He shall not fear an evil report; his heart is prepared, trusting in Jehovah” (v. 7).

As far as anyone shuns all kinds of stealing as sins, he loves honesty. Stealing includes all kinds of fraud and depriving another of his goods under any pretext. The evil of theft, we are told, enters more deeply into a person than any other, because it is united with cunning and deceit. The problem is that we lie to others and to ourselves to the point that we see nothing wrong. Then our minds are tightly closed to the light of truth, which could set us free from slavery to evil. But if we shun, that is, avoid or flee from stealing, to that extent we love honesty, integrity, justice, faithfulness, and uprightness. We cannot love these virtues from ourselves, just from self-interest. But if we shun fraud, cunning and deceit as sins, then we become principled in these virtues not from ourselves but from the Lord, because we are open to the influence of His light. Slimy, sneaky, deceitful attitudes cannot hide in the light of heaven, so they slink away, and angels come into our minds instead. “He has dispersed, he has given to the needy; his justice stands forever; his horn shall be exalted in glory” (v. 9).

As far as anyone shuns all kinds of false witness as sins, he loves what is true. False witness includes lying of all kinds, especially gossip and deliberate lies to damage others’ reputations. On a deeper level it also includes persuading someone that something bad is okay, even clever or virtuous, and that something good is bad or contemptible. On the lowest level it is to belittle the Lord and His Word. All these kinds of false witness go together in someone who tells lies. But the more we shun false witness, the more precious the truth becomes to us, and the more we are aware of the beauty of seeing clearly what is right. The truth becomes like good seed falling on fertile ground in our minds, bringing forth a bountiful harvest of honesty together with kindness, and the peace of acting according to conscience. “For to eternity he shall not be moved; the just shall be for a remembrance eternally” (v. 6).

We cannot keep the commandments and shun evils as sins inwardly, unless we fight against evils in ourselves. It’s not our fault, but the fact is that human nature is full of weaknesses toward every kind of perversity. Every generation that doesn’t keep the Lord’s commandments makes the problem worse. So inevitably there is a part of us that enjoys murder or cruelty, obscene pleasures, sneaky cleverness, and defamation of other people. The only way to get rid of these attitudes is by fighting them in ourselves from a higher point of view. It’s a battle.

Everyone who believes there is a hell and a heaven, a heaven of eternal happiness and a hell of eternal misery, and that the good go to heaven but the evil to hell, takes up the struggle against his lower nature. Then good from the Lord gradually takes the place of evil. Now, from a real appreciation of the joys of a good life, a person looks evil in the face. Now we can see that instead of being pleasant and clever, it is horrible. So he not only avoids it, but holds it in aversion, and at last abominates it. This battle, the Lord says, is not grievous or terribly hard, except for people who have relaxed all restraints on their lusts and deliberately indulged them, and for people who have confirmed themselves in rejecting the holy things of the Word and the Church. This is not talking about occasional failings, but an attitude that says, “The Ten Commandments are for kids and wimps—not me.” For others, however, the combat is not too tough. We read, “Let them resist evils in intention [before they get into act], only once a week or twice in a month, and they will perceive a change” (Life 97). “The wicked one shall see and be provoked; he shall gnash with his teeth and melt; the lusting of the wicked shall perish” (v. 10).

The first and great commandment of all is to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and strength. The reason is, we cannot shun or fight against evil in ourselves by our own strength and accomplish anything more than a temporary cover-up, unless we look to the Lord, ask Him for help, and do it for Him. We must shun evils and fight them as if by our own strength, because it feels to us as if we’re on our own. The Lord wants us to have and feel responsibility for our lives, and to make real choices. He will not compel us. So we need to examine ourselves, confess our sins before God, desist from them, and begin a new life, all as if on our own. But at the same time, we need to know that the Lord is the One giving us the inspiration, the objectivity, the hope of amendment, and deliverance from evil. That way we remain open to His help, His warmth and light, and we do not become conceited and contemptuous of fellow sinners.

The Lord gave us wonderful, easy to use tools, so that we can prepare ourselves for heaven, for a life of true love towards our neighbors, and for growing closeness with God Himself, the source of love and truth. These tools are called the Ten Commandments. They work just as well now as they did 3000 years ago. They are the essence of religion. They are the fabric of human nature, indeed of the whole universe. The power of the Lord God is in them. Let’s use them to investigate our lives and our spirits. Let’s find a problem area that we can work on for the Lord’s sake, for our neighbors’ and loved ones’ sake, and for our own eternal happiness. Let’s ask the Lord for help to be honest with ourselves and the guts to make a few changes, and go for it, because what the Lord said in the psalm is true: “Happy is the man who fears the Lord, who delights exceedingly in His commandments.”  Amen.