Sermon on Nov 18, 2018

In today’s readings we see a dire portent of the future.  Jesus and the Prophets foresee doom and gloom around every corner and it does seem to be one of the central themes of the bible.  Jesus and Daniel, both see the destruction of humanity, but also the rebirth, a new and better people.  Hence the birth pangs. 

Most mothers can attest to the pain associated with childbirth.  Most men cannot relate, although tearing my ACL and having my chest cracked open brought me a great deal of pain.  So much so that after my heart surgery I prayed to God to let me die, or take away the pain.  At that moment I was prepared to die.  That type of pain and anguish is what Jesus, John, Isiah, Daniel and others describe in the Bible.

Some think that they are righteous enough they will be whisked away in a rapture.  Good luck with that.  If you think you are that righteous then you are probably self-righteous and your wishes of being whisked away are delusional.  If you are a Christian and you can’t wait for all your human beings to be destroyed while you survive, perhaps you are not really a follower of Jesus at all.

No, the birth pangs that Jesus talks about, are the painful transformation from the old ways of war, famine, pestilence, and treachery that have besieged humanity from the beginning of our creation.  When we reach the point of total destruction, when the scattered remains of humanity are left, then the birth of a new peaceful utopian society shall take place.  Sounds good, and for the last 2000 years faithful Christians have been awaiting the “New World.”

But wait, there’s more!  What if Christ is not talking about the total destruction of our species?  What if he is talking about the transformation of us as individuals?  After all, how many times has Jesus talked in parables and allegory?  There is always a deeper meaning to what Jesus says.  Always a deeper meaning. 

What prevents us, as individuals, these little islands of flesh, from beginning one with Jesus?  Do we have to suffer and undergo and terrible death.  When we are born and thrust into the world we are full of love.  Usually the first human we encounter is our mother and her love fills us, her voice, her touch, our fist gaze upon her, it’s all love.  We are creatures of God and God is love.  But then the world confronts us, we are exposed to evil and to protect ourselves we build an ego.  This ego gets us through the first half of our life, yet it limits who we are, what we are.  Confined by our egos we get caught up in the materialistic world and do everything it takes to compete and survive and for most of our loves the ego is a necessity.

What about love?  What happened to that love we had as a child?  In some people love can get buried so deep that most others think them completely evil. Our egos demand. “me first.” and our egos can be very selfish. 

Jesus speaks of being reborn, being born from above, and of being childlike to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  To become childlike we need to let go of our egos.  We need to forego the protections our mind has constructed.  We need to throw down all the stones of the wall we call our ego and open ourselves to the Love that is God.

Does that sound easy?  Of course not.  We spend our entire life building and feeding our egos.  They are to our minds as our skin is to our body.  It takes time and practice to let go of our ego.  Contemplative prayer is one method.  Meditation, where we let go of our thoughts and wants and needs is one method of freeing ourselves from our egos.  Suffering to the point where our egos are destroyed is another way.  Pain so intense that we realize we are not in control and ask God for help. 

Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, indeed all religions have a branch of believers they call mystics.  Mystics are people of faith who believe in a spiritual union with God.  Some people associate mystics with people who see visions.  Throughout history, there have been such mystics, but seeing visions is not a requirement, that is more of a gift from God.  Others believe in a more literal interpretation of the Bible.  The literalists think that they know all the answers and need search no further.  I’m not trying to be judgmental, I get upset when someone tells me they know all the answers and a quick check in Wikipedia reveals 173 times since Christ when people have predicted the end of the earth.  You will not find any mystics that think they know all the answers.  But they do know that God is love and all those that have experienced that love are radically changed.

All I can be is a guide, a signpost, to the ultimate destination … Love.  Jesus had two commandments; Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  And Love thy neighbor as thy self.   The heart is where love resides, our soul is pure love the piece of God that is us, and the mind is where our ego takes residence.  When we throw down the stones of our ego, then love can enter our minds.  Then and only then can we truly love our neighbors. 

The wars and famines and earthquakes that Jesus foretells.  In a metaphorical sense, are they our internal struggles, our spiritual starvation, our pains and sufferings?  This is not a stretch.  For two thousand years crackpots have been telling us that the end is near.  Yet here we are? What if all these apocryphal warnings are not about mankind as a whole, but us as individuals?  Ponder this as you leave today.

In Thich Nhat Hanh’s words, “Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.”  When are egos is cast aside and we realize that we are creatures of love, we no longer fear death, for death is another form of birth.

If this sounds crazy, and it might, because most of us are taught to fear death from an early age, then consider some observations from a hospice worker.  Kathleen Dowling Singh wrote a book, the Grace in Dying. And discusses the experiences she observed with people dying.

“I realized that what I had been witnessing in the process of dying was grace, all around, shimmering and penetrating. I began, with newly opened eyes, to observe the subtlety of this grace and to observe the qualities of grace in those nearing death. I became aware that all of the observed qualities of the Nearing Death Experience point to the fact that something profound is occurring here, a passage to deeper being. As I worked with dying people from all walks of life and at many different levels of spiritual evolution, normative patterns of change, of transformations in consciousness, became apparent.

There appears to be a universal, sequential progression into deeper, subtler, and more enveloping dimensions of awareness, identity, and being as we begin to die—a movement from the periphery into the Center. I have come to believe that the time of dying effects a transformation from perceived tragedy to experienced grace. Beyond that, I think this transformation is a universal process. Although relatively unexamined, the Nearing Death Experience has profound implications. Dying offers the possibility of entering the radiance, the vastness, of our Essential Nature, at least for a few precious moments. . . .

The Nearing Death Experience implies a natural and conscious remerging with the Ground of Being from which we have all once unconsciously emerged. A transformation occurs from the point of terror at the contemplation of the loss of our separate, personal self to a merging into the deep, nurturing, ineffable experience of Unity.

My experience is that most people who are dying have no conscious desire for transcendence; most of us do not live at the level of depth where such a longing is a conscious priority. And, yet, everyone does seem to enter a transcendent and transformed level of consciousness in the Nearing Death Experience. . . . It is rather profound and encouraging to contemplate these indications that the life and death of a human being is so exquisitely calibrated as to automatically produce union with Spirit.”

The observations of Singh are not mind-blowing.  I read the autobiography of Johnny Cash and in it, he describes the death of his older brother, Jack.  Jack wanted to be a preacher when he grew up, but he suffered a terrible injury in a sawmill.  As the family surrounded him, he wavered in and out of consciousness.  The final time he awoke with a smile on his face and asked, “Can you hear them.”  Someone asked who and he responded, “The Angels, they are singing by the river, and they are waiting for me.  Then he passed.  To me that is what Singh is describing.

This is what my favorite poet, Khalil Gibran has to say about death.

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

To tie this together, what Singh is describing is what mystics try to attain with contemplative prayer and meditation.  A personal transformation, where we enter a state of grace without the baggage of our egos, where peace and love replace need and want.  The first language of God is silence.  When we enter into silence that is where God speaks to us.

Ponder this as you leave today.  When you have a chance sit quietly and try to discard your thoughts, cares, and needs.  Become as a child, release your burdens to Christ and remember that you are loved, that love is where we came from and where we go back to and love is never to be feared.