“In biblical references to the Second Coming, there are often images such as Jesus suddenly appearing brightly in the sky for all to see in his triumphal return.  For me, that is like the cartoon images of a lightbulb going off above a character’s head when the character gets it.  An aha! moment.  A moment of enlightenment. So for me, such images suggest, not an actual historical phenomenon, but the moment when each of us personally and humanity as a species finally gets what Jesus was all about.  Jesus isn’t physically coming again but his mind – Christ Consciousness which pervades the universe always – will have finally come down to earth and taken up residence in our human understanding.”

In this week’s Service, Ted develops this idea further as he leads a reflection on a parable of Jesus.

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OPENING IN COMMUNION WITH THE ANCIENTS

Psalm 78:1-7, adapted

From “Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness”, Nan C. Merrill, Continuum Publishing, 2002

 

Listen well, O peoples of the earth,

to inner promptings of the Spirit.

Let Silence enter our house that we may hear!

For within our heart Love speaks –

not with words of deceit,

but of spiritual truths to guide us upon the paths of peace.

We will not hide this from our children;

we will teach of the inward Voice,

and help all generations to listen in the Silence,

that they may know the Beloved

and be free to follow the precepts of Love.

For the Spirit of Truth is written upon open hearts.

SCRIPTURE

Matthew 25:1-13

In Jerusalem, knowing his death is imminent, Jesus uses a parable to help prepare his followers

to face critical events in their lives and in the unfolding of world events after he is gone.

 

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

 

TED’S REFLECTIONS

ENLIGHTENMENT

One of the regrets in my life is that I never got to know my father better.  He wasn’t easy to talk to.  By nature, he was a quiet man who seldom initiated conversation unless there was a particular need.  And, for most of my adult life, we lived in different provinces.  Even when we did visit back and forth, however, my respect for him and my natural shyness around him somehow held me back from trying to initiate a conversation that might lead us to a more personal level.  My sister, on the other hand, for the most part did live closer to our parents and, recently, she told me an intriguing little story about our dad.  Apparently at some point in his life, he decided to read the Bible through cover to cover.   I do know this much about my father.  Whatever he determined to do, he generally did conscientiously.  And, who knows, maybe he was trying to figure me out across our two solitudes!  Well, my sister must have been there when he came to the last word of the last chapter of Revelation, the last book in the bible.  She remembers that he closed his bible, took a breath, and said, “Well, that was pretty much a fairy tale.”  Another project done and dusted.

I wonder, if I had been there, whether I would have known how to use that as the gateway into a fuller discussion.  You see, I wouldn’t have completely disagreed with Dad about that view of the Bible.  I am certainly not one who takes the bible literally, word by word, page by page, book by book.  And, I am quite aware that across history and around the world, there are many different ways people and groups approach the bible and interpret it.  I try to respect the different ways people work with the bible, knowing that my way is only one way and most certainly not the final word on the subject.  I would hope people who view it differently would also respect me so that, in conversation with one another, we could each learn from the other.  I see the bible as a collection of different kinds of literary genres collected over centuries and generations in a particular line of people trying to make sense of whatever God is.  A mixture of fact and fiction; of history and legend; of doctrine and propaganda; of political commentary and moral guidance and letters and folk tales and poetry and songs and wisdom tales and so much more.  Yet, still, despite it being a patchwork quilt, I find it remarkable that those who edited the bible and arranged all these individual bits into a whole have turned it into one unified story.  But here I might have suggested to Dad that another word than fairy tale to describe this overarching story might be myth.

Myth.  Now I don’t mean myth in its popular sense of something trivial that simply isn’t true.  I mean it in its literary sense as a big story meant to give meaning to all of life. And every culture has such a story.  The biblical myth – encompassing both the story of Israel and the era of the Church – has all the elements of a myth.  It accounts for the beginning of time and the end of time and everything in between.  It talks about the origins and destiny not only of Israel and the Church but of the whole universe.  It speaks of the vastness of all creation and of the human place in that grand expanse.  It accounts for the dangers and pain in the world and in human experience and suggests a pathway through, an antidote for the human problem, so to speak. It tries in its way to give meaning to the adventure of living and hope despite its struggles.  So when we come to any particular bit of the bible, the question is not “is it true?” but “what is it trying to convey?”  If it is a fairy tale or a myth or whatever word you might prefer, how is it even more basically a metaphor that helps us understand something about the world and our place in it, and how does it guide us through our own personal experience in a helpful way?

So we turn, then, to the Gospel passage from this week’s lectionary offerings. A parable from the fertile imagination of one Jesus of Nazareth. This particular parable – about bridesmaids waiting in the dark for the arrival of the bridegroom – seems to take us into the territory covered by what the church has come to call, “The Second Coming”.  An elaborate, complicated, fearful mishmash of opinions and doctrines about the end of time when Jesus is supposed to return to rescue the faithful as the world and the universe are falling apart around us. On a literal level, such a story makes little sense to me and has even less appeal.  The complicated theories that some quarters of the Christian world have come up with over the centuries to explain the so-called Second Coming range in my mind from esoterica to absurdity to fear-mongering.  But, on the level of myth and metaphor, the image of a Second Coming and this particular parable are richly and helpfully suggestive.  At least to me.  I hope anything I have to say about it here doesn’t add to the confusion, the absurdity, and the fear.

In a nutshell, I think the image of the Second Coming of Christ is about enlightenment.  In this particular parable, symbolized by the images of light in darkness – those lamps and the oil that keeps them burning.  Enlightenment.  I hope what I mean by enlightenment will become clearer in what follows.  It is not a word or a concept that can be easily or simply defined.

Often in early Christian writings – maybe especially in the letters of Paul in the New Testament – the followers of Jesus are called the Body of Christ – his on-going presence in the world after the time of Jesus himself, the resurrection of Jesus, so to speak, again taking myth and applying it metaphorically to those who try to keep the message and the way of Jesus alive.  But, if we are the Body of Christ, we have not yet fully taken in the Mind of Christ.  We are somehow fascinated by the person and teachings and story of Jesus but we are still struggling to get it.  To have it dawn on us what he was really getting at and then being able to live accordingly.

In biblical references to the Second Coming, there are often images such as Jesus suddenly appearing brightly in the sky for all to see in his triumphal return.  For me, that is like the cartoon images of a lightbulb going off above a character’s head when the character gets it.  An aha! moment.  A moment of enlightenment. So for me, such images suggest, not an actual historical phenomenon, but the moment when each of us personally and humanity as a species finally gets what Jesus was all about.  Jesus isn’t physically coming again but his mind – Christ Consciousness which pervades the universe always – will have finally come down to earth and taken up residence in our human understanding.

Jesus of Nazareth and other spiritual pioneers from other eras and other cultures and other religious movements strike me as persons who were forerunners of the next level in the evolution of human consciousness.  Jesus and others we could suggest were able to see a wider and deeper spectrum of reality than the rest of us are yet capable.  When Jesus looked out, he could see what he called the Kingdom of Heaven all around him.  It was just as obvious and real to him as our world is to us.  And he tried everything he could come up with to try to help us see what he could see and, consequently, allow it to transform the way we live and the way civilization is ordered.  For living out of the Mind of Christ means that things like competition and violence and racism and greed and exploitation and posturing for power will no longer make sense and will no longer govern the way personal relationships and world affairs are conducted.  Those things will seem as primitive and outdated as rabbit ears on a black and white tv set.  That advanced consciousness is latent in the brains and DNA of all humans and someday there will be a shift when that next level becomes our new human normal.  Aha! we get it!

There is another aspect in this parable, though, that I think we need to notice.  And that is the urgency in it and the passionate appeal to his listeners to be diligent in seeking after enlightenment.  That urgency – that warning, in a way – is made pretty clear in the contrast between the bridesmaids who carry extra fuel with them for their lamps and those who don’t.  Not an image of judgement on the foolish bridesmaids, I don’t think, but a sadness and a yearning because of what is lost by their neglect or apathy – and by us in the pain we experience and cause by our continued immersion in the old mind.

Now, enlightenment is not something we can achieve by taking the right course and working hard to get a good mark.  It is something that comes to us not achieved by us.  At least, I think so, because I’m not sure I have reached enlightenment yet myself so I can’t speak too authoritatively about it!  But I do think there are things we can do – fuel we can carry – to open ourselves to the deeper awareness that we are innately capable of.  I think our choice to spend time with this today is one of those things. And the reading we do and the quietness and stillness we try to build into the busyness of our days. And by learning to listen to whispers from the natural world and in the creative projects we turn our imaginations and our hands to. Through the deep conversations we have with one another and so much more.

Sometimes, when I am trying to bring back a name boxed up somewhere in my memory bank from years ago, I try every trick I can think of to retrieve it.  You know, going through the alphabet, checking old files, consulting my friend Google, and all those techniques that often work.  Sometimes, though, my efforts just don’t work and then 20 minutes later – or even the next day – when I am engaged in something else entirely, the name just pops out.  I’m sure you know what I am talking about.  Likely this happens to you too.  When it comes to deeper spiritual insight – in addition to all the things we do to increase our spiritual “IQ” – how do we also get out of our own way to allow what is innately planted within us to surface?  What do we do – what can we do – to cultivate a stillness amidst all our activity, to quieten our busy brains in order to create an open channel into and a receptive place for that deeper consciousness just waiting to rise to the surface?  This is not just about self-improvement and spiritual pride.  It is about how we find inner resources to face the challenges of our personal lives; how communally – as nations and as a species – we find our way through the dangers and challenges that threaten us.

This is a very unfinished sermon, for the work of living out the implications of this reflection is a very personal matter – though we can all benefit from each other’s ideas and practices. Some questions for personal reflection follow to help each of us flesh out these thoughts further – and the actions that arise from them.

For Further Reflection:

1. 1. What do you do / can we do to deepen our insight into and participation in Universal Christ Consciousness?
2. 2. Who do you turn to for enlightened perspective on spiritual matters and world affairs?
3. What does it mean, in practical terms, “to carry spare oil for our lamps”?
4. Do you have an overarching story – a myth – that gives meaning to your life?
5. What are you waiting for?

 

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

From Psalm 70, Nan C. Merrill

You take delight, O Radiant One,

in gracing me with new life!

O Beloved, come and renew me!

Let me face my weaknesses

and all that confuses me,

that keeps me from joy!

Let me begin anew,

as a child at its mother’s breast,

who basks in love.

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad!

Let us say evermore,

“My joy is in the Beloved!”

O Beloved, come and renew me!

Amen

 

CONCLUDING CHARGE AND BLESSING

From Psalm 78, Nan C. Merrill

 

Let us listen long in the Silence

that the Word may be heard,

that decisions arise from the depths of our inner being

where wisdom dwells.

For the Spirit of Truth is written upon gentle and open hearts,

not as on stones of old.

With steadfast love will the Counselor guide us;

and to all who abandon themselves to the Beloved

will deeper knowledge be revealed.

Amen and Amen.