By Rev. Ian Arnold

“Everyone knows that the gentiles as well as Christians live a moral life, and many of them a better life than Christians. Moral life may be lived either for the sake of the Divine or for the sake of men in the world; and a moral life that is lived for the sake of the Divine is a spiritual life. In outward form the two appear alike, but in inward form they are entirely different: one saves a man, the other does not. For he who lives a moral life for the sake of the Divine is led by the Divine; while he who leads a moral life for the sake of men in the world is led by himself.

But this may be illustrated by an example. He who refrains from doing evil to his neighbour because it is contrary to religion, that is, contrary to the Divine, refrains from doing evil from a spiritual motive; but he who refrains from doing evil to another merely from fear of the law, or the loss of reputation, of honour, or gain, that is, for the sake of self and the world, refrains from doing evil from a natural motive, and is led by himself.

The life of the latter is natural, that of the former is spiritual. A man whose moral life is spiritual has heaven within himself, but he whose moral life is merely natural does not have heaven within himself; and for the reason that heaven flows in from above and opens mans interiors, and through his interiors flows into his exteriors; while the world flows in from beneath and opens his exteriors but not the interiors. For there can be no flowing in from the natural world into the spiritual, but only from the spiritual world into the natural; therefore if heaven is not received at the same time, the interiors remain closed.

From these things it can be seen who those are who receive heaven within them, and who do not.” (Heaven and Hell 319)

The danger of being caught up in AN EXTERNAL IMAGE OF OURSELVES.

From Mark’s gospel, friends, chapter 10, verse 21:

“Then Jesus, looking at him lovingly, said to him: One thing you lack. Go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. O come, take up your cross and follow me.”

It’s one of the things that has really fascinated me when it comes to so many of the incidents and events of the Gospels: that the people who are the centre of these events and incidents are more frequently than not nameless. We don’t know their names. We don’t know the name of the man who was paralysed at the pool of Bethesda. We don’t know the name of the woman who pressed through the crowd in her attempt to touch even the hem of Jesus garment. We don’t know the name of the boy whose father brought him to Jesus; the boy who was obviously suffering from some sort of epileptic fits, and the fits, it said, were casting him into fire and causing him to foam at the mouth.

When you stop and think about it, as I said, more frequently than not we don’t know the names of these people; and there has to be a reason for this. And the reason, so far as I can make out, is that were we to be given the names of these people it would muddy the waters, it would distract us, and it would obscure what the Lord is trying to say to us today in these incidents and occurrences and events. It’s interesting that there is teaching in the Writings that says that in heaven, when it comes to the Bible, the angels do not know, they do not see, they are totally unaware of, the names of those people who are we read about in the Word. It is specifically said they don’t know who Abraham was, they don’t know who Isaac was, or who Jacob or Joseph was or who Moses was, or Saul or David or Solomon, because they read their Bible, so to speak, through different eyes. They see into the inner content and realise that there is so much more that is beyond what is on the surface; and I’m suggesting to you that were getting a taste of it here in this world, the Lord not wanting, like I say, to cause too many things to get in the way of locking into and connecting with the message that He has for us.

The truth is that these nameless people, the truth is that this nameless rich young man, is everyone. He is you and me, and that’s important for us to see that. Jesus deliberately withholds the name of these people because they are you and me.

Now if they are you and me, then it’s important for us to lock into what’s being said here, and to try to explore what’s being said about us and about our approach to things. You may know this, dont you, that when you are aware of somebody talking about you, you cant but help wanting to tune into the conversation. Here, the Lord is talking to us about ourselves, and it is even more important that we tune in, and lock into, what He’s saying here: the rich young man who came to Jesus asking Him what he lacked, where he had got it wrong, what he had yet to do; that rich young man is you and me.

But what we need to know first of all is what was his problem? His problem was quite simple. His problem was that he was over-focussed on what he saw himself to be externally. He was over-focussed on his image as compared to actually what he was within. And as you go back into, and read, this episode you realise that this is absolutely true. Jesus answered him when he said:

“Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is God. You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honour your father and mother. (Now listen!) And he answered and said to Him, Teacher, all these things I have observed from my youth!”

“What’s my problem?” So that’s what I mean when I said yes, he had got it wrong. He did have a problem. He was over-focussed on what he saw himself to be, externally. He was too locked into his image of himself, as compared to what he actually was within.

“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, One thing you lack. Go your way, sell what ever you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come, take up the cross and follow Me.”

As I thought about this rich young man, I thought to myself that he has a near-companion, and I stress the phrase “near-companion” insofar as the Gospel stories are concerned. This “near companion” I refer to is focussed on in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 18. Two men went up into the temple to pray, we read there. One was a Pharisee who could see no wrong in himself. Listen to what he says of himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” Can you see the point? He, too, was locked into an external image of himself, and he liked it, he was proud of it. He paraded it before God in his praise. But he is only a near-companion, because there is something different with this rich young man. What’s different is this: that the rich young man was uncomfortable, was troubled, and was not sufficiently convinced that his image was adequate. And so he comes to Jesus running, kneels before Him and asks Him, “Good teacher, what shall I do that may inherit eternal life?” One of the other gospels says, “What do I yet lack?” a lovely insight into his feeling that something was not quite right. “I’m doing all the right things. In the eyes of everybody else I’m a sincere, if not pious and holy person, but something is not sitting right.” And so he goes to Jesus.

I want to stop a moment here friends, and I want to talk to you about life in heaven, or life in the spiritual world, as compared or contrasted to life in this world. That topic was on my mind a great deal 6 or 8 months ago and it lead me to write an article published in the Australian New Church periodical for autumn 2005. My article was simply entitled “Life in heaven as compared or contrasted to life in this world.” And what are the differences? I think it’s important that we’re aware of them because from the Writings, and from all that Swedenborg describes about life in heaven, the first impression can be that it’s very similar to life in this world. But when we look more closely, we realise that there are quite profound and challenging differences.

In this world, we can be two people. In the spiritual world, we can only be one. Here, in this world, there are two levels at which we operate and function. There, in the spiritual world and in heaven, there’s only one level at which we operate and function. Here, in this world, we have freedom to choose. There, in the spiritual world, if not straight away, we become locked into who we are, and we cant help being who we are! In this world we can stand back, so to speak, and evaluate, critique and make decisions about our lives. There in the spiritual world we live spontaneously. So in fact, as I said, these differences are quite marked; and they really do bring home to us that though superficially you can talk about mountains and valleys, sunrises and rivers, and meeting people and reunions which is all a picture of the life that awaits us in the spiritual world that is only superficial.

When you get beyond that you come up against, and must reckon with, these quite profound differences. And indeed they are highlighted, are they not, in that reading that I had as the second this morning:

“In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and whatever you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.”

Here, we can be two people. There, we can only be one.

I hope the following mental picture helps. There are, of course, our inner thoughts and feelings; but there is also another level, like I say, at which we operate, which are our outer thoughts and feelings. Is there a husband alive who has not had his wife show him a new dress she has bought, and in his inner thoughts and feelings, he’s horrified; but in his outer thoughts and feelings he tells her its lovely. Doesn’t that bring home to us that we are very adept at operating at two levels? And we do it supremely well! But what we also do is that we travel between the two constantly. You just think of it yourself: we’re travelling constantly between the two things; and that husband who has been confronted with an all-expensive dress is travelling, mightily quickly mind you, between these two levels. What do I say, and how do I say it? But there it is, and that’s typical of life in this world. And because we have these two levels, we actually straddle them. We straddle them and have the capacity to make decisions which we don’t have, eventually, in the spiritual world: because the gap closes and we become one.

Now what our problem is in this world is this: that we tend to want to stay in the outer things for peace of mind; I mightn’t get a good dinner if I really tell her what I really think of that dress! We tend to want to stay out here, and lock ourselves here because if we turn back into our inner thoughts and feelings, not only might we get a frying pan over the head for saying the wrong thing, but also it’s painful to have to handle and deal with our inner thoughts and feelings. So what we tend to do is close the door. Its easier: “Darling, it’s lovely, I’ll take you out to dinner at the weekend. You can show it off.” It’s much easier to work at that outer level than to work at the inner level; and that is so in all things of life.

So, turning back to the rich young man, his problem was that he was focussed outwards on his outer thoughts and feelings, on the face or image that he was presenting to the world. He didn’t have the courage yet, the stamina, the backbone, to start looking at his inner thoughts and feelings and dealing with them and wrestling with them. That’s what his problem was!

“Now as Jesus was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him and asked Him, Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? (or, as in the gospel of Matthew, what do I yet lack?) So Jesus said to him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: Do not commit murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honour your father and your mother.

“And he answered and said to Him, Teacher, all these things I have observed from my youth. (What a good person Ive been! I havent done these things; other scallywags may have done, but I haven’t!)

“Then Jesus looked at him and loved him. (He loved him because he knew this young person was troubled, he knew that something was going on inside of him, and He wanted to encourage him.) And He said to him, One thing you lack: go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come take up the cross, and follow Me.”

Two things Jesus said to him: “go your way and sell or dispose of what you have” means to surrender or to give up, to do away with and to regard as of no worth the image of ourselves out there that we cling to. Very pertinent. “Regard it as of no value! You are investing too much in it, you are putting too much store by it, and it’s not important. What people think of you, how you present yourself out there, that’s all very well; but it doesn’t change or touch the sort of person you are inside, and that’s what I, Jesus, am really interested in.”

The second thing Jesus said was to “take up your cross and follow Me”, which means to get serious about doing battle with our inner thoughts, desires, feelings and inclinations. Look at what is going on within. Recognise the need to become involved with your inner private life, the unseen thoughts and feelings we have, the ones we hide away from the world but which are only too well known to us.

This rich young man went away sad, but there was no need for him to do so. And as I read the story, and read it over and over again, I think to myself that maybe before he got home he realised that Jesus had said to him something which is of great significance and value. That is what I like to think. It seems to me he was, indeed, a decent person who would never have come to Jesus in the first place if he had been otherwise. And it wasnt too much which Jesus is asking of him.

Bringing home to us that this is so, and to conclude, I would like to read one of my favourite passages from the Writings or the Teachings of the New Church, where it says the whole thing about wrestling with and facing up to our inner thoughts and feelings is not grievous. It’s from Doctrine of Life, paragraph 97:

“Combat is not grievous, except for those who have unloosened all restraints upon their evil loves and have intentionally indulged them, also for those who have obstinately rejected the holy things of the Word and of the Church. To others, however, it is not grievous: let them resist evils in intention only once in a week, or twice in a month, and they will perceive a change.”

Just have the courage to lock into this inner stuff just once a week, twice a month, and if we do, we will perceive a change.

“Then Jesus, looking at him lovingly, said to him: One thing you lack. Go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor (its insignificant, its unimportant, you’re putting too much store by it), and you will have treasure in heaven. O come, take up the cross and follow me.”

Amen.

By Rev. Grant R. Schnarr

It seems dangerous to do a sermon on piety, such a bad connotation to it. It’s interesting that in the book The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, after laying out some of the basic foundations of what life is about, we come to the chapter on Piety.

The first thing that the Writings say is that piety, in the way we think about it today, is not a good thing. If you talk about being in the life of worship, going to church, acting holy and devout, and yet not really having that feeling within, then that is a bad thing. So often when we talk about someone being pious, that’s what we mean; we mean that on the outside are acting very devout and holy, but do they really mean it on the inside?

The first thing the Writings say is, when we talk about piety there’s something good about a pious kind of life, but when it’s removed from a spiritual life, removed from charity, that’s when it becomes something bad, hypocritical, a holier-than-thou attitude. We are going to explore the different kinds of piety, what’s good and what’s bad about piety.

What is piety? It is a sense of holiness that one may feel. The Writings say, prayer and humility are a part of piety. The Writings say that speaking in a just way, speaking about the Lord in your life, talking with other people is part of piety. Also there’s a feeling of a renunciation of the world. A lot of people think that’s a pious way of life, and the Writings talk about that too, what that means. And also, going to church, the Writings talk about that as being part of this piety that we often think of in our life.

One of the first things the Writings talk about in the idea of piety is this idea of renouncing the world. Sometimes we can think to ourselves, if we could get off alone and study the Word as hard as we could and really commune with God, that somehow we’ll find Him in our life, put down the world, get away from people, be by ourselves, let God come into us. But the problem with that is that when we remove ourselves from the world, the Lord can’t come to us. It is true that the Lord does come to us from within, within our hearts, but only to the degree that we give without, in our life with our neighbor. And so, to the degree that we stop giving, to the degree that we stop being useful in society, to the degree that we stop sharing with other people, becoming intimate with them, learning to risk, if we stop doing those things, the Lord cannot come into us. He cannot come into us. He comes into us through our life in the world. So often in our lives, we don’t go join monasteries or become nuns, or something like that; we wouldn’t do that. But so often in our lives we do isolate ourselves, we do renounce the world in so many bad ways.

Maybe some people have fears, fears about meeting other people, about going out into the street. They go to work, they hardly communicate with anyone, and then they go home and they work on their pet projects in their house. Perhaps it’s reading. They read every day in their own little world. Perhaps they have a hobby–perhaps it’s art–everyday they work on their art, just by themselves. They work on the computer all the time, playing with that, or sound equipment, recording something, music. But it’s always by themselves in their own little world. And that is, in a form, a renunciation of the world because that’s what we make our lives.

If we spend half our life locked up in our house, trying to find some kind of happiness with ourselves alone, are we wasting our time? To a degree, there’s a time for that, there’s a time to be alone, a time to commune with the Lord. There’s a time for art, there’s time for music, there’s a time for following what we want to do on our own, but if we find that that’s all we are doing with our life, we’ve got to ask ourselves why. Is it so different than locking ourselves in a monastery, being alone? Because the Lord can’t come to us through there. We can have a superficial feeling of peace, but that peace comes because no one is affecting us. No good is coming to us and no bad. There’s just us. How can we regenerate? How can we change ourselves in that kind of mode? We can’t see what we’re like unless we’re dealing with people, to see how we are in front of people, and make those changes.

We don’t even have to do that. Some people, they go through life, and they get hurt a few times in relationships, and then maybe subconsciously they just decide to renounce the world in that degree, not get involved, not wanting to be hurt any more, not willing to risk by becoming intimate with someone, and they take a relationship so far with someone they meet, but then something comes up in them, makes them hold back. They don’t want to be hurt any more. And so they don’t get involved, and they go on from one relationship to another, bringing people in and then pushing them away. That is a form of renunciation of the world.

Yet hurt does come. Hurt comes with love. It does. And I think we have to accept that in our lives. It’s just the way of life. This world has happiness and sadness, but if you never give, you’ll never know love. You’ll never know the joy of love. And if you’re not willing to risk hurt, then you’re never going to have happiness either. You’ll be lukewarm. As it says in the book of Revelation, “Neither cold nor hot, and so I spew you out of my mouth.” We’ve got to take the risk. It’s really true, that saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.”

Renunciation of the world–there is something there–but it’s a renunciation of the world, the Writings say, while we’re in the world. Think about that: renouncing the world while we’re in the world. And what the Writings mean is not being overly concerned with worldly things, not making our job the most important thing in our life, or status the most important thing, or how much money we have the most important thing in our life, or how popular we are the most important thing, or our relation with the opposite sex the most important thing in our life, all those earthly things. To renounce them as being the most important thing in our life, and to see that there is something higher, our relationship with the Lord. That’s the most important thing in our life. We’ve got to see that in our life. And when we do begin to see that, renounce the world in that sense, lay these things down and seek after the treasures of heaven, a different world opens up to us, a whole different set of values, a whole different set of thoughts, and you can see the difference in the way that you think. It’s not shallow; it’s not, what am I going to wear today? What party am I go to tonight? What am I going to have for dinner, go to bed? Every it’s the same thing. No.

It’s a deeper life with all kinds of implications, insights, understandings, and as we deal with people, with these higher principles involved, thinking about our relationship with the Lord, all different sorts of joys take place in our heart and in our life, in our dealing with people. Yes, it’s a risk, and sometimes we’re hurt, we’re hut bad, but that’s part of life, and it’s worth it because the joy is so great. It’s what the Lord wants for us.

So, in a sense there is a renunciation of the world that should take place. But its a renunciation of our preeminent concerns with the world. It doesn’t mean hiding from people. It doesn’t mean hiding from ourselves. It means being active in the world, caring about things more important than the world.

Another thing that the Writings talk about is speaking piously. And we can see in our dealings with people–I’m sure we’ve all come across times when we’ve hear someone who is really just talking about things in such a high and pompous way that we really wonder where they’re coming from. And at that time, maybe what’s really going on is we can become angry or upset with them because they are being pious but their life isn’t in accord with the piety that they’re showing. We’ve found ourselves doing that ourselves at times in our life. And the Writings point out that that’s what’s wrong. If we speak and act piously but inside are really not changing or growing or having any love, that’s wrong, it’s empty.

I can remember in theological school, having a certain discussion with theological school students, and you’ve got to understand that any theological school anywhere, in any different church, these guys are put away in their ivory tower for four years to discuss all this philosophy, apart from life completely, and so they tend to be so idealistic and so unrealistic about life, especially in the theological school that’s at the college in the Academy of the New Church. There are college buildings there, and there’s a commons where all the people there gather together during a break, and up above is the theological school with a window that overlooks the commons. I remember in college we’d look up there and see the theological students in their coats and ties discussing and looking down on the peons below, and they had their wingtip shoes on, and all the rest. I remember coming out of my office at one point–I guess it was my second year of theological school–and coming across some of the theologs having a discussion, and they were discussing who they would have into their house for dinner. Would they have a smoker into their house? I quickly put my cigarette out. Would they have a smoker in their house? And they talked about that for a while, then someone asked, would they have a hunter? Would they have a hunter into their house? Also my father had taken me hunting in the mountains of Pennsylvania when I was a child. I listened to this, and then it was, would they have a divorcee over for dinner, into their house? It went on like that until I said to them, “Didn’t the Lord come to heal those who were sick? Who did the Lord spend His time with, the scribes and Pharisees? He spent His time with, not only people who were pretty normal, but with the prostitutes, with the tax collectors, with the sinners. And you’re telling me you won’t even have a smoker in your house?”

One of the persons who was protesting most said, “Well, what the Lord was talking about there had a deeper meaning to it. We can’t take it too literally.”

I just walked away and realized, this guy is in the clouds.

You know, the wonderful thing is, you get out of theological school and that whole structure that they built up in you about what life’s like, as soon as you’re out in the field, comes crashing down, and you have to start all over again. That theolog today is a very down to earth minister.

That’s an example of how you can become so idealistic about life, removed from any kind of love in your heart, that it’s piety without charity. It’s dead. It’s meaningless. It’s judgmental. It’s wrong.

Think about the Lord and how He was with those people. If He was pious in His speaking but did not have charity in His heart, He would have passed Matthew right by. He never would have called Matthew because Matthew was a tax collector, but would have had His nose up in the air as He walked by. Think about all the times people came to Him to ask for help, even those who had real problems in their life, like Mary Magdalene who came to wash His feet with her tears. If He had said, “Get away from Me. You’re a sinner; I can’t talk to you. I can’t deal with you.”

Or that woman by the well, look at how the Lord dealt with her, the Samaritan woman. She had had two or three husbands, she was now living with somebody, and He didn’t come right at her with it, “I won’t take water from you because of your life.” He gently, so gently, asked her questions so that she would evaluate her life. And even when she said, “I have no husband,” He said, “Yeah, you’re right. The guy you’re with now isn’t your husband.” He didn’t make any kind of accusation. He simply stated the facts in a very gentle and loving way.

Even that woman taken in adultery, He asked her a question, and said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” He had piety. He did. He had piety in His life, but He had charity too. He had love. And that’s what made it right.

Let’s turn it around for a second. Sometimes there are things that we should speak and act and talk about from a pious point of view, the Writings say, that are good.

It is good to talk about the Lord in our life. It is so bad to talk about the Lord only on Sunday, and then live your life completely different all the rest of the days but it’s hypocritical. That’s piety without charity. But there is a time for talking about spiritual things in our life so that other people can learn from them. There’s a time for saying no when discussions come up that shouldn’t be taking place. Talk about the idea of sacrilegious or dirty jokes–and we all are affected by those–the difference is, in those jokes are we perpetuating them? Are we bringing them into our hearts? Are we memorizing those jokes so that we can go on to tell our brother-in law, or our wife or our partner, or our friends at work? Are we perpetuating that verbal pornography? That really does do damage to the way we think about the opposite sex.

Or even more so, in a joke of sacrilege about the Lord. Some people, and I know we’ve all met them, get so involved in using the Lord’s name and then some disgusting phrase in the next word, putting the two together, “Jesus this” or “Jesus that.” They can hear the Lord inside saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” And it is important, right down on that level not to perpetuate those things.

We have a dorm in the high school of the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn where I went to school. I remember one kid came who was really what you would call a really hard guy. He had this leather jacket and everything. He was mean, and if he told you to do something, you’d do it. You know how it is in high school, everybody respects the real hard guy. They are the ones that are in. And he was a bad kid, real bad. In fact, he was a minister’s son. I guess he was rebelling against his father at that time. It was interesting. A lot of people had respect. One time some people were working together, some kids, and they were doing something, and this one kid joked around and made some tremendously terrible joke about the Lord. And this guy grabbed him and said, “Don’t you ever, ever do that again, and in front of me. Don’t you say that about the Lord.” This guy was shocked and I was amazed, I couldn’t believe it that this guy, the way he appeared, and yet he cared so much about the Lord and about the important things in life, about not taking His name in vain, and about not hurting Him. You know, the high school, the whole vocabulary improved by 15 to 20 percent after that. There’s something there. There’s something about standing up and saying, no.

Sometimes in our lives we can’t do that. Let’s be realistic. We may work with people who are always like that. It’s their whole life. That’s what they’re devoted to, devoted to telling these jokes, to making fun of religious things, and to say no to them to try to stop them openly, doesn’t work. It will just cause bad feelings.

But there is a way, in our hearts, to put up that wall so that it won’t hurt us or affect us, or at least to make the effect less than it could be. If we find ourselves bringing it in, memorizing it, delighting in it, taking it to our brother-in-law, whatever, we are doing something wrong. We’re perpetuating evil. We are. And it is a big deal. Very important.

The Writings also talk about the idea of piety having to do with prayer and humility, and we’ve talked a lot about it, the two of these before. The key teaching here is the Lord can only flow into a humble heart, the Writings say. The Lord can only come into us and help us and affect us if we let Him in, if we call for Him, if we ask Him to come in, if we recognize the need that we have for Him in our lives. And you can see that, if you are so full of yourself, if you think you’re so great, if you build your whole life round you and trust completely in you, how can the Lord come in? How can He make you concerned about other people? How can He make you see that you’re making a mess of your life? And you know, it’s funny, at times in our life we think we’ve got it together, then we make some terrible mistake and life comes crashing down, and that’s when we so often turn to the Lord and say, “Yes, I need you. I really blew it. I can’t do it on my own.” It’s providential that the Lord lets that happen so that we can turn to Him, so we can see that we do need the Lord in our lives.

I’ve had people come in here and we kneel down for prayer. We kneel down so we can show our humility. I’ve had people come in here and say, “I’m not going to get down on my knees. I can’t get on my knees.” Well, they’ve got a problem. They’ve got a big problem if they can’t humble themselves enough before the Lord so that He can flow into their lives. No, you don’t have to get down on your knees, but if you’ve got a problem putting yourself down at least mentally on your knees for the Lord, then you’re full of yourself. And what’s wrong with that? You’re missing out on a whole lot of happiness. The Lord can only flow in to a humble heart.

The last thing the Writings talk about is the idea of going to church. The first thing they say is that you can go to church every week, you can sing with the greatest voice, you can pray, you can think about it, you can discuss all these things, you can be very humble, but if you walk out the door and you go away and it’s gone and it’s out of your life, it doesn’t do you any good whatsoever. In fact, real worship, the Writings say, real worship isn’t that kind of prayer and learning and hearing sermons; real worship is the life of love.

When you bring your love into life and help people and care about them and try to be useful, you’re worshiping the Lord 24 hours a day, not consciously, but right in your life. Your life is a form of worship. That’s so important. We’ve all seen it with some of the associates that we’ve had. I’ve heard people tell me over and over again, “Yeah, my friends, it’s ridiculous, they live a wild life for five or six days. Saturday night they blow it away and have fun. Sunday they’re in church looking good, dressed up, very pious, atoning for their sins.” It doesn’t work that way. The first thing the Writings say about going to church–they don’t talk about all the great things, the wonderful things, why you should be there–the first thing they say is, “Look, if you’re just going to go to church to look good so you don’t feel bad any more, and then walk out the door and forget it, then why bother? Don’t even go.”

Let’s turn it around for a second. The Writings go on to say that there are so many benefits from being here, being with other people. One of those is, how do we learn the truth? We can learn it on our own, but look at the different perspective that we have by listening to someone’s rendition of a different verse in the Word, by discussing these things with other people. We get a different perspective. We’re not just blinding ourselves. We can see truth, we learn. Some people take the idea that. “I’ll get enough truth this week to hold me through till next week, really concentrate on what I learned today. Next week I’ll be fed something else, that’ll keep me for a week.” There’s something to that. We learn truth–we hope we do–and that will help us in our life.

Last week Grant Waller was talking about some people who were hypnotized and how he saw that they were beyond their control, and how in life so much of the time we do things and we don’t know why we do them. We might be under controls of our environment and this and that, and it’s hopeless. The Word was given to us to shed light on our lives so we can see where that is taking place, so that we can see where we are blindly hurting ourselves. The Word was given to us so that we can see when our environment is affecting us in a bad way, so that we can make the changes. The Word is spiritual light. And what does that light do? It enlightens our life, to be able to see our life, to choose a different path, to not walk down that path that will lead us into the pits, to not fall into those traps we set up for ourselves. But the Word can lead us to the path that is higher than ourselves, and happiness. That’s why we have the Word, and we can learn the truth here Sundays.

Another reason besides that is also a form for fellowship, a form for taking these truths and putting them into life. At work, in your job, there are different expectations. You are trying to get the job done, and everybody talks about that, or if you are a doctor or a nurse, you are dealing with patients all the time. Different occupations have different things. If you are with your friends at night, the idea is to have fun, and that’s fine. That’s what you are supposed to do. But this is the one place that the idea is to love your neighbor. Openly, that’s what we are trying to do, to understand God and to love our neighbor. And there is nowhere else that we can practice that as much in our lives than right here in this cafe among our friends who believe the same things we do, or at least are seeking after the same things that we are seeking after. It’s a wonderful form for growth, form for friendship, form for fellowship and brotherhood in a common cause.

Amen.

By Rev. Grant H. Odhner

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And let my cry come to You.
Do not hide Your face from me
in the day of trouble..
I am like a pelican of the wilderness;
I am like an owl of the desert.
I lie awake,
And am like a sparrow alone
on the housetop. Ps 102.1,2,6-7

What striking pictures of loneliness we have here! “A pelican of the wilderness,” “an owl of the desert,” “a sparrow alone on the housetop.” A pelican is a large bird, but it shrinks to insignificance when we picture it surrounded by wilderness. An owl is a solitary bird, but what could be more solitary than “an owl of the desert?” Yet of these three images, the “sparrow alone on the housetop” is the most lonely. A sparrow is a drab, little bird that is usually seen in a flock, chittering socially with its associates: flying when they fly, turning when they turn (even in mid air!), landing when they land. A flock like this responds to all things as a One! They constantly take their queue from one another. So “a sparrow alone on the housetop,” without its friends, facing the wind by itself, is truly a lonely sight.

Like that sparrow, all of us were created to live with others. We were created to live in community. As we read in the work True Christian Religion: “A human being is not born for the sake of himself alone, but for others; otherwise there could be no cohesive society, nor any good in it” (TCR 406). We were created by the Lord “to love others outside of [ourselves], to want to be one with them, and to make them happy from [ourselves]” (TCR 43). This is the nature of love. And an essential element in this love is “to be loved by others, for in this way conjunction is brought about” (DLW 47). The Lord made us to need each other – not just to satisfy our worldly wants and needs, but to satisfy our spiritual wants and needs.

This fact is the root-cause of all loneliness. We want and therefore need people to love; we want and need to be conjoined with them in meaningful ways; we want and need response from them. And when we do not have people to love, with whom we feel some bond of affection and united thought, or when we do not feel response from them, we feel a certain quiet grief or emptiness which we call “loneliness.”

Having people to love, getting response from them, and feeling a bond with them, are not merely a matter of having people around us. Loneliness is essentially a state of mind, not a set of physical conditions. We can feel lonely, even when, to all appearance, we are blessed with all sorts of relationships and all kinds of associations with others in human society. Real response to our love on the part of others is a matter of the quality of their appreciation for us, for what we have to give, and are trying to give; it is a matter of how much, and how accurately, we feel known and understood, accepted and valued, by those whom we love and serve. Feeling a bond or “conjunction” with others is a matter of feeling a positive and meaningful “response” from them. Unless we sense that the response of others is true and genuine, we may feel lonely, even when they are going through all the motions of friendly interactions with us.

The cause of loneliness is a lack of meaningful relationships with others. But the feeling itself has two distinctly different origins. It can spring from selfish love or unselfish love.

We have been speaking of unselfish love and its desire to love others outside of itself, to be one with them, to make them happy from itself, to be loved in return. Loneliness is never in itself a heavenly emotion. It arises, like anger and zeal, when our love is frustrated in some way. If we had perfect trust in the Lord, we would not let frustrations get us down. But the fact is, being limited in our ability to see ahead and trust, even the best of us can experience “our love frustrated.”

Sometimes we can find our love for another blocked by circumstances, which are too complex and longstanding to be quickly remedied. In the meantime, as we work for change, we feel a gnawing void. We must sometimes endure states of temptation and cold. And while the hells are holding us captive in the affections and perspective of our “natural person,”our feelings of love for others are deadened, even while our “spiritual person” yearns for renewed warmth. Or sometimes we must endure states of cold in our loved ones, which prevent them from being responsive to our love. Sometimes we simply lack meaningful relationships, and though we work for them, the Lord in His wisdom has not yet led us to them. In all these sorts of circumstances, even though we are doing the best we can, we feel lonely. And this loneliness is not wholly selfish. It is a good love, a good yearning, that is frustrated.

Even the Lord, when He was in the world, must have felt loneliness. Several times we are given the picture of Him alone: in the wilderness for forty days (Mk 1); praying “up on a mountain by Himself” (Mt 14.23; Lk 9.18); in Gethsemene when His disciples slumbered, and later when they forsook Him and fled; and especially, hanging on the cross.

The Lord’s deepest love was to be joined with the human race, so that He could impart to us His love, and be received and loved in return. This conjunction was His end in view, and the promise of it was His inmost joy (AC 2034.2-3, 2077). Generally, the Lord was sustained by a strong sense of His Divinity, in which this end could not be placed in doubt. The people around Him could leave Him alone and forsaken, but His Divine confidence remained with Him; as He said to His disciples:

Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because My Father is with Me. Jn 16.32

But at times the Lord’s love and hope were attacked by the hells. He allowed this so that He could draw out their venom and neutralize it. The Lord’s means of drawing out the hells’ malice was to take on a human mind which had all our frailties, which was vulnerable to the hell’s attacks. Into this human mind, His Divine mind could gradually be inserted. From within, the Divine could reorder the human, gradually enlightening it, meeting the challenges of evil emotions and false thinking, casting out its spiritual sicknesses, purifying it, making it whole. All this could only happen through temptations, in which the Lord lowered Himself into the frail human perspective, so that the hells could approach. When He did this, He seemed to Himself to lose the Divine perspective. He was left alone in the human, left to Himself. His Divine “appeared to be absent” (AC 7058.3; cf 1745, 1999.2,5; HD 302). He was then struggling from Divine power, but struggling in the human, from its perspective, using the natural tools then available to Him. (This was part of the power of His advent: that His work for us left us natural tools, natural ideas, filled with Divine life, by which we could later fight for heaven!)

When He was in temptation the Lord felt alone and forsaken both by man and by God; He felt “without the aid of anyone” (AC 5005). This is an aspect of all temptation (TCR 126). When we read in the Psalms about the psalmist’s feeling alone, we are reading about both the Lord’s temptations and our own.

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You far from helping me,
And from the words of my groaning? …
For dogs have surrounded me;
The assembly of the wicked has enclosed me..
But You, O Lord, do not be far from me;
O my strength, hasten to help me! Ps 22.1,16,19

The loneliness of temptation is partly that we lose all sense of our “inner person,” the spiritual part of us. Like Elisha’s servant, our spiritual eyes are not open to see our heavenly connection with others ( the “mountains” surrounding us with “horses and chariots of fire” (II Kgs 6). It is our inner person that is in communion with the Lord and with the hosts of heaven. It is this inner part of us that genuinely loves others, and is able to have connection with them. As a result, in temptation we feel removed from others, isolated. The psalmist (unawares) sings of this:

You have put my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an abomination to them;
I am shut up, and I cannot get out..
Loved one and friend
You have put far from me,
And my acquaintances into darkness. Ps 88

My loved ones and my friends stand aloof
from my plague,
And kinsmen stand afar off. Ps 38.11

I am a reproach among all my enemies,
But especially among my neighbors,
And am repulsive to my acquaintances;
Those who see me outside flee from me. Ps 31

We see pictured here the isolation that temptation brings. The isolation is a direct result of evil spirits around us, who hold us in selfish affections. It is selfishness that destroys all sense of communion with others.

From our inner person, if we do not yield to the feelings injected into our outer person by evil spirits, we continue to long for loving communion with others, however frustrated our love becomes. But when under attack, we do feel lonely. And this loneliness is not selfish.

But what about selfish loneliness? Like unselfish love, selfish love also wants to love others, to be one with them, to make them happy, and to be loved in return. In loving and serving others, and in bringing delight to them, the Self feels wanted, needed, worthwhile. Selfish people will sometimes do the vilest acts, they will sometimes submit to the the basest treatment at the hands of others, because it makes them feel validated. Even bad people want to love and be loved. They also want to be bonded with others. But in the love they give and in the response they receive they are looking to Self. They wish to be in communion with others and to make them happy only so that others may satisfy them and complete them. Selfish loneliness arises when our Self’s desire for being fed and coddled is thwarted.

How can we tell, when we feel lonely, whether our loneliness is selfish or unselfish? And how should we respond? The answer to the first question is: it is often difficult to know whether our loneliness is selfish or unselfish. It takes a lot of self-examination. Often a good kind of loneliness can appear selfish. The hells would have us believe that it is. And often a selfish kind of loneliness can appear legitimate.

Some things to look at are: Do I desire to love others outside of myself, or as part of myself? Do I want to love them and be One with them as beings in their own right? Do I want to love them for what they are (or can become)? Or am I just using them as a prop, a stage-piece in the “Play About Me?” One way of determining whether we are using another as a prop or loving them in their own right is to ask, Do I respond to their love and their thoughts and their services in a living, sensitive way? Do I take the care to know them? to know “where they are?” This takes continual communication. Have I become too self-absorbed? Am I looking at the world from my own narrow perspective? Are others unresponsive to me because I am not responsive to them? We can blame our loneliness on other’s inattention, when part of the trouble may be our own inattention. When we feel lonely and unfulfilled in our relationships with others, there are many inner issues to look at. The surface-issues, and our instinctive judgments, are probably not the whole story.

How do we respond to loneliness? Obviously, we must examine ourselves, as I have suggested. Our response is only as good as is our understanding of the problem. But in general we must continue to desire communion with others through shared “uses.” We must seek to interact with them in mutual services, and in the exchange of ideas. Part of being in communion with others is sharing similar joys, interests, ideals. But these things cannot be discovered unless we engage in the “uses” of society.

And we must acknowledge the Lord’s leading here! People who trust in providence are content with their lot. They trust that the Lord is leading them into meaningful and useful relationships with others, when they do their part. So when they are lonely, they accept the reality of their situation, even as they do what they can to change it. They do not grovel in discouragement. They do not look for “quick fix” solutions to their loneliness. They are unwilling to restore happiness through unlawful means, such as unbridled fantasy. Their trust in the Lord strengthens them with patience and a sense of being content with the many delights that the Lord does give them!

Loneliness can be such a grievous thing! So ardently we long to be understood and to understand others, to share and to being responded to with love and appreciation. But no matter how lonely we feel, we must always remind ourselves that we are not alone. We are never really alone. The Lord is with us. His angels are with us. Every sparrow seemingly alone on the housetop is dear to Him. As He observed to His disciples:

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Mt 10.29-31

Let us trust that He is leading all who are willing to follow Him into eternal relationships, ones that will be worth the struggle and worth the wait!

Amen.

By Rev. Ian Arnold

“Then (Jesus) said to another, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of god.’

And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘no one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'” (Luke Chapter 9, verses 59 to 61)

In an Editorial he wrote in his July of this year Newsletter, Rev. Julian Duckworth, the minister of one of our Churches in Sydney and presently President of The New church in Australia, drew attention to a new law that the Romanian Government has brought in requiring that 50% of all news in their newspapers and other media is good news.

It’s more than likely that we have all listened to – or watched – the news on a certain occasion and, at the end of it, sighed almost with despair at what has been a catalogue of accidents, robberies, assaults, house fires and untoward events.

By comparison we hear relatively little about the wonderfully good and unheralded things that happen; the sacrifices that people make for others or, for example, the fact that teams of doctors from Australia and other First World countries regularly give of their expertise and often their holidays to go to Third World countries to be agents of healing and recovery such as people there could not otherwise hope to have.(Think for a moment of the late Dr Fred Hollows and the work that he started (straight forward operations that restore people’s sight) and which is carried on by the Foundation we know by his name).

It is most unlikely that a day passes when we are not reminded of the forces for evil that have their impact in this world, on our communities, and on the lives of individual people.

But we need to be aware of – and affirm, because it is the truth – that there are forces for good at work in the world also. And these forces for good are just as powerful, just as active and, if we look hard enough, just as much in evidence. When our eyes are open we see people’s hearts touched; lovely gestures; lives changed.

We are not ostriches in the sand denying the reality of forces for evil at work. But here is what is also the reality, that forces for good – just as strong – are also at work, in our midst and affecting each and every one of us. It could not be otherwise; not when we think of freewill and the pull of the various forces, in opposite directions, which we experience and which lie at the heart of our enjoying freewill.

And here, in one of the places in the Writings or Heavenly Doctrines of our Church, this force for good is described:

“There is in fact a sphere continuously radiated by the Lord which raises all to heaven; this fills the whole of both the spiritual and natural worlds. It is like a strong current in the ocean which invisibly draws a ship along.” (True Christian Religion 652:3)

“Like a strong current in the ocean!” Isn’t that amazing? And isn’t it, also reassuring? The Lord is touching the lives of people, for good, continuously.

This sphere manifests in a number of ways.

It manifests, for instance, as a feeling for what is good and just and fair and) honest and decent. In other words, it touches us within; just as it touches and impacts on others. We feel moved in good ways.

It also manifests in the good example of others. We all know of people going out of their way to bring delight, joy and happiness to others. We are impressed by this and, at least to some extent, drawn along by it. Random acts of kindness move and inspire us. People are not obliged or called upon to do certain things but they do them, maybe way beyond what ever could have been anticipated. Here is this force for good, from the Lord, active in human activity. And it is lovely to behold.

Probably most eloquently of all, this sphere, or force for good, manifests in the actual words and sayings of our Lord as we have them set down for us in the Gospels.

• “Forgive” He said, “and you will be forgiven.” (Matthew 6:14)
• Be merciful, and you will obtain mercy.(Matthew 5:7)
• Don’t get drawn into judgement of others. Remember, instead, how great your own shortcomings are.(Matthew 7:1)
• Don’t put your energy into material things.(Matthew 6:19-21)
• Learn to trust and live in the present.(Matthew 6::25-34)
• Aim to be more forgetful of self. (John 15:12,13)

This is this sphere finding its expression in words. It is the Lord drawing us to Himself. And it is summed up in what we have here, in the Lord’s words to would-be followers, “Follow me”.

It is fascinating, isn’t it, that all of these people, who put their hand up to follow Jesus, when it actually came to it, did so with qualifications. ?”I will….but there is something holding me back.”…”I will but something else has priority.”

“Then (Jesus) said to another, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’

And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house. But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'”

When we stop and think about it, what was going on here was that these people couldn’t bring themselves to make a clean break. There was something in them that was causing their resistance.

Now if, as some people do, you read these words, taking them literally, it comes across that the Lord was being harsh and unfeeling. What could possibly be wrong with going back and burying one’s father? What could possibly be wrong with wanting to return home to bid farewell to family there?

Don’t – though – take the Lord literally here. When in another place He said that if your right hand offends you cut it off we don’t take him literally.

And it’s the same thing here.

Remember: this is all about us and how it is that on the one hand we put up our hand to follow the Lord, yet there is this resistance. We say “yes” but with qualification.

And these qualifications are symbolized by what these two would-be disciples or followers of the Lord said.

In summary, wanting to go and bury his father is all about us still feeling the pull and even the attraction of “dead” things. For example, and even if it is in secret, we still feel, and hanker for, the delight in criticizing people because it makes us feel better or superior. We can’t quite give up all that our proprium delights in. We know that all good is from the Lord alone but can’t quite give up wanting recognition or praise and are offended (even if we keep it in check) when it is not forthcoming. And so it goes on.

The other man, you remember, told Jesus that he wanted to go back and bid farewell to those who were at his house; and what this holds up to us is a looking to the past and to earlier, more natural, less regenerate, states.. (Lot’s wife, remember, looked back and became a pillar of salt.) Such looking back can really weaken our resolve and commitment to follow the Lord.

• It can be mistakes and unhappy memories
• It can be things we could have done a lot differently.
• It can be incidents we wish never happened.
• It can be words we said that should never have been spoken.
• It can be old attitudes, perhaps resentments, and ill-founded images of ourselves we are not yet ready to entirely give up.

These are those “foes of our own household” which in another place Jesus warned about and urged that we separate ourselves from. (see Matthew 10:36)

In summary, what this is all about is giving energy and power to those things in us that resist our opening ourselves up more to the Lord’s life of love and wisdom flowing in.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lost it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'” (Mathew 16: 24, 25)

In one place in the Heavenly Doctrines it says, in this regard, that the Lord wills our total submission.(see Arcana Caelestia 6138)

This, though, is not about some kind of slavish caving in. It’s not about unthinking acceptance or blindly following. Not at all.

It simply means commitment without qualification.

Of course there is a place for questioning and a right to examine, explore, think things through and see for ourselves the wisdom of what is asked of us. But what the Lord is highlighting with us here are qualifications, at the heart of which are self and self-interest and selfish delights and gratifications.

With all of us there are these unregenerate and natural delights and fascinations, fears, and mental constructs we look back to, reluctant to give up.

But time and again, as here, the Lord urges us to steadfastly and resolutely turn from these and to go forward to all that He yearns to bless our lives with.

“Do not labour” He said,” for the food that perishes.”(John 6:27). The food that perishes is these old, essentially unregenerate, delights and attitudes and outlooks on life on which we are all too inclined to rely. We draw on them to nourish and sustain us; to nourish the jaundiced skew we have on things; we feed too readily on the assumed shortcomings of others; we find a bizarre strength in the unregenerate fantasies we have about ourselves. “Do not labour for (this) food that perishes”! Rather, the Lord goes on to say, “Labour for the food that endures unto everlasting life.” In other words, feed and grow strong on the life, the love, and the true ways of seeing ourselves, life, others and the world at large, that all comes from our unqualified response to the Lord’s wonderful invitation, coursing down to us through the centuries, “Follow me!”

Then (Jesus) said to another, ‘Follow me’. But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’

And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’

Amen.