11 Pentecost Cycle b Proper
14 August 9, 2015
1 Kings 19:4-8 Psalm 34:1-8
1 Kings 19:4-8 Psalm 34:1-8
Ephesians 4:25-5:2 John 6:35, 41-51
One of the dominant and repeated themes of the Gospel of John is the persuasion about what is called eternal life. In the Greek language there are at least three words used for life in a variety of ways. bios=physical or biological life, but also can mean ethical life as related in the prefix for biography. psueche=the life of the soul or psychological life. Zao or Zoe=eternal life or abundant life or divine life is used in the Gospel of John. We use zoe as a prefix for the science of the study of animals. The writer of the Gospel of John uses the words zoe aionius multiple time. Life of the eons....eternal life.
I believe that the life of faith is often misunderstood because we make starkly separated the perception of what is outside and what is inside. With the rise of modern science we practiced the further division of the observing subject who observes the external objects. And so we look at events in external linear patterns of causation. We can easily regard the Bible to be a story of how a God exterior to us, caused this world and then dwells somewhere physically in a heaven from where the divine Being makes strategic interventions in the history of humanity. This in fact expresses the naive perceptual view of the relationship between God and this world and this is how the Bible is most often read. We naively read the Bible as those who make absolute a division between what is perceived out there and what is in here. And we are the subjective viewers who observe from within here.
But if we live and move and have our being in God, then events are the events which arise from living and having our being within God. So we do not have external causation; we have an internal arising of events and people. We cannot rightly separate what is inside of us from what is outside of us.
When the Gospel writer says that we have eternal life; it means that we have come to a place of awareness and a place of interpreting our participation within a quality of spiritual life which is always there.
The preservation instinct in our lives is a feature of eternal life. We may feel that we want to preserve our lives and live forever but there are manifestations of physical life which persuade us that living forever in our bodies may not be ideal quality of living. I have spent many of my ministerial hours in hospitals and in skilled nursing centers to witness people who live very long lives but who spend the end of their lives without significant quality of life in mind, body and spirit.
We should not be quick to really think that we know what eternal or ever lasting life is. What do you want? A good young healthy body but without wisdom of age and experience? Or do we think eternal life must be some sort of static state of being consisting of the best strengths of each stage of human life?
The Gospel writer of John understands that Jesus declared himself to be the living bread and if people eat of this living bread they will live forever and have eternal life. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus claimed that he can give us a fountain of living water within us so that we will no longer thirst. In John chapter eleven Jesus claims to be resurrection and life.
Let us understand the significant mysticism of the Gospel of John. You and I live and move and have our being in God and we are blessed if we can recognize this and not be alienated from knowing our true location in God. We are located in God and God is located within us but the very energetic presence of God within us can be misinterpreted as the energy of desire directed toward making idols out of the things in our lives.
If we understand Desire with a capital D as the basic life force of the gift of God whose proper object is God, then we can learn in our lives of faith to come into progressive realization of the effects of this eternal life, this abundant life, this conscious sense that there is something basic to us which will have some continuity in some form forever.
But when we limit the Gift of God's Spirit within us to simply energy for other people, we can reduce the energy of Spirit to mere lust or envy. When we limit and interpret basic life of Spirit as the desire for food, clothing, shelter, fame and power positions, then we use the very energy of God to allow idols to be created which have power over us even to the point of addiction. If we think that idols of food, clothing, shelter, fame and power can last forever then we will truly know the harsh corrections of pain, loss and death.
The writer of the Gospel of John believes that Jesus Christ came to show us how to be related correctly to God and to ourselves and to the original blessing of God's image upon our lives.
We have abundant life, eternal life, when we realize how profound the basic blessing of the life force of Spirit is in our lives and how it should not be abused or quenched by allowing its energy to focus wrong upon objects which can become idols of addiction. In our soul we have the mind to process the words to educate ourselves and to educate our power of choice to achieve the self knowledge about being made in the image of God and knowing that image of God as the very powerful force of life itself.
The writer of John's Gospel believes that each of us is made out of eternal life because we were created by the Word of God, but we can live our lives unaware of our basic nature. We can live our lives not choosing correctly because of ignorance about access to the basic image of the divine upon our lives. We literally have the sinful power to use the gift of God and the energy of God in wrong ways.
The bread of heaven discourse is about understanding the nourishment of spiritual bread which awakens us to the nutrition and growth of the awareness of God's Spirit in our lives. It is a warning not to limit life simply to our biological and physical lives and miss the spiritual enrichment of our existence.
The entire Gospel of John is about being awakened to the original condition of our eternal life and the bread of heaven discourse is an invitation for us to realize this.
Next week, we will look at how John's Gospel expounds the liturgical practices of the church within this bread of heaven discourse to show how liturgy is another art in the practice of being aware of God's presence in our life.
But for today, let us feed our souls with the bread which nurtures the awareness of the eternal life as a current quality of our lives. If we embrace the gift of the eternal life of the Spirit, we may have the faith to accept all of the changes which our bodies and souls must face in the aging processes of time. Jesus Christ invites us to experience the anchoring living personal force of the Holy Spirit as the promise that we can survive all that the effects of time will throw at us. In this way we can know Jesus Christ as the "soul food" or bread of life which gives us the realization of eternal life. Amen.
I believe that the life of faith is often misunderstood because we make starkly separated the perception of what is outside and what is inside. With the rise of modern science we practiced the further division of the observing subject who observes the external objects. And so we look at events in external linear patterns of causation. We can easily regard the Bible to be a story of how a God exterior to us, caused this world and then dwells somewhere physically in a heaven from where the divine Being makes strategic interventions in the history of humanity. This in fact expresses the naive perceptual view of the relationship between God and this world and this is how the Bible is most often read. We naively read the Bible as those who make absolute a division between what is perceived out there and what is in here. And we are the subjective viewers who observe from within here.
But if we live and move and have our being in God, then events are the events which arise from living and having our being within God. So we do not have external causation; we have an internal arising of events and people. We cannot rightly separate what is inside of us from what is outside of us.
When the Gospel writer says that we have eternal life; it means that we have come to a place of awareness and a place of interpreting our participation within a quality of spiritual life which is always there.
The preservation instinct in our lives is a feature of eternal life. We may feel that we want to preserve our lives and live forever but there are manifestations of physical life which persuade us that living forever in our bodies may not be ideal quality of living. I have spent many of my ministerial hours in hospitals and in skilled nursing centers to witness people who live very long lives but who spend the end of their lives without significant quality of life in mind, body and spirit.
We should not be quick to really think that we know what eternal or ever lasting life is. What do you want? A good young healthy body but without wisdom of age and experience? Or do we think eternal life must be some sort of static state of being consisting of the best strengths of each stage of human life?
The Gospel writer of John understands that Jesus declared himself to be the living bread and if people eat of this living bread they will live forever and have eternal life. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus claimed that he can give us a fountain of living water within us so that we will no longer thirst. In John chapter eleven Jesus claims to be resurrection and life.
Let us understand the significant mysticism of the Gospel of John. You and I live and move and have our being in God and we are blessed if we can recognize this and not be alienated from knowing our true location in God. We are located in God and God is located within us but the very energetic presence of God within us can be misinterpreted as the energy of desire directed toward making idols out of the things in our lives.
If we understand Desire with a capital D as the basic life force of the gift of God whose proper object is God, then we can learn in our lives of faith to come into progressive realization of the effects of this eternal life, this abundant life, this conscious sense that there is something basic to us which will have some continuity in some form forever.
But when we limit the Gift of God's Spirit within us to simply energy for other people, we can reduce the energy of Spirit to mere lust or envy. When we limit and interpret basic life of Spirit as the desire for food, clothing, shelter, fame and power positions, then we use the very energy of God to allow idols to be created which have power over us even to the point of addiction. If we think that idols of food, clothing, shelter, fame and power can last forever then we will truly know the harsh corrections of pain, loss and death.
The writer of the Gospel of John believes that Jesus Christ came to show us how to be related correctly to God and to ourselves and to the original blessing of God's image upon our lives.
We have abundant life, eternal life, when we realize how profound the basic blessing of the life force of Spirit is in our lives and how it should not be abused or quenched by allowing its energy to focus wrong upon objects which can become idols of addiction. In our soul we have the mind to process the words to educate ourselves and to educate our power of choice to achieve the self knowledge about being made in the image of God and knowing that image of God as the very powerful force of life itself.
The writer of John's Gospel believes that each of us is made out of eternal life because we were created by the Word of God, but we can live our lives unaware of our basic nature. We can live our lives not choosing correctly because of ignorance about access to the basic image of the divine upon our lives. We literally have the sinful power to use the gift of God and the energy of God in wrong ways.
The bread of heaven discourse is about understanding the nourishment of spiritual bread which awakens us to the nutrition and growth of the awareness of God's Spirit in our lives. It is a warning not to limit life simply to our biological and physical lives and miss the spiritual enrichment of our existence.
The entire Gospel of John is about being awakened to the original condition of our eternal life and the bread of heaven discourse is an invitation for us to realize this.
Next week, we will look at how John's Gospel expounds the liturgical practices of the church within this bread of heaven discourse to show how liturgy is another art in the practice of being aware of God's presence in our life.
But for today, let us feed our souls with the bread which nurtures the awareness of the eternal life as a current quality of our lives. If we embrace the gift of the eternal life of the Spirit, we may have the faith to accept all of the changes which our bodies and souls must face in the aging processes of time. Jesus Christ invites us to experience the anchoring living personal force of the Holy Spirit as the promise that we can survive all that the effects of time will throw at us. In this way we can know Jesus Christ as the "soul food" or bread of life which gives us the realization of eternal life. Amen.
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