Extensions Of God's Word

As I read The Gospel of Luke (10:1-11, 16-20) for Sunday, I got a connection with  the last five blog I just rebooted.

The Apostles had an important role — a divinely ordained and enabling role to fulfill.  The role of proclaiming the name of Jesus and character of Jesus.

Telling people they needed to understand that God’s Kingdom had come near to them.  

They also had a symbolic role in the defeat of demonic — evil powers.

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.1

The exorcisms they gave promised the ultimate activity of God’s purpose in the world of human life. 

What is clear, is that Jesus’ call — to go out — is going to offer both positive and negative.

Positive because they are privileged to model Jesus’ love and forgiveness.  His hope of reconciliation for of all God’s people.

The negative, they also must identify and face the forces of evil that oppose God’s purpose.

 ³Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 

The plan truth is, God’s work is not always pretty nor pleasant!

Regardless, we are sent to reach out and touch our little part of the world with God’s presence.  We don’t do this with words, but our actions and manner of speaking.

One commenter writes:  "Everything about the apostolic mission, in other words, subverts the system of power and privilege in the world. The peace the apostles are to offer is more than a greeting of demeanor.  Peace is a representative of the kingdom of God, the salvation that is shalom.  Ironically, this peace is conflictive, because it arouse the hostility of demonic power." (Feasting on the Word p.216, Year A, Volume 3)

 

And the fact is, people won’t alway welcome us or agree with our stance, or opinions, about God.  Or how to live.  

None-the-less. we are to go out and live in faith and trust that God walks with us.

The term that comes to my mind this morning is ‘extension.’

Those seventy, who were sent out, were extensions of Jesus mission. 

And it says Jesus had given them “authority” to do what was needed.

Jesus gave them the “power” — His very own power.

What do you suppose that means — He gave them “authority” and “power?”

As I asked that question, what popped into my mind was a sound system.  A sound system give us the ability to extend our voices so that all can receive God’s word.

With a sound system, a microphone, allows the power to be heard — to extend our voices and music — is not our own.

Our source of power comes from an amazing technology I don’t pretend to understand. 

Electrical power enables us to be heard past our own vocal capacity.

                     

Pretty amazing!

In my imagination, I got a vision of all of us walking around our environments with extension cords plugged into our hearts.

That Jesus empowers us is kind of an unbelievable thing for us I think about.

We truly do not understand it.

                          And so it is difficult to believe.

Unlike the technology of electricity, where we can actually pull a cord or turn on a switch.    

   God provide no proof.

There is no instruction book, or tutorial, to show us how to connect with the source of the power given by Jesus.

Clarification:

In todays world God is dealing with a sophisticated group of humans.  We live in a computerized culture.

We can have any bit of information at our fingertips with a click of a key.

We can replace a damaged heart in the human body in a matter of hours.  Or a warn out joint with man-made-ones.

We have conquered unknown shores of outer space with Hubble and Webb.

We even have global positioning systems that give us the latitude and longitude coordinates that tell us where we are; and where we should go.

The human brain has created all of these amazing technologies.  So it is pretty difficult for us to imagine ever even needing Jesus’ power any more.

And yet, with our amazing human brain, as sophisticated  as it is;  we can’t even begin to imagine how that intricately designed organ, called our gray matter, really works.

Oh, there may be scientist or psychiatrists who world disagree.  But I am convinced the human brain is as much mystery as God.

And like the apostles, we are sent out like "lambs among the wolves" to give the world one message: "The kingdom of God is nearer that you ever imagned.

So it seems to me that leaves us still pretty dependent on God!

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. ²He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. ³Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. ⁵Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” ⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. ⁷Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” ¹⁰But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹“Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” ¹²I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.   13 ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. ¹⁴But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ¹⁵And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ ¹⁸He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

 A reader responds

“After reading your blogs on resonance: I was thinking there could be resonant evil as well a good.  Resonance  works in all ways some positive and come negative.”

You are absolutely correct.

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” ²⁸He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” ²⁹But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Mt. 13)

In the very first blog, on this amazing subject, I mentioned that in her book, Jesus Wisdom, Cynthia Bourgeault introduced me to a quantum physic concept called “Planck’s Constant.”  

“Planck’s Constant” is: “of constriction and density that comes as part and parcel of this human realm and is the necessary precondition for the full revelation of divine love.” (p.107) 

She continues this discussion on page 120.  “Only  at this particular density, within these sharp edges and term limits (the ultimate one, of course, being death) do the conditions  become perfect for the expression of the most tender and vulnerable aspects of divine love. Built right into the deep structure of this realm, then, is a “Planck’s Constant” of darkness and density.  It belongs to the warp and weft of creations itself, and to dissolve it is to cancel the very conditions through which this realm makes its uniquely important contribution to the divine fullness.” (p.120 

  

In this world there is good and bad, ugly and beautiful, light and darkness.  That is just the truth.  

Why? 

I do not know.

However, think about this:  God came, in Jesus' skin, purposely into this condition of darkness, to shine his light upon the need to change what was a most disturbing ingredient of the human being.

Read Isaiah chapter 9.

² The people who walked in darkness

   have seen a great light;  (I invite you to keep reading)

This dark side of life is, Carl Jung describes as, “the excluded shadowland of the fourth.”(152 Second Simplicity)

As we read throughout scripture we are constantly faced with the “darkness” — the sharp craggy edges of human nature. 

We experience this tendency, of good and not-so-good, in nature, weather, wind, volcanos, hurricanes, floods and fire.  

And in all of those kinds of terribly destructive occurrences there is divine possibilities of new life, new growth, comes into being within humans, animals and nature.

We experience this sharp edged way in:

                                                                 Musical arrangements.

                                                                      Poetry,

                                                                          The Psalms,

                                                                                Jeremiah,

                                                                                    Isaiah,

                                                                                       The story of Job, 

                                                                                            Jesus’ parables

                                                                                                and everyday life still today.     

  

“Like any good Zen master, he (Jesus) is out to completely short-circuit our mental wiring so that we are catapulted into a whole new way of seeing and being.” (p. 39 Jesus Wisdom)

Jesus bring it all together:   

                                       “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

The Most Amazing Gift

God’s wireless communication that has for centuries been perceived as something we just don’t get — don’t comprehend.  And actually doesn’t make too much sense to human logic and reason.

It is interesting that our modern world of wireless-bluetooth, which has endlessly confused my mind, yet has actually helped me to finally see more clearly God’s most precious gift.  

The gift that He came in Jesus’ skin to give us — show us.  The blest power to have a two way conversation with the Almighty God Creator of all that is.  

A communication that is possible through the Advocate, The Holy Spirit.

When I read Cynthia Bourgeault’s assessment of the heart my entire body became tenderly moved.

She is discussing the difference between our intellectual minds and our preceptive heart. 

“The egoic operating system is particularly related to the mind, to the ‘binary operator’ built right into the human brain. The heart has a different way of perceiving.  Rather than dividing and conquering, it connects with a seamless and indivisible reality through a whole different way of organizing the informational field….In wisdom, the heart is primarily an organ of spiritual perception, a highly sensitive instrument for keeping us aligned, as we journey along the horizontal axis of our life in time, with the vertical axis of timeless reality; the realm of meaning, value, and conscience.  The heart picks up reality in a much deeper, more integral way than our poor Cartesian minds even begin to imagine…..The heart picks up from the emotions, from our sense of proportion, from  intuition, from images and archetypes;..…and keeps us aliened with our innermost, with what we truly know. (p. 35-36

And my mind went WOW.

⁹ With you is wisdom, she who knows your works

and was present when you made the world;

she understands what is pleasing in your sight

and what is right according to your commandments. 

¹⁰ Send her forth from the holy heavens,

and from the throne of your glory send her,

that she may labour at my side,

and that I may learn what is pleasing to you. 

¹¹ For she knows and understands all things,

and she will guide me wisely in my actions

and guard me with her glory. 

¹² Then my works will be acceptable,

and I shall judge your people justly,

and shall be worthy of the throne of my father. 

¹³ For who can learn the counsel of God?

Or who can discern what the Lord wills? 

¹⁴ For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,

and our designs are likely to fail; 

¹⁵ for a perishable body weighs down the soul,

and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind. 

¹⁶ We can hardly guess at what is on earth,

and what is at hand we find with labour;

but who has traced out what is in the heavens? 

¹⁷ Who has learned your counsel,

unless you have given wisdom

and sent your holy spirit from on high? 

¹⁸ And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,

and people were taught what pleases you,

and were saved by wisdom.’ (Wisdom of Solomon 9)

Thanks be to God

I would be remiss if I didn’t end this incredible gift, I have been so recently been given, in the works, God enabled Cynthia Bourgeault and Bruno Barnhart to express in their writings.  

I am most grateful to God for the way He works in all of us.