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Anyone
recall the Edgar Allan Poe short story, ‘The Fall of the House Usher?’ Its
actually a fascinating drama that basically the people who lived in this house caused
the house itself to cave in upon them to take them to their death… It is often said that the human body or seat
of the soul is like a house. If this house has a firm foundation and
cornerstone, it should weather all kinds of destructive outside forces coming
down upon it; shouldn’t it?
It all
depends however, on who you have listened to and who is the true “key” that you
have built your house upon. I found this a fascinating motif in recently
experiencing literal giant cracks in several places in my home. Being an avid
sensitive to all things spiritual; both my housemate and myself have wondered
how these cracks have now all but shrunken back to nearly be invisible and
hairline. Disappearing back into the
foundation of our three story town home.
Our
housemate feels that it is our guardian spirits who have forced the evil back
at bay in my home for all humor aside, our home literally is haunted. It is terribly funny and surreal to say that
but it most definitely has three active “ghosts.” Two of the spirits I have even witnessed in
hearing for the most part constantly whisper at night & I have even
recognized my grandmother’s voice to be one of the spirits here! I know what
you’re thinking, sounds like you’ve been watching too many ghost hunter type
shows, but truth be told… A lot has been confirmed by simply hearing, and not
seeing to believe to pursue with a careful curiosity why these spirits are here
in the first place?
Jesus
in today’s Gospel text tells his disciples through a metaphor about the
Shepherd and the sheep, how they are to both listen and stay together for the
sake of each other through love. Keeping
it together, building that firm foundation of who you are as a body within the
greater Body is ushering in the truth that listening and growing spiritually to
the law of love keeps the wolves at bay and builds the body for Christ in
thought, word and deed.
We must
not forget however that we are broken vessels and have weathered more than our
fair share of storms, and evil nearly trying to assault us down to our very
core! Which we don’t really want to go down there, down that road to see the
cracks and begin to worry and fear why did this even begin? How did I let this happen in the first place?
It could be like going to the dentist and having them say that you’re grinding
your teeth and that is why you now have cracked one on both sides needing to be
filled to retain a solid structure, integrity.
Contemplating,
fretting, moving forward with fear is a human battle in trusting and listening
to the Shepherd to steer them towards peace and resolve. It is much like what John says in his first
letter this morning from the overly “ample,” Amplified Bible: “19 By this we shall come to know (perceive,
recognize, and understand) that we are of the Truth, and can reassure (quiet,
conciliate, and pacify) our hearts in His presence, 20 Whenever
our hearts in [tormenting] self-accusation make us feel guilty and condemn us. [For we are in God’s
hands.] For He is above and greater than our consciences (our hearts), and He knows (perceives
and understands) everything [nothing is hidden from Him].”
What
an amazing realization to have about God truly being not only John’s personal
shepherd for his life but for them all as a gathering of disciples! For we must
tend to the body in order to truly and truthfully be the greater Body in the
world through Love, Grace, mercy, peace, compassion and all beautiful fruits
Christ has taught us to abide in and bear!
The world around us however has treated the human soul and its needs to
be built up and firmed as just patch it and ignore it. Put a fresh coat of white wash over it all
and it will simply just disappear for a while…
Returning
to that infamous story of Poe’s and my own true haunted house story… one can
just easily ignore the signs and merely say it is the weather or things that
are simply causing changes to the home’s foundation; but then that would be
greatly ignoring all those voices heard at night, and light grey figures in silhouette
seen on occasion at the foot of our bed and the white mists caught in more than
a few photographs! Am I scared, strangely enough, no, because I’ve learned who
they are and have been deeply listening to what they are trying to say to me
and take it into consideration.
The
moral of the story here, is can we take this same attention and apply it to listening
deeply to God’s voice, the Great Shepherd speaking to our hearts to hear and
abide to CHANGE? Change not to where the soul’s foundation is twisted to fall,
cave in upon ourselves, but be transformed like a caterpillar to a butterfly!
In the physical world, we move from the homes we’ve come to outgrow much like
the caterpillar to the butterfly but it is only lived into on a very empirical,
surface level. Which doesn’t seem
connected, like the seemingly dualistic frame of flesh and the spirit… BUT first
of all, we are of flesh AND we DO have spirit, we have inherited the Holy
Spirit, the breath of true life being born and then reborn in a sense as the children
of Grace, the sheep of the Kingdom’s flock where Christ Jesus is our Good and
loving Shepherd!
Staying
off Satan’s wolves is our spiritual formation battle. The battle is real and if you can’t handle
the truth of that; how can you say you really know what God needs from you and
what He does for you? The BAD theology
out there in the growing godless and graceless wilderness of our current
troubled times declares with a bold voice built upon a foundation of self: Jesus
may have not really been divine at all! He certainly didn’t resurrect and Satan
is just a metaphor only for our intellectual edification, moral growth… Must be nice to be so firmed up by a veneer
of empty and dark promises!
Belief
just as much as the art of listening itself draws us away from ourselves. This is the New Nature’s mortar around that
fabulous and growing Grace with Christ as the center, purpose and completion to
our very being! Being alive as Spirit
and flesh is that reality of the first temple of living “church.” We are all bodies within the greater Body of
Christ. We must tend to both. Tending to both bodies can’t be done with a
layer of shellac or a band-aid upon the things we want to ignore or close our
minds off to for the moment… We need to
truly LIVE for the moment guided by prayer, study and our hands and feet
dedicated to Christ out of love for Him and neighbor.
Verse
24 of the First John lesson, in the overly “ample,” Amplified Bible says our
task most beautifully and profoundly in my perception of Hearing God’s Word in
this very moment(!), he says: “24 All who keep His
commandments [who obey His orders and follow His plan, live and continue to
live, to stay and] abide in Him, and He in them. [They let Christ be a home to
them and they are the home of Christ.] And by this we know and understand and have the proof
that He [really] lives and makes His home in
us: by the [Holy] Spirit Whom He has given us.”
If
we are to usher in, truly and truthfully as Jesus’ disciples in this dark age,
the Gospel of love and peace for all the world to build towards a greater
foundation… We must start with
ourselves. The temple of the self to be
rededicated to and for Christ. It is
through Him, we have life. It is through
Him we become truly aware, way beyond ourselves for the sake of the other.
I’ll
leave you with a closing note on something I read the other day from a secular “existentialist
magazine” about being selfless. Basically the author says that being or
becoming selfless, altruism is an urgent quest of “humanistic psychology.” I would like to couple this with the lens of
faith given, however, being that we were created by God for God and became “human.” The mind is not its own temple but one to
truly be shaped. This must begin in the “gut”
as one of the fabulous Greek words in today’s lessons uses: splagxnon. This word literally means the internal organs
and figuratively in John’s first letter means to have a gut-level compassion;
to have the capacity to feel deep emotions.
For me, I understand this as heart knowledge, led, fed by God’s Living
Word and its impact upon my life.
Heart
knowledge is the mortar to who I am through Christ who indeed I am listening
and aspiring continually to abide in. To
abide in Him who has made my body for His will and precepts out of love,
through love; I move forward! Weathering
those settling cracks, keeping the “ghosts of the past,” and my Old Nature at
bay to break free. To truly and truthfully break free to fly into the horizon
towards that beautiful guiding Light of the Great and Good Shepherd, Christ
Jesus my Lord and truly, always, my Savior!
AMEN
4th Sunday of Easter;
April 26th, 2015; Year B; SOLA Lectionary;
Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 23; Acts 4:1-12; 1 John
3:16-24 & John 10:11-18
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