Church of the Holy City

I in You and You in Me
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 9, 2010

John 5:1-9 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 Psalm 67

Last Sunday I talked about God’s presence with everyone. Today I would like to talk about our reciprocal presence with God. There is a difference between God’s presence with us, and our presence with God. God is continually reaching out to us, and in our inmost soul, God is present with everyone. In this sense, God is always in us. But we are not always in God. We have a responsibility to respond to God and to let God into us. When we let God into us, then we are in God.
Our Bible readings this morning speak to this issue. In our reading from John, we heard about a man who had been sick a long time. He was lying beside the healing waters of Bethzatha. Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed and the man responded that he never got the chance to enter the waters. Jesus then said, “Take up your bed and walk.” The man was instantly healed. This healing, as with all Jesus’ healings, symbolizes God’s deliverance from evil. We are spiritually sick when we let evil have power in us, and it is God’s own power that lifts us out of evil and holds us in God’s heavenly joy and love. This is the picture we have in our reading from Revelation. There we have that beautiful vision of the Holy City New Jerusalem. There is no need for the sun to be there because God Himself is the light. Nor is there a temple because there is a direct relationship with God in the Holy City. This vision of the Holy City comes after all the tumult in the earlier parts of the Book of Revelation. It comes after the horrors of the four horsemen, the plague, the sword, famine, and wild beasts. It comes after the dragon tries to swallow up the new born baby from the woman clothed with the sun. The Holy City New Jerusalem comes after the victory is won. It comes after our spiritual sicknesses have been healed by God. Then God is in us and we are in God.
This end of times vision in Revelation is our birthright. We are born to be in harmony with the created order. And the created order is good, as we read in Genesis, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31). The whole created universe was created by God and as such, is full of God in every aspect of it. Swedenborg tells us, “the universe as to essence and order is in the fullness of God” (TCR 63). Since God is goodness itself, so, also, the universe is full of God’s goodness,
Because he wills nothing but what is good, he cannot do anything but what is good. . . . God is in fact goodness itself. When he does something good, he is in himself. He cannot walk away from himself.
Clearly then, his omnipotence fills, and works within, the sphere of the extension of goodness, and sphere that is infinite. At a deep level, this sphere pervades the universe and everything in it (TCR 56).
So the whole universe from the smallest to the largest is filled with the order God has imposed on it, and that order is good.
Genesis tells us that we are created in the image and likeness of God. This means that we are created according to God’s divine order. We have been created in the form of goodness that the universe is created in. We are in the same form in which the whole created universe is, and we are created in the order in which the whole of heaven is. That form, or that order, is a form of love and wisdom.
We have been created as forms of the divine design because we have been created as images and likenesses of God, and since God is the design itself, we have therefore been created as images and likenesses of that design.
The divine design originally took shape, and it continues to exist, from two sources: divine love and divine wisdom. We human beings have been created as vessels for these two things. Therefore the design that divine love and wisdom follow in acting upon the universe, and especially upon the angelic heaven, has been built into us (TCR 65).
We are created in the same form as heaven and the universe. If we follow our nature, we will be at one with the universe, at one with heaven, and at one with God.
This is where our responsibility enters the equation. We have been created in the order of heaven, which is a vessel that can receive love and wisdom. But we need to allow that love and wisdom to enter us. We need to respond to God’s call. We need to turn ourselves to God and ask Him into our hearts and minds. When we do this, we are in God. If we do not allow God into our lives, we will not be in God. God is present to everyone in the deepest parts of our soul. But God needs to come down through all the levels of our consciousness in order for us to have God in us fully. The difference is whether God is only in the highest parts of our soul, or whether God is in our whole being and all the levels of our consciousness.
Now because a person was created a form of divine order, God is in him or her, and so far as he or she lives according to Divine order, fully; but if he or she does not live according to Divine order, still God is in him or her, but in their highest parts . . . But as far as a person lives contrary to order, so far he or she shuts up the lower parts of his or her spirit, and thus prevents God from descending and filling them with His presence; consequently God is in them, but they are not in God (TCR 70).
God is present with everyone and God is in every part of the universe. This is possible because God is not in space or time. All the dark spaces of the universe that appear to us as being empty and vacant are filled with God. The psalmist says,
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in hell, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,
Even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast (139:7-10).
God will be with us wherever we are. And God’s love will never cease to draw us toward Himself by the mighty force of mercy. Swedenborg writes, “The absence of God from a person is no more possible than the absence of the sun by its heat and light from the earth.” But we can turn away from God. Then God will not be present in our whole being.
Therefore, as far as a person suffers him or herself to be brought back into order, so far God is omnipresent in the whole of him or her; consequently, so far God is in him or her and they are in God. The absence of God from a person is no more possible than the absence of the sun by its heat and light from the earth. The objects of the earth, however, are not in the sun’s power except so far as they receive the light and heat proceeding from it, as in the time of spring and summer (TCR 70).
We are in God, then, when we ask God into our lives. An image I have of this is God beginning in our depths and working His way down into our behaviours. This is a lifelong process, and even continues for ever in the next life. This process may involve struggle at times. This process may involve the spiritual equivalent of all those calamities in the book of Revelation. But to the victor goes the crown. When we have consistently prayed and acted in Godly ways, God’s omnipresence will be in our souls, minds, and spiritual bodies. God will be in us and we will be in God. God will be with us always, even to the end of the age, as he tells the Apostles at the very end of Matthew, and as we read at the end of the Book of Revelation. “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their hearts” (Rev. 22:3).

Nearer, My God, to Thee
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 2, 2010

Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35 Psalm 148

Today I will talk about God’s presence with us. In our Revelation reading we find a loud voice saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3). This passage is related to the reading we heard from John. In it, Jesus says, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (13:34). God is present with us in the love we feel for one another. As God is love itself, when we have love in us, we have God in us.
This brings up a very difficult doctrine in Swedenborg’s theology. In order to understand God’s presence with us, we have to leave behind all thought based on time and space. And it seems everything we know is based on time and space. In fact, the philosopher Immanuel Kant said that in order for us to know anything, we need to think in terms of time and space. So for Kant, an idea that doesn’t have time and space in it can’t be known.
But the laws of spirit don’t involve time and space. We can feel close to someone who is way across the country. And we can feel distant from someone right beside us. The laws of love are apart from distance. In fact, at times we can feel close to people we have known who are now in the spiritual world. It looks to us like we are separate from each other, since our bodies can be at a distance from each other. But our emotions obey a different law. Emotionally, there is no separation of one from another. Love connects the whole universe and each individual is a part of the whole. The idea that we are separate people living in separate bodies is an illusion. The great Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor says that this is a distinctly modern idea. In the past, people thought that their minds were open to all sorts of spiritual influences and that actual angels and demons could enter their heads. Swedenborg agrees with this. Our thinking and our emotions are connected with each other and with the whole heaven. Our thinking and emotions are connected with the thoughts and feelings of angels and demons. And ultimately, our thoughts and emotions are connected with God, no matter where we are.
So in order to understand how God is present with us, we need to forget about distance and space. This is not easy for us to do. But it is the only way to understand how God is with us. It can cause confusion when we hear Jesus say, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20). “What exactly does ‘in’ mean, here?” we may ask ourselves. We think “inside” and the teaching doesn’t make sense. What is inside me are organs and a heart and lungs and blood. There is no one inside me, we may think. So in order to understand the reality of God’s presence with us, we need to remove ideas like “inside,” “separation,” and “distance.”
From God’s point of view, God is present equally with everyone. But from our point of view it looks like God is close or distant depending on the person or circumstance. We hear Swedenborg talk about the highest heaven being “above” the lowest heaven, or more “interior.” These are spatial words. They are words based on space and distance. The truth is that God is just as present with angels of the lowest heaven as He is with angels of the highest heaven. Swedenborg tells us,
As a result of the differences in angels’ acceptance of the Lord, the heavens appear to be marked off from each other. The highest heaven, called the third heaven, seems to be over the second, and the second over the first. It is not that the heavens are distant from each other, but that they seem to be. In fact, the Lord is just as present with people in the most remote heaven as he is with people in the third heaven. What causes the appearance of distance is in the subjects, the angels, and not in the Lord (DLW 110).
God is equally present with all of us. But we do not feel God’s presence the same. Some of us feel God’s presence more intimately and others less so. And sometimes we feel God closer to us than we do at other times. Some of us have embodied much of God’s wisdom and love and others of us have embodied less of God’s wisdom and love. So our feeling of God’s presence will vary. This difference is in us, not in God. So Swedenborg tells us,
It does seem as though the Divine were not the same in one person as in another–that it were different, for example, in a wise person than in a simple one, different in an elderly person than in an infant. But this appearance is deceptive. The person is a recipient, and the recipient or recipient vessel may vary. A wise person is a recipient of divine love and divine wisdom more aptly and, therefore, more fully than a simple person and an elderly person who is also wise, more than an infant or child. Still, the Divine is the same in the one as it is in the other (DLW 78).
An example that Swedenborg uses to illustrate this idea is the way the sun interacts with the different planets. The sun is the same, but some planets are hotter than others. Mercury and Venus are closest to the sun and their temperature is very hot. (And as Armand will tell us, Velikovsky anticipated this before scientists did.) Mars is farther away, and it is colder. But the sun is the same. Likewise on our planet earth, we find different parts of the globe with different weather patterns. Florida is warmer than Alberta because it is farther south. The sun shines the same, but the earth is on an angle so that some parts of it get direct sunlight and other parts get slanting rays of the sun.
God is in us as love and wisdom. True love and true wisdom are not ours. They are God’s in us. So when the book of Revelation says, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3), it is referring to God’s love and wisdom in us. God is in us to the extent that love and wisdom are in us. Everyone who has embodied love and wisdom is in heaven. And since that love and wisdom is actually God, God is in heaven.
Given the fact that distance is only apparent, then, it follows that the Lord himself is in heaven. He is in the love and wisdom of heaven’s angels; and since he is in the love and wisdom of all the angels and the angels make up heaven, he is in all of heaven (DLW 113).
And since love and wisdom are God’s in us, God actually is heaven.
The reason the Lord is not only in heaven but actually is heaven itself is that love and wisdom make an angel, and these two are properties of the Lord in the angels. It therefore follows that the Lord is heaven (DLW 114).
This is as true for us here on earth as it is for angels in heaven. After all, we are material bodies that have a soul within us. Our soul is actually in the spiritual world right now. So we are in a heavenly community or a hellish one right now.
This may seem like a matter of higher wisdom since it is being supported by reference to havens and angels. However, the same holds true for us. As far as the deeper levels of our minds are concerned, we are warmed and enlightened by that same sun, warmed by its warmth and enlightened by its light, to the extent that we accept love and wisdom from the Lord (DLW 112).
So when Jesus tells us to love one another as He loves us, He is talking about His own presence with us. He is in us, when we are filled with God’s love and wisdom. Then the relationship is mutual. When we love God back, then we are in God and God is in us.
Perhaps it isn’t so hard to think about God apart from space and time. We use such language all the time. We say things like, “You are in my thoughts.” Or, “My heart is with you.” The same is true of God. God is very much in our thoughts. We think because God is in our minds. We love because God is in our hearts. God is with us everywhere. All we need to do is to realize this, and to open ourselves to the warmth and light of God’s real presence with us. Then God Himself will be with us and be our God.

Images of Jesus
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
April 25, 2010

Revelation 7:9-17 John 10:22-39 Psalm 23

In this morning’s Bible readings, we have about every concept of Jesus that people think of. In Revelation, we have Jesus as the Lamb in the center of the throne presiding over the whole heavens. Then by marked contrast, we have the Jews wanting to stone Jesus because they think Him a man only. We also have Jesus making that claim, that He is God. We have Jesus using Trinitarian language, calling Himself the Son of God. Then Jesus makes an interesting reference to Psalm 82, which reads, “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’” This could be read as saying that Jesus is the Son of God in the same way that we are gods and sons of the Most High. At least, Jesus seems to use this Psalm to justify His own claim to be the Son of God. So we have five different ways of viewing Jesus in these readings. And these five ways of viewing Jesus are how people today still see Him. I’d like to talk about these ways of viewing Jesus this morning.
The picture that we have from the book of Revelation is a wonderfully inclusive picture. We have innumerable people surrounding the throne on which the Lamb sits. The Lamb is the risen Jesus Christ who presides over the whole heavens. What interests me in this image are the people worshipping the Lamb. They are, “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” (7:9). This means that all different races and nationalities are worshipping the Lamb–not just the saved Christians. In this picture, we see that everyone, everywhere who live the best they know are accepted by the Christ, and that they, in turn, will recognize God when they see Him. The salvation of the Lamb is for the whole world. Some Christians think that people of other religions will not be saved. This notion is what fuels their missionary efforts. They go to all parts of the world to convert others to Christianity so that they will be saved. I remember a Lutheran minister I met in Florida. I was going to work with him to fulfill a requirement for ordination. But he found one of our web pages, and had underlined the part that said, “He is present to save everyone, everywhere, whose lives affirm the best they know.” He pointed to that passage and said, “I can’t accept that.” For strict Lutherans, it is Christ’s reconciling sacrifice on the cross that saves people. Those who do not believe this are not saved. How sad. How much of a limit that puts on God’s love. For this minister, good Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Taoists, and other religions would not make the cut. How refreshing is the picture we have in this passage from Revelation, that people “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” are all in heaven worshipping the Lamb. This is an image of Jesus that speaks to me. And the description of Jesus’ salvation is beautiful. The Bible tells us that,
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat, For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (9:16-17).
Moving on to another image of Jesus from this morning’s readings, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” How much more clearly can it be said that Jesus is God. At least that is how the Jews took it. The idea that God could assume a human form was blaspheme to the Jews. They were prepared to stone Jesus to death because He said so. They accused Jesus of being a mere man and claiming to be God. This is a doctrine that many today have a hard time with. Most people today admit that there was a Jesus, and that he was a great teacher and leader. They love His teachings. But many find it hard to accept that Jesus is God. But to me, that belief is at the center of Christianity, and it is at the center of our Swedenborgian faith. In a small book that summarizes the teachings of the New Church, Swedenborg writes, “Since the Father is in the Lord, and the Father and the Lord are one; and since the Lord must be believed in; it is evident that the Lord is God” (NJHD #284). But Swedenborg recognizes that there are those, even in Christianity, who do not believe this. He writes,
All who are of the Church, and in light from heaven, see the Divine in the Lord; but those who are not in light from heaven, see nothing but the Human in the Lord; when yet the Divind and the Human have been so united in Him that they are one; as the Lord also taught elsewhere in John: “Father, all mine are Thine, and all Thine are Mine (17:10) (NJHD 285).
Jesus seems to give people an escape route if this doctrine is too hard. He says, “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me, but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works” (10:37-38). His own works were evidence of His divinity. So if it is too hard to accept a Divine Human, look at the works Jesus does and believe them. I take this to mean that what Jesus stands for is almost as important as who He is. His compassion for the sick, his demonstration of love, his miraculous power, the burning of their hearts when the apostles were near Him, all these things are what Jesus stands for, and what are to be believed. Who else but God can do these wonderful works.
Jesus calls Himself the Son of God. This is one of the places where traditional Christians get their ideas about the trinity. They teach that God is three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How they get a person out of the Holy Spirit I can’t understand. In fact, I can’t understand the whole idea of three persons who share one essence. Swedenborg strongly opposes the trinity. He thinks that traditional Christians are polytheists–that is, they believe in three gods. This reminds me of a graffiti I saw spray painted on the sidewalk in front of a Christian church in Boston. There was a star of David and the words, “You worship gods I can’t understand.” It is in this very John passage, that we find support for the unity of God in the one person of Jesus. John 10:30 says, “I and the Father are one.” That line is so clear that it is what led the Jews to want to stone Jesus. They understood it to mean Jesus is God. And that is exactly what that passage means. There are other passages in the Bible that make Jesus look separate from God the Father. When Jesus was in the humanity He inherited from Mary, He spoke to God as if to another. But there are other passages in which He is at one with God the Father, as in the transfiguration on the mountain top we find in Mark 9. There his clothes became dazzling white and He shone with the power and glory of God. I think that reason and the Bible can support the doctrine that God and Human are one in Jesus, and that there is no other person in the Godhead besides Jesus.
The passage from Psalm 82 brings up an interesting way of viewing Jesus, that I have personally encountered recently. Psalm 82 calls all of us gods, and “sons of the Most High.” I have a friend who told me once, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but so am I. We are all sons of God.” Some people believe that Jesus united Himself fully with God, and that we all have the potential to unite ourselves with God too. Often people of this belief will say that Jesus did it more perfectly than most of us could. But they hold open the idea that what Jesus did, we could all potentially do. It is true that for Swedenborg, union with God is what salvation means. We are saved to the extent that God’s Holy Spirit is in us. But Swedenborg also makes a clear distinction between what Jesus did and what we can do. Jesus is an avatar of God. His Humanity is infinite and one with the Father. We will always be finite. No matter how closely we approach God, we will always be finite and the ratio of finite to infinite is infinite. We will never be an avatar of God. The belief that we are sons of God in the same sense that Jesus is is making Jesus a mere man, and not a Divine Human. In this sense, it is not much different than the belief of the Jews who saw Jesus as a man and not God.
Jesus says, “Blessed is he who is not scandalized by me” (Matthew 11:6). And to some a Divine Human is a scandal. The works that Jesus did and continues to do are one with His being and person. His Divine message and acts of love are who and what God is in His Being and Essence. Jesus is one with the Father, and as such, could do nothing but show the infinite love and compassion that God has for every nation, for all tribes, and peoples and tongues.

Feed My Sheep
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
April 18, 2010

Revelation 5:11-14 John 21:1-19 Psalm 30

Our two Bible readings this morning represent the two great commandments of Jesus: love to the Lord and love to the neighbor. In our reading from Revelation, we have a picture of all the angels and of every creature on earth and under the earth all worshipping the Lamb. This signifies love to the Lord. In our reading from John, Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep. This refers to our relationships with other people. In its most specific meaning, this passage refers to the Apostles who went out and taught the world the Good News about Jesus. In its widest sense, it refers to every good that each of us do to others.
All good and evil have relation to these two great commands. And both of these commands are about relationships. Love to the Lord is about our connection with God. It is about the way we let God into our lives. It is about God’s Spirit finding a home in our heart, and even in our behavior. It is about doing good to the church, to society, and to every single person in our lives. Evil is defined as anything that blocks God’s influx into our lives. The second command is love for the neighbor. Love for the neighbor is about our relationships with other people. It is about how we treat others. It is about doing good to others and wishing well to others. Evil is defined as anything that blocks a loving relationship with other people.
Both of these commands are summed up in Jesus’ words to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” We can only give to others what we have in ourselves. We can’t give what we don’t have. We feed others, or do good to them, when we have a good relationship with God. When God’s Spirit is in us, we are able to let it shine in our relations with other people.
Having God’s Spirit in us, and letting it shine in our relationships with others are the fruits of regeneration. It is spiritual rebirth that gives us these Godly gifts. It is through the process of regeneration that we are able to live in God and for God to live in us. And when God is in us, we are able to love our neighbor from a heavenly disposition.
So how does regeneration happen? In a very real sense, regeneration happens to us. It happens to us slowly over a whole lifetime, “a person can only be regenerated gradually” (TCR 586). Swedenborg compares our spiritual rebirth, or regeneration, to the same process by which we are born biologically.
In a person there is a perpetual correspondence between those things that take place naturally and those which take place spiritually, or between what takes place in the body and what takes place in the spirit. This is because a person is born spiritual as to his soul, and is clothed with what is natural, which forms his material body. When this body, therefore, is laid aside, his soul comes clothed with a spiritual body into a world where all things are spiritual, and is there associated with his like. Now since the spiritual body must be formed in the material, and is formed by means of truths and goods which flow in from the Lord through the spiritual world and which are received by a person inwardly in such things in him as are from the natural world which are called civil and moral, the character of the formation which takes place is manifest. And since, as before said, there is in a person a perpetual correspondence between what takes place naturally and what takes place spiritually, it follows that this formation is like the conception, gestation, birth, and education (TCR 583).
This means that our regeneration is a long, gradual process. Another correspondence Swedenborg uses to describe regeneration is the growth of a tree. Beginning in the soil of our self-interest and desire for ego gratification, our soul progresses into an expansive openness to everyone in the world and worship of God. It is a radical transformation. It is a huge upheaval in our priorities, and in the things we value. And like the growth of a seed into a tree, our regeneration begins with a fragment of truth that suddenly has meaning for us, or a vague intuition, or a piece of conversation we pick up in our social lives. It begins with small changes in our direction in life, and as our direction shifts slightly, we find ourselves years later in a very different place than where we begun, we may find ourselves a very different person than we were in our early years. The passions that drive us in our early life must be “subdued, subjugated, and inverted” (TCR 574). Our priorities are in a very real sense turned upside down, as we grow out of self-interest into other-interest.
And our regeneration can be said to happen to us. In some ways it is an unconscious process. We don’t feel it as it is going on. “It is a law of divine providence that a person shall not perceive or feel any of the activity of divine providence, and yet he should acknowledge providence” (TCR 175). We may see our spiritual growth only when we reflect back on our lives and compare where we are now with where we were years ago. Swedenborg writes, “He who is regenerated, . . . if he reflects upon his past life, will then find that he was led by many things of his thought and by many of his affections” (AC 5364).
But there is an active aspect to regeneration also. There is that part of our spiritual growth where we choose good and flee from evil. At times this may be a struggle. As I said above, regeneration is a radical reversal of our priorities. Denying a negative aspect of our character and changing it into a positive one can be a conscious work. It can mean struggle. And it can mean, at times, despair.
In order to consciously work on ourselves, we need to know ourselves. We need to be aware of our dark side, which Carl Jung calls “the shadow.” Indeed, we need to befriend the shadow. Unless we walk aware of our shadow, and see it in clear light, it will manifest in unconscious ways. We will suddenly lash out at someone out of nowhere. Or we will follow our unhealthy enjoyments blindly. Swedenborg tells us that there is actually a use for the evil we feel. He is emphatic about freedom. And to be regenerated we must freely choose what is good. Evil feelings provide contrast with good feelings. When we know our shadow, and when we are conscious of its harmful nature, we can see, feel, and choose what is good. By means of the contrast between evil and good, we know what we want, and we freely choose what is good. In a remarkable passage about this, Swedenborg writes,
There is cognition of the quality of good only by relation to what is less good, and by its contrariety to evil. Hence comes all that gives perception and sensation, because from this is their quality; for thus every thing pleasing is perceived and felt from the less pleasing and by means of the unpleasant; every thing beautiful, from the less beautiful and by means of the unbeautiful; and likewise every good which is of love, from the less good and by means of evil (DP 24).
This is why we need to befriend our shadow. It is a good teacher.
Sometimes it can be scary to look at our shadow. Sometimes the task of looking at our dark side can be overwhelming. We need to approach our self-examination sensibly. We all have a core of holiness that remains from our early childhood. In our early infancy God and the angels were close to us. These feelings of innocence and love for our parents and teachers remain with us. So Swedenborg calls them remains. These states of mind are continually being added upon as we go through life. We can manifest these states by prayerful living. They can be clouded by our negative tendencies and behaviors, but they are still there in us. When we look at the negative aspects of our character, we need to be reasonable. We need only focus on one or two aspects of our shadow that we want to purge, or re-channel. We can’t take on everything all at once. To try to do so, would crush our spirits and we would want to give up altogether. We have our whole lives to grow toward God, and we have the whole of eternity to continue to bring God into our hearts.
One particular aspect of our shadow that is getting in the way of our relations with God and our fellows is enough. We can compare and contrast what life is like with that defect and without it. We will come to prefer life without it. We will come more and more to live without it. And we will soon find that God has lifted us up and out of this limiting feeling or behavior. Step by step, one by one. As the blocks are eliminated, God flows into our soul ever more deeply. And as God fills us with His Holy Spirit, we will turn to our neighbor and let God’s love flow into all our interpersonal relations. As we grow in our relationship with God, we will manifest God in our relations. We will feed His sheep.

The Breath of Life
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
April 11, 2010

Genesis 2: 4-7 John 20: 19-31 Psalm 139

In this morning’s reading from Genesis, we heard about the birth of Adam. And after God had formed Adam from the dust of the earth, He breathed into him the breath of life. So life is called the breath of God. Then, in our New testament passage, Jesus breathes on the Apostles and gives them the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is also the breath of God. When Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, it occurred after the resurrection, so it is fitting to talk about the Holy Spirit after Easter.
Traditional Christians think of the Holy Spirit as a person. They think of it as one of the three persons of the trinity. I find this hard to understand, since the very word “spirit” doesn’t sound like a person. Swedenborg is at pains to dispel this concept of the Holy Spirit. He does so because he insists on there being only one God, in one person. So Swedenborg emphasizes the idea that the Holy Spirit is one with God the Father and the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of divine truth, or the Word. John tells us that the Word became flesh in Jesus’ incarnation (1:14). And as divine truth personified, or as the Word made flesh, Jesus Himself is the Holy Spirit, which John calls the Spirit of Truth (14:17). So Jesus Himself is the Holy Spirit.
By the Holy Spirit is properly signified the Divine truth, thus also the Word, and in this sense the Lord Himself is also the Holy Spirit . . . and of this we speak for the reason also that the Divine operation is effected by Divine truth which proceeds out of the Lord; and that which proceeds is of one and the same essence with Him from whom it proceeds (TCR 139).
But the Holy Spirit flows out of God and into us. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us spiritual life. It is the Holy Spirit that enlightens us. It is the Holy Spirit that reforms and regenerates us. So although the Holy Spirit is the Lord as to truth, the Holy Spirit is also what proceeds out of God and into us. “The Holy Spirit, that it is not a God by itself, but that by it in the Word is meant the Divine operation proceeding from the one omnipresent God” (TCR 138). What proceeds out of God and what we receive of God is the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is what heaven is made of. In heaven, the heat and the light are God’s love and wisdom. When we think of the created universe, we often use thoughts that are based on science. We think of the chemical elements, or atoms, or sub-atomic particles, or in its most vague form, energy. But the substances of the spiritual world are actually love itself and wisdom itself. Those two qualities are the building blocks of everything in heaven. The love and wisdom that heaven is made of proceed from God, and actually are God. We are angels to the extent that we embody love and wisdom. And since that love and wisdom are from God and are God, we are angels to the extent that God is in us, as Jesus says in John, “Abide in me, and I in you” (15:4). Being in heaven means receiving God, and so heaven itself is God.
The Lord not only is in heaven, but also is heaven itself; for love and wisdom are what make an angel, and these two are the Lord’s in the angels; from which it follows that the Lord is heaven (DLW 114).
The love and wisdom that emanate from God and form heaven are also called God’s Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is what proceeds from God.
The heat and light that proceed from the Lord as a sun are what in an eminent sense are called the spiritual . . . From that spiritual it is that the whole of that world is called spiritual. . . . That heat and that light are called the spiritual, because God is called Spirit, and God as Spirit is the spiritual going forth. God, by virtue of His own very Essence, is called Jehovah; but by means of that going forth He vivifies and enlightens angels of heaven and persons of the church. Consequently, vivification and enlightenment are said to be effected by the Spirit of Jehovah (DLW 100).
In order to receive the love and wisdom of which heaven consists, a person needs to be reformed and regenerated. We need to be purified from character defects that block the reception of God. Swedenborg calls this purification from evil. And purification from evil is salvation. The power to do this comes from God. And God acting upon our personalities, purifying us from evil, is again the Holy Spirit.
By means of Divine truth from good, that is, by means of faith from charity, a person is reformed and regenerated; also renovated, vivified, sanctified, justified; and, according to the progress and increase of these, purified from evils, and purification from evils is remission of sins. . . . (TCR 142). The operation of these powers is the Holy Spirit that the Lord sends to those who believe in Him and who dispose themselves to receive Him (TCR 145).
God’s sanctifying love flows into us like the breath of life. In fact, the word “inspiration” comes from the Latin inspiro, which means to blow upon, or to breathe into. The Holy Spirit breathes spiritual life into us. And by the way, the word “spiritual” is also based on the same Latin root as inspiro, and means breath.
For us, the essential power of the Holy Spirit is sanctification, enlightenment, and reformation and regeneration. This is God acting in our souls to save us. It is through the work of reformation and regeneration that we are able to receive God’s breath of life, or the spiritual life of heavenly love and wisdom. So the act of salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit, which is nothing other than God flowing into us.
. . . the Lord operates those powers, which are meant by the sending of the Holy Spirit, in those who believe in Him, that is, He reforms, regenerates, renovates, vivifies, sanctifies, justifies, purifies from evils, and finally saves them . . . (TCR 149).
And God wills the salvation of everyone. God’s boundless love reaches out to the whole human race, and wants to bring everyone into a loving relationship with Himself.
It should be known that the Lord is continually operating those saving graces with every person, for they are steps to heaven, since the Lord wills the salvation of all, and therefore the salvation of all is His end (TCR 142).
Salvation for Swedenborg is not walking through a doorway into a glorious place. Rather, salvation is entering into a loving relationship with God. In order for there so be such a relationship, God gives us His own love as if it were our own. God’s love flows into us and remains in us to such an extent that it feels as if it were our own love. When we feel God’s love in us, as if it were our own love, we can return the love. Only when we feel love can we give it back. And so God gives us the feeling that we ourselves love. Then it is possible for love to be returned to God. And the circle of love that we all know can happen. We give and receive love. This happens in human life, and it also happens in relation to God.
Conjunction is of the Lord with the angel and of the angel with the Lord; conjunction, therefore, is reciprocal. . . . Nor can it be possible for the Lord to be in any angel or man, unless the one in whom the Lord is, with love and wisdom, has a perception and sense as if they were his. By this means the Lord is not only received, but also, when received, is retained, and likewise loved in return. . . . From all this it can be seen that there must be an ability to reciprocate that there be conjunction (DLW 115).
Being in this circle of love is what is meant by being filled with the Holy Spirit. We only feel this love when we have been purified from evils and we have been filled with love. This purification is called reformation, regeneration, sanctification, and justification and these are all the work of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is what proceeds from the Lord Jesus Christ and is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Divine Truth that purifies and sanctifies us, and Jesus is the Divine Truth itself, the Word made flesh.
There is only one loving God, from whom all that is good and true emanates. And to the extent that we receive that emanating good and truth we are in God. Since God is everything of which heaven is made, when we are in God, we are in heaven. Or when we are in heaven, we are in God. We are filled with the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.

The Greatest Miracle Ever
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
Easter Sunday
April 4, 2010

On Easter Sunday the greatest miracle in human history happened. Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus rose body and soul, as no human can. We leave our physical body behind when we transition to the next plane. But Jesus’ material body was so intimately joined with God that even His physical body came to life. The risen Christ was physical enough that He could eat a fish. He did so to show His apostles that He was not a ghost, which is what they thought at first. But Christ’s body was so spiritual that He could go through walls, which is what He did after eating a supper with the apostles.
But the greatest aspect of this miracle is that with the resurrection, God and Man became fully united. This means that the Creator of the universe, who existed before time, now has a human body. This means that God has all the levels of personality that we have. God has a soul, an internal person, a rational mind, a natural mind, a sensual degree, and a physical body.
Before His incarnation, God’s Humanity was the angelic heaven. He flowed down through the layers of heaven to the humans on the earthly plane. But by the time of His incarnation, the powers of darkness had clouded the connection between heaven and earth. God assumed a human form so that He could come to earth through His own Divine Humanity, and does so now. God’s Divine Humanity is a powerful channel through which God’s own life, love, and wisdom flow into our hearts, minds, and souls.
God came to earth to save the whole human race. His sole concern was that humans would let God into their hearts and know the joy of love. His sole concern was that humans would know the love that would give them eternal happiness in heaven with God. And His work on earth was tireless. He taught; He healed; He communed with humans; He comforted. And the risen Christ continues to do all these things for us in our hearts, minds, and souls.
Throughout His life on earth, God and Human were in a process. At times, Jesus’ consciousness was in the human he took on from Mary. During these times, He spoke to God as if to another person. This is illustrated most profoundly in His prayer at Gethsemane, where He prayed to the Father be released from His impending trial and crucifixion. And at other times He was fully united with the Father, as in the transfiguration on the mountain top when He shone like lightning. Or at other times, as when He was talking with His disciples. John records such a time, when Jesus says to Philip,
Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, “Show us the Father?” Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? (John 14:9-10)
Likewise, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). On the cross, Jesus fully yielded to the human condition and knew death. On Easter Sunday He became fully Divine and rose from the dead.
Swedenborgian theology is very different from that of traditional Christianity. In traditional Christianity, there is some sort of difference between Jesus and God. In traditional Christianity, Jesus’s death on the cross is seen as a sacrifice that reconciles God to humans. For traditional Christians, then, the crucifixion is the main act of salvation. For them, Christ bore all our sins on the cross, and belief in His sacrifice is what saves a person. This belief system is called “the atonement.” So in atonement theology, the emphasis is on the crucifixion.
But for Swedenborgians, Christ’s full union with God the Father is the main point. This occurred on Easter Sunday, when everything merely human that God inherited from Mary was put off. And after putting off the humanity inherited from Mary, Jesus put on a Divine Humanity. This process of putting off the human from Mary and putting on the Divine Humanity is called “glorification.” And in the resurrection, Jesus became fully glorified–that is, united fully with God who is His soul. Swedenborg teaches that the power to come to us through the Divine Human is what saves us. We are saved to the extent that we embody God’s love and wisdom. And that love and wisdom comes to us from God’s Divine Human. So for Swedenborgians, it is not the crucifixion that is the main point, it is the glorification. We do not emphasize the passion of the cross, but the resurrection on Easter Sunday. This is why Swedenborgian churches do not display a crucifix–that is, a cross with Jesus hanging on it. We display the bare cross itself as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection and of our own ascension up into heaven. The vertical and horizontal crosspieces symbolize the love and wisdom we accept from God.
What could be more comforting than a God who knows the human condition? A God who has gone through all the stages that we go through. A God who knew birth and family. A God who knew friendship and love. A God who knew sorrow and disappointment. A God who knew betrayal and abandonment.
And yet this is a God who triumphed over all that life can give us. Jesus tells us, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And earlier in John’s Gospel we are told, “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, he gave the power to become the children of God” (John1:12). In Christ’s Divine Humanity, we can bear any trouble we confront. And in Christ’s Divine Humanity, we can rejoice in all the good things that come to us.
Just as Jesus was born into the world 2,000 years ago, so today we need to ask the risen Christ into our world. We need to ask Christ to live in our hearts and minds. We need to invite the power of Christ’s love into our hearts, and we need to ask Christ’s wisdom to inspire our thinking. At Christmas we sing about the advent of Immanuel. In Hebrew, Immanuel means, “God with us.” And with the resurrection, God is with us in an intimate and powerful way. Swedenborg tells us that God appears in heaven as a sun in the sky. He tells us further that with the resurrection, the spiritual sun grew seven times brighter. Through His Divine Humanity, God’s power over darkness is ours to call upon in our own struggles. And through His Divine Humanity, God can fill us with His own love, joy, and innocence so that we can live with Him in heavenly happiness forever. It is all ours for the asking.
The miracle of the resurrection takes place in each of us in a figurative way. Just as Jesus fought against the hells, put off the humanity inherited from Mary, and put on the glorified Divine Humanity, so the Christ works a miracle in our souls. When we call upon Him, Christ’s power enters us with its’ cleansing love and drives out our negative tendencies and actual actions. As the Humanity of Jesus was elevated into union with the Father, so our souls are elevated into union with the Christ. It is only through God’s power, acting through His Divine Humanity, that we are borne upward into heaven. It is only through God’s power, acting through His Divine Humanity, that we do good works. So Christ says,
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5).
So as Jesus was resurrected on Easter Sunday, we have the promise of resurrection upon our passing from this world. Christ has cleared the way for us and makes a place for us. He came to earth to be with humans, and He rose from the dead to be with all humans through all time. So Jesus says,
In my Father’s house are many room; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3).

The Horrors of Mob Violence
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
Good Friday
April 2, 2010

Mark 15:1-47

The story of the crucifixion shows how horrible humans can be under certain conditions. What we are dealing with in the crucifixion is mob violence. People will do things in a mob situation that they wouldn’t dream of doing on their own. In the story of the crucifixion we are not dealing with premeditated, conscious evil. No, we are dealing with the whims of a mob mentality.
Just one week before the crucifixion, the same mob that celled for Jesus’ death had welcomed him with joy and singing. How could the tide have turned so drastically so soon? Jesus must have felt a horrible bewilderment. Had all his efforts to enlighten humanity fallen on deaf ears? One of His own apostles had betrayed him to the chief priests. Another had denied Him to a bystander to save his own skin. Swedenborg tells us that Jesus’ sole concern was the salvation of the human race, so that we could all enjoy the delights of heaven and live to eternity with God. It must have appeared to Jesus that His sole concern had failed. I have no doubt that when Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He was crying out for the wellbeing of the human race, not His own life.
When we consider the crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion, we need to be clear that it was not the Jews who are guilty. Mark does not say that it was the Jews who called for Jesus’ death, it was the crowd. As Jerusalem had many different nationalities living there, we can envision a mob of Greeks, Romans, Jews, and other peoples who had gathered there before Pilate. Mark does tell us that the chief priests stirred up the crowd, but it was the mob itself that Pilate dealt with. Pilate’s question to the mob is significant. He asks, “Why, what evil has he done?” Pilate himself found no grounds for condemning Jesus. Nor does the crowd give him an answer as to what offence Jesus had committed. Jesus had done nothing to offend the crowd. Jesus was innocent. He was an innocent victim to a bloodthirsty mob. It was senseless mob violence that cried out for His death. And it was to satisfy the mob that Pilate released Jesus to be crucified.
We see this kind of human behavior everywhere. People will band together and gossip against someone. When they get together, everyone has something to add against the victim, and their feelings of enmity grow in their little group. We see this in neighbors who unite across a fence. Or we see it in the workplace, where a supervisor or a co-worker becomes the enemy to the group. We see this in an institutional form, when political parties are formed. Then one party unites against its opposition. Often, the party itself becomes the important thing, and the issues they propound, or the welfare of the state become second place. We see this in even more drastic form in riots that erupt from time to time in large cities. I recall the Los Angeles riots of, I believe, 1992. I recall a truck driver who drove into the middle of the riots. He had done nothing to the mob. But he was dragged from his truck. I remember a teen aged boy smashing him in the head with a fire extinguisher and then doing a victory dance. Had the same two people met under different circumstances, there would have been no incentive to violence. They would probably have passed each other as strangers and not even have noticed each other. We see mob violence in street gangs. Where drive-by murders occur over rivalries for dominance, vengeance, or territory disputes. Whether it is co-workers gossiping about a supervisor, or a gangland slaying, the dynamics are the same: The safety in numbers that allow for atrocities that an individual would not commit on their own.
Jesus’ crucifixion was the worst event in human history. But I wouldn’t say that it shows humanity at its worst. The mob violence that cried for Jesus’ crucifixion was not premeditated evil from a person committed to evil. It was not committed by people who wanted to destroy God and God’s message. This makes it all the more senseless. This makes it all the more meaningless.
And yet in the crucifixion, we have Godliness in its highest form. There, on the cross, innocently sentenced to a horrible death, we have the message of Divine forgiveness. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus utters the famous words, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (23:34). In his final horrible moments, Jesus’ sole concern was for the human race for whom He had come to earth. This tells us God’s true nature. God does not judge. God does not condemn. God is not vengeful. As Jesus lived out the full human condition, even to death, He forgave even his murderers. And in so doing, Jesus shows us the was to be Godly in our own lives. If we call ourselves by His name, then we, too, are to embody Christ’s love and forgiveness. From petty slights, to outright malice, we need to remember Christ’s words and forgive. Indeed, there are times to defend ourselves. Indeed, there are times when we may try to amend hurtful behaviors. But as Christians, we are called to do this in the spirit of love and forgiveness. And if the crucifixion teaches us anything, isn’t it what the ancient Jewish lawgiver tells us, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong” (Exodus 23:2). We need the strength of character to act according to our own conscience. In this fractured world, it may seem as if we are standing alone at times. But the risen Christ is always with us. And in Christ, we will never stand alone.

Redefining the Messiah
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
Palm Sunday, March 28, 2010

Zechariah 9:9-17 Matthew 21:1-11 Psalm 118

Palm Sunday is all about joy. Yes, it is the prelude to Good Friday, the blackest day in human history. And it is also a step toward Easter Sunday, the happiest day in human history. But being placed before these two important days in the church calendar should not detract from the message that Palm Sunday gives us in and of itself. On Palm Sunday, the people of Jerusalem joyously welcomed Jesus into their city with singing and waving palm branches. It is a day of joy, as we reflect on Christ’s entry into our lives and the liberation, love, and joy He brings to us all.
In the Palm Sunday story, Jesus was seen as a triumphal king by the common people and by the Roman authorities. Seeing Jesus this way was a misunderstanding. This misunderstanding relates to the concept of the Messiah. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was constantly redefining for the Jews what the Messiah meant.
In this morning’s reading from Matthew, we heard a reference to the Zechariah prophesy we heard from the Old Testament. Zechariah describes the kind of things that the Messiah was supposed to do. First of all, Zechariah promised that a king from David’s line would rule in Zion. The term “Messiah” means “anointed,” and the anointing refers to the way a man is made king. A prophet anoints his head with oil to establish him as king. This is why Jesus was welcomed with such pomp and ceremony when He entered Jerusalem. The Jews there were welcoming a king. But there was more to the Messiah prophesy from Zechariah. When the Messiah came, there would be peace among all the foreign countries around Israel. This hope for peace also brought joy to the hearts of the Jews in Jerusalem. Furthermore, their Messiah would rule over all the known world. Zechariah says that the Messiah would rule from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. The king of the Jews would be at the center of world power, and Jerusalem would be the political capitol of the world.
One can understand why the Roman authorities would have a problem with Jesus, understood this way. Herod was a local king, who served under the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus. A Jewish king was a direct threat to the Roman Empire. In fact, a Jewish king was a criminal threat. Thinking ahead to Good Friday, we can understand the reasons why Jesus was brought to trial before Pilate. He was brought before Pilate as a rival to the Roman King. Pilate even asks Jesus if He is a king.
But there was more still, to the Messiah prophesy than just the Jewish King. When the Messiah came, God would appear to the world, flashing like lightning. The whole world would be reconciled to God and all the wrongs of the world would be set right. We can see again, why there was so much joy at the coming of the Messiah. All this is what the Jews thought would happen when Jesus came to Jerusalem. And this is why they threw the palm branches in front of His glorious entrance to Jerusalem.
Yet Jesus did none of these things. Jesus was none of these things. None of these things happened. Throughout His ministry, Jesus continually tried to reshape these ideas. When he told Peter that the Messiah would suffer and be handed over to the Roman authorities, be killed and rise on the third day, Peter protested against such talk. He said, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” (Matt 16:22) Jesus’ response sounds harsh, “Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (23). And in His trial, Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. He said his kingdom is within. God had appeared to the world, as Zechariah had prophesied, but He didn’t come flashing like lightning. No, He came as a human being, a carpenter’s son. He touched people; He healed people; He dined with people; he taught people. This God was all too human for many of the Jews to accept. And Jesus did usher in a new age, as Zechariah had prophesied. But the peace that Jesus brought to the world was within. Jesus fought with the hells throughout his life, and opened a new passageway for God’s saving love to touch everyone. Through His Divine Humanity, God’s Spirit became embodied in the flesh. Spirit became matter, and God became Human. We know that in time, the world was transformed as the gods of Rome were replaced with Christianity. But Jews at the time of Jesus did not know this, could not know this. Jesus’ kingdom is within. As he lived out the lessons of love, he showed western civilization a new way of life. He showed that forgiveness, joy, and love are what make life meaningful. And when we welcome forgiveness, joy, love in our own lives, we are welcoming Jesus into our world.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus sought to reshape people’s understanding of what the Messiah means. Likewise, throughout our lives, God is continually reshaping our own ideas of what and who God is. I think that a little reflection will show that our ideas about God have changed over the years. All our life’s experiences lead us to reshape our understanding of who God is, and how God acts. Over time, we come to shed old ideas about God, in favor of more true images of God. As a young adult, I thought God was harsh and strict. I was sometimes afraid to come to God in prayer because I thought he judged me so strictly. I have no doubt that I thought that way about God because my father was harsh and strict. Furthermore, my father was not religious, so it was hard for me to feel a male God possessed of spirituality. Finally, my father was mechanically inclined, while I was artistically and literarily inclined. So none of my values were reflected in the most powerful male image of my early life. Jesus has a male form, so powerful males can be projected onto Jesus’ personality. I know of some people who have abandoned the image of Jesus Christ altogether, as their God-image. Some prefer to see God in the feminine form. As a Christian, for me, I feel that God seen as the Divine Human Jesus Christ seems central to our faith. Jesus may have feminine qualities inwardly, but outwardly I visualize the Jesus of the New testament when I pray. When I went to the Swedenborg School of Religion, away from my family, and in the company of very different men of authority, my view of God changed. At the Swedenborg School of Religion, I met professors who were sensitive, gentle, spiritual, and who outwardly showed their care and solicitude for my welfare. I also encountered male role models who were caring, sensitive, spiritual, in my professors at Harvard. These men helped me to reshape my concept of God.
I think that one’s concept of God is an intersection of many factors. We understand God by our faith communities. There we come together for worship, and the worship experiences we have contribute to our feelings about God. Our conceptions of God are also formed by the discussions and sharing of faith perspectives from others we encounter in our faith communities. I know that my own feelings about God have changed and grown by interaction with others and comparing and sharing our understandings about God. Of course, our understanding of God is shaped by the theology and sacred texts that we study. But I think the most fundamental way we come to know God is by what happens to us in our faith journey. It wasn’t until I personally changed my own state of mind, that God truly became the loving, forgiving God I now commune with.
I think that the God we encounter has much to do with the God that dwells within us. All through our lives, God is regenerating us. God is bringing us into greater love, and into clearer wisdom. And when God does this, God is actually entering into our hearts and minds. It is the God within us that communes with God when we pray. We can hear many teachings about God. We can listen to many sermons. We can attend church and go on spiritual retreats. But from all these sources, we are only able to take away what resonates with us. We may hear much, but we will only listen to what we can relate to personally. Our concept of God will evolve in step with the way our soul evolves in its acceptance of God.
How different was Jesus’ message from the one that devout Jews thought He was bringing. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was not in external rituals, but in your heart. God’s kingdom is within, not outside the self. Jesus taught that love is at the heart of religion, and for those who love, limitless joy fills the heart. Every free bestowal of love on another is what religion means, and when we bestow love freely, we come to find a God who does the same.
Palm Sunday is a day for joy. It is a day of celebration for all the love that has entered our lives. It is a day to celebrate Jesus’ presence when we are touched by love and when we touch others with love. Wherever we are, at any time, when we are open to feel Jesus’ presence, let us respond with joy. Let us welcome the one true God of love into our lives with joy and with celebration. As Jesus continually reshaped the ideas of the Jews in the first century AD into a truer and truer understanding of His kingdom, so God will continually reshape our conceptions of who and what God is. As God enters our hearts, our understanding of God will grow into a truer and fuller understanding of His Holy nature. So let us continue to engage in a worshipping community. Let us continually share and discuss concepts of God with others. And, above all, let us ask God into our souls and lives. Then the Messiah will come to us in fullness, in power, and in truth.

And the House Was Filled with the Fragrance
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
March 21, 2010

Isaiah 43:16-21 John 12:1-8 Psalm 126

Today we heard about Mary anointing Jesus with expensive perfume. This happens at the home of Mary and Martha. Judas protests that anointing Jesus was a waste of money. He says that they could have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor. The Bible tells us that the value of the perfume was a whole year’s wages. This was a very costly display of love, indeed. Jesus replies, “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” These are the basic elements of the story.
This story is found in all the Gospels, but the characters are different in the different Gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is not at the home of Mary and Martha; He is at the home of a certain Simon the Leper. In Matthew, we are not told that it is Mary anointing Jesus, but an unknown woman. The Gospel of Mark agrees with Matthew. Jesus is at the home of Simon the Leper, and an unknown woman anoints Jesus with expensive perfume. Mark tells us that the perfume was nard, as it is in the Gospel of John. In the Gospels of John, Matthew, and Mark, we find the same saying of Jesus, “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” The Gospel of Luke is quite different from any of the other accounts. In Luke, Jesus is at the home of an unnamed Pharisee. And in this account, it is a sinful woman who anoints Jesus. The whole story is about forgiving the sins of this woman, and Jesus does not say anything about the poor.
It is interesting that in John’s Gospel, Jesus is at the home of Mary and Martha. John is the only Gospel that has Jesus there. There is some history between Jesus and this household. In the chapter just preceding this one, Jesus had raised their brother Lazarus from the dead. So we can understand why Mary was so grateful to Jesus, and why she might have wanted to show her love by anointing him with perfume. There is another account of Jesus’ relationship with Mary and Martha. This account comes from Luke. In this story, Jesus is invited to dine at their home. Martha is busy running around preparing the dinner while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to him teach. Martha complains that Mary is not helping, but Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better way by listening to Jesus. This may be a dim recollection of the time when Mary anoints Jesus, or it may be the other way around. Perhaps John recalls Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet and thus makes her the one who anoints Jesus in his story.
As our reading is from John this morning, I will focus on the story elements from that account. We have Mary showing her devotion to Jesus by anointing him with a kind of perfume called nard. This is the same Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet listening to Him teach in the Luke story. And in John’s account, We have Judas complaining that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. This agrees with the story in Matthew and Mark. And in all three accounts we have Jesus saying, “The poor you always have with you, you will not always have me.” John’s account is the only one who states that Judas is a thief and wants to purloin the money for himself. I will pass over this aspect of the story.
I think that this story tells us a great deal about the life of charity. In Mark and Matthew, the disciples are genuinely concerned about helping the poor. They are trying to get a handle on Jesus’ teachings about love for the neighbor. It must have confused them to hear Jesus telling them that pouring perfume on his feet was a beautiful gesture, and that they would always have the poor with them.
I take this to be a refinement of what the life of charity means. Swedenborg’s understanding of charity is very different than that of traditional Christians. Many traditional Christians think that the primary act of charity is just as the disciples saw it–giving money to the poor, and like causes. Swedenborg’s view is so different that modern translations don’t even use the term charity. Instead they use the term “goodwill.” So we find Swedenborg saying,
It is a common belief that goodwill consists solely of giving to the poor, helping the needy, caring for widows and orphans, and making contributions to build, enhance, and endow hospices, hospitals, hostels, orphanages, and especially church buildings. Many of these actions, however, are not integral to the exercise of good will; they are extraneous to it (TCR 425).
I think the disciple of Jesus, hearing him talk so often about just these things, must have thought that that was how to express their love for the neighbor.
But Jesus showed them another way. Devotion to Himself is inseparable from the life of goodwill. This is because all love for the neighbor comes from God. It isn’t as if Jesus needed to be honored. Rather, what He was pointing out is that turning to God is the first and primary activity of goodwill. This is what Mary was doing when she showed her love for Jesus by anointing Him with expensive perfume. Here, I think we can consider the cost of the perfume. The perfume cost a whole year’s wages. It is as if Mary is showing total devotion to Jesus. This teaches us that turning to God first is the way to find love to the neighbor. And turning to God means a total devotion to God. Our heavenly loves come to us from God. We need to turn to God as the source for all the holy loves that we experience. Swedenborg explains how love for God is the source of our love for the neighbor.
I will briefly explain how loving God and loving our neighbor are connected. With all of us, God flows into our concepts of him and brings us true acknowledgement of him. He also flows into us and brings us his love for people. . . . If we accept both types of inflow . . . we receive the inflow with our will and then our intellect–that is, with our whole mind. We then develop an inner acknowledgement of God that brings our concepts of God to life. Our state is then like a garden in the spring.
Goodwill makes the connection, because God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love, just as he inspires parents with love for their children. If we receive this love, we become connected to God and we love our neighbor our of love for God. Then we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor. Our love for God make us willing and able to love our neighbor (TCR 457).
So it is only by turning to God and opening our whole consciousness to God that we can truly love our neighbor. The work of regeneration is a process of bringing God more and more into all areas of our life. God is with everyone in the highest regions of our soul. But we need to bring that love and life down into our very behavior. We have several layers to our personality. We have a higher and a lower aspect to our soul. In our higher aspect, or what Swedenborg calls the internal person, we have all our higher aspirations about being good and showing others love and kindness. But having good feelings and good thoughts are not enough. We need to ask God into our lives so that we show and practice the love we aspire to. Bringing God down from the highest regions of our soul right down into the practices of our lives is the first, and primary work of charity, or goodwill.
God’s life is present in all its fullness not only in people who are good and religious but also in people who are evil and ungodly. . . . The difference is that evil people block the road and shut the door to prevent God from coming down into the lower areas of their mind. Good people, on the other hand, smooth the road and open the door. They invite God to enter the lower areas of their mind since he is already in the highest areas of it. They change the state of their will so that love and goodwill may flow in–they open themselves to God (TCR 366).
This, I think, is why Jesus praises Mary for anointing Him with costly perfume. It is to show that devotion and love for God is the first and primary aspect of charity, or goodwill. Then, and only then, are we truly able to love our neighbor. And the love we show is not just giving money to the poor, or endowing hospitals, or caring for orphans and widows. Rather, according to Swedenborg, “Goodwill is all the forms of good that we do for our neighbor combined” (TCR 392). Or again, “Fundamentally speaking, goodwill is wanting what is best for others” (TCR 408). “Goodwill is wishing our neighbors well and therefore treating them well” (TCR 444).
With love for God at the center of our life, then all our loves fall into a blessed heavenly order. Then all our actions are like the fragrance that filled the house. Everything we touch will turn to gold. God will be in us, and we will be in God. That is why Jesus praised Mary for sitting at His feet listening to Him teach. And that is why Jesus praised Mary for anointing Him with expensive perfume. Then, as Swedenborg puts it, “we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor (TCR 457).

Doing Good Well
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
March 14, 2010

Joshua 5:9-12 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Psalm 32

“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). This sentence from Luke concludes the short story about the one lost sheep which the shepherd finds. And it also applies to the famous story about the prodigal son. When the prodigal son returns home, after spending his inheritance on wild living, his father holds a great celebration in his honor. His father says, “It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (15:32). While these passages from Luke talk about repentance, I want to go in another direction in my discussion. What about the good son? He faithfully obeys his father, and doesn’t get into trouble? I have to admit, that I feel for that son. He resents the celebration for his lost brother, and won’t even go in to the party. His father has to come out to talk with him. The good son says,
Lo these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf! (15:29-30).
So here the good son is doing the right thing. He is living a good life. He is serving his father faithfully. Yet he gets no celebration or reward. But his brother who has lived riotously gets the fatted calf and a big party. I think I would be like the good son, and also resent the big celebration for the prodigal son.
What are we to take from this story? That it is better to live wildly and then repent instead of living a good life? Certainly not. I think that there are two messages working in this story. The first message is one of repentance. The message we learn from the prodigal son is one of self-examination and humility. The Bible says that the prodigal son, “came to himself” when he realized his woeful state. He humbles himself before his father and says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (15:18). These words are a recognition that we are nothing when left to our own devices. We have all fallen short of God’s laws at one point or another in our lives, and need to continually ask God’s forgiveness, and to ask Him into our hearts. The good things that God gives us are gifts of grace, not deserved by our own work.
This idea brings up where the good son falls short. He is a good and faithful son. But it appears that he expects a reward for his good deeds. In our Old Testament reading, we heard about eating food from the land of Canaan. Eating food from the promised land means accepting God’s love into our hearts and bringing that love into good actions in our behavior. It is imperative to our eternal life to be bringing God’s love into our lives by living well–by living a good life. Swedenborg writes,
The means of salvation are manifold, although they each and all have relation to living well and believing rightly, thus to charity and faith, for living well is charity, and believing rightly is faith. . . . by means of them a person can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given him by God; and so far as a person uses that power and at the same time looks to God, so far God makes it effective . . . (TCR 340).
Living a good life, and turning from sin are things we do apparently by our own effort. But here I must emphasize that very important word, apparently. Swedenborg’s wording is critical about this. He says that, “a person can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given him by God.” Notice here that the power to procure eternal life is given us by God. When we do the good works of repentance and when we implement love in our good actions, the power to do this is from God. Swedenborg generally doesn’t like the word grace, but that is what he is talking about here. The power to live well is given us through God’s grace. I think that the lesson we learn from the good son in this story is not to expect a reward for the good that we do. The good son is angry because he never got a lamb to celebrate with his friends, while his prodigal brother got not just a lamb, but a fatted calf. The problem with the good son is that he is looking for a reward for his good life. Expecting a reward for the good we do, or taking credit for the good we do can be very harmful to our spiritual life. Swedenborg calls this placing merit in good works, as if we merit salvation from them.
In the exercises of charity a person does not place merit in works so long as he believes that all good is from the Lord. To ascribe merit to works that are done for the sake of salvation is harmful because evils lie concealed in so doing of which the person is wholly ignorant. There also lies hid in it a denial of God’s influx and operation in a person; also a confidence in one’s own power in matters of salvation; faith in oneself and not in God; self-justification; salvation by one’s own abilities; a reducing of Divine grace and mercy to nought; a rejection of reformation and regeneration by Divine means; especially a limitation of the merit and righteousness of the Lord God the Saviour, which such claim for themselves; together with a continual looking for reward, which they regard as the first and last end; a submersion and extinction of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor; a total ignorance and lack of perception of the delight of heavenly love as being without merit, and a sense of self-love (TCR 439).
When we do good, our reward is the joy of doing good in and of itself. We don’t look to our reward for being so upright. We don’t pray in the public places like the Pharisees. We don’t pat ourselves on the back for how righteous we are. When we do good, and it is essential that we do good, we need that same humility that the prodigal son had. We need to realize that we are not worthy. We need instead to recognize that it is God working salvation in us. Furthermore, when we do good from a heavenly love, we do not want to take credit. We find joy in the act of doing itself. Taking credit, or wanting praise for the good we do tarnishes the free expression of our love.
To think about getting into heaven, and that good ought to be done for that reason, is not to regard reward as an end and to ascribe merit to works; for thus do those also think who love the neighbor as themselves and God above all things . . . Such do not trust to reward on the ground of merit, but have faith in the promise from grace. With such the delight of doing good to the neighbor is their reward. This is the delight of the angels in heaven, and it is a spiritual delight which is eternal, and immeasurably exceeds all natural delight. Those who are in this delight are unwilling to hear of merit, for they love to do, and in doing they perceive blessedness (TCR 440).
The father of the good son does reassure him that he has inherited all the father’s estate. He also assures him that he has the joy of being with him always. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31). This is how we may hear God’s voice to us, when we come into a good life. What more can we want than always to be with God? Further, what more can we want than to receive all that God can give us. That is the good food in the land of Canaan. We receive God’s life and love when we realize its source. And when we recognize that all the love we receive and all the good we do is given to us, not done by our own power, then we are truly in a heavenly path. How blessed it is to ponder the father’s words, and realize that they are meant to be God’s words to us. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”