Church of the Holy City

Planting Holiness

Planting Holiness
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
June 17, 2012

Ezekiel 17:22-24 Mark 4:26-34 Psalm 92

This Sunday’s talk follows the two previous talks. Two Sundays ago, I asserted that we are not wholly bad or good. I said that we should not be surprised to find that we have both in us. Then last Sunday I talked about what to do with the evil we see in ourselves. That brought up the issue of repentance. We should not be afraid to see evil in ourselves, and then to turn from it and begin a new life. It behooves us nothing to see that we may have maladaptive behavior traits from our upbringing, and to do nothing about them. We don’t need to blame ourselves, or our upbringing. We need to play the hand we were dealt, and turn from sin.
This Sunday I have a more pleasant topic. This Sunday we will look at the rebuilding that follows upon repentance. For hand in hand with repentance comes reformation. As we turn from sin, good is implanted in its place. Our lives become more loving, accepting, and heavenly. And we also feel better. Because when the vexations of our soul are removed, peaceful and happy feelings begin to fill our mind and spirit.
Our Bible readings for this morning treat this theme. Isaiah talks about bringing low the high and haughty tree and planting a new tree on a high mountain. Jesus talks about seeds growing into grain, and the mustard seed growing into such a large plant that birds can roost in its branches. These are all images of our new life, as we are reformed by God.
This may sound strange, but we need to be taught what spiritual life is. In fact, we need to be taught everything. Unlike most animals, we are born with essentially no instincts. There is nothing inborn in us about how to live. We first learn how to live through our families. From our upbringing, we are fit–well or ill–to live in the world. This may be called first birth.
The same process happens for our spiritual life. We need to learn about God’s world. Some of us have learned about God’s world as we grow up. But even so, this infantile knowledge of God’s world needs to be enhanced by adult knowledge about the dynamics of heavenly life. So the process of reformation is in many ways a mental process. It is one of learning about spiritual life. Swedenborg tells us,
that a person may be regenerated, it is necessary for this to be done by means of the understanding . . . and it is done through the information which the understanding receives, given first by parents and teachers, afterward from reading the Word, from preaching, books, and conversation. The things which the understanding receives from these sources are called truths; it is the same, therefore, whether reformation is said to be effected by means of the understanding, or by means of the truths which the understanding receives. For truths teach a person in whom and in what he should believe, also what he should do, thus what he should will (TCR 587).
“Truths teach a person in whom and in what he should believe, also what he should do.”
As we learn what to believe in and what we should do to inherit eternal life, we measure our lives against what we are learning. This is the searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves that I mentioned from the 12-step programs. It is also repentance and the beginning of reformation. We are learning what good is, and we are learning what evil is. We will probably see also what the psychologists tell us about the conflicted nature of humanity. Freud talked about three aspects to our personality that are constantly in conflict. There is the Id which seeks pleasures and desires insatiably. Then there is the Super-Ego, which is all the cultural mores that we learn and the principles of propriety. These two are in conflict. Then there is the Ego, which seeks to rationally arrange a truce between these two personality aspects. Freud was influenced by Plato, who had a similar three-part system of the personality. For Plato, the lowest part of our personality was like Freud’s Id. He called it the epithumia, the lowest part of us. In the epithumia are all our desires for sensual pleasures. The next up is the thumos, which is made up of noble emotions like honor and courage. The highest aspect of our soul is the nous, which is all reason and rationality. Freud was also influenced by mystical Judaism which teaches that there are up to 12 aspects to the soul. Swedenborg also describes a three-part model of the soul. The lowest is the natural, which centers on worldly life. Then there is the spiritual, which centers on truth and love for the neighbor. Then the highest is the heavenly, or celestial, which centers on love of God. However we describe the soul, we will see that we humans are in conflict as to what we desire. Our lower nature will want things that our higher nature doesn’t want.
Swedenborg describes this conflicted nature of humanity in terms of inner and outer. As I said above, our minds learn spiritual truths. And we measure our lives against the truths we have learned. Here is where our conflicted nature shows itself. Our outer person wants the things of this world. These are primarily the things that favor our self-interest. But our inner person wants the things of heaven which are for others and for God. So we find Swedenborg saying,
A combat then arises because the internal person has been reformed by means of truths, and from these it sees what is evil and false, and these still are in the external or natural man . . . For it is well that the flesh is opposed to the spirit, and the spirit to the flesh . . . (TCR 596).
But conflict isn’t the final result of all this. As we progress spiritually, we drive out the blockages to the spirit, and let in heavenly light and heat. Good replaces evil or character defects or maladaptive behaviors. We become more and more filled with God’s love and peace, and our lives become happier. Swedenborg describes this in terms of the internal conquering the external
when the internal man conquers, the external is subjugated; and . . . when this is subjugated, lusts are dispersed, and affections of good and truth are implanted in place of them; and these are so arranged that a person may do the goods and truths which he wills and thinks, and may speak them from the heart (TCR 597).
I can think of one area in my life where such a transformation happened to me just how Swedenborg describes it. For some reason, and it doesn’t matter how or why, in my early adult life I was very rebellious. I was going to set the world straight. I would resist customs that I felt were misguided; I would protest against things that weren’t according to my way of thinking; I would correct society when it went wrong; and I would correct you when you were wrong. I wanted to arrange the world according to my understanding of the way things should go. It didn’t occur to me that the world was doing just fine without my help. Well, you can imagine what that did to me. I wasn’t big enough to make the world go my way. And as I corrected people when they were wrong, they tended to shy away from me. The result was that I became frustrated and angry at the world, and lonely.
I learned a truth that transformed my life. I was told the simple sounding truth that I needed to withdraw from the debating society, and to accept the world on the world’s terms. I couldn’t make the world fit into my expectations of it. I learned that God accepts the world as it is, so could I. God is God, not me. God is running the show, not me. What a relief to be unburdened from the task of running everything. That broad and general truth liberated me from my constant fighting. When I came to accept things as they are, the world became a much friendlier place for me to live in. I could listen to other people and accept them and their views even if they differed from my own. If a car whizzed past me on the road, I didn’t need to correct him or her–I could accept that they were going to drive that way, were likely pent-up and had their own demons to wrestle with. I came to see myself as a fellow-citizen in the world, not it’s would-be dictator. I grew comfortable in the world, and in my own skin. I m no longer angry, pent-up, and frustrated. I learned to live and let live. This perspective is summed up very well in a poem by Robert Frost called The Draft Horse:

With a lantern that wouldn’t burn
In too frail a buggy we drove
Behind too heavy a horse
Through a pitch-dark limitless grove.

And a man came out of the trees
And took our horse by the head
And reaching back to his ribs
Deliberately stabbed him dead.

The ponderous beast went down
With a crack of a broken shaft.
And the night drew through the trees
In one long invidious draft.

The most unquestioning pair
That ever accepted fate
And the least disposed to ascribe
Any more than we had to to hate,

We assumed that the man himself
Or someone he had to obey
Wanted us to get down
And walk the rest of the way.

I do still try to make the world a better place. I do not say that all the evils in it are acceptable. But there are appropriate ways to effect change. And one needs to learn to pick one’s battles. I participate in movements and events to effect change in society like the seminar to end racial discrimination, which I MC’s through the Interfaith Centre. And in Florida I lectured in many venues to raise consciousness to the stigma and neglect of persons with mental illnesses. But if my efforts do not succeed in effecting the change I want, I no longer become angry or frustrated. The results are in God’s hands. As we heard in Mark, this morning, “Whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain.” My approach to life now is like another line I love from a Frost poem about mowing a hay field, “My long scythe whispered to the ground/And left the hay to make.”
By the power of His Divine love, God is planting a seed that grows into a tree in the soil of our souls. As we root out the weeds that choke out God’s light, fruit trees spring up. New loves replace distorted pleasures. Our own well-being, the welfare of others, and humility before God come to reign in our souls. “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning.”

PRAYER

Lord, we thank you for the special gift of our fathers. We thank you for the love and care that only fathers can bring to a family. We thank you for the guidance and nurturing from our fathers. Often we take our fathers for granted, and we don’t show them the appreciation they deserve. Today we pause and reflect on all that our fathers have contributed to our lives. We thank you God for our fathers, and we thank our fathers for supporting us in our life’s journey.

Lord, we ask for your peace to descend upon this troubled world. Where there is conflict and war, let there be understanding and peace. Inspire our leaders, and the leaders of other nations to govern their people with compassion and with your Holy Love. Where there is famine and thirst, may good hearted aid come and satisfy the needs of those who want. Where there are natural disasters, may help come from good neighbors and from compassionate governments. Where there is hardship and unemployment, lend your patience and hope.

Lord, send your healing love to all those suffering in body and soul. We ask you to give the gift of health to all in need. And Lord we ask you to send the power of your healing Spirit to all your children. Bring them into the strength and wellness they were created to enjoy. Send your healing power to all those in need.