Church of the Holy City

Progress, not Perfection

Progress, Not Perfection
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
July 13, 2014

Isaiah 1:11-18 Matthew 13:24-30 Psalm 32

This talk is about regeneration, or the slow process of spiritual perfection. It is not about sin, although it may appear so from the readings I selected. In all the readings, there is a consciousness of sin, but also the process of spiritual growth.
In Isaiah, God says that although our sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. So here there is an acknowledgement of sin, but also the promise that they will be removed. And in Psalm 32, the Psalmist confesses his or her sins before God and they are forgiven. Then in Matthew 13 we have a most interesting parable about the growth of spirituality. Weeds are sown in a wheat field and both weeds and wheat grow up together. Only at the harvest are they separated. The wheat is put in the barn while the weeds are burned. In this story, our sins are the weeds and the good deeds of spirituality are the wheat.
While Isaiah and Psalms promise that our sins will be washed away or forgiven, only the Matthew passage shows that this is a process. Our spiritual life grows alongside our sins. We are not washed clean instantly. And our sins are only forgiven to the extent that they are removed.
We grow spiritually by a combination of personal effort and circumstances. But we are guided along the way by Divine Providence. Divine Providence works in the least of our thought processes, and by everything that happens to us.
Our personal effort consists in learning truths about spirituality and then by putting these truths into practice. The circumstances that contribute to our growth are largely trials and distress that shake up our self-will and turn us around to love others as much as ourselves.
The process of spiritual growth is one of replacing one set of delights with another set of delights. In our early life, we delight chiefly in what benefits self. To this degree, we think little of others, and even rage against them if they get in our way. Swedenborg describes this process. In a person’s early spiritual life,
that which he calls good and believes to be good, is evil; and that which he calls truth and believes to be truth, is falsity. For example: loving himself above others; desiring better for himself than for others coveting what belongs to another; taking thought for himself alone, and not for others except for the sake of himself. As of himself man is desirous of these things he therefore calls them goods, and also truths; and what is more, if anyone injures or endeavors to injure him in respect to these goods and truths as he calls them, he hates him, and also burns with revenge toward him, desires and even seeks his ruin, and feels delight in it, and this in proportion as he actually confirms himself in such things, that is, in proportion as he more frequently brings them into actual exercise (AC 3701).
I can think of a quote from Beethoven that may illustrate this stage of development. He once told a prince,
Prince, what you are, you are by accident of birth. What I am, I am by my own efforts. There have been thousands of princes and there will be thousands more. There is only one Beethoven!
This may look a bit like an inflated ego. More likely, it was Beethoven trying to maintain self-respect in a social strata that looked down upon commoners, of which Beethoven was one. But this one quote doesn’t say all there was to Beethoven’s personality. Wheat grows up alongside weeds, and on earth, we will be a mixed bag of amazing generousity and love and horrifying tendencies toward evil. While Beethoven made the statement about his greatness due to his own efforts, he also made a comment showing great humility,
The true artist can have no pride. While he may be loved and admired by others, he himself sees that art has no limitations and he awaits the moment when the greater genius shines forth in him like a distant star.
The kind of self-interest that is destructive of our soul and of others who get in our way yields to a more other-interested personality. At first, by means of temptations and upheavals in our complacencies. Swedenborg speaks of a early stage in our spiritual development in which a person, “discoursed piously, and brought forth goods, but he did so in consequence of the temptation and straitness under which he labored, and not from faith and charity” (AC 10). However, in time, we grow into a more heavenly person, filled with heavenly loves and delights,
when he is still further perfected, he takes care to do good to those who are in good, and this in accordance with the quality of the good in them, and at last he feels delight in doing good to them, because he feels delight in good, and pleasantness in the things that confirm it. These confirmatory things he acknowledges as truths and they also are the truths of his new understanding, which flow from the goods which are of his new will. [7] In the degree that he feels delight in this good, and pleasantness in these truths, he has a feeling of what is undelightful in the evils of his former life, and of what is unpleasing in its falsities and the result is that a separation takes place of the things which are of the former will and the former understanding from the things that are of the new will and the new understanding; and this not in accordance with the affection of knowing such things, but in accordance with the affection of doing them (AC 3701).
These stages of development are put in one succinct passage in the Arcana Coelestia,
All affections have their delights; but such as are the affections, such are the delights. The affections of evil and falsity also have their delights; and before a man begins to be regenerated, and to receive from the Lord the affections of truth and good, these delights appear to be the only ones; so much so that men believe that no other delights exist; and consequently that if they were deprived of these, they would utterly perish. But they who receive from the Lord the delights of the affections of truth and good, gradually see and perceive the nature of the delights of their former life, which they had believed to be the only delights, that they are relatively vile, and indeed filthy. And the further a man advances into the delight of the affections of truth and good, the more does he begin to regard the delights of evil and falsity as vile; and at last to hold them in aversion (AC 3938).
I need to emphasize that this is a process, not an instantaneous absolution. We will cling tenaciously to our instinct for self-preservation and self-gratification. Recall that in our early spiritual life, the good things that we do are brought about by temptation and struggle which we labor under. It is only as we grow to higher stages that our life pours forth good and loving feelings and actions, spontaneously.
These words suggest that our spiritual journey is not one of being “happy, happy, happy,” as the song goes. It is more like the old gospel song that says, “Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away/To a land where joy shall never end, I’ll fly away.”
Along the way, we will have times of ecstasy, joy, and intense love; and also, perhaps, shocking glimpses of unholy passion wafting through our minds. The wheat grows up alongside the weeds. We retain somewhat of the old loves with which we started our spiritual journey or else we would have no life at all. These old loves were all we knew and they sustain us as we progress into more peaceful heavenly delights.
I think the good news about all this is that the journey is one of delight to delight. Our path is one of lower delights to higher delights. It is delight all the way. This delight will be broken in intervals of trial and distress, but we will be following our heart’s promptings all the way. From delight to delight we climb the stairway to heaven.

PRAYER

Lord, this morning and every morning, we pray that you guide our steps as we seek your kingdom. Enlighten our minds, so that we may know what it means to be good. Clarify our understanding of the way things are. Give us to see and acknowledge that you are at the centre of creation. Give us the strength to follow the truths you have taught us. Give us the courage to leave behind old behavior patterns that interfere with the influx of your love. Fill us with humility before you, and care for our fellows. And bring us into everlasting joy in your holy kingdom of love.

Lord we pray for the vitality of this “online church.” Give us to feel your presence. May we find this church community a resource for our continued spiritual development.

And Lord, we pray for the sick. May they experience the power of your healing love. We pray for the grace of your healing power for all who are ailing in body or soul.