Readings: Isaiah 27: 2-5;
Proverbs 8:13-21;
"Hearts on Fire" by Joyce Rupp;
Acts 2:1-5
Poet William
Blake wrote:
"And we are
put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of
love"
To Bear the
Beams of Love---
It sounds very
intense.
The image that
flashes before me is a solar flare shooting from the surface of the sun and
sweeping across the face of the earth.
The earth could
not bear the impact.
It would be
destruction.
Love is that
strong?
Love in our
daily lives, for our entire lifetime, could be that intense?
For the poet
says, we are on earth to learn to bear the beams of love.
If so, how are
we doing with this?
What do we know
of love at this point in our lives?
Do we live our
daily lives learning to hold passionate love within ourselves.
Our Prologue
readings this evening draw us into the reality of love that is intense and
passion-filled.
The Holy One
takes hold of the consciousness of the prophet Isaiah.
The Holy One
shakes, wakes, disturbs Isaiah;
"If thorns
and briers rise in My Vineyard, I will set it on fire!"
Isaiah's extreme
speech reflects his experience of being seized by Divine presence.
Elizabeth Dreyer
writes that passion is "an intense form of affectivity,
especially of
love and desire between God and the human person.
Through the
whole self of the prophet Isaiah, through mind, heart and body, God's love for
the people flares and burns.
The
reverberating message---No one is to do harm!
The people are
the apple of God's Eye,
The people are
God's "Vineyard of Delight,
watered every
moment by the Holy One, watched day and night.
This vigilance
of Divine tenderness will shift instantly to fierce aggression if anyone in
that Vineyard does harm.
Can we be in
love with this God?
Can we bear this
kind of intensity?
In the Proverbs
reading Holy Sophia raises Her voice.
The Hebrew verb
at the beginning of the chapter is קרא
which is
translated into English as either "call" or "cry."
Sophia does
both.
Her call gains
intensity in places and she erupts into full-blown cries.
It is with
intense authority that She calls out Her hatred of evil and perverted speech.
It is with rays
of passion that She cries out,
"I love
those who Love Me and those Who seek me diligently find Me."
To love Her, to
be lured by Her,
is to speak the
truth and to hate evil.
Can we withstand
Her love?
Can we hold it
in our whole being?
In Joyce Rupp's
poem, "Hearts on Fire,"
she writes,
"I didn't know the fire of God could
be more than a
gentle glow or a cozy consolation.
I didn't know it
could come as a blaze."
With the Holy
One Who resounds in the guts and in the consciousness of a human prophet~~~
With Holy Sophia
Who vanquishes evil and insists that we be drawn into Her realm of Love~~~
With the Risen
Christ Sophia Whose flaming presence unites diverse peoples into an astonishing
oneness~~~
This business of
mixing human and divine passion gives us no choice but to grow strong and
stronger.
We can feel
faint of spirit, we can weep, we can flee momentarily,
but we have no
choice but to learn to bear the beams of love.
It is our very
context. It is where we exist.
We ourselves are
the Vineyard of Delight under Holy vigilance with a very high calling.
What do we do
with the fruit of our Vineyard?
What do we do
with the evil and perverted speech that threaten our Vineyard?
We need each
other to learn to bear the beams of love and to act accordingly.
We need each
other to have the strength to sustain in our own beings that divine passion
shaking our guts and consciousness.
In our oneness
we can do it.
In the light of
human/divine fire, we can dialogue,
we can come into
greater knowledge and truth,
and we can
ascend to the heights of justice-seeking.
The Roman Catholic
male hierarchy is a threat to our Vineyard of Delight.
Watch the
Frontline Documentary "Secrets of the Vatican' and you will see a mere
glimpse of the pathology.
A Ugandan Roman
Catholic bishop, in his Easter message several weeks ago, told parents to turn
over their gay children to authorities, that their reward will be in heaven.
In Uganda, it is
criminal to be gay. In Uganda, a Roman Catholic bishop is participating in a
message of genocide.
Many Catholic
laypeople and many Roman Catholic women priests and deacons have signed a
petition addressed to Pope Francis to denounce what the Ugandan bishop has
done.
Roman Catholic
woman bishop Bridget Mary Meehan posted this on her blog to get the word out
far and wide.
Joseph Kurtz,
the local archbishop and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops,
has not made a public denouncement. I cannot fathom what church status, money
or politics would be more important than condemning words of genocide that come
from the mouth of another Catholic leader.
What is wrong
with that man?
He is no Bridget
Mary, for sure.
To this day, on
Pentecost weekend, not a public word or action of denouncement has come from
the pope.
This is
perverted and this evil.
These thorns and
briers are wreaking terror.
This is on the
wrong side of the Holy One.
Let us not say
with naïveté that we did not know the fire of God could come as a
blaze.
Let us rather
take a stand in our oneness.
Let us make
known far and wide that human/divine passion is a power to be reckoned with.
The vulnerable
ones of our Vineyard depend on our beams of love.
Together, let us
be taken into Holy Sophia's realm of love where we echo from the depths of our
communal soul the Divine words of the prophet Isaiah,
"If thorns
and briers rise in my Vineyard of Delight, I will set it on fire!"
The ordained
women of this Christ Sophia women priest community of Louisville will be robing
up and walking in an ecumenical clergy procession for an Interfaith Pride
Service called "Making the Welcome Real" here in the sanctuary of
First Unitarian Church on Thursday, June 19.
The Vineyard of
Delight bears fruit.
Come be a part
and let us blaze on with a prophetic fire!
1 comment:
AMEN!
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