Preached by the Reverend Doctor Kathleen A. Bishop at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, July 16, 2006
The grace of our Master Teacher — the love of God in the unity of Spirit — be with you all.
Fountain of Truth: You’ve never held back a blessing or kept a secret from us. You have revealed yourself in us, and called to us through prophets and seers, wise women and men of old. You spoke eloquently in the life and words of your Beloved Jesus. Your Spirit continues to speak in us and to us and through us and as us.
Open our eyes, that we may see life as you see it. Lord, have mercy.
Open our ears, that we may hear Truth as you speak it. Christ, have mercy.
Open our minds, that we may think your thoughts and speak your words. Lord, have mercy.
The only limitations we face are the limitations we conceive. Open us to the possibilities we face, the opportunities you place before us. We’ve come too far to turn back now. We’ll do it all in the power that is in the name of Jesus. And so it is! Amen!
The Light of the Ages
Isaiah 35:3-6
3They may be barely clinging to hope, scarcely able to stand. 4Give the fearful this good news: “Be strong, fear not! Your God will come to make the wrong right; the Eternal will come to your rescue.” 5Then those who have no sight will see, and those who cannot hear will hear. 6Those who cannot walk will leap like a dear, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness: streams in the desert.
The Light of a Teacher of Truth
Healers on Healing
Real healing never stops. It cannot, for it is our birthright, our essential nature. It is the continuing expansion of the “big bang” of birth, constantly creating universes to be explored and merged into. To discover this inner grace in each moment is to become healed. It is to discover the human divine within, the very source of healing, the essence of the deathless, the ever-healed.
The Light of the Master Teacher
Mark 7:31-37
31Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre, walking through Sidon and on down to the Sea of Galilee. When he arrived in the region of the Ten Greek Towns 32some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak to him. They begged him to lay a healing hand on him.
33Jesus quietly took the man off by himself. He put his fingers in the man’s ears and put some spit on the man’s tongue. 34Then, with a groan that welled up deep from within him, he commanded, “Ephphatha! Be open!” 35And that’s exactly what happened! The man could hear, and he began to speak clearly.
36Jesus told the crowd to keep this incident quiet, but they just couldn’t do it. The more he did, the more they talked! 37They were just too excited and amazed. “Why, there’s just nothing he can’t do,” they said. “He even heals those who can’t hear or speak!”
The Fable of the Sparrow and the Snowflake.
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a sparrow asked a wild dove.
“Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.
“In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story,” the sparrow said. “I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow — not heavily, not in a raging blizzard — no, just like in a dream, without a sound, and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd snowflake dropped onto the branch — nothing more than nothing, as you say — the branch broke off.”
Having said that, the sparrow flew away.
The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter of peace, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself, “Perhaps only one person’s voice is lacking for peace to come to the world.”
When Christ was born, the angel declared to the frightened shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.”
But the world has seen very few years of peace since Christ our Prince of Peace came. Might you be that “nothing more then nothing” snowflake?
Remember the story about Jesus and the disciples on the boat during the storm and when they hollered out in fear Jesus said to the wind and the waves “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
Jesus does not promise to calm every storm in your life. Jesus does promise to calm you in every storm of life.
John Wesley could hardly have been called a faint-hearted stay-at-home. But there were times when even he lost his nerve. During one of Wesley’s several Atlantic crossings, a frighteningly fierce storm broke out, pitching and tossing the ship about like a bathtub toy. While Wesley and others clung to their bunks and hid their heads, a community of Moravians, traveling to their new homeland, calmly gathered to hold their daily worship service and sing praises to God. Watching these Moravians, so apparently unperturbed by the howling winds and crashing waves, Wesley realized he was witnessing a truly waterproof faith. From that moment on, John Wesley prayed that God would give him the ability to likewise ride out life’s storms with as much confidence.
The storm doesn’t blow around their boat just because Jesus is on board. It hits them full force. Nowhere does Jesus promise his followers anything different. A peaceful voyage is not the ticket Christians travel on. But a peace-filled journey, with Jesus Christ our Way Shower being always present, is. Jesus Christ’s promise is not to sail us around every storm but is to bring us through all storms — still in one peace.
If you do not believe in the peace of the Christ, you will always be looking for a physical place where peace should exist.
A retired couple was alarmed by the threat of nuclear war so they undertook a serious study of all the inhabited places on the globe. Their goal was to determine where in the world would be the place to be least likely affected by a nuclear war. A place of ultimate security. They studied and traveled, traveled and studied. Finally they found the place. And on Christmas they sent their pastor a card from their new home — in the Falkland Islands. However, their “paradise” was soon turned into a war zone by Great Britain and Argentina.
The place where peace exists is not a destination on a map or in a travel brochure, or on a ship at sea. It is a place in consciousness where no one or nothing can move you to war: war with yourself or war with others. A place in Divine Mind where the peace exists that passes all understanding.
Published on Monday, October 25, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
“No Longer a Christian”
by Karen Horst Cobb, who is a freelance writer and artist in Santa Fe, NM.
“The religious leaders on the airwaves today respond to the voices of the few brave peacemakers who dare to speak out. They say that pacifism is insane, and that it doesn’t make sense, but what is forgotten is that logic and faith are separate entities. I believe in the example of Jesus and his admonition to love your enemies and bless those who curse you. Do I understand how this works on the global scale? Do I know what Jesus would say to all the world’s leaders? No, nor do I totally understand how the example of Christ’s life and his message of love works in the world today. That’s why I need faith. Am I always correct in my assessments and actions? No, that’s why I need grace. Am I brave and unafraid? No, that’s why I need the perfect love that casts out fear. Some put trust in Chariots and some in horses but I will remember the name of the lord our God — the Prince of Peace. Perhaps politics has no place for imitators of Christ.
I suspect there are many who share my sorrow at the loss of what it means to be Christ-like, but our voice is seldom heard. The blaring rhetoric drowns out the still small voice of the mighty God. Peace used to be the opposite of war, Conservative used to mean the tendency to conserve resources. Liberal used to mean kind and generous, and Christian used to mean like Christ.
So I am no longer a Christian but just a person who continues trying to follow the example of Christ. I’ll let him call me what he wants when I see him face to face. Until then, I will pray that someday people like me will be able to reclaim the meaning of Christ’s identity, and the world will see the effects of the radical message of Christ’s love — the perfect love that casts out fear.” (cairnhcobb@msn.com)
And peace will reign on earth for all people and all times as it is in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
Whether your enemy is the unseen terrorist, the next-door neighbor, the co-worker, the errant relative or your self won’t you disarm your hostility today and find the peace of the Christ within?
If not, you may be just like the couple who looked and looked outside of themselves for a peaceful place to live and the law of mind action brought to them just what they focused their attention on, fear and war — and it showed up in the most unlikely place.
Just as Karen Cobb wrote, “The blaring rhetoric drowns out the still small voice of the mighty God. Peace used to be the opposite of war, Conservative used to mean the tendency to conserve resources. Liberal used to mean kind and generous, and Christian used to mean like Christ.”
Regardless of whether you consider yourself a conservative or liberal you can be a real Christian just the same, that means you act and live a life of peace inside and out, and love just like Jesus did even unto death. For Jesus does not promise to calm every storm in your life. Jesus does promise to calm you in every storm of life.
Just think: you might just be that snowflake that is the “nothing more than nothing” voice for peace? Heaven only knows…
And this is the truth, as I know it.
