How To Survive in the Desert

Rev. Dan Calvo

Pittsburgh New Church: Sunday, July 27, 2025

Text:

To people who are not regenerating, it is all the same whether they do or do not know truth, and whether what they know is true or not, as long as they can pass something off as truth. In contrast, people who are regenerating spend a lot of time thinking about [doctrine] and life, because they spend a lot of time thinking about their eternal salvation. So if their supply of truth runs out, they grieve to the core, because truth is dear to their minds and hearts. (AC 2682)

Thousands of years ago a woman named Hagar wandered into the desert with her only child, Ishmael, and all they had to survive was some bread and a skin of water. Hagar walked under the blazing sun, feeling the painful burns on her skin, with no water or food to be seen for miles besides the pitiful amount of bread and water she had with her, and she kept hearing the cries of her only child echoing through the endless desert.

More than ever before in her life, Hagar was hopeless.

We all have gone through something similar to what Hagar was going through in this story. When we go out into the world we see evil all around us: spouses cheating, people becoming wealthy and powerful by stealing and lying, people being violent and hateful towards each other. It can be really easy to lose our hope that there is any good left in the world, as if we were wandering through an unforgiving desert with only a little bit of water and some bread to keep us alive. How can we possibly survive this challenging world, keeping our hope alive? How can we survive the desert?

In this story, Hagar had a little bit of bread and a skin of water. In the Word, “bread” symbolizes good. It is the love in our heart, the love that we have for our neighbor, our family, our friends, and our community. That good can feed us just like bread does, and it can keep us alive through hard times. On the other hand, in the Word, “water” symbolizes truth, the knowledge of good things from the Lord that have a direct application to our life, and in this case they symbolize the more simple, basic truths that we carry with us when we first go out into the world, like the 10 Commandments. We can be nourished by those truths in the same way that water does.

So, we wander into the world, and we try and survive with that good and truth, and we try to keep our hope and values alive, just like Hagar was trying to keep her son Ishmael alive. Ishmael, being Hagar's child, was an extension of her. She loved him more than anything else in the world, and she was trying to keep him alive with the little bread and water they had. In that same way, when we go out into the world and we see all the hopelessness that surrounds us, we may try to keep our values and our hope alive by feeding it what little good and truth we have. When we encounter the difficult challenges of life, we may try to hold on to hope by doing good for others and practicing the simple truths that guide us.

However, this is not easy by any means. This is still the desert: unforgiving, difficult, and deadly. We may look out into the world and realize that even while working to keep our hope alive, the sheer amount of strength it takes to make it through these challenges is overwhelming. In fact, it may very well be impossible.

What seems to be the easiest thing to do in those situations is to just give up. To just let go of hope and our values and accept the inevitable. This is what happened with Hagar in the story. Hagar ran out of water in the desert, and she couldn't take it anymore. So, Hagar left her son Ishmael under a bush, and she moved away so that she wouldn't have to see her only child die in pain. Then she cried. She was completely defeated, unable to do anything to save her child from the deadly situation they were in. The only way she could cope at that moment was to move away so she wouldn’t see her son starve to death.

We’ve all felt it at some point, that feeling: despair. We feel that we are not going to survive the desert, that the good and the truth that we have won’t be enough, and we're overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hopelessness around us. Then we think to ourselves, “I'm just going to let go of hope. I’m not going to make it through this, so I am going to let go of hope, values, and faith so that I at least don't suffer seeing those things I love die. If I do that, life will be easier, and I’ll be able to at least get by.”

Like Hagar, who couldn’t bear to watch the death of her son, we may decide to turn away and let go of hope and surrender to the inevitable. In this state of hopelessness, we think that there's no way out… Except that there always is.

In the story, the angel of the Lord came down and saw Hagar and talked to her. He said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is” (Genesis 21:17). Whenever we feel that we're alone and that there is no hope, and that we're not going to survive the challenge ahead of us, there is always someone who is taking care of us: The Lord. He's never gone, and He's never ignoring us – in fact he knows every single thing that goes on in our life at every second of every day. We will not be left in the desert alone, there is always hope even in the hardest times.

What’s interesting is that a few years ago, Hagar was in a situation that was almost exactly like this one. When Hagar was still a servant and she was tasked with giving a child to Abraham, there was a point at which she really feared for her life. She was scared for her own safety because Sarah, Abraham's wife, was not happy with Hagar and there was a lot of tension between them. So, Hagar left the house of Abraham and wandered into the desert to try to escape and protect herself. After this happened, she was crying in the desert, and then the Lord said to her, “do not be afraid, go back to Abraham and his family, because your child will grow up and become a great nation. You will have too many descendants to even be able to count them. I will protect you and you will make it through this.” At that moment, the Lord made a promise to Hagar that He was going to take care of her, and that's a promise that the Lord has made with every single person in this room today. The Lord has already promised us that He'll take care of us, that He’ll get us through the desert. He’s promised us that there is always hope. Now, the Lord didn’t promise us that life will be easy, because that would be a lie, and the Lord would never lie to us. But He promised us that while there are going to be things that we can't handle, there is absolutely nothing in the universe that The Lord Himself can't handle.

When we are faced with the temptation to give up on hope, we sometimes forget that just like Hagar, we've made it through the desert before. We have already experienced temptation and challenges before, but we made it through. So whatever desert we are crossing right now, we can survive it again because the Lord is with us. In those moments it’s good to look back on the times where we thought that there was no hope, and look at our life now, and think to ourselves, “wow, I thought that I wouldn't make it, but I did. I thought that there was no hope and yet there it was, the Lord had my back.”

In the story, the Lord made a well of water appear for Hagar and Ishmael in the middle of the desert. As we mentioned earlier, “water” symbolizes truth. However, at this point in the story we are looking at a massive amount of water compared to what little water Hagar had with her. This is like the difference between the simple truths that we have memorized, and the truths that we can find in the Word. Whatever amount of truths that we can carry in our minds is almost nothing compared to all the powerful, universal truths that we can find in the source itself: the Word. When we turn to the Word and really look for those truths that will help us survive the desert, we will find a massive source of nourishment that will bring us back to life.

What are some of the deeper truths that can get us through the desert? Well, first and foremost, there’s the truth that there's nothing bad that happens in the world or in our life that the Lord can't bring something good out of. We have the truth that there is good within every single person in the world, whether we can see it or not. We have the truth that the Lord is guiding all things to a good result to eternity. Not just tomorrow, not just next month, not just next year: eternity. In times of temptation and hardship we can hold on to those truths that we find in the Word and the Writings, and we can bring them into our minds and hearts, and they can help us make it through the desert.

Not only that, but those things can keep our hope alive and bring it back to life when we think it’s gone. In the story, the Lord told Hagar, “Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him” (Genesis 21:18), and Hagar was able to give some water to Ishmael so he could survive. Ishmael was able to rise again, and they were able to make it through the desert. Our hope and our values can survive this desert, they can survive this hopelessness. We can do this by remembering the truths we were talking about, and by applying those truths in our lives. When we bring our hope and values back when we thought we weren't going to make it, in time we may realize that our hope and values become much stronger after we survive that challenge.

In the story, Ishmael didn't just survive the desert: he thrived in it. He continued to live in the wilderness, and he became an archer, a powerful warrior. He grew up and found a wife, and later on his descendants became a great nation just as the Lord promised. In our own lives, the more times we make it through the desert, the stronger we become. Overcoming those moments of despair and temptation holding on to the truths that the Lord gives us will make our hope stronger, it will make our faith stronger, it will make our values stronger. So that the next time that we are faced with the adversity and hopelessness of the world, not only can we survive, but we can also thrive. That's what the Lord wants for every single one of us.

When Hagar was left in the desert with nothing but a handful of bread and a bit of water, trying to keep herself and her only child alive, she lost hope. But she was not alone, she was able to survive and thrive in the desert thanks to the Lord. The Lord brought her hope back to life. We must always remember how we can make it through the desert as well, how we can hold on to hope in a world that doesn't want us to hold on to hope. We can hold on to hope by remembering those truths, by keeping the Lord in our mind and heart, and we will be nourished. When we think of the hope that we are trying to keep alive, let us remember that just like in the story, the Lord has told us to not be afraid, for He has heard our voice.

Amen.

Being Ourselves

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; July 20, 2025

Readings: Luke 22:54-62 (children’s talk); John 3:1-8; True Christian Religion §533.3

 Video:

Text:

The question we’re considering today is “should we pretend to be someone we’re not?” Another way to get at the same idea is to ask, “are we supposed to just be ourselves, or are we supposed to change ourselves?”

On the one hand we have the story of Peter denying that he was who he was. It wasn’t a good thing. When he realized what he’d done, he went out and “wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). It’s such a good story for illustrating that sometimes we have to just be who we are, though other people might not like it. Or rather, sometimes we have to just stand for the things we say we stand for, though people might not like it. We can’t be who we want to be by pretending to be someone else. It seems so obvious: of course we shouldn’t pretend to be someone we’re not!

But if we come at the question from a different direction, that obvious answer might not seem so obvious anymore. Isn’t religion all about changing who we are? What if who we are isn’t who we want to be, or isn’t who we think we should be? Do we become the person we want to be by pretending to be that person? We say all the time that we should “just be ourselves;” but don’t we come to church to learn how to be better people, and isn’t that different from being ourselves?

That was a lot of confusing questions. There actually is a clear path through all of these ideas; there is a right answer. But it’s fair to say that people get tangled up and confused by these sorts of thoughts. “I know I’m supposed to change; but it also feels dishonest to not be who I am.” Let’s look at what the Lord says.

He doesn’t say that we need to become better people—He doesn’t use those words. What He does say is that we need to be born again. Our next reading for today is the story in which He presents this idea. We read from the Gospel of John: [3:1-8].

The Lord says that we need to be born again. That is, if we want to see the kingdom of God, we need to be born again (John 3:3; see SH §8548; NJHD §173). That sounds like a pretty total transformation. He goes on to say that, “what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (v. 6). In other words, the first birth, the one that we’ve already experienced, was the birth of our bodies, and it was completely different from the birth that we have yet to experience—the birth of the spirit. We were born fleshy or corporeal beings, and we need to be changed into spiritual beings. Again, that sounds like a total transformation.

This idea of being born again, or made new, is echoed in lots of different places in the Word. For example, in our recitation from Ezekiel the Lord says, “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you” (36:26). If our heart is made new, then we aren’t really the person that we used to be. And if we turn to the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we find a lot of teachings that seem to be about the need for us to change ourselves. Our next reading is an example of such a teaching. This passage is from the chapter on repentance in the book True Christian Religion. This chapter has been explaining that when we repent we need to examine the intentions of our will—we need to look at what we want, or at our hearts—and repent of the evil that we find there, because our will is who we really are. We read: [§533.3].

So we’re supposed to examine our hearts, find the things that we want that are evil, and banish those things. Then, when we do that, the Lord will lift us up from the things that we were born with. He’ll give us a new will. In short, He’ll reform and regenerate “the whole person.” When we look at teachings like these, it sure seems that the Lord wants us to completely change ourselves—and that sure seems to be at odds with the idea that we should “just be ourselves.”

But being ourselves doesn’t have to be so bad—it depends on what you mean by that. One thing that these teachings definitely don’t support is using phrases like “it’s just the way I am” as excuses for our behavior. This is something that people do, not that uncommonly. It seems like this sort of excuse is mostly used for little foibles: “I’m an impulse shopper—it’s just the way I am.” But sometimes this line gets used to justify seriously problematic behavior. And of course people also use the inverse of this argument: “that’s just not who I am.” “I’m just not the kind of person who goes to church.” It’s an argument that can feel powerful, because we know that we don’t get to tell other people who they are—they get to decide that for themselves. Fair enough. But it’s also simply untrue that people cannot change their behavior. It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that the whole point of this book [the Word] is that we can grow and change and become spiritual. So sure, that’s just the way you are today. Who are you going to be tomorrow? Sure, the change might be hard. The work that’s involved in changing ourselves should be honored. But we can do it. The Lord, in His mercy, gives us that power. “It’s just the way I am” doesn’t cut it as an excuse for poor behavior.

But here’s the thing: changing ourselves and being who we are don’t have to be mutually exclusive. A simple way to put it is that there are many different versions of ourselves that we can be. When we repent, when we examine ourselves and banish the evil that we find, we are changing ourselves, but the change is that we’re becoming better versions of ourselves. We aren’t becoming someone else. We certainly aren’t pretending to be someone that we’re not. The bottom line is that who we are can change. When we choose to become a better version of ourselves, we’re growing spiritually and being who we really are at the same time. The simple idea that cuts through all that confusion is that we’re meant to be the best version of ourselves.

There’s a bit more to say about the idea that we should pretend to be someone we’re not. On the whole, this is an untrue and unhelpful idea. We might try to become a copy of someone that we admire or look up to… but we can’t be those people. People also pretend to be someone they’re not so that they can fit in with a crowd and persuade people to like them. The problem with that is that we know we’re pretending. So we might feel guilty, because we know we’re not being honest about who we are or what we value. And the connections that we’re forging might feel tainted, because we fear that the people we’re connecting with wouldn’t like us if they knew who we actually were. Again, think of Peter pretending that he wasn’t the Lord’s disciple: he didn’t feel good about it. Pretending to be someone we’re not is highly unlikely to make us happy in the long run.

And all that said, forcing ourselves to do the right thing when we really don’t want to sometimes feels like pretending. Forcing yourself to speak courteously to someone you’re angry with might feel fake, but it’s still the right thing to do. People say “fake it till you make it,” and there’s value in that idea. If doing the right thing feels like pretending… well, keep pretending for a while, and see what happens. But on the whole, “pretending” is an unhelpful word, because it suggests that we’re putting something on on the outside, rather than taking it to heart. We shouldn’t pretend to be the people that we want to be: we should become the people that we want to be.

Let’s go back to the idea that we should be ourselves. If we use it as an excuse for bad behavior, or as a justification for never growing, then it’s a problem. But if we hold it a little differently, then it’s a useful idea—because it’s true that there’s no one we can be besides ourselves. “Being ourselves” can suggest contentment: contentment with the way we were made and the things we’ve been given. And contentment is a blessed thing. The teachings of the New Church say that those who trust in the Divine are “content with their lot” (SH §8478.3). Being willing to “just be ourselves” overlaps a lot with making our peace with all of the things that aren’t ours to control. It isn’t our place to decide that we should have been born as somebody else or that we should have been given a different life. We are what we are, we have what we have; and one way or another the Lord is with us. In Luke He says, “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (12:6, 7). He doesn’t say that we would be of more value than many sparrows if we would just get rid of all those obnoxious habits. He knew what He was doing when He made us, and He gave gifts to each of us—maybe not the same gifts that He gave to other people, but gifts nonetheless. Those gifts give us value. It’s true that it’s on us to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be, so that we don’t squander that God-given potential. It’s also good to simply remember that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14).

A related idea, from the teachings of the New Church, is that we’re each being prepared for our own place in the spiritual world. We’re told that heaven and hell each exist in a form that functions as a unit, and that “no one can be allotted any place in that form but his own” (DP §203). Whether we end up in heaven or in hell, our place—our home—will be our own and no one else’s. Our place in the spiritual world is determined by our ruling love, and no one else’s ruling love can ever be exactly like our own. Of course, the Lord created us for heaven, and He’s constantly leading us to our own place in heaven (DP §§27, 67, 68, 323)—and this suggests that He has a job for each of us in His kingdom that no one else can do. So maybe instead of trying to be ourselves, or a better version of ourselves, we should be trying to be the angel that the Lord made each of us to be—knowing that no one else can be that angel.

The last idea we’ll consider today is the statement in the book of Genesis that when the Lord made the first man and the first woman and brought them together, “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (2:25). The teachings of the New Church say that the nakedness of which they were not ashamed symbolizes innocence (SH §165)—the innocence that the Lord gave us at the beginning, and that He hopes we will return to. Being naked and unashamed suggests having nothing to hide. Evil, by its very nature, doesn’t want to be seen for what it is; it wants to cover itself up. The Lord’s hope is that we will grow and change until we reach a point where we’re willing to be seen for exactly who we are, because we know that we have nothing to be ashamed of—because we’re content with what we are. That’s the best version of “just being ourselves.”

Amen.

Holy Fear

Rev. Dan Calvo

Pittsburgh New Church; July 13, 2025

Text:

The fear of God means worship based on fear when those who are not regenerate are the subject. This is evident from the following places: In Moses, when the Law was delivered on Mount Sinai to the people (…) Here 'the fear of God before your faces, so that you do not sin' means worship based on fear attributable to them because they are by nature what they are. Indeed people whose worship is external, and not at all internal, are led through fear to respect the law and to obey it; but they do not enter into any internal worship, which is holy fear, unless the good of life is present in them, and they know what is internal, and believe it. (AC 2826)

Being afraid sometimes of the infinity and power of God may be as natural as being amazed at the beauty and immensity of the ocean while at the same time being afraid of its power and depth. This is something that we all may have felt at some point: this admiration for the unlimited strength and presence of God while at the same time feeling a certain fear of His power, a fear of what may happen if we stray from the path He tells us to walk. This Holy Fear is present throughout many of the stories of the Word and perhaps one of the most powerful illustrations of this Holy Fear is the story of when the Lord gave the 10 commandments to the people of Israel.

When the Lord gave the 10 commandments to the people of Israel He did it while showing His unlimited power: the voice of God came from the top of the mount Sinai surrounded by smoke, fire, thunder and lightning. And naturally, the people of Israel were terrified! They were so scared that they did not want the Lord to speak to them directly out of fear that they would die. And in this situation Moses replied in the strangest way. He said, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you will not sin.”

Let’s pause on that for a moment: “do not be afraid but also fear Him.” I'm getting some mixed signals here. What are we supposed to be doing? Because on the one hand, we are told we should not be afraid, and on the other hand, we're being told that the Lord wants us to have a fear of Him. So, what are you trying to teach us here Lord? How do you want us to fear you?

We are the Lord’s children, and like all children, it is very important for us to know about consequences. This sense of consequences often manifests itself in fear of what will happen if we step out of line and do something bad. This fear is an uncomfortable feeling, but it is a very important feeling for us to have. Children need to know that if they do something bad like hitting another kid or telling lies or stealing something that doesn't belong to them, there are going to be serious consequences for their behavior. If children know that there are consequences for their actions and they have a healthy fear of these consequences, they are less likely to hurt other people or themselves. Learning that there are consequences for our actions helps us be healthier, happier human beings who are more useful to society. And the way in which we learn what consequences are is from our relationship with our parents and the adults in our lives as we are growing up. Given that the Lord God is our heavenly father, our relationship with Him is very similar in that way. From the beginning of our relationship with the Lord, we are taught that if we do not obey the commandments, there are going to be consequences. Knowing and believing that we will face very serious consequences for not following the Lord’s commandments is the beginning of holy fear.

In fact, you may be surprised to learn that the beginning of all worship takes place in holy fear. Secrets of Heaven number 6071 says that:

All worship of God inevitably has its beginning in holy fear, which holds within it the belief that God rewards good people and punishes the bad. Although to begin with it is out of fear that people do not dare to do evil, love accompanied by good is gradually introduced, and then people start to know and perceive that nothing but good comes from God, and that evil comes from themselves; then at length that all evil comes from hell. (AC 6071)

Having that kind of Holy Fear early on is the beginning of all worship because whether we grew up in a particular religion or whether we came into it later in life one of the core reasons why we even approach religion is the desire for salvation. If at the beginning of our spiritual journey we do not learn that we need to avoid doing evil things in order to be saved, then we lose one of the most important foundations for worship and our relationship with God.

This is what was happening in the story. The Lord was trying to teach this Holy Fear to the people of Israel so that they would obey the commandments. The people of Israel were listening to the Lord give the 10 commandments from Mount Sinai, surrounded by smoke and lightning and fire. Of course they were terrified! And of course they listened and obeyed, because if a massive voice came from heaven surrounded by smoke and fire we would sure listen to it and do whatever it says!

Nevertheless, just because this kind of holy fear is the beginning of worship it does not mean that we need to remain in that initial state. There are many dangers related to remaining in this kind of holy fear. We may become so obsessed with never making any mistakes whatsoever that we may think that at the slightest mistake that the Lord is going to push us down into hell and punish us. Sometimes we may even start projecting that fear into other people, our spouse, our children, our neighbors, leading us to think that if others around us don’t start worshipping the same way we do or believe in the same things we do that they will be condemned to hell. Even more so, remaining in this kind of holy fear may even lead people to eventually reject religion altogether, rejecting this concept of a punishing God. This is a state of unhealthy holy fear that is very prevalent in traditional Christianity.

However, the New Church has a very different idea of what holy fear can be. The New Church believes that while this first kind of holy fear is very important, and it provides a foundation for our relationship with God, remaining in this first kind of holy fear is not a good idea, not only due to the problems we just mentioned, but mainly because it is a superficial state of holy fear. This first kind of holy fear is based on fear for our own wellbeing and there is even a certain element of selfishness in it: we avoid doing bad things not because we’re focused on helping others or being good human beings, but because we’re scared that something bad will happen to us if we don’t follow the rules. For example, this first kind of holy fear is like someone who does not kill another person only because they’re afraid of going to prison and losing social standing, rather than not killing someone because they know it would hurt others and it would be the wrong thing to do. That isn’t a healthy relationship with God and with religion. And just like our relationship with our parents needs to grow and develop as we grow older and become adults, so does our relationship with our heavenly father God needs to grow and develop beyond this first kind of holy fear.

For starters, that holy fear that is based on a fear of a punishing God gives us a false idea of who God is. It couldn't be further from the truth, because God does not punish anyone. Whenever we experience any kind of consequence for our own evil actions that is just what they are: the logical consequences of our actions.

Brief Exposition of New Church Doctrine number 62 says that:

Because evil carries its own punishment with it (just as goodness carries its own reward), when evil brings punishment on us it looks as though God is punishing us. This is the same, though, as criminals blaming the law for their own punishment, or our blaming the fire for burning us when we put our hand in it, or our blaming the drawn sword in the guard’s hand when we throw ourselves onto the tip of it. (TONC 62)

So if the Lord doesn't punish anyone, and we are not supposed to remain in this initial state of holy fear of God’s punishment, then what is it that we are supposed to feel? What does this adult, wiser, more spiritually elevated holy fear look like?

While it starts as a fear of consequences for ourselves, a healthy adult state of holy fear is a fear that anything bad whatsoever would ever happen to the Lord or to our neighbor.

Secrets of Heaven number 3718 says that:

Fear that is inspired [by holiness] fills those who are good. This fear is called holy fear and is that which accompanies reverential awe of the Divine and also love. (…) The fear that goes with love is a fear lest harm is done to the Lord in any way, or to the neighbor in any way, and so to good and truth in any way. Consequently it is a fear lest harm is done to the holiness present in love and faith, and so in worship. (…) In general the more love anyone has for what is good and true, the more fear he has lest what is good and true will suffer harm. (AC 3718)

In this more spiritual adult state of holy fear we are motivated by not wanting to hurt the Lord or the people around us rather than being motivated by a fear of consequences for ourselves. We obey the 10 commandments not because we are afraid of being sent into hell, but because it is the right thing to do so that we do not hurt our family and our community. And while some elements of the fear of consequences may be there which is completely normal and as we said it is the beginning of worship, that initial fear of consequences for ourselves is no longer the main reason why we follow the Lord and why we avoid doing evil things once we develop the more spiritual level of holy fear.

This is what the story of the people of Israel at Mount Sinai was getting at. The Lord in this story from the Old Testament is teaching us about the first kind of Holy Fear, but in the Heavenly Doctrines He teaches us that eventually we are supposed to grow out of that first fear into the adult, more spiritually developed holy fear. While the Lord may want us to be afraid that there are going to be consequences if we get out of line when we are children or when we are just beginning our journey of faith, what He truly wants us to be afraid of is that our evil actions will hurt the people around us and will push us further away from Him.

So far, we have used the idea of a child's relationship with their parents to illustrate what the first kind of holy fear is, but perhaps a better image to represent the adult kind of holy fear is the feeling of holding a newborn baby and being afraid that any kind of harm should come to that innocent child. That is the core feeling that the Lord wants us to have, that is a real spiritual holy fear. Not a fear that anything bad will happen to us if we do not follow the rules, but a fear that anything bad should ever happen to that which is loving and kind and innocent. Just like any good parent, the Lord doesn’t want us to be afraid of Him, and while He wants us to know that there are consequences for our actions, He also wants us to know that we can always reach out to Him with whatever troubles we are having. The Lord is asking us to look outward and fear the consequences of our actions for everybody else, instead of being afraid of the consequences for ourselves. If we learn how to do this, we will develop true Holy Fear.

Amen

What Should We Love About our Country

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; July 6, 2025

Readings: John 18:33-37; True Christian Religion §414 (children’s talk); True Christian Religion §305

Video:

Text:

The sermon today is about love of country. The teachings of the New Church make it pretty clear that we’re supposed to love our country—but what do they mean by that? What is it about our country that we’re supposed to love?

            We’ll begin by looking at what the Word says. In the book of Exodus we’re given the Ten Commandments, and the fourth commandment says: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (20:12). In the book True Christian Religion there’s a chapter on the layers of meaning within the Ten Commandments, and the section on the fourth commandment reads as follows (you can find this reading on the back of the worship handout): [read §305].

            That statement that one’s country is called one’s “fatherland” makes more sense in the original Latin of True Christian Religion than it does in English. This country is almost never called “a fatherland.” But in Latin, the word for country—patria—is closely related to the word for father, pater. So if you’re reading in Latin, the word “country” is going to make you think of the word “father.” And the teachings invite us to think along similar lines, even though we speak English and not Latin. Our country is like a parent to us.

            The fact that love of country is covered by the fourth commandment makes it pretty important. The Ten Commandments are kind of a big deal. The teachings of the New Church consistently say that the things we need to do in order to get to heaven are 1) acknowledge God and 2) keep the Ten Commandments. And that does mean all of the commandments. It’s obvious that murder and adultery and stealing are bad. But commandments like, “You shall have no other gods before My face; “remember the Sabbath;” and “honor your father and mother” are given the same weight as the commandments against murder and adultery and stealing (Ex. 20:1-17). If keeping the Ten Commandments is essential to the life of religion, and loving our country falls under the umbrella of the fourth commandment, then it sounds like we need to figure out how to love our country.

            This makes it important that we understand what it means to love our country. Because let’s be realistic: there’s probably nobody alive who loves everything about their country. It’s pretty obvious that the country we’re in—the United States of America—is imperfect; and some of the country’s imperfections are troubling. Different people are bothered by different aspects of the country’s imperfection, but surely all of us see something we would change. And we get our backs up if we feel like we’re asked to love things that bother us, things that we think are wrong. “Love of country” sometimes smacks of blind patriotism and jingoism, and those things are not good. That kind of love of country can’t be what the Lord wants. We don’t have to love things that we think are wrong. But the Word says that we should love our country. So how should we love it? Or what should we love about it?

            It seems likely that when we talk about “our country,” our minds are drawn towards thoughts of the government, or of national politics, or foreign policy—thoughts of America’s role on the world stage, or the impressions that she leaves with people from other countries. These things are part of the country: they contribute to the country’s identity. But they’re not what it is. A country is not a government—it’s a group of people. In America’s case, we’re talking about roughly 340 million people who share some sort of common identity. By the way, we’re talking specifically about America today, since that’s the country that we’re in right now, and since we just celebrated America’s Independence Day; but the teachings that we’re considering apply to every resident of every country in the world.

            The teachings of the New Church do talk about love of country in context of honoring father and mother; but most of the time when the teachings talk about love of country, the context is love for the neighbor. And that’s illuminating. Love of country is an extension of love for the neighbor, and love of the neighbor is about loving people—or the good in people. The general teaching is that there are degrees of the neighbor, and a large body of people is the neighbor in a higher degree than a small body of people. So a community is a higher degree of neighbor than an individual; a country is a still higher degree of neighbor; above our country is the church; and above the church is the Lord’s kingdom (SH §§6818-6824; NJHD §§91-96; TCR §§412-416; Charity §§72-89). To put it simply, loving a more people is more loving than loving less people. In True Christian Religion we read: “Love towards the neighbor can rise to ever more interior levels in a person; and as it rises it is directed towards the community rather than an individual, and towards the country rather than the community” (§413). As our love rises higher it looks further and encompasses more. It extends beyond our personal spheres to the bigger bodies that we’re part of. There are 340 million people who make up this nation, and there are a lot of things that we share with them; what do we share that’s worth loving? Those people, and the good things that we hold in common with them, are the country that we’re meant to love.

            But then, the planet holds about eight billion people, and that’s more than 340 million. Why don’t the teachings simply say that we should love everybody? Why don’t they say that we should love our fellow human beings regardless of their birthplace and their citizenship and so on? Well the Word does say this in lots of places. It says that love for the Lord is the highest love, because when we love Him we love all of His people (TCR §416; SH §2023). In The Doctrine of Charity we’re told that the human race is the neighbor in the widest sense (§87). We are supposed to love everybody—or, more accurately, we’re supposed to love the good in everybody. We mustn’t set our own country too high. The church is meant to be above our country, and the Lord’s kingdom above that, and the Lord above all (cf. SH §6819; NJHD §91). But love of country still gets its own moment. It falls under the umbrella of the fourth commandment, and we need to keep that commandment. There’s a particular space that we should hold in our hearts for the country that we happen to live in.

And why is that? One reason we should love our particular country is that our country has served us in a particular way. As the reading from True Christian Religion says, our country is like a parent to us: it has fed us and protected us (§305; cf. §414; SH §6821; NJHD §93). That’s true in a very literal way. If everyone in this country besides yourself were to disappear tomorrow, along with everything that those people have made or built, what would you have left? How would you feed yourself? Our country gives a lot to us, and it should be honored for what it gives. The same is true of our actual parents—our mom and our dad. They’re not the only people in our lives, and they’re certainly not the only people that we should love. But they play a special role, so they should be honored in a special way.

A slightly bigger principle that’s at play here is that it’s useful for us to work with what’s in front of us. Another way to put it is that you have to be God to hold the world in your hands. The Doctrine of Charity points out that the nations of this world don’t always want what’s best for each other (§85). We wish that it weren’t so, but it is so. In practice, doing things that appear to be in the best interests of other countries may well mean that we’re working against our own country. Because of this, we’re told that we have a duty or an obligation to do good to our own country, and that we don’t have the same duty to serve countries other than our own (ibid.) This is easiest to understand if we imagine being attacked by another country. In that situation America’s people would have an obligation to defend her; we wouldn’t say that they had an obligation to fight for the other side. It’s easy to say that we should just love everybody, but in practice, loving people means trying to do what’s good for them—and it’s hard to figure out how to do good to everybody all at once, especially when people are fighting with one another. Again, the principle here is that you really have to be God to hold all people in your hands. We’re limited; and if we want to actually be useful, we need to center ourselves on the things that are within our reach. This doesn’t’ mean that people from other countries don’t count—they’re still the Lord’s people. It’s just a general principle that the closer we are to home, the more power we have to do something that will actually be useful.

Here we are, for better or for worse, in this bucket, this category called “America.” At the end of the day, our options are to love what’s around us or to not love it. We don’t have to love everything about it—this is something that the Word makes very clear. The neighbor isn’t really other people so much as it is the good within other people (SH §§6706-6709; NJHD §§86-88; TCR §410; Charity §§46-54). The America that we’re supposed to serve is whatever it is that’s good that we share with other Americans. This means that we’re allowed to distance ourselves from the characteristics of this country that we don’t like (cf. Charity §86). We’re allowed to object to laws that we think are unjust—as long as we do so lawfully. But what good things bind together the people in this bucket? What do we share that’s worth loving?

A useful thought exercise is to picture this country as a single person. If America, with all of her different values and ideals and flaws, were to take physical form as an ordinary human being, what would that person be like? We’re actually told that this is something that happens in the spiritual world: whole countries or communities are seen as individual human beings (TCR §412; Charity §84). The characteristics and affections of those countries are represented in the face and in the behavior of the human form that they take. If America were to take human form, how would she behave? What would she value? She wouldn’t be flawless. But something that comes to light if we picture the country as an individual is that it’s both useless and unkind to look at any individual and note only what’s wrong with them. We shouldn’t love our country blindly or excuse her flaws, but sometimes it seems that it’s fashionable to look at the nation and observe only what’s wrong with it. We know that it would be unkind to treat an individual that way. Why treat a country that way?

What would this personification of America actually be like? The Word doesn’t say anything about this country, and we can’t see her the way that the Lord and the angels do. All we have is our own impressions. There are some national characteristics that are widely acknowledged and have contributed to a shared sense of the country’s identity: Americans value the individual’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Americans value freedom of thought; so this country has passed laws protecting freedom of speech and of religion. Paradoxically, America is a country in which slavery was once institutionalized. She’s also a country that has passed laws forbidding slavery

Heaven knows that this country isn’t perfect. But heaven also knows that it’s useless to look only for what’s wrong with something. For better or worse, here we are amidst millions of Americans—and those people are building on the work of millions more who have already come and gone. None of those people were (or are) perfect. But what good things do we share with them? What do we have to be grateful for? What potential do we share? That common good is bigger than any of us—and that’s why the Word says that we should honor it as we honor our father and our mother.

Amen.

Becoming Wise Children

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; June 15, 2025

Readings: Revelation 19:4-9 (children’s talk); John 21:1-8; Heaven and Hell §§277, 278 (portions)

 Video:

      Text:     

In this portion of the service we’re going to focus on one of the implications of the idea that the Lord is our Father: if He is our Father, then we are His children. And when I say “children” I don’t mean adult sons and daughters: the Word invites us to think of ourselves as little children who need their Father. This idea can be comforting, and it can also be challenging.

            In the Word the Lord addresses His disciples as children. This is something we see, for example, at the end of the gospel of John. We read: [21:1-8].[1]

            The Lord says to the disciples, “Children, have you any food” (v. 5). And the word that He uses to address them in the original Greek definitely doesn’t mean an adult son or daughter—it means a little child. It’s the same word that He uses when He says, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14)—and He then proceeds to lift those little children that He’s referring to into His arms (v. 16). So He addresses His disciples using a word for a child that’s small enough to be lifted into one’s arms.

            The story illustrates the challenge we might run into if we try to think of ourselves as children of the Lord. It says that the disciples didn’t recognize the Lord (v. 4). They just saw a man standing on the shore, and that man called them children. They could have chosen to be offended. The Lord looked like just another adult, same as themselves. He didn’t even look like He was much older than they were—His body was little more than thirty years old (cf. Luke 3:23). We don’t know exactly how old the disciples were, but they were all adults.

            We here are also adults. We’ve grown up—and growing up feels like a lot of work sometimes. There are, inevitably, some hard lessons. At a certain point our parents will no longer wash the clothes we leave on the floor. At a certain point we become the ones who have to pay for all of our own stuff. If we become parents ourselves, then we have to learn how to be the mom or the dad—we have to be the one who doesn’t fall apart, instead of being the kid who can fall apart because mom and dad will be there to hold the pieces. Growing up usually involves taking on way more responsibility than you ever imagined you would have to, when you were little, and that’s hard. And once we’ve done that work, we don’t want to have it invalidated by people who treat us like we haven’t done it. We don’t want to be treated like children. The disciples could have looked at the Lord standing there on the shore and said, “I’m not your child. I’m an adult.” And sometimes we might be inclined to say the same thing. We might be inclined to say, “Yes, You’re my God—but that doesn’t mean that I’m your little child.”

            Of course, the disciples didn’t say that to the Lord. At first they simply answered His question—no, they didn’t have any food (John 21:5). Maybe they were thinking about being offended. Or maybe they felt that there was more than met the eye within this man standing on the shore. Then, when they did recognize Him, they went to Him immediately. Peter actually dove into the water to go to the Lord, as though he couldn’t wait for the boat to get underway. He wasn’t ashamed to rush to the Lord—and there’s something childlike about that.

            In the Word the Lord makes it pretty clear that He is our Father (e.g. Matt. 23:9). And He makes it pretty clear that it would be good for us to take on, or lean into, the idea that we are His little children. For example He says, “Unless you are turned around and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). That particular statement isn’t even what you would call a suggestion—the Lord makes it clear that there’s something about this idea that we are His children that we need to accept, for the sake of our own happiness. In the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, in the book Heaven and Hell, there’s a chapter on the innocence of the angels—and in that chapter we’re told that the highest angels, more than all others, “love to be led by the Lord as little children by their father” (§280). Those highest angels are the wisest of all the angels—surely their example is a good one to follow. What if we loved to be led by the Lord, as little children by their father?

            But the Word also makes it clear that we’re not meant to go backwards. We aren’t meant to unlearn all of the lessons we’ve learned that have made us into adults. The children that we’re meant to become aren’t the same as the children that we used to be. The Lord suggests this when He says that we need to be “born again” (John 3:3-8). We need to become “newborns” a second time—only the first birth was natural and the second is spiritual. These ideas are discussed in more detail in that chapter on the innocence of angels from Heaven and Hell. And now we’re going to turn to some passages from that chapter. We read: [§§277, 278].

            Innocence is the heart of this whole body of doctrine. In the Word a little child symbolizes someone who is innocent—so when the Lord says that we need to become as little children, the message is that we need to learn innocence. But those passages also said quite clearly that the innocence of little children isn’t the destination: it was only a preview of the destination. The Lord is calling us to grow into a new kind of innocence, innocence that is joined to wisdom. We were children, now we’re adults; and we’re called to become wise children—something like and yet unlike what we were.

            So what does this mean, in practice? First of all let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: the Lord doesn’t want us to behave altogether like we did when we were children. Children are sometimes very sweet. They also throw appalling tantrums, and can be oblivious to the needs of anyone but themselves. To one degree or another we’ve all grown out of those qualities—and that’s good. Don’t go back.

            So which of the qualities that we see in little children does the Lord want us to echo? The Heavenly Doctrine has quite a bit to say about this, and I encourage you to read the whole chapter on innocence from Heaven and Hell, but for now, for time’s sake, I’m going to suggest two qualities for us to focus on. The first quality is a willingness to accept help. Little children feel no shame at all in asking their parents for help. As we grow up we learn that there are things we can’t ask of other people—there are things that we’re responsible for. We often learn that lesson too well. We forget that we aren’t required to “do life” all by ourselves. The Lord in His Word makes it clear that we need Him. He says, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That’s not exactly a vague statement. We need Him—we depend on Him, like children depend on their parents to tie their shoes and keep them from getting lost on the way to the park. There’s nothing wrong with this—that we need Him isn’t because of some failure or inadequacy on our part. It’s just that we need our Father. Wisdom sees this, and innocence takes it to heart.

            The second quality that we see in children that I’d like to call attention to is their willingness to accept that their parents are in charge. Of course little children embody this quality quite imperfectly. Sometimes they decide to do anything but what their parents say. “You want me to wear clothes? I will not!” But when they aren’t being contrarians, little children can be content with the fact that they don’t make the rules. Of course mom and dad are in charge—they’re mom and dad. When we’re little children it’s inescapably obvious that our parents can do things we can’t: they’re bigger and stronger than we are. It’s inescapably obvious that they know more than we do. So little children tend to trust the answers that their parents give them. A lot of the time they’re content to follow where their parents lead. The truth is that the gap between what we knew when we were little and what our parents knew—or the gap between what we could do when we were little and what our parents could do—is tiny compared to the gap between our present capabilities and the Lord’s. He is bigger than we are. Of course He’s in charge. Wisdom sees this, and innocence takes it to heart.

            We don’t have to accept that He’s our Father. We are free to reject this. If we do accept it, then we’re going to go on a journey as we learn what it means. The reward, or the hope, at the end of this journey is that if the Lord is our Heavenly Father, then He can make all the world okay, the way that all the world was okay when we were little children in our parents’ arms.

Amen.

[1] See also Mark 10:24 and John 13:33

The Light in the Word

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; June 1, 2025

Readings: Revelation 4 (children’s talk); Apocalypse Revealed §231

Video:

 Text:

Today’s sermon is about the idea that the teachings of the Word are like clear stones, or translucent stones. Most clear stones are considered precious or semi-precious—in other words, they’re generally held to be valuable. The teachings of the Word are valuable too, but that isn’t the main reason why they’re like precious stones. They’re like precious stones because of their translucence, or their ability to let light shine through them. There is a light within the teachings of the Word, and we don’t really understand the Word until we see that light. So today’s sermon is about two things: first, the idea that that light exists, and that we can find it in the text of the Word. Second, today’s sermon is about how we come to see that light.

The reading from Revelation spoke of One sitting on a throne who was like two different precious stones in appearance: jasper and sardius (4:3). Clearly this is a description of the Lord (cf. AR §230; AE §267). The Lord is said to resemble precious stone because precious stones symbolize the teachings of the Word, and the teachings of the Word are from the Lord and have the Lord in them (cf. John 1:1). Our next reading is from the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, from the book Apocalypse Revealed, and it explains the symbolism or the spiritual meaning of those jasper and sardius stones [read §231].

We already talked about the whiteness of jasper and the redness of sardius, and how those colors symbolizes spiritual light, which is wisdom, and heavenly fire, which is love. The Word is filled with love and wisdom from the Lord. He is the love and the wisdom that fill His Word. All of these ideas are held within that image of the One sitting on the throne.

By the way, if you have an interest in stones or minerology you might be thinking, “hang on, jasper is a red stone.” But that passage made it pretty clear that we’re supposed to visualize jasper as a white stone. The short explanation for that is that the names we use for minerals and the ways we differentiate one mineral from another have changed a lot over the millennia. In modern English “jasper” refers to a stone that is predominantly red, but the Latin word jaspis (and the Greek ἰασπις, iaspis), which is etymologically related to the English word jasper, apparently refers to a white stone. It’s confusing, but that’s language for you. In any case, the reading from Apocalypse Revealed makes it clear that we’re supposed to be visualizing a white stone and a red stone.

But the stones aren’t just red and white: they’re translucent. They’re precious stones. The reading said that stones [present river stone] represent truths. Specifically, they represent the “outmost expressions” of truth. They represent hard, cold facts—truth that’s “set in stone.” But precious stones, according to the read, [present quartz] symbolize “truth that is made translucent by the presence of good” (AR §231). When truth is joined to good it becomes clear—it obtains the ability to transmit light (cf. SH §9863; SS §44; AE §268; AR §915). Clear or precious stones also represent truths in the literal sense of the Word. The reading said that precious stones in heaven, “draw their origin from the outmost expressions of the Word, and they owe their translucence to the spiritual meaning of those outmost expressions” (AR §231). In other words, precious stones in heaven are pictures of the truths that are written in the Word—and precious stones on earth are likewise pictures of the character and the quality of the teachings that are written in the Word. Precious stones are translucent, and the teachings of the Word are translucent also, because there is a spiritual meaning within them—a spiritual light that is able to shine through them.

We’ll say more about that light in a moment. Today’s sermon is really about how we come to see that light. But for now I want to make the simple point that there are two different kinds of stones: stones that can transmit light, and stones that can’t. Likewise there are ideas, or truths, that are able to hold spiritual light, and ideas that are unable. And here’s a visualization: [shine light into both stones]. The thing about this stone [quartz] is that it always has the ability to transmit light. Whether there’s light shining into it or not, this stone is translucent. But there isn’t always light shining into it.

It’s important to understand that all of the truths in the letter of the Word—the things that are written in this book—are precious stones. Everything written in this book has a spiritual meaning. It holds light within it. We may or may not see that light. We may see it in some teachings or not in others. But all of these teachings are able to transmit spiritual light. They retain that capacity, no matter what we do with them or how poorly we understand them. Later in the book of Revelation there’s a description of a great red dragon with seven heads, and the dragon is said to have seven jewels on its heads (12:3). The dragon symbolizes a total falsification of basic truths about God and salvation, and the jewels symbolize the teachings of the Word (AR §540; cf. SS §44.4). The truths of the Word are still jewels, still precious, even when they appear on the heads of the dragon. They have the capacity to transmit spiritual light, no matter who holds them. But when we misunderstand them—and especially when we abuse them—we don’t see the light within them.

Earlier it was mentioned that good, or love, is what makes truth translucent. But then we started talking about how the truths of the letter of the Word are translucent truths. Both ideas are true. All of the teachings that appear in this book are joined to good. They hold heavenly goodness within them. That goodness is what clarifies them and gives them the capacity to transmit spiritual light. And that’s true whether or not we see how these teachings are joined to good. The teachings of the Word are precious stones, no matter who holds them or how we hold them.

But at this point we should say out loud what many of you have probably already been thinking—that there are a lot of the things in the letter of the Word that sure seem pretty opaque. There are statements that feel harsh, statements that don’t seem fair, and a lot of statements that are simply hard to understand. For these reasons, and maybe other reasons too, people sometimes struggle with the assertions that the Word is from the Lord, that it’s Holy, and that the teachings of the Word hold the Lord’s love within them. There are a lot of reasons why the letter of the Word is the way it is—too many to get into today. What I want to put before you right now is the idea that it’s okay for us to look at a teaching from the Word, or a specific statement from the Word [present quartz] and say, “I don’t see the light within this.” But if we believe that the Word is the Word of God, then we mustn’t take it upon ourselves to decide that some of its teachings are precious stones, and some are not [present river stone]. They are all precious stones. If we hold on to that idea, we’re holding open the possibility that we might see the light within the difficult teachings someday. That light will reorder the difficult ideas from within and make them seem good—even though the external form of the idea will not change.

So how do we come to see that light? First of all, what is that light? The simple answer is that it’s the Lord’s light. It’s the light that fills the spiritual world and reveals everything there for what it really is. In other words, it’s the light of truth. In that light there are no lies, no illusions. There’s no decision paralysis. We simply see what the Lord wants us to do. And it’s so important to understand that His light is inseparable from His love. That’s why He’s like a jasper and a sardius stone (Rev. 4:3) Light and love radiate from Him together. In His light we see what it means to love.

And how do we come to see this light? Well, the unsurprising and maybe unsatisfactory answer is that the Lord gives it to us. In the reading from Revelation John says that he saw a throne, and One sitting on the throne who was like a jasper and a sardius (4:3). And then we’re told that lightnings, thunderings and voices proceeded from the throne (v. 5). These things symbolize insights given to us by God. In Apocalypse Revealed we read:

“And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.” This symbolizes enlightenment, perception, and instruction from the Lord.

Because of the flash of light that strikes the eyes, lightnings symbolize enlightenment, and because of the crash that strikes the ears, thunderings symbolize perception. And since these two together symbolize enlightenment and perception, voices then symbolize instruction.

…. all enlightenment, perception and instruction comes from the Lord by means of the Word. (§236)

It’s possible for us to see the truth within the Word—to see it as though in a flash of lightning. But that illumination is the Lord’s to give. We can’t find it on our own, no matter how smart we are. We certainly can’t find it by trying really hard to make the Word say what we think it should say. Illumination is the Lord’s to give, and He gives it to people who are trying to use His Word the way He means for it to be used.

            In the book Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture we read:

Genuine truth… is apparent in the Word’s literal sense only to people who are enlightened by the Lord. Enlightenment comes from the Lord alone, and it is found in people who love truths because they are true and apply them to the uses of life. (§57)

The light within the Word is revealed to people who love the truth because it’s true. In other words, that light is revealed to people who want to see the world that the Lord has made as it really is. People who are willing to be shown new things, because what matters to them isn’t that the ideas they already have are proven to be correct—what matters to them is the pursuit of truth. But pursuing truth isn’t enough on its own: enlightenment is given to people who apply truths to the uses of life. The Lord gave us the Word to show us the way to heaven. He gave it to show us how to refuse evil and choose what is good (cf. Is. 7:15). We can’t understand it if we don’t use it the way it’s meant to be used. When we listen to the Word we’re meant to ask ourselves, “What is the Lord saying to me—right here, in this teaching—about what it means to live a heavenly life?”

            It’s easy to see how some teachings show us the way to heaven. The Lord says:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind… [And] you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

We know how we’re meant to use those teachings. Other teachings are harder to “apply to the uses of life.” It’s okay for us to admit that we don’t see the light of heaven within certain teachings. But we need to hold on to the idea that they are all precious stones. They are all the Word of God. If we get into the habit of accepting some teachings from the Word and dismissing others, we’re making ourselves the teachers when we’re meant to be the students. Only the Lord can illuminate our minds.

            And illumination, or enlightenment, isn’t an on or off sort of thing. Our ability to see the light within the Word will grow gradually but also continually, as long as we continue to allow the Lord to teach us. We’ll have a flash of insight, and we’ll be amazed because we see a truth in the Word that we’ve never seen before—we see more clearly than we’ve ever seen. And later on we’ll see more clearly still, more clearly than we thought was possible [visualization—increase brightness].

            The Lord has so much to show us—and He wants to teach us. He will illuminate us, as long as we’re willing to let Him open our eyes, instead of deciding for ourselves what the truth should be. He says, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Amen.

Help My Unbelief

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9-18 (children’s talk); Mark 9:14-27; Secrets of Heaven §8567

Video:

 Text:

            In this part of today’s service we’re going to focus on the spirit or the attitude that Elijah voices before the Lord on Mount Horeb. Twice he says:

I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life. (1 Kings 19:10, 14)

Clearly he feels hopeless. He tried, and it didn’t work. Now he is alone. He also seems kind of angry, doesn’t he? He doesn’t quite come out and accuse the Lord of misleading him, but his words leave that possibility open. “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts”—I did everything You told me to, Lord, and look where it got me!

            This isn’t the only story in the Word in which someone expresses their despair and their frustration to the Lord. Far from it—there are a lot of stories like that. Our next reading is one of them. This story is from chapter nine of the gospel of Mark. The way that feelings are expressed to the Lord in this story isn’t exactly the same as the way that Elijah expresses his emotions. But there is some overlap, and that’s what we’re going to focus on. We read: [vv. 14-27].

            The father in that story cries out to the Lord, saying, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief!” The spirit in these words is not the same as the spirit that Elijah voices, but it’s similar. There is a kind of anger in Elijah’s words that isn’t present in this poor father’s words. Elijah sounds bitter, whereas this man mostly just sounds like he’s grieving. But maybe there is some frustration mixed in with his grief? He cries out “Lord I believe” as if to say, “You’re telling me I can have what I want if I believe, and I do believe—just help me!”

            The obvious thing that both of these men share is a feeling of hopelessness, or despair. Elijah says, “I alone am left.” I am the only person who is still following you, Lord. I am alone. And that father cries out, “help my unbelief!” He says: There’s a part of me that believes that You can help me—that I can get my son back—and a part of me that fears that nobody can give me what I want. Both men know despair, and both men take their despair to the Lord. They throw it at His feet, even.

            There are many more stories in the Word in which we see the same thing. For example, when the Lord’s disciples were caught in a storm in the midst of the sea of Galilee and they found the Lord sleeping in the back of the boat they said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). There’s plenty of anger and despair to be heard in those words. There are other examples that we could consider, but we’ll stick with what we have.

            The Word shows us people talking to the Lord this way over and over, and there’s got to be a reason for that. There’s got to be a message. Surely at least part of the message is that it’s okay to talk to the Lord this way. Of course He doesn’t want us to be angry with Him—but He does want to be close to us. He wants to be conjoined with us. To use a more contemporary term, He wants to have a relationship with each of us. Think about the people you have close relationships with—your spouse or your children or your best friends. You don’t want them to be angry with you, but if they are angry, you want them to talk to you about it. You don’t want them to just resent you in silence.

            People often treat strong emotions like they’re somehow unsanitary: they happen, but we don’t talk about them. At least not in polite company. Perhaps this is especially true of western culture. Just think of the standard responses to being asked how you’re doing: “Oh, I’m well, thank you.” Or, “I’m fine.” What’s conspicuous about the word “fine” is that it’s almost completely devoid of emotional significance. Sometimes we take that reflex, or that cultural pattern, and apply it to our relationships with the Lord. We sanitize the prayers we say to Him. We approach Him solemnly and reverently, which is good—but sometimes the solemnity and the reverence come at the expense of being honest.

            In the teachings of the New Church we’re told that, “prayer is talking to God and at the same time some inner view of the things that are being prayed for” (SH §2535). Scripted prayers, like the Lord’s Prayer, are important and powerful. But prayers don’t have to be that way. We’re praying whenever we talk to God—so long as our hearts and minds are present with the words that we say. The point is, talk to Him! Talk to Him like you would talk to someone you have a relationship with. Be real with Him. Even if the truth is that you’re feeling some emotions that frighten you. What kind of relationship with God do we have if we’re only allowed to engage with Him when we’ve got it all pulled together? He wants to be there for us when things are hard—that doesn’t work if He requires us to sort our feelings out before we pray to Him.

Obviously this doesn’t mean that we should just say anything to Him. The same is true of our relationships with other people: we should be honest with those we love, but there are still some things we shouldn’t say. We’re not going to hurt the Lord’s feelings, but if we’re mean-spirited or scornful when we talk to Him we will hurt our own ability to receive His help. He’s still our God, and we can’t have a relationship with Him if we don’t acknowledge who He is. If He’s God—and we’re not—some humility is in order.

But it’s okay if our prayers are full of grief or despair or even anger. The Lord has heard those kinds of prayers before. He’s there to hear them. He wants to be the one who helps us get our emotions under control, so that we don’t take them out on the people around us. That means that it’s okay if we go to Him when our emotions aren’t under control. Again, we’re not going to hurt Him. What we see in the Word is that He’s strong enough to give us an answer of peace no matter what we throw at His feet.

That’s a general takeaway from these stories we’ve been looking at. But there’s something more specific that I’d like us to consider—an idea that’s encapsulated in the words, “Help my unbelief.” The father in that story from Mark believed in the Lord, yet he didn’t believe. There was a part of him that didn’t think that Jesus Christ could help him, and maybe that part of him didn’t think that anyone could ever help him—that anyone could ever save his son from the awful spirit that was afflicting him. There was a part of that father that despaired. But he took his despair to the Lord. He said, “Help my unbelief.” This is something that the Lord wants us to do.

The teachings of the New Church have a lot to say about despair. The basic message is that periods of despair are part of the process of spiritual growth. More specifically, we’re told that despair is part of temptation. One passage says, “Every temptation entails some kind of despair, or else it is not temptation…. A person who is being tempted is subjected to anxious fears which produce a state of despair over the end in view” (SH §1787). We’re also told that no one can be regenerated, or reborn, without temptation (SH §8403.2, cf. §§3696, 5036, 7090.3). This is a hard teaching, but it’s something the Heavenly Doctrine says very clearly. Temptations are the spiritual conflicts, or crucibles, in which we’re pushed to actually let go of the old and take hold of the new. And despair is part of that process. Here’s a passage from the Heavenly Doctrine that speaks about this: this passage is printed on the back of your worship handout [read SH §8567].

“Temptations consist in ever-recurring feelings of despair over salvation.” At first these feelings are slight—at first they’re just nagging doubts—but they come to weigh on us more and more heavily. Isn’t it interesting that when people are in the process of being saved they doubt that they’re worthy of salvation? And maybe when we’re confident that we’re entitled to salvation we aren’t as close to heaven as we think we are. Over the course of the temptation those doubts gather and multiply—those fears that maybe we won’t be able to pull it together, that maybe we can’t be who we wanted to be. With those fears comes a feeling that the Lord is far away. We might even get angry with Him. We might say, “Do You not care? I have been very zealous for You. I believe in You—help me!”

The underlaying truth here is that we need the Lord. He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Without Him we have no life and no power. But we have to do a lot of living before we really believe that. A lot of the time we tell ourselves we believe, but we also cling to our pride. We cling to ourselves. And we aren’t strong enough to save ourselves. So we despair. It’s important to note that the Lord doesn’t make this happen—He doesn’t inflict despair on us. We do that to ourselves. He just knows that this is part of the process.

The passage we heard said that in the extremes of despair a person’s “natural life is snuffed out, since while a person is in the midst of despair the Lord keeps his inmost actively engaged in the fight against falsity” (SH §8567). What this means is that those moments of despair are the moments in which something natural, or earthly, dies within us, and something spiritual is born in its place. In those moments of despair we let go of a lot of things, but the Lord keeps the inmost part of us engaged in the fight against falsity. In other words He helps us hold on to a truth—a truth that stays alive while the illusions we once clung to die away. And what is this truth? It probably takes a lot of different forms, based on who we are and what our journey has been. But essentially it’s the truth that He is our God and our salvation.

What all of this means is that doubting Him or even despairing of receiving His help is not a sin—it’s part of the process. He knows that we’ll be brought low sometimes, and what we need to do in those moments is turn to Him. And if we cry out “help my unbelief!” that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re turning to Him. We don’t need to make ourselves pretty before we turn to Him. We don’t need to have any of the answers. We don’t’ need to fix ourselves first. It’s enough if we go to Him as we are, saying, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.”

So the broad message of this sermon is that it’s okay to take our emotions to the Lord, even if they’re messy. The specific message is that despair is, though it feels especially messy, is something we’re especially meant to take to the Lord.

He’s waiting for an opportunity to answer us. The reading said that all spiritual temptation is followed by comfort and newness of life (SH §8567). This is something we see in all of the stories from the Word that we’ve looked at today. The disciples in the midst of the storm said, “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?’ and then He rose and hushed the storm (Mark 4:38, 39). Elijah said that He was alone, but the Lord said that there were seven thousand in Israel who were on his side—seven thousand people who were under God’s protection because they would not worship an idol (1 Kings 19:18). And the father who brought His wretched son to the Lord cried out with tears because He longed to have his son restored to Him. Then the Lord restored His son to him. He “took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose” (Mark 10:27).

Amen.

Wonderful Truths

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; April 13, 2025

Readings: John 12:12-19 (children’s talk); Leviticus 23:39-40; Apocalypse Explained §458.4-5

Video: 

Text: 

           Those people on the first Palm Sunday were so excited about the Lord—and wouldn’t it be great if we could be that excited? When was the last time that any of us were prepared to shout and cheer for the Lord?  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be so confident in Him?

            Of course, those people in the reading who shouted and cheered and were so confident didn’t necessarily have the clearest ideas about who the Lord was or what He was going to do. They called Him the King of Israel (John 12:13), and presumably many of them meant that title very literally. But the Lord never became an earthly king. Being excited about something that turns out not to be real kind of knocks the wind out of the excitement.

            The thing is, the Lord has given us the teachings we need to understand who He really is—and who He really is is far more wonderful than being the literal king of Israel. So we can learn something from that crowd that celebrated the Lord on the first Palm Sunday. Their ideas were off track, but their actions were dead on. They held up palm branches and they declared truths about the Lord—and the things they said were true, even if they didn’t understand them. We can do the same. Literally holding up palms and literally shouting is less important than capturing the spirit that we see in this story—a spirit that declares wonderful truths about the Lord.

            Something that can help us understand that spirit better is the symbolism of palm branches. Palm branches are only mentioned in the gospel of John (12:13)—Matthew and Mark both say that people laid down branches to make a pathway for the Lord, but don’t specify that they were palm branches (Matt. 21:8; Mark 11:8). But nobody ever pictures people using any other kind of branches than palm branches on Palm Sunday—after all, it’s called “Palm Sunday.” And the teachings of the New Church confirm that the symbolism of palms is important to this story.

We might be tempted to think that people chose to lay down palm branches for practical reasons: palms branches are fairly flat, so if you put them in someone’s path they’ll make a carpet rather than a barrier. That might have been part of the reasoning, but there’s more to it than that: it’s clear that, even at the time, palm branches were understood to be symbolic of something. A piece of evidence in support of this is that the ancient Israelites were instructed to use palm branches during some of their religious celebrations. Here are some of the instructions, given in the book of Leviticus, that pertain to a holiday called the feast of tabernacles: [read 23:39, 40].

So the people were told to “rejoice before the Lord” holding fruits of the tree of honor, and three different kinds of branches: palm branches; leafy branches, or branches with thick foliage; and willow branches (v. 40). It’s pretty clear that these instructions would never have been given unless these specific fruits and branches represented something. Our next reading is a passage from the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, from the book Apocalypse Explained, about the symbolism of these trees. The first part of this reading reviews all of the trees mentioned in that passage from Leviticus; the second part focuses on the specific meaning of palm branches. We read: [§458.4-5].

There are two ideas that we’re going to draw out of that reading and focus on. The first is that palm-trees symbolize “spiritual good—that is, the good of truth;” the second is that people used to hold palms in their hands “to testify to their joy of heart.” These two ideas are, of course, connected, and the connection between them captures the spirit that we see in the Palm Sunday story. There’s something in there about truth, and there’s something in there about joy and testimony: the spirit that we’re talking about today is a spirit that puts those things together.

Palms are said to symbolize spiritual good, which is the same thing as the good of truth. The good of truth means good that comes from truth. It’s the good that comes from living the truth—the good that comes of doing what you know to be right (see the beginning of AE §458). A good idea in your head is just an idea. We may call our ideas “good,” but ideas all by themselves don’t accomplish anything good. It’s only when we do something with them that they can have a positive effect on the world—so that’s the point at which an idea actually becomes good. The good of truth is simply truth that we bring to life. So palm branches fundamentally represent truths, or true ideas—but they represent truths that we love enough that we’re willing to do something with them (cf. SH §8369).

And when we do what we know to be right, we feel happy. We feel joy. So the reading from Apocalypse Explained says that all joy of heart is from spiritual good, “for spiritual good is the… love of spiritual truth” (§458.5). When we love spiritual truth, and therefore do it, the result is good and that good makes us happy. All of this is what palm branches symbolize. And the reading says that, because of this symbolism, people in ancient times used to hold palm branches in their hands to “testify to their joy of heart”—joy that comes from believing and living a truth. That’s why people chose palms when the Lord rode into Jerusalem. They may not have understood all of the symbolism that we’ve just gone over, but they knew—because it was in the Old Testament, and because it was an ancient custom—that palm branches were symbolic.

Elsewhere in the Heavenly Doctrine the symbolism of palms is explained a little bit differently. In the book Apocalypse Revealed we read that, “Holding palm branches in the hands symbolizes confessions springing from Divine truths because palm branches symbolize Divine truths” (§367). We’ve got the same basic components in this statement as in the longer reading from Apocalypse Explained: something about truth and something about declaring that truth, or testifying to it. But the word “confession” is one that we need to take time to understand. A “confession” is a heartfelt acknowledgment of something. Nowadays this word is mostly used when people acknowledge bad things that they’ve done—people confess their sins, or confess to their crimes. But the word doesn’t have to have such a narrow meaning: we can confess good things too. When the Heavenly Doctrine talks about confessing the Lord, or about confessions springing from Divine truths, it’s talking about a heartfelt acknowledgment of who the Lord is and what He does. And what He does is really, really good. So confessing the Lord actually means something very similar to thanking the Lord, and also praising the Lord (cf. the translation of Is. 51:3 in SH §100). With these ideas in mind, you can maybe start to see the overlap between “confessions springing from Divine truths” and “testifying to your joy of heart.” The spirit that these phrases capture is the spirit that’s symbolized by holding up palm branches to the Lord.

All of the details in the Palm Sunday story symbolize things that have to do with truth. We’ve already talked about the palm branches. The clothes that people spread on the road and placed on the donkey for the Lord to sit on also symbolize truths (cf. Matt. 21:7, 8; Mark 11:7, 8; Luke 19:35, 36)—our own truths, or our own ideas, which we lay down before Him. We’re told that when the disciples put their garments on the donkey, this represented “the recognition that truths in their entirety were the foundation on which the Lord as supreme Judge and King rested” (SH §9212.6). The donkey itself symbolized that the Lord was the supreme Judge and King—and again, that symbolism would have been known to the people who were present at the time. In ancient Israel, judges and kings rode on donkeys (SH §2781.7-8, 9212.5-6). So those people shouted out that the Lord was the king of Israel (John 12:13). And in the Heavenly Doctrine we’re told that, “the title ‘king’ in reference to the Lord symbolizes Divine truth” (AR §664). Palm Sunday is all about celebrating and declaring truths.

And what truths did the people declare when the Lord rode into Jerusalem? There are two that come to mind. They called Him the King of Israel, and He is a king—He’s the King of Heaven, and of all creation. But before those people shouted out that He was king, they shouted out “Hosanna,” which means “save us” (John 12:13). By shouting this, they were declaring that the Lord could save them—that He had the power to save them. So, essentially, they were declaring the same truth that was declared by that multitude in our recitation from Revelation—the multitude who held palm branches in their hands and cried out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (7:10)

The Lord is King, and salvation is His. Within the context of Christianity, these truths are a given. If you’ve grown up in the church, then you’ve heard these truths all your life. They’re the basic teachings of the church. But think about the difference between knowing these truths and confessing them—lifting them up to testify to your joy of heart, because you love these truths and you’re willing to live in their light.

Take the truth that salvation is the Lord’s. We need the Lord to save us. If we know this truth, but don’t confess it, the result can be that this truth makes us feel anxious: what if He doesn’t save us? We’d better cross our spiritual t’s and dot our spiritual i’s, or else we won’t secure His salvation. We can hold that truth so differently: the Lord is salvation! He has all power in heaven and on earth to save us, to make us safe, and that power can be with us now. He can save our souls: He can surround our souls with safety, safety that the world cannot take from us. Confess that truth—testify to it with joy. “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (John 12:13)

Or take the truth that the Lord is King. The Lord is in charge—He’s the boss, and we’re not, and so on. We can understand this truth and find no joy in it; we can even resent it, because it means that we should probably do what He says. But the truth that the Lord is King is something to celebrate—because if He’s in charge of this crazy world, then maybe the world isn’t as crazy as it seems. Sure, a lot of stuff goes wrong, and we sure don’t have the power to fix it. But if the Lord is King then there is something good reigning over all of this—and justice will prevail in the end, because a Divine king would never permit it to be otherwise. That’s a truth that we can celebrate.

This particular church, the Pittsburgh New Church, hasn’t historically been one in which people shout out praises during worship. And that’s fine—there are lots of different ways to worship, and they all have their own merits. We don’t need to literally shout out praises; but we are meant to do more than think about the truth. Just because we know a truth doesn’t mean that we get it. Ultimately we’re meant to do what the truth teaches us to do—but while we’re on that road it’s also good to look for and celebrate the goodness of those basic truths about the Lord and His kingdom. Yes, we know them. Do we confess them? Do we rejoice in them? We can do these things together—for example, when we sing during Sunday worship. We’re also called to do them individually, in our prayers and in our lives. Do we lift up those palm branches in our own spirits? Do we cry “Hosanna” to the Lord?

Amen.

The First Commandment

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; April 6, 2025

Readings: John 12:1-11 (children’s talk); Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Secrets of Heaven §§2023, 1150

Video: 

Text:

           The first of all the commandments is that we’re to love the Lord with all we have (Mark 12:29, 30). It’s easy to recognize that this commandment is important… but to actually keep it is a tall order. What would it look like if we were to actually put this commandment first? That’s what we’re going to be exploring today.

The story of Mary anointing the Lord’s feet is about loving the Lord. It’s easy enough to see that what she did was an act of love. Of course, we don’t have the opportunity to literally anoint the Lord’s feet. But there are ways in which we can follow Mary’s example.

            But this story is challenging in a couple of different ways; so let’s talk about the challenging parts. If we’re thinking that we’re meant to follow Mary’s example, then what’s probably most challenging about this story is the degree to which she physically humbles herself before Jesus. Of course the Lord, if He’s the Lord, is great and worthy of our reverence. But it’s one thing to think that, and another to be willing to do what Mary did. Would we be willing to wipe his feet with our hair? We’ll come back to these ideas later on.

            The other aspect of this story that might feel challenging is the statement the Lord makes about the poor. Judas says that the oil could have been sold and the money given to the poor, but the Lord sets that suggestion aside. He says, “For the poor you have with you always” (John 12:8). It might sound like He’s saying, “There are always going to be poor people—you’re never going to be able to fix that problem, so don’t bother trying. Spend your money on symbolic things instead.” But that’s not what He’s saying. His statement about the poor is actually an allusion to a passage from the book of Deuteronomy; and if we know what that passage says, then the Lord’s words in today’s story from John land pretty differently. Here’s that passage from Deuteronomy: [read 15:7-11].

            The Lord absolutely wants His people to help the poor and the needy. He says, “the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land’” (Deut. 15:11). In other words, the poor and the needy are always going to be there, and that’s precisely why we need to be willing to help them. The people who were with the Lord in Lazarus’s house in Bethany probably would have been familiar with the book of Deuteronomy. So perhaps when Jesus said “the poor you have with you always,” they remembered that Deuteronomy says, “the poor will never cease from the land.” The Lord wasn’t telling them that selling the oil of spikenard and giving the money to the poor was a bad idea—ministering to the needy is an ongoing labor that He expects His people to participate in. It was just that ministering to Him—anointing His feet with the oil—was also a good thing to do. It was a “both/and,” not an “either/or.”

            Here are a few more thoughts about that passage from Deuteronomy: There was a reference in the middle of it to “the year of release” (v. 9). The passage indicates that people might be reluctant to lend to their neighbors if they know that the year of release is close at hand. Earlier in this chapter from Deuteronomy, the Lord tells His people that every seventh year is to be a year of release: in that seventh year, all debts are to be completely forgiven (vv. 1, 2). So if you lent something to somebody during the first year, your debtor would have six years in which to pay you back, and your investment would probably be returned to you. But if you lent something near the end of the sixth year you almost certainly weren’t going to get it back, because when that seventh year began the debt would be wiped out. The Lord tells His people not to think this way. He tells them to simply give what is needed. He says that if they do, He will bless them in all their works and in all to which they put their hand (v. 10).

            It’s also noteworthy that this passage keeps on using the words “brethren” and “brother.” “You shall open your hand wide to your brother” (v. 11) This is because of the spiritual meaning of these words: “brothers” symbolize charity, or states of charity in other people (AR §32; SH 2360.2; AE §746.6). The point is that we’re meant to serve the charity or the good in other people—when we serve our neighbor, we should be trying to make what is good increase. To do this, we have to serve thoughtfully and with good judgment. You can’t really go wrong with giving food to the hungry, but if you give money to someone who then uses that money to buy illegal drugs, nothing good has been accomplished. This idea helps us refine our concept of what it really means to serve the neighbor—what it doesn’t do is excuse us from serving the neighbor. That’s a labor that the Lord expects us to participate in.

Today’s sermon is about loving the Lord, not about loving the neighbor. But if we’re going to understand what it means to love the Lord, we need to understand how important it is to Him that we show charity to our neighbors. If you love someone, you do what they want. In John the Lord says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (14:15), and He also says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12). And in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we’re told: [read SH §2023].

If you want to love the Lord, serve your neighbor. Love the people that He loves. If we were to perform innumerable acts of devotion, and kneel before the Lord just as Mary did, but we thought nothing of our neighbor and despised acts of charity, our devotion would be meaningless to Him. If we’re going to keep the first commandment, and love the Lord, we have to keep the second commandment, and love our neighbor.

But there’s more to it than that. Mary anointed the Lord’s feet with costly oil, oil that could have been used to help the poor, and the Lord said that what she did was good. It’s not that giving to the poor would have been bad—it’s just that what Mary did was also good. It’s a both/and, not an either/or. Loving the Lord definitely involves serving the neighbor, but there’s more to it than that.  Because we can serve the neighbor without letting the Lord come anywhere near our hearts. That’s what we see in Judas: he said that Mary should have served the poor, instead of anointing the Lord’s feet, but he said that because was the keeper of the money box, and he knew that if that oil had been sold, he would have been able to pocket a bit of the profit. So people’s motives for performing acts of charity aren’t always heaenly. Even if we aren’t thieves or purely in it for ourselves, like Judas was, we sometimes do good deeds with ourselves in view. We do good deeds so that we can hang trophies on the wall in a secret room inside our minds. The good deeds are still being done, and the neighbor is still benefiting, but we aren’t keeping the first commandment when we do good without ever lifting up our minds to the Lord.

The point of all of this is that we’re called, or invited, to make room in our lives for moments in which we express love directly to the Lord. We’re invited to make room for acts of love and devotion to Him—like the act that Mary performed when she anointed the Lord’s feet instead of giving money to the poor. We probably shouldn’t try too hard to pin down exactly what these acts of love and devotion are supposed to look like or feel like. But a phrase that’s worth reflecting on is “adoration of the Lord.” We turn now to our final reading for today, which is also from the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church [read SH §1150].

The essential in all worship is adoration of the Lord from the heart. Worship, of course, is what we do in church on Sunday… but it’s more than that. Worship is a way of life (see SH §§1618, 7884). If we’re going to live that life—a life that has God in the midst of it—adoration of the Lord from the heart is essential. Now in this context, the word “adoration” doesn’t mean what it might mean in an everyday context. In everyday life, if you say you adore something, that probably means you think it’s cute. “Adoration” is sometimes used to describe silly kinds of love. But the word “adoration” originally had to do with worship. In this passage from the Heavenly Doctrine, “adoration” describes the feelings and the attitudes and the behaviors that are proper to worship. Instead of “adoration from the heart” you could also say “heartfelt reverence”—maybe that makes the concept easier to understand. But that word “heartfelt” needs to be there. This passage isn’t talking about a motion that we go through or a posture that we assume with our bodies when we come to church: it’s talking about an affection. It’s talking about adoration of the Lord.

That final reading said again what was said already: that we can’t actually adore the Lord, or love the Lord, unless love to the neighbor is present with us. Love to the Lord and love to the neighbor are inseparable. But again, this doesn’t mean that if we do a good deed for a neighbor, we automatically check both boxes. We do express love for the Lord when we obey His commandments and serve the people He loves; but it’s also good, and important, to approach Him directly, like Mary does in the story from John.

There are two important questions that follow from these ideas. The first is, what does adoration of the Lord look like—how do we do it? The second is, are we willing to do it?

There are actions that the Word teaches us to take that are clearly meant to set the stage for adoration of the Lord. Sunday worship is an opportunity to practice adoration of the Lord. Yes, it’s good if people learn something when they come to church on Sunday—but more fundamentally, the reason we’re supposed to come to church is that it’s a way of showing that the Lord is important to us, an opportunity to show that we care about the Lord. Praying is another action we’re taught to take. We can pray to the Lord anytime, anywhere; and when our prayers are heartfelt, we’re communicating our affection to Him directly. That can be adoration of the Lord. But of course, we’re talking about things that are very personal. No one can tell us what to feel, or how to express our feelings. So we come back to the question that the children were asked: what will you do to show the Lord that He’s important to you?

I said earlier that we would revisit Mary’s physical gestures of humility. She made herself very low before the Lord. She had to, if she was going to wipe his feet with her hair. She anointed Him with oil, and that oil represents love—love that she poured out to Him. The fragrance of that oil filled the house. Was humbling herself the way she did a necessary part of her expression of love? In many ways the answer is yes. Love and humility are intertwined. If you really love someone, you don’t think twice about serving them. Especially if that someone is the Lord.

Mary didn’t have to do what she did. No one made her do it, and that’s important. Affection can’t be compelled. She wanted to adore the Lord. Would we be willing to do what she did? Are we willing to set ourselves aside so completely, and show Him our affection and our gratitude? If we were so willing, what would we do about it?

Amen.

Because I Live

Rev. Jared Buss

Pittsburgh New Church; March 30, 2025

Readings: John 11:20-44; Revelation 1:17, 18; Apocalypse Revealed §58

 Video:

Text:

            The Lord says, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). He doesn’t say that He’s alive, or that He has life. He says He is life. And that’s the idea we’re going to be focusing on today—the idea that all life, including the life that we feel within ourselves right now, is the Lord’s.

            The number of passages in the Word that assert this truth is significant. Clearly this is an idea that we’re supposed to pay attention to. We’re only going to hear a few of those passages today. Our first reading is from the first chapter of the book of Revelation. This is a description of what happens after John sees the vision of the Lord in the midst of the seven lampstands. We read: [vv. 17, 18].

            So John is overwhelmed by what he sees, and he falls down as dead. But the Lord touches him, to comfort and revive him (v. 17). And as He comforts John, the Lord says, “I am He who lives” (v. 18). Now we’re going to turn to the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, and look at what we’re taught in the book Apocalypse Revealed about the meaning of these words. This reading is printed on the back of your worship handout. We read: [§58].

            There are a lot of important statements in that reading. “There is only one life, namely God.” We are merely recipients of His life. And He is life because He is love and wisdom—these things constitute life. The fire in our hearts and the light in our minds are what make us feel alive. That fire and that light are the Lord’s. The bottom line is just what the Lord says in that closing quote from the gospel of John: “Because I live, you will live also” (14:9). We live because He lives.

            So why is this teaching significant? Rather, what changes when we understand it? It’s one of those ideas that’s easy to accept in a general way and hard to accept in a specific way. If God is God, then of course life, in general, comes from Him. That isn’t so hard to believe. But to believe that my life—the life that I feel in my mind and in my body right now—is His is a little more challenging. It takes some humility to accept this. Actually it takes a lot of humility. Humility doesn’t always come easily. But if we push ourselves into a humble state of mind, what we find is that humility is liberating. Because we get to stop pretending. Yes, we depend on God. He gives us everything, which means that we have everything to be grateful for. To see our lives that way is wonderful.

            And of course, we all want to feel alive; and if we want to feel that way, we should know where to find life. Medically speaking we’re all completely alive. We’ve all got beating hearts. But it’s obvious that there’s more to life than having organs that function. People sometimes say that they don’t really feel alive. Think of someone who lives to work—someone who has no time for anything except work and maybe a bit of sleep. Or think of someone who’s incapable of trying anything new, because they live in fear. We might say that those people aren’t really living.

            People try lots of things to make themselves feel more alive. Some of these things are constructive—or at least not destructive. They go for walks in gardens. They take vacations. They splash cold water on their faces. But people also do destructive things in the name of “really living.” They take crazy risks. They do things that are deeply selfish, imagining that selfishness will make them feel free and therefore more alive. We all want to feel alive. It makes such a difference to know where that feeling actually comes from.

            Our reading from Apocalypse Revealed said that people are merely recipients of life. This is one of those foundational truths that the Heavenly Doctrine repeats over and over. So, for example, in the book Secrets of Heaven we’re told: “A person is nothing other than an organ or vessel which receives life from the Lord, for a person does not live of himself” (§3318.2). We are organs that receive life—just like a lung is an organ that receives oxygen. We can also think of ourselves as vessels that receive life. A “vessel” can be a cup or a bowl, and that image works well enough—we hold up the cup, and the Lord fills it. But there are also vessels in our bodies. Maybe when that passage says that we’re vessels that receive the Lord’s life, the real meaning is that we’re like blood vessels through which His life runs.

            If we think of ourselves as organs or vessels that receive life, then our responsibility or our role in the process of living becomes clear: we need to make ourselves ready to receive. A cup cant receive anything if it’s turned upside down. A clogged or blocked blood vessel can’t do its job, and can even cause us to die. We need to clean out the vessel, and turn it right way round. Here’s what we’re taught in Secrets of Heaven:

On account of the hereditary evil into which a person is born, and on account of the evil of his own doing which a person acquires to himself, these vessels with him are set the wrong way round for receiving [the life that flows from the Lord’s love]. But insofar as it is possible for this inflowing life to do so, it resets those vessels to receive it. (§3318.2)

This passage goes on to say that the vessels in our minds can’t be reset until the selfish loves that hold them in place are softened. Love of self and love of the world calcify our minds and keep them in an unreceptive state. That calcification needs to be broken up, and this is accomplished by temptations. Temptations are about letting go of the hard loves we cling to—especially our pride. Pride is the most brittle of all things. To relinquish those hard things is to choose humility, which is soft. Humility is willing to be worked with. When the Lord’s love flows into a willing mind, it resets those vessels that were turned the wrong way round. Little by little His inflowing life takes those parts of us that were backwards and brittle and selfish, and heals them, so that we can receive His life—and feel His life—like never before (see §3318.3, 4).

            What this means in practice is that we feel more alive the more we cooperate with the Lord—the more we work with Him, the more we listen to Him, the more we obey Him. We feel more alive the more we “do it His way.” And that’s because all of the teachings that He gives us in His Word are instructions on how to turn the cup the right way round. He tells us not to murder, commit adultery, steal or lie—and that’s because those behaviors invert and calcify our minds. To put it really simply, we feel more alive when we do the right thing. Because when we do the right thing the Lord can be present, and the Lord is life.

            The catch is that we don’t feel more alive when we do the right thing, and then try to fill our own cups. It’s not uncommon for people to lead functional, orderly lives, and wonder why they don’t feel happier. The problem may well be that they’re trying to do it on their own—from themselves and not from the Lord. We can check all the right boxes on the outside—get our work done, drive the speed limit, clean the house and kiss the kids goodnight—but if we aren’t choosing to open our spirits to the Lord, then there’s no life flowing into us to fill those good deeds. We’re meant to be like blood vessels through which His flows. The vessel needs to be open at both ends. Love and life are meant to flow from Him into the works of our hands, and so into the world. If we’re doing the right things, the vessel is open at the bottom; but if it’s pride that’s driving us to do the right things, then the vessel is closed at the top. That stream of life—that awareness of being unexpectedly filled with the breath of life—comes to us when we wrestle our pride to the ground. When in our hearts we say, “Thy will be done” (Matt. 6:10; Luke 11:2).

            Of course there’s that part of us that doesn’t trust the Lord—that doesn’t believe that obeying Him will make us happier than doing what we want, doesn’t believe that we’re stronger when we admit we need Him, doesn’t believe that humility will set us free. It appears to us that we live on our own and that we’re happiest when we rule our own lives—and to our pride, anything that challenges these appearances is a threat. The Lord’s teachings, the teachings we’ve looked at today, can feel threatening. Trusting Him—believing Him—is something we choose to do. In John He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (11:25, 26). The first step is to believe Him; the goal is to live and believe in Him. In Secrets of Heaven we’re told:

[Evil spirits cannot comprehend] that they do not start to live until the life of evil desires and false persuasions in which they are immersed is annihilated. They believe that if they were deprived of these no life at all could possibly be left to them, whereas the truth of the matter is that once they have got rid of the life of evil desires and of false persuasions they start to live for the first time…. (§2889)

When we get rid of the junk and let the Lord flow in, we start to live for the first time. We won’t know what we’ve been missing until we give Him a chance.

            He wants us to feel alive. He wants that because He loves us, and He knows that if we didn’t feel alive we would have no identity, and could feel no joy. Here’s another teaching from Secrets of Heaven:

The reason why the life which comes from the Lord alone seems to everyone to be intrinsically his own lies in the Lord’s love or mercy towards the whole human race. That is to say, His will is to make that which is His every person’s own and to confer eternal happiness on every person. (§4320).

Life is His, but He lets us feel His life as though it were our own because He loves us. It’s that simple. The takeaway from this is that He doesn’t want us to feel like we have no life or identity of our own. He doesn’t want us to feel like we’re just extensions of Himself, or like we’re just robots that are operated by His spirit. He wants us to feel alive, and free.

            It seems like a paradox, but we’re told that the more closely we’re conjoined with the Lord, the more distinctly we appear to ourselves to be our own person, and at the same time, the more clearly we recognize that we are the Lord’s (Divine Providence §42). The angels in heaven know that the Lord alone is life. They can actually feel His life flowing into them. They know that it would be outrageous for them to claim that they have anything good apart from Him. They also know that He wants them to make His life their own—so they make it their own (Secrets of Heaven §3742). They live the life He gives them. They are alive, and they are free.

That’s what He wants for us. He says, “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:9).

Amen.