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Be the Church, Part 3: Serve Humanity

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:00:00 -0500

This is part three of our summer series, “Be the Church”. In part one ("Connect with the Lord") we reviewed the seven basic components of a life in the church. Then last week, in part two ("Love One Another"), we discussed what it meant to be the church to one another as part of the communion of saints. This week, in part three, “Serve Humanity”, are are going to talk about doing good deeds as a church.

Good works are not optional. Which good works we do, and how and when we do them, are left to us to decide. But the Lord does not want people in this world to suffer and it is our obligation as his church to do something to make the world better. We start by shunning evils and performing our daily occupations, and also by being good citizens and good spouses and parents. But the Lord asks more of us. The world is full of natural as well as spiritual suffering, and we are not meant to ignore either.

When doing good works, it is important that we do them justly and from good judgment. Indiscriminately giving money to anyone who asks for it, for instance, may do as much harm as good. At the same time it is a mistake to let our fears of doing the “wrong” good deed stop us from ever attempting good works at all. So long as we try to use our best judgement, and try to do it out of the kindness of our hearts and not merely with the hope of some reward, the Lord will bless us and lead us to become ever better at it.

Now, natural charity is meant to be a foundation for spiritual charity, so in two weeks we will have part four, “Proclaim the Good News”.

To see the truth of this message and to learn how to apply it to your life, read Matthew 25:34-40 and True Christian Religion 459:13-17, then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here, and then try out what you learn in your life. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog.com, the New Church, and for free at the Apple iTunes Store.

* * *

Matthew 25:34-40

"Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

"And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’"

True Christian Religion 459:13-17.

When the speeches were over, I held up my hand and asked permission, although I was a stranger, to give my opinion. The presiding officer put this to the meeting, and when it was agreed, I spoke as follows: 'My opinion is that charity is acting in every deed and employment from a love of justice combined with judgment; but from love that has no other source than the Lord God the Saviour. All that I have heard from those sitting on the benches on the right and the left are well-known examples of charity. But as the presiding officer of this gathering said in his introductory remarks, charity is in its origin spiritual, but in what is derived from this it is natural. Natural charity, if inwardly it is spiritual, appears to the sight of angels transparent, like a diamond. But if inwardly it is not spiritual, but purely natural, it appears to the sight of angels pearly, like the eye of a boiled fish.
'It is not for me to say whether the well-known examples of charity, which you have brought forward one after another, are inspired by spiritual charity or not. But I can say what the spirituality in it must be, for them to be natural expressions of spiritual charity. Their spirituality consists in their being done from a love of justice combined with judgment, that is, in a person looking to see, when he does something charitable, whether he acts from justice; and it is judgment which allows him to see this. For a person can do harm by kindnesses, and do good by things that look like doing harm. For example, harm is done by kindnesses if anyone supplies a hard-up highwayman with the money to buy himself a sword, although in asking he will not say this is his intention. Or if anyone helps him break out of prison and shows him the way to the woods, saying to himself, "It is not my fault that he robs travelers; I helped a fellow human being." To take another example: if someone feeds an idler, and takes care he is not compelled to work, saying, "Come into a room in my house and lie in bed; why tire yourself out?" anyone doing this is fostering idleness, Or again, if anyone promotes relations and friends of bad character to high office, in which they can set on foot many kinds of mischief. Can anyone fail to see that charitable deeds of this sort are not motivated by any love of justice combined with judgment?

'On the other hand, a person may do a kindness by acts which look like wrong-doing; for instance, a judge who acquits a wrong-doer because he weeps, utters pious expressions and begs to have his offense overlooked, on the grounds that he is his neighbor. Yet the judge in fact acts charitably, when he imposes the sentence prescribed by law, for by so doing he prevents him from doing further wrong and harming the community, which is the neighbour in a superior degree; and he sees to it that such a judgment is not a cause of scandal. Is anyone unaware that it is for their own good that servants are chastised by their masters, and children by their parents, for doing wrong? It is much the same with those in hell, all of whom love to do wrong, being kept shut up in prison and punished when they act wickedly, a punishment permitted by the Lord to reform them. This happens because the Lord is justice itself, and does whatever He does as the result of judgment itself.

'These facts allow us to see clearly why it is that, as I said before, spiritual charity arises from a love of justice combined with judgment, but from love from no other source than the Lord God the Saviour. The reason is that all the good of charity is from the Lord; for He says:

He who remains in me and I in him brings forth much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

also:

He has all power in heaven and on earth. (Mat. 28:18)

All love of justice combined with judgment has no other origin than the God of heaven, who is justice itself, and the source of all human powers of judgment (Jer. 23:5; 33:15)

'This leads to the conclusion that everything said about charity from the seats to right or left - that it is morality with faith breathed into it, piety with pity breathed into it, doing good to the upright and to the wicked, looking after one's relatives and friends in every way, giving to the poor and helping the needy, building hospitals and supporting them with gifts, endowing places of worship and doing kindnesses to their ministers, that it is the Christian brotherhood of old, or forgiving everyone his faults - all of these are splendid examples of charity, when they are done out of a love of justice combined with judgment. Otherwise they are not charity, but only like watercourses cut off from the spring that feeds them, and like branches torn from a tree. True charity consists in believing in the Lord, and acting fairly and righteously in every deed and employment. Anyone therefore who at the Lord's bidding loves justice and executes it with judgment is an image and likeness of charity.'

Be the Church, Part 2: Love One Another

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:00:00 -0500

Last week, in part one of our series, we reviewed our individual responsibilities to the Lord as citizens of his kingdom on earth, the Church. They are to live a life of piety (praying, reading the Word, and worshiping the Lord) and a life of charity (repenting, shunning evils, and serving other people) so that we may be born again.

This week, we are talking about how we can be the church to one another. In The Gospel of John, the Lord tells us, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” A very powerful and important way we can keep this commandment is by supporting each other in one another's personal spiritual journeys. True Christian Religion teaches that the Church as a person's neighbor provides true teachings and good deeds by which that person enters the Lord's kingdom. If each of us is to be the church, then each of us is responsible for supporting our spiritual brothers and sisters as they try to understand truths and to do good deeds.

It is because the church—which is made up of each one of us—helps us in this way that we are to love and honor our spiritual mother the church as one of the highest forms of neighbor. And when we are the church to one another and are loving the church in one another, we form a spiritual community of individuals striving to help one another to become better people. This community the Writings for the New Church call the “communion of saints”.

But the communion of saints also includes people you have never met. And so next week we will look at ways we as a church can be a good neighbor to the rest of the world in “Be the Church, Part 3: Serve Humanity”.

To see the truth of this message and to learn how to apply it to your life, read John 13:31-24 and True Christian Religion 145-146, and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog, the New Church, and for free at the Apple iTunes Store.

* * *

John 13:31-34

So, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

True Christian Religion 145-146

Chapter V
The neighbor who is to be loved in a higher degree is the church, and in the highest degree the Lord's kingdom.

Since man is born destined for everlasting life, and it is the church which brings him to this, the church ought to be loved as neighbor in a higher degree. For the church's teaching is the means leading to and giving entry to everlasting life. It is the truths of its teaching which lead and the good deeds performed which give entry to it. This does not mean that the priesthood is to be loved in a higher degree, and the church because of the priesthood. It is the good and truth of the church which ought to be loved, and the priesthood for their sake. The priesthood only serves as a means, and should be honored to the extent that it so serves.

Another reason why the church is the neighbor to be loved in a higher degree, and so more than one's country, is that one's country introduces one to secular life, but the church introduces one to spiritual life, the life which distinguishes man from living purely as an animal. Moreover, secular life is temporary, having an end, and is then as if it had never been. But spiritual life, having no end, is everlasting, so that the term 'being' may be used of it, but 'not-being' of the other form of life. The difference is like that between the finite and the infinite, which are incommensurable; for what is everlasting is infinite in respect of time.

The reason why the Lord's kingdom is the neighbor to be loved in the highest degree is that the Lord's kingdom means the church throughout the whole world, what is called the communion of saints, and it also means heaven. If therefore a person loves the Lord's kingdom, he loves everyone in the whole world who acknowledges the Lord and has faith in Him and charity towards the neighbor, as well as all in heaven. Those who love the Lord's kingdom love the Lord above all else, and consequently have greater love to God than all others. For the church in the heavens and upon earth is the Lord's body, since its members are in the Lord and the Lord in them.

Love for the Lord's kingdom then is love towards the neighbor in the fullest sense. For those who love the Lord's kingdom not only love the Lord above all else, but also love the neighbor as themselves. Love to the Lord is universal love, thus pervading every detail of spiritual life and also every detail of natural life. For that love dwells at the highest level in a person, and what is highest flows into what is lower, bringing it to life, just as the will does into every intention and thus every action, and as the understanding into every thought and thus every utterance. This is why the Lord says:

“Seek first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, then everything will be given to you in addition.” (Mat. 6:33)

The kingdom of the heavens is the Lord's kingdom, as is established by this passage in Daniel:

“Behold, one like the Son of Man was coming with the clouds of the heavens. And to him was given dominion, glory and the kingdom, and all peoples, nations and tongues will worship him. His dominion will be a dominion for ever, which will not pass away and his kingdom one which will not perish.” (Dan. 7:13-14)

Be the Church, Part 1: Connect with the Lord

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:00:00 -0500

Welcome to our summer series, “Don't Just Go to Church, Be the Church!” The church is not the priesthood, nor is it some abstract thing apart from you. The church is simply the group of people who follow the Lord, and you are called to be one of them. For the next several Sundays we will be talking about what it means to be citizens of the Lords' kingdom on earth.

In our first part, “Connect with the Lord”, we begin by reviewing what our personal, individual responsibilities to the Lord are. Put briefly, there are seven things the Lord wants us to do: (1) Pray, (2) Read the Word, (3) Worship, (4) Repent, (5) Shun evils, (6) Serve other people, and (7) Regenerate, or be born again. The first three are what are sometimes called the “life of piety”, and the next three are called the “life of charity”; the last one is not something we do ourselves, but instead is something the Lord does for us as a result of the other six.

To see the truth of this and learn how to apply it to your life, read Luke 17:20-21 and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 124, 241-245 (included below), and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog, the New Church, and the Apple iTunes Store.

Next week we will begin to talk about our responsibilities to the church in “Be the Church, Part 2: Love One Another”.

* * *

Luke 17:20-21:

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 241-245:

THE CHURCH
What constitutes heaven with a man, also constitutes the Church; for as love and faith constitute heaven, so also love and faith constitute the Church: consequently, from what has been already said concerning heaven, it is evident what the Church is.

The Church is said to be where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word exists; for the essentials of the Church are love to the Lord and faith in Him, both derived from Him; and the Word teaches how a man ought to live in order that he may receive love and faith from the Lord.
That the Church may exist, there must be doctrine from the Word; because without doctrine the Word cannot be understood. Yet it is not doctrine alone that constitutes the Church with a man, but a life according to doctrine. From this it follows that faith alone does not constitute the Church but the life of faith, which is charity. Genuine doctrine is the doctrine of charity and at the same time of faith, and not the doctrine of faith apart from the former; for the doctrine of charity and at the same time of faith, is the doctrine of life; but not the doctrine of faith apart from the doctrine of charity.

Those who are outside the Church, and acknowledge one God, and live according to their religion in some charity towards the neighbor, are in communion with those who are of the Church; for no one who believes in God and leads a good life, is damned. From this it is evident, that the Lord's Church is everywhere throughout the world; although specifically it is, where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word exists.

Every one with whom the Church exists, is saved; but every one with whom the Church does not exist, is damned.

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 124:

Piety consists in thinking and speaking piously; in praying assiduously, and in behaving then with humility; in attending churches, and in devoutly listening to the preaching there; in partaking frequently during the year of the Holy Supper; and in observing in like manner the other acts of Divine worship, according to the ordinances of the Church. But the life of charity consists in willing and doing good to the neighbor; and in acting from a principle of what is just and fair, and good and true, in every work and in every office; in a word, the life of charity consists in the practice of uses. Divine worship consists primarily in the life of charity, and secondarily in piety. Wherefore, he who separates the one from the other, that is, he who leads a life of piety, and not at the same time a life of charity, does not worship God. It is true, he thinks of God, yet he does not think from God, but from himself; for he constantly thinks of himself, and not at all of the neighbor; and if he does think of the neighbor, he has no respect for him, unless he is of alike quality. He also thinks of heaven as a reward; and for this reason there is in his mind the idea of merit, and also the love of self, as well as a contempt or disregard for uses, and thus of the neighbor; at the same time also there is present with him a faith in his own guiltlessness. From this it may appear, that a life of piety separated from a life of charity, is not the spiritual life which ought to be in Divine worship. (See Mat. 6:7-8.)

Church and the Long Tail is Underway

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:45:41 -0500

The first full podcast and blog post in my "Church and the Long Tail" series is up on GlennFrazier.com. Go and check it out!

Oh, and if you arrived here at TheoBlog.com looking for the series, let me apologize. I slipped up in my podcast and sent you here instead of to my personal site, GlennFrazier.com. Rather than re-record the podcast, I figured I'd just put a pointer here to redirect you over to where you really want to go.

Hopefully soon I'll have a better idea of how TheoBlog.com and GlennFrazier.com fit together.

Make Spiritual Victory a Habit (Matthew 11:30)

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 11:00:00 -0500

Today's message: Leading a good life sometimes seems hard, but if we just make a habit of repenting then the Lord will do all the heavy lifting.

To understand and apply this, first read Matthew 11:30, Heaven and Hell 528, Psalm 51, and Heaven and Hell 533 (all printed below), and then listen to the audio of this sermon.

Matthew 11:28-30:

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Heaven and Hell 528:

IT IS NOT SO HARD TO LEAD A HEAVEN-BOUND LIFE AS PEOPLE THINK IT IS
Some people believe it is hard to lead the heaven-bound life that is called “spiritual” because they have heard that we need to renounce the world and give up the desires attributed to the body and the flesh and “live spiritually”. All they understand by this is spurning worldly interests, especially concerns for money and prestige, going around in constant devout meditation about God, salvation, and eternal life, devoting their lives to prayer, and reading the Word and religious literature. They think this is renouncing the world and living for the spirit and not for the flesh. However, the actual case is quite different, as I have learned from an abundance of experience and conversation with angels. In fact, people who renounce the world and live for the spirit in this fashion take on a mournful life for themselves, a life that is not open to heavenly joy, since our life does remain with us after death. No, if we would accept heaven's life, we need by all means to live in the world and to participate in its duties and affairs. In this way, we accept a spiritual life by means of our moral and civic life; and there is no other way a spiritual life can be formed within us, no other way our spirits can be prepared for heaven. This is because living an inner life and not an outer life at the same time is like living in a house that has no foundation, that gradually either settles or develops gaping cracks or totters until it collapses....

Psalm 51:

Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You.

Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
The God of my salvation,
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

Heaven and Hell 533:

We can now see that it is not so hard to lead the life of heaven as people think, because it is simply a matter of recognizing, when something attractive comes up that we know is dishonest or unfair, that this is not to be done because it is against the divine commandments. If we get used to thinking like this, and from this familiarity form a habit, then we are gradually united to heaven. To the extent that we are united to heaven, the higher levels of our minds are opened, and to the extent that they are opened, we see what is dishonest and unfair; and to the extent that we see this, these qualities can be dispelled. For no evil can be banished until it has been seen. This is a state we can enter because of our freedom, since everyone is free to think in this way. However, once the process has started, the Lord works wonders within us, and causes us not only to see evils but to refuse them and eventually to turn away from them. This is the meaning of the Lord's words, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Mat. 11:30)
It is important to realize, though, that the difficulty of thinking like this and also of resisting evils increases to the extent that we deliberately do evil things—in fact, to the extent we become used to doing them until ultimately we no longer see them. Then we come to love them and to excuse them to gratify our love and to rationalize them with all kinds of self-deceptions and call them permissible and good. This happens, though, to people who in early adulthood plunge into all kinds of evil without restraint and at the same time at heart reject everything divine.

This sermon was preached at Pittsburgh New Church, and is available at TheoBlog.com, PittsburghNewChurch.org, NewChurch.org, and the Apple iTunes Store.

Church and the Long Tail

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:51:44 -0500

I have just started a new web project: Church and the Long Tail. It is both a blog series and a podcast, hosted at my personal site, GlennFrazier.com. Subscribe to the feed by clicking here, or read the posts by clicking here.

Changes Afoot

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:45:17 -0500

I'm rethinking how I blog. More over at GlennFrazier.com.

God Speaks in Your Heart

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 20 May 2007 11:00:00 -0500

“Then they said to one another, 'Here comes that dreamer!'” (Gen. 37:19)

The Lord gives us dreams and stirs our affections for spiritual things, and for good reasons; we therefore must learn to trust Him and to dream with Him.

Think back to the life dreams of your childhood. Some may have been silly, but some were noble at their core. Where did they come from? And what happened to them? Sometimes our dreams are torn up by others, and sometimes we talk ourselves out of believing in them.

All of our thoughts and affections are spiritual in origin. Some come from heaven, some from hell. The Lord is constantly flowing into our hearts to inspire and motivate us to do good things. Without the hopes and plans for the future that come from His influence, we would never strive to be better people.

In the Word, Joseph and his brothers represent different parts of our minds. Joseph (and his little brother Benjamin) are the deepest, highest parts of us that receive the Lord's love and wisdom. The older brothers represent the more external parts of us that are necessary for daily life. Often, our external mind attacks our inner Joseph, especially when the Lord fills us with thoughts and affections that require us to change our lives in some dramatic way.

As with Joseph, though, the Lord continues to guide and inspire us even when it seems that we have sold our inmost self into slavery. Even when we are trapped in the external concerns of the world, like Joseph in Egypt we will be protected and lead so that it all leads to good, if we permit Him to do so.

So learn to discern which of your thoughts and affections are from heaven, so you can honor the Lord's inspiration when you find it in your heart.

To see that this is true, read Genesis 37 and Divine Providence 287, and then listen to the full audio version of this sermon, preached at Pittsburgh New Church.

How to Heal Spiritual Suffering

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:00:00 -0500

"And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev. 22:2b)

Anyone can go to heaven, no matter what church they go to or what doctrines they are taught, so long as they try to shun evils and live a life of charity. So why do people join the New Church if salvation isn't "on the line"? To relieve suffering.

The Lord is Love, and so wants nothing more than for us to be happy. Yet, there is a lot of suffering in the world. We all suffer at some time or another, and if we're not suffering now, it's not hard for us to find someone around us who is. Some suffering is small, some is very great. And so, the Lord provides us with a way to be healed.

In fact, He provides two means of healing. First, He provides the Word. Second, He provides people. It is part of His design for His church that we each use our own understanding of His truths to heal not only ourselves, but the world around us.

The Book of Revelation ends with a beautiful image of the heavenly city New Jerusalem. In its midst grows the Tree of Life, about which we are told, "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." The city is an image of what the Lord's New Church is meant to be like here, today. This final chapter of the New Testament also presents an image of what each one of us is meant to be like. The "leaves of the tree" are the rational truths of the New Church, and "the nations" are all those people who suffer because of evil desires and false beliefs. Who of us does that not describe? So these "leaves"—these new, rational truths of the New Church—have the power to heal us when we suffer. This is no empty promise, as anyone who has experienced this in their own lives can tell you. Furthermore, this is not merely a prediction of what the Lord will do in each of our lives, but is a call to each of us to participate in His grand plan for humanity.

So, if you are suffering, turn to these new truths, and you will find relief. And if you have felt the healing power for yourself already, then go out and be a healer. The Lord has anointed you to preach the good news and heal the brokenhearted. Anyone of any faith can get to heaven. What the New Church offers is a way to ease a person's burden as they make that journey. That is what it means to be a part of the New Jerusalem.

To see that this is true, read Revelation 22:1-5, Apocalypse Revealed 936:1-2, and Isaiah 61:1-3, listen to the full audio version of this sermon (recorded at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral), and then try it out in your own life.

A Challenge for this Winter

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:01 -0500

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5)

The Lord wants seven things from us. He wants us to (1) pray, (2) read His Word, (3) worship Him by going to church and also taking Holy Supper, (4) examine ourselves and repent of our sins, (5) shun evils as sins, (6) charitably perform useful services for our neighbors, and (7) become eternally happy by growing ever closer to Him.

Now, looking at that list, you may notice that the first half of the list takes a lot less effort than the second half. In fact, praying, reading and worshipping are so easy, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that we can skip over them and just get down to the “real” tasks of spiritual living. But each of these tasks builds on those that come before. We do the first three because they give us the power to do the rest.

For example, the book Conjugial Love tells us that we connect with the Lord by reading His Word with the desire to hear His genuine truth:

...The Word is the means by which the Lord is conjoined with people and people with the Lord, because it is in its essence Divine truth united to Divine good and Divine good united to Divine truth.
...It follows from this that the Word is a perfect marriage of good and truth. And because it is from the Lord, and because that which is from Him also is Him, it follows as a consequence that when a person reads the Word and draws truths from it, the Lord attaches good. For the person does not see the states of good affecting him, because he uses his intellect to read the Word, and the intellect takes in from the Word only what is proper to it, namely, truths.

The intellect does have a sense that the Lord joins good to these truths, from the delight that flows in when it is in a state of enlightenment, but this takes place inwardly only in the case of people who read the Word for the purpose of gaining wisdom, and those have this purpose who are trying to learn genuine truths from it and thereby form the church in themselves.

In contrast, people who read the Word only for the glory in being learned, and people who suppose that simply the reading or hearing of the Word inspires faith and leads to salvation - such people do not receive any good from the Lord. That is because the goal of the second sort of people is to save themselves by just the mere sayings in the Word, apart from the presence of any truth in them; and the goal of the first sort of people is to become renowned for their learning, a goal which does not have any spiritual good attached to it but only natural delight arising from the glory of the world…. (Conjugial Love 128)

In this spirit, here’s a challenge for you for this winter: read an entire Gospel, start to finish, a little at a time, day by day. If you want a short one, try Mark. If you’re feeling up to a philosophical challenge, choose John. If you want to get into the Christmas spirit, then either Matthew or Luke is a good way to go. But pick one, and commit to reading it, start to finish, between Christmas and Easter.

Pick a time of the day that works for you. It can be when you first wake up, when you are about to go to bed, or some other time of the day. You can do it by yourself. If you’re married, you can read to each other as a couple. If you have kids, you can read to them every night. But pick a time and stick to it.

When the time for daily reading comes, close the door and settle your mind. Pray to the Lord for enlightenment and inspiration. Then read a few verses. If you find yourself caught up in the story, go ahead and read a chapter. If you’re feeling a time crunch or if you’re tired, it’s okay to only read a few verses. The important thing is that you do it daily, to build a habit.

We can’t read ourselves to heaven. However, when we do it with the right frame of mind, it can certainly make the trip a whole lot easier.

Then they cried out to Jehovah in their trouble, And He saved them out of their distresses. He sent His Word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions. (Psalm 107:19-20)

Technorati

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:13:16 -0500

I'm officially "claiming" this site in Technorati. (For those interested, here's our Technorati Profile, for whatever it's worth...)

Exercise Alone Can't Cure a Heart Defect: The Ninth and Tenth Commandments

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 11:00:00 -0500

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we're still doomed.

We have already learned in the past eight weeks of studying the Commandments that there is not only natural murder, but spiritual, as well. We are to shun both. The problem is, spiritual murder actually feels good to us at times. How is this a spiritual form of coveting?

Consider how coveting—longing to possess something that belongs to someone else—is like stealing in one's own heart. When we covet something, we haven't actually stolen it, but there's a part of us that wants to. This is how eventually all natural thefts, murders, false witnesses and acts of adultery come about. First comes the covetous desire, then comes the destructive act. So spiritual murder—attacking a person in your own heart—begins with the evil desire to do so.

Now here's the frightening part of this teaching: satisfying our heart's desires gives us pleasure. That means that there's a dark part of us that feels good when we break a commandment, whether spiritually or naturally. The sin of adultery provides a powerful illustration of this.

Everyone knows that physically committing adultery involves physical pleasure. That's a big part of the attraction of adultery.

So our will rules over our intellect. Our will is our spiritual heart, and just like a natural heart, we can't directly control it. We can hold our breath but we can't “hold our pulse” from beating. Only the Lord can help us. For Him to do this, though, we have to freely decide on our own that we want Him to. We do this by repenting—or turning away from—evil impulses as they come to us, by praying to Him to ask Him for a clean heart, and by shunning—literally “fleeing”—evil when it presents itself within us.

This is what the Lord meant when He said that, if our right eye or hand causes us to stumble, we should pluck it out and cut it off. He also said that it isn't what goes into the mouth but what comes out from the heart that makes a person unclean, meaning that it isn't our intellect that makes us evil, but our will. This is because love of self, along with its subordinate love of the world, warp our rational thinking, making whatever justifies our evil desires appear to be truth, and whatever satisfies them to feel good.

Our hearts are corrupted by selfishness and greed, and full of murder, adultery, theft and deceit. So go back to the beginning of the Commandments., acknowledge the false god is you, and pray to the Lord for a new heart, and over time He will miraculously transform your life.

To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, Mark 7:1-23, and True Christian Religion 325-328, then listen to the full audio of the sermon, and finally put it into practice for a week.

This is the second-to-last sermon in the Journey / Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments, preached at Pittsburgh New Church, this time addressing the ninth and tenth commandments. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and www.NewChurch.org.

How Praising the Lord Frees Your Spirit

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:00:00 -0500

"You shall not steal." (Exodus 20:15)

When you take credit for the good you do, you are stealing from the Lord and buying into the first and biggest of all lies: that you—and not the Lord—are the source of all life. Doing this leads to fear, anguish and suffering, because you also end up stealing the Lord's responsibility for all future good, which you cannot possibly hope to manage without disaster. If instead you learn to praise the Lord for every good thing, then you will find you are able to enjoy all the Lord's loving gifts with a new sense of freedom.

To see that this is true, read Matthew 6:19-21, Genesis 2:15-3:24, and True Christian Religion 317-319, then listen to the full audio sermon explaining Exodus 20:15.

This is the seventh Rise Above It / Journey sermon on the Ten Commandments, addressing this time the seventh commandment, against all kinds of theft. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through PittsburghNewChurch.org, NewChurch.org, Apple.com (in the iTunes Music Store), and FeedBurner.com.

Strengthen Your Relationships with Forgiveness

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 10:00:00 -0500

"You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14)

Beyond just warning us against physically adulterous relationships, the Lord commands us not to adulterate the truths from His Word. Put simply, He wants us to stop hurting each other with the truth. If you think about it, you will realize that most of the conflicts in your marriage, and in your other relationships, come from at least one person unforgivingly pursuing the need to be right. Don't put being right ahead of being merciful. Truth is a sword given to us for the sake of liberating ourselves and those around us; when we use it instead to attack people, we are whoring the Lord's Word. Repent of spiritual adultery and pray to the Lord for a forgiving heart.

"'And forgive us our debts, As we also forgive our debtors.'" (Matthew 6:12)

To see that this is so, read John 2:1-11, Matthew 5:27-32, and Secrets of Heaven 8904:1-2, and then listen to the full audio sermon.

This is a synopsis of my sixth Rise Above It / Ten Commandments sermon, this time preached to the Sarver New Church at Sower's Chapel. I want to thank Pastor Ethan McCardell for inviting me as guest preacher there, and the congregation there for making me and my family feel welcome.

Teachings from the threefold

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:38:02 -0500

Teachings from the threefold Word of God regarding the sixth Commandment, "You shall not commit adultery."

This is a public document I've created, using Google's new "Docs & Spreadsheets" online application, which automagically publishes to blogs. (Cool, neh?)

Love Your Neighbor by Shunning Evil in Your Heart

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 06:00:00 -0500

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’" (Mat. 5:21)

Murder is more than the malicious killing of a person's physical body. In the sermon on the mount, the Lord teaches us that there are degrees of murder. On the natural level, we first become angry, then contemptuous, and finally hateful, before we get around to physically murdering a person. Speaking spiritually, we also go through these stages with regard to a person's soul. At the deepest level, the same can be said for our relationship with the Lord.

So that we do not walk down the path of spiritual murder, the Lord has given us not only an explanation of its degrees, but also a solution. We are to examine ourselves, looking to our motivations, and then ask the Lord to take the early seeds of murder from our hearts. Then we are to go out and do good in the world, for His sake and for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

To see that this is so, read Matthew 5:21-26, Genesis 4:3-8, and Secrets of Heaven 8902:1, 2, 17, and then click here to listen to the full audio sermon. Or, scroll down and read a text version. (Or both!)

Thank the Lord and Your Neighbors, and Your Life Will Become Better

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 10:30:00 -0500

Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you. (Exo. 20:12)

Honor your father and your mother. We are born helpless. The people who then raise us provide us with all we need, in ways we cannot at the time comprehend, and without any sort of repayment. In our spiritual lives, the Lord and His Church do the same. The fourth Commandment is a reminder to honor our natural and spiritual parents with gratitude and love. Do this, and you will be happier.

To see that this is so, read Exodus 20:1-12, Matthew 12:46-50, and Secrets of Heaven 8896, and 8899.

This is my fourth Rise Above It sermon on the Ten Commandments, and was preached in Chapel Hill on Saturday and in Charlotte on Sunday. Click here and listen to the full audio version.

Princess Margaret's Guide to Love

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:58:06 -0500

The Anglo press is all abuzz about a book that turned up in an auction of the late Princess Margaret's library: Conjugial Love (also called Marriage Love in some modern translations) by Emanuel Swedenborg.

This book, as all New Christians know, is one of the later works that make up the Writings for the New Church, upon which New Christianity and Swedenborgianism are founded. The book has two parts. The first part deals with the beautiful essentials of marraige—both between husband and wife and also more abstractly between the principles of good and truth. The second part of the book deals with the various forms of disorder that can attack a marriage and provides information on how to deal with them.

The press is mostly dealing with this in its usual ham-fisted way, only getting things about half-right. To get the full picture, I strongly suggest you check out the book for yourself. Ask for it at your library, or buy it on Amazon, order it directly from the New Church Bookstore, or read it online in searchable form or as an etext.

It is an interesting story. Who is the mysterious "WM" who sent it to her as a gift? Was there a connection between Princess Margaret receiving the Conjugial Love and her breaking off her controbersial engagement?

Here are some quotes from recent articles on this:

"Princess Margaret's Books to Be Sold"
Associated Press
2006.09.24 (2209 AEST)
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=147127:

The curiously titled The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love - After Which Follows the Pleasures of Insanity Concerning Scortatory Love is among 550 hardbacks and paperbacks that belonged to Queen Elizabeth II's sister, who died in February 2002 at the age of 71.
Inside, it bears a typed inscription dated October 31, 1955, the day the princess issued a statement calling off plans to marry Townsend, a dashing army captain who was frowned on as a royal suitor because he was divorced.

It reads: "To Margaret, Princess of the Realm" and is signed simply "WM."

The book, which looks at marriage and morality, is the work of Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th century Swedish scientist and philosopher.

"We had to look scortatory up. It means fornicatory. It's actually quite a serious book, said a spokeswoman for Bloomsbury Auctions, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's a spiritual book about love, but it's got sex acts in it, too. It's not smutty, though. There are no drawings."

"Book on Love and Sex Marked End of Affair"
The Times (London, UK)
Lucy Bannerman
2006.09.25
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2373584,00.html:

As a gift to soothe a broken heart, it was an unusual choice.
Then again, the 18th-century lovers’ handbook given to Princess Margaret on the day that she ended her relationship with Peter Townsend is an unusual book.

...Inside the hardback, which was opened to The Times yesterday, the author muses over “the pleasures of the flesh” and the “filthiness of fornication”. There is also a typed inscription dated October 31, 1955 — the same day that the 25-year-old Princess issued a statement saying that she had no plans to marry her first love, a divorcé.

It is not known who gave her the book, which also gives advice on betrothals, weddings, and the etiquette of second marriages. A note on the inside cover reads, “To Margaret, Princess of the Realm”, and is signed with the initials “WM”.

Beside it, someone has doodled a drawing in pink ink of a dove apparently dive-bombing through clouds towards a symbol resembling a Christian orb.

The coincidental timing of the gift was spotted by organisers as they prepared the five lots for a sale of books on October 5.

Rupert Powell, managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, said: “We really do not know who WM could be. Obviously this was a date of huge significance in her life, so this is an interesting book to be giving her on that day.”

"Princess Margaret's Erotic Book"
Monsters and Critics (Glasgow, UK)
2006.09.25
http://people.monstersandcritics.com/royalwatch/article_1204698.php/Princess_Margarets_erotic_book:

Britain's Princess Margaret was given a lovers' guide on the day she ended her romance with her first love.
The late royal was given the book, titled 'The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugal Love - After Which Follows The Pleasures of Insanity Concerning Scortatory Love' on October 31, 1995 - the same day she issued a statement saying she had no plans to marry her divorcé lover, Peter Townsend.

Like I said, though, you really need to read this book yourself to get the full picture. Much of what is said in the rest of the above-quoted articles is a bit off-base from reality. Reporters with deadlines, though, can't be expected to thouroughly research such a deep book in a short time, I suppose.

Any press who would like to talk to experts in the matter should probably get in touch with the following sources:

Colchester New Church
175-181 Maldon Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 3BL
http://www.newchurch.org/locations/europe/england
Contact Olaf Hauptmann

Swedenborg Society
20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH
020 7405 7986
http://www.swedenborg.org.uk/

General Church of the New Jerusalem
P.O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009
1-877-411-HOPE (US only)
1-267-502-4911 (International calls)
outreach@newchurch.org
http://www.newchurch.org/

Swedenborg Foundation
320 North Church Street, West Chester, PA 19380
1-800-355-3222
In Phila. Area 610-430-3222
Fax: 610-430-7982
director@swedenborg.com
http://www.swedenborg.com/

I would also be happy to answer questions, provide background, or make introductions to individual contacts at some of the above organizations. Contact me through mac@theoblog.com.

How to Call Upon the Name of the Lord

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 11:00:00 -0500

"You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain, for Jehovah will not hold a person guiltless who takes His name in vain." (Exo. 20:7)

The Lord wants you to pray. Why? Because in life there are evil things that get a grip on your heart and mind that you are powerless to break free from.

In the Ten Commandments, the Lord tells us not to worship false gods, and not to take His name in vain. In simplest terms, this means we should only worship the One True God, and that we should not make light of His names. Looked at more deeply, the Lord is also telling us here—for our own good—that we must avoid creating false gods out of things of this world and out of the desires of our own hearts. When we put material things or selfish things first in our lives, ahead of the Lord, we become enslaved by them. The good news is that the Lord is waiting for us to ask for help, and lovingly and freely gives it to us when we do.

A person's name stands for their qualities, and the Lord's qualities are infinite where ours are limited. We have no strength against our own false gods, but if we pray to the Lord and ask Him to lend us His strengths, He will give them freely so we can return to obeying His commandments. Refuse this gift, and You take His name in vain. To accept it, all you have to do is call to Him by name. Pray every day, and it will change your life.

To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:1-7; Matthew 7:21-23; and True Christian Religion 300. Then listen to or read my second Rise Above It sermon, "How to Call Upon the Name of the Lord".

This is a synopsis of a sermon preached at the Swedenborg Chapel in Cleveland, Ohio, with the Rev. Junchol Lee officiating. The original recording had some bad noise on it, so I redid it. None of the content has changed, though. Click here to listen to the full audio sermon. Also, you can read a word-for-word transcript below:

* * *

Pray. The Lord wants you to pray. He wants every one of us to call to Him by name. Why?

He doesn’t get anything from it. He doesn’t need to hear our prayers. That’s not for His benefit. It’s for our benefit. And in fact everything He does is for our benefit. The Lord is Love Itself. And, as love, He wanted somebody to love, somebody to make happy, and that’s why we exist. So everything He tells us is not for His sake, but for our sake. So why pray?

Well, there are things in life which get ahold of us, which we cannot break free from. Some battles feel like we can win them on our own, but there are some battles we can not win, without His power. Sometimes we’re outnumbered, outgunned, and if we try to fight on our own, we will lose. Guaranteed. When we pray, it’s like calling in air support; it changes the entire battle.

We heard the second Commandment today, from Exodus: not to take the Lord’s name in vain. And the first Commandment: not to worship false gods. Well, as we talked about in the children’s talk, a false god’s not just a statue of Baal, or of Ashtaroth, or some other icon. A false god is anything we put first in our lives ahead of the Lord. And these false gods can get a grip on our lives that we cannot break free from. So the Lord says to pray.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.

In the book of Judges, the Israelites are plagued by all sorts of enemies, and in one particular story, the Midiantes are harassing them. And it’s so bad for the Israelites that they can’t stand it for a moment. They end up hiding in caves, and building forts in the hills—but you can’t grow crops in a cave, you can’t pasture your animals in a fort. So whenever they planted, the Midiantes would come down and tear it all up. And whatever animals they put out to pasture, the Midianites would kill or would steal. There was nothing they could do about it. All their efforts were frustrated.

That happens in our life, too.

Think of the a, who’s got young children: she loves them, she cares about them, she works hard for their benefit. She makes certain that they have good meals, that they go to a good school, that they have nice clothes. But every morning—every morning is terrible. It ends up with her yelling at them and them crying. Every morning. The oldest won’t get out of bed in time. The daughter doesn’t want her hair brushed. And it turns into a fight, and she finds herself just exploding at them.

And then maybe—maybe in a quiet moment in the evening after they’re asleep—she wonders, “Why do I scream at them? I love them. They’re children, they don’t know any better. Yelling doesn’t fix it. Why do I do that? Tomorrow I’m not going to yell at them. I’m just not going to.” And yet the next day comes, and sure enough she finds herself exploding at them again, and she can not stop.

So that night she wonders to herself, “Why am I doing this?” And if she has a moment of frightening honesty, she may realize that as much as she hates—and is embarrassed, and saddened by—the look of fright she sees in their faces—when she finally lets go it feels good. And there’s a bad part of her that wants to explode. So she says, “Tomorrow I’ll go ten minutes. Ten minutes, and I will not yell.” And the day comes. Five minutes go by. She explodes again. She can not do it on her own.

Another example: Consider a husband who loves his wife dearly. He loves his marriage. He loves the idea of marriage; he appreciates that marriage is a sacred thing, and is meant to be a joyful thing, and a beautiful thing. But sometimes, when he’s working late at the office, at his computer, he’s tempted: pornography calls to him. And he has this fight with himself: “Who’s it going to hurt? It’s just me and a machine.” And yet he knows he shouldn’t do it. And sometimes he loses that fight. And as time goes on, he spends more and more time “late at the office”, after his work’s done. Eventually, he gets a separate credit card, so that he can pay for this, without his wife seeing it.

Until one day he realizes, “This is coming between me and my wife.” He turns to it instead of her. He could go home to his wife, but he stays at work with the computer. He’s lying to her; he’s hiding things from her. He realizes, “This has got to stop.” Maybe he even cancels whatever subscriptions or accounts he’s got. Maybe for a week, he doesn’t touch it.

Then one night, he has to work late. An email pops up in his inbox. You know the kind of email I’m talking about. He has that fight with himself again, and he loses. And he’s back there again. And he may struggle with this for months and not get anywhere.

He’s worshipping a false god that will not let him go.

Now, these may not be “false gods” that you in particular are struggling with, but I guarantee you, if not now then sometime in your life you will struggle with something this way.

So what do we do? Does the second Commandment give us an answer to this? Well it does. And you can find the answer throughout the Word. First of all the Lord tells us that all power is from Him. This is why we have the first commandment. All power is from the Lord; none of it is from us.

And He has qualities that are limitless, where ours are limited. In True Christian Religion it says that a name represents a person’s quality. And you can sort of see that, in your own life: how, when you think of a person’s name, that you know what they’re like, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are—it comes to mind immediately.

Well, we’re limited. Our patience has a limit—some more than others. Our capacity for mercy, for love, is limited. Not the Lord’s. The Lord has infinite patience, infinite mercy. He is Love Itself. He has all strength, where we are limited.

[big pause]

So we have to ask for these qualities.

So this is how it’s supposed to work: The husband, rather than try to fight it under his own power—one day, he prays. He says, “Lord. I’ve been fighting this on my own. And losing. And I’ve figured it out: I don’t have the power. I don’t have the strength, the willpower—give me yours. Please.”

And the Lord will do it. This is what the Lord’s been waiting for all this man’s life: for him to ask. He’s not going to force any of His gifts on us. But if you ask for one of his qualities, to help you, in your spiritual struggles, He’ll give it.

And then, he finds himself, again, late at the office. Doing work, another one of these emails comes up—the fight can start up again, but because he’s decided to give this to the Lord, he stops. He takes his hand off the mouse. He takes his hand off the keyboard. And he closes his eyes. He says, “Lord, I need your strength.” And the Lord will give it. The man will know, that this work can last till tomorrow. He can turn off the computer.

He still has to get up some of his own strength, but the Lord will give him just enough strength to push over the edge. He still has his own choice to make, but now he’s free to make that choice, whereas before the false god that ruled over him wouldn’t let him do it.

The mother of the children—she can pray. She can say, “Lord, my patience is so short. I love my children. Help me not terrorize them. Lend me some of Your patience, because I know You are infinitely patient.” And He’ll do this.

And if she’s smart, she’ll start the morning with that prayer. And when she starts to feel that old familiar rage building up inside of her, she doesn’t have to get down on her knees—it doesn’t have to be anything formal—but if she just stops, puts her hands down, takes a breath, reminds herself: “I love my children. Lord, give me patience.” And He’ll give her some of His patience.

She won’t necessarily win every battle. We won’t necessarily win every single battle even with the Lord’s help because we still have to add some of our own to it, but it will get us that much closer, and we’ll win battles we could never win before.

So again, we’re talking about the second Commandment, though none of this sounds like “not taking the Lord’s name in vain”. But hang in there.

One more example: back to the Midianites. The Children of Israel, the way they got out of their problem was they prayed to the Lord. And the Lord sent them a message. He said, “Don’t fear their gods.”

The Lord is more powerful than any false god in our lives, and He’s more powerful than the false gods the Israelites had been worshipping.

And He sent a judge—Gideon—to defeat the Midianites. But He wanted to prove this point: that the power isn’t coming from us; the power is the Lord’s. So He had Gideon put his army through a number of tests. And each time the army got smaller and smaller, as more and more soldiers failed the test, until there were just three hundred—against the thousands of Midianites.

And the Lord told Gideon, “I’m doing this to show you: it’s not your strength that’s going to win the battle, but Mine.”

And that’s what the Lord’s saying to us.

So, second Commandment—let’s put this in context. There are these two stone tablets that Moses brought down from Sinai. Now on the first tablet, we have these first Commandments: worship no other god, don’t take my name in vain, and keep the Sabbath. In simple terms it means: don’t bow down to statues of Baal or whatever; don’t use My name casually, in jokes and in swearing, come to church on Sunday.

But looked at more deeply He’s also saying, “Don’t put up things, at the front of your life, that can’t help you, and that in fact hurt you. Don’t worship these false gods. Don’t worship your own need to be right. Don’t worship food…” There are all sorts of things that we worship—put ahead of God. He’s saying, “Don’t do that; it’ll hurt you.”

And He’s saying, “Don’t take My name in vain.” And His name—remember, names represent qualities—He offers us His patience. His love. His strength. And when we say, “No, Lord, I’ll get this on my own,”—that’s taking His name in vain. And we do that, don’t we? He offers us His qualities, for us to receive, and to make good use of.

And then the third Commandment, keeping the Sabbath? Well we know that we’re here to worship the Lord, Sunday morning, in this building. But real worship is really what we’re preparing for—real worship is when you go out and you live your life, according to His commandments.

Now these three parts are also the parts of the life of repentance that we’re meant to live. We’re supposed to examine ourselves, to see what false gods we’re worshipping—what things have taken ahold of our life that don’t belong there. We’re supposed to pray to the Lord, to ask for what He’s got, that we need in order to get rid of these things. And then we’re supposed to go out and live a new life.

So that’s where this commandment fits in. Now, it’s important to note that it’s not the praying itself—it’s not the words coming out of your mouth that does the magic. “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’” goes to heaven, “but he who does the will of the Father”—he who does the Commandments.

So when you pray, it’s not just enough to say the words. You have to sincerely intend to follow through. You’re praying to the Lord, not so He can just “make things better” for you, but so that He can give you the strength, so that you can go out and live according to His Commandments.

Because if you only just say the words, that’s the same thing as coming to church on Sunday, reading the Books, and then going out and living however you want to live. That’s faith alone. That’s not going to get you anywhere. But if you marry it to a life of charity, the Lord will help you with that.

So, we have no power. We have no power against the false gods. And that can feel terrible, and it can feel frightening, when you realize, “I can’t win this struggle.” But the good news is, the power of a false god compared to the power of the True God—there’s no comparison. He has all power. And He’s waiting for you to ask for it.

Every false god can be defeated by one of His qualities. And when you pray, it’s useful to be specific. It’s one thing to say, “I’m a sinner. Help me.” It’s another to say, [long pause], “I get something out of blowing up at my children….I’m attracted to lust….I love to hear myself speak….I think all day about when the next drink is going to come—Give me Your strength…Give me Your patience…Your love....Your mercy.” Be specific.

The Lord is the One True God, and He alone has the power. And He tells us to pray, and He offers us His name. We carry His name: we are True Christians; the New Church is a New Christian Church. And when we don’t live according to the Commandments—well, we’re weak. But when we don’t try to live according to the Commandments, when we don’t ask Him for these qualities—well, then we are taking that name in vain.

So here’s something to do. Practice a prayer life. If you don’t already, see what it’s like to pray once a day. Pick a time of the day. Maybe first thing in the morning. You can pray in the shower, right before you go to sleep, or whatever time works for you. But commit yourself to praying at least once a day. And pray specifically. Talk to the Lord.

And if you’re already doing that, that’s great. And all of you, whether this is a new habit, or an old habit, when you pray, pray that the Lord can give you what you need to defeat the false gods that rule over you. And as you go through your life—over the next several days, especially—just try to be very, very conscious of these false gods. Put a watch over your mind. Put a watch over your heart. See what comes up. And then when you pray next you’ll know what to ask for.

And do this, and it will change your life.

Amen.

Message to Charlotte and Raleigh

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:04:43 -0500

(This started as a message written for the upcoming North Carolina New Church Newsletter, but it can apply to anyone, really.)

"Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one! You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them dilligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

"...If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17)

The Ten Commandments contain, in brief summary, all things of religion. Through them the conjunction of God with people, and people with God takes place. There is nothing more holy. (True Christian Religion 283)

The Ten Commandments are not merely restrictions on our lives. They are guardrails put in place to help us from driving off into disaster. What's more, they are given to us for the sake of conjunction--the Lord connects with us, and we with Him, through them. The Lord is Love Itself, and so desires nothing more than to conjoin with us in order to make us happy. This is why He tells us that the commandments belong on our hearts and before our eyes and on our doorposts. They are an instrument of His love for us.

This fall, congregations all across the New Church are working in harmony to study and practice the Ten Commandments. Except for during holidays, there probably has never been a time when so many New Church congregations were able to meet together in the spiritual world, as it were, and to work, not just as individuals in the church but as a Church as a whole, on learning and living the same teachings at the same time. It seems fitting that this new practice begin with the Ten Commandments, which contain "all things of religion."

We don't have to be part of the formal "campaign" that the larger societies are running to join in. I invite each of you to find your own way to bring the Ten Commandments into your lives in the coming weeks. Reading the book, Rise Above It, by Ray and Star Silverman is one way. Joining in an online discussion group at NewChurch.org is another. Yet another way is to read through the commandments on your own, and getting together in your homes once a week to discuss them with one another. True Christian Religion has an entire section devoted to the Commandments starting with number 282, and there's a wonderful list of references at HeavenlyDoctrines.org in the directory of teachings under the heading, "The Ten Commandments".

And as you read the Word, and teach it to your children, and share it with one another, and live it, know that you are doing it not just on your own, but as part of the greater kingdom which is the Lord's Church on earth.

What Did the Pope Say?

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:56:01 -0500

Did anyone actually read the Pope's speech? Trust neither angry mobs nor shallow journalism to accurately portray what is said in a theological lecture. Check it out for yourself.

I found it interesting that he essentially describes Islam as teaching of a God unbound by Reason and secular humanism (seen as a descendant of the "error" of the Reformation's doctrine of sola scriptura) as worshipping Reason unrestrained by any God, and then tries to put Christianity in the sweet spot in between the two.

It's true that Christianity—and western culture in general—has historically felt the need to struggle with its own logic in a way that other cultures and faiths have generally not valued in the same way, but in the end it (old christianity, that is) just couldn't help but eventually fall back on what is called "voluntarism" in order to defend the extremely anti-logical idea of the trinity of persons. It's ironic and a little sad (or maybe a little hopeful?) that he says Christianity is distinguished as teaching that it is contrary to God's nature to not act according to reason. Truth is beautiful, but to see this light shrouded in the ugly Christological darkness is to see a terrible contrast.

For some non-shallow and interesting thoughts on what the reactions to the Pope's remarks mean, see Daoud Kuttab at the Washington Post.

Special Delivery: Rise Above It Sermon Feed

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:03:03 -0500

We're going to try something new, here at TheoBlog.com: a "special delivery" series of podcasts. If this works out, maybe we'll do another one down the road, some time. This first one will be focused on the multi-congregational Rise Above It! campaign that started this past weekend.

To catch you up, Rise Above It is a book and a program created by Ray and Star Silverman. In it, readers/participants go through each of the Ten Commandments, comparing them to similar teachings from all the great world religions, and then further illuminating them with ideas from the doctrines of New Christianity. Each commandment is brought to life—quite literally: participants don't just discuss and study the sacred texts, they are given real tools to help them live the commandments with a new depth of self-awareness. It's a very powerful and enlightening program, with real potential for changing a person's life for the better.

Now, starting September 17th, eight New Christian congregations across the United States will be offering an adapted form of this program to their surrounding communities. Each week begins with a Sunday sermon on one of the commandments. Then, later in the week, participants will meet in small groups in peoples' homes to discuss what it is to live the commandment, and to share their experiences from the previous week. Throughout the week, there are short daily readings to reflect on.

As an experiment, I've decided to try pulling together the Sunday sermons from those congregations that produce digital audio files, and make them available as blog postings and as podcasts.

I still have one or two details to work out (including how to cleanly seperate the Rise Above It podcasts from our regular podcast without creating a totally sperate blog), but hopefully you'll be seeing a collection of sermons on the first commandment, all delivered last Sunday, on this site soon. Each Sunday there will be a post that is updated throughout the week with material on that week's commandment. You will be able to download individual sermons, or, if you find you really like one particular congregation's style, you will be able to subscribe to all the Rise Above It sermons coming from their pastor(s), directly through iTunes.

Stay tuned this week for the launch of this new offering.

Invest the Spiritual Wealth the Lord Has Loaned You

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 10:30:00 -0500

The truths of our faith are valuable, and the more of them we have, the more spiritually wealthy we are. But the truths do not belong to us, for they are on loan from the Lord. Using "The Parable of the Talents", the Lord has taught us that He expects us to invest this spiritual wealth for the sake of the world. If we accumulate truth without putting our faith to work in the world, it is as if we are burying the Lord's wealth in a hole in the ground. If we are good stewards over the Lord's riches and practice what He teaches, we will enter into the joy of heaven.

That's the essence of the sermon I preached in Erie, Pennsylvania, today. Read Matthew 25:14-30 and Secrets of Heaven 5291:4 to see the truth of this. Then, you can either listen to the sermon the way it was preached in Erie, or read the following text version—or both!

* * *

What would you do with half a million dollars? If, right here today, as you walked out of this church, you were each handed a check. Maybe some people only get checks for a hundred thousand, others for only two hundred thousand. If everyone walking out of here today received an unexpected sum of money, what would we do?

Now here’s a wrinkle: what if you were told that this is not your money, but the church’s. Let’s say we announced here that all the assets of the church were going to be distributed among everyone, so that each person had their own portion to manage, for the duration of their life. What would you do with the money then?

It’s interesting to think about, isn’t it?

Now ask yourself another question. Ask yourself this: “What have I learned, from the Lord?” Ask yourself. Try to think of everything you’ve ever learned from the Lord. Now you may say, “Wait, He’s taught me so much, how could I possibly list it all in my head right here and right now.” Maybe I’ve even already lost you to your own thoughts because of this question.

Then again, maybe you find yourself saying, “No, I really don’t know that much. I know a few things. They are each precious, but they boil down to this, this and this.” That’s okay, too. One way or another, though, we each of us here, all of us, have learned things from the Lord and from His holy Word, and those things are precious. They’re valuable. They make us rich, don’t they?

Actually, when you come to think of it, that kind of makes you feel good, doesn’t it? It can be nice for us to reflect back on all the truths we’ve accumulated over our lives. It’s comforting. We feel good about ourselves, proud of all we know.

But let’s be careful. Every truth we learn is most certainly precious, but what good is wealth if you horde it? Right? A treasure is only valuable because of what you can do with it. Those checks for a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, for a half a million dollars—they might as well be scrap paper if you just stick them in a drawer and forget about them.

This, of course, is one of the things the Lord was saying to His followers when he told the parable of the talents we read here today. Let’s take a close look at what He really means by this story.

“For [the kingdom of heaven] is like a man traveling to a far country, [who] called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

That’s what the New King James Version says, “the kingdom of heaven is like”. Actually, though, the original Greek doesn’t say that at all. It just says “it is like”, or, “he is like”. There’s just a preposition there, and the translator has taken the liberty to indicate that this story is about the kingdom of heaven. Now, theologically, that’s not far off, but linguistically, it doesn’t look right. If you go back to the text just before our reading, you will see, though, that the Lord had just been talking about “the Son of Man”. So really, when the Greek says “He/it is like” we should probably understand it to mean “the Son of Man is like”.

And that fits in just right with the internal sense of this story, for the man most certainly is the Lord. Even people who have never learned correspondences can see that with only a little enlightenment.

And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.

So here we have different numbers of talents. What does each sum mean? What’s a talent?

Well, first off, don’t think in the literal sense of a talent as being any small thing. Depending on which Biblical scholar you listen to and what sort of metal, gold or silver, was being weighed, a single talent could be worth a thousand dollars or as much as thirty thousand dollars. That’s as much as a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, maybe, for the one given five talents.

But what about the internal sense, here? Well, to begin with, we are to understand these talents as the things the Lord teaches us from His Word. They are truths, and as with the servants in the story, they are not from ourselves but from the Lord.

Now, we know from the Writings that the number five, here, has to do with what we sometimes call “remains” or “remnants”. These are those good things stored up in us by the Lord since earliest childhood. So a servant given five talents is someone who has accepted these things from the Lord and receives the wealth entrusted to Him by the Lord in a state of innocence, in a mindset that is willing to be led.

The number two, in the Word, always has to do with marriage. So the servant given charge over two talents is the person who, later in life, has made a marriage in his own living of faith with charity, and so has put truths and goods together in life.

The number one, in the Word, we usually associate with the Lord Himself: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord…is One.” But from the context, here, we know that in this case the servant with one talent stands for something opposite, something negative. And so, we are taught, the single talent servant is the person who receives truths of faith from the Lord, but leaves it at that. This talent is a single talent, all alone. It is faith alone, without the charity found with the servant of two talents.

Now, before we go forward, it’s useful to recognize that while each of these servants represents a kind of person, in another way they each represent a part of oneself. Yes, we all have good and faithful servants within us, and we also each have a lazy and wicked servant inside us. The purpose of the Lord’s parable is not to tell us which people around us are condemned, but to show us each what parts of ourselves we need to be on the lookout for.

Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.

So what is trading? Well, think about it. How do you make money in this world? If you had some money to invest in some sort of business, how would you go about deciding what to do? If you’re smart, you’ll ask yourself, “How can I be useful?” All truly successful businesses work because they provide some sort of use to people. You can’t make a lot of money doing something nobody finds any value in, right? It’s the same thing in the internal sense: trading here means putting to good use.

And what happens when we put the treasures we’ve received from the Lord to good use? Yep, we get back more. In fact, the more we put into use, the more we get back altogether.

And likewise he who [had received] two gained two more also.

So when we receive the Lord’s bounty, whether as five talents or as two talents, and put truths together with good, when we join the teachings of faith with good and so make good use of them, there is a commensurate gain.

But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.

And here’s what not to do. If we take a faith alone attitude, if we ignore the love for the neighbor that is charity, if we keep truth separate from good and so spurn the doing of good and useful works, we are digging in the ground and hiding the Lord’s money. This is inevitable. Faith without charity cannot bear fruit, and cannot multiply. Instead of investing what belongs to the Lord, we just horde it away where no one will ever benefit from it.

After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

It’s not hard to see what this means, is it? We all face a “settling of accounts” at the end of our lives, however long they are. And this is the point, isn’t it? The phrase is becoming overused, but I’ll use it here anyway: the question is, at the end of the day, what do you have to show for what you’ve been given?

So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’

Remember, this is talking about what we have received from the Lord since earliest childhood. These remains, stored up in our internal selves, are of no good to us until we put our externals in order.

His lord said to him, ‘Well [done], good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

So what is the joy of the Lord? Think about it. The Lord is Love Itself. As such, He desires nothing more than to do for each of us every good and so to make us happy and draw us near to Him. And we love Him when we love His servants, our neighbors. This is the joy of the Lord. This is the joy of heaven.

He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’

Remember, this is talking about the joining together of faith and charity later in our lives.

His lord said to him, ‘Well [done], good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

It’s not enough to be faithful, we have to be good as well. The two are inseparable. And here again, we enter the joy of heaven when we put good and truth together in our lives and so become useful.

Okay, so that’s the good path put before us. But what of the alternative? Let’s listen here to the rest of the parable:

Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, [there] you have [what] is yours.’ But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him, and give [it] to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

Wow. That sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it? What was it the servant said about his master? He said, “I knew you to be a hard man.” Does this describe the Lord? Is the Lord a hard man?

The Lord is Love. His yoke is easy and His burden light. He tenderly loves every one of us, even the worst of us, even when we are at our worst. But. But, to a person who does not live the truth, to us when we do not put His teachings to good use in our lives, He can certainly appear hard. To the evil, the Lord indeed appears a hard master, for what He asks of us is contrary to what an evil person wants to hear.

You have to admit that accumulating truths on their own is a bit easier to do than actually being a good person. There’s a part of each one of us that would rather go dig a hole to store up our faith in than actually do the work required to bring the truth alive. Some truths are hard to follow when we first see them. But this is an appearance.

Finally, what is this business about the one talent being taken away? Well, this is what we inevitably bring upon ourselves when we don’t invest what the Lord teaches us. When we die, we take with us all the truths we have ever received from the Lord, but in short order, those truths that we did not conjoin to good, that we did not put to use, that we did not actually live—they fall away. If you don’t use it, you lose it, quite literally. From an external viewpoint, this can look like the Lord taking away, but really it was never ours in the first place, right?

So what are you going to do with what the Lord has taught you? However much or however little you have gained from Him and His Word so far, every little bit of truth is of great value. Just remember that the truths you have gathered in are not yours. We are stewards of faith, and must invest it to bring about good in the world, and so enter the joy of the Lord.

Amen.

Even Heaven Has Its Ups and Downs

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 11:00:00 -0500

In life we go through alternating states of cold and heat as we are being spiritually remade. What is more surprising is that even the angels in the highest heaven go through alternations of spiritual summer and spiritual winter. So, too, can we expect the Church to continually pass through such spiritual seasons. When we are in winter, it is not our failure but an opportunity for learning. Have faith in the coming of summer.

To see what I'm talking about, read Genesis 8, Mark 4:26-29, and Secrets of Heaven 935, and then either read the following text version of the sermon on alternating states, or listen to the version preached at Pittsburgh New Church.

***

In His Word, the Lord talks to us in many ways. Sometimes He gives us warnings. Sometimes He gives us commands. And sometimes He gives us a promise. Today, we read about one of His first promises to humanity:

"While all the days of the earth remain, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease." (Gen. 8:22)

The Lord spoke these words to Noah at the end of a great catastrophe. Recall that the story of Noah began with the Lord commanding Noah to take his family, along with representatives of all the creatures of the earth, into an ark. Noah obeys, and it saves him from a flood that covers up even the mountaintops. For forty days and nights the waters gush forth and inundate the earth; it’s as if the world was broken. Then, when it was over, the Lord called Noah back out onto the once again dry land. In thanks, Noah builds an altar to the Lord, and the Lord responds with the promise that the various cycles of the world will never cease.

We are taught in the first volume of the work Arcana Coelestia that the story of Noah has an internal sense which describes the reestablishment of the Lord’s Church at a time when His very first Church was coming to an end. The letter tells us of a great flood, and of a man who was spared by means of an ark; the spirit tells us of a period of temptations, followed by a spiritual rebirth, or regeneration.

In the internal sense, Noah represents the Lord’s Church born anew. Because each one of us is also called to be a miniature of the Lord’s Church in our own lives, Noah also represents an individual member of the Lord’s spiritual church. What is said of the individual, here, is true also of the Church as a whole.

The portion of the Noah story we read today describes seven stages between temptation and regeneration that each of us is called to follow. The flood is a state of temptation itself. The first state after temptation is one of fluctuation between truth and falsity, as the waters begin to recede and the raven flits to and fro. Then, the dove is sent out, but comes back with nothing, because real truths of faith don’t exist with us, yet. Next, the dove goes out, and brings back an olive leaf, meaning truths of faith and also charity are sprouting in our lives. When the dove goes out a third time and finally finds dry land to rest on is when we first really connect our new truths with charity and so ground them. The next state—which is the first real state of regeneration itself—happens when we finally are just starting to act from and think from charity ahead of faith; this is Noah bringing everyone out of the ark and onto the dry ground. The next state, when Noah builds an altar, is the second state of regeneration, when we are fully in the life of charity. Then the Lord smells the sweet smell of the sacrifice, and the church is fully established in our hearts. It is here, finally, that the Lord gives His beautiful promise.

The Spirit of the Text

So let’s look at this promise from the Lord to Noah, which in spirit is really a promise to each one of us, and to the Lord’s Church as a whole: “While all the days of the earth remain, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.” What do these words mean?

Alternating States…

We are taught in the Writings given to the New Church, first of all, that when the Word talks about time, it is the Lord’s way of teaching us about states. Because in the Word, the Church is often called "the land" or "the earth", "all the days of the earth" means in the internal sense, "all the states of the church", which is what this promise is all about.

"Seed" and "harvest" are obviously linked; one is what is put into the land, the other is what comes out as a result. This helps us to see that when the Lord speaks of “seed” and “harvest”, He is talking about how He plants and grows a new Church whenever the existing one is in danger of ending.

Consider our reading from Mark. There the Lord said that the Kingdom of God is like a man who plants seeds which, by powers beyond his control, grow up with the passing of time into a harvest which he then collects. This illustrates how the church grows in each of us, as well as on the whole. The seeds are good from the Lord and truth from His Word; if we take them in willingly, He will grow them for us over time into something good and useful. The Lord will not allow His field to go fallow for very long.

Next is “cold” and “heat”. When you think of yourself being spiritually cold, you can get an immediate sense of what the Lord is talking about, here. When we are cold, we pull into ourselves, we stoop as we walk, we cover up. Spiritual cold is being in a state of selfishness, in which we focus on the cares of the world and on our own personal concerns. Spiritual heat, on the other hand, is being in a state of charity. When warm, we open up, we relax our muscles more. In heaven, the Lord’s love is felt by angels as heat from the spiritual sun.

In life, we start in spiritual cold, just as our verse does. Cold comes before heat, and we cannot be simultaneously cold and hot. It is as we do the work of repentance, as we face temptation, and as we are in the process of being spiritually reborn that we move from a state of cold to one of heat. However, it’s not just a one-way trip. What in fact happens is we fluctuate between states of cold and warmth. Because warmth is from the Lord and cold is from ourselves, we keep going back down into our selfish states during this process.

What may seem surprising about this, though, is that such alternations back and forth are not just inevitable, but necessary. We are taught that regeneration is a cyclical process, in part because we need regular reminders of the evil that is inherent in our selfishness in order to more perfect our ability to receive the Lord’s love in the life of charity. The Lord, therefore, promises us that when we are regenerating, cycles of cold and heat will continue without failure.

What about “summer” and “winter”? Isn’t this just a repetition of “cold” and “heat”? In a way, yes. Arcana Caelestia teaches us that in essence spiritual summer and spiritual heat talk about the same state. However, there is this difference: “cold and heat” are the two states we alternate between before we are regenerate, but “summer and winter” are the states of charity and selfishness we go through after we are regenerate.

Think about that for a moment. Does this mean that even angels in heaven go through times of selfishness and worldliness? Yes, it does! The difference between “cold and heat” before regeneration and “summer and winter” afterwards is that before we are spiritually reborn, we start from a state of cold out of which we strive to become warm, but afterwards we start in a state of summer from which we sometimes fall down into winter.

“Day and night” is saying the same thing, by the way, only about the two states our understanding of the truth will alternate between when we are regenerate; we will always have times when the truth is not clear before our eyes, and times when it is.

…Make Us Happier

Why would someone who has been spiritually born again—let alone an angel—need to experience spiritual winter and night? Because make no mistake about it, this is something we all need. Remember, this is the Lord’s promise to Noah—His promise to the Church, to you and to me—that these cycles will never quit. He’s not warning us of a problem, but promising us a gift!

Our reading from Arcana Caelestia tells us that these changes back and forth, in and out of charity, from summer to winter and back, result in “a person…being ever more perfected and so made ever more happy.” Wow. Think about that.

It goes on to say that only through these changes can we be perfected and made happy. The very beginning of the work Arcana Caelestia, where we are taught the meaning of the story of creation, it talks about the alternations we go through between spiritual day and spiritual night. There, in paragraph 37, it says this

Life without such alternations and varieties would be uniform, consequently no life at all; nor would good and truth be discerned or distinguished, much less perceived….

This can begin to make sense when we think about natural winter, and about natural night: imagine life without change, without cycles. “Still,” we might say, “I feel like I could do without winter, at least some years.” Right? Well, not spiritually. We can move to the tropics to get away from physical cold, but our spiritual life absolutely must continue through the internal cycle of states meant in the Word by “summer” and “winter”.

Much later in Arcana Caelestia, in paragraph 9278, it says this:

...[B]y means of this alternation of states the external things are brought into agreement with the internal and at length made subordinate to them….

That’s what is meant by being “perfected”. The winter states are when the Lord allows us to descend into our external, uncharitable sense of self-possession, our proprium. He periodically allows this because it is the only way we can interact with our proprium in order to try and get it more and more in line with the inner self, the new will that the Lord gives us by means of regeneration. Why? Remember, we cannot be simultaneously hot and cold; we cannot serve ourselves and serve the Lord at the same time, and so must switch off between the two in order to effect change.

But this is perhaps an abstract way of looking at things. Arcana Caelestia 5962 gives further insight to help make this concept more real for us. It says that everyone in heaven goes through alternating states in order to be perfected, and that...

...[T]hose alternating states establish contrasts for them, and from those contrasts they gain more perfect perception, for from those contrasts they know what does not constitute happiness since they know from them what is not good and what is not true….

…and Grow the Church

So alternating states are how the Lord implants the Church within us. We need to go back and forth between spiritual cold and heat, to go through temptations, to deal with the stress between the life of charity and the life of evil. Even after the spiritual rebirth this leads to we need alternating states. The regenerate person experiences summer and daytime, but also winter and nighttime, so that they may grow to be more complete, more happy. This is what the Lord is telling us here, and it is true for every person, no matter how they find the Lord.

In addition to being true for the individual, it is also true for the Church as a whole. Let’s think a moment about what that means. We know from the new revelation given to us that throughout history, the Lord’s kingdom on earth—His Church—has gone through states of cold and heat. Each time the Church has fallen, He has planted new seeds and raised up a new one. Further, we are told that all churches fall, for basically the same reason every time: trying to separate faith from charity.

Now, we are also told that the New Church, the True Christian Church meant by the New Jerusalem, which is established by the new revelation now given to us, will never end. Does that mean that we who strive to be New Christians will never stumble? Hardly. Does it mean that the Church itself is done with alternating states? Definitely not. It seems, in fact, that the True Christian Church, once established, may mean an end to spiritual cold in the Church, but going forward it most certainly will experience times of winter. And now we know that it is for good cause. The Lord works to perfect His Church just as He works to perfect the individual person in whom is the Church, and alternations between spiritual summer and winter is how he does that. It’s what He’s promised us.

Conclusion

It’s amazing to think that even heaven has its days and seasons. Of course, the winters are milder in heaven than the spiritual seasons the Church goes through on earth. But without at least a little contrast, even angels would cease to grow, and in fact would cease to live.

So, in our lives there must be changes, and there must be seasons. Sometimes it seems it would be nice to go through life without ever again feeling spiritual cold, but then our ability to be happy would stop growing, would die. In the life of the New Church, too, there must be winters, so that there can be new summers.

So we need to remember, when we are in spiritual winter, when the Church seems to be struggling, when we feel we are losing our way in the growing dark, that it is all in the Lord’s order. It is an opportunity for learning, and is the only way we can continue to grow. Without winter, there can be no spring; without night, no day. We must remember this, and have faith in the coming of summer, and work to renew the Church, in us, and in the world. It is for this reason that the Lord has promised, “While all the days of the earth remain, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”

Amen.

Rise Above It

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:02 -0500

(I wrote the following for the September newsletter for the Pittsburgh New Church. It was then posted at the Pittsburgh New Church site. However, some of it is relevant to the rest of you, so I'm also posting it here.)

As the summer has been winding down, I’ve been getting more and more excited about the upcoming Rise Above It campaign. As you know by now, we will be kicking it off September 17th and will continue with our focus on the Ten Commandments through November 19th. This is an opportunity to come together as a congregation and reach out to our community. It has three core elements: 1) Sunday worship centered on a theme; 2) discussion group participation and 3) daily reading.

This campaign uses the book Rise Above It: Spiritual Development Through the Ten Commandments, by Ray and Star Silverman. It takes the Ten Commandments and relates them to daily life. The book is strongly grounded in New Church teachings while also bringing in complementary teachings from different major world religions. It is a book filled with heart, depth and personal application.

During the campaign we will have the opportunity to commit to strengthening our spiritual life, to commit to coming to church for the ten weeks of the campaign, to commit to being involved in a weekly discussion group and to commit to daily readings from the Rise Above It book and from the Word.

It is an exciting opportunity to experience the power of our whole community coming together to work on really following the Ten Commandments, on all levels, in our lives. Each of us will find new dimensions of each commandment that we can work on and that will help us to be healthier, happier people. As the Lord tells us, “If you want to enter life, keep my commandments.”

In addition to us in Pittsburgh, congregations in Los Angeles, Tucson, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Sarver, Ivyland and Bryn Athyn are participating in this effort. As other congregations watch us, we are leading the way in a new approach to studying, sharing and living the Lord’s Word.

So what can you do? If you haven’t already, please join in this exciting new endeavor by filling out a Discussion Group Sign Up form. That’s the easy part. Setting aside fifteen hours over ten weeks to read the Word, go to church, and participate in a discussion group isn’t so hard. The next step, however, takes more courage: invite your friends.

Inviting friends and neighbors to church can be a daunting task. Even some ministers can find it challenging, sometimes, to try to share the faith with non-members. We’ve taken steps to help you, though. We have materials–brochures, invitation cards, a special edition of New Church Connection–that you can give your friends, co-workers and neighbors. We’ve put up posters and are running newspaper ads and sending postcards to the areas you live and work in, so there’s a chance they’ve already heard of the program when you bring it up.

The Lord in His Word frequently calls us to share our spiritual wealth with the world, and not just as individuals. The Lord’s kingdom is a community of communities, and as we strive to be a part of that kingdom, we draw closer not only to the Lord but to one another. And as we do, the Lord is always there with us, lifting us up even when it seems to us that we are risking “failure” of some sort. He protects us so that we can take spiritual risks.

What I love about this campaign is that it gives us a powerful structure within which to follow the Lord’s commandments not just as individuals but as a community of communities, all in support of one another, and of course under the protection of the Lord. I see this as good for us as individuals, as a congregation, and as a church, and I also see it as good for our neighbors and friends.

If there is interest, I would like to offer an opportunity to get together to discuss the challenges of sharing your faith with your neighbors. If this sounds like something you would benefit from, email me at mac@pittsburghnewchurch.org.

Pittsburgh New Church now Podcasting

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:50:25 -0500

Yep, the church where I work now has its own podcast!

There is some overlap between Pittsburgh New Church's podcast and my podcast, since I do preach at PNC. However, I will also be preaching in four-ish other congregations in the coming months, and I am not the only preacher at PNC. In fact, most of the sermons at PNC are preached by my capable brother in the ministry, Amos Glenn.

So each podcast will be carrying some sermons in common with the other, and some sermons exclusive to itself.

Now, when you search the Apple iTunes Music Store for "swedenborg", you get three hits: the podcasts at TheoBlog.com and PittsburghNewChurch.org, and an opera/metal rock song that I keep meaning to check out but haven't yet gotten to.

You Can Heal Spiritual Suffering

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 11:00:00 -0500

...And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:2)

Anyone can go to heaven, no matter what church they go to, no matter what doctrines they are taught, so long as they try to shun evils and live a life of charity. So why do people join the New Church if salvation isn't “on the line”? To relieve suffering.

The Lord is Love, and so He wants nothing more than for us to be happy. Yet, there is a lot of suffering in the world. We all suffer at one time or another, and if we're not suffering now, it's not hard for us to find someone around us who is. Some suffering is small, some is very great. And so, the Lord provides us with a way to be healed.

The Book of Revelation ends with a beautiful image of the heavenly city New Jerusalem. In its midst grows the Tree of Life, about which we are told, “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The city is an image of what the Lord's New Church is meant to be like here, today. This final chapter of the Bible also presents an image of what each one of us is meant to be like. The “leaves of the tree” are the rational truths of the New Church, and “the nations” are all those people who suffer because of evil desires and false beliefs. Who of us does that not describe? So these “leaves”—these new, rational truths of the New Church—have the power to heal us when we suffer. This is no empty promise, as anyone who has experienced this in their own lives can tell you.

So if you are suffering, turn to these new truths, and you will find relief. And if you have experienced the healing power for yourself already, then go out, and be a healer. The Lord has anointed you to preach the good news and heal the brokenhearted.

This sermon is in two formats. First, there's a full text at the end of this post for those who like to read. In addition, you can listen to the audio recording of this sermon. Note: the audio version diverges from the text version in many respects, although both follow the same overall outline. For a "multimedia" experience, you can read the text while listening to the recording.

This sermon was preached at Pittsburgh New Church, in Pittsburgh, PA, on August 6th, 2006.

Before reading or listening to the sermon, I encourage you to look at the following three passages: Isaiah 61:1-3; Revelation 22:1-5; Apocalypse Revealed 936:1, 2. If I get enough of a response requesting it, I'll start putting up recordings of the readings from the Word to accompany the sermons in the podcast.

Isaiah 61:1-3

“The Spirit of the Lord Jehovih [is] upon Me,
Because Jehovah has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to [those who are] bound;

“To proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,

“To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of Jehovah, that He may be glorified.”

Revelation 22:1-5

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, [was] the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each [tree] yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree [were] for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name [shall be] on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

Apocalypse Revealed 936

‘And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’ signifies the rational truths therefrom by means of which those who are in evils and consequently in untruths are led to thinking soundly and living properly. By ‘the leaves of the tree’ are signified rational truths, treated of below. By ‘the nations’ are signified those who are in goods and consequently in truths, and in the opposite sense those who are in evils and consequently in untruths (n. 483). Here it is those who are in evils and consequently in untruths, because it is said ‘for their healing’, and those who are in evils and consequently in untruths cannot be healed by the Word, because they do not read it; but if they have a strong judgment they can be healed by means of rational truths. Things similar to those in this verse are signified by these words in Ezekiel:
…Behold waters going forth from under the threshold of the house…from which there is a river, upon the banks of which is a tree…of very much food on this side and that, whose leaf does not fall, nor is consumed; it is reborn month by month (in menses), whence its fruit is for food, and its leaf for medicine…. (Eze. 47:1, 7, 12);

where also the New Church is treated of. The reason why by ‘the leaves’ are signified rational truths is because by ‘a tree’ is signified a man (n. 89, 400); and then by all [the parts] of a tree are signified the things agreeing to them with the man, as by the branches, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. By ‘the branches’ are signified the man's natural and sensual truths, by ‘the leaves’ his rational truths, by ‘the flowers’ the earliest spiritual truths in the rational, by ‘the fruits’ the goods of love and charity, and by ‘the seeds’ are signified the man's last and first things.

That by ‘the leaves’ are signified rational truths appears clearly from the things seen in the spiritual world; for trees appear there also, with leaves and fruits. There are gardens and paradises composed of them there. With those who are in goods of love and at the same time in truths of wisdom there appear fruit trees with beautiful luxuriant foliage; but with those who are in truths of some wisdom and speak reasonably and are not in goods of love, there appear trees with plenty of leaves but without fruit. But with those who have neither goods nor truths of wisdom, trees only appear stripped of leaves like those in the world in the time of winter. A man not rational is nothing else but such a tree.

Rational truths are those that proximately receive spiritual truths, for a man's rational is the first receptacle of spiritual truths; for in the man's rational there is a perception of truth in some form, which the man himself does not see by a process of thought as he does those that are beneath the rational in the lower kind of thought that conjoins itself with external sight. Rational truths are signified by ‘leaves’ also (Gen. 3:7; 7:11; Isa. 34:4; Jer. 8:13; 17:8; Eze. 47:12; Dan 4:12, 14 [H.B. 9, 11]; Psa. 1:3; Lev. 26:36; Mat. 21:19; 24:32; Mark 13:28); but [the leaves] are significant according to the species of the trees. The leaves of the olive and the vine signify truths rational by virtue of celestial and spiritual light, the leaves of the fig-tree truths rational by virtue of natural light, while the leaves of the fir, poplar, oak and pine signify truths rational by virtue of sensual light. The leaves of these excite terror in the spiritual world when they are shaken by a strong wind. These are the ones understood in Lev. 26:36; Job 13:25. But with the leaves of the former [species] it is not so.

So what good is the New Church? We are taught in the New Church that anyone who looks to God and shuns evils can go to heaven, no matter what religion they are a part of. So what is it the New Church good for? What good comes from being a part of it, if salvation isn’t on the line?

Well here’s one answer: happiness. Or, to put it another way that is perhaps a little more directly to the point: relief from suffering.

We all suffer. There’s a husband who suffers, who struggles with adulterous thoughts, who loves his wife dearly to the depths of his soul, and who is in anguish over the terrible things that come into his heart. There’s a young woman who suffers, who lost her innocence, or perhaps had her innocence taken away, who is in agony over what she believes she can never get back. There’s a child who suffers, who misses her mother painfully, and wonders if she’ll ever see her again now that she’s dead.

In this room with us today there is almost certainly someone whose spirit is feeling real pain. If, personally, you are not truly suffering now, you still might have suffered in the past, and it is very likely you will suffer in the future. It is a part of life. It is a consequence of our flawed sense of self, and of the fact that we live in a world of space and time. Some suffering is small, and some is great indeed.

But don’t get down. There’s good news. The Lord in His infinite mercy has provided a means of healing. And that means is in this room today. It comes in two forms, that you can see with your eyes right now.

Look at the Word of God. This book is full of healing power. It is the Lord’s presence with us. Now look at each other. Look at the person on your left, at the person on your right. Each person in this room, each one of you, is an agent of the Lord’s mercy. You have the power to heal.

Where does that power come from? How can we all be healers? And how does the Word give us relief from our suffering? The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. The truths the Lord has lovingly given us, the truths we have learned, are medicine for anyone afflicted by falsity or evil. The healing power is in the rational truths of the New Church.

This is what the Lord is saying to us in His Word. In two separate visions, one to Ezekiel in the Old Testament and one to John in the New Testament, we are told of a tree whose leaves have the power to heal. Now, in the new revelation given to the New Church, the spiritual meaning hidden within these two wondrous visions is laid open for us to understand. According to our reading from The Apocalypse Revealed, those healing leaves are a symbol for rational truths. We are taught that throughout the Word, when we read about leaves, it is the Lord talking to us about a certain way of using truths.

But first, what is a leaf?

Just thinking naturally, what do we know about leaves? Well, first of all, they are often green. In the Word, green things generally mean those things that bring life to our intellect. The understanding part of our mind is made alive, our faith is a verdant, living faith, by means of truths.

More to the point, though, we should ask: what is the function of a leaf? What is its use?

Well, leaves grow on plants. They are a very important part of all vegetation. Without leaves, a plant cannot breath, it cannot drink, and it cannot get energy. Essentially, if a plant’s leaves die, it dies. It is by means of tiny pores in a plants leaves that water is drawn up through the plant’s roots, up its stem, and out via its leaves, in a process called transpiration. Again, through those tiny pores, a plant takes up needed oxygen through respiration. Finally, in what is called photosynthesis, miniscule green cells throughout the leaf use carbon dioxide and water to convert sunlight into storable energy.

So what does that tell us about the nature of rational truths? To begin with, we can see that spiritual life is impossible without them. The rest of our spiritual makeup–the flowers that make up our more spiritual truths, the fruits that are our good works—it is all impossible without the green rational truths of our faith.

So does this mean that we are trees? Most definitely. Trees in the Word are symbols of three things. First, when we read about a tree, it is the Lord’s way of telling us something important about himself. The Tree of Life is a symbol of the Lord as we consider His Divine Love. Secondly, when we read about a tree, it is also a symbol of the Lord’s Church. Finally, whenever we read about a tree in the Word, it is also a symbol for a person in the Lord’s Church. This is the nature of the Word. Everything in it has three levels of meaning having to do with (1) the Lord and His Word, (2) His Kingdom in Heaven and on Earth, and (3) the minds and lives of the human beings that make up His kingdom.

So the tree is the Lord. The tree is the Church. And the tree is the individual member of the church. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Who are the nations? Remember from our reading that “the nations” are any people who are suffering under false beliefs or evil loves. If that’s the case, then who among us isn’t among the nations? We all fall pray to evil desires. We all become poisoned, at times, by false beliefs. This is true of you, and this is true of me, and it is also true of everyone else out there that you will ever meet.

Now, here’s the question: whether we are looking at the Lord as the tree or at ourselves as trees, who do we use truth to spiritually heal ourselves and those around us? What can we do about spiritual suffering?

Consider the person whose mind is plagued by adulterous thoughts, although he loves his spouse and loves his marriage. Why is he suffering? Where are these thoughts coming from? The Lord taught in the Sermon on the Mount that to look at someone with lustful thoughts was in effect to commit adultery with her in your heart. Is this person an adulterer? Assuming that this poor person really does love their marriage, and truly wishes such thoughts never came into his head, you can imagine that such thoughts cause him extreme anguish. He may believe that he is a terrible person for having such thoughts.

But here’s a leaf: We are not responsible for the thoughts that come into our heads, but are only responsible for how we react to them. This beautiful and rational idea is taught quite plainly in the book Divine Providence. Here is what it says:

“If a person were to believe, as is the truth, that all goodness and truth originate with the Lord, and all evil and falsity from hell, he would not assign goodness to himself and make it desrving of merit, nor assign evil to himself and make himself guilty of it.” (320)

Can you see how this is healing? Evil comes from hell, not from ourselves. We are only responsible for those evil thoughts that we welcome in, that we willingly take delight in, that we decide to act upon.

What about the person who has lost her innocence? Maybe she made some bad choices in life, or maybe she was treated brutally by someone. It may have happened recently, or it may have happened a long time ago. Whatever the case, she is now suffering because she knows the importance of innocence, and believes that, once lost, innnocence can never be regained. Is she permanently and irreparably damaged? Will she never fully appreciate the heavenly joys that the Lord teaches us we can only attain through innocence? Imagine her suffering.

And here is a leaf to salve her suffering: True innocence is not a state we are born into, but one we achieve with spiritual maturity. Think about that. No, it doesn’t undo the past, and the past pain is not retroactively erased. But the ongoing suffering, the terrible, false conviction that she is permanently tainted and forever less of a human being–this falsity is replaced by the healing truth that is taught plainly in the book, Heaven and Hell:

…[T]he innocence of angels in heaven…is a willingness to be led by the Lord and not by oneself. …But the innocence of little children is not genuine innocence, because as yet it is without wisdom. Genuine innocence is wisdom. For so far as anyone is wise he loves to be led by the Lord, or what is the same, so far as anyone is led by the Lord he is wise. (341)

Yes, the innocence we are born with is precious, and we really should safegaurd it in ourselves and in our children. But it is only a template for true innocence. Losing it can be tragic and painful, but gaining the more full and wonderful innocence that every angel has is never out of our reach.

Finally, there’s the child who has lost a parent. If they have no understanding of the life after death, they may be terrified to think that perhaps they will never see their loved one ever again. But the New Church is fully supplied and then some when it comes to truths about death and what comes after. The natural pain of loss and grief is not erased from the child’s mind, but when they are given the beautiful truths about heaven, about how real life there is, and about how we can be reunited with lost loved-ones when we ourselves go on to that life—well, the sting can be blunted. Over time, healing can happen in a way that it couldn’t otherwise, without the truths.

Now remember, the tree is the Lord. He is the source of these truths. And the twenty-second chapter of Revelation that we read the beginning of is a description of the Lord’s New Christian Church. The Lord is in the midst of this Church, and always will be. It would cease to be His Church otherwise.

But the tree is also someone other than the Lord. The tree is a man or a woman of the Church. You are the tree, if you are part of the Church.

John’s vision of the New Jerusalem, with its throne and its river and its trees, is a promise of the future of the Church. This is a future we are a part of. We would probably be making a mistake, however, if we took this as a promise that we should just wait around passively for. The Lord builds His Church out of people, and He does it by means of people. By means of you. By means of everyone here.

So this isn’t just about how we can turn to the Lord’s truths when we are suffering. It is also an explanation of what a member of the Church does. If you are a member of the Church, if you are a tree planted by the waters in the New Jerusalem, well then that means that your leaves are for the healing of the nations. You are a source of healing. The leaves still come from the Lord, ultimately, but they are put to use through your own actions. That’s what it means to be a member of the Church: not merely that you are healed by the Lord and His Church, but that as a part of that Church you go out and provide healing for the world around you.

And that brings us to one more critical point. The Lord taught His disciples that with leaves but no fruit is no good. Likewise, we are no good if we have plenty of truths, but perform no good works. The whole point of a tree’s leaves is to provide air, water and energy so that fruit may be produced. The whole point of the healing truths we are given in the New Church is so that we may go out into the world and do good to others.

So go to the Lord when you are spiritually suffering. Turn to His truths, when you need healing. And go out into the world, and fulfill the Lord’s promise to the world about His New Church, and bear fruit, and provide leaves for the healing of the nations.

That is what the New Church is good for.

Amen.

Podcasting via the Wayback Machine

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:07:52 -0500

In case you haven't noticed, there has been some mysterious revisionism going on in the archives of TheoBlog.com. Specifically, I have been posting audio files of sermons (plus my ordination service) to this site so they can be part of the new podcast, "TheoPod" (now available via free subscription at the iTunes music store).

To keep things in chronological perspective, I have been manually setting the dates and times of each post so that they represent when the recordings were made (spanning back over several months), not when they were posted (mostly in the past few days). So there's actually a lot of new stuff going up here at TheoBlog.com, but it's not showing up at the top of the main page, because it is new "old" stuff, technically.

Pretty soon, I'll be caught up to realtime. Hopefully I'll get my most recent sermon, preached here at Pittsburgh New Church only last week (July 23rd), before the next time I have the pulpit (which should be some time in August).

So check over the archives. There are recorded sermons going back to October of 2005. Plus, I am half-way through posting my ordination service, which occurred on May 28th. Look for all of it (posted in seven parts) to be appearing momentarily in the May archives.

TheoPod Now on iTunes

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:34:49 -0500

Update to yesterday's announcement of TheoPod, the new podcast here at TheoBlog.com:

It is now available via the iTunes store, here.

TheoPod and New Christian Swag

mac.frazier@gmail.com (Rev. Glenn "Mac" Frazier) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:20:22 -0500

Guess what? TheoBlog.com now has its own podcast: TheoPod! It's been submitted to Apple for inclusion in the iTunes store, and is awaiting "approval" there, but in the meantime you can directly subscribe to it by having iTunes (or whatever podcasting software you use) set to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/theoblog-com.

In addition, we're finally starting the online New Christian Store. So far, all you can get are bumper stickers and an assortment of apparrel carrying the message "Jesus is Jehovah". More will come, though. (Suggestions for messages, plus submissions of artwork are welcome.)

What does this all mean? What's going on?

I've been ordained, and am now employed by the General Church of the New Jerusalem as the Assistant to the Pastor at Pittsburgh New Church. On my "to-do" list: update their website. Along the way, I've been experimenting with podcasting, and decided to take my experiments over here to TheoBlog. And yes: TheoBlog.com is getting resurrected...finally...slowly...in fits and starts.

Anybody wanna sell me a snazzy design?