The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
The Living Building Project & The Maturation of Humanity - Episode 43 in the series, "The Letter to the Ephesians"
"We want a name. What do we want to build something? We want a name. What do we want to build? Whose name do we want? To be receiving glory. So I need these maturation processes in me to get me ready. So we needed, I think, to fall Right, you will be, to realize the eternal purposes. We needed a maturation process, and that maturation process seems to be sin and death, to enter a fallen place and every myth and every secret story has this. You need to fall into Sheol, you need to go down into the depths, and then you'll be able to fulfill your mission and participate in eternity."
The writer of the letter to the Ephesians draws his readers into a sacred calling. It is an invitation into a divine temple building project called, "the body of Christ." It is one way to describe the deep secret, the spiritual purpose behind "Christ-Community" and sparks a lengthy and rich conversation between Jonah and Patrick that covers much of the entire territory of sacred scripture and divine anthropology.
The first attempt by humanity to build a temple to heaven in a united project was the Tower of Babel. Why did God thwart this effort? What does it mean that humanity was seeking "a name" for itself in this project? And what all does this have to do with us now? These questions, and much more, are taken up in this episode.
PLEASE NOTE: The audio in this episode is extremely eratic; the microphone on Patrick was accidentally set too high and our audio engineers were on Christmas vacation - we apologize sincerely for the unpleasantness this all may cause in the listening!
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
The Good morning, patrick. Hi Jonah, yeah, it's a white Christmas. It's been beautiful, it's been a really wonderful Christmas.
Patrick:There are so many parts of the world that I have no idea what that means. True, very true, that's amazing.
Jonah:I was just talking to one of our participants in the distance learning program who lives in Arizona.
Patrick:Certainly not snowing there yeah, you got to be in certain spots. It's that high, high desert, right, I guess?
Jonah:if you go up in the mountains, it could possibly.
Patrick:Yeah, I think even flagstaff is pretty high, even though it's really flat true enough, true, well, welcome to another After the weather report in Arizona After the weather report Our dear Carol Kelly will be laughing if she ever listens to this. Shout out, shout out the unstoppable, incomparable. Oh my goodness, servant of God.
Jonah:Carol Kelly.
Patrick:Servant of God par excellence, fellow priest.
Jonah:Hillsdale, york.
Patrick:Yeah, welcome to another episode of the light in everything it's a place where we try to have a conversation, an actual conversation, where something new emerges in regards to the mysteries of christianity. And jesus spoke again to the people and said I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Jonah:Yeah Well, patrick, I want to go back into the text. We're making our way through chapter 4. And I want to go back into it. Last time we really talked about aspects of this first verse, first and second verse, where we're called to walk with this light that shines in the darkness, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. And I'll just read again. And then I want to stick on a part, a next part that has to do with the building up of the church, of the ecclesia of the body of christ, and I know how much you love that. I also love that too.
Jonah:But I want to lay a question on your heart and see where we go. So I'll just read some verses here and then ask you. So I'll just start with verse 1 again. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And so I want to read further, but I want to just highlight that verse 3, short verse 3, that says eager to maintain the united in the Spirit, to stay connected to the fabric and the threads that hold the community of Christians together. And then he goes on, verse 4, for there is one body and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Jonah:But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended, far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Again, a reference to oneness fill all things. And he gave the apostles.
Jonah:He himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood or humanityhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
Jonah:Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him, who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined together and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Jonah:So it seems to me that he is saying here, paul is saying here, he's revealing to us that the purpose of being a christian, from a certain point of view, is to build up a body.
Jonah:And I find it interesting I'm just going to say a few things and then lay it on you a Christian, from a certain point of view, is to build up a body. And I find it interesting I'm just going to say a few things and then lay it on you I find it interesting that he says there is one God, one baptism, one Lord, one faith, one spirit, and yet, at the same time, we're doing something, building something that seems also to be not. Yet we're called, and he's gifting us with different qualities. We're called to somehow build this unity, maintain a unity that's already there Somehow. The cultivation of the reality of unity seems to be the task of the community of Christians and I wonder, you know, also with this emphasis on gifts this Christmas, how would you lead us into a deeper understanding of this unity, of this bodybuilding, of this oneness and yet diversity of the community of Christians?
Patrick:I really appreciate you reading the whole thing because you really can feel how it's a wholeness and any one of these lines you could have stopped because it's so extraordinarily rich. There's so many worlds, deep aspects to contemplate along the way through this, but the kind of sweep of the whole picture that you describe of his trying to integrate an incredible differentiation, different spiritual gifts, capacities, different orientations into the mysteries of God. And at that time, of course, there were many Christian communities coming about in the world, in many different parts of the world, and they often didn't look exactly the same. There were questions about the nature of the different kinds of baptisms. Even St Paul in the Book of Acts has to help people understand. There's a baptism from John and there is a baptism from Christ, and they're different from Christ and they're different. And here his focus, of course, is the baptism in Christ, the immersion in him, and that that immersion seems to be integration into a single thing. And, as you said, there are these different roles within. Different people appear that are servants and leaders within that work, but all they're doing is to equip everyone to participate in the same work. There's only one work.
Patrick:How did I think I've got the NASB, the New American Standard, so verse 7, to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift, of spiritual gift from Christ, an amount, some kind of grace which had to do with that, a charis, a way in which God's grace comes uniquely through someone different than someone else, which we notice in life so strongly, but they all are just like a part of you can really have this imagination of a temple building project. Something is being built. Then you have different artisans. Some are really good with stone sculpture. I'm really bad. Well, I did okay when we were working in clay when I was in high school. Things went sideways. I've told you that story, but I wasn't horrible. My daughter made a clay tiger head for her mom. It was extraordinary. Working in three dimensions is a very specific skill. It's different than drawing and I was always good at drawing.
Patrick:I was poor at painting and I would be in the room looking at. I had some friends who were so gifted they seemed to just know how to move a brush work with color and I would try things that looked like what they were doing and it would just be so forced and faked and it wasn't my gift. I was mad about it and that divided me. I was envious. I wanted to have that gift. Of course, I wanted to be seen as such a good painter too, not just paint. Well, I wanted to be seen as a great painter, have my works admired, and instead I had to be a little struggler and I was having trouble accepting that I wasn't given the gift of painting, rather than celebrating the gift I was given and to play my part within the single project in which we are unified.
Patrick:So there's this activity then and he describes that right. There's this voice that comes in that is divisive. There is the enemy. In some ways can be described as that activity which is going to divide you from one another, turn you on one another and undermine the project so that, as you feel the differentiation, the unique distribution of gifts, do not let that be the thing. That then becomes the door to the enemy. Where you're now in competition, you're now secretly tending to feelings and thoughts and desires and will that are against your brother or sister.
Jonah:Well, so that's something to emphasize then. So it seems like you're describing also how to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit, that it's not just a goodwill intention, but it's. It's being attacked and it's there's some things that can come up in you that would destroy that, that unity and it and what you're, what I hear you saying, is destroy that unity. And what I hear you saying is that the will or the impulse of kind of jealousy of, or to compare and want to shine with all the gifts, as opposed to knowing gradually the gift that you've received and, in a way, being content with that gift, but also acknowledging and cherishing the gifts of others as a kind of inner activity, a method.
Patrick:It seems to be that his part. So first to know that there could be these forces that come in to undermine, turn you on one another and divide you. But I think that's part of it, as I've heard you just say it, jonah, but also maybe how Paul says it. I'm trying to find the exact passage here. He gave he verse 11. He gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers.
Patrick:He's her sometimes called the five offices within the church, descriptions of particular roles of leadership within the church. Not so you can be above or better or up on some particular pedestal. Why are there some who are in leadership roles? Why are there some who are in leadership roles? Paul explains in the next verse for something. They are there for something. What are they there for? To equip, for the equipping of the saints, the holy ones, the hagioi, the consecrated ones. That's every single Christian. They've all been through a baptismal consecration and become a part of this body.
Patrick:Within that body there are these leadership roles and they have one purpose and that is to enable everyone else to do the holiest work. They're like background. The work is building up this body. That's the work, and you need these other roles just to equip people. Meaning, do you have the trowel you need? Do you know how to put on? Let me just help you with that. It's for something, not for personal glory. With that. It's for something Not for personal glory, recognition or honor or elitism or anything over someone else. You're a servant helping others fulfill the mission. There's one mission, one work To equip the saints.
Patrick:For how does it say here again Sorry, I'm getting old dude To equip the saints, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, which is this temple that is built. The dwelling place of God is Christ.
Jonah:Right and it seems to be in this context then, which I think is just you know, which you're describing, and it's also just something to emphasize for our listeners the uniqueness of this temple. Normally we think of a temple building as bricks and mortar, right capacities by Christ to be a conduit, a window, a revelation of the working of God in the world of love. So it's a very different kind of temple than we're even body, than we're normally thinking of. It's not bricks, it's not a building, it's not a, I would even say it's not an institution in that sense. I mean, institutions are generally humans, but this is a different quality. Everyone is gifted a particular capacity, like a stained glass window or something that shines a particular quality of the light of God into the world. Just very different kind of temple than I think we're used to thinking about, I mean.
Patrick:I had the feeling like all of the ancient temples were working with the same mysteries. They were trying to. You know, if you, for example, I mean this is so, so deep within the whole story. The very first building project is the cosmos in Genesis 1. A group of beings, the Elohim, who are God, expressed a community working together to begin to shape and make realms the heavens, the skies and the waters, and the earth below, into seas and land and then to generatively draw out or call into being the beings that could fill the hosts, to fill those realms, the hosts of the starry, representatives of God, the shining ones, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, the land, animals. And then the last incredible project let us make Anthropos or Adam in our image. So this group building project to make something that images the divinity, so that there's a relationship between this built thing and the builder. And what's, I think, striking there is humans are not in the builder, they're not co-building, it's just God building. So there's God and God's counsel and community doing the building.
Jonah:Interesting. So I mean, I want to emphasize that because first, what's so profound is you said that actually this is the true kind of temple. A temple actually has always been in this image and likeness, I think so, and a building is kind of just a shadow reflection of something, but the original temple and the real temple has always actually been a building up of beings that reveal.
Patrick:God and all of the heavenly host and the highest Godhead, seeks something small to complete the entirety of the fullness of the great thing that is its image. So it's like this last I don't know. There's, like there's some of the deepest mysteries, like why does God even get involved in this building project? There's some big questions there. What is the mystery between the identity of the divine person and the desire to build an image that is human?
Jonah:My goodness yeah.
Patrick:What is it that lays within the heart of this being and its own nature and quality, and the purposes that lie in the center of its heart, that draws it to want to do this as part of its identity? Part of its identity is to be in a building project that makes the culminating. Co-working together is to craft this microcosm, the in-miniature reflection that is connected to that entire fullness, right.
Jonah:I mean this. I find it's very yeah, we're standing in wonder at this impulse of the divine being to somehow find its reflection in the small one. That, then, what's interesting is, you could see, even in Genesis there's a first initial. It's almost like a mirror, like the divinity is working. A mirror, just a mirror.
Patrick:So it's really God working, it's passive, it's reflecting imaging.
Jonah:Right, humanity is just image and likeness. But now, and you mentioned as well, there's a new temple, not distinct because it's reflecting or imaging or making real the reality of God. That's always been. But one aspect of the new is this co-creative Clearly with Paul, he's describing, we're participating, yeah wow, Very very strong roles and jobs at this building project. We've been given tasks, but now we're to build this up. It's not yet done and that seems to be radically different than the first archetypal pictures of temple reality. This is so fun yeah, so.
Patrick:so what I experienced in that first picture is also it's almost like anthropos, but it's there like a spiritual archetype and it is not yet fulfilled, because you can't image God and be passive. A mirror is not actually an image of God. Interesting because god's not passive. You mean the whole seven days, like it culminates, and it's just like three times. The writers reveal what was this? All that? We just witnessed six days of different kinds of activities speaking, shaping, making, naming, calling all kinds of activity. What was shaping, making, naming, calling all kinds of activities, what was it all? The word that's used is work. He rested from work. The work is a work. It's like three times work, work, work. This was all work. Yeah, so you can't perceive yourself in another if that other isn't working, because you are working, because your nature is a builder, maker, shaper.
Jonah:Whoa, that's so radical. We were not really images and likenesses yet yeah.
Patrick:Or like this is where it's hard to tell. This is where my language Because I know you've contemplated these mysteries of this being particularly the original human in which we were hidden and from which we have started our story, that's right, like.
Jonah:Paul says in chapter 1. Right, he's on.
Patrick:the same way he's on the same way, totally so. There's this original, we're inside this original divine human being who was a true and perfect image mirror. Yeah, but not yet the fulfillment of the purposes that lay inside it, which he also says inside this being are little purposes. They're these seeds of will that actually have to go through a story to unfold and start to grow and reach their full expression.
Jonah:Right, it's like a seed isn't yet a tree, yeah, but it has the tree in it.
Patrick:The entire tree is already present, but present spiritually, yeah, not yet manifested, revealed.
Jonah:That's a very helpful image, because then you can understand okay, a pre-purposed or pre-destined or however you want to translate that word there of what we were was the full thing. It was an image and likeness, but seed-like yeah, that only now with Christ, like the water on the desert with the seeds of flowers underneath that haven't received anything for thousands of years. No, maybe not thousands, but hundreds, maybe not hundreds. Sometimes their seasons have survived for thousands of years. No, maybe not thousands, but hundreds, maybe not hundreds.
Patrick:Sometimes their seasons have survived like 4,000 years 4,000?
Jonah:Okay, good, I'm not off. They started growing them, yeah, so right. Okay, so then, with that water can start to unfold its full potential. But those seeds also have to become active workers.
Patrick:Exactly, and there's a right timing, apparently, for that right. It's kind of like your children are destined to drive vehicles. It's not far away, jonah, like you have a 14-year-old Saskia on the road. Whoa, just not a motorcycle which I can see her on, you know with the like leather jacket no, totally oh she, awesome, right, but your heart skips a beat.
Patrick:You're like, well, you're sure not giving her keys to that vehicle now. No, and if she would go, grab the keys, cause she really feels inside her like I am called to drive, be independent, go visit my friend, start my life. You would be like, oh no, you don't get in your room.
Patrick:Yeah, you would step in until the timing is right, and that's what we see in scripture. Beautiful, because everything that starts to happen then in Genesis is like reaching too early for something that will come later. Let's just take one second here. As we participate in all this work, we read about knowledge. This whole letter has been filled with access to knowledge and the Sophia, the Gnosis and Sophia of God and of Christ. So I'm trying to see where this line comes again. Until right verse 13 is that yeah, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the gnosis of the Son of God, right.
Jonah:Unity of faith of pistis and the rest of God Right.
Patrick:Unity of faith of pistis and the rest of the evangelical world is comfortable. Faith good.
Jonah:Yeah, yeah, faith is good, but also and the knowledge of the Son of God, and also until we all attain.
Patrick:We're going to be attaining the highest knowledge of this.
Jonah:Right Again. True Anthropos and the faith and knowledge are married there Apparently. They're united in this world.
Patrick:United.
Jonah:Coming together. Yes, Right, so there's also a not yet a building up a path of knowledge. We've said that before. Christianity is a path of attaining knowledge.
Patrick:But the whole book of Genesis describes how everything went south because of a being who sought knowledge. In an upper realm of the garden, there was a tree from which knowledge which makes you like God, which is what this story has been about in Ephesians and a deceiver steps in and draws us in to take from this fruit. Now, why is that fruit there in the first place if it doesn't belong to who we are meant to be?
Jonah:Right. So clearly it seems to come back to one of the points you're making is somehow there was something there that has a rightfulness, because we're all clearly destined to attain to the knowledge of God, clearly, but it was too soon. It's too soon.
Patrick:So this picture of there is a right time and that time is now the coming of Christ. Now our knowledge wound that happened there can be healed. We can actually know the divinity and find life, Eternal life. Is this, Jonah? It says in John, to gnosis Christ, To know Christ. Whatever church is telling you, that knowledge is not a part of the Christ mystery is not scriptural. Let's just be very, very clear.
Jonah:Very clear yeah, and that knowledge certainly has to do with faith, with a deep, a hundred percent Deep faith. But, I would argue, true knowledge always has to do with faith. This separation of faith and knowledge actually is an illness that has come into our experience.
Patrick:Yes, it's not there in the early church, as you see. Faith and knowledge. So there we have a picture of well, trying to know something when it wasn't yet our time that's. I think, one of these mysteries is the mystery of God working with us. In time, there's a maturation. That's what Paul's looking at. This is about maturing us. God is actually interested in development. Go ahead.
Jonah:So this question is just arising in me as an organic part of this conversation why, what about in, in your own words, patrick, in this context, what about Christ? What? Why is it the right time with him? What about him makes this rightful?
Patrick:now, this knowledge Can we add one more thing Please? And I really want to go with that question, because the little knowledge pieces this rightful now, this knowledge. Can we add one more thing Please?
Patrick:And I really want to go at that question because the little knowledge pieces, the small part of the passage that you picked up, the building pieces, the bigger one. Right, it's like we have a building project. It's about coming together in unity. It's supposed to grow up into the one who is in the highest heavens. So this is a building project in which we would all be unified, all having a role to play, building something that grows up and is utterly connected to the highest heavens. That is tower of Babel imagery. Let's just read it. It's mind-blowing how exact these things are. This is from chapter 11 in the book of Genesis. Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. In other words, oneness, one people, one people, one language. This is going to be the story about the division in humanity into the multiple peoples which leads to all of the strife. So first there was unity and as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Patrick:And they said to one another come, let us so right already. Let us, we have an echo of the last building project in this book, which was Genesis 1. Come let us make the human being in our image. So we're getting a first image. Hey, you're like oh, this is great, they're about to image God.
Patrick:They're getting together, they're all coming together for a single building project.
Patrick:What are they going to do?
Patrick:Let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. Oh, that's what they're going to build. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. And then they said come, let us build ourselves a city Now. By the way, again, these things are so deep, the rabbit holes on these things. That verb there, build is related to what also Yahweh Elohim does when he builds the woman. Adam is put into this trance and he takes part of adam's side and builds. It's the first time that word is used. It's before make a human being in our image. Now it's built. The same word you'd use for building cities is used for building.
Jonah:This being right, so the nowhere the community, then the temple is also related to the archetypal feminine, which we will then see Paul's going to be calling us the bride Right. And it's imaged in the book of Revelation.
Patrick:Book of Revelation, the whole city is a woman, is a bride. These images are thoroughgoing through the whole of scripture. It is not as simple as the literalists would want us to believe, though it's related to the historical mysteries of the first humans, but it echoes through multiple layers of reality.
Jonah:Right. It combines a symbolism, metaphor, metaphoricalism with, but with a reality. It's also not that it's just a metaphor like that. It doesn't have any reality to it, so it's. It's also literal in its archetype yeah, amen, yeah but, but anyway, you were going to.
Patrick:Again, why do they even start the building project right? You can go back to the. Because there are purposes. We wouldn't be surprised at all, since we've described in God lives the desire to have a shared community building project Right.
Jonah:And already you can see a kind of fallen quality, because the first thing they do is make bricks Right Right, which is very different than what we've been talking about, where it's actually moral qualities and human arts that are building.
Patrick:Right, it's a, it's a it's. They're. They're working in the realm they can work in, where they have some power and activity, and reaching for the substances that they have access to, to image in those substances the project that they feel inside them drawn to do. It seems to be a part of our identity to get together and have a shared building project. And what is it that they want to build? Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, with its top in the heavens, and I think top also means head. It does. Growing up into the head, which is Christ, comes in this letter. There's a top of this tower, the head of this body, so it's supposed to have an upper part, which is kind of the goal, and that head will be in the heavens.
Jonah:I just can't make this up, yeah.
Patrick:Paul is writing this. It's time, apparently, to build what humanity was. It wasn't yet time to build, right Then, let me. Let me just finish reading, because it's almost finished, with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. And what stops the building project? In the book of Genesis, god, god, yahweh, comes down in verse 5 of chapter 11 of Genesis to see the city and the tower which the children of man, which is, I think, the sons of Adam that's very important, the son of man, the sons of men, had built the sons of Adam. And the Lord said behold, they are one people and they have all one language. And the Lord said behold, they are one people and they have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Jonah:Whoa yeah, wow Great.
Patrick:This is amazing. They have unity, total oneness together and they'll be able to fulfill all the purposes. So, reading that situation, how would I respond? How does Yahweh respond? Verse 7, come, he says to his council of angelic beings let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.
Patrick:So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city. He stops the building project. So it's like a there's like a premonition of the goal in humanity to come together, discover a new universe, to have one language which enables co-working and to take up the sacred building project of a city in which there is a temple that rises up into the highest heaven and whose head is in the highest heaven. Let's do that, and by that we will have participate in something called a name for ourselves. So it's so clear. I think, with that picture picture in mind, that this is exactly what paul is saying the purpose and mission of christian community is it's time to build, it's time to build and god apparently isn't stopping us.
Patrick:God has come down and gifted us with what we need to build.
Jonah:Right, he's equipping us.
Patrick:He's giving gifts. Okay, it's time. Here you get this, you get that. Now work together. Right. Here's what you'll need for unification a single language, and that would be, of course, lovely to get into. It's time.
Jonah:So the difference there is God hasn't come down and said Wow and I'm stopping you. God hasn't come down and said wow and I'm stopping you, but he's come down in order to be with us and gift us and participate in this building project, and apparently it's the right time and we don't have probably the time today.
Patrick:But this theme, then, once you start tracking it, it's like it's connected to the mystery of Sinai and the building of the tabernacle. Beautiful pictures come in there and then all of that goes south. And then David finally builds a city and he actually has to overcome enemies that are, or people that are, occupying what is now jerusalem. He has to overcome them, establish it as the city of david. Excuse me, bless you. Out of nowhere. You're reading text and all of a sudden he's like I want to build a house for you, lord. He has the same desire to build something, but it's not for his name, it's for the name of God.
Jonah:So that's also a difference.
Patrick:It seems there's to name ourselves in the Babel story, but in this picture and we know from other parts of the gospel that it's about revealing God's name- takes us to Christmas and our extraordinary, utterly new revelation of the same old mysteries, but new in liturgical history Christmas liturgy that for 12 days or the 12 holy nights we get to hear, celebrate and participate in in the Christian community, that there is a work being done by the hosts of heaven and as they're singing a song that itself is a song of sacrifice and offering and when they sing it they reveal God. And we say we join that song, we want to join in the great project. And all of these singers who give everything they have to reveal their own voice are simultaneously singing a song that reveals the name of God that you become manifest. May there resound this song. May this song resound through reality so that you are revealed, because healing is through you Healing, healing of all of the wound of Babylon, the wound of knowledge, the builder, impulse wound that also is in us.
Patrick:So knowledge and building the knowing part of us and the work building part of us carry wounds Because we attempted things too soon and it wasn't ripe, because we had ambition to be like God before it was time. And with Christ's incarnation and invitation into the knowledge of God and the work of God, we can actually start to fulfill the image, fulfill the purposes, beautiful. So what was your question again? Sorry, I just thought we had to get the.
Jonah:It was it was very, very beautiful. Yeah, but the right timing, the right maturity like giving your kids the keys to the car at the right time seems to be a real part of this. But my question was why is it? What about Christ makes this the right time? What about Christ makes this the way? To make it not just about our own ambitious attainment, to make it not just about our own ambitious attainment, why?
Patrick:Christ? Yeah, maybe another way of saying it for me is well, what is the circumstance of our maturity? At what point am I actually ripe and mature enough to have this kind of power from God? And it seems to be that distance from God, aloneness and living in the consequences of my selfishness and sin is essential for my maturity, is essential for my maturity. My youthful desire to attain the goal is so full of vanity and ambition and my own glory. I want to shine and be seen as the shining one. So the purposes as they live in me in my youth are permeated with something that isn't God the flavor of the serpent, the desire of the serpent, the desire of the beast who threatens Cain, the builder, greatness, the longing for personal greatness that so often is hidden in your consciousness of wanting to do the good, In fact you're usually totally blind to it.
Patrick:I was, because what I'm seeing is the goal, the glorious goal. Let's build the tower, let's know God, let's know the highest things. I want to know the highest things and for me for sure, I wanted to know the highest things so I could implement them in the world, so that the world would be a good and beautiful and holy place. I had holy aspirations, but inside of all of that was all kinds of personal vanity. It was mixed and not love, also for my brothers and sisters, and no understanding of the mystery of maturity, the growing mysteries that gardener at work in time, that everything is going according to the timing of God.
Jonah:So in that sense, then, it seems that Christ does know the timing, or at least he's receiving that knowing in a pure way from the Father.
Patrick:No one knows the times but the Father. It's a biblical reference too, yeah.
Jonah:So if we say well, one thing about Christ, what makes Christ why Christ? He knows the right time, it's right now to plant that seed, but obviously he's not doing it for us. He's not saved everything and made everything perfect, clearly. Clearly, he's planted, or the seed has been planted. He's watered and activated the seed so that we can start to grow together.
Patrick:I think even actually made a new gift. I think that's what he's also saying here. It's like what we would build would be corrupted. This is the thing. So it's like we reach a certain distance from the divine. We reach a certain aloneness which has to do with our maturity. We enter darkness and that desert experience, that darkness experience, that tasting our sin and the consequences of that, all of that matures our soul, humbles us Again.
Patrick:All these goals, what do we need to be? We need to be humble, humbled, humbled, first and foremost. All these goals, what do we need to be? We need to be humble, humbled, first and foremost. I would say we are aggressive with our will, brutal. We need to be initiated into gentleness. We are impatient. We want this built yesterday. We need to be initiated into patience.
Patrick:And what's the the, this other one that comes right after that which is so beautiful? We haven't talked about showing forbearance to one another or bearing with one another in love and and devoted to unity. Both of those things bearing with one another, suffering each other in a holy way, staying committed to each other and suffering our becoming, because the thing is to the left and to the right of me are a whole bunch of other humans who are as immature and full of these things as I am. And you see, like, how does the ancient world, the ancient king, who's also inspired to build the city, build the temple and have a name that's just like, that's what they're all doing the pharaoh in Egypt, the king in Assyria, the king of Babylon, the kings in King Herod, the Herodium he wants to build buildings with his name on it. This is a law of how humans find themselves behaving in life.
Patrick:Donors to great projects want to have their names on the building. What is that? But this same exact thing Facts. We want to have a great name Carnegie Hall.
Patrick:Come on, andrew, you can't be that wealthy, just be like build a hall and be anonymous.
Patrick:You gotta have your name on the building so that every time a concert is happening, everyone has to say carnegie hall. Right, that's just. If you just look at stadiums around the world, how do they get money? He's like we'll put your name on the stadium. So in la it's like crypto stadium or whatever. The los angeles lakers are playing in crypto. What's that? Something like that? Yeah, that's not a name for something it's horrible. Oh, it used to be called the forum. That was a name, but you can get a lot more money if you put somebody's name? Why?
Patrick:because you can appeal the people's vanity and ambition and glory seeking their glory yeah, this is human nature stuff right we want to build something.
Patrick:We want a name. What do we want to build something? We want a name. What do we want to build? Whose name do we want? To be receiving glory. So I need these maturation processes in me to get me ready. So we needed, I think, to fall Right, you will be, to realize the eternal purposes. We needed a maturation process, and that maturation process seems to be sin and death, to enter a fallen place and every myth and every secret story has this. You need to fall into Sheol, you need to go down into the depths, and then you'll be able to fulfill your mission and participate in eternity.
Jonah:Another radical heresy, but absolutely scripture, totally biblical, that the fall was necessary.
Patrick:Psalm 23. The whole first half of the psalm, the king David describes himself as a sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. I don't lack anything. He leads me. He leads me, he guides me, he gives me rest and restoration. He feeds me. I'm like oh, this is great. No wait, there's more that the Lord wishes for you, and it goes through something.
Patrick:First, the valley of the shadow of death. It's not about hanging out in the fields enjoying the grass, the waters, where you feel restoration. Wouldn't that be nice? Because he doesn't just want you to be a sheep. Yea, though, I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. So God is accompanying us on the journey that we have to go in the lonely, dark death place, first Comforted and guided by the blows of destiny Emerging out of that and being invited to a table where my enemies are sitting while I'm being anointed. I'm becoming a shepherd, I'm becoming king in the presence of my enemies, and the Lord is now elevating me because I have passed through the valley of the shadow of death. Right, which also feels no, elevating me because I have passed through the valley of the shadow of death.
Jonah:Right, which also feels in the light of the gospel. It also seems like it's pointing to a fulfillment as well, right, because you could say, well, that mystery was already happening. He's necessarily falling, david, he's being anointed in the presence of his enemies to become what we're meant to become, and yet somehow that was also not enough.
Patrick:Oh, David's experience.
Jonah:Yes, right, yes, interesting. Yeah, thinking about the purpose of Christ.
Patrick:Right, why still come, if that was already there, for example?
Jonah:yeah, but it seems that, actually, because also David failed essentially, so did Moses, so did all of the sons of men, yes, there had to be a one that showed how to walk through this necessary hell Sheol and be fully anointed, truly and fully reveal God. Yes, in every way. In every way, there had to be a one that started the full, mature picture of what the human being was to become.
Patrick:So we're getting close to the question I'm going to be asking you in the next conversation.
Patrick:I cannot wait Right, it totally leads right there, yeah so this picture we've just told is what Paul also, I think, reasserts by saying he didn't just incarnate, he descended and ascended. And some scholars wonder is Paul here in Ephesians talking about just the incarnation into the flesh and then ascending to the highest heavens? There are some different textual differences in certain old examples of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. For example, they don't have descended into the regions in the lower regions. See how it says that Most of them have it, but there's some old ones that are missing regions, the lower parts of the earth. So it's into the low of the earth, interesting. But you can see how the regions matches the pattern of the heavenly spheres. There are multiple heavens and there are multiple hells and this was the understanding in ancient church.
Patrick:Of course, as you know that when Christ died and was laid into the earth, he wasn't inactive on Holy Saturday but he was harrowing hell and that matches most clearly the picture of going and getting prisoners, the captives, and taking them with him. That was the picture that they lived with as an understanding. Part of what he's doing is releasing the ones who had died before Christ came but who had not yet attained the eternal self. They had an earthly self and they were living in this kind of shield place, the underworld, kind of stuck prisoners, yeah, exactly. And so he goes in there, you could say, and brings this host of captives with him. It's that he, he has a victory, it's a victory image in the realms in which he has, and you take back prisoners. That's the classic image. You go to war, you have a battle, you bring back prisoners with you, but these prisoners are the rescued souls. So connecting with Christ means, according to Paul, it would seem, and connecting with Christ means, according to Paul, it would seem, connecting with the one who truly freely descended not fell Very important distinction Ascended into the Sheol realms where normally we are imprisoned, and doesn't just rise of his own but takes a train of a new host of souls with him and the living Through baptism. You participate in this divine host. And so that's where he says no one who has come before will be good enough. No one who has come before will be good enough. Therefore, you have to put off your old human being and put on the new anthropos. Nothing that had come before is going to work anymore into the future. Christ had to come to fulfill the project. Actually, something was missing. I think this is the key. It's like there's a real break. Even Solomon David is not able to build the house of the Lord. He wants to. He has the impulse. I want to build this building. You can't do it, your son will build it. Solomon builds it. Seven year project, seven years, seven days. It's the holy project. You're like this days it's the holy. You're like this is it? He's doing it. It's the great building project. He's got the city. He's building the house for God, the temple of the Lord. It's extraordinary.
Patrick:The glory of the ancient world, solomon reigns for 40 years, gets tempted in the wisdom realm falls. The ancient world, solomon reigns for 40 years, gets tempted in the wisdom realm falls. And since that time we've never seen that temple again. It lasted 40, no less than 40 years. How many? 33. A united kingdom worshiping at one temple, 33 years. That's amazing. United kingdom in a city, with one city, one people, one temple, 33 years. That's the patterning that's inside the mystery of Scripture, showing this is a being who's arriving on the earth. They are then. They're're divided. From then on, as soon as solomon stops reigning, the people of god are divided, divided, destroyed, go into exile. They come back, they, they build a second temple. It's not the thing. The false kings, false priests, it falls apart. You can't hold. It can't hold. It's made out of bricks to pick up your image Right.
Jonah:They needed a true temple to initiate, like a true one, which is a person. Which is a person, a being Right. So that's another reason why Christ, not only is it the right time, not only does he bring the true temple, but now it's not. It's not a material temple like Babel or like the first temple of Solomon's temple was. It's an actual person, a human being with. It's an actual person, a human being with qualities and gifts.
Patrick:And there you see, if you've been to a place like Chartres, like I have which was one of the most special experiences of my life was spending five days there with fellow seminarians when I was studying at seminary just just outside of Paris this cathedral, it's. I've never seen anything like it, everything it's it. You have the experience of creation. You walk around it and you go, it is good, it's just good. There's so few, there's like add-ons that come later. You're like, ah, like not so good, but it's original building. You just have this feeling. It's dimensions, the art, the sculpture, every side of it. It just feels good.
Patrick:And for decades there were tents set up and artisans around and builders and artisans and there were, there were. There was a school and in that school were teachers and preachers and they were initiating the people who were the builders into the mysteries of Christ so they could make this building. But you also go there and you have the experience. It's this, isn't it? What? What? What is eternal from this building is so much the activity of gathering together and building it. It's an imagination, it's it itself is an image of our work. Right, it's not the final thing.
Jonah:Yeah, but doesn't that seem to be like also? Like. Christ, because Christ died and was resurrected. He, he is a new temple. He even calls himself a new temple, and yet that temple is not done.
Patrick:Right. Why are we building here? Why isn't it finished?
Jonah:So, in a way, christ is not done yet. Talk about heresy, Preach brother, right His temple, which is his being. The astounding thing is he's given that responsibility, participation to us to build him up into the fullness of God.
Patrick:Dang Jonah, that's so beautiful. Would you say there is one part that's done? Yes, okay, what would you say?
Jonah:that is Well kind of like the seed. So the resurrection at Easter is done, right, complete, it's fully done, yeah, and in that sense he's founded a new cosmos, a new reality, a new creation.
Patrick:Right, and he has ascended, he has ascended, he has ascended. He has filled all things. He is with God in the highest heavens. So he completed a certain core part of the work.
Jonah:Again, it's similar to this pre-purposed dynamic the new Anthropos, the new Anthropos dynamic, the new Anthropos. So he's laid the seed that has everything in itself.
Patrick:Right.
Jonah:Lacks nothing.
Patrick:In a way.
Jonah:Yeah, fully there, and yet to become the tree we are needed.
Patrick:It's a tree temple.
Jonah:It's just kind of like an analogy, like right the seed into a tree. It's not yet. We haven't yet fully transformed the earth and humanity, exactly, exactly, and it's this mystery that many biblical scholars also know it's the kingdom of heaven is here and not yet it's done and in process. Tremendous, tremendous mystery. But it seems that that's been the way of things from the very beginning.
Patrick:Yes, so there's a certain there seems to have been. And then, if I sum up, where you led us here, something in the purposes and hopes that were laid out in the beginning? There are all these kind of premonitions, first attempts in the first creation beginning. There are all these kind of premonitions, first attempts in the first creation using first creation materials.
Jonah:Brick was our image for that right and and and true impulses that were too soon.
Patrick:Yes, yeah, it's timing issues and and and materials issues, and maybe even and that would be what I hope to get to next time a little bit too, is like something missing in us, that that only he could give, that seemed to be connected with these gifts, and the new human there seems to be like to fulfill the purposes. Something was missing. So he also comes to establish and actually fulfill the whole mission. I'm going to complete it in its kind of what do you say? Archetype. It's like the archetype but it's a seed, because they have a reality to it, and it's the full tree also, cause, like, you can eat from the fruits of this tree right now.
Jonah:He is that tree, but it's not yet.
Patrick:And because we as a community are part of that and there's a city involved and there's all these larger goals that could only become possible by him coming, descending and giving gifts.
Jonah:And being with us in it.
Patrick:And being with us in it and being with us in it, all united, becoming one thing in our uniqueness as well, maintaining our uniqueness but becoming a part of a unity right.
Jonah:So maybe that's a good kind of way to come to an end for this hour, because this now it's not just that. We're images and likenesses, like in the beginning, we're not a passive mirror we're not the passive mirror.
Jonah:Somehow, one of the purposes of christ was to plant the seed, give the gifts that help us become workers in the image and likeness of God, where we're actually actively doing the work of God, with God and in that becoming image and likeness in a new way, so that we're fulfilling the seed of the image and likeness into a tree.
Patrick:Awesome, so good. I just suddenly was reminded by the prayer from chapter three.
Patrick:Oh, well, let's end with that, when all that you've just said also comes to expression there.
Patrick:This verse starts on verse 14,. For this reason I kneel before the Father Beautiful. And it ends with this picture of the work, verse 20. Now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Jonah:Amen, that's awesome.
Patrick:Thank you, jonah, thank you, patrick ¶¶ © transcript Emily Beynon you.