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
“Everything Brought into The Light Becomes Light” - Episode 47 in the series, “Letter to the Ephesians”
In our next episode, Jonah and Patrick explore the darkness and light within each of us as described by Paul in Ephesians 5:1-14. Paul calls us to be “imitators of God” while we live and wrestle with darkness. How do we fulfill this call? God actually reveals God’s nature as a being who “lives in the darkness”—the stars in the night sky reveal this, the beginning of Genesis reveals this, Christ reveals this on the cross. So, we could understand being “imitators of God” as becoming “light in the darkness.” How do we live and wrestle with the darkness in a divine way?
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.
Good morning Patrick, good morning Jonah.
Speaker 3:It's a white world here. Yes, the snow, the snow. Yeah, good catch. You know things can be taken lots of ways.
Speaker 2:That's right. When we speak, we have to be careful of our word.
Speaker 3:Amen, I guess I'm thinking of the snow, because in a few hours I'm going to be on the beach in Miami On the beach?
Speaker 2:Yes, are we having all your events, I guess? So Going to get in your skivvies and gather the people at the water.
Speaker 3:That's what they tell me. Bring your swim shorts.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's very exciting. I have never been to Miami. It lives a little bit like Washington DC did in my consciousness, as a kind of mythical place in America, like New Orleans or Las Vegas or LA. Miami is one of those things where it's just like you know, such, a such a imagined place rather than a real place. So it'd be, really interesting to hear all your experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our friends down there have organized a big weekend, very much looking forward.
Speaker 2:Nice. What else happening?
Speaker 3:A talk, consultations, a consecration of the human being, nice and potlucks, and just to see if there's really an impulse for community down there.
Speaker 2:Yes, the angel of North America flies to Miami to see what's ready in the garden down there. That's really beautiful. That's it. Well, blessings on that trip and welcome to everyone else who's flown into our place on the Internet that we call the light in everything. We'll begin with a reading from the Gospel of John, in chapter 8, verse 12, as our opening word. Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life yeah, beautiful, yeah, beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 3:So last time we got to speak a little bit about this part at the end of Chapter 4, chapter four, where, among other things, we spoke about how anger can arise but don't sin from it and don't let the sun go down on it, right, which was a really rich conversation. Yeah, this time I'm inspired to start with Chapter 5. Woohoo, and I want to read a good portion of it and then pull out some themes to ask you, patrick, to start our conversation. So I'm going to start reading with chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Speaker 3:But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving, for you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is expressed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says awake, o sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Yeah, gosh. So if you were here, you could see both of us smiling.
Speaker 3:There's so much richness, patrick, in this passage, so much to be talked about, but I think what strikes me, at least today. Initially, what I'd like to ask you about is this interesting tension that Paul introduces, saying you are to be an imitator of Christ. You're to look at Christ like a child looks at a parent, children of God and try to imitate them, imitate what he does. And then he goes into a whole list of immorality, morality and describes what not to do, so to speak, what not to be like, what not to do. And one could ask the question well, if I imitate Christ, do I condemn sin whenever I see it? Do I cut it out?
Speaker 3:What is Christ's relationship with our sin if I'm going to imitate him, especially when it gets down to this mysterious part where he talks about, you could say, bringing the light to secret things, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. It's very mysterious. So on the one hand, he's kind of saying don't do this and do this. On the other hand, it seems like he's talking about bringing an awareness, a consciousness, a light to the darkness. And when the darkness becomes enlightened or shone upon, something then becomes useful, becomes light. And he finishes it with Awake O sleeper and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. So there's something that those are mystery terms, those are initiation terms awake from the dead. But there's something that he's talking about here, about Christ, bringing Christ's light to shine on something. So I know that's kind of a big introduction, but I wonder how would you enter the way, I've set that up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've heard you bring up this question of how do we fulfill the calling of imitating Christ, which seems to be related, for Paul, to the question of how we're relating to sin, and what is this methodology of bringing things into the light, and how is the thing that is brought into light, turned into it Right, which is apparently what he's saying, which is apparently what he's saying the things that were done in secret and in darkness, when brought into the light, themselves become light.
Speaker 2:That's what he's suggesting. If all of the translators of these ancient Greek or this, if this coin a Greek, or understanding the grammar of these senses, that is what he's saying. And then he concludes that by saying you were dead, you yourself were dark. Yeah, rise out of the tomb of who you were and experience Christ shining on you, and you yourself will become light. It's actually quite amazing, it is an extraordinary passage, and for me there's a key, I think, because it isn't new that he's talking about these moral things. Right, the fourth chapter talked about walking the walk of our relationship with him, and the first guidance was put Christ on as garments. And we began to look at that, I think, as he's actually beginning to paint the picture to the whole Christian community that you are priests and you need to be wearing the new priestly garments, which are made up of his being. The garments we put on are Jesus Christ, and he makes us into priests of God. So I think that's the setup.
Speaker 2:And then he talks about the morality, right, you know verse 24 in chapter four. He says to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So this, these garments, have to do with being good, being consecrated. That's the holiness picture and therefore we've put away falsehood. Let each one speak the truth to his neighbor, for we are members of one another. You are a fabric, you are an entire being, a single priestly being as a community.
Speaker 2:So then comes all that other stuff we talked about last time, about anger and so forth. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed Another priest image of actually an anointing. So they were all baptized, they were given new garments, the early church, and then they were sealed through a consecrated oil and a laying on of hands and gifted the Holy Spirit, and that's your ordination. So that's the picture he's picking up that he knows they've all done and he's calling to mind the imagination of their priesthood in Christ. Then that beginning of the next chapter for me is just the key to get into the things on light and sin. So he doesn't just say walk, you know, be imitators. The next thing he says is walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, that is. There is no clearer way to say in that, in that language, that Jesus Christ is a priest. Amen, that's what he, he's saying.
Speaker 2:He's reading the entire act of Jesus's life in priestly terms. Now, if we look at the gospel and we watch what he's doing, we're watching him walk in love through his teachings and healings, and go to the altar that is no longer in the temple but is in history, in life. And he's going up to this mountain, this place called the skull, to make an offering. Every priest makes an offering. You're bringing some kind of offering, a sacrifice, a gift. You're gathering from your treasures, what you have in your storehouses, of the best fruits of the field or the best animals from your flock or stock, the bull the clean, with no blemish, for example. And then, of course, in John's gospel he wants us to read the entire gospel. It's chapter one. He has the witness point at Jesus and say that is the lamb of God and that's the sacrificial animal. So we have this radical new priesthood whose offering is oneself Done in love.
Speaker 3:Right, because if we're going to imitate the priest who's offering himself in love, we practice offering ourselves in love.
Speaker 2:And so there's a couple things in here which are super powerful Walk in love, as Christ loved us. So this is a love act, apparently. So I say sacrifice. I don't know what people think. Most of the people I know think you lose something. Yeah, it's bad for you. It's bad for you, okay, first natural thing. But the other thing is you're giving something away, it's going elsewhere, it's going up in the smoke, it's disappearing from the earth. But Paul is saying what he was doing is directed towards us, so that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. It's towards and for. And that gets closer, I think, to what we say when we pray in our worship service and we say take me to you to get here. I'm giving myself to you, just as you gave yourself to me. Where did he go?
Speaker 3:Where did that?
Speaker 2:offering go Right To us. I can ingest him he wants. He offers me his body, his blood, his soul, his spirit To me, Just as in the Passover lamb, you would also eat the lamb. You don't just watch it go up in smoke. You would eat. Ingest the power that protects you from death. The eternity forces are in him.
Speaker 2:I'm subject to death, I eat him, I participate in eternity. These are the pictures. I think that set up the next pictures. So it's a love act, it's for us, it's a fragrant offering and it's for God. It's a sacrifice to God. It's for us and to God. The next word verse 3, is sexual immorality sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness.
Speaker 2:The desire to have something for yourself must not be named among you as is proper among the holy ones. And then he also speaks about. He comes back to sexual immorality again in verse 5. Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. So he's the picture of sexual love act as something that unites you with something Covetousness, the desire to have and unite yourself with something he's calling idolatry.
Speaker 2:When you're practicing your moral life, right, he's moved out of the social sphere which he was in before. He starts talking about sacrificial worship and then he starts talking about sexual immorality and covetousness and idolatry. And these are the images of the practice of worship. We're doing the worship in order to unite with our God. And when my immorality goes down into the sphere, then of my sexuality, now I'm practicing a level that's at a worship level and I'm uniting with hope for fulfillment and union and pleasure and joy in a false God. And then he, he says don't be. That's traditionally translated, don't be partners with them. And it's like this, this word I don't know how to pronounce it right, I'll try, let me see, in the Greek it is a syn word together symetikos, symetikos, so this possession and shared possession of something. And that gets back for me, to this whole now, how is he going to give us a picture of union with Christ, and what is that going to have to do with the fact that we have also continued to sin?
Speaker 3:Right, this is a deep mystery that he really unpacks explicitly in Romans, right, but this is Ephesians Right and he's going at it in a really interesting way here. Right, it's similar. If you know Romans, it'll be interesting to hear. It'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 2:That'll be really exciting to hear You'll have to lead us through that, because I know you've done such good work there, so I think for me that's just helpful. This isn't just about. Actually, one of my favorite quotes ever was in the last conversation we had. You said Christianity is not about good behavior. This could sound like it, yeah right.
Speaker 2:And it's normally thought of that way. It's normally thought of that way and I think the picture is actually. This is right worship. This is a question of worship, and this is a question of identity. Who am I? Am I a child of darkness? Am I a child of darkness? And those immoral actions that lead all the way down into how I use my body unite me with other beings. It's much deeper and richer than just a behavioral code, than just a behavioral code. Yeah, I think that for me, I feel like we need that to understand also where he's going.
Speaker 3:Well, let's just emphasize that a little bit, because normally, for sure, if you say religion or Christianity, people think of the right, good things to do and behave like and think, yeah, and if you do those you're going to heaven, and the bad things that, if you do, you're going to go to hell. Yes, that's just like.
Speaker 2:I'll give you a great example. We may have mentioned it in the years past, but it's one of the icons of this for Kate and me. We were in Stuttgart, germany I was at the seminary at the time. I think she was also doing some studying and we go to get on one of the German trains and if you're familiar with the European trains, particularly Germany, you don't have to show anybody your ticket, you don't have to buy a ticket on the train. You can just get on the train and ride it and not pay for it and you can get off.
Speaker 2:And what they do is every once in a while, they have like hidden kind of agents on the train. They go okay, we're doing a train check, and they stop the train and they go around and they check everybody if they have a ticket. So it's like every once in a blue moon somebody checks and we get on and there's a young American family, a mom, father, dad and a couple of kids and they're talking in the. The mom says they're talking about this train system. Oh, you know, oh, we could have just got on this without paying a ticket, but luckily we're Christians and so we wouldn't do that. Kate goes yeah, jesus Christ died on the cross so you wouldn't cheat the train system, right? It just helps put it in relief how crazy that is. Yeah, like you don't need Jesus to die on a cross to pay your train ticket. No, it's so much other than that.
Speaker 3:There were plenty of moral codes way before Christ that were more than adequate to fulfill that version of law-abiding citizen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but certainly biblical texts and clergy have used religious life to control people's behavior 100%, to shame people and control their behavior, and texts like this can be used that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 3:It's hard to understand them because we've been so permeated with this type of way of thinking. Yeah, it is hard to understand them in a new way.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited, yeah, to try, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I like where you were going. I like where you were going. So you're also citing that, some of these immoral expressions of our being. You implied that that's part of our dead expressions of worship, forces that are in the dark, so to speak, because they're trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction and joy and true life, but they've been misdirected to something that is not linking to the imitation of the great priest, the imitation of Christ. It's linking to other forces and other beings.
Speaker 2:I think I would say it so strongly as other forces and other beings. I think I would say it so strongly as spirituality, at the level of contemplating the truths of existence, is like the beginnings of religious life. I'm trying to understand the wisdom at work in the universe, so I'm beginning to let light permeate my mind, the light that comes from the spirit realm. When I encounter it I can get moved in my heart. It really can awaken very sacred feelings of bliss, beauty. But I'm not yet actually practicing religion.
Speaker 2:I'm not yet actually practicing religion. I'm contemplating ideas, feeling their beauty, and now I'm ready to take the religious step.
Speaker 3:And describe that for us, Please please describe that.
Speaker 2:And this is where sexuality comes in, so that the imagination of religious practice is union of my being with the spirit that has revealed itself to me, no longer seeing it from a distance, shining in the night sky, no longer drawing near to see its beauty, but actually saying will you marry me? I want to unite with you. I want my being to be permeated with you. I don't want to be alone as I am. I want to complete my being in union with you, and that's an action, and that's the closest thing we have to. That in the signs of the pictures of the world is, for example, mary and the Holy Spirit that leads to a son. Or when it says in Genesis 4, adam knew Eve, he's taking it to the level. It's not theoretical knowledge, it's not just heart feelings, but it's actual union at the bodily level that leads to its fructification.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sexual union at the bodily level that leads its fructification. Yeah, yeah, and so this? This is why the, the old testament, is permeated with language which is otherwise confusing, where they say don't. Yahweh keeps saying to them as they're going into their new land, the holy end. He keeps saying don't worship idols or marry other women. He'll say it right next to each other all the time. You're like what, what's the deal there? It's a longer topic, but in any case it in other pictures.
Speaker 2:then he says and you are my bride and I am your husband, for example, I think Jeremiah.
Speaker 3:Sure, that picture repeats itself.
Speaker 2:And the covenant is a marriage covenant that took place in Sinai. We are wedding ourselves together, and our worship life is how we consummate our relationship.
Speaker 3:Right. So what you're really bringing out is the consecrated forces of sexuality are actually fulfilled in a marriage of humanity and God. Yeah, and they're unfulfilled or remain in darkness, or remain truly dead.
Speaker 2:Well, I think they're actually fulfilled with other beings. I think that's what he's saying you're uniting yourself with, and that's why it becomes idolatry right but not truly fulfilled. You don't mean that, you mean they're yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, in the sense that like they're happening, it's happening just empty yeah, no it's not just nothing. That's what's at stake here. It's like insofar as I take those love forces and seek to consummate them with someone or something that isn't my true beloved.
Speaker 3:Right, it's a real thing, it does something. It does something To me and them, to me in them, to me in them. But it's not yet your full fulfillment, which would be uniting in this love, worship, union with god yeah, and he's, I think, trying to show you you are breaking your marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're. You're breaking the bond because you're now uniting yourself with another being so kind of you could say, spiritually speaking, idolatry is adultery.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the language and that permeates the world that Saul grew up in, paul and the rest of Scripture. It's just a deep, deep, deep theme. It's going to continue to be the theme here in chapter 5, I think we need these pictures and I think relates to also the pictures that come next and the question of what to do with the sin. Because, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So if the community was the bride prior to Christ, if the Hebrew people also understood that they as a people are the bride of God, then it was the task of a bride to be pure before the wedding, because that purity is the picture of the clarified human soul that can be properly fructified by the spirit. And so all of the spiritual practices in the monastic tradition, in the Buddhist tradition, in the pre-Christian traditions, the desert fathers, there are tons and tons and tons of effort is made on purification, purification from attachments. We talked about that last time.
Speaker 2:Purification from false desires and bad desires. You're trying to purify your soul for the wedding. That was where those pictures come from.
Speaker 3:And that also comes out of the ancient initiation rites. That's it. That was the first step, yep, catharsis, or the second step.
Speaker 2:Purification Preparation.
Speaker 3:Purification yes, illumination Union. The first step, yep catharsis or the second step, preparation. Purification yes, illumination union yeah, and that illumination.
Speaker 2:There you go after. Purification is illumination. So right, that's coming up in the text here. But guess what? The, the community of christians, since its beginning has been a motley crew of sinners and, as you will probably tell us with great detail, in Romans, paul makes it abundantly clear there is nobody here who cuts it for purity.
Speaker 3:Right, it's so radical. He basically says there is no one righteous, and he's quoting from the Old Testament. So what are we going to do? Right? And he also the verse that really connects here, I think comes out of chapter 6 in Romans, where he asks the question now that we have died to sin or, in the language of this chapter, arisen from the dead, so linking sin with death, now that we have a new experience and a new life and we want to be imitators of Christ, then he says now that you have died to sin, how do we walk in it? How do we walk in it? How do we live in it? So he's doing a double thing there. He's saying, yes, you have a new identity, you've died to this.
Speaker 2:You've, kind of like, moved. Part of you has moved out of where you used to live and moved into a new kind of house, a new sense of self and the sin remains. You're living in the old one too and you're still living in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how do we do it rightly? Yes, and there seems to be something of that gesture here.
Speaker 2:It's such a beautiful way. So, if I mean, why would he even need to say these things if they were truly like, cleansed and pure and would never, ever sin again? No, that makes no sense at all. Right.
Speaker 2:So he knows that they have to deal with this and that's why he's writing to them. So the first thing I think he's doing is giving them tools for discernment. That's just the first work. It's not a behavior list, because he's pretty sure I think Paul's not dumb that they're going to actually do these things. But he has a duty to tell them what those things are Right. So I think there's a really beautiful verse six.
Speaker 2:Let no one deceive you with empty words. Why does he say that there, right before he talks about verse five? For you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, that is, someone uniting themselves with another God, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words. I cannot be true to you as a leader within your circle and say it's cool, it's fine, it's all good, whatever you want to do, yeah, neither do I have any illusion that in saying this, that you're not going to do it. He says, you may be sure of this Everyone who does this, this will happen. He's giving them a lawfulness of the universe. I think this is the difference. Rather than a behavior code. He's letting the human souls know who are drawn to Christ. When you do these things, this is what that means. You're going to need to name it.
Speaker 3:You're going to need to name it, and naming it is light, right, that is the you're going to need to name it, and naming it is light, right, that that is the radical step. I feel like that one right Cause he's. He said he gives you an orientation. Okay, these are the, these are the way that you are still darkness, that you're still partnering with darkness. Maybe that's a little more descriptive, yeah, because you're not darkness anymore, because you've been born in a new way, but you're still in. The darkness is still there.
Speaker 2:In fact, in this letter, let's just remember he has said christ has taken you with him to his throne. So there's a part of you that actually lives enthroned with christ in god, right, while you're wrestling with sexual immorality. That's, that's the theology of this letter.
Speaker 3:That's a very good point. It also starts to distinguish multiple parts of the self. Yeah, and this is very, very important this is actually what you could call a more hidden reality of the ecology of the self Boy. That's a sentence. The ecology of the self Boy, that's a sentence, meaning there's a part of ourself that is wrestling with the darkness, trying to be shone upon by the light of Christ, so that even what is dark becomes light, and there's a part of ourself that is already in Christ and on the throne. Now, most of us are not very conscious of that part. That's okay. It's still stating that part of yourself has been taken up to the throne.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the experience that we have that that's true is experiencing our love for him, as strange as that sounds, but this recognition I know you, you know me, you have always loved me and walked with me, and now that you've shown yourself to me, I am in you and you are in me. And where you go, as he says in John, there you will be also. So Christ goes to this highest place, and because we've met and known one another, he's taken part of me with him. That is my eternal self.
Speaker 2:While I keep coming back, then in relationship to myself and him in my relationship, as you know so beautifully in your work, my eternal self is in him. And my earthly self is seeking to become like that Freely participating in the transformation of my nature beautifully said, right so we have to.
Speaker 2:We have to have that picture, I think, to understand this double action. Something is living in him, on the throne of reality, outside of my earthly self. My embodied self is still living in the old human, in the darkness, participating, partnering, sinning, and Paul is giving us the first tool. You're going to need to know what that means. Here's how you'll be able to discern. I'm going to list some things, I'm going to describe some things, and when you get to the sexual level, you really are practicing idolatry. You're actually creating a union with another being than your God. Let no one deceive you. So what do we do then? I'm acting in my life and it seems right, jonah, and this is where.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to hear also your thoughts. I do something and it's in that direction of this idolatry, covetousness, and I experience the truth or I wonder. Maybe I just start, I wonder what have I done? Was that okay? Sometimes that starts like that right, you're like kind of seemed, was that?
Speaker 3:maybe okay and you're like wondering and you're unsure.
Speaker 2:But if you're wondering and unsure, it's usually like a clue when you really know something's good, you're not like I wonder if that was good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mostly right. Sometimes I've been pretty convinced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had a couple.
Speaker 3:Really good and it turns out to be not so good. But then there are other times that I've been wondering and it does turn out. It turns out it was okay.
Speaker 2:Right, it can happen, yeah.
Speaker 3:But you know.
Speaker 2:But it's a process where you're trying to discern, you're doing that judgment, work, work, which is a part of imitating god to look at something, to step back and look at something and say was that good or not good? Yeah, yeah, and so he's giving us a tool here to discern that which is the first part of light, I think is to the naming yeah and then when it dawns, when the light fully dawns inside of insight. I was covetous there, I'll just use that term.
Speaker 3:Right, and so in this way, like you could say one, I could imagine someone interpreting this like saying okay, well, it seems like he's saying that if I just become aware of anything that I do and I allow it to become shone upon by light, then it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could sound like that. What's the clue there, do you think?
Speaker 3:but it seems to me that that a crucial piece of that is and it's not totally explicit, but if I, if I think into it, it's like okay, it becomes light, so he says, for it is shameful to even speak of the things that they do in secret.
Speaker 3:Okay, but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. So what's the difference then, of the light of the goodness that is Christ's love, for example, that I can become aware of, and the sin in me that becomes light through my process of becoming aware of it? Yes, is there a distinction? There is there a distinction there, and I believe there's probably many ways to work with this. But what becomes clear to me, and what's becoming more and more clear, is that when I become aware of my sin and I can make it useful for self-knowledge and turning again to Christ, when my sin becomes useful, then it's light. It's not just that I'm aware of it. I would say when it becomes useful as a way to know myself, because unknown sin wrecks havoc in my being and in relationship.
Speaker 2:Denial of sin wrecks havoc Well maybe that's like a first good start, just to say, like the sin that's active in me that I cannot yet see, is a ruler within me. It's a ruler. It causes all this harm to me and others. So all right, so it has others, exactly. So all right, so it has power right.
Speaker 3:So first to just be aware of it means I've kind of diffused a little bit of its power and it's starting to become light when it starts to tell me about myself and helps me to understand myself and my needs more, and then I can turn from it and choose something new.
Speaker 2:Right. Make a new choice, be a little bit more Lord of the house and try to align your choices with the one that actually, every time you go in his direction, you feel better. Right.
Speaker 2:That people feel blessed around you, like you just notice that I think this interesting term useful, useful, it's interesting. It's not a very inspiring term, but I think it captures, if I'm hearing you right, this effect the fruitfulness of something. What are the fruits? And the fruits of this ruling? Unconscious, dark desire that. I can't see it bears all these unhealth, ill health, destruction fruits.
Speaker 3:That's right. We had a student the other night say well, aren't we supposed to love our sin and love the adversary? And we stopped for a second because there's a way of doing that that isn't helpful. It's kind of like everything's okay.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:But when we really got into it it was more in this light, where the first step is just to be aware, to not be in denial, to have that help you learn about your own darkness, and then can it be useful to help me learn to unite better and more with the light of God. And if then, in that gradual process, if my sin becomes useful for my own understanding of myself and for a new relationship with God, then I will gradually start to feel grateful for my sin and grateful for the adversary tempting me through it. And then gradually, once I can truly not just placating, not just saying the empty word that I'm grateful, but once I truly feel grateful for this darkness, that it's helped me turn more and become more united with Christ, then a kind of love starts to arise, but only through gratitude and only then, before that, through its usefulness. So if I say you have to love your sin and love the adversary too quickly, it gets messy yeah.
Speaker 2:But if I go through the road of usefulness and then gradually becoming gratitude, and then gradually becoming gratitude, then an authentic love for I would call it a love for the cross can then arise. It's really beautiful, I mean. I think what we don't see in this description is condemnation at all. It's not a story of discovering sin and condemning it. Though there is one element it's interesting that I feel like we could draw out better there, the. The translation in the esv, the english standard version, we're reading, says anything exposed by the light nice yeah becomes visible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that has a little bit of an amoral quality.
Speaker 3:It's just like visible now right and exposed is a little. I wonder what is the little?
Speaker 2:bit like a violence in it, right like I've I've, I'm exposing you yeah, but it has it's most often translated, actually, elsewhere, as rebuke or conviction in the sense of naming and saying this what you have done was immoral. So it's specifically not saying it's okay, right, as if that's okay, right as if that's what love is.
Speaker 2:And that's our problem in part when all of these things is, we have a lot of work to do to understand love's nature. Yeah, and a simplified version of sympathy and embrace is what we usually mean. Yeah, I like you. I welcome you yeah. And so little visions of love would include. How dare you? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't do that again. Yeah, what you've done was wrong, yeah, but that was the thing in my life when I was. What came to mind, the story of my life. You know, we don't have to get into details here because these things are very sensitive in that in the territory we're talking about.
Speaker 2:But I met with a good friend of mine I think I've mentioned this story before, but without getting to details and I was in college and I shared with him an experience I had that I thought was good and I and I suddenly reconsidered all my ideas about these things. I was like, you know, maybe I was wrong. Anyway, yeah, I can really see now. And he lit into me. He just lit it, he just was like. He yelled at me. We were in a cafe at college, 20, like young, 20 year olds, and he basically said you are, you are outside of yourself, this is not you. And he just and I was just like in shock. I remember, remember, and I heard every word he said and his words were light and I felt it and everything he said was true and I knew it and I was like trying to believe the illusion that the world seemed to think, and maybe I'll just say it, and that was that. It doesn't matter how many sexual partners you have.
Speaker 2:Go ahead have fun play around. Maybe that was true, Maybe it doesn't have any consequences.
Speaker 3:Right and he's like it does and you're outside of yourself, you know it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the next day I learned more. And that was it has consequences and I could see my sin. But there was a part of me, the snake inside me, wanted to not have any consequences and think that that is not condemnation, that that is love, that there are no consequences to your deeds. Yeah, and that's not love at all. It's a spoiled bratness. It ruins you. It ruins you. It's actually ruinous to your being. Yeah, and my brother, my friend, saved my soul. He did, he said yo, he called me back to myself, he shone light and rebuked the false word. It was awesome, right.
Speaker 3:And it spared a quality of that kind of being exposed or being rebuked or being called to account, as John's gospel says in chapter 16, that the Holy Spirit does. There's a quality where it feels like you're also, your own conscience is speaking, yeah, through another person, through him, yeah, through him.
Speaker 2:It was me coming towards me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and also it has to be distinguished, I would submit, from condemnation, like I didn't hear you describe in your friend saying and therefore you are going to be damned for all eternity and you're useless.
Speaker 2:And I didn't feel exposed.
Speaker 3:That's that false, that's that violence and the exposed like look at him.
Speaker 2:You're exposing someone to someone else that's exposed. For me, this was a holy moral light. Yeah. And it was healing and strong and 100% clear. And now I can tell this story and hope that it can be fruitful for someone else on the way, because that sin has become itself a symbol of truth, and this is how it becomes light For me it's like. Now that it enters the light, I can see its nature, right, and its nature is therefore speaking and is very clear, right.
Speaker 3:So when Christ's light, when you arise from the dead and Christ's light shines on your darkness, it can become a gift that reveals how to be in relationship with Christ in a deeper way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful and I guess I experienced it almost like the first step is seeing and naming the thing morally. And there I'm still. Though I'm in it, I feel my partnership with it still very strongly.
Speaker 3:You're not lost in it, but you're still kind of entangled.
Speaker 2:I'm not yet feeling the healing yet Just the pain. It's more acutely, thank God, and I'm thankful for it Acutely, the pain of my choice. Then I want a new life in God. Then.
Speaker 2:I turn towards him, to rise out of that death and let his light shine upon me. Yeah, and before it's like, his light was revealing the sin Right and changing it thereby into something that was leading me to humility, to true moral transformation in myself, reorientation to letting something die that has no future, and trying to join the truth bears the fruit of me. Understanding my brothers and sisters who wrestle with these things better Right, so it gives me compassion. Understanding my brothers and sisters who wrestle with these things better Right, so it gives me compassion.
Speaker 2:And leads me into a much deeper layer of seeking union with Christ. Amen, my true self, amen. So that's all thanks to my sin. Right. And the process that not just alone right but enlights relationship to it and the sin coming into light. Amen.
Speaker 3:And I know you know this, patrick. I would submit that I would say that from the founding of the Christian community, this has been a hope, also out of the words of Rudolf Steiner. This has been a hope that we take a step in. Is learning to make sin useful in this way, learning to relate to sin in this type of way where it is a great catalyst for a deeper relationship with our imitating, our life with Christ? Yeah, and to see sin in that way as a super important, valuable piece of our existence, maybe even, well, certainly one of the most important aspects of our being, yeah, that's a radical thing to talk about sin in that way, totally.
Speaker 3:And it's very new in the history of religious life and Christianity to start to uncover that. But we can see, paul. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:He's a forerunner in this. He's a forerunner in this picture, and in that sense, though, it's going to become very important for us and for our future, our listeners as well, to start to distinguish gradually because it's a process this kind of relationship with sin that you've just described so beautifully, and what it feels like to be in an accusative, inner accusative relationship with your sin, or a blame relationship with your oh, I'm such an idiot or a condemnational relationship. Those three accusation, blame and condemnation are not what we're talking about and not helpful in relating to sin, amen, but so often those three are totally tangled up with our relationship with sin.
Speaker 2:All relating to the fact that I carry in me. We carry in us the belief that only once I've somehow dealt with all that will I be worthy of love. Wow, let's stick on that for a second. I can't approach God because I'm not worthy yet. And Paul is trying to help us. Say you aren't worthy and you're not going to get worthy in the way that you think you can. You are made worthy because he's chosen you. You are made worthy because he's chosen you, and his life with you will be a part of a process that makes everything in you light. It's going to change?
Speaker 2:everything and the sin in you is going to play. It's like you really get this imagination of the human self between its shadow and Christ Jesus. Yeah, and both beings the shadow that we carry within us hidden in the dark, and the one who is the source of true light are our servants in becoming who we're meant to be. That's what we're trying to get to.
Speaker 3:The shadow and the Lord are the ones who are helping us become Beautiful.
Speaker 2:I love that, thank you. And it's that constant kind of activity of again and again, a new vision of an element of the shadow raised up into the light that matures me, deepens me and makes me more and more a better person, just to put it really simple, humbles me, builds compassion, builds spiritual experience that leads me towards Christ. And then I turn towards him, I turn back towards the shadow, and that's what we do every worship service, every single worship service we walk in and the shadow is not left at the door.
Speaker 2:It is not unwelcome, but we begin by naming it, articulating the ways we have failed to imitate God.
Speaker 3:My denials, my strains, my weaknesses.
Speaker 2:Denials, strains and weaknesses. Every priest is saying that every time they go to worship, that means they're bringing the shadow in. Every priest is saying that every time they go to worship.
Speaker 3:That means they're bringing the shadow in and then we see that it becomes useful because we say I bring my offering to you now because to you has flowed, it's the reason, so it's now an inspirer of me being a priest, offering my own being as a fragrance to God, amen.
Speaker 3:So I think that's a beautiful way to also kind of tie back all the way to the beginning of what you were speaking about, that we are all to become priests and it's just so important what you've said. I want to emphasize that normally when we think of sin, we're either trying to figure our sin out, transform it, get rid of it so that we can have a relationship with God, or shed Just sin is an illusion and you shed it all and you find your God self. This is a different picture that Paul is laying down. Paul's laying down. Actually you are the one in between the Savior and the shadow being yeah, and they both are servants for your becoming. They both are servants for your becoming. That is a very different picture than you're just trying to get rid of, shed all the darkness, because it's illusion anyway, or you're trying to master yourself so that you can then have a relationship with God and you can feel, in the priestly calling of Christianity, these extremes.
Speaker 2:So some are called to the priesthood because they feel that is the one place where the purity is being held and they want to enter that circle of purity so they can condemn everybody's behavior. It's horrible, it's the worst To get, to get in there and turn around and go. You all need to stop and to give everybody this behavior list. So the son who stays home in the prodigal son story, yeah, he has no love for his brother Zero.
Speaker 2:And then he loses his love for his father Because his father has welcomed the other brother home, capitulated, and the other gesture which is like, well, I can't do anything anyway for the work of who I am, it's all in God's hands anyway. So it doesn't really matter what I do, I can sin away as a priest, and that's a whole stream.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if I'm drunk at the altar, it doesn't matter if I'm philandering left and right, whatever, but it's through God's mercy it all gets cleaned up. It's kind of gross immaturity of spirituality in the priesthood, like my behavior doesn't matter. Why would he? You're supposed to reveal God, so to do it as someone who continues to sin, you need to be in this alive, creative becoming between your shadow and God, ever anew Called out of death To be shown upon by Christ, and you will be picturing to your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3:A right relationship to sin and Christ. And right relationship to sin and Christ is the righteousness Of the church, amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not the self-righteousness.
Speaker 3:Not the self-righteousness, but the righteousness of God. Beautiful Thank you, Patrick.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jonah. Have a great trip to Florida. Thank you Will do. Bye everyone. © B Emily Beynon you.