We Dwell With Divinity
May 19, 2019
Today's message can be found below.
There will be a live audio Reflection & Prayer Service with community chatroom conversation in connection with this Multimedia Service this Sunday evening at 9 pm ET. Catch it towards the end of this Multimedia Service or on our Worship page. Video of the broadcast is posted there later.
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Open Your Scripture
Can represent how God speaks to us deeply and symbolically through the Word, both in scripture (Biblical or otherwise), in our experiences, and in the world around us
Try to dance, move, sing, hum or play along with this music – or enjoy a meditative listen with deep, mindful breaths
Stand By Me
Ben E. King
Psalm 42
Tori Kelly
Opening READINGS
From Biblical & Hebrew Scripture
Revelation 21:1-6
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."
From Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings
We Dwell With Divinity
By Pastor Cory Bradford-Watts
The loving God is always with us. That’s the promise of scripture and that’s what I’ve come to understand from my experience and life. Sometimes this is more obvious than others. There are days where I’ve questioned the presence of God and there are days where the Holy One’s awareness and participation in my life is all too obvious. It’s great when that last bit happens, and I notice it happens more and more the more I look for it.
Do you ever just look around and appreciate the glimmer of Divinity in the details of life? I think home is a prime place to do this because there are so many things that we care about at home, so many things that we’re deeply connected to and use for life, and so many things that help us find peace. Home, in its most ideal form, is a place of peace and joy.
I see Divinity in my home, in my apartment – when I’m looking. And it’s funny where it can show up. Our white dog, Ghost, reminds me of the Holy Ghost (of course). Our dog is peaceful, responsive – kinda! And she really loves to be worshipped, petted, as God does in a way. Now I think God’s reasons for wanting to be worshipped are a little different, God hopes to draw us out of self-worship, wants us to appreciate the shared source of our gifts in order to help us release egotism, what we might call hellishness, which allows us to connect better with each other and love itself. But whatever the reason my dog wants worship, she also helps to draw out my compassion and teaches me to care for others who may sometimes be vastly different than myself.
Truly, our home can be a rich environment to find expressions of Divinity: in our partners and family (let us count the ways!), and from the Buddhism of our cats to the honesty and attention of our dogs. And those are the easy ones – if we’re looking for it we can find God in the smallest details: in our nourishment and all the useful, good things in our spaces that express different aspects of God’s kindness, protection, and wisdom in form.
Perhaps that’s why Biblical, Hindu-Vedic, and Muslim scripture tends to use blessed dwelling places, peaceful homes, as a central, promised blessing from God. These scriptures emphasize that peace in the home, the safety of home, is an ideal state worth striving for, one that we should help others achieve as well. But our reception of this blessedness often starts in our own home, with a willingness to see God there and to see where God can be, wants to be, even more present.
We each have our tendencies that disturb the peace of our home, if you will. Habits and dispositions that draw us away from being connected with God’s presence and instead create a space of disrepair, at least for a time. This is something we have to take seriously and strive to transform, as God tells us over and over again in the Christian Gospel. But creating peace in the home is more than just shirking bad habits and selfish dispositions, it’s allowing God’s presence and peaceful love to find us even amidst that disrepair. It’s allowing us to dwell with Divinity even before we’re entirely whole, even before our home is truly a home, in order to enable healing. And yes, the reality of God’s abode with us calls on us to see that she dwells with others as well, even those vastly different from ourselves.
And that’s the crux, because without a stance of social justice and us wanting God’s peace and love for others’ homes, we set our hearts on apathy – God’s absence – and we indirectly support that orientation in others. This leads to a collective home in disrepair, with the presence of God hard to discern.
The God that dwells with us is a wellspring of hope, compassion, and just-action. Perhaps the reason we have such trouble seeing her around us is because we don’t often want to hear what she’s saying or see what she’s about, because as we see in scripture with the social justice of the Divine Christ, God’s words tell us that we truly find peace when we help others to.
To the extent that we in our lives, homes, and community, don’t hear God’s words of peace and reconciliation towards peace, we become mired in tragedy and a house of destitution, unwilling to allow God to repair our broken home, this planet. Today we look around us and see so many people suffering without the external support of a truly supportive, comforting hand: our social institutions allow many people to fall through the deep cracks of addiction, of abuse, of abusing others, without much hope for rehabilitation and healing. God is here but her presence must be leaned into, perceived, and embodied in order for our communal household to become a home, to find the peace that is promised to all peoples.
We each have had a brush with tragedy, we each carry some wounds from this broken home, this broken planet. And even in the midst of that, even in the midst of our wounded neighbors, there dwells Divinity, a powerful force for healing and repair. We’re promised in today’s scripture from Revelation that if we allow him to, God will dwell with us in such a manifest way that he will wipe every tear from our eyes, removing death, mourning, and pain from our abodes. And I think that this is truly God’s hope for us.
Let us come to accept God’s promise of a peaceful, fruitful home, and see that it’s also the promise of a peaceful, fruitful self, as well as a peaceful, fruitful, diverse society.
That’s part of the reason I’m so excited about our gardening efforts at the Church of the Good Shepherd and the rich, community-led discussions here at SwedenborgianCommunity.Org on the Thursdays and Sundays we don’t broadcast: active fruitfulness to symbolize and actualize the fruit of the spirit dwelling in our lives, homes, and community. Communal gardening is an apt metaphor for this process of appreciating and receiving God’s presence and uplifting her peace for all. This takes meditative tilling of our spirit, reflective trimming, and preventative maintenance. To find God robustly present in our collective home calls on divisions of labor, diverse community, and a willingness to fail, learn, and get back up.
Sophia God is sitting next to you right now, closer even! As real as you are and more aware and loving toward your situation than you could ever be yourself. As scripture promises, she wants to take us by the hand, comfort us, and lead us to comfort others.
Religion often makes a big point about God’s infinite power and infinite awareness, but this can sometimes detract from what I believe is the truly personal connection and walk that God has with each of us. She walks with us, she talks with us, and she wants to help everyone make a better home.
Amen.
CLOSING SONGS
How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place
Himig Heswita
Count on Me
Bruno Mars
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Some of our past videos:
GO IN PEACE KNOWING YOU'RE LOVED
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Helen Keller’s “Holy Passion Pouring Down from the Springs of Infinity”
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