To Be ~ Fully Human & Fully Divine
 

If you grew up celebrating Christmas, as I did, one of the questions you may have asked yourself as you grew older is who is Jesus to you now?  And even if you were not raised as a Christian and practice another faith or follow another spiritual tradition, this is still a good question to ask.
 
I believe it needs to be a more profound question and answer than what you may have been taught as a small child in Sunday school.  And it begins with the story of the Nativity, with the Christ child born in a manger and watched over by an ox and ass.
 
There is a beautiful aspect to Jesus we so often forget and don’t focus on, as much as we ought, the humanity of Jesus. The story of Christmas is only the beginning.
 
The story begins with Jesus, as the Incarnate Word and First Born of Creation, who emptied himself, being born in human likeness and form, and all this means.
 
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, God with Us.

To be human is to be vulnerable. To be human is to endure pain and suffering. To be human is to discover love. To be human is to learn forgiveness. To be human is to live for others as much as for ourselves. To be human is the gift of life. To be human is to live our lives, and to live them fully.
 
When we see Jesus as fully human and divine, it is “meet and right” to stress his humanity as much as his divinity. As found in the words of the Sursum Corda, Latin for “Lift up your hearts" or to have our "Hearts lifted" in the opening dialogue to the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer.
 
Eucharistic Prayer
 
                   The Lord be with you.
People        And with thy spirit.
Celebrant    Lift up your hearts.
People        We lift them up unto the Lord.
Celebrant    Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
People        It is meet and right so to do.


And come to understand that the gift of Christmas is transformational because ultimately, this gift opens up to the People of God an indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  However, you may see the Spirit at work in your own life.
 
As fully human as we are, it opens us up to an indwelling of "God the Father" as Divine Mystery, an indwelling of Christ and the Spirit, and it awakens our fullest human potential to love.
 
The literature of scripture and liturgy, the poetry, psalms, parables, images, and symbols of all our sacred stories and liturgies are pointing us towards a way of understanding the Divine Mystery that cannot easily be named or wholly described.
 
These stories are intended to be internalized, to stretch our imaginations, to help suspend our sense of disbelief, to believe in something beyond ourselves, to teach and reveal the truth, to see beyond the story into a deeper and richer mystery that is true, which is real at the inmost levels of the self and soul.
 
To see beyond our earthly sight, to see with insight the invisible and unseen power of God at work within the world. The Holy Spirit at work within the world. To see God’s love actively at work in our lives and the lives of others, transforming creation.
 
God as a Verb; God as Spirit; God as Truth; God as Divine Mystery; God as Love; God as an Indwelling of the Spirit within each and every one of us in this world. God as InterBeing (Thich Nhat Hanh), and God as the "Connecting Spirit" to paraphrase theologian Paul F. Knitter, as an interconnection that flows in and with and through all creation, bringing us into a relationship with one another.
 
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​BE RECONCILED WITH ONE ANOTHER
 
 
—AS we grieve for so many African Americans who have died violently and still endure a systemic oppression that has lasted centuries.  Please take a moment to think about these thoughts in the context of a more profound racial reconciliation that asks us as a people of faith to approach this dialogue with a greater sense of commitment and compassion. In which, we are called every day into a new and renewing relationship with one another by God.
 
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 
 
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
 
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” —John 17:21
 
“There is something more important than dividing a church or a nation into conservatives and liberals. We must be both. We must conserve and liberate at the same time. We can never severe our ties from that part of history, which belongs to us.”  — Robert P. Starbuck, PhD, MDiv, In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions (Saint Julian Press, Inc. November 1, 2018)

Indeed, we live in a “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

No matter where we may be on our journey in life. As Christians, we are reconciled through Chris. The Holy Spirit dwells within us each.

We live in this spirit of reconciliation.  Indeed, the Holy Spirit is actively at work within the world and within us, teaching us to be as one, to be in union with the divine and one another, across all of humanity.   Just as the Holy Spirit is calling us as Christians to be involved in Social Justice, and the critical social justice issues of our time.
 
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  —John 14:26-27 
 
We are one people, created by God, we live within the world and within in this “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid. This beautiful concept of Unity and Non-Duality compliments one another intimately. Unity and Non-Duality are spiritual concepts found in Christian scripture, in all the great core religions and wisdom traditions of humanity and human history, in myth and metaphor, in storytelling, and most especially in poetry. All sacred scriptures are poetry.
 
Imagine the literature found in all the books of the Bible, the literature of all faiths, as sacred poetry—Spiritual Poetry.
 
Imagine scripture as a type of software program we are using to program our minds; the Spirit-Soul operating system, the Divine Core Language of Creation (DCLC) perhaps, with many variations or versions.
 
If Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the WORD, the Incarnate Word of God, we must also come to realize that our words, spoken or written to one another matter a great deal. What we say and how we say it matters, because it shapes the reality that arises within our communities and across any society. 
 
Our thoughts and words spoken out loud become litanies, even when, especially when we speak or misspeak thoughtlessly and incompletely, or with intentional deceit. As believers, this makes a mockery of the WORD, dwelling within us each, binding us together as God’s people, and the sacramental spiritual practices we follow. We betray that heritage as a people of faith when we misspeak or misuse language or the Word of God, and in doing so dismiss the suffering of others within the world. We forget, who we are and ought to be as God’s people.
 
We must remember, as in the word —Remembrance, that our sacramental spiritual practices (praxis): liturgy, ritual, prayer, and meditation are an extension of the Holy Spirit working within the world. Such practices and participation in a sacred community are helping us to grow spiritually, programing our mind —reconciling us with one another and renewing us as a people. And they are marked by an outward and visible sign, and an inward and spiritual grace in union with Christ and new life in the Holy Spirit.
 
For many traditional Christians, these sacramental practices center on the celebration of the Eucharist & Great Thanksgiving (Holy Communion), Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation & Forgiveness, Healing & Unction, Liturgy & Prayer —literally the work of the people, Marriage & Ordination, and participation in a sacred community of faith, seeing God working within and all around us. 
 
We hold these things to be sacred and life affirming, just as we are asked to hold each other as sacred and affirm one another’s life. We fail to do this when injustice is allowed to reign within the world or across our communities. We fail to do this by not seeing these injustice and continue to do nothing. “Lord, forgive us for what we do not do.”
 
“Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
​
—The Book of Common Prayer
According to the use of
The Episcopal Church.
 
One of the many reasons I love being an Episcopalian—Anglican, is the liturgy we use is poetry. The writing is inspired. It is both spiritual and poetic in nature; it has a literary quality and uses symbolic imagery, which are an invocation to the Holy Spirit.
 
Reading or listening to inspired poetry is a sacramental experience, in this sense, it is similar to the Eucharist, where we receive the body and blood of Christ, the Logos, Christ as the Word.
 
God's sacred Word, Christ as the Logos, the Trinity, as well as the words we hear and pray as liturgies are absorbed into our being, they are what we are becoming, a more Christlike future self.
 
Except there is no time, time is an abstraction, and God is a Verb. God is Spirit and Love; God is eternal loving-kindness working within the world. Here are the Eternal Now and the Reign of God that are both imminent and infinitely present; where God is found here and now, and known in this moment.
 
This future self already is, since God's love is eternally transforming and boundless, without end. This spiritually whole, and holy reconciled, part of us, exists now. It is God's Spirit reaching within us to lead us forward, to discover the fullness of our own humanity. The Holy Spirt dwells within us and is an intimate part of our whole being, moving within us and across all creation.
 
It is a Mystery. We know this, it is written within us, it is part of God’s universal plan. And the close connection our Spirit-Soul  has, an eternal one, to the Divine Ultimate Mystery of God, knows this at the deepest levels of the soul-spirit-self-mind, —our full spiritual consciousness. In a subtle divine memory that flows and moves throughout our whole being.
 
In Christian theology, we speak of Christ as being both fully human and fully divine. Christianity has celebrated this divine aspect for over two thousand years. What has been so often, not understood or celebrated as clearly, is the human side of this equation, this dance, this Perichoresis, and living in the fullness of our humanity and living a more abundant spiritual life.
 
Perichoresis, is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh.
 
Our presence on this earth, in this reality, is no accident; it is a gift. We are here to learn and, in many cases, to teach or help one another, to love one another in our fragile common humanity, to heal the world, to create heaven on earth.
 
When we take time to pay attention, it is a blessing. It is a blessing to see how God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery is calling us into a relationship with one another. When we stop judging one another so quickly, and start loving one another in the frailness and vulnerability of our humanity, this is a blessing. And in the end, invoking our human nature to love, and to come through with grace and graciousness. Indeed, embracing the fullness of God's love for everyone, is an intimate part of our faith and practice.
 
Being gracious and accepting of others, especially those whom we may not fully understand or appreciate is how we work through our human diversity and come to know and be known.
 
In his interfaith dialogue book titled, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” pluralist theologian Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships are driven by the presence of the “Holy Spirit.”
 
Ephphatha, be opened —in the words of Christ, uttered by Christ when healing the man who was deaf and dumb ( Mark 7:34 ). Be opened to the Holy Spirit at work. There is and can be no exclusion of others here. Our lives unfold and happen for a reason. God has prepared and repaired our hearts for this moment in time, this moment of reconciliation, normalization, and acceptance. A moment where we are completely open to one another, just as we are, as who we are now, as God has touched and helped us to form the life we live and hope to live.
 
The importance of this concept is summarized by this:
 
“behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God—The Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships.”
 
This is true across any sacred community or faith where the Spirit, unseen and invisible, is moving in and with and through all of humankind, calling us into a relationship with one another, even across faiths, across all of humanity. There have been many times in my journey when I have known this, where I feel the Spirit actively at work in all of our relationships, and in this process opening up new relationships.
 
Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation, Buddhism asks us “to let go of all concepts, and to let go, and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust, this moment contains all we need.”
 
“This setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us.”
 
It is ultimately a process of letting God be God, of being itself, and then living abundantly into the promise of our life, where we are truly given all that we need. We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures from the Gospel of John, and the book of Romans.
 
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  --John 14:26-27
 
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  --Romans 8:26-27
 
IN this spirit of deep understanding, in how we are intimately interconnected with one another now, these words bear repeating.
 
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
 
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Take some time please to listen to and explore these thoughts from the Ninth Bishop of Texas, C. Andrew Doyle.

There is Something About Being an Episcopalian (Anglican)

If you haven’t seen this new video on YouTube, I would like to encourage you take a moment to watch and share it if you wish.  It is a witness and a testament on being an Episcopalian within the Anglican Communion, and a Sacramental Christian within the Church Universal.  

As a contemplative tradition and prayerful path, as a way towards a knowledge and understanding of God, by whom we are fully known in and with and through an indwelling of the Spirit.  And how God as the “Connecting Spirit" calls us into relationship with one another and all of creation.

Corinthians 13 (NRSV) ~ 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

It is no secret that I love what the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion have to offer as an open inclusive boundless community of loving-kindness, and as a transforming faith and spiritual practice within the world.  In our beautiful liturgy, the work of the people, and as sacred art, literature, and poetry that is transforming, an invocation of the Holy Spirit.  

As I love how the Holy Spirit is actively at work within the world, as a divine presence and mystery, formless ~ without form, unseen and invisible, unbound, eternally open, indwelling, and transforming; God as a verb, acting to transform creation, in a world without end.


Romans 8 (NRSV) ~ 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.


Transforming our lives and creation if we will only open ourselves up to the peace, power, and joy we find in a relationship with and in and through Christ.  And the hope Christ offers to a weary world through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even as the Holy Spirit prays within us when we do not know how to truly pray ourselves to God, with God, invisible and unseen, indwelling and always present.


John14 (NRSV) ~ 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.


To be reminded is to remember, in Eucharistic remembrance. In remembrance of Christ. To remember whom we are as Children of God, as a People of God, living in community with one another and helping to heal and repair the world. Tikkun Olam.

Allow me to end this note please, with this beautiful and ancient liturgical poem and invocation of the Holy Spirit written by the Eastern Christian Orthodox monk, Symeon the New Theologian, over a thousand years ago.  

Within these words, I find a connection to many other contemplative traditions and faiths, in an interfaith dialogue, that touches on the mystery and formlessness of the divine.  Symeon uses a Christian vocabulary, but his words are timeless and eternal.

Words that may take us beyond all our images and symbols of God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery.  Seeing God as the “Connecting Spirit” as my friend and theologian Paul F. Knitter has written and spoken of in his books and teaching.

Symeon the New Theologian's Invocation to the God, the Holy Spirit

Come, true light.
Come, life eternal.
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.
Come, reality beyond all words.
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end.
Come, light that knows no evening.
Come, unfailing expectation of the saved.
Come, raising of the fallen.
Come, resurrection of the dead.
Come, all-powerful, for unceasingly you create, refashion and change all things by your will alone.
Come, invisible whom none may touch and handle.
Come, for you continue always unmoved, yet at every instant you are wholly in movement; you draw near to us who lie in hell, yet you remain higher than the heavens.
Come, for your name fills our hearts with longing and is ever on our lips; yet who you are and what your nature is, we cannot say or know.
Come, Alone to the alone.
Come, for you are yourself the desire that is within me.
Come, my breath and my life.
Come, the consolation of my humble soul.
Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.


Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck


Saint Julian Press ~ The Poem:  http://www.saintjulianpress.com/there-is-something-about-being-an-episcopalian.html

God the Connecting Spirit ~ Third Recording with Paul F. Knitter

http://www.saintjulianpress.com/paul-f-knitter---interview.html