Category Archives: Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference.

Shift of Expectations – Why Was Leah Given Before Rachel?

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We’re in to week #4 of our New Church Journey Program called, Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference.  This program follows the story of Jacob from the Old Testament.  This week’s topic is “Shift of Expectations”.

Genesis 29:21-35 & 30:1-24: This week’s story involves Jacob working seven years for Rachel, only to be tricked into marrying Leah first!  Even after Jacob marries Rachel as well, Rachel is barren for many years.  On the surface this seems like such an unfair story with many challenging twists and turns.  But on a deeper level this story relates an inescapable truth about how we experience life.  I’m going to start with some fairly abstract concepts, but if you can understand what is represented in this story it can change your outlook on life in a very powerful and practical way.

Rachel is the one that Jacob falls in love with and she is, “Beautiful of form and appearance.”  Rachel represents our love for the interior truths in the Lord’s Word.  Falling in love with Rachel is like developing a deep affection for the many ideals that the Lord’s Word places before us.  These ideals (or interior truths) inspire us to want to be a more loving person, a more courageous person, a more humble and useful person.  They help us to understand more clearly what it means to be human and to follow the Lord.  So if “Rachel” represents such high/interior ideals, why in the world was Leah given to Jacob first?

Ideals cannot be achieved overnight.  Even though we may see them and desire them, there are a lot of things within our own hearts and minds that prevent us from making them a reality.  Selfishness and an unwillingness to change often make ideals things that we both want and don’t want.  On one level ideals seem so nice, but on another level we are unwilling to give up the things that stand in their way.  I would love to be in more ideal physical shape….buuuuuut, I don’t want to get up early and go to the gym, or stop eating so many delicious snacks.   I would love to live in a less judgmental world….buuuuut, I don’t want to give up my own need to always be right and more important than others.  It may seem unfair, but Jacob being forced to marry Leah before Rachel represents this unavoidable reality that there are gaps between the ideal and where we are right now.

As impolite as it is to point this out, Leah was the uglier sister!  Her eye sight wasn’t very good and while it doesn’t come right out and say that Leah was ugly, Rachel’s beauty is emphasized.   This seemingly rude commentary on Leah is very important to what she represents.

More often than not, the steps we need to take in order to eventually achieve our ideals, are much less attractive than the ideals themselves.  Because we are not perfect and we do have a lot of selfishness inside of us, the Lord knows that we will not be able to make any progress in life without some less elevated and less attractive goals to work on along the way.  Leah was said to be “weak sighted” because when we are in this state of life we don’t see as clearly what the ideal is or how to achieve it.  In many ways, I think that you can tie this in to the fact that Jesus healed many blind people in the New Testament.  Early on in our spiritual development we are “blind” to the more interior truths of the Lord’s Word and how these truths lead us to be truly human – created in the image and likeness of God .  The Lord works with us in our blindness, but He is always leading us to see things more clearly.

You take something like marriage.  I may want to have a wonderfully ideal marriage, but the reality of the situation is that I have a lot of things within me that are standing in the way of this: Arrogance, a need to always be right, a love of dominion, lust, anger, and more.  Because I’m a long way off from being an “ideal husband” (Rachel), the Lord allows less attractive and more external goals and truths (Leah) to lead me for a time.  For example, sometimes I might work on being a good husband simply because I want to look good to others.  At other times I might not yell at my wife because I want to set a good example for my kids.  Sometimes I might choose to stick it out simply because I know the Lord tells me to, and I want to obey His Word.  These may be some pretty external reasons for working on my marriage, but the Lord knows that they will allow me to eventually have an ideal marriage that is much more internal.  The same thing can be said about developing an ideal faith in the Lord, and anything else that has to do with our spiritual growth and eternal happiness.  “Leah” represents our affection for more external truths and ideas that may be “weak sighted” and “less attractive”, but are still an important step towards more internal things.  You may gaze upon the mountaintop, but you must walk up a sometimes challenging path to get there.

I hope this helps you to understand what is represented in this story by Leah being given to Jacob before Rachel.  It’s a pretty big concept and hard to explain well in a short Blog post.  So do feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.  Also, feel free to give your own thoughts on this representation.  Tomorrow I’m going to write Part Two for this topic where I’ll offer some thoughts on how this story can teach us to have more patience with life, ourselves, and each other.

“With a person who feels an affection for internal truth, that is, has a desire to know the more internal arcana of the Lord’s kingdom, those arcana are not in the beginning joined to him even though he knows them and sometimes even though he acknowledges and seemingly believes them. For worldly and bodily affections are still  present, and these cause him to take them in and seemingly believe them. But insofar as those worldly and bodily affections are present those truths cannot be joined to him.”
(Swedenborg – Secrets of Heaven 3834)

 

 

Shift of Focus – Opening the Well

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We’re in to week #3 of our New Church Journey Program called, Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference.  This program follows the story of Jacob from the Old Testament.  This week’s topic is “Shift of Focus.

Genesis 29:1-20: This week’s story involves Jacob meeting his future wife, Rachel, for the first time.  He meets her by a well of water with a large stone over its mouth: “And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel…that Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.” (Genesis 29:10)

One challenge that I find a lot of people have is finding real meaning within the Lord’s Word.  Many people know and believe that the Word is a holy book; they know that it is filled with wisdom and offers guidance in all areas of life.  And yet, you’re not alone if you sometimes struggle to find this wisdom and guidance.  In our story for this week, the “Well” with the large stone over its mouth represents the Word of God and times when that Word appears closed to us.  We might be thinking, “How can there be Divine wisdom within the violent and often immoral stories of the Old Testament?”  Or, “I believe in the Lord’s Word, but I’m not finding any light or guidance for the hard situations I’m facing right now.”  There seems to be a rock, preventing us from drinking from the water of life. (John 4:14)

The first thing to recognize is that learning to ”drink from the water of life” is a process.  Don’t beat yourself up too much if you have times when you do not find the Word of God inspiring; we all have times like this.  Part of the process of life is going through times of drought; we have times when we see things clearly and other times when we’re in the fog.

Having said this, I want to mention three things that a person needs to do if they want to allow the Word of God to “open” in their life.  How do you allow Jacob to, “Roll the stone from the wells mouth?”  Books could be written on each of these points.  So I will be brief and hope that people feel free to ask questions and add their own ideas to this list.

1. Understanding the Style the Word was written in.  This is a big one.  There is wisdom and guidance that you can gain from reading the Word of God on a literal level.  This is why even simple people and children can benefit from it.  However, in order to open up the Word more fully a person needs to understand that the Word of God was written in the language of correspondences.  All of the literal stories and images in the Word “correspond” to spiritual realities that have to do with your own spiritual growth, the Lord’s heavenly kingdom, and ultimately the Lord Himself.  A bit of a difficult idea to get your head around if you’re unfamiliar with it; but here’s a good passage to get you started.  I like the example of hieroglyphics:

“Heretofore the spiritual sense of the Word has been unknown. That each thing and all things in nature correspond to spiritual things, and in like manner each and all things in the human body, has been shown in the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 87-105). But heretofore it has not been known what correspondence is; yet in most ancient times it was very well known; for to those who then lived, the knowledge of correspondences was the knowledge of knowledges, and was so universal that all their manuscripts and books were written by correspondences. The book of Job, which is a book of the Ancient Church, is full of correspondences. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, as well as the fables of most ancient times, were nothing, but correspondences. All the ancient churches were churches representative of spiritual things; their rites and the statutes according to which their worship was established, consisted of pure correspondences; as did all things of the church among the children of Israel. The burnt offerings, the sacrifices, the meat offerings, and the drink offerings, with all their particulars, were correspondences; likewise the tabernacle and all things in it; also their feast, as the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of tabernacles, and the feast of the first-fruits; also the priesthood of Aaron and the Levites, and their garments or holiness. What the spiritual things are to which all these things corresponded has been shown in the Arcana Coelestia, published at London…Since then, Divine things present themselves in the world in correspondences, the Word was written by pure correspondences; and because the Lord spoke from the Divine He spoke by means of correspondences for whatever is from the Divine falls into such things in nature as correspond to Divine things, and these then store up in their bosom Divine things, which are called celestial and spiritual.” (Swedenborg – True Christian Religion 201)

2. Study.  There’s no getting around the fact that if you want to understand anything, you need to put the time and effort into learning about it.  As a Pastor, I always find it both humorous and frustrating that people complain about not finding wisdom and guidance in the Word of God when they aren’t taking the time to read it!  You wouldn’t expect to both understand and see the practicality of calculus, world history, or biology without taking the time to study them; why should the Word which contains infinite wisdom be any different?  Jesus Himself spent much time studying the Scriptures.

“His delight in is the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1)

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6)

3.  Motive.  For me, this one is perhaps the most interesting.  The entire purpose of the Word of God is to help you change.  The Word was given by God to help you become a better and more loving person.  This means that the Word is only fully opened to those who approach it with a humble desire to amend their life.  Read this passage several times and it will hopefully change the way you read the Word of God:

“To the extent that someone is under the influence of self-love and love of the world, and of the desires that go with these loves, the Word is to him closed up. For those loves have self as the end in view, an end which fosters natural light but extinguishes heavenly light. As a result people see clearly the things that belong to self and the world but nothing whatever of those that belong to the Lord and to His kingdom. When this is so they may indeed read the Word, but their end in view is the increase of personal position and wealth, or that they may be seen by others; or else they read it because it is the done thing and therefore merely from force of habit, or they read it as a religious duty, but without any amendment of life in view. To these people the Word has in different ways become closed up, for some so closed that they do not wish to know anything at all apart from that which their own teachings – whatever these may be – declare….People like these can see nothing at all of the truth contained in the Word and do not wish to see it. Instead they adhere rigidly to their own doctrinal opinions….So the Word has been closed up. Yet the Word is such that it is open right into heaven, and through heaven towards the Lord, and is closed only in relation to man, that is, insofar as he is subject to the evils of self-love and love of the world where the ends in view of his life are concerned, and is subject to false assumptions resulting from those evils. From this one may see what is meant by ‘a large stone over the mouth of the well’. (Secrets of Heaven 3769)

Do any of these passages speak to you or bring up questions?  How else to you think the Word of God is “opened” to us?

Shift Of Perspective – Are you ready for the next step?

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We’re in to week #2 of our New Church Journey Program called, Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference.  This program follows the story of Jacob from the Old Testament.  This week’s topic is “Shift of Perspective.

Genesis 27:42-45 & Genesis 28:1-21: This week’s story involves Jacob being sent to his Uncle Laban to find a wife.  During his journey Jacob sleeps and has a wonderful dream: “And behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  And behold, the LORD stood above it.”  I’ll pause here while you find your Bible and take a few minutes to read the rest of the story : ).

This story reminds you that the Lord is not only present, He is always providing you with the steps necessary to move forward and upward in your life.  Wherever you may happen to be right now the Lord’s message is that He has great dreams for you, He’s providing you with a ladder to gradually achieve those dreams, and He will not leave you until these dreams become a reality.  You’re welcome to listen to the sermon I gave last Sunday about this: Shift of Perspective.

It’s good to know that the Lord is always providing you with the steps necessary to move forward; but it’s also very important to understand how He does this.  How does the Lord lead you from where you are right now, step by step to a better place?  One way is through your understanding of truth.

It’s humbling to realize how much your perspective on life changes over time.  At any given moment I understand specific truths and ideas that cause me to see the world in a certain light.  But this changes over time.  I learn new things, my understanding of reality changes, and I realize that what I once thought was the most important thing in the world really isn’t that significant.  If in ten years you think back on your life today, you will likely laugh at how little you knew on February 15th, 2012 and how misguided your priorities were.  Yes, right now your future self is remembering how ignorant and foolish you once were!

What does this have to do with the story of Jacob’s dream?  In Jacob’s dream, the angels of God that were seen ascending on a ladder represent the various truths we know and understand at different stages of our life.  The angels that were low on the ladder represent things we know and understand early on in our spiritual development; the angels that were higher up on the ladder represent things we know and understand further along in our spiritual development.

Even though you may not realize it, angels are with you all the time.  Most people who believe in them think of angels as “guardians” who help to protect us from evil and harm.  Angels do this.  However, the angels with you also inspire your mind with various thoughts and perspectives on life!  Right now angels and good spirits are enlightening your mind, inspiring various thoughts, and helping you to understand the world around you and the world inside of you:

Rembrandt - St Matthew and the angel

“Both kinds of life residing with a person – the life of his thought and the life of his will -flow in from heaven…through the angels and spirits present with him. But when it is said that they flow in from heaven, this should be taken to mean that they flow in from the Lord by way of heaven. For every trace of life residing with the angels is received from the Lord, as they themselves with one accord confess, for they see with perception that it is so. And since every trace of life residing with the angels is received from the Lord, so is every trace of life residing with man received from Him; for man is governed by the Lord through angels and spirits in particular, and through heaven in general.” (Swedenborg – Secrets of Heaven 6466)

Wow!  One of my favorite topics is the presents of angels with us and the influence they have on us.  Our lives would completely change if we both believed in the presents of the spiritual world AND understood how this presents influences us every moment of our lives.  This is amazing and important stuff.

What’s wonderful about the angels that are with you is they are experts at giving you the exact amount and quality of truth that you are ready for in life.  Under the Lord’s guidance angels are like the perfect teachers who know exactly what grade you are in and what you are capable of understanding.  They know that if they try to push you too hard or too fast up onto the next rung of the ladder they’re going to lose you – If only us ministers were more angelic in this regard : ).

This is especially true when it comes to the Lord’s Word.  The Lord’s Word is a fountain of limitless truth and wisdom.  However, the Lord does not expect you to understand it all in one sitting.  Little by little, step by step, the Lord enlightens you to see and understand the various levels of truth in His Word when you are ready….and then He builds on that.

Soooooooo…..the big question is: When are you ready?  If the Lord is always with you and is always providing you with the steps necessary to move forward in your life, when is it time to take that next step?  If the Lord in His infinite wisdom knows that you are currently only capable of understanding the truth about life that exists on “rung four” of the ladder, when are you ready to move on to the understanding of truth that exists on “rung five”?  There’s a hint in the passage below.

“When we are being regenerated we are gradually led…into a state when we think that deeper things lie with the Word [Bible] which we do not yet know…When we are being regenerated and are living according to this truth…our state is angelic, and from this we now see the things we had known previously as things which follow in order one after another and which flow from the Divine, like steps of a stairway, at the top of which is Jehovah or the Lord, and on the steps themselves His angels going up and coming down.” (Swedenborg – Secrets of Heaven 3690) 

Shift of Awareness (Part 2) – Don’t flatter yourself; your heart is much more corrupt than you think

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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody followed their heart.  All countries would destroy their nuclear weapons.  Nobody would have to lock their doors at night.  Little puppies would never be abused.  People would give to everyone who was in need.  World peace would arrive and heaven would come to earth!

I hate to be so pessimistic but…..WRONG!  Actually if everyone followed their heart, hell would arrive pretty quickly.  Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if people really did follow their hearts desire!?  Even on a civil level we have laws to prevent people from doing everything that they want to do.

The story of Jacob begins with a conflict between himself and his older brother, Esau.  From the time they were in their mother’s womb, “The children struggled together within her.” (Genesis 25:22) As they were being born Jacob’s hand, “Took hold of Esau’s heel.” When they were older, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob; and Jacob stole Esau’s blessing.  Read Genesis chapters 25 and 27, and you will clearly see that these two brothers did not get along.

The symbolism in this story is pretty simple.  Esau, as the first born, represents the more emotional side of us; the part that has to do with our loves, affections and feelings.  These maters of the heart reside in something called our WILL.  Jacob, on the other hand, represents the more thinking and rational part of our mind; the part that has to do with learning what is true, thoughts and the intellect.  These matters of the mind reside in something called our UNDERSTANDING.

Just as Esau and Jacob struggled against each other, these two internal parts of us very often struggle for dominion.  Especially when you have a difficult choice to make or when you’re facing a hard situation these two brothers wrestle inside of you.  Should I follow my heart (Esau) or should I follow my head (Jacob)?

People often talk about how important it is to follow your heart.  We shouldn’t over think things.  There are stories about people who feel like they have let their entire life slip away because they didn’t follow their heart; they didn’t follow their dreams.  There are certainly times when we need to follow our heart, but that is not what this story is about.

The literal fact that Jacob took away Esau’s birthright and blessing, represents the spiritual fact that early on in our regeneration we need to let our understanding of truth lead the way in our life, over our loves and our emotions.  Why is this?  Isn’t following your heart more important than following your head?  Not at first.

The problem is that when we are still spiritually very immature, our Will (our loves and emotions) tend to be very misguided.  We don’t love what is good or particularly care about heavenly things; instead we tend to love very selfish and worldy things.  If you don’t believe me, try reading William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies.  One passage from the book Divine Providence points out very bluntly that when we start off adult life our corrupt heart has a tendency to pull us straight towards the lowest hell!:

“For man from his hereditary evil is always panting for the lowest hell; but the Lord  by His Providence is continually leading him away and withdrawing him from hell, first to a milder hell, then away from hell, and finally to Himself in heaven.” (Swedenborg – Divine Providence 183)

Come on now, isn’t this a bit harsh.  Panting for the lowest hell…really!  Yep.  Given that we start off life with a lot of selfishness in our heart, how does the Lord lead us away from hell and towards heaven?  He starts by teaching us the truth from His Word; AND He asks that we allow His truth to lead us rather than our corrupt loves.  That’s allowing Jacob to take the birthright and blessing instead of Esau.

In our seven week program called, Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference., This week’s task is to notice the conflicts in your life, and to see them as opportunities for growth.  Where in your life might you need to allow the truth you know in your mind (Jacob) to lead the way; rather than your heart (Esau)?  Remember that early on in your
spiritual growth your loves can be quite corrupt, impulsive, and misguided.  The fact that at times you can follow what you understand to be true from the Lord’s Word, rather than what your heart desires, is a great gift!

Important Note: Eventually the Lord gives us a new heart.  Love and charity is the firstborn, and ideally should rule in our lives.  That’s where we’re headed, but the journey must begin with truth leading the way.  If you’re willing to see the truth in this, good news is coming up in the next part of the story!

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)

Shift of Awareness

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This week the New Church of Concord began a seven week New Church Journey Program called – Shift: Small Changes. Big Difference.  This program follows the story of Jacob from the Old Testament.  Participants have the opportunity to learn about how this story relates to our own relationship with the Lord and each other as we explore our need to make various kinds of shifts in our life.  You can learn more about the program on the New Church of Concord Website.

Last week I was preparing a sermon to introduce this program and the first part of the Jacob story.  You can listen to the sermon here.  One of the concepts that I found most interesting was the idea that human beings tend to know very little about what is going on inside of their own hearts and minds!

People are often very unaware of their surroundings.  When we’re walking down the street, in a hurry to get somewhere, it’s amazing how much of the world can go by without us even noticing it.  We can be very unaware of what is going on around us.  But how aware are you of what is going on inside of you?  Initially you might think, “Of course I know what is going on inside my own heart and mind!”  But do you?

Imagine if you were asked to write a biography of your life.  But this biography could NOT include a single description of any of your external achievements – where you worked, when you got married, how many kids you had, where you lived, how much money you made.  This biography was a spiritual biography and could only include descriptions of what was going on internally; inside of your own heart and mind during the different stages of your life.  Could you write that biography?  How well do you really know yourself?  How aware are you of the various thoughts going on in your mind?  Are you aware of your motives; your deepest loves; your internal evils?

One reason that we tend to be oblivious to what is going on inside of our own hearts and minds is because we are so focused on external realities.  In the book, Heavenly Secrets, there is a wonderful description of how uninterested we tend to be with internal things:

“But such [internal] states are not known about at the present day, because…those who are being regenerated do not stop to reflect on these matters. No one is interested at the present day in what goes on in a person interiorly, because external interests have a complete hold; that is, when external interests are the ends in view in people’s lives, internal interests are of no importance at all to them. Regarding the obscurity referred to here they would say, Of what concern is that to me when there is nothing to be gained from it, and no honor in knowing it? Why give any thought to the state of the soul or state of the internal man?…What advantage is there in knowing this?…These are the kind of things that the member of the Church says to himself at the present day and the kind of thoughts he has when he hears or reads anything about the state of the internal man. From this one may see how it comes about that the things which go on inside a person are in obscurity and wholly unknown about at the present day.  Such obscurity of understanding never existed among the ancients. Their wisdom consisted in fostering more internal things and so in perfecting both powers of the mind, which are the understanding and the will, and so consisted, because they did this, in seeing to the needs of the soul. The fact that these were the kinds of things the ancients were concerned about is plain from their writings which are extant at the present day, and in addition to this from everyone’s desire to hear Solomon: Therefore they came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard about his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:34)  This was the reason why the queen of Sheba came to him; and because of the blessing she received from Solomon’s wisdom she said, Blessed are your men, blessed are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom (1 Kings 10:8).  Would anyone today say that he is blessed on that account?” (Swedenborg – Heavenly Secrets 5224)

I find this to be so true.  We tend to be so focused on what is going on “out there” – what we are accomplishing in the eyes of the world, what other people think about us, our worries about things that are for the most part out of our control – that we lose interest in what is going on inside of us.  I love the phrase, “External interests have a complete hold on us.”  And the question would be, is that true with you?  Is your life so filled with external noise, that you aren’t taking the time to learn about and reflect on what is going on inside your own heart and mind?

Tomorrow I’ll offer some thoughts on the first part of the Jacob story.  But I wanted to begin with the vital recognition that if a person wants to grow spiritually they need to be willing to take the time to reflect on the internal elements of their life.  I am struck by how important this is AND by how little we do it.  One question might be, How do you get to better know yourself!

“The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, See here! or, See there!  For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)