The Silent Sermon
A member of a certain parish, who previously had been attending services regularly, suddenly stopped coming to church. After a few weeks, the priest decided to pay him a visit.
The priest found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for the priest's visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The priest made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning log. After some minutes, the priest took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone.
Then he sat back in the chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As one lone ember's flame flicked and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon, it was cold and lifeless. The priest glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave; he slowly stood up. Picked up the cold dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
As the priest reached the door to leave, his host said, with a tear running down his cheek, "Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday."
Christians are called to belong, not just to believe. God created us for community. That is what the "Ecclesia" or Church is all about. It is fellowship in prayer with one another. We are formed to be part of God's family and none of us can fulfill God's purposes isolated and by ourselves removed from the fellowship of the church. Our alone we are as dying "embers" cut off from the sacred fire of fellowship which gives warmth and light.
It is a fact that if an organ is somehow severed from its body, it will shrivel and die. It cannot exist on its own, and neither can we. Disconnected and cut off from the life blood of our faith, our spiritual life will wither and eventually cease to exist. This is why the fist symptom of spiritual decline is usually inconsistent or infrequent attendance at worship services and the life enhancing gatherings of fellow believers.
Isolation into the self...into the I...me...mine, cuts off the oxygen supply line that is provided in community. We become isolated; in a sense surround ourselves with "mirrors". All we see is ourselves. When we are connected to a community, we surround ourselves with windows. We look through a window, but at a mirror.
We look in a mirror to see how we look, but we look through a window to see how others are. "Mirror people" look at themselves a great deal. "Window people" look beyond themselves at others. They are open to enjoy fellowship, shared lives and growth, which can be encouraged in a loving community.
Whatever your faith, community or denomination, join your brothers and sisters in church, temple or mosque and experience the warmth and light of the living fire of belonging.
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In these many years that the MoneyChangers have re-infiltrated the Temple, I have found even more wisdom in Matthew 6:1-6
Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them: else ye have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee.
And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites: for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee.
Today's institutions of God have become corrupted by the greed and lust for Dominion in the hearts of the men that rule them.
For most being alone, is a kind of punishment
And why is this? Because, people have learned to use others as a prop for their ego, and without the other there, the ego cannot be crystalized.
You seek out the community because it reinforces your fantasies about yourself, no matter how crazy they are, and because they are fantasies without the other there, they will cease to exist.
This is why being alone is so difficult because without constant reinforcement, the false self cannot maintain its existence. It disapears.
Man is born alone, man dies alone, and there is nothing he can do to escape his aloneness. Fleeing to groups, stadiums full of people, sporting events, concerts, all they can do is distract for a few moments. And for many this only heightens the feeling of aloneness that they have.
Unless a person can be alone, they cannot find happiness in any relationship, because those relationships will only represent and escape from the fear of being alone, and a dependency. And relationships based on fear can never succeed.
Only when one experiences the nature of their aloness are they capable of loving another without fear.
For in the depths of your being, in deep meditation, in the center of your aloneness, you will discover, the eternal. And int that momement you will be free.
Father John Bakas: Whatever your faith, community or denomination, join your brothers and sisters in church, temple or mosque and experience the warmth and light of the living fire of belonging.
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In many spiritual traditions, living as a solitary is considered a perfectly valid vocation.
Just sayin'.
In the Christian spiritual tradition, the people who live solitary as a spiritual vocation are still living in total communion with the church. They are connected to their community through prayer. The man in the silent sermon was existing outside of any spiritual community.
Yeah, and shortly thereafter all those burning logs turned to ash.
Meanwhile, the tree in the forest who had never joined the fire, lived and thrived for the next 100 years, providing nourishment and homes for numerous woodland creatures. He looked at the world with open eyes and knew that wisdom had kept him out of the destroying fire of blind belief.
But the tree is a member of the forest, not alone and away from any ecological system. The tree is around other plants, which support animals and insects, which nourish the soil that allows the tree to exist. The tree breathes the CO2 that the animals breathe out and the animals breath the oxygen that the tree breathes out.
So upon closer examination you're argument about the lone tree outside of the fire falls apart because that same tree must be part of a living community to survive. That was the point of the priest's sermon.
That humans gather in groups is a given. That some groups are harmful to humans was the point.
The part of the parable that I was trying to poke fun at, was the comparison of a faith community with fire. Religion is the enemy of humanity - it requires us to subjugate our reason and free will to keep it going. It is my hope that some day, more of the logs will recognize the ridiculous, dangerous nature of faith, and jump out of the fire.
Just for balance and historical perspective, here's another silent sermon about church membership and burning wood, from Wikipedia:
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Under the Byzantine Empire, burning was introduced as a punishment for disobedient Zoroastrians, because of the belief that they worshipped fire.
The Byzantine Emperor Justinian ordered death by fire, intestacy, and confiscation of all possessions by the State to be the punishment for heresy against the Christian faith in his Codex Iustiniani, ratifying the decrees of his predecessors the Emperors Arcadius and Flavius Augustus Honorius.
In 1184, the Roman Catholic Synod of Verona legislated that burning was to be the official punishment for heresy, as Church policy was against the spilling of blood. It was also believed that the condemned would have no body to be resurrected in the Afterlife. .This decree was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, and numerous spiritual and secular leaders through the 17th century.
Among the best-known individuals to be executed by burning were Jacques de Molay, Jan Hus, St Joan of Arc, Savonarola, Patrick Hamilton, William Tyndale, Michael Servetus, Giordano Bruno, and Avvakum. Anglican martyrs Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer were also burned at the stake.
Edward Wightman, a Baptist from Burton on Trent, was the last person to be burnt at the stake for heresy in England in the market square of Lichfield, Staffordshire in 1612.
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Countless others were burned at the stake in Jesus's name as well.
O, to gather with fellow believers in worship of the Invisible Dad In the Sky, Who loves and judges us individually from on high with perfect grace and knowledge, which is why He might smite you.
And all this taking place in a teensy corner of an ordinary galaxy in a universe so vast that if every person who ever lived were given his very own star after death, there are more than ten times the number of stars in our ordinary galaxy left over, I guess for future souls to gambol over. And there are ten billion more galaxies at least in the universe, all of which represents maybe 7% of what we can infer exists, when we include dark matter in our calculations.
Religions have contorted themselves with much effort to make themselves consonant with scientific knowledge to about the early 18th century, but no religion has taken into account the vastness of the universe as science understands it today, as the aforementioned vastness is vaster than any concept of God resident in any religious text read fairly.
There are a great many satisfying aspects to religious belief and practical advantages as well. But whatever truth resides therein is metaphorical at best. I wish I could believe, but facts are in my way.
Sorry. Meant to say there at least 100 billion galxies in the universe.
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Einstein felt that the universe made the existeence of G-D obvious.
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True, but what about the gang stalkers who infect the church with evil by their presence.
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No priest would dare mention it.
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I agree that one does not have to belong to a religious institution to experience community. And I also think there are times when one needs to pull away from community to commune privately with God. But there is value in community when one has a religious faith.
I'm not Catholic. Was raised Protestant and spent most of my years in church going to Evangelical services and belonging to Evangelical churches. As I became more liberal, I turned away from those services, finding their message inconsistent with my beliefs. A few years after I left, I went to mass with a Catholic friend. Sitting there part of a body of people all seeking the same God, and though not a member of that particular church, in the silence of that service there was a presence of God that I rarely if ever experienced in the more ebullient services I was accustomed to.
I am now married to a Catholic girl. We've been to a few masses and I've got to say that there is value in going, in belonging, and our plan is to begin attending regularly once our work schedules allow.
Church or even faith isn't or everyone. I have dear friends who are atheists and I find God in their honesty. For those of us who do believe, however, community does matter. And my wife and I are excited about once again becoming part of that quiet fire.
It is not necessary to belong to a religious institution or have a belief in any supernatural gods in order to experience community.
That is true--one can belong to many different communities. But the community where Christ is the head of it is the church. And it is in this community that we learn to love the otherness of the members of that community. Even the bad ones.
Silence is GOLD and GOD revealed to this man the ultimate things he had ever had check out in his life:
1. Death
2. Judgement
3. Heaven
4. Hell
The scariest moment trembled his life was the FIRE.... the hell. LIFE IS SHORT - LOVE GOD AND THY NEIGHBOR .....The ultimate command Christ gave to his disciple..
WATCH AND PRAY - Christianity!
A GOOD REFLECTION for all.....
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