READINGS
Exodus 16:13-20 (the story of Manna)
That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer [about 3 pounds] for each person you have in your tent.’”
The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.
Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Swedenborg: Divine Providence #179
Foreknowledge of what will happen destroys our essential human nature, our ability to act in freedom and rationally, therefore no one is allowed to know the future. We can, though, draw conclusions about the future on the basis of reason. This is what brings reason and all its powers to life. This is why we do not know what our lot will be after death or know anything that is happening before we are involved in it, because if we did know we would no longer think in our deeper self about what we should do or how we should live in order to reach some particular goal. We would only think with our outer self that this was coming; and this state closes the deeper levels of the mind where, principally, those two abilities of our life dwell, freedom and rationality.
A desire to know the future is innate in many people, but since this desire originates in a love for what is evil, it is taken away from people who believe in divine providence, and they are given a trust that the Lord will take care of their fate. So they do not want to know it in advance, fearing that they might in some way interfere with the divine providence.
SERMON
Have you ever wondered what it is like not to live in fear and worry, and not have so much pressure going on, and not to feel like the world around you is going to pieces?
In our Divine Providence reading it states that knowing the future will destroy our ability to act in freedom and rationality. That really is powerful because it goes to say that if we knew what was going to happen it would interfere with trusting the Lord and believing in Divine Providence. The answers to all these issues are living in the now and how we face ourselves right here, but this is sometimes really painful.
We get to see in the mirror image what is going on inside of us if we stop and take a breath. Sometimes the mirror shows us the ugly side and other times it shows us the beautiful side. It is our job in the now to seek the beauty, but come to terms with the ugly side, too. They both need to be in harmony for us to move forward and to start healing our divisions inside of us. The reasons we are divided on the outside is because there are divisions on the inside, and healing will happen in God's time, not ours. God's time isn’t what we know as time. It is slower and sometimes seems painful, but this is to teach a lesson or show us to stay in the now and seek God, for only He has the answers to everything.
If we slowly change our ideas about time and space, just think of how many moments would be so beautiful, but we still have hardships sometimes. We could better overcome them if we knew about living in the now.
I struggled with being in the now a lot. I need to know the plan a lot, and what I have come to see is that it is not always important to know the plan or over-think things. The flow is kind of a beautiful place to be. It is where the healing happens and where we let the Lord come into our lives to shine His love, and for us to shine our inner light to the world around us.
For me, when I am in this struggle it seems real, and I can feel every emotion in me that happens, and I get stuck in that. I take a while to come out of it, but lately I use the tools of being in the now and praying. I can come back to the now and see things in a different light, and this calm comes over me that everything will be aright, and that I just need to let go. The more light I let in, the more the divisions inside of me disappear, and the more of God can come to show me the truth of what is going on.
There is a song I really love called “You Are the Song of Your Heart,” by Snatam Kaur, a yoga teacher/singer I follow. One of the ideas is you becoming the song of your heart. Every time I play that song, it reminds me that in the quiet, there is a song in my heart that wants to play. It wants to bloom inside of all us if we are willing to listen to it.
The other song that I am going to use as a prayer is “In Dreams” by Jai Jagdeesh. She sings about the ideas of being loved. I believe that one of the greatest gifts that comes out of being in the now and not living in fear is knowing that you are loved, and that all of us are beautiful persons inside. We get so busy with life that we sometimes forget to notice that about our self and that we are loved by God, and that, as the song says, we can go and spread love.
The other gift I love is the idea that it is ok to be afraid of the unknown. None of us knows what's going to happen, but because we know we are loved and if we are in the now that life will fine, and that if we just trust in the now things will happen, and we get to watch things bloom in front of us. As MR Rogers says, watch the garden growing inside of us. As I said before we can create the most beautiful thing inside of us.
Think of the ideas of how much all those divisions will go away if we stay in the now and not worry about our jobs, family, etc., and instead spend our time focused on the divine. I have a challenge for you and it is going to be done at the end of the sermon: we will all have a moment of silence and just think of what is going on right now inside of us. That is a big step, to step away from worrying about what comes next in your day.
One of the things I have learned about planning one day is that we create the next thing we get to do, and sometimes church becomes an afterthought. In this case I mean both the physical church and “the church within us”—a term I will use a lot in here.
So many times, I spend my life worrying about the job or something I need to go to, and I waste so much of my energy on that thing that I forget to stay in the now and work on what is going on in the church inside of me.
I love Helen Keller a lot, and she says that we can see but still be blind to what is happening in front of us. This is a good example of the idea of being blind to the now. Sometimes people, animals, etc., need to be there for right there and then and to listen to them. It is also important because we need to take time for what the divine is telling us too, and if we rush too much, we miss important clues about what we should say or do in the next activities in our day. We are a society of rushing, and we don’t take the time to enjoy the day.
I heard a sermon from a minster friend, who talked about enjoying sitting after the service, enjoying the music and enjoying the quiet. You don’t have to rush right after church. You can pause and reflect on the message or just reflect on what is going inside of you right now. When you pause, the whole world around you changes. You see the calm. You want to grow that garden of beauty inside of you.
I have a great story about living in the now. I used to work at a school called River Bend which is called a level 4 school because there are a lot of kids who really need help there. I was working with a student, and it was the last day of school and she was having a melt down and I was there holding her hands just telling her that I can’t help with your home life, but I can just be here for you now. She has no verbal ability, so she didn’t talk, but that connection there would not have happened if I wasn’t sitting in the moment. She needed me to be there just for her, and not worry about other things. I was still worried if I was doing the right thing, but I remember that being a powerful beautiful place for me to be. I knew at that time that I love being there for kids who are struggling. I don’t have to solve their problems: just be there for them.
It helps to see today's fights over freedom, etc., when we get caught up in being different than others. We forget about our common bond, and in the now we can see that bond as it is. God wants us in the Love, and He sometimes has us in the blind so it can teach us about His light.
One of the teachings I love in the Church is that the Children of Israel wanted to live in the now. If you do, you have what you need. It is a great lesson to be in the wilderness of our minds. Sometimes we can give power to something that may or may not happen, and that is not being in the now.
Imagine what it was like for the Children of Israel in our reading we read today, not knowing what they are were going to eat, and how they were going to make it out there. There is the perfect example of worrying a lot about what was going to happen to them and not trusting the Lord to lead them to the promised land. We get so fixed on that that it takes away from what important to us right now, and that is finding our connection with God.
I also see that what is going on in this world right now has a purpose. With all the fighting going on and the bitterness, we need to find our healing now. We need to have conversations with others that are not easy but in the now can happen. I see it getting a bit rough for a while, but I know a great tool in my basket and that is prayer. Sometimes being uncomfortable in my own ways, so that I need to find in the Now the answers that I am seeking, and in the silent place where things I never imagine can happen. We must never allow our inner candle to burn out. I know it is not easy staying in the now, but together all of us can support each other in the common goal of unconditional love and finding God, whatever He looks like to you.