One of the things Swedenborg writes about frequently is correspondence – the symbolism of what things in the Bible mean. So, for example, you read in Apocalypse Explained that emeralds symbolize “the truth obscured,” or in Secrets of Heaven, the parable of the fig tree is explained: “The fig tree means the good of the natural, ‘branch’ means the affection belonging to that good, and ‘leaves’ means truths.” Also in Secrets of Heaven, it says that dogs symbolize those who render the good of faith unclean through falsifications.
Because I was raised in the Swedenborgian church, and went to church schools in elementary school, high school, and college, I have been hearing about those correspondences for my whole life. Some I remember; some I don’t—some make sense, some seem unfair (like that reference to dogs). Sometimes I wonder, “What should I do with that information?” And sometimes it feels like a secret that others who haven’t read Swedenborg couldn’t possibly figure out on their own. It feels like “arcana” – secret, obscure knowledge – and it is not surprising that Swedenborg’s longest book was originally called “Arcana Celestia” – now translated as “Heavenly Secrets.”
Swedenborg himself acknowledges this: that often he is revealing meanings that were kept hidden, like parts of a person you cannot see because of their clothing. But then he says that other things are like a person’s “face and hands” – plain for everyone to see. (Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture #55). It is what it is: what you see is what you get.
The topic of today’s message is “fire” – and what is the correspondence of fire? I think you already knew, before you heard that reading from Apocalypse Explained. I think people who have never heard of Swedenborg already knew. I think people who come from completely different religious backgrounds, or no religious background at all, people who have done a lot of reading and people who have never read a book – they all know that fire represents love.
You could say it’s because of the poets, who often use fire to symbolize love, or say that love “burns in our hearts.” Or expressions like calling a former lover an “old flame,” or when people say they “keep a candle burning” for someone they hope to rekindle a relationship with. Or memorials for loved ones who have died, and they keep an “eternal flame” going to remind everyone of that love.
Ultimately I think the answer is even simpler than that. It comes from our bodies. It comes from the fact that love feels like warmth – or sometimes passionate heat. We can feel emotion burning in our face, our chest, our whole body. And when we snuggle up with someone we love, their body heat feels like being next to a cozy warm fire. If you can’t be with the one you love, a nice thick blanket sometimes serves as a substitute. Warmth feels like love; love feels like warmth.
When Swedenborg says that the sun symbolizes the Lord, that is also not surprising news: going all the way back to Ancient Egypt, before the Old Testament was even written, people thought of the sun as a symbol of divinity. On a sunny spring day, sunlight feels like God’s love enveloping you.
It is perfectly obvious how much we need the sun: that without its heat and its light, we would all die. And this is one area where science and religious symbolism have always agreed: yes, our sun is the source of all life on earth. One of my favorite quotes about the sun is from a Persian Sufi poet named Hafiz. His entire poem reads:
“Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me.’
Look what happens with love like that: it lights the whole sky.”
That was written 700 years ago.
The sun is the giver of life. And fire on earth can serve the same function. Once humans figured out how to control fire, it allowed humans to live in colder climates (like Minnesota). Learning to control fire also led to humans being able to make things out of metal. And make steam do our work for us, and cook food, purify water, seal up wounds, send signals to others. If you find yourself stranded in the wilderness, before you search for water or food, it’s a good idea to see if you can start a fire first. Human bodies need warmth – and human souls do too.
Fire is a vital, life-giving force.
And… fire is also a terrible, destructive force. I think everyone on earth recognizes that too. “Playing with fire” is a synonym for living dangerously, courting disaster. It’s never a good thing to be “burned,” physically or symbolically. Fire is perhaps the ultimate symbol of destruction.
Fire is hatred. This is also symbolism everyone understands – again, starting with our own bodies. We talk about “heated arguments” and somebody being a “hothead.” We talk about “white hot fury.” Anger feels like fire in our face, our chest, our whole body.
So it’s also no surprise that throughout history, people have thought of hell as a fiery place. What is your image of hell? What temperature is it there? When doing research for this sermon, I of course looked up all the references to fire and flame in the Old and New Testaments. This is one of those times when I had to rethink my image of the flavor and tone of the Old Testament and New Testament: I was shocked at how many times Jesus talked about “the flames of hell,” or, as in our reading today, “burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 9:43 refers to “hell, where the fire never goes out.”
Perhaps because we are 93 million miles away from it, it is easy to forget that our sun would destroy us in a millisecond. I saw a film called Sunshine – a science fiction movie in which a crew has to approach the sun. In one scene, an astronaut goes into a special filtered observation room where he can experience the awesome force of the sun. They are still 36 million miles away (about the same distance from the sun as Mercury), and the filter is set at 98%: only 2% of the light is getting in. He asks the computer if it can reduce the filter to 96%, and the computer refuses: experiencing 4% of the sunlight at that range would destroy you. That is not science fiction. Even back here on earth, we must protect ourselves from the sun. So, when Swedenborg says that all correspondences have a good and bad, fire is an example that everyone can understand.
This has also given us a challenge in life. If fire is both love and hatred, how can we sort them out? That may seem like a silly question – “I love this person, I hate that person; it’s not hard for me to keep them straight.” But hatred is not the opposite of love; hatred is love distorted. I am reminded of an R&B song from the 70s, by a group called The Persuaders: the title was “There’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate.” Love can easily turn into hatred. They both burn in our hearts.
Think of it this way: if hell is burning hot, what temperature is heaven? Ice cold? I think not.
Sometimes love has to fight. If you love someone or some thing, you will fight to protect it, which produces anger. Like a lioness protecting her cubs, you will feel a fire in your chest when your loved ones are threatened. If your country is threatened, you will want to fight the enemy. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? What if the thing that is threatening your relationship is your partner? What if they are hurting themselves? Sooner or later, no matter how wonderful they are, you are going to get angry with a loved one. Is that okay?
Swedenborg talks about that too. In his book Marriage Love (formerly Conjugial Love), he devotes a whole chapter to the topic of jealousy, which is what happens when love is threatened. Jealousy is perhaps the most ironic of emotions, because it comes from a desire to protect the relationship – but jealousy itself can destroy a relationship. Is jealousy a good thing or a bad thing? It can be either one, and he points out, the good form and the bad form can look identical on the surface.
It takes wisdom to know the difference. The ultimate question is: what is behind that feeling? Is it a desire to protect your partner, and the relationship? Or a desire to protect yourself? That may seem simple, but the trouble is that we are so good at fooling ourselves, so it’s not actually an easy question to answer. Sometimes you can expand a lot of energy trying to convince yourself that it is for their good – sometimes that is a justification. You may be able to tell by how much you feel the need to justify yourself. Is that fire tempered by the truth, or is it uninterested in the reality of the situation? Or you may be able to tell by what happens to that fire after its goal is accomplished. Does it go out? Or does it continue to grow, continuing to try to destroy everything in its path, like a wildfire? Sometimes it takes prayer to show us the difference.
Fire is good when it is controlled, when it is steady, when it is interested in supporting life. When I drive down the highway in the winter, I can forget that the car is being run by an internal combustion engine – an engine that not only propels me forward, but also keeps the temperature inside the car nice and warm. It takes the last of the four elements—water, a symbol of truth—to keep it from overheating.
What temperature is heaven? Not flaming hot, like hell. Not ice cold. I’m sure there will be weather variations in heaven, which also corresponds to the nature of love: sometimes warmer, sometimes not as warm. But behind it all is the sun of heaven—God’s steadfast love, providing warmth and light, like the burning bush that is not consumed.
READINGS
Matthew 3:11-12
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Revelation 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Reading from Swedenborg: Apocalypse Explained #504
So far we have shown the signification of hail; we shall now show the signification of fire. Fire signifies in the Word, the good of celestial love, and flame, the good of spiritual love; but in the opposite sense, fire signifies the evil arising from the love of self, and flame, the evil arising from the love of the world. It must be understood that goods of every kind derive their existence from celestial love and spiritual love, and that evils of every kind derive their existence from the love of self and the love of the world. And because love, in both senses, is signified in the Word by fire, therefore, also all good and all evil, which exist from those two loves, are signified.