Liberal Catholic Church Tact and Tolerance

19th sunday after trinity the intent is tact and tolerance and this is a day especially put aside for the recognition of other religions other religions apart from christianity this is uh i think always a good sunday to reflect on the culture that we live in for growing up in australia or new zealand or any of this part of the world in the 50s there was really only one flavour of religion and we didn't even think about other religions the other people from other faiths seeks with their heads wrapped in a turban muslims buddhism which is not really a religion hindus they were very very scarce and they kept to themselves so we didn't really know about them jews also have been in australia from new zealand right from the very beginning and they've got their synagogues so this is a timely way to recall it because in our culture and in our time we see the negative side of other religions both christianity with the difficulties of the roman catholic church and the anglican church at a profound uncomfortable level and then the extremists of other religions who subject the whole community to violence and unbelievable terror so this is a good time just to recall what is the essence of the journey on earth and why are there other faiths how did that come about as usual i follow what the collect tells us what the epistle tells us and what the gospel tells us and the words are quite compact quite concentrated and so i like to use just phrases from those to get the thinking started to get our own internal dialogue started so from the collect a god who meets meet us every man upon that path by which he draweth nigh unto thee grant us such a measure of thy wisdom that by our love and gentleness the wandering sheep be guided to thy fold this may sound like we're saying everybody has to become a christian we're not saying that in this collect what we're saying is god the creator meets every sentient being every human being every form of life on the path that they approach back to the center of life in this life after death following lives gradually the spiritual evolution proceeds and god meets every sentient being on the path that that entity is taking and we've got a clue here about how we can sort of just be a little bit thoughtful from our side we say in the collect grant us such a measure of thy wisdom that our love and gentleness can have an effect on the people around us our love and gentleness it's interesting that that very powerful word gentleness is in the prayer so we know aggressive people don't we we know aggressive people sort of brings out the worst in everybody and it brings out a reaction against that person who's very aggressive and very strong some people say well you know leaders need to be strong and aggressive no they don't they need to be leaders letters can be gentle and very quietly strong jesus from time to time expressed what we call righteous anger when did that happen holy week and what was he doing came into the temple and the money changes were there that stopped and so that he said you've got to stop this money changing business what were they doing well what they were doing was changing one lot of coins for another and then having their own temple currency and making a bit on the side it's a terrible thing in the epistle sin paul says some very earthy wisdom and he just reminds us how he goes about things he says he tries not to really stick out at all he likes to fit in absolutely whatever's going on he tries to fit in and you might think well that's a bit sort of strange what about being yourself what about your own principles and that sort of thing and this passage just reminds us to be mindful of the difference between the inner life and the external life the external things that we might think about as a church the robes the altar the candles all the things that we do externally are symbols in connection with what's going on internally so we have internal esoteric and we have outside external exoteric and watson paul is saying is he spends a lot of time making sure he's connected with the christ within and but he interacts outside with everybody he comes across in the same even-handed way at their level at their level of understanding what they're doing he doesn't compromise his internal connection with the christ within so this passage is a reminder that all the time we have to remember there's an internal set of ways to think about things and to remain connected and externally there's things to do there are duties to do we must get on with life we have to attend to this that the other thing the two are not disconnected but the two have got different emphasis we don't put all our emphasis on the outside world we put as much as we can on the inside world and sin paul says in this particular apostle to the corinthians he says we all know people who are training now don't forget that the olympic games were sort of around the athletes were around training he's corinthians so he's in around where corinth is and they had wrestlers and javelin throwers and runners and they trained for those games and so when he's talking to these people they know all about this stuff and he says to them what are they getting at the end of the day what is the champion getting the champion is getting an olive branch or put around his head only men went to the olympics so he's saying big deal bully for them you know they should do that that's great but don't get confused don't put all the energy that you've got all the time that you've got in training for the wrestling sport and think that's all life is about that's the external stuff pay attention to the internal stuff and so in the gospel then we look from saint john now sin john writes symbolically all the times and john writes symbolically we say he's a mystical writer which is sort of the same thing of saying he's writing in symbols and jesus says i'm the door of the sheep so he likes to use these things grains growing wheat vineyards he's talking to these people agricultural people and they have sheep and they have goats so when david was a before he was king what was one of his jobs one of his jobs was looking after the sheep and in those days there was wild animals sort of lions and not tigers but lions and sort of they would come and get the sheep and he david became an expert with the slingshot and could frighten them away should very powerfully go around his head and release the stone travel very fast and sort of sting the animal and drive them off so when he confronted goliath he didn't turn up completely unequipped so goliath came off second best in that instance so jesus is talking about the sheep he's talking about looking after the sheep he's he's got this picture the symbol is it's a bit hard to have a conversation with the sheep isn't it i mean but they are they're not dumb but they've got their own sheep intelligence which has been different to our intelligence different level but they are quite smart if you spend time with sheep you can see they've got their own way of doing things and so what he's saying is the shepherd takes advantage of his position his knowledge and the shepherd looks after the sheep the sheep wander off and sometimes do quite silly things so he looks after them and when they wander a long way away they are then very vulnerable to wild animals and very vulnerable to losing their lives and what does he do he ties up all the other sheep in the corral it goes out and gets that one wandering sheep and brings it home so this is the symbol you see the symbol that it doesn't really matter how sort of silly we are as long as our intent is right as long as our intent is right and he goes on to say he says i i'm not like a hireling someone who just works for money he's not going to go where the wild animals are he's going to say let's be on my pay grade as we say you know i'm going to stay here just looks a bit dangerous out there i'm going to sit here but he jesus as the christ says i am the inner life people come to unite with the father through me meaning he's part of the trinity god the father god the son that's the christ god the holy ghost people come as they gradually evolve through to the father via their inner christ so that's what he's saying and there's a lovely line in here he says i'm i'm not here to make your life complicated i'm not here to make your life miserable he says i've come so that you have real life sustainable life and that abundantly and you will enjoy that abundance when you go out that is go out into the world and when you are reflecting within yourself so when we think of other faiths and other religions it's important for us to think that's the external stuff they all look a bit different to us but the practices are different what we should look for is a common point of contact we should say are they also on a spiritual path yes they are will we all end up in the same place yes we will they use different language and different words for the same things that we do so the inner life is what gives us strength and illumination the outer life is different different activities different faiths but we don't get distracted with that stuff we look for the common connection with other faiths to have the same journey on a spiritual path that's the common factor

Channel: BpRichard Liberal Catholic Church

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Id: WCtjZZV9JXA

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020