Terry Fitzpatrick Homilist June 11-12 2011
Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, our third Pentecost here in the TLC, in this “Upper Room”.
Today we also listened to the mystical, mythical story of Pentecost – the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in that “Upper Room”, where, as soon as they received the Holy Spirit, a remarkable transformation took place. Disciples once huddled in fear are transformed to become fearless disciples of the Good News.
We are told that such was the spectacular nature of the event that people from many different countries and cultures, who were gathering in Jerusalem for another feast, gathered around this site of transformation. We are told that they were amazed and astonished. “Surely they said, all these people speaking are Galileans. How does it happen that each of us hears them in their own native language?”
“We hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.”
Such was the effect of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The barriers and boundaries which divided peoples and their cultures were broken down.
A ONENESS was experienced – a deep sense of connection. This desire for oneness and the breaking down of divisions was at the very heart of the message of Jesus. In particular, we hear this strongly announced in the Gospel of St John (from where we read tonight) where Jesus proclaims that he is the true VINE ands we are the branches (Jn 15) and later on where he prays that “May they all be ONE, Father, may they be one in us as you are in me and I am in you with me in them and you in me, may they be so completely ONE.” (Jn 17:21-23)
At the heart of Jesus’ message was this non-dual teaching. This non-dual living of life, where there is no separation. This non-dual spirituality which myself, Peter and others have been encouraging you to discover more about in the many new books we have been recommending to you. To really understand Jesus’ vision and spirituality, you have to understand the unitive vision which undergirds all his teachings and acts.
When Jesus sums up the whole teaching of the law in Marks Gospel in responding to one of the scribes questions, “Which is the greatest commandment?”, he responds by saying, “That to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and with all your strength and to love your neighbour as yourself.”(Mk 12;29)
We often hear this invitation to love your neighbour as much as you would love yourself. We hear it as people often exclaim, “I have to love myself before I can love my neighbour”.
But Jesus is saying quiet clearly that we are to love our neighbour As yourself, as you. There is no separation. My neighbour is me. I am that, I am you, you are me – no separation.
Jesus was the master teacher of the non-dual way, and he wanted to share this new consciousness, this new way of being, with all he came in contact through his stories and parables.
He begins his whole teaching career by inviting people to a whole change of mind. At the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel Jesus says, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is close at hand.”( Mk 1:14)
This word Repent; metanoia, does not just mean to turn around or to change your mind, as it so often has been interpreted, it means more precisely – Meta to transcend, move beyond, noia, the perceiving, thinking mind – to move into the larger mind, the mind of God, the mind of ONENESS – beyond the mind of separation, the small mind of you and me – us and them, who’s in – who’s out.
Repent for the kingdom of God is close at hand (Mk). This concept of Kingdom of God is not some afterlife Heaven-experience, but it is a here and now reality; it is something we can embrace in the here and now. The Kingdom of God is within you. It is not, as many believed, in a new political reality where Justice and Peace will reign, where people will experience material and physical liberation from external oppression, for Jesus responds to Pilate before his crucifixion “ My Kingdom is not of this world”( John 18;36). The Kingdom of God is the code word for this new state of consciousness- this non-dual consciousness where all is embraced as ONE – no separation between God and human, human and humans, all beings living as ONE.
St Paul keeps stating over and over “Put on the mind of Christ”. Put on the non-dual mind, transcend the small mind – Metanoia, move into the larger mind.
Modern science reveals to us that we all come from the same source, the same beginnings. We all emerged some 13.7 billion years ago in that wonderful explosive beginning. We are made from stardust, we are at one with them and all life and non-life forms in the universe. We somehow have come to some remarkable consciousness of this wonderful happening. We are all part of this miraculous happening.
We are now the Universe seeing this.
We are the Universe hearing this.
We are not separate from the Universe.
The Universe is me and I am the Universe.
We are like a wave manifesting in the ocean, we are always deeply part of this vast expanse, never separate. We emerge from it and we return to it.
Our world cries out for an awakening to this understanding that was at the heart of Jesus’ message. The old consciousness of dualistic thinking, you and me, us and them, I’m in/ you’re out is failing us dreadfully today. The old paradigms are collapsing church and state. People are sick and tired of dualistic understandings which divide and separate us from one another and the planet.
The decreasing numbers of people belonging to these old systems of thought are a clear indication that these systems are collapsing and in decline.
But there is no need to be despairing. A new Pentecost is afoot. A new consciousness is being embraced, but really it is not all new, it is an ancient consciousness which was lost and buried.
Indigenous peoples were aware of it. That they came from the earth, and never apart from it, they are one, one with the earth, one with all.
It is once again breaking through; science is showing the way, the return to the mystical roots of our religions, and the emerging understanding and articulation through new spiritualities and psychology.
It is an exciting time to be alive and we are invited to be a part of this new awakening, a new seeing, a new Pentecost.
14/06/2011 at 7:17 am Permalink
Thank you for that beautiful message on Sunday so significant being Pentocost. As a visitor I came to listen after watching the Compass program recently. I wonder if in oneness with the universe, the community of St Mary’s in Exile has shown us that true love and compassion for all beings is really what matters.
14/06/2011 at 3:24 pm Permalink
Hello Christians,
Terry makes only a passing reference to St Paul. Back in the late 60’s when the Humanists, with Christianity on its knees, went in for the kill it was St Paul they went after rather than Rabbi Jesus. St Paul was a neurotic, a fanatic, had turned the life enhancing teachings of Jesus into dogma, hated woman, hated himself, hated the Jews, hated everybody. That’s when I became interested in the man because I too am a person of much self hate. I even read his letters. Later, the progressive American Christians from the Jesus Seminar turned on St Paul with a meat axe – a repressed homosexual was their call (how they worked that out I do not know). I became even more interested: anyone with so many enemies must be onto something. I read his letters again; the authentic ones. I found a different St Paul, one who had journeyed. He had left behind the dead religion of his childhood, had come to accept woman as co-workers, had come to see that the “saviour” his kindred were awaiting was already present in the “Christ within”, as Terry describes.
But a more troubling thought occurred to me: was the Judaism St Paul walked out on the “Catholicism” of his time. Was our Great Walk-Out a Pauline journey? The 60’s Humanists knew what they were about: St Paul is the intellectual engineman of Christianity, destroy St Paul and you destroy Christianity. But if we are now only walking in his footsteps is St Paul about to make the greatest comeback since the resurrection?
Love Fosco
14/06/2011 at 10:08 pm Permalink
Yes! Terry this reading has always been facinating to me as it seems hold a secret within the words. Each year I hear it, I gain a little more understanding of what was really going on in that Upper Room and the secret strength or force those followers of Jesus were experiencing. We cannot underestimate the power of that force of oneness that is keeping us alive and maintaining the universe that we live in. Thanks for being reminded of this because it’s easy to forget.
18/06/2011 at 4:26 pm Permalink
Hi to the community.
I have attended a St Mary’s service a few years ago and really did not understand what was going on. I had, in the intervening years, started to be influenced by the fundamentalist Christian doctrine of the literal reading of the bible. This reading started to worry me when having prayer meetings at my home which turned into arguments ended my quest in this direction. I have recently been told never to speak about Christianity to a person I thought was a friend as I had the audacity to state that the creation story was a nice myth for the early Christians, as people of that time had no knowledge of the evolutionary nature of the universe. My friend actually did me a great favour. I started researching online through your website and the Compass programmme, Progressive Christianity. Thank you for the opportunity and keep up God’s work.
Kim