What Swedenborg has written may be one of the most important realities of our human lives to learn. Human beings—we—can be fooled by appearances, and it happens more often that we might want to admit. Swedenborg explained that the way things really are is most apparent when we are operating in our highest, most angelic minds, our actions born in love and shaped by wisdom. We do not operate in our highest, most angelic minds in this natural world, however. Reality is cloaked by this natural, physical world, obscured to our perceptions. Even so, when we are living from love, in constant humility, and seeking wisdom perpetually, we can catch a glimpse of the way things really are. Our human challenge is to remember that the first conclusions we draw about what we experience is an appearance of the reality. As long as we identify them as appearances, and seek a deeper understanding, then those appearances will not take root in us and become falsities which impede our spirituality. Our initial human responses are typically not based on the truth of the situation.
I recently began a new job in the Red Wing public schools. My very first day (last Tuesday), we were treated to a speaker on culturally-responsive education. His name is Dr. Sharroky Hollie, and he came all the way from Los Angeles to be with us. One of his key points was that much of the conflict experienced by students and teachers in the classroom is rooted in a discontinuity between our culturally-established understanding. Please understand that when I say “culture” I am not talking about heritage or the amount of melanin in our skin, although these contribute to the discontinuities between people. I’m talking about what we have grown to accept as normal in our life. Beliefs and behaviors that a student understands as normal may be thought of as unacceptable to a teacher or administrator, and people on both sides of that conflict often jump to conclusions about what is driving the other. Dr. Hollie conveyed to us that much of the conflicts between people and inequities in our society exist because we have failed to acknowledge our cultural differences. Our schools could be a lot more effective, loving institutions if we take these differences into account, letting them inform our policies and practices. (By the way, what’s true for our schools is doubly true for our churches, so we all need to pay attention to what Swedenborg and Dr. Hollie are saying.)
Consider our initial reactions to other people. If you were to see a man wearing tattered clothes and unkempt hair, with a piece of cardboard under his arm, approaching you on the street, what would be your first thought?...How about a young African-American man walking through your neighborhood, looking at the houses as he walked by?...How about a young Asian woman with glasses standing in a restaurant?...The point is that the first thought you probably had is premature, maybe even harmfully premature, because a first impression is neverenough information about a person to base a meaningful conclusion on. Many beautiful exchanges and relationships between people have been killed by premature first impressions. Maybe that unkempt man with the cardboard is simply looking for a quick fix to a broken window in his car so he can drive home more safely. Maybe that young African-American man is looking to buy a home for his family, or looking for landscaping ideas for his own yard. Maybe the young Asian woman doesn’t work there, and isn’t interested in refilling your drink today. There’s a movie called Sisters in which Amy Poehler’s character, a good-hearted person devoted to social justice and everything good, happens upon a disheveled man sitting on the sidewalk in the shade outside of a convenience store. She gives him money, a business card for social services that will help him find relief, and offers words that are uplifting and affirming. Confused he stands and walks over to the rest of his Department of Transportation work crew on their lunch break.
For the sake of a better world in which everyone is safe and acknowledged and happy and loved, we all need to make sure that our first thoughts about each other are not our last thoughts about each other.
There are too many people who are content with their first thoughts, who never stop to question that they might not know the truth of what’s really going on. These are the “unregenerating” that Swedenborg mentioned, stifled in their spiritual growth because their thoughts are not informed by the humility that is necessary for progress toward that heavenly state that we were all created to attain. Too many people will not let themselves consider the possibility that they might be wrong about another person. Let’s be honest here, most people prefer to believe that we have a pretty good understanding of what’s really going on, a pretty good bead on the world. When we watch the news, how often and how rapidly to we form conclusions about what’s being reported? Do we really think that the news is giving us enough information in their thirty-second segment to base a meaningful conclusion? Is it possible that what happens in the world has emerged from causes that we don’t know anything about? How many decisions do you think are being made based on incomplete understanding? We all do it. If we want to move forward, as a society and in our personal growth, we each have to admit that we have biases that shape our choices. It is part of being humans with finite perceptions. We are sometimes way too comfortable with our first thoughts. And it’s not just about people, either. We are also fooled by the appearances of what happens to us. Let me give you a personal example.
It was two weeks ago, August 22nd. I got in the car in Red Wing and set out for church, as I’d done several times before. Norma and I had just drove around town on Saturday, doing some errands, eating at our new favorite restaurant, without any hint of trouble. Before I left town, the car stalled at an intersection. It started right back up. I’m thinking, the battery’s a little old. I need to look into that later, but the alternator will recharge it as I drive.
There were no further issues as I took the highways up to St. Paul. Once I get here, however, I notice that it’s idling low at the stoplight on the end of the Plato Avenue exit ramp. I think, the problem might be a little more serious, but I put it into park until the light turns green, and I continue on. It stalls again at Robert and Kellogg. I have to restart it twice this time. At Kellogg and Smith, just a quarter of a mile from the church, it stops and won’t restart. I have managed to pull over to the side of the street, so that’s good. I’m feeling angry and frustrated, because this allegedly reliable piece of technology is making me late for Bible study. About the only thing in the world that makes me anxious is being late. The reason for that is a whole other sermon. I can walk the quarter mile with time and effort, but I can’t abandon the car. I forced to be okay with missing Bible study, and possibly church.
I lift the hood and notice immediately that the plastic covering over my timing belt has cracked and the pulley, with the belt attached, has pushed through. I can tell it’s out of alignment, so I figure that if I can lever it back into alignment with my cane, I can make it to the church where my car will be safer to leave. I discovered that the pulley wouldn’t budge, but my cane does bend. That idea didn’t work, and that frustrates me even more.
Luckily, I’m a member of AAA. It took me a few minutes to find my card, and I took out a flip phone and dialed the number. The phone is at about nineteen percent charge, which is enough. AAA kept me on hold for twenty minutes, however, and there’s a whole phone menu I have to get through before I can talk to a real person. Thankfully a police officer has stopped and is supporting me through this by making sure no one hits me, because my car has stopped just past a bend in the street and I am not visible to oncoming traffic. He can expedite my dealings with AAA by getting on his computer and reaching them over the internet. He’s got things to do, so I give him the thumb’s up, I’ll be fine, and he drives off. When I do reach a real person over the phone, I discover that they have the wrong location in their system, meaning the tow driver will have to drive around to find me. I just have time to correct the information before my phone battery dies. (I know your saying to yourself, why didn’t he charge his phone? I had charged it three days before, and hadn’t used it since, so I thought I was in the clear. Now I charge it every other day. Lesson learned.)
By this time, I have a swarm of angry bees inside my head. Technology has failed me twice. The only thing I can do is pull my wheelchair out of the back of the car and wait on the sidewalk for the tow truck. I can’t call the church to tell them what’s going on. I can’t call my wife to let her know there’s a problem with the car. At eleven o’clock, as the worship service is beginning, the truck arrives.
The driver is cheerful and chatty, but I’m not. I’ve gone from frustrated to resigned that I’ve missed church and I’m stranded in St. Paul. The driver takes me and the car to a repair shop I know on Robert Street, three miles away. There’s no one there, because it’s Sunday, so I have to leave my key in an envelope and shove the envelope through a hole in the door. My plan was to wheel over to the home of some very good friends—our children went to school together—and use their phone to let people know where I am and what’s going on. There is construction on the street I would have taken, to the extent that there was no street or sidewalk, so I wheeled down to the next intersection and stared immediately at a steep hill between me and my friend’s house. It was going up.
I think if I stop my story right there, you will know that I was having a horrible day. It went from bright and promising to horrible in a matter of two hours, counting the hour commute from Red Wing to St. Paul, and I didn’t even mention the kidney stone that I was passing at the time. I was angry, I was beaten down, and that whole idea of “everything happens for a reason” was doing absolutely nothing for me. It was a horrible day, and a heaven full of angels could not have convinced me otherwise. But, you see, that’s where I had fallen into the trap that every human being is susceptible to. I let myself believe that the appearance was the reality.
As a result of this horrible day, there were blessings that stood up and smacked me in the face. In addition to a very helpful police officer, there was a homeless man sitting with his cardboard plea for help at the end of the Highway 35E ramp, just across the street where my car broke down. As I was sitting in my wheelchair, waiting for the tow truck, he got up and walked my way. In my head, I’m thinking, here we go. I was wrong. He asked me if I was okay. Did I need for him to go get help? Would I like some water? When I said that I had everything I needed and thanked him, he walked away. I was kind of bummed because I had money, but he didn’t want it. Huh.
Remember that hill I was staring at in my wheelchair? At that moment, my friends drove by. They were on their way to have a little picnic in the park. I used their phone to call my wife and let her know what was going on. My friends said that they would come back for me, meet me in a nearby coffee house, and take me back to their house. They had a sofa in the basement that I could sleep on that night. While they were gone, I had lunch in an Asian buffet, filled with families speaking at least five different languages, having lunch with their happy, temper tantrum free children. I love languages, and I love the company of children. I smiled at as many of them as I could.
When my friends picked me up, they told me that they had two cars, and would I like to borrow one for the next few days? Are you sure, I thought. Thanks to them, I made it home that night, and I used the car to get enough groceries to last the time it would take to have the car repaired before I returned it. Here I was that morning, angry and frustrated because I was stranded in St. Paul. I was wrong. My first thought was wrong. There wasn’t a single minute in reality in which I was stranded!
Here’s another blessing: many might complain about not having a car for the three weeks it takes to replace an entire engine. This experience is sharpening my problem-solving skills. I have to get to my new job. I learned how the local bus system works. I’ve had to adjust my diet so that the food lasts. I’ve lost four pounds. Replacing an engine is costing a scary amount of money. My wife is good at finding money. It was there when we needed it. We won’t be retiring any time soon, but the money was there, and it was accessible. Because of the charity in the heart of my wonderful neighbor, I can be here this morning to tell you all this.
That’s the short list of blessings I’ve found, but what I want everyone here to understand is: the Lord will never permit any adversity to happen in our life if there were not blessings to be discovered in them. No problem ever assails us that does not have a gift for us waiting in its hands. A persistent message that life brings us is the reminder that our perceptions are limited, therefore, we need to be mindful of the conclusions we are so quick to draw. Our perceptions are limited, therefore, we need to pay attention to each other so that the blanks we didn’t even know were there get filled in. Our human perceptions are limited, therefore, we need to be peaceful inside so that the love and wisdom of the Lord can show us the blessings and help us to appreciate them.
The biblical narrative conveys this idea abundantly. Someone makes a choice, suffers the consequences, and is soon after visited by the Lord, or a priest of prophet, and helps them to understand the deeper reasons why things unfolded as they did. In fact, it was difficult to choose which readings to share with you this morning. There were too many possibilities. Have you figured out how our two readings are connected?
Samson spent his entire life believing that he was one of God’s elite. Nothing bad could ever happen to him because he was one of God’s chosen judges over Israel. As a result, he behaved abhorrently. He had temper tantrums when he didn’t get his own way. He ignored the advice of those around him, believing that he knew better than they. He believed himself to be invulnerable, therefore he could basically do whatever he wanted. He was not humble. After twenty years of this, the Philistines finally caught up to him. He was shaven, blinded, and imprisoned, condemned to working every day grinding grain, which was work they usually gave to beasts of burden. In that time, he found humility. He abandoned his first thoughts, which were that he would always win and come out smelling like a rose against his enemies. Given the time to reflect, he found the true deeper purpose of his life. The Philistine temple, Swedenborg wrote, corresponds to a doctrine based upon the belief that it is sufficient to know truth without having to apply it or live it. It took Samson years of punishment to convince him to adopt humility, to abandon the assumption that he would always be right.
It took Jesus of Nazareth one sentence. He also contended with his human impulses, but he remained open to the Creator’s insight throughout his life. “Remove this cup from me” is a human reaction, a plea to be excused from the responsibilities that we know are difficult but necessary. Before the sentence was even out of his mouth, he realigned himself toward a more humble and heavenly attitude. “Yet, not my will but yours be done.”
Impressive, isn’t it? How quickly does it take you to turn things around? Are you closer to Samson, who needed external consequences to convince him to assume humility and abandon his first thoughts? Can you see the benefits of turning things around as quickly as Jesus, or at least in the same few minutes? We are all capable of monitoring our responses to each other and to the events of our lives. We are all capable of changing our thinking. We are all capable of recognizing our human biases and dismissing them. We might not be as skilled at it as our Lord, but we are certainly capable of finding our humility more quickly than we have in the past. Moving forward, let us all make certain that our first thoughts about each other and about the events of our life are not our last thoughts. And, as Dr. Hollie put it, and as Swedenborg took thirty volumes to say, let us receive one another and respond to one another with “outrageous love”.
READINGS:
Judges 16:20-30
Then [Delilah] said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” When he awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground at the mill in the prison. But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, and let him entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars; and Samson said to the attendant who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean against them.” Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, who looked on while Samson performed.
Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He strained with all his might; and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it.
Luke 22:41-42
Then [Jesus] withdrew from [his disciples] about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”
Emanuel Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Wisdom, #108
All the fallacies that reign with the evil and the unregenerating arise from appearances confirmed. So long as appearances remain appearances, they are apparent truths, according to which anyone may think and speak, but when they are accepted as truths themselves, which is done when they are confirmed in the understanding, then apparent truths become falsities and fallacies.
