Church of the Holy City

Who Is My Adversary?

Who Is My Adversary?
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
September 16, 2012

Isaiah 50:4-9 Mark 8:27-38 Psalm 116

If we trust in God, who can harm us? If we trust in God, what can harm us? The Psalmist describes a dire and deep distress of the soul:
The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“O LORD, save me!”
And the Psalmist tells us that God, ever faithful, heard his cry for help:
I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
All: Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
And Isaiah gives us the same assurance:
Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced (50:7).
Using language borrowed from law-courts, Isaiah continues to praise God for guarding us from all harm.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me (50:8).
Is there, then, any adversary to fear? Jesus tells us that we have only ourselves to fear. In Matthew 10:36, Jesus says, “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” And shortly after that He says, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This line parallels the line from Mark we heard this morning,
Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it (Mark 8:35).
These lines taken together tell us that our enemies, that is, the members of our own household, are our very selves. The only thing we have to fear is ourselves.
What can this possibly mean? I think that this brings us back to our readings from St. Bernard that we heard last Sunday. Bernard described 4 stages of spiritual development. These stages began in nurturing and caring for ourselves and they ended in losing ourselves in God. Furthermore, in the final stage we love ourselves in God, so self isn’t entirely abandoned. Bernard writes,
When shall this flesh and blood, this earthen vessel which is my soul’s tabernacle, attain thereto? When shall my soul, rapt with divine love and altogether self-forgetting, yea, become like a broken vessel, yearn wholly for God, and, joined unto the Lord, be one spirit with Him? I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself, as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.
Bernard is considered a mystic, as he talks about a person having a direct experience of God. Swedenborg, too, is a mystic, and Swedenborg’s description of loving God is very much like that of Bernard. Swedenborg, too, talks about losing self in God. He says,
angels, as well as men, have what is their own (proprium), which is loving self; and all that are in heaven are withheld from what is their own, and so far as they are withheld from it by the Lord are in love and wisdom (HH 158).
for it is heaven to them to be withheld from self (HH 161).
This brings us back to the problem of self that I have been looking at over the past several weeks. The way I am seeing it now, I see Bernard’s early stage of spiritual growth as agreeing with Jesus’ statement about losing one’s life for His and the Gospel’s sake. While self-love and self-care are good and necessary for our early development, they are but a foundation for further development. Soon, we care equally about our neighbor, and extend to our neighbor the same healthy love that we show ourselves. More and more, our focus becomes other-oriented until we find that last stage in which we lose ourselves, as Bernard says, “emptied and lost and swallowed up in God.”
But as Bernard and Swedenborg both say, we do not stay here. This is where I find a profound and wonderful comment on life from Swedenborg. He tells us that angels as well as people will find themselves in times of deep union with God and times of distance from God. And like the seasons, which are now beginning to change, to alternate between these feelings of intense love and less intense love.
Angels are not constantly in the same state in respect to love, and in consequence in the same state in respect to wisdom; for all their wisdom is from their love and in accordance with their love. Sometimes they are in a state of intense love, sometimes in a state of love not so intense. The state decreases by degrees from its greatest degree to its least. When in their greatest degree of love they are in the light and warmth of their life, or in a clear and delightful state; but in their least degree they are in shade and cold, or in an obscure and undelightful state. From this last state they return again to the first, and so on, these alternations following one after another with variety (HH 155).
Like so much in Swedenborg, this description of the life of angels is not just limited to angels. I think a little introspection will show us that we, too, go through similar alternations of more intense love and nearness to God and less intense love and more distance from God.
Always the rationalist, Swedenborg gives us a reason for these spiritual seasons. It is our proprium, or our sense of self-love, that draws us away from the rapture of being filled with God. And as our proprium relents its hold on our soul, we open up again to being filled with God’s love and wisdom. But it is to be said that these cycles are all cycles of love. We are drawn to self because we love what is ours. And we leave self because we love, too, what is of God.
Angels, as well as men, have what is their own (proprium), which is loving self; and all that are in heaven are withheld from what is their own, and so far as they are withheld from it by the Lord are in love and wisdom; but so far as they are not withheld they are in the love of self; and because every one loves what is his own and is drawn by it they have changes of state or successive alternations (HH 158).
“A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will find it.”
And furthermore, there is a benefit to these spiritual changes. Through these alternations of state, we come to recognize and feel what goodness, love, and innocence are like. We sense heavenly feelings better. And we more readily open ourselves to receive God’s inflowing life, love, peace, and wisdom.
They are in this way perfected, for they thus become accustomed to being held in love to the Lord and withheld from love of self; also that by alternations between delight and lack of delight the perception and sense of good becomes more exquisite (HH 158).
There’s no right or wrong, good or bad about these cycles. We are moved by love to involve ourselves in self-love and then to return to God-love. In both ways it is love that moves us and there are enjoyments to be found in both. However, I should add that when we are filled with God, the loves we feel are much more intense, peaceful, and even delightful. As Swedenborg says, through these alternations we become accustomed to being held by God in heavenly states. As we grow accustomed to being held in heaven, or in God–the two mean the same thing–then the words of Isaiah become increasingly meaningful.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me (50:8).
The only threat to us is our selves, and our own loves. It is only the worldly self, the lower self, the proprium that draws us away from God and heaven. But even in doing this, proprium teaches us to be held in God. From delight to delight our pathway is ever upward to God and ever upward to heaven. For as Bernard says,
I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself, as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.

PRAYER

Lord, we give you thanks for your continual love and care for the whole human race. Although we seek you with our whole heart, we know that there are times when we fall away from you and engross ourselves in selfish and worldly desires. Yet we know that you remain constant, constantly loving us, constantly drawing us toward you like the unseen currents in the ocean. Give us patience when we fall away, and give us hope that we will soon respond to your unceasing love and return to your presence and your heavenly joys. For in you alone will our soul find rest, peace, innocence and tranquility.