Happy Birthday, Swedenborg

JANUARY 29, 2012

Happy Birthday, Swedenborg!

Open your Bible   

                                                                       Light a Candle

Opening Song

Readings                    

From the Bible

Old Testament:

Genesis 1:1, 31  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth….And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. [New International Version.]

Psalm 65: 9-13  You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level  its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing. [New International Version]

New Testament

Mark 4: 1-20   Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.

Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,  “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”* Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

*reference to Isaiah 6:9-10 [New International Version]

From Swedenborg

Heaven and Hell 88-9 [New Century Edition]   Without some grasp of what correspondence is nothing can be known in clear light about the spiritual world or about its inflow into the natural world, nothing at all about what the spiritual is relative to the natural, nothing in clear light about the human spirit that is called “the soul” and how it affects the body inwardly, nothing about our state after death. Because of all this, I need to define it and explain what it is like. This will also pave the way for matters that are to follow.

First, I need to state what correspondence is. The whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world—the natural world not just in general, but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world out of the spiritual one is called “something that corresponds.” It needs to be realized that the natural world arises from and is sustained in being by the spiritual world, exactly the way an effect relates to its efficient cause. By “the natural world,” I mean all that extended reality that is under our sun and that receives its light and warmth from it. All the things that are sustained in being from that source belong to that world. The spiritual world, in contrast, is heaven, and to that world belong all the things that are in the heavens.
 

Message

Today is Swedenborg's 324th birthday! 

 Rev. Dr. James Lawrence

Dear Friends at our Convention Swedenborgian Ministries:

We promised to send you an outreach gift to use, if you like, as the central organizing piece for your worship program this January 29th for Swedenborg's birthday.

We have taken one of Swedenborg's great teaching ideas as a suggestion for celebrating his birthday this year. We have taken the theme of correspondences and are in this e-mail to you providing a short 6-7 minute video clip by Professor Devin Zuber on Swedenborg and his teaching of correspondence. In addition please use the attached document as you may choose. It contains a brief introduction of Professor Zuber, Bible and Swedenborg readings for this theme, and also hymn suggestions (all from the 1950 Book of Worship) for a service that celebrates correspondences.

We send our warmest affections to all our colleagues and friends!

Jim Lawrence 

 

on behalf of the Board, Staff, and Faculty of the Swedenborgian House of Studies                                                                                                                       

---

To watch the video, you can go to the link below, or you can play it at the bottom of this page

Closing Song

Now extinguish your candle                                 



                                                                                   Close your Bible