Universal Life Church

My Beloved

Song of Solomon 2:8-13, Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The Pharisees were decent people. They had a program. They regarded the Roman occupation of their land as the judgment of God on Israel. They believed that because of Israels impurity and sin, God was keeping away from them, and thus the Temple was empty of Gods glory and the throne was empty of Davids dynasty. The Pharisees believed that if Israel were righteous, then God would forgive them and come back.

So their strategy was to keep the Laws of Moses very strictly. If the Law told Levites to wash their hands, then all the Jews should wash their hands. If it told them to wash before a sacrifice, then they should wash before eating anything. If it said not to cook a kid in its mothers milk, then never cook meat and milk together at all. This scrupulous kind of righteousness would win again Gods favor, forgiveness, and return. That was their program, and Jesus was their problem, because Jesus wasnt helping. Thats why they were against him. The felt he was keeping God away.

Jesus was saying that God already had come backthat is, in himand that God was already forgiving sins, the sins of the sinners as much as the righteous. Jesus disputed the whole approach to their religious practices. Dont get him wrong. Its not that Jesus denied the value of good works and religious practices. His own brother James, the author of our Epistle, certainly did not hear him to say that. His point is that our religious practices and our good works are not where we connect with God. Its in our souls where we connect with God. Your soul is what must be clean for God, no matter how clean your hands may be or how holy your practices.

You have a soul. You are a soul. You know yourself as a body, with a certain look and a certain height and a certain weight, but you need to know yourself as a soul. Your soul is the most important thing about you. The business of your soul is the most important business that you have. You need to cultivate your soul. The cleaning of your soul, the grooming of your soul, the care and feeding of your soul, the exercising of your soul, this is the most important thing you do each day.

When you get up in the morning, how long do you take to get ready? How much time do you need to make your breakfast, to shower, to groom yourself in front of the mirror, to get dressed? How much time do you give to your morning workout, or your visit to the gym? Such things are good to do, your body is a gift of God to you, you should honor it and care for it and rejoice in it. It is meant someday to live forever before the face of God. But how much time do you give to the grooming and feeding of your soul?

The cultivation of our bodies has benefits discernible and immediate. We feel good when we eat and when were clean. When we look good we get compliments. But the payoff from the cultivation of our souls is never so discernible nor immediate. The soul is something of a mystery, even for those who are most spiritual. Indeed, the more you know your soul, the more mysterious it is. Thats from the very nature of the soul itself, its from the way it was designed by God. The soul is designed for transcendence, it is designed to reach beyond the boundaries of sound and sight and sense, your soul is grounded in your mind but it reaches beyond your mind.

Your soul is the leading organ of your body. The soul is the organ that gives the definition to our species. What the nose is for the dog, and what ears for the bat, and eyes for the eagle, so the soul is the special organ given to our species for the distinct vocation of our specieswe are the animals designed for spirituality, for transcendence, for the beyond. The Bible sees our species as among the animals, its as plain as Noahs Ark, but yet we have a special place and office among the animals. The Epistle of James says that we are a kind of first fruits of Gods creatures. We are those creatures that are dedicated to God, that are set aside for God, for special attention to God, for a special relationship to God.

In our culture today we see a reawakening to transcendence and a revival of spirituality. Yet so much of this spirituality is self-absorbed. Its the soul turned in on itself. Its all about self-empowerment and discovering ones own divinity. This fashionable approach to spirituality is like looking in a mirror, to use the metaphor of James 1:24. You can look and look but when you look away you disappear, you cannot be at rest in your own self alone, you can only rest in God. Why gaze in the mirror when you can look at your Beloved? Truest love is not the love of self but the love of someone other than yourself, someone who is always other than yourself.

Our souls belong to us but they are not designed for ourselves. We are designed for God. St. Augustine said, "Thou has made us for thyself, O God, and our souls are restless till they find their rest in thee." Our souls are lost and wandering until we find our true goal and our proper object. The proper purpose of our souls is our relationship with God. Your soul is that organ of your body which directs your body to live for God. Your soul is meant to animate your body and calibrate your feelings and integrate your actions and motivate your mind. But it can only do this if it is directed beyond yourself. Your soul cannot be satisfied until it is satisfied with God.

God is your souls Beloved, and your soul is the Beloved of God. Your soul is the handmaiden of God. In the Bible, the soul is regarded as feminine, even the souls of men. This is a wonderful and healing metaphor, for men as well as women, in different ways. I want to be clear that it is metaphorical and not essential, because finally God has no sexuality, God is a Spirit, God is neither male nor female, so the femininity of our souls is finally a metaphor, but it is a metaphor which God has given as a gift to us.

Its a great gift to feel your soul as a she, and to be able to identify with the Virgin Mary, and to sing with her, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden." I am the Virgin who becomes a mother, I am a handmaiden who becomes a lover, I am the servant who becomes a Beloved. I am my beloveds and my Beloveds mine.

I close with words from James: Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has power to save your souls. The saving of your souls he means is not just when you die, but for today. The word of God has power to keep our souls alive, and more, to give us abundant life. The word of God is the food of your soul. And God desires to feed us. God loves us. God loves your soul. So it doesnt depend on us, except that we open ourselves to God. It is all gift. Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a find of first fruits of his creatures.

Copyright 2009, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.

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