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Good morning bus riders!
I sent out the email with the link to the lectionary page; and, I hope everyone took the time to read all six of the readings for today. Remember, an Episcopal Church will only offer four readings. I talk about all readings, however many there are.
The link takes one to the Episcopal Church lectionary, but I am not a representative of that organization. I do, however, see that when their lectionary schedule was established, it was done so with some level of divine inspiration. While I do not give today’s Episcopal Church any credit for the selections made, I do see such a schedule as purposefully formed and a better format that the randomness that other churches seem to promote.
With that said, let’s get started!
Last Sunday I said the thread that linked all the readings was difficult to see, unless one put focus on Paul telling about things becoming “naked and laid bare.” Today, there is a similar difficulty in quickly seeing how all the readings fit together in a central theme.
We first read that Yahweh is responding to Job – answering his prayers for so long – where the first impression is God scolding Job for being a crybaby.
Psalm 104 then is David singing praise to Yahweh for all the protection He brings, driving away evil influences.
The alternate Old Testament reading is Isaiah singing about the evil people in the world who persecute the good. He uses language about a lamb that is reminiscent of Jesus, who silently stood before his executioners.
The accompanying Psalm 91 then sings about the protection Yahweh offers His servants, leading their souls to the promise of salvation.
Then, Paul wrote of the “high priest,” who is called like Aaron and is said by Yahweh to be the “Son” and to be great, “in the order of Melchizedek.” Those determinations, quoted from David in two of his songs, were then attributed to Jesus.
In the Gospel reading from Mark, we read of James and John of Zebedee asking Jesus to sit by his left and right. Jesus told them that was not something he could grant, as only Yahweh could determine where they sat. That angered the other ten disciples; so, Jesus told them they had to be servants of all, seeking to serve, not be served.
The key to linking all of the readings today comes from the Gospel reading, where Jesus asked James and John: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
When you read those questions, they become reflection about the request: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” The “right hand” is placing importance on “the cup” and the “left hand” is putting value on “baptism.”
Both represent a duality, with two being completeness. But, the two are not separate. They are joined as one.
If you project what was asked for then onto the future advent of Christianity – which did not exist as a religion then – Christianity today is divided by those who serve you a cup with wine at an altar rail and those who dunk you into water, in some way or another.
They both say, "We are one." But, they are separate. Here's why.
When Jesus asked them his questions, they immediately responded, “We are able.”
They missed the truth of what Jesus was saying to them, in the same way Christian churches still say, “We are able,” when they totally miss the mark.
The theme of today’s readings all narrow down to Jesus saying, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
That both prophesied how all of the disciples (except Judas Iscariot) would be Jesus reborn, thereby able to drink from the same cup AS HIM and able to be baptized by the total presence of Yahweh, where that Holy Spirit would make them all be reborn AS HIM, baptized as Sons of man.
All the readings today then need to be read from the perspective of being the Son of Yahweh.
In the Job story, I have said before how I see him as Adam renamed. He was “blameless and an upright man,” meaning he had never sinned. We know that as truth when Yahweh was bragging about how His Son was. If Job was not Adam, he certainly was the resurrection of Adam’s soul in new flesh.
In Yahweh’s response that we read in Job 38, Yahweh asked, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”
This past week it dawned on me for the first time what “Gird your loins like a man” means.
I realized Yahweh was not speaking physically to Job, He was speaking spiritually to Job’s soul.
The Hebrew says nothing about a “loin.” It only says, “encompass now like a man.”
That is Yahweh – the Father Spirit – telling Job’s soul to realize it is more than the feminine essence of the flesh surrounding his soul. Job was having a hard time dealing with the state of his flesh, not his soul. It was the Yahweh elohim of masculine spirituality that Job had; and, he needed to call upon that.
Thus, the questions Yahweh would be asking were relative to the divine union of Yahweh with the soul of Job, where no physical words would be spoken. Everything written in Yahweh’s response to Job was thought.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem for his final Passover, he prayed to God to glorify his name. John wrote, “Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” In the very next verse, John wrote, “The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.”
This means when Yahweh speaks, only those who have married their souls to His Spirit can hear what Yahweh says. Because Job heard the response of Yahweh, Job was married to Yahweh. He was the Son Anointed.
When we realize Job was an elohim created by Yahweh, His question to Job that asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” can be answered.
Having understanding means, “If you can hear the voice of Yahweh, then you know the answer to this question.”
In Genesis 1:1a – before the “foundation of the earth was laid” – the Hebrew translates literally into English, saying, “in the beginning created elohim.”
The translators confuse us by changing the plural Hebrew word for “gods” and making it be read as, “in the beginning created God.” That is like John having said, “the crowd … heard it [and] said it had thundered.” The “crowd” does not have “understanding,” because their souls are not married to Yahweh.
When one has “understanding” that the very first step in the Creation was the creation of “elohim,” and knowing Adam-Job had a soul married to Yahweh, as “Yahweh elohim” [a combination term stated eleven times in Genesis 2, when Yahweh made Adam], then the answer to the question, “Where were you,” knowing Job had been told to “encompass himself as a Yahweh elohim, not a human being of flesh and soul, is: “I was there with you Father. You willed the foundation be laid and I did your work as commanded.”
The question was not one that Job would answer, "I dunno." As an elohim created by Yahweh in the beginning, the eternal soul of Job was there.
Can you see that?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Seeing that makes reading John 1:1 make sense: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.” The "Word" is thought to mean Jesus. Do you agree?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Well, the “understanding” that answers Yahweh’s questions – all of them in Job 38 – has them all say, “I was there laying the foundations of the earth.”
“I was determining its measurements.”
“I was where its bases were sunk and its cornerstone laid.”
“I was one of those singing praises, as one of the “sons elohim.”
It becomes absolutely necessary to read Job 38 and hear the voice of Yahweh asking each individual reader the same questions. All souls who are married to Yahweh, when they then “encompass their souls with the masculinity that is a Yahweh elohim,” they are the resurrection of Jesus – of Adam – of Job – of all the elohim created by Yahweh “in the beginning.”
This is the meaning of Jesus telling James and John, “You cannot be to the right or the left of me. You have to be me reborn. Otherwise, your souls will not be encompassed with Yahweh’s masculinity, as a Yahweh elohim.”
Does that make sense to you?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Good.
When Job recalled Yahweh asking, “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?” that is a statement that the soul is the “inward parts” and “understanding” comes from Yahweh. It is what I call the “Christ Mind,” meaning one who has been “Anointed” by Yahweh gains access to His All-Knowing source of information.
Now, in the accompanying Psalm 104, the NRSV translation has it begins by saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness! you are clothed with majesty and splendor.”
In reality that says, “kneels my soul to Yahweh – Yahweh gods of me.”
In that, David wrote “elohay,” which is the possessive form of “elohim,” so David was saying he was blessed because his soul had married Yahweh’s Spirit. Therefore, David was one of the many “elohim” who were in a close, one-to-one relationship, where what is mine is yours, and vice versa.
The only way David could know the greatness of Yahweh would be through personally feeling the presence of Yahweh and experiencing just how vast Yahweh’s knowledge is. By having access to the Christ Mind, that greatness was far greater than anything the world has to offer.
When David then sang about the “majesty and splendor” as clothing, which spread out as “light” that drapes the world – so all is known – that says David’s soul wore the clothing of Yahweh’s light of truth. No secrets could ever be hidden from Yahweh.
Now, the Episcopal Church, in the wisdom of the ones who were divinely led to construct the reading schedules, they leap from verse nine to verse twenty-five. There, they say David sang: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”
Again, the reality is that says, “how manifold are your works Yahweh – them all in wisdom you have made.” Still, rather than “the earth is full of your creatures,” the Hebrew literally translates to say, “is full of the earth, your possessions.”
Here, the use of “earth” is metaphor, like how Adam was made from dust – the earth. The meaning is then not focused on trees and rocks having “wisdom,” but the souls placed in bodies of flesh – the earth – who are those possessed by Yahweh, given His Christ Mind.
This song is then singing of the soul drinking from the cup of Yahweh’s Spirit, which is then poured out upon each soul married to Yahweh, in holy baptism by the Spirit.
David sang this song knowing that most holy presence was within his being.
When we come to the song of Isaiah, this sings of us mere mortals who were not so fortunate to be born holy – like Jesus and Adam-Job – or made holy as a youth – like David. Isaiah wrote divinely as one who knew the pains of sin.
Now, Job was “blameless and upright,” but his body of flesh was put through the tests that all sinners know, although his soul was without sin. This song sounds like Isaiah was channeling Job when he wrote:
"Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
In the place where the translation says, “struck down by God,” the reality is “smitten by elohim and afflicted.
The problem with saying God strikes down people with diseases and afflictions is that is not the truth. Job 1 tells how Job “feared elohim and turned away from evil.” That says not all elohim are good. Satan has an army of evil angels that bring upon these afflictions.
Job had done no sins; but his body of flesh made it appear he was a sinner. Job complained that he wanted Yahweh to tell him what he had done, so he could correct any wrong doings. Yahweh’s silence allowed Satan to send his elohim to bring “darkened counsel that spoke without the wisdom” of marriage to Yahweh.
In this song of Isaiah, it is easy to feel him also prophesying the coming of Jesus, as he wrote:
“like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is
silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
This sings about how Jesus was like Job, in he had done no sins, but was treated as one by those souls who served Satan.
Still, one must assume that Isaiah was speaking through divine insight, so he knew Job and he Jesus, because he too was one like them – a soul married to Yahweh.
Isaiah was drinking from the same cup of Yahweh’s elohim, baptized by His Spirit encompassing his soul.
Can you see that?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Good.
Isaiah’s song ends with the verse that sings, “Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
There, the element of “he poured out himself to death” actually is written, “he poured out unto death his soul.” The Hebrew word “nephesh” can mean “self,” but one should always read “self” as a “soul,” because a body without a “soul” is a corpse; and, a corpse has no “self” to speak of.
This was a statement that a soul cannot be killed; and, Jesus told his disciples multiple times he would pour out his soul to death, and in three days rise. That rising only occurs for those whose souls are Yahweh elohim.
David then sang out in Psalm 91, “Because you have made Yahweh your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, There shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.”
To have Yahweh as one’s protector, because He lives within one’s flesh – because that is where one’s soul inhabits – no evil elohim can ever change that living arrangement.
When David sang in verse eleven: “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways,” the word meaning “angels” [“malak”] has to be seen as those elohim created by Yahweh who are purely spiritual, not physical.
After Jesus was tested in the wilderness by Satan, and Jesus told the evil “angel,” “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only,” then we read: “Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
Remember, in Job 1-2 we read about the meeting of Yahweh and the “sons elohim,” of whom Satan was one. There are good angels and there are bad angles; but those souls married to Yahweh – as His elohim – they will be attended by Yahweh’s “angels.”
In David’s fourteenth verse, he wrote, “Because he is bound to me in love, therefore will I deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my Name.” The combination of “love” and “name” should be recognized as the change of possession that takes place in a marriage. The wife takes on the name of the husband.
That becomes a self-sacrifice made out of love.
The word translated as I will deliver him” actually means “I will escape.” This says marriage to Yahweh is how one’s soul becomes freed from the material plane, so it can return to Eden.
Thus, verse sixteen ends this song by singing, “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.” That says “to be delivered” or “to escape” means an eternity of marriage, coming from salvation.
It is important to see how this is why Jesus heard the request by James and John as premature. While they were headed down the path to salvation, they still had to experience some things, such as drinking from the cup that brings redemption and then being baptized by the Spirit that washes one clean, for salvation to be possible.
Can you see that?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Good.
In Paul’s writing called “Hebrews,” we read his fifth chapter begin by stating, “Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” This is a statement that “All” whose souls have married Yahweh – His elohim – are “high priests.”
It says “All” high priests are “mortals,” which means they are souls possessing bodies of flesh. As “mortals” the flesh is known to die eventually, but the soul (being eternal) will either come back in a new body of flesh (reincarnation) or be released to return to Yahweh (salvation).
These “high priests” are not self-made, as they are “appointed by God.” It is a “calling,” which is why Paul wrote, “only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”
This is where remembering Paul’s history is important (he was named Saul). He was knocked down and blinded after he saw Jesus (after Jesus had died, resurrected and ascended), who asked him, “Why do you persecute me?”
Paul was “called by God.” Paul was a “high priest,” because Paul had been reborn in the name of Jesus, as a Christ of Yahweh, “put in charge of things pertaining to God.”
You could say Paul was called to drink from the cup of Jesus and be baptized by the Spirit of Yahweh.
Now, in the selection we read today, twice Paul quoted David’s psalms – Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 110:4.
Those quotes say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” [Or, “today I have become your Father.”] and “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” [Fully written by David: “Has sworn Yahweh and will not regret, “You are a priest in perpetuity; upon the manner of Melchizedek.”]
In both of David’s songs, his divinely inspired lyrics spoke of his own soul. Thus, David was the Son of the Father, which was not a statement that Yahweh was Jesse. It was reference to David’s soul being a Yahweh elohim. In that divine possession from holy matrimony, David’s soul became a priest of the highest order. That says Yahweh ordered and His elohim did as commanded. This was as eternal as is a soul, thus immortal.
The naming of Melchizedek means one should know that was the eternal King of Salem. Melchizedek never died. Like Enoch, he ascended without leaving his body. It was Melchizedek who blessed Abram by bringing out “bread and wine” after Abram defeated the kings of the Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses told us (in Genesis 14), Melchizedek used “bread and wine, because he was a priest of el most high." He blessed Abram as also being “a priest of el most high.”
That says each was individually an “el,” one of the “elohim.” Paul was then saying, also as an “el most high,” that Jesus was “in the same manner” as Melchizedek, “called by Yahweh, like Aaron.”
The “bread and wine” used by Melchizedek symbolize the “cup” and the “baptism” that Jesus told James and John about.
There is no sitting to the right or the left of Melchizedek that brings anyone any favors from Yahweh. All blessings come from drinking from Yahweh’s cup and being baptized by His Spirit. One must become enabled to say, “I am the Son, because Yahweh is my Father.”
Can you see that?
<Look for nodding heads.>
Good.
This calling and this appointment – the blessings that make one a “high priest” of Yahweh – does not mean one’s body of flesh will be preserved. There is nothing that says life will be a rose garden.
Thus, Paul wrote, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”
Some doubt Paul actually wrote this letter, saying the language doesn’t sound like Paul’s other letters. At the time, Paul was in a Roman prison, facing execution. I believe he wrote a letter in Hebrew, which only Jews could read. The translations change the ‘sound’ of the words. Thus, I fully believe Paul wrote this letter.
Therefore, Paul was divinely inspired to face his own death, stating, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Paul was such a “Son, designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek,” because Paul was the re-embodiment of Jesus, another body of flesh Anointed by Yahweh.
Now, in the Gospel reading selection for today, we have skipped over three verses that were written after last Sunday’s selection. Those three verses are Jesus telling his disciples a third time of his coming death in Jerusalem.
This must be seen as the motivation for James and John to make a request of Jesus. In their brains, they were asking to be the closest bodyguards of Jesus, without letting him know why they wanted to be so close. It must be understood that Jesus knew their hearts and brains, because as Yahweh had told Job, he had “girded up his soul like a masculine elohim.” So, Jesus understood all things.
Still, Scripture is a living text, so it is written so it can eternally be applied in comparison to the present. At that time, the “right and the left” could be seen as the difference in sects, such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Today, it equates to the Eastern Church and the Western Church. That further divides into the Roman Catholics and the Reformation Protestants. That even further divides into the Church of England and all those little splinter groups of Christianity in America today. The division goes on and on. Even the Episcopal Church is divided by the old time conservatives and the new age liberal fornicators.
The point Jesus made was there is no great whoop about being close, closer, or closest to Jesus. Being close is like having a lottery ticket where all the numbers on your ticket are one away from the winning numbers. Those are the tickets you see littering the ground outside where lottery tickets are sold. They are losers, because close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
When Jesus told James and John, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized … but it is for those for whom it has been prepared,” that says being Jesus requires “preparation.”
Being Jesus requires being called, like Aaron.
Being Jesus requires being given bread and wine, in a blessing of ordination that is only done by an angel of Yahweh.
Being Jesus requires actually drinking from the cup given by Yahweh at the marriage celebration.
Being Jesus requires actually being totally encompassed by the Spirit of Yahweh, so one stops being a feminist of the material realm and becomes a “manly elohim” – a Son of God.
Jesus said all that in words that none of the disciples could understand. When the other ten heard Jesus showing favor towards James and John, they got angry. Most likely, the twelve had plotted it would be best for James and John to be bodyguards, because they had the nickname “sons of thunder,” being big, burly fishermen. They were angry because Jesus did not know they were in on that plan.
Jesus then said to them all, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.”
This translation says Jesus spoke about the Gentiles; but the Greek word written by Mark is “ethnos” [in the lower case], making it be more directed to “people joined by practicing similar customs or common culture.” [A definition from HELPS Word-studies.]
When you realize this, Jesus did not just begin blasting non-Jews as the only ones having a culture where rulers abuse the little guys and the really powerful ones become tyrants. He said this about the culture he was in the process of going to meet. Jesus was talking about all who would play a role in his persecution and death, because nothing about Jerusalem was married to Yahweh.
Jesus spoke of “ethnos” because every soul in a body of flesh that is unmarried to Yahweh is a “Gentile.” There were nothing but customs being followed by Jews back then; and, none of those rituals did anything to marry their souls to Yahweh. Everything the Jews did was no different than the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, because traditions, misconstrued writings, and the power and influence that made people wealthy became the tools of the trades of tyranny. They always do.
Jesus knew his disciples did not want to lose him and they worried about his safety; but that was their human brains speaking. Their souls were still too immature to be prepared to become high priests in the order of Melchizedek.
Jesus knew they would mature – they would become the first fruits that were ripe and ready to feed the people. Thus, he said, “It is not so among you; then, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”
To think in terms of “right and left” was immature. One must be led by submission and service to Yahweh. It is an up or down that is the all or nothing.
When this reading selection ends with Jesus saying, “For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many,” the word translated as “ransom” refers to the price that must be paid to emancipate a slave. Jesus was a Yahweh elohim imprisoned in one body of flesh. That made him be a seed within a hull, which needed to be released – by death – so a tree of life could take root and yield many freed souls.
Therefore, it is the custom of the Passover Seder that the Jews religiously practice, which has become diluted over the millennia to be little more than a pagan ritual. When you add to that weakening the fact that Christianity has taken a solemn oath – one made between Israelites [those whose souls retain Yahweh, as His elohim] and Yahweh – the self-sacrifice symbolized by the Passover has been turned into some pagan ritual, practiced by people who refuse to learn the name Yahweh. That becomes the blind leading the blind, with tyrants forcing the weak to line up and do what they say.
The right and the left becomes pagan customs that demand a body of flesh be wettened by water. It becomes a pagan ritual that all must drink from the cup of Jesus.
Ever since the evil demon named COVID flew into the world, all those on both the right and the left have fallen to their knees in refusing both the cup and the baptism, for fear of getting sick.
Christianity has become as threatened as was the Mayan culture was, before it became extinct.
Jesus asking if James and John were ready to drink from his cup was a statement that Jews don’t share cups like heathens. The Passover Seder meal demands many cups of ritual wine be consumed. The Jews are wealthy enough to afford a cup for each person. They do not pass a cup around commonly.
Before COVID, the Jews were smart enough to know you don’t share cups of drink with everyone.
At that time in the story of Jesus’ ministry, he and his disciples and followers were leaving the place they had spent the winter in, on the other side of the Jordan from Jerusalem. They were then heading back because the Passover was nearing. That was when Jesus knew his final days were coming.
All of the ritual of serving people at a rail a sip of wine from a cup (or even a thimble glass filled with sour grape juice) has nothing to do with the story of Jesus. Jesus did not drink any wine in his final Passover Seder. There was no one cup shared by all.
This is what happens when people think they can defend Jesus by sitting at his right or left, using their immature brains to figure out the meaning of divine things.
Jesus made it clear, when he said, “to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant.”
To be a soul married to Yahweh is based on one’s call to that state of being. It is not your decision to make. Thus, when one’s soul is indeed married to Yahweh and His Son Jesus has been resurrected within one’s soul and flesh, it still is not for oneself to decide who can be closest to Jesus.
In the story Jesus told about the publican and the Pharisee, the conclusion said the publican was closer to redemption than the Pharisee.
That means one went home to the right and one went home to the left.
Neither was going to be redeemed in those states of being.
I see the bus is coming; so, I will end here. Just think about what I have said. There is no close to being Jesus.
The rich man we discussed last week, he thought he was close to life eternal, only to be told by Jesus, close, but no cigar.”
The lessons of today are asking you to see the need to become Jesus reborn. You are asked to choose what you want out of this life.
However, being a Yahweh elohim means going into Jerusalem, when you know all kinds of bad stuff is going to come down hard.
You have to be up to the task, like Job. You have to silently walk up to be slaughtered, like Isaiah and Jesus.
To go there, one needs to hear the call to be like Aaron and love being asked, “Will your soul marry Me?”
I hope everyone has a good week ahead. I look forward to meeting again next Sunday.
Amen
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