The Work of the Word (“I Know Who You Are”)

The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

“I waited there for those words that God must have put in her mouth, those seven words that changed my life . . . ‘I wish you were my little girl,’” whispered Mrs. Leonard to Mary Ann Bird. The Word was in Mrs. Leonard. Then the Word was in Mary Ann Bird. And now the Word is in you. “What can I do?” we ask. Well, apart from the Word, you can do nothing. We modern folks have learned that words don’t matter; only matter matters. But modern physics is revealing that nothing matters but words; that is, consciousness and ideas; that is “pneuma” and “logos;” words. The Hebrew word “davar” is translated as “thing” or “word,” as if words not only matter but are matter, as if all things are created by, sustained by, and subsist in Word or words. A dream is an illusion in which your words and ideas have no substance; you think you’re doing everything, and in reality, you have done nothing. We wake to the Word. Now, we encounter the Word hanging on a tree in a garden; he is the Righteousness of God. “Ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, [Israel, Paul’s church] did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:11).” Instead, they took the Life of the Word, lusting for law—dead words on paper or stone. It was around 1500 BCE that God wrote the law on stone and gave it to Moses. It was as if God said, “If you want knowledge of the Good, here it is written in stone. And now you will know about the Good and know that you have chosen evil . . . and die.” It was also around 1500 BCE that the alphabet was invented by Semitic peoples somewhere near Israel, according to James Gleik in his book The Information. Plato mourned the invention of the written word writing “You offer people the appearance of wisdom, not true Wisdom.” Wisdom is the Righteousness of God and the Living Word of God, and perhaps we’ve all taken the Life of that Word on a tree in a garden... and tried to apply “it” to ourselves and others as law—dead words. So, when and where is that garden? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” writes Paul, in Romans 10:8, quoting Moses speaking to the Israelites around 1500 BCE. The Word is Christ, according to Paul. And so, Moses was informing Israel and us: “Christ is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so you can do Christ” . . . who constantly does us. How did Christ get into Israelites before 1500 BCE and into us just now? Well, at the beginning of the 6th day God breathed his Spirit into dust, and I’m sure it contained some meaning—and that’s a word. Perhaps it was then? And, at the beginning of the 6th day of the week (Thursday night in Hebrew reckoning) the Word gave us his blood, and the Spirit is in the blood. Perhaps it is then? And, at the end of the 6th day of the week (Friday afternoon) the Word delivered up his Spirit, which fell on the Church at Pentecost. Perhaps it was then, which is also NOW. It was on the 6th day in a garden, where the Word asked his disciples to wake and watch, just having given them his body and blood, that he prayed a most wonderous and mysterious prayer. The Righteousness of God, Word of God, and Free Will of God prayed “If it be possible, and all things are possible for you, let this cup pass from me; Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will (Matt. 16:39 and Mark 14:36).” God the Father wanted to suffer the cross for us, and apparently God the Son . . . did not . . . at least in that miraculous moment, on the 6th day in the garden. And yet the Son of God, and Free Will of God, freely willed to will what he did not will—his Father’s will; Jesus wanted to do what he did not want to do because he knew that the Father wanted to do it, which sounds just like you, every time you pray with a little bit of faith, even just the size of a seed. We don’t want to love if it hurts; Faith is Love all the time, and eventually everywhere, and then it doesn’t hurt. What’s happening? Are you awake? The Free Will of God is descending into the abyss that is the heart of Adam, and our own deepest prison; we’re watching the Faithful One create Faith in Adam and finish us in the image and likeness of God. I can’t comprehend it, and yet when I watch it happen, he comprehends me. Before you do anything, you must realize that you are something that is done; you must become conscious of your own creation and wake to the Living Word of God. It happens in the Garden, which is in the Temple, which is you. And it always happens NOW—and only NOW—in that place where eternity touches time, in that place where decisions are made, in that place where we are made by the decision of God. Faith, Hope, and Love in you, is the Word of God in you. Every person is a temple that contains the Breath of God and Word of God. But when “the law comes in,” “I” take knowledge of Love as law and so begin to build an ego that “I” think is “me,” but is , my own deepest prison. But I am still there, just like the presence of God behind the curtain in the tabernacle that became the stone temple. I am like a seed, or maybe, an egg. The Word is in you, but when the Word comes to you, the Promised Seed is conceived in you, and you are begotten from above. The curtain in the temple rips, and the New You, that is Christ in You, begins to fill the temple like a baby fills a womb until it’s born from that womb, which looks like death in the womb but is Life, Freedom, and Home on the other side. Romans 10:13“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (Yahweh, Yeshua, Dad), will be saved.” According to Paul in Romans and Philippians, and Isaiah in Isaiah (45:24), everyone with a tongue or knees will call on the Lord and “be saved (Isaiah 45:22)”—saved because of the Word that doesn’t fail (Isaiah 45:23). Romans 10:14 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” Romans 10:17 “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by a word...” What a bizarre thing to say; words don’t hear. . . because they’re dead. But what if a word were in us like spirit in a jar of clay, and that word was outside of us like the Creator of all things, and that word came to us like Good News from Home; what if it were “living and active?” Why does it matter? It is Matter; Creation, Salvation, and Sanctification is the work of the Word. Why does it matter? Well, what do you see in your neighbor? What can you say to your neighbor? If you believe what we’ve so often been told—the law—you can say: “The war is over, you are forgiven, and God loves you . . . IF you say this prayer, which means you’ll do these things . . . and IF NOT, God does not love you, you are not forgiven, and the war is not over; God will torture you forever without end.” That’s not “Good News.” But IF (and this “IF” belongs to the Word) you believe the Good News, you can say, “The war is over. You are forgiven. God Loves you, likes you, and there’s nothing you can do that could ever make him love you any less than he does; I know who you are: You’re a child of God.” You can preach the Word, with words, or a song, or a whisper. Even better, you can proclaim it with your eyes. You can look past the evil in your neighbor, for you know that the evil is a lie that will vanish like a dream. And you can celebrate every drop of Faith, Hope, and Love, just like you celebrate Easter—for it is Easter; it’s Jesus rising from the dead right in front of you. When we do this, we are the Church; not an institution, and not only a bride, but a mother—the Mother of the Living. The Work of the Word is birthed in and through us: The New Creation.