Here we are today, gathered in this room at Sunrise Ranch, and gathered by Zoom with people around the world. Apparently we are in different places, and yet, by the magic of the digital world, we are able to be in communication. And more than that, there is a sense of being in one place and being together with others. If our minds are shut down in that regard, it does not happen. But if we are open to feel the presence of others around the world, brought to us by their faces and voices and by Michael’s beautiful piano playing, then we can feel the substance of presence and feel ourselves gathering together in one place, gathering here on Earth as human beings in the world in which we live.
And yet this is not only a human world. The world in which we live includes, of course, the world of nature. And beyond that, we gather together in the presence of planets and stars. In fact, we gather in the context of the vast presence of Being.
In ancient times, that vast presence was understood to be an expression and embodiment of gods and goddesses. In Western culture, we are probably most familiar with Roman and Greek mythology. We know that our planets are named with the names of Roman gods and goddesses: Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and more. There was an ancient understanding that the universe was not just dust, not just energy and matter, but that it was alive with Being that held great power in human lives. As we look at it now, we can see there was fear and superstition that was part of that, and certainly a very human perspective, with the attempt to get the gods and goddesses on your side, whether against the Trojans or against whomever. So often, the understanding of things cosmic was intruded upon by the superstition and fear of the ancient world.
Through the Hebrew tradition, we have the Hebrew Bible, which was translated as our Old Testament, as we call it. Sometimes there is criticism of the way that God is portrayed in the Old Testament, in some cases appearing to be an angry God, seen through fear and superstition. And yet when you read the text carefully, it is a vast improvement on what was generally available in the ancient world. It provided an entry point for Divine Being, in all its vastness, into human experience on a transparent basis. It was not only the imagination of people’s hearts; it conveyed a transcendent reality. I AM. I AM THAT I AM. This was not some god of war like Thor or Zeus. No matter how it might have been misinterpreted or misunderstood by people at the time, there was a transparent window being opened, or reopened, in human experience: a transcendent connection with cosmic Being.
From the Greek, Divine Being in the cosmos was named as angels. And then there was a hierarchy of angels. There were angels and archangels — chief angels. There was a sense of a pattern in the heavens: not only in the stars and in the planets, but a reality of Being that is present for us as humanity, whether or not we are aware of it.
At times that presence became evident through incarnation. Apparently Angelic Presence was not entirely content just being up there. Occasionally Archangelic Presence — a grand stature of Divine Being — incarnated and made a huge impact on human beings, by the very nature of who the Being was who incarnated. And that Being left an indelible impact on the heart of humanity, and said something about what is present all the time, even if not incarnate. Yes, it can incarnate. But it does not just go “poof” and disappear at the end of the incarnation.
Emissaries of Divine Light holds an extraordinary understanding of who we are as human beings in truth, whether or not we know it or realize it, manifest it or express it: that who we are is an angel. You could use other words for it, and we do: the Wonderful One Within, the One Who Dwells, and more. But it is properly named as an angel who is incarnate, the Lord of our Being, the sovereign of our Being, the Divine Being who incarnated as us.
And yet we have these Beings of colossal stature who have visited us down through history. We think of someone like Krishna, who had the impact that he did. Remembered in Judeo-Christian culture, there is Moses, this incredible spiritual teacher; Elijah; or Jesus, who incarnated and then left a remarkable impact on the human world. And just as in other places in the ancient world, and even in Indigenous culture, fear and superstition came in to color all these incarnations. A fearful view of God, an angry view of God who would have his own son crucified, came into the picture, and even human sacrifice comes in. It certainly did for the Hebrews. And it certainly does for Christianity, which, sorry to say, is a celebration of human sacrifice.
So here we are today. Any archangels in our midst? Did you see one today? Did you see someone of colossal stature, the stature of Being that was just remarkable, unforgettable? Or are you so blessed as to have had somebody like that in your life?
I watched a special this week on Dolly Parton; I gather others saw it too. I spoke about Dolly Parton when she passed on. We will not proclaim her a saint or an archangel here in the room today. The truth is the truth about who she is and was. We can acknowledge that someone remarkable incarnated into the world.
I had been a big fan of her music and her singing for her entire career. And when she passed, I began to take stock of her life and her music, as others did, and of all that she meant to the world. And then again this past week, there was this concert to memorialize her. People spoke up from many walks of life, and they were taking stock of the impact that she had had on their lives. They were blown away by the presence of this woman, and all that she did, and all that she brought to the world.
I made mention of the fact that she was the most loved person in the world when she was alive. Part of that was that she was not only loved, but she was not disliked. She was universally loved. To me, that takes on archangelic qualities — qualities that have a worldwide scope and stature; in her case, qualities of Mother God especially.
How does Mother God appear? As some kind of female version of the patriarchy? How pathetic. No, it is something else. She appears on her own terms, through someone who is open to that reality — to knowing it and then expressing it and embodying it. To me, that is what Dolly Parton did. How remarkable!
We are here to know this reality and to relate to it. We could ask the question: if Jesus walked among us, if Moses walked among us, would we recognize them? Would we see them for who they were? Would we have any idea how to relate to them? Would we be so overwhelmed as not to know what to do or to say? Or would we simply ignore them, because they did not come dressed in the right robes and sandals? Or do we have eyes to see?
And if there are not archangels walking among us, here is what I figure: they must be up there. If they are not here, they did not just disappear. If they are not here, then it becomes my job, and in my view our job, to relate to that invisible reality; to know that it is real; to know that it is not a matter of human fear and superstition and fabrication; to know that we live in the context of a vast stature of Divine Being. We incarnate ones live, you might say, under all that while we are incarnate. And yet at the same time, given who it is that is incarnating as us, by our very nature we are part of all that. We are one with all that vastness.
In that sense, we are one of them, come to earth for however many years, with the role of being here with feet planted on the ground, doing human things in a human world, in an earthly world, with a human body. Perhaps we awaken to a higher reality and then realize that we are part of that higher reality.
There have been attempts made by Archangelic Presence to kindle an awareness of this reality in humankind — to kindle an experience of being under the vast heavens: not separate from them, but included in them. And the word of the archangel, now as always, is Peace on earth, good will to men and women. Here is something for all people, all families, all nations: a reality to be known, a peace to be had.
I want to read from the biblical record of that. I have not been able to get the day of Pentecost out of my mind. This is the story of people gathering in an upper room in Jerusalem, as it says, shortly after Jesus’ passing.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Acts 2:1
With one accord in one place. It seems to me that that is relevant to us. Are we with one accord in one place?
Physically, we are separate. So what is that one place? That one place is now, being fully present in the now. We could call that a time and a place. We are on earth together, connected today by Zoom with people around the world.
If you read through the text in the book of Acts about the day of Pentecost, it names where people were from that day. It is fascinating to me. Shortly after Jesus left, they had come from as far away as Asia, Persia, Mesopotamia, North Africa, and Rome, as well as Israel itself. They were with one accord, all together in one place. And that was the first step in something magical happening for those people.
I noticed something else in the text that is fascinating, something you rarely hear mentioned, but it is of significance to me. Much of the Bible, and many ancient stories, involve men. And sometimes you wonder where the women are. But the Bible does mention them in places, so they are not totally out of the picture. Here, there is a description of the men who were there, the apostles. And then it says this:
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
Acts 1:14
Here is a seminal story in the Pentecostal movement, a movement that has to do with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If you go to a Pentecostal church, they are into that, and into letting that happen, one way or another. And why is it that the story could not avoid mentioning that the women were there, and that the mother of Jesus was there? We could assume that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were there too. Why was that important? I say it is because whenever there is magic, whenever there is spiritual outpouring in a community, the women are playing their vital role in allowing it to happen, with an innate wiring for it to happen. That is the significance.
I want to reference another place in the Bible where a gathering together of people in one place was important, and that is the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel. I will not try to tell the whole story, though the whole story is enlightening and even humorous. But what is of primary significance is that Elijah says to the people, Come near unto me. And it speaks about rebuilding the altar of the Lord. Come near unto me. Is that not really the invitation to be together in one place?
Just imagine: somebody invited people to come to that upper room in Jerusalem. They did not just all show up there randomly from all over the known world. Somebody invited them. Somebody said, Come here. Come to this place. Be here with me for this significant event. And that is exactly what Elijah said: Come near unto me. We do not come together because we are just milling around. We come together because there is an impulse given expression: Come to this place where I am.
And as the story of Elijah put it, they rebuilt the altar of the Lord. We might think that referenced a physical altar. Moses built the tabernacle in the wilderness, and there was an altar in the tabernacle. But do you think Elijah was telling them to bring their carpentry tools and come build an altar here? That is not what happened. Fire fell from heaven, just as fire fell in the experience of the day of Pentecost. There was a spiritual event going on, and the altar being rebuilt related to that spiritual event. The altar of the Lord was the people. It was not a piece of carpentry to be recreated.
Moses worked with human consciousness to fabricate something so that people could have an experience. They had a tabernacle and an altar, all kinds of things going on. But why? So that a body of people could have an experience. And here is what Elijah is saying: Let us be the altar of the Lord. Let us allow the fire to fall from heaven through us. He was calling for a day of Pentecost back then.
The story of the third day of Creation gives the formula for this process.
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.
Genesis 1:9
Here is the formula for the altar. The waters have to gather together for the living body of humanity to appear. The waters have to come together into one place. These are recurring themes in these different stories: being together in one place, of one accord; waters gathering together.
These are symbolic ways of saying something. How would you speak of what has to happen for this body of people that we are associated with? Preparing for this morning, I could not think of a better way to say it. Our waters have to gather together into one place. There has to be accord in this body, under the heaven, with an awareness of the vastness of what is above us — not fantastic ideas about it, but simply an intuitive awareness that we are standing in the midst of the vastness of planets and stars and the vastness of Being that is above.
And I say again, if they are not here, they are up there. Whatever greatness you can think of, of anyone down through the ages: if they are not here, they are up there, in the invisible realms, to be related to. And not only the ones you or I can think of. We are here to live in the context of all that, and then to fulfill our lives in that context. We allow the implications of all that to come into our lives and energize our lives, inspire our lives, and even order our lives, so that our lives are about devotion, here on earth amongst ourselves.
If we have that awareness of fidelity to something above, let us share it with each other. And let us ask ourselves how we live our lives together in that fidelity. With that awareness, how do we live in fidelity with each other, in love and friendship and co-creativity?
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Acts 2:1