"The Great Uncovering" by Rev. Christine Emmerling 10/25/20 (text)
“The Great Uncovering” by Rev. Christine 10/25/2020
Its time to uncover the coverup. For many, their first thought when they hear coverup is conspiracy. Meaning, those people keeping secrets from us with intent to do harm or for selfish purposes. I’m not saying that people aren’t keeping secrets, but the greatest coverup is the one we, ourselves, do.
Jesus the Christ spoke so much about heaven, and how our minds are like gardens; our thoughts being the seeds that take root and grow as our life experiences. The parable in Mark 4:26-29 is an example: “Such is the kingdom of God as a man who casts seed into the ground. And he sleeps and rises up night and day, and the seed springs up and grows while he is not aware of it. For the earth causes it to yield fruit; and yet first it becomes a blade of grass, then an ear, and at last a full grain in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, then immediately comes the sickle, because the harvest is ready.”
Jesus is speaking about the power is within us to give life to our thoughts; from deep in our subconscious they grow and are given life, and the fruit becomes our outer expression, and then we reap our experiences.
I’m reminded how some plants grow over everything in its environment. This is especially true in the gardens here at our church. If left unattended, we soon have a jungle. I used to think that an unattended garden meant dried up, or barren ground. Not true for here.
I remember back in 1980 when I first came back to this church to begin my studies. The grounds were like a jungle. The backyard had ivy everywhere except where there was a small patio outside my room. We thought there was a fence bordering the patio. I remember my father tearing away at the ivy to find an old metal spring mattress. The mattress served as the foundation for the ivy to build upward making an appearance of a wall or fence. After a few days we discovered how big the backyard really was. We have since added more patio, lawn, new plants, and have fenced it all in.
Its interesting to see what is underneath all this ground cover. One assumes just dirt. We’ve found tennis balls, small toys, garbage, and snails - many snails. Lift a rock, and bugs scurry. Small plants get buried underneath and soon die from lack of light and space.
As Christ Jesus was telling us, our mind is very similar to a garden. We can allow all kinds of thoughts to overrun our minds; beliefs and old experiences deeply buried under. These may eventually produce like effects of physical or mental illness. Underneath this mirage of physical pain. Underneath, all these thoughts and emotions. Underneath, all these stored memories and false beliefs is who we truly are. Who are we? The son, the light of God - the Christ in you the hope and glory.
You would never know it, the way people sleep walk through life. Yes day dreaming. Living life through their thoughts of non stop mind chatter. Seeing life through their beliefs, beliefs about themself and others, that has no true reality. People delude themselves day in and day out being miserable. Have you read an email or text, and overlay it with a voice of that person in your head. It can be a loving voice, or an angry voice you hear. And, no matter what the email or text says that is how you respond to it; either with love or fear. That is our imagination at work.
The great cover up is the hiding of truth of who and what we are. Yet it says it right in the Bible. Jesus the Christ said, “Remember, the scripture says, you are gods.” And, in Luke 17:21, “Neither will they say, Behold, it is here! Or, behold it is there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
What is this kingdom of God that is within us? It is our ability to create from within our very being; our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our beliefs these are our creations. Eventually we use this body of ours to express our inner creations, and we project those creations onto our screen of life. We then call it reality.
Visually, I imagine a blank white canvas that is within me, and I draw and color on it with my thoughts and feelings making my personal masterpiece. Is it beautiful and peaceful, or is it dark and scary? But, underneath is still a canvas that is pure white, that has been layered and layered upon.
Has the nature of the canvas changed? No! As we clean off our canvas, we would begin to see the white shining through it. This canvas is our divine nature, the Christ, the God within us. As our thoughts become non judging, as pure expressions of love, of kindness, of compassion, our canvas will radiate powerfully as our life.
Now it is time to uncover, dig deep within our soul, beyond the layers, pealing back like an onion to the heart of our being. That pure being, as an innocent child, yet more powerful than one can imagine. We are reminded of what Jesus said, “You too shall do these works, and even greater works than these shall you do.”
Jesus also told us to not hide our light under a bushel, but to set it high up for all to see. It is time, some 2,000 years later, to heed these teachings, and uncover our light for all to see. To uncover our true identity, our divinity, the Christ within.
Imagination is one of our God given gifts. We’ve been given free choice in how we use our imagination; as with all of our gifts or powers. No matter what we have imagined into our experience, we can make another choice to see it differently. Its amazing how just asking “How can I see this differently?” will spark a new idea, a new way of seeing the situation.
We can choose to bring love into each moment of the day. To let that light within so shine. Beginning with our breath as love, love is everywhere, but to acknowledge it, “is claiming” and so it is. We then open our heart and let all this love and light radiate throughout every cell of our body, and extend it out to all our world. The world will respond in kind, every cell of our body will respond in love, bringing forth harmony to mind, body and soul.
Just practicing a few minutes everyday will spark a fire within, and stoke it to burn even brighter until it becomes the eternal flame that lights the world. It is time to use our imagination to bring forth a new world - a world of peace, beauty, joy, love, harmony and abundance for all.
Why do we choose to play it small, as a victim to circumstance? Isn’t it better to know how powerful we really are? As a son of God, a co-creator of our world, of our life experiences, with our thoughts, beliefs, attention, and - yes our imagination.
We can live life feeling powerless, and blame others for our lack of happiness and suffering. Or as a co-creator we are empowered to choose again, make another choice. We may have the same experience, but now it doesn’t have to get us down, we can pick our self up, and try something else.
It does mean taking responsibility for ones state of mind; whether you’re happy or sad. We all have our gardens, our thoughts to tend to. Laziness doesn’t work, nor ignoring our gardens believing they’ll tend to them selves, for the weeds will come, those undesirable thoughts and beliefs will sprout, and take over if not stopped and pulled by the root.
Everyday we are faced with thousands of messages, that simply aren’t true. Just think, in Jesus’ time there were no TVs, computers, radios, smart phones, or even daily newspapers. They just had their community of family and friends, sprinkled with travelers, and some foes. They visited, gossiped, shared stories, worshiped and studied scripture. Even back then Jesus spoke on gossip being a great offender.
Today we have to be so much more discerning, being a gatekeeper of our minds, of what we are willing to allow in and take root. We must question, by who’s authority is it true? Is it based in principle, of Oneness, of Omnipresence of good? If not, cancel it out with the truth.
Matter can never be cause of anything, it is effect, the result always. There is but one cause, and it is God, the invisible substance of ideas, thoughts, and energy. And, we are the co-creators, bringing forth from within our very consciousness, our heaven within, the world we experience. How empowering that is to know we can make a difference.
Yes, we can choose to bring love into each moment of the day to let our light shine to uncover a beautiful world, a world of radiant life. We begin with our imagination to hold the vision of heaven on earth. Then we empower our vision with like acts. We be that, which we wish to see in the world. We bring it forth by putting love into every action, and thought. By intentionally, being love.
Love is powerful medicine. It is energy as powerful as an atomic bomb, as a great laser beam when focused and allowed to extend and expand throughout all the world. We do this with practices, exercising our imagination until it is real.
Nona Brooks shares a story in the book about her life, titled Powerful Is the Light. Its one of my favorite stories Nona shares for the message is real, powerful, and simple. Its about how she had a problem with this one disagreeable lady in her congregation, (she calls) Mrs. Mac. This woman had always publicly disagreed with her Sunday teachings.
Nona began a practice, at first it was that whenever she thought of Mrs. Mac, that she would say “I love you, I love you” over and over. She could be walking, bicycling, or horseback riding. You know how those thoughts will just popup. Then would repeat out load or silently say, “I Love you, I love you” even when she didn’t mean a word of it.
Then one day it came to Nona that her affirmation wasn’t complete, so she added “and you love me.” Now it was full circle. She transformed the situation by saying “I love you, I love you and you love me.” Then after having done this practice for some time. One day, Mrs. Mac joined her class, Nona was quite surprised and nervous about what the lady might say and do.
Then at the end of the class, Mrs. Mac stood up, saying “Ladies, you all know me. You have seen me here before, and you have heard me make a great number of disparaging remarks in regard to this work. I want to say this before you all. I want everyone here to know that this afternoon I am taking back every disparaging remark that I have ever made in this room. For the first time I am beginning to understand just what it is that these ladies are trying to accomplish. And I believe from the depths of my soul that they are doing splendid work. Truth will prevail.”
“Nona thought, can it be that even a mechanical practice of love, even if you don’t mean it, even if you don’t mean a word of it – can be - powerful?”
We too can do this, even if at first we don’t mean a word of it. Just holding the idea of “I Love you, I love you, and you love me” works, because it is the real truth - the Principle of all life is love.
For every person that you may have an issue with, silently say “I love you, I love you and you love me.” At first it may be a struggle, knowing that you’re not happy with that person. But, you do it anyway. Fake it until you make it. That is the power of affirmations and your imagination.
This simple statement works because, you’re looking past their actions, to the truth of their being - which is God. Eventually, their actions will begin to change toward you, as well as yours toward them. It can’t help but change, when love is applied.
We apply love to all situations that we may feel conflict over. “I love you, I love you and you love me.” In a way we are saying, I want the highest for you and for me.
We can take this to another level by going throughout our day by saying “I love you, I love you and you love me” to everyone and everything. Then one day, where there were shadows, there will now be light. Beautiful radiant light and love fully revealed. The flowers glow with life. The trees dance in the air. The birds sound sweeter, and even the traffic moves swifter. Our entire world flows like a beautiful melody. It is a new world. Heaven on earth. The New Jerusalem. That is how we uncover our true self, and we let our light powerfully shine as a beacon unto the world.