Let's Make Today a Day to Keep!
By the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mitchell -- Sunday, November 19, 2000

Letter From Your Editor, November 2000

Bible Reading

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." (Genesis 3:6-10)

Reading from Swedenborg

Most things in the natural or literal meaning of the Word are goods and truths clothed. Only some of them are naked, as they are in the spiritual sense. Goods and truths that are clothed are called "appearances of truth."

The Word on its outmost level is like a person clothed with a garment, whose face and hands only are naked. Where the Word is naked in this way, its goods and truths appear naked as they are in heaven, and as they are in the spiritual meaning. So there is nothing to hinder those who are enlightened by the Lord from seeing, or those who are not so enlightened from confirming, the teachings of genuine good and truth from the literal meaning of the Word. The Word is like this in its literal meaning so that it may be a foundation for the spiritual sense. Also, in this way it is accommodated to the understanding of simple-minded people, who, unless things are stated in this way, cannot grasp them, believe them, and do them. (Apocalypse Explained #778)

Sermon

In the Zohar we read as follows:

When a human being is created, on the day he comes into the world, simultaneously, all the days of his life are arranged above. One by one they come flying into the world to alert that human being, day by day. If when a day comes to alert him, he sins on that day before his Master, then that day climbs up in shame, bears witness and stands alone outside. . . .

When [after death] those days draw near to the Holy King, if the person leaving the world is pure he ascends and enters into those days and they become a radiant garment for his soul! But only his days of virtue, not his days of fault. Woe to him who had decreased his days above! For when he comes to be clothed in his days, the days that he ruined are missing and he is clothed in a tattered garment. It is worse if there many such days; then he will have nothing to wear in that world!

I found the story of Jacob's garment of days so delightful, I knew as soon as I read it that I would use it as a jumping off point for a sermon some day. It comes from a Jewish mystical tradition known as the Kabbalah. The Zohar is among the most important of the early Kabbalistic writings, and came to be considered as a sacred or near sacred text by many Jews.

Swedenborg's Hebrew teacher is believed to have been a Kabbalist, and if you dip into the Kabbalah after having immersed yourself in Swedenborg, you really have to wonder. Because when you come to the Kabbalah after reading Swedenborg, you are immediately right at home.

Kabbalists believe that the Torah has an inner spiritual meaning; they liken the Torah at the literal level to a garment worn by the infinite Torah as it stands before God in Heaven. Swedenborg uses exactly the same simile about the Word of God.

Sometimes a spiritual reading cleaves much closer to the actual words of the Bible than does a so-called literal reading. At one point in the Bible it says that Abraham "came into days." This is a Hebrew idiom for growing old or "becoming advanced in years." And that is how most English versions translate it. But you lose the word "day" if you do that--losing its spiritual meanings at the same time. The Kabbalists, by contrast, focused on the word "days," and asked what "coming into days" could possibly be. The result was the delightful story about how people wear their good days in heaven.

By extension, to be "naked" is to have spoiled so many of your days that you have none left to wear in heaven. When Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they realized they had spoiled their days. When Job says that he came naked from his mother's womb and would return naked to the ground, it was an acknowledgment that he, too, had spoiled all his days. A playful way to read the Bible? No doubt. But who is to say that the relationship between the spiritual sense and the literal sense isn't often a playful one?

The story suggests an exercise. Let us all think about yesterday for a moment. Was it day to keep? Do you see yourself wearing it forever? Would you want to wear it forever? Would it do you justice? Would you enjoy reliving it again and again? Now let's think about last week. How many of its days were keepers?

But perhaps we get sidetracked here if we look at the events of a day and ask if we would "want to go through all that again." Many a day of external peace and pleasure is internally a day of cowardice and self-seeking greed, while many a day of external pain and crisis is internally a day of courage and generosity. The days that do us the most credit are often the days we would least want to see repeated. The external moods and events of a day do not clothe us in heaven, but rather the inner qualities which are called forth by that day's events.

What the Zohar seems to be suggesting in its playful, poetic way is that our lives in heaven take as their raw materials the events of our lives on earth. Nothing happens in heaven that isn't a replay of something that happened with us while on earth. There are indications of a similar view in Swedenborg's writings. He says there is an internal memory that awakens in the spiritual world. The moments of our lives are revived, not so much in their external pleasure or pain, but rather in the affections that lived within them. It is the depths and nuances of these states of the soul that unfold, develop, and cross-fertilize forever.

Such a view ought to give us pause. It is a reminder to value--or better, to love--each of our days. It is not a question of whether the day is relaxing or trying. Nor is it primarily a question of our mood: happy and cheerful or irritable and cross; upbeat or depressed. Looking beyond the mood of day, we can observe how our handling of ourselves is affecting the "day" of those around us. Are we part of the problem or part of the solution? Looking deeper within, we can watch where our desire is leading us. Are we moving towards or away from our best selves? Are we moving towards isolation, or towards useful service to others?

Last week in our forum a question was raised about the "ordinary person" who simply goes about his or her own day-to-day business. Does such a person, according to Swedenborg, go to heaven or to hell?

Swedenborg would say that it depends. However prominent or obscure a person's deeds may be in the eyes of the world, it is the affection which is growing inside that decides the question. Suppose a person, going about his or her own business, rejoices over all the small ways he or she gets the advantage of others, all the small ways he or she outshines them. And suppose this person grieves over all the real or imagined slights received from others, becoming in the process less and less interested in others, and less and less concerned about their joys and sorrows. Such a person is already living in hell.

Suppose, on the other hand, an ordinary person, in the course of "going about his or her own business," rejoices in the good things that happen for those around him or her, and grieves when things go poorly for them. Suppose this person cheerfully takes advantage of all the small opportunities that offer themselves to lend a helping hand or offer a sympathetic ear. Such a person is already living in heaven.

The difference between the two is in the affections that are being incubated within. A day, through its inner affection for useful service, can lead us toward participation in what Jesus called "the kingdom of heaven," what the Kabbalists called "the world to come," and what Swedenborg called "the New Church." Conversely, the day, through self-obsessed affections, can lead us into lonely isolation from the kingdom, from the world to come, from the New Church. When we come before the Holy One, these days are lost to us.

The keepers are those days which--to use the language of Paul--are lived to the Lord. "Some people," says Paul, "judge one day to be better than another" (Romans 14:5). But a day of eating is lived to the Lord, if one eats in honor of the Lord and is thankful. Likewise a day of abstaining: it is lived to the Lord if one abstains in honor of the Lord and is thankful. "We do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Romans 14:7, 8). Any day lived in this spirit, whatever its external losses or blessings, is a day that we keep before the Holy One.

Let's make today a day to keep!

Jonathan Mitchell is pastor of the Church of the Holy City in Washington, DC.

Jonathan Mitchell is a Chapel Minister at Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, California (Updated 4/2003)

Prayer

O God, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Satisfy us with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days in which you have afflicted us. Let your work appear unto your servants, and your glory to their children. Amen.