Building Spiritual Reserves
A Sermon by the Rev. David H. Lindrooth
Lessons: Genesis 41:17-36; Matthew 25:1-13;
Arcana Coelestia 1906 (portions)
The kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and
went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were
foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but
those who were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. (Matthew 25: 1-3)
T
he Word is filled with stories dealing with scarcity in different forms. These
stories point out that there are many times in life when we are confronted
by various forms of insufficiency or lack of resources in our spiritual lives.
But what is meant by spiritual scarcity? What does it feel like when we
are spiritually running on empty? Fundamentally, the Writings describe these
states as times when we are lacking what we need to actively live a spiritually
healthy life.
In explaining the famine in the Joseph story, the Heavenly Doctrines state
that a famine symbolizes “an absence of religious knowledge or thoughts and a
consequent deprivation of truth.” (Arcana Coelestia 5279) This is talking about
times when we know what we should be doing but simply lack the energy or
motivation to do it. It is almost like the truth is completely absent or paralyzed
in our life. This is followed by a sense of discouragement and lack of motivation
that is normally present in our lives, encouraging us to act upon what is good.
Think of a writer assigned an article or paper who is experiencing writer’s
block. He spends hours staring at a blank page. As the time passes this is met
with increasing discouragement. Writer’s block is an external phenomenon.
But there are times when we experience something similar in relation to our
spiritual life.
We go to church, but don’t seem to get anything out of the experience
other than feeling negative or critical. Or we read, but nothing seems to sink
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