Session Four
Sermons
Pages 45-64
The sermons of Eckhart were very popular in his day. They were then and are now difficult to understand with the intellect. They are more akin to mystical poetry which is read not for understanding, but for experience of being given wisdom and insight that is elusive and seemingly always just out of reach.
In all of my notes on the mystics I am not seeking to explain the content, rather I am modeling a way to read and relate to the mystics by making notes on little insights that I can glean from the text. I suggest conclusions that are not meant to be conclusive for all time, but simply landing spots for me in a particular moment of engagement with the text. In this way, we let the mystical work crack us open slowly over time.
Here is a quote about Eckhart’s teaching from Cyprian Smith that might be a helpful lens through which to consider the following sermons. “The Ground of the Soul has no ambitions or goals; not even the goal of knowing itself. It is simply free, restful, open and receptive to the reality of the present moment, and whatever there is of God in it. This detached openness and receptivity, this refusal to aim at anything, is one of its most Godlike characteristics.” (Smith 49)
Sermon on the Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15
P. 45 - Jesus Christ was born in time of the womb of Mary.
But if that’s it, he was just born of Mary, it’s little good to us…that he was born once, lived, died, and is here no more.
But, Eckhart says, that’s not all. The conscious person can wake up to the fact that the Christ, the divine spark, the Word, is born in the hearts of all people and indeed is the force that animates us all to life and sustains us as we live through all life’s ups and downs.
3 things are to be noted (p. 46):
The word is born in the soul in a place within that transcends the 5 senses. The senses (powers) do not have access to the womb of the word in the soul.
This birth comes as pure gift and not through merit or one’s own self-exertion
Much profit comes to the soul from this birth
The word is born out of the depth of inner silence which is the same silent land out of which the entire creation is born - the ground.
Merton - you have no access to the ground - “it is not at your disposal.” Thank goodness!
P. 48 - ordinary, daily life is lived with and processed by the 5 senses and other powers - intellect, memory, reason, etc.
Not so with the ground or essence. There is no sensory activity in the ground/essence
The fullness of God is in the ground “not merely a part.”
P. 49 - images are not essence and are only received through the senses.
The soul, in the ground, is free of images
P. 50 - no image or created thing has access to or can enter the ground of the soul, only God can enter
God gives birth to the Son in the ground of the Soul and thus in the ground is true union
P. 51 - no image (creature) is the fullness of that of which it is an image (God in this case): this is our nothingness without God.
Seek to rest in your ground beyond images..this is the home of true happiness
P. 52 - the best way is to “remain still and let God act and speak in you.”
Here Eckhart introduces the concept of total detachment and its benefits
Forget yourself entirely and collapse into God who dwells in all his fullness in the ground of your soul.
P. 53-55 - the more free you are from images the more receptive you are to the inner activity of God in your ground.
The Word is hidden and no sense faculty can access it to make an image of it - pure mystery
P. 56 - the Word born in the ground of the soul is indescribable
It seems like if I could capture and know the presence of God in the ground I would know all, but the ground is elusive, mysterious and always just out of reach.
Yet it sparkles and dances within me and in some mysterious way I do know it, but I do not know what I know.
P. 57-58 - the ground is your source. In it you and God are one. The ground contains the essence and fullness of all knowing which is beyond any knowledge the intellect or senses (powers) can or ever will grasp.
Letting go of all is the only way to know God in God’s fullness
Innocents’ Day
“The true spiritual life leads to perfect freedom from self and all things.”
Jesus practiced radical detachment. We are called to the same.
If you are tuned into and consumed with your own mental framework and machinations you are NOT in tune with the mind of God.
To know God is to unknow all that one knows
Letting go is ALL on this path - full surrender
Luke 14:16
Eckhart makes use of a mystical meal metaphor in this sermon. The evening meal is the last supper and the eucharist
P. 61-64 - the spiritual journey unfolds incrementally in stages: a morning meal, a noon meal, and an evening meal. The evening meal is the most intimate meal shared with close friends - the last supper
God, the divine light, rises in the soul and produces morning, then God’s presence increases in height and depth drawing forth noon, then the light disappears as does the entire world…now it is evening, unmediated intimacy and union with the infinite, abyss-like mystery of the divine.
The last supper is a metaphor for this direct encounter with the Word.
Once one has “tasted” God in the evening meal one wants nothing else but God.
Once the deepest part of you - the spark of the soul - “seizes on” the divine light - the ground of God - the soul is one with all creation in its ground. All, including the soul, is nothing without God.
P. 62 - even the smallest part of creation contains the fullness of God, so does the soul. See Julian’s hazelnut
Eckhart’s focus and obsession is the absolute unity of God and humans. He dealt in this extreme mystical paradox: God and man couldn’t be more different and yet are one in the ground of the Soul where the little spark or divine light burns eternally. The ground is higher than the highest heaven and can draw the soul up to heights the powers can’t even dream of.
Don’t eat the evening meal - the eucharist - fearfully as if eating it only under obedience and threat, rather eat it for love, joyfully, in freedom and in hope.
“A soul that loves God conquers God so that God must altogether give himself to the soul.”
P. 63 - “Anything we have to say about God is infinitely less than God actually is.” Augustine