A man of principle  by Rev. Kurt H. Asplundh

   "What did you go out into the wilderness to see?  A reed  shaken by
the wind?" (Lu.  7: 24)

   The text refers to John the Baptist.  Certainly, he was not a reed
to be bent this way and that by the winds of popular opinion.  Indeed,
as the Lord spoke of him, John was in prison for confronting Herod over
a matter of the law.  John was a man of principle.

   In this sermon we will consider the importance of acting from
principle.  We need to ask ourselves why we do things. Do we passively
follow the multitude to do evil?  Do we choose to do what favors our
love?  Do we simply act from impulse or respond to the greatest
pressure?  Are we reeds shaken by the wind or is there a strength of
principle in our lives?

   It is remarkable how the Word speaks to life issues.  The lesson
read concerning the dreams of the butler and baker in Pharaoh's prison
teaches a most important lesson about our life. Yet this would not
appear to be so.

   On the surface of it, the varied fate of the two servants seems
arbitrary.  There is no apparent reason for the butler to be spared and
not also the baker.  How many have found any useful insights into their
own life through this ancient account?

   Just as the interpretations of their dreams was hidden from these
prisoners, so the interpretation of the story of their dreams has been
long hidden from us.  Without interpretation, much of the history of
the ancient patriarchs and Israel is as meaningless to us as a strange
dream.  Yet, because it is a part of the Word of God we accept it as a
holy writ.

   Those of the New Church are well aware that the Lord has now
provided an interpretation of Scripture through the revelation of His
second coming in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem. Joseph
said to the prisoners, "Do not interpretations belong to  God?" (Gen. 
40: 8). The Lord reveals the meaning of the Word to us just as He
interpreted these dreams to Joseph.

   What interests us particularly in this sermon is the meaning of the
dream of the baker.  Both the butler and baker were servants, but in
different capacities.  The butler was a wine steward for Pharaoh, king
of Egypt.  The baker provided food for the king's table.  As servants,
both men were to be subordinate to their lord.  We are not told the
nature of their offense. They had simply acted with insubordination and
were therefore imprisoned.

   The Heavenly Doctrine which interprets the spiritual meaning of this
chapter of Genesis notes that "where several persons are mentioned in
the historic sense--as here Joseph, Pharaoh, the prince of the guards,
the butler and the baker--in the internal sense they indeed signify
various things; but only in one person" (AC 5095).  This is a key to
understanding what is meant. In one sense this chapter is about
us--each one of us individually. Pharaoh stands for a quality of our
mind and spirit that should rule; the servants for subordinate external
qualities that should rightly minister to higher or more interior
purposes of life. Joseph himself represents the presence of the Divine,
at first imprisoned and unappreciated in our life, later raised into
prominence in the kingdom.

   Our individual life consists of higher and lower degrees or parts. 
We have our innermost purposes and loves, our emotions, our
intelligence, and supporting sensory organs in the body itself. Every
man is a kingdom unto himself; his parts and functions described by a
retinue of counsellors, generals, servants, and citizens all under the
rule of that which is king in life--our innermost intent and end.  As
in kingdoms, so too in individuals, there can be disobedience to the
ruler, rebellions, failures.  The ruler himself can lead his entire
kingdom to destruction.

   The butler and baker stand for two important servants of the king. 
We know these in the church as the understanding, or intellectual part
of the mind, represented by the butler; and the will, or affectional
part of the mind, represented by the baker. The distinction between
these two is implied by the different service of each man: the butler
providing wine or other drink, the baker providing food.

   He who provides wine is representative of that in us which satisfies
our longing for knowledge and intelligence.  We thirst for truth. 
Throughout Scripture, wine is symbolic of spiritual truth, even as the
drinking of wine in the Lord's sacrament signifies reception of truth
from the Lord.  On the other hand, he who provides food is
representative of that in us which satisfies our longing for delight
and affectional support.  We are satisfied with good.  Again,
throughout Scripture, bread or food is symbolic of spiritual good, even
as the eating of bread in the Lord's sacrament signifies reception of
good from the Lord.

   It is this very different function of the butler and the baker in
the kingdom of Pharaoh and what this represents in the kingdom of the
human spirit that explains how the one could be restored while the
other was condemned.  Both offended. Therefore they lost their freedom
and function for the king.  In our life, both intellect and will can
betray us.  The butler of our life can serve us the sour wine of
falsity.  Our understanding can be misled, perverted, uninformed.  As
long as this is the case, it cannot serve truly us.  Indeed, we are
born in total ignorance as to the understanding.  Our inclination is to
learn from the appearances of the sensual world around us.  So our
external sensations teach that the sun rises and sets; that material
possessions bring happiness; that God does not care about famine and
the destruction of wars, when none of these is true. Appearances can be
deceiving. Therefore, an uninformed and misled intellect is a butler we
cannot trust.

   The baker of our life can serve us the mouldy crusts of self-
satisfaction.  Our affections and will can be perverted as well as our
understanding.  By heredity, it is our nature to incline toward
satisfaction and delight in life through all that is self-centered and
pleasing to us regardless of its usefulness to ourselves or to others. 
Our inclination is to favor whatever appeals to our hereditary
willfulness.  Like a reed shaken in the wind, we incline to every
pleasure that beckons, fall into every emotion and feeling that
gratifies us, be it a sense of superiority over others, of revenge
against those who oppose, or pride in our worldly accomplishments.  So
an undisciplined will cannot serve as our life's baker or provider.

   In the prison the men dreamed dreams.  These dreams tell of the
potential for our understanding and will in life.

   The butler dreamed of a living vine that grew and flourished,
bringing forth good grapes; and how he pressed these into Pharaoh's cup
to provide new wine.  Joseph gave this servant the good news that his
dream was a prophecy of his return to the service of his master.  The
spiritual interpretation that relates to our private kingdom of life is
that the human understanding can be reformed. The falsities of
appearances may be replaced with a living truth that is from the Lord. 
We may learn the truth about life and our restored intellect can serve
to support true ends and purposes. This is the Lord's promise to His
people: "If you abide in My Word, you are my disciples indeed.  And you
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Jn.  8: 31,
32). There is hope for the restoration of an understanding that truly
serves the Lord.

   The case is not the same with the hereditary will of man.  It cannot
be restored but must be replaced with a new will of good from the Lord.
This is signified by the baker's dream. He saw himself carrying three
bread baskets on his head.  The uppermost was filled with baked goods
for the king, but they were eaten by birds.  The Writings say these
baskets had holes. Though there were three, one above the other, they
were open from highest to lowest, without termination in the middle. 
This is explained as follows: The mind consists of degrees of life from
inmost to outmost.  The three baskets of the baker signify three
degrees in which good from the Lord can be caught and sensed.  "Each
degree is a plane in which the good which flows in from the Lord rests,
and where it is received, " we are told.  "Without these degrees as
planes, good is not received, but flows through, as through a sieve or
a basket that has holes in it, down to the sensuous, and then, being
without any direction in the way, it is turned into a  foulness which
appears to those who are in it as good...." (AC 5145: 3).

   All life from the Lord descends in pure form, but, as it descends,
takes on the quality of the receiving vessel into which it comes.  This
general rule finds illustration in nature. As rain falls from the
clouds it may take on pollutions in the atmosphere and, upon reaching
the ground, mingles with mud and filth to become dirty water.  It is
not the water that is dirty or poisonous, but the things of the lower
atmosphere and earth that have mingled with it.  So, too, with life's
qualities: good in their origin from the Lord, but becoming polluted
and defiled as they descend to the lowest sensuous degree of our mind,
there mingling with the lusts of hereditary evils.  At this termination
of its descent, the life flowing in is perverted into a sense of
delight from the love of self and of the world, consequently into the
delight of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, and avarice, or into
mere voluptuousness and luxury.  This is the case, we are told, "if the
things of man's will are without termination anywhere in the middle"
(AC 5145: 3).

   The baskets in the baker's dream signify the quality of degrees of
the human will at this day.  They do not give willing service to the
Lord, but simply absorb and pervert everything of the Lord's good. For
this reason the baker must be put to death. Joseph told the baker that
he would die in three days.  The interpretation for us is that our
inborn will cannot serve heaven. It has no strength for good but is a
reed that can be shaken by every foul breath of hell.  The will with
which we are born cannot be restored as the understanding can be.  It
must be put away and be replaced with a new will from the Lord.

   The fact is that no man is good of himself.  He may carry the
appearance of good, seemingly doing many good things for the neighbor. 
He may have been born with a hereditary nature of a pleasing
disposition and may even incline, because of this inherited nature, to
please others with good acts.  Yet, inwardly, his life is as
unregenerate and self-seeking as that of the most criminal of men. 
"This good is utterly different from the good of the church, " the
Writings say.  "They who are in this good do good in the dark from
blind instinct, " we are told (AC 8002).  "They...suffer themselves to
be persuaded by every one, and easily  by the evil; for evil
spirits...are in...the delight of their life, when they can enter into
the evil affections of any one; and when  they have entered into
them...entice him to every kind of evil..." (AC 5032: 3).  Such is the
weakness of the will signified by the baker.

   We are told that there are many who enjoy an hereditary natural good
"by virtue of which they feel delight in doing well to others, but who
have not been imbued with principles of doing what is good, either from
the Word, the doctrine of the church, or from  their religiosity..."
Such persons are not received into heaven they they come into the other
life.  They marvel at this, saying that they have led a good life.  But
they are told that a good life from what is natural or hereditary is
not a good life, but that "a good life is from those things which
belong to the doctrine of good and truth and the consequent life; for
by means of these, men have  principles impressed on them...and they
receive conscience, which is the plane into which heaven flows...." (AC
6208).

   Here, then, we see the importance of religious principle and the
hidden message for us all in the baker's dream..  There can be no will
of good unless we have a resting place for it in the mind. Acting from
principle, acting from conscience, is what builds this resting place. 
The baker's baskets had holes in them. Nothing flowing in could find
rest in any termination or plane, but flowed through.

   How different is the life which has heaven in it.  It is a life
"according to the truths and goods of faith about which the man has
been instructed.  Unless these are the rules and principles of his
life, " we are told, he looks for heaven in vain "no matter how he has
lived; for without these truths and goods a man is like a reed which is
shaken by every wind; for he is bent by evils equally as by goods,
because he has nothing of truth and good made firm within him..." (AC
7197 emphasis added).

   Rules and principles.  We must learn to find delight in a life based
on a conscience of what is good and true, or at least of what is just
and equitable.  Conscience is the plane and receptacle of the influx of
heaven (AC 9122).

   If we cannot acquire the highest plane of conscience, an internal
will of good, the Lord mercifully regards as sufficient the formation
of a lesser plane of conscience.  There was more than one basket on the
head of the baker.  "Conscience is twofold, " we read, "interior and
exterior.  Interior conscience is of spiritual good and truth; exterior
conscience is of justice and equity.  At the present day this latter
conscience exists with many;" we are told, "but interior conscience
with few.  Nevertheless they who  enjoy exterior conscience are saved
in the other life...." (AC 6207).

   Building a religious life involves more than avoiding open evils and
flowing with the crowd.  We cannot expect to prepare for heaven
passively.  We must make active efforts to acquire planes of good in
our life, terminations, baskets without holes, which may receive the
activity of the angelic heavens for our protection and inspiration.  So
the Heavenly Doctrine urges us that we "ought to be solicitous to
procure such a plane" in ourselves during our lifetime.  And this, we
are told, is procured by "thinking what is good toward the neighbor,
and by willing what is good to him, and therefore doing what is good to
him, and thus by acquiring the delight of life in such things" (AC
3957: 7).  We need a sense of "internal obligation" to live a life of
Christian good.  (See AC 4968).  This requires our best and most
creative efforts. We should work at this as diligently as we work at
our offices and employments.  We need to use intelligence, reflection,
patience, self-discipline, prayer and strength.  We must be ready to
face discouragement and failure yet with a sense of trust that the Lord
is nurturing every effort we make.

   This, then, is the interpretation of the story of the butler's and
the baker's dreams.  The prophecy of the dreams came true just as
Joseph had interpreted them.  The hidden meaning of Scripture also is
true in our life just as the Lord has revealed it.  "Those who have not
received Conscience in the world cannot receive Conscience in the other
life.  Thus they cannot be saved, because they have no plane into which
heaven (that is, the Lord through heaven) can flow, and whereby it may
operate, and so draw them to itself; for Conscience is the plane and
receptacle of the influx of heaven" (AC 9122). Amen.

   Lessons: Gen.  40; Lu. 7: 18-30; AC 5032: 2-4