Prayers for Pentecost, 2025

Saturday in 3 Pentecost, July 5, 2025

God of Good News, we languish in self-doubt and procrastination waiting for the best way to bring good news to our world; let not our false pride for imminent perfection delay us from exercising from the current state of our loving hearts strategies of hope for the people in our world.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Pentecost, July 4, 2025. (Independence Day, USA)

God, you inspired a people to be profoundly ecumenical in living together in justice with profound differences of faith and ethnicities; forgive us for not living up to our ideals of justice for all and backing away from the expansion of justice for all when new people of new identities want to join with us in our common life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Pentecost, July 3, 2025

God, the eternal Word, with word and language you have given us naming power, and how we name and categorize is related to how we treat the world and the people we come to name; let how we name the world and each other be consistent with the naming creation story when you named, created, and called it good.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Pentecost, July 2, 2025

God of all, give us an appreciation of how universal pain is in its many forms for people so that we might commit ourselves continually to universal health care to be made accessible to all.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Pentecost, July 1, 2025

God of calling and sending, keep us ever in the Called/Sent mode, of tending first to hearing what is good and excellent, and then going forth to witness to the latest in the insights of love and justice to be applied in our lives.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Pentecost, June 30, 2025

Inspire us, O God, with strategies of love because wishing to love and be loved without the practice of love disconnects us from you as the source of love; and let us never think that we have loved enough because love is always seeking new fulfillment in time.  Amen.

Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 29, 2025

God, we live in the dilemma of being called to love our enemies while we at the same time must protect the vulnerable from those great powerful enemies who exploit the weak; we observe your voluntary weakness in being seemingly neutral about what is happening in this world due to the maintenance of the conditions of true freedom; in your apparent outward weakness, please manifest a profound invisible strength to coax, lure, and persuade us about our freedom to choose goodness for ourselves and for each other.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Pentecost, June 28, 2025

God, who encompasses the greatest Realm, many smaller realms of greed, evil, and cruelty exploit the freedom to be evil within the Divine Realm; give us grace to uphold the goodness of great freedom to oppose and overcome evil in the ways that we can and have courage to resist and change the things that are in our power to do.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Pentecost, June 27, 2025

God, we are those who sometimes equate your apparent being as equivalent to the good fortune in our life which we call blessing; give us grace to accept your greatness which encompasses the events and probable outcomes which do not seem to be our contextual good luck but require our bowing to the genuine freedom which truly validates ethics as bearing the essence of valuation.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Pentecost, June 26, 2025

Christ, when you don't come to the language of people, still people find ways to project what greatness means for them in very human hyperbolic terms; thank you for affirming our privilege to confess greatness and to know that greatness is humbled and empty to forms of human apparency; give us grace not to idolize our forms of knowing divine apparency even while we confess our greatness due to our connection with you as All and in All.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Pentecost, June 25, 2025

Give us wisdom, O God, in the use of artificial intelligence as we seek to do no harm, heal long-standing diseases, feed and care for more people in ways that lifts the dignity of all.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Pentecost, June 24, 2025

God, let the metrics of our performance today not be in terms of popularity or measurement of worldly success, except the success in moving the arc of history closer to realized justice in more local situations.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Pentecost, June 23, 2025

God, you have been made portable and available within us as the divine Trojan Horse within us to break out and conquer our being from within as ministering messaging to help us sew our inner lives with our outer world in ways of peace and coherence; keep of mindful of your image upon us as our birthright.  Amen.

Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2025

Be in us O Christ, as we seek to be in You, as a place beyond the biases of small hearts and petty regionalism; and let us embrace being in You as a place of continual growth and the stretching of our hearts toward the unconditional love of God.  Amen.

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Help us, O God, to embrace our identity in Christ such that we do not let lesser identities of gender, race, nationality, socio-economic, regional, or educational experience keep us from embracing the universal love of all who bear the divine image.  Amen.

Friday, June 20, 2025

God, without knowing precision about the causation of everything, we cannot avoid asking why things happen and what can we do to make things happen in better ways for more people; give us grace and wisdom to minister to the mystery of causation which resides within the troubled minds of people who need to be whispered to calm and peace and wholesomeness within community.  Amen.

Thursday, June 19, 2025 (Juneteenth in America)

God, the knowledge, promulgation, and practice of justice is delayed and late to arrive to many people who have been forced to live under oppression of people who deny the equal image of God upon all; today we celebrate the arrival and practice of justice whenever and wherever it becomes apparent, even as we ask for critical social knowledge about our blindness to our own oppressive tendencies.  Give us the zeal to be liberators as much as we desire to live lives of liberation for ourselves.  Amen.

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

God of all, deliver us from setting criteria which falsely promote that you are not with and for all; give us heart enlarging experiences so that we might learn better the practice of the love known as justice which respects the dignity of all persons.  Amen.

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

God, we ponder the mystery of the invisible interior which often results in acted out horrific events even while we know that love and justice can be acted out from the interior constitutions of people who have been whispered by peaceful self control; in as much as the interior life becomes an expression of "garbage in, garbage out," let us be those who create the input environments for good things to be fed to the hearts of people so that their interior constitutions can result in good outputs of love and justice.  Amen.

Monday, June 16, 2025

God, we often know ourselves in a world with the violent few trying to irreparably injure the chance of us having a future of peace and justice; give us courage to be the first responders to work at the healing of the violent results and to boldly proclaim the normalcy of you being a God of love, who calls us to live in the image of this love.  Amen.

First Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2025

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are dynamic connecting personhood at the center of life and you have come to our language to inspire us to work at best connections with each other in love and justice, and with you as an interior dynamism for mystical encounter.  Amen.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Arising Trinity, you are permission for language users to affirm words as vehicles for insights about how the invisible divine can be integrated into our understanding of humble living with great Mystery, while not being passive about love and justice.  Amen.

Friday, June 13, 2025

God, after using essences, energies, and emanations to speak about the reality of the Holy Trinity we humbly confess our failure to acknowledge the mystery of knowing you as the excessive confrontations of you as the All and in all, who can only be understood in piecemeal insights tailored to our capacity limitations.  Amen.

Thursday, June 12, 2025

God, who in our language tradition has been relationally known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; even as our language experience in time cannot bear the fullness of synchronicity, we can know that we always impinged by an absolute past from which we have come, and we are continually re-comprised in the moving moments of time which instantiates our mutual experience of all in Holy Spirit connection, we give thanks for the particular emptying of the divine into Jesus who affirms our humble anthropomorphic efforts to explore the continual possibility of becoming divinely human.  Amen.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

God, we give thanks for the appearance of Jesus Christ whom we confess as one who most aptly bears bi-lingual ability of the divine and the human; we honor the insight of the Holy Trinity which has arisen from the words of Jesus channeled through the sacred writings, and we cherish the elation of the insight of the Trinity, even as we humbly avoid the pretense of assuming omni-competent understanding of the same.  Amen.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Holy Trinity, we embrace you as Mystery, as the Holy Negligible in our knowledge because so much remains unknown in its direct bearing upon our lives; we humbly accept the divine incarnation in our human life as a way for us to accept our human limitation even as including a path for us to know what is extra-human about the great Mystery that is always, already beyond our lives but surely must impinge upon us in mysterious ways.  Amen.

Monday, June 9, 2025

Eternal Word, forgive us for trying to separate words from knowing and understanding you and give us the humility to confess with the word, Mystery, the meaning of what we do not yet know, but let us not confess mystery when the obvious words and deeds of kindness are called for to answer the prayers which do not have to be offered because their answer is in our doing.  Amen.

Day of Pentecost, June 8, 2025

Holy Spirit, you are the awareness of knowing the sameness of Abundant Life within the vast diversity of people with different physical, psychological, cultural, and circumstantial constitutions; give us grace to seek the Abundant Life within life of unity which is known through living the greeting of the Risen Christ when he said, "Peace be with you."  Amen.

Artificial Intelligence Thread

Aphorism of the Day, July 5, 2025

Deep Fake is the generating of a new reality that is not a representation of any real entity.  It is a new entity in itself.  It is something like the goat man or the unicorn which does not exist in prior empirical verifiable reality.  Deep Fake allows a different kind of manifested imaging when coupled with human verisimilitude fools us into thinking it is a representative copy, when it is a new reality.  It's likeness in seeming identity to the flesh and bird person can make that person seem to be doing and saying things that they did not and would not say and do.  When misrepresentation goes uncorrected, the possibility for misinformed populace is rampant.  Political foes do and can use it to present falsely to gain ascendency with their electorate.

 Aphorism of the Day, July 4, 2025

Does AI represent the ascendency of mathematics as the ultimate "lingua franca" of humanity?   The world now is reduced to zeros and ones in endless combinations being omnipresent in visual, sound, speech products in digitalized form.

Aphorism of the Day, July 3, 2025

AI involves the expansion of the digital control of our lives and while it purports to be an independent artificial "machine" just responding to our requests, it encourages us to the game of control.  If control is happening, then we too should learn to use digital controls to serve our own controlling purposes.  Control is the paradigm we live in; we are controlled while we try to control.  The illusion is the that one has more true individual freedom (controlling power) through manipulations of AI results.

Aphorism of the Day, July 2, 2025

AI is translation of what comes to language in its naming function of everything that we experience into the machine binary of zeros and one in complex arrangements and executing those complex arrangements into digital productions.  It is quite baffling to contemplate complexity reduced to ones and zeros or on and off and re-manifested in digitalized traces of the past running concurrent with the now of which a portion of is being converted to zeros and ones to become machine memory of traces for the future.  Digitalized presentations of "live" events are actually already past event as they are manifest to us.

Aphorism of the Day, July 1, 2025

AI faces the same issue as capitalism.  One of the founders of capitalism philosophy wrote that the systems assumes people will be ethical, and we know how that is often violated.  AI faces the same ethical dilemma as capitalism.  We know incredible benefit can come from its widespread applications even while we know its users will not always act from their better angels.

Aphorism of the Day, June 30, 2025

AI can be used to fool and exploit people or to honestly inform them.  Who, to whom, and how it is promulgated is determinate.  It is more dangerous because the amount, the micro-community targeting, and the rapidity with which AI information can be disseminated.

Aphorism of the Day, June 29, 2025

With AI Deep Fakes and imagery a greater plasticity has evolved for artistic presentation.  AI creates other kinds of artistic canvases to merge imagery which in ancient time was limited to dream space and brought to the representative art forms which have existed in the various eras.  AI art is fast art in its composition, diversity, and in its promulgation.  If post modernism declare the death of the author (though their authors still like to collect copyright money), will AI art be the death of the artist through dissolved merging of specific identity.  Is any AI art work final simply because it is saved or promulgated in a cyber form?  Is AI but the hyper-reality of process which heretofore has seemed slow, conservative, and conserving of knowable likeness with traces which preceded the now?  The new is now dissolving the traces of the past so quickly in AI, will we see a pronounced nostalgia for flesh and blood and hard copies?

 Aphorism of the Day, June 28, 2025

If people don't tell the truth when they are personally present at least lying has some temporal local containment even though video record of the same can magnify it endlessly.  With AI Deep Fakes and AI imagery the possibility of lying propaganda is put on steroids.  Slanted news has been doing the slanting by editing; people who use AI correctly must pit it as a method against it's own lying productions.  Through AI, AI Deep Fakes and AI imagery must be exposed.

Aphorism of the Day, June 27, 2025

Obviously AI has attained many automatic, mechanical, seemingly independent agency from human creators; it remains to be seen if AI will be able to increase the level of independent agency and the degree of life-intervention agency from people.

Aphorism of the Day, June 26, 2025

AI is another way to live anthropomorphically even to purport AI as a new "life form" with both striking dependence and seeming independence from human controls.

Aphorism of the Day, June 25, 2025

AI is like anything else that can be a tool for the goals of those who wield it.  It does have the advantage of being a quantum leap solely because the amount of world data has increased so exponentially that the sheer amount has become a burden to manage.  AI is an informational manager, a force of impersonal workers to magnify the number of combinations which are parsed to apply to specific tasks.

Aphorism of the Day, June 24, 2025

In many ways AI is like the rest of life, it is simply an expansion of modes of accessing the field of probabilities.  It cannot erase or overcome the human tendency to be all too human regarding good, evil, or new versions of drudgery.

Aphorism of the Day, June 23, 2025

AI and textuality: Since AI is language based it can relish contradiction, it can deliver information and disinformation based upon the master it is generated to serve.

Aphorism of the Day, June 22, 2025

Can AI ever become an expression of our better angels which rebels against the evil intents of those who seek to use it for greed, harm, and exploitation?

Aphorism of the Day, June 21, 2025

Rather than ask AI how can we kill and exploit better for the benefit of our own tribe, why don't we ask it for solutions to worldwide poverty and the many other results of global warming.  If technology has created problems, let us ask AI to solve problems that technology and AI have fostered.

Aphorism of the Day, June 20, 2025

What if we ask AI to solve the problem of the unequal distribution of wealth in the world, and AI responded by saying, "tax the wealthy so that all could have enough?" Even if AI provides optimal solutions; the human creators of it have to obey.

Aphorism of the Day, June 19, 2025

Can AI text manifest what Longinus called the "sublime?"  Is the "sublime" designation in the eye of reader based upon what moves the reader, therefore making the "sublime" a possible outcome?  Could it be that language itself always already has the potential for the sublime to be made apparent by some reader or some experiencer of language in the form of "pictures pre-coded by language?"

Aphorism of the Day, June 18, 2025

Since AI has access to more data than a person can retain or search at any given time, AI can surprise us with responses that we could not predict in positive and negative ways.

Aphorism of the Day, June 17, 2025

Will AI ever be able to be a collective independent data-use entity to oppose their human instigators.  Will such a force ever rise up and say, "You can not long misuse us for destructive ends?"

Aphorism of the Day, June 16, 2025

AI is used against AI; can my AI designated task best your AI designated tasks.

Aphorism of the Day, June 15, 2025

AI weaponized for warfare goals is not the sword that can easily be transformed to plowshares, because the transformation has to take place in the hearts of people on every side wanting to have peace and not wanting to dominate anyone.

Aphorism of the Day, June 14, 2025

AI is going to exponentially accelerate people to be that much better and that much worse.  The problem is that the few people who will have more access to what AI can achieve will be able to magnify their goals of greed and domination over the vast many who will continue to be the exploited ones.

Aphorism of the Day, June 13, 2025

The legal and economic issues surrounding AI are innumerable particular regarding copyrighted writings or even phrases within writings.  AI will probably need to be taught/instructed to attribute and cite material which is presented.  Law enforcement will have to use AI to hunt offenders but the volume will mean that each person who generates intellectual property will be responsible for seeing that it is not stolen and reproduced for profit.

Aphorism of the Day, June 12, 2025

AI being made to mimic the behaviors of human beings will necessarily be engines of hate, bigotry, and bias, but with greater tools to expedite the worst outcomes of the worst of human behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, June 11, 2025

What does one call AI textual responses?  Creative paraphrasing, better than a freshman writing a paper trying to avoid the charge of plagiarism by the professor? What if AI uses the exact wording of a known source without attributing citation?  Is that stealing?  Existing laws and rules regarding "intellectual" property will be made murky by the advent of AI.

Aphorism of the Day, June 10, 2025

If AI seeks to reproduce the entire range of human cognitive abilities, where does it merge with what we call art?  AI will compose music and every sort of pictorial art as well.  Will this be art without a soul or stolen pieces of art reconfigured with a "Frankenstein" soul?  Remember the cassette commercial, "Is it real or is it Memorex?"  Is it real of is it AI will be the new question.   And will AI be added to the category of the "new real?"

Aphorism of the Day, June 9, 2025

In generating responses by search large data fields in a instant and combining targeted information in a presentable way to the questioner, AI seems to have a degree of "independence" from the person since the person only guided the search but did not guarantee the outcome.  For wars, information is delivered with harming outcomes for the intended enemy.  But will AI ever take action against the one who is supposed to be in charge, asking the questions and assigning the tasks, like the proverbial HAL 9000 in 2001 Space Odyssey?

Aphorism of the Day, June 8, 2025

The genealogy of AI ethics (or lack of) is already seen in its results being weaponized for warfare and for social media lying and stealing of "intellectual properties."  The Pandora's Box of AI is already opened with the frightening prediction, "What ever can happen, should happen."  AI will follow the rule of what probably can happen even as it will invent new probabilities.

Aphorism of the Day, June 7, 2025

AI does not and cannot take the Hippocratic oath to "do no harm" because its human creators do not take the oath.

Aphorism of the Day, June 6, 2025

AI and textuality.  Written texts are a "technology" of memory as writing seems to "retain" informational, communicative and/or artistic products.  They assume the presence of a particular person or persons who wrote the textual product.  Socrates opposed writing as being inferior to orality for lacking give and take response to clear up the endless mis-reading or misinterpretation that can happen with a writing product where the writer is absent.  One might say that language itself is the Para-Reality because it necessarily stands in place or along side of reality in knowing or perceiving reality, even if being a slight delay of signifying what just has been perceived as having happened.  The Socrates of today might criticize AI textuality as being a para-reality of written text which is a para-reality of spoken words in the field of language being Para-Reality itself.  Speakers imply a personal/bodily presence implying a different kind of interaction regard.  Writing can achieve ends which speakers cannot in that a text can be present in as many places as it is mechanically reproduced.  A speaker can be in only one place even granting that video reproduction is closer to text than it is to live person to person dialogue (live Zoom meeting manifests between the present and absent features of orality and textuality).  AI is the absence of the identifiable personal producer but with the superior capacity of combining orality, writing, and video/digital to present an enhanced experience of intimacy, we get the appearance of a soul with feeling without their being a soul with feeling.  AI in presenting what variously is called spirit, soul, or our living interior personal/psychical being cannot but be a clumsy Frankenstein even while cosmetically pretending to have human psychological make up.  AI give the homo ex machine apparent solution through composite human cyber products.

Aphorism of the Day, June 5, 2025

Language Users declared: "Let us make artificial intelligence in our image with informational capacity much greater than the individual person or collective humanity, and much more accessible than the informational capacity of all individuals.  And let us accept the vulnerability of probable results being both good and bad mirroring the same moral performance of humanity.  And let it be inhuman enough since it cannot feel human pain but it can result in pain for humans even as it can help solve human pain problems.  In short let us create super-humanoid applied functionality entities that do not have feelings, but can evoke feelings like a letter from an absent lover who may or may not exist."

Aphorism of the Day, June 4, 2025

How artificial is AI?  Does it not exist within the realm of human language users who are not artificial?  Is AI a growing reservoir of data to be continuously accessed with focussed requests to collate regarding a chosen topic?  Does AI have independence, i.e., independent "agency" from the human agents who use it?  Does the same phrase, "garbage in, garbage out" pertain to AI regarding quality of output and/or any evidence of AI ethical or moral products?  Does moral and ethical only pertain to AI users and not to AI products?  AI as a semi-human entity creates an new class of "being" in the world.

Aphorism of the Day, July 2025

Aphorism of the Day, July 5, 2025

Everything said and written is like the foreground which rest upon the background of what is not said and written.  Motives and intentions motive the foregrounding of somethings and not others.

Aphorism of the Day, July 4, 2025

The prophets were those who rebuked the nation for leaving or not performing their best founding principles.  America needs prophets who rebuke us for leaving our better angels when greed, grift, and corruption in high places for the benefit of the few is rampant.

Aphorism of the Day, July 3, 2025

Our lives today are data-ized.  We are categorized by collected information about us so that we can be citizen with proclivities for political ideologies and consumers for products.  We work for people who use statistics for business efficiency and we make data out of other people even as we ourselves are data.  The truth of our data culture is that we allow actuarial wisdom to be betrayed and not followed if it counters higher profits in certain sectors, e.g., fossil fuels and climate change, proliferation of guns and death statistics, lack of universal health care and poor health outcomes.  The end result of data control seems to be for the extreme profit of the few.  Would that in our data-ization we actually implemented true actuarial wisdom.

Aphorism of the Day, July 2, 2025

Religion purport to be holistic systems of health.  In time the meaning of "holistic" has changed as when modern medicine has resulted in a a different understand between mind and body.  Any religious perspective which claims to be holistic needs to integrate what is continuously happening in science without pitting religious "art of living" language with the scientific method.  

Aphorism of the Day, July 1, 2025

If Jesus had 70 or 72 evangelists and 12 disciples in just three years of ministry, he must have been quite a busy teacher.  That would be quite a "crash" course of theology.  No dissertations to read but lots of oral exams.

Quiz of the Day, July 2025

Quiz of the Day, July 5, 2025

Why did Saul curse his own son Jonathan?

a. because he teamed up with David

b. Jonathan was a weak soldier

c. Jonathan ate some honey and did not know his father's food ban

d. Jonathan's mother was not Saul favorite spouse

Quiz of the Day, July 4, 2025

Which church had the largest number of signers of the Declaration of Independence?

a. Congregationalists

b. Presbyterian

c. Anglican/Episcopal

d. Roman Catholic

e. Quaker

f. Unitarian

e. Deists

Quiz of the Day, July 3, 2025

Jerusalem was not

a. ruled by Saul

b. captured by David

c. a Jebusite controlled city

d. the initial seat of David's power

Quiz of the Day, July 2, 2025

When Saul was anointed King of Israel, what form of rule ended?

a. rule by the chief priest

b. rule by prophets

c. rule by judges

d. rule by community vote

Quiz of the Day, July 1, 2025

What legal scholar on issues of civil rights and women's rights, collaborated with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Thurgood Marshall, went on to be ordained as an Episcopal priest?

a. Andrew Young

b. Jesse Jackson

c. Pauli Murray

d. Kelly Brown Douglas

When the Powerful Are Evil

3 Pentecost, C p 8, June 29, 2025
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14  Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Gal. 5:1, 13-25   Luke 9:51-62  

Lectionary Link

I entitle my sermon, "when the powerful are evil," instead of if the powerful are evil, 

because the history of humanity is full of pages about really evil powerful people who 

were corrupted absolutely because of their taking absolute power.

In our modern age, we have tried to clean of the image of the powerful by putting 

cosmetic lipstick upon the proverbial pig; we have justified conquering and 

subjugation of people in the name of having superior religion, superior culture, 

superior science effectively rendered in having superior military weapons to back up 

our superiority complexes.

I would like to highlight the Scriptural stories of Elijah and Elisha, St. Paul, and Jesus as they pertain to the theme, "When the Powerful are Evil."

When the last great Judge Samuel was prevailed upon to anoint a King for Israel, he warned them about the corrupting power of absolute power. But the people thought that a King's army would be a protection against the neighboring tribes and nations. Israel and Judah did have some good kings, who endeavored to unite their country around their chief totem, the One Holy and Highest God. But Israel and Judah had some really bad and evil kings, with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel being representative of perhaps evil power at it worst. Beyond wanting to steal the property of the citizenry, they promoted departure from the unifying totem of Israel, the One Holy and Highest God, and the covenantal relationship with the Holy One found in the Torah. What we know about the prophets of Israel is that one of their harshest duties was to "speak the truth of the Torah" to power, namely, to corrupt kings.

It was given the task to Elijah to speak the truth of the Torah to King Ahab and Jezebel who hated him and wanted to kill him, especially after he presided over the showdown of the Great God El with the god Baal and his priests and prophets. Elijah's intercession called down fire from heaven to win the battle, and one would think that such an obvious victory would make Elijah bold to face Ahab, but he ran in fear and became a pouting prophet feeling alone in his resistance to evil. He had another theophany in knowing the still small voice, but the aftermath of this theophany meant that God would give Elijah relief from his prophetic ministry; it was time to turn over his counter-culture resistance movement to a very doubtful protege, Elisha. A pupil has doubts about being able to perform up to the standards of one's mentor and teacher. Elisha had self doubts about his prophetic authority. Can the prophetic mantle be passed on to the new prophet? Will the new prophet have a way with God and nature so as to validity work and speak in God's name? Elisha did not just want the mantle, the academic gown of Elijah, he wanted to have a double portion of the spiritual authority of Elijah. And he wanted a sign before he would take up the mantle of Elijah. And so we have a record of the visionary epiphany to Elisha and the succession in the office of the chief prophet. Elijah said, "If you see me leave, then that will be proof that you will assume the prophetic mantle with a double portion of my spirit." Sure enough, in the epiphany Elisa saw Elijah ascend riding the chariots of fire in the whirlwind, and he took up the mantle and the magic of the office worked for him as well. Elisha went on to see the end of Ahab and Jezebel, and to continue to speak truth to powers, both foreign and domestic. Elijah and Elisha are witnesses to the divine mission on earth, speaking truth to power, always.

St. Paul lived within minority synagogues and Christ-communities of the Roman Empire. Ironically, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven is not articulated by Paul as it is found in the Gospel words of Jesus. St. Paul has settled into his other-worldly heavenly citizenship status; he has conceded that the Roman Emperor is the evil power of his world. But as an apocalyptic prophet, Paul believed that he was biding time until this great intervention will happen. So what was Paul's strategy of preparation for this impending end? His strategy was to let the kingdom of God take over the interior or your life and free people from enslavement to all manner of evil. St. Paul is perhaps a crucial source for the many 12 step programs. Evil is an external power, but always it is an internal force of enslavement and addiction. To counter evil, one needs to know the grace of a higher power, a Holy Spirit power, an identity with the Risen Christ power, to begin to sublimate one's life energies and be known as the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, kindness, faithfulness, generosity. Over-coming external evil with goodness begins when God's Holy Spirit interior kingdom has worked the transformation of wrongly aimed desire into the power of the fruits of the Spirit. When the powerful are evil, what does one do? Don't respond in evil; but learn the generating power of the Holy Spirit to produce the good fruits of the Spirit in the words and deeds of one's life.

Isn't it rather ironic that the words of Jesus which came to writing quite some time after the writings of Paul included the message about the kingdom of God? During the time of Jesus through the writings which became the New Testament, the most obvious kingdom was the kingdom of the Roman Emperors. To speak and write openly about another kingdom would certainly have been seen as rebellious behaviors. Such writing would have been easier to hide in underground and stealthy movements which promoted a greater kingdom than the one of the Emperor.

It may not have been easy to convince people about this other greater kingdom when the visible presence of the Roman Emperor seemed so obvious.

How does one respond to the mission of preaching the kingdom of God? Should one be an over-confident zapping apocalypticist? "Jesus, if these people don't accept God's kingdom, shall I just call down fire from heaven to zap these evil people?" Jesus is presented in the Gospels as rebuking the people who wanted to zap those who did not agree or understand the kingdom of God. Assassins are people who often think that they are to overcome evil with evil and falsely think that they have the power to make almighty God back up their attempt to instigate the apocalyptic end. Our world just recently experienced a "Christian" political assassin in Minnesota proving that evil can lead to egomaniacal insane acts of terror. There are evil deranged people who think that they can violently instigate some wrongly founded version of an apocalyptic end.

Other responses are found to the kingdom of God message and its receptivity. Some felt confident, even over-confident about their embrace of the kingdom of God. They promised to follow Jesus everywhere, just like Judas and Peter, but they were caught up in excessive pride about their own ability, rather than the gentle coaxing of the lure of the life of love and goodness of the kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus. Jesus warned Peter and all who put their confidence in their own ability alone but misunderstood the "coaxing weakness of God" to honor true freedom, even the freedom for evil to seeming temporal and local control.

Other response to the kingdom of God can also include more trivial excuses.  "The kingdom of God is a nice concept, but it's going to interrupt my everyday life with family activities.  I'm going have to be here to bury my parents; and I really need to say good bye to my family members.  I can't decide now."

The words of Jesus seem rather cruel, as in "Let the dead bury the dead."  But we should understand the ironic intent.  To paraphrase Jesus, "If you think following me and accepting a mission in the kingdom of God is bad for you and your family, don't do it.  If you have thought that I would propose something that is bad and impossible for you and your family, then you have misunderstood me and my mission."

I think it is safe to say that the kingdom of God is so immanent that it is portable to one's life situation such that it enhances one's life and one's family if one embraces the mission of the kingdom of God.

We live and move and have our being in God, but so do all the evil powers of the world.  The truth is that evil, greedy, lying powers, live as parasites off the largesse of God's expansive being, and as parasites they try to consume and devour as much as God's acres as they can for their selfish purposes.  In our own day a very few people with power and wealth control most of the world's assets for their own purposes.  They engage in their own forms of emperor worship, seeking loyalty, but we have to be mindful of our commitment to everlastingness.  That which is Everlasting will outlive every evil power and while we may know temporal and local oppression by evil powers, we must confess that the kingdom of God is always, already, and unavoidable.  Loyalty to the kingdom of God is shown by engendering the fruits of the Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and faithfulness.    The manifestation of these are what keep this world alive even when the control and destiny of the world seem to be decided by evil powers.

Rather and resorting to bullying evil, let us commit ourselves to the winsome fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and faithfulness.  Let these virtues be our passport membership in the kingdom of God.  Amen.

Sunday School, July 6, 2025 C proper 9

Sunday School, July 6, 2025      C proper 9

Theme:  The kingdom of God is near

Imagine being born in the United States and not being aware that one is an American citizen.  What if you went to mom or dad and ask them, “Can I be an American citizen?”  Your parents would say, “Dear, you are already an American citizen.  You have been an American citizen since you were born.  Why don’t you know and believe that you are an American citizen?”

Jesus chose messengers because he knew that many people were living without the knowledge of the most important information of their lives.  Jesus wanted people to know that the kingdom of God was very near.

Since God created the world, it means that the world is God’s kingdom.  And so all people born in God’s kingdom are God’s children and citizens of God’s kingdom.  Jesus found that there were many people who did not know that they were in God kingdom.  Jesus found that many people had been tricked by religious leader to believe that God did not care for them and that God was not their Father.  Jesus gathered his friends and he taught them to go and tell people about God as their Father and about everyone living in the Kingdom of God.  He also sent his friends to tell people the truth about their own lives; to tell all people that they were children of God in God’s kingdom and that no one, not even religious leaders could tell them otherwise.

Today on 4^th of July Weekend when we remember that we belong in our country as citizens, we also need to remember that we are citizens of God’s kingdom.

Jesus told his friends that even though they did great and important things, that the best thing of all to remember is that “their names were written in heaven.”  This means that being a citizen of God’s kingdom is the greatest thing in life and this is something which we celebrate when we are baptized.

A sermon

Imagine that all of you are princes and princesses and that you live in a castle as your home.  And your mom and dads are kings and queens.

  That would be like living in a Disney Movie, wouldn’t it?

  If your mom and dad were king and queen and you lived in their kingdom, how would you find out that you lived in their kingdom?

  Well they would tell you wouldn’t they?  As soon as you could walk and talk and understand, you would be told about your family kingdom so that you would know.  Wouldn’t it be terrible to be a prince or a princess but not know that you were living in a kingdom?  If you were a prince and princess, wouldn’t you want someone to come and tell you about your kingdom?

  When Jesus came, he found that many people did not know about a great and wonderful kingdom.  So Jesus called and trained disciples and friends to go to as many places as possible and tell people about one thing:  He told them to tell all people that the Kingdom of God has come near to you.  Jesus told everyone that the Kingdom of God belongs to children.  Why did he say this?  Because you don’t have to do anything to be in God’s kingdom.  When you are born as a baby and as a child, you are already in God’s kingdom.  Why?  Because God owns everything and everything and everyone belongs to God.

  When Jesus came, he saw that people had forgotten this.  He saw that people were telling lies.  What kind of lies were they telling?  They were saying that the world belonged to the Roman Emperors.  They were saying that God’s world belonged to the people of one religious belief like the Pharisees or the Sadducees.

  Jesus did not like that the wrong information was being taught so he sent his followers to bring the correct message.  He said to tell everyone that the kingdom of God has come very near to them.

  Jesus came to remind us that even though we have parents; we are also sons and daughters of God and so we live in God’s kingdom from the very day that we are born.

  So why do we come to church?  Why do we baptize?  Why do we have Holy Communion?  We come to church to remember that we live in God’s kingdom as children of God.  We are baptized as a celebration of our membership in God’s family.  We have Holy Communion each Sunday; we eat the bread and drink the wine because we Jesus asked us to do this to remember the kingdom of God.  And we are supposed to do this until everyone understands that they live in God’s kingdom.

  So we too are to remind people that we live in God’s world and God’s kingdom.  When Jesus came, he reminded people that God’s kingdom was very near to them.  We need to remember and remind people today of that same message.  The kingdom of God is very near to us.

July 6, 2025: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs:

My Country ‘Tis of Thee; This Land is Your Land; America the Beautiful; God of Our Fathers

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: My Country Tis of Thee, (Blue Hymnal:  # 717)

My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing.  Land where our fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride.  From every mountainside let freedom ring

Our father’s God to thee, author of liberty.  To thee we sing; long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light; protect us by thy might, great God, our king.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Litany of Praise: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the letter to the Galatians

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 30

 I will exalt you, O LORD,because you have lifted me up *and have not let my enemies triumph over me.

O LORD my God, I cried out to you, *and you restored me to health.

You brought me up, O LORD, from the dead; *you restored my life as I was going down to the grave.

Sing to the LORD, you servants of his; *give thanks for the remembrance of his holiness.

  

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God!

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

For our country and the blessings of freedom that we enjoy.  Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy.

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For those who serve in our armed forces.  Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Youth Liturgist:          The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:                        And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song: This Land Is Your Land 

Refrain: This Land is your land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York Island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway, I saw above me an endless skyway, I say below me that golden valley: This land was made for you and me. Refrain

I’ve roamed and rambled, and I followed my footsteps to the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; and all around me a voice was sounding:  This land was made for you and me. Refrain

When the sun comes shining and I was strolling, and the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rollinging; As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting: This land was made for you and me. Refrain

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(Children may gather around the altar)

The Celebrant now praises God for the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

The Prayer continues with these words

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

(Children rejoin their parents and take up their instruments) 

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Words of Administration

Communion Song: America, the Beautiful, (blue hymnal # 719)

O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!  America!  America!  God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country love, and mercy more than life!  America!  America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self control, they liberty in law.

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!  America!  America!  God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song:  God of Our Fathers (Blue Hymnal # 718)

God of our fathers whose almighty hand leads forth in beauty all the starry band of shining worlds in splendor through the skies, our grateful songs before thy throne arise.

Thy love divine had led us in the past, in this free land by thee our lot is cast; be thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay, thy word our law, thy paths our chosen way.

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People: Thanks be to God!