Saturday, February 28, 2015

Aphorism of the Day, February 2015

Aphorism of the Day, February 28, 2015

The church has always had to learn to find the glorious median between respecting the differences of people in affirming each person's gift and at the same time expressing a unified sameness of a paradigm so that different people can accomplish things together. A forced unity of an "empire church" quenches the gift of the Spirit to individuals, while if individuals believe spiritual innovation means simply "doing one's own thing" then chaos can ensue.  How can one express individual and gifted difference within the community processes of a unifying paradigm? How can the processes of a unifying paradigm accept and discern individual differences which may help to saturate and eventually change the nature of the "unifying" paradigm itself.  The group paradigm provides the framework for individuals to create and in reciprocity individual creativity can progressively change the paradigm even to the point of the birth of a new paradigm. The birth of Gentile Christianity out of a Christo-centric Judaism was perhaps the first major paradigm shift in the history of "Christianity." 

Aphorism of the Day, February 27, 2015 

By the time that Gospels were written, "take up my cross and follow me" as words of the oracle of the Risen Christ within the Gospel communities, had become an abbreviation for a spiritual process because the resurrection appearances of Christ and their reports had made the crucifixion from an awful event of capital punishment into a metaphor of spiritual transformation.  A disciple of Christ saw the death of Jesus as a power to die to unworthy things in the "psuche" or soul life and the resurrection was the power to perform the new acts of repentance, the "meta-noia," the after mind of the former state of mind from which one did unworthy things.  

Aphorism of the Day, February 26, 2015

We are enchanted by the possibility of people being able to predict the future.  Nostradamus still is a curiosity to many as are many astrologers who give people possible narratives for their future.  Knowing the future as actual and not as possible is often how it seems that  the New Testament writers regarded the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures or is it that we do not not understand that humanity through language has just so many limited topics such that we in the present eventually line up with a previous themes manifested in details of a former time and in identity exclaim "deja vu."  The interpretive methods of the New Testament writer involved aligning their current events with Hebrew Scripture topics and then declaring the former spirit involved in a previous event was somehow involved in a current event.  This dynamic remembering of the "spirit" behind a previous event recurring as the "spirit" behind a current event was the interpretative method of making sense of current events and it provided a providential narrative of hope in the lives of people.  We do the same thing today with some different rhetorical practices.  We align the present with past and know that the sameness of the present with past seems to make the past predicative while at the same time being completely new and different.

Aphorism of the Day, February 25, 2015

One person's heresy is another person's inspired innovation.  Did you ever consider early Christians as such liberals and reformers of Judaism that they went too far and were "excommunicated" by the leaders of synagogues who insisted that in compromising the ancient ritual aspects of Judaism, the core of Jewish practice would be compromised beyond recognition?  The innovators, particularly St. Paul wrote an apology for the many persons who could not become ritual Jews and yet followed the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus as a Jewish male and rabbi,  most likely performed the basic ritual practices of Judaism although he is presented like an ancient prophet in being a critic of "legalistic" Judaism and the ignoring the great laws of justice and compassion.  St. Paul, in order to avoid being seen as a heretic reformer, appealed to the pre-Israel and pre-Mosaic figure of Abraham as a father of faith to trace the spiritual lineage of Gentile Christians.  He was writing that the basic DNA of God in the human community is Spirit who can be known by all and is not limited to the particulars of one's cultural or religious coding received in one's upbringing.

Aphorism of the Day, February 24, 2015

From the Gospel accounts it is obvious that one of main issues of discussion, division and speculation was about the nature of the Messiah.  We in our modern area divide up entertainment, politics and religion and then import these kinds of specialized categories of life to the analysis of ancient cultures.  I would suggest that in the ancient cultures which did not have that much "total world knowledge" available, entertainment, politics and religion were more unified as every day subject matter.  Try to imagine the combination of hopes for someone like Superman as an ethical and religious hero whom everyone is hoping will show up and run the country.  If we bifurcate a "spiritual" Messiah from the political and entertaining aspirations for the superhero, we might fail to appreciate the Gospel contexts regarding the Messiah.

Aphorism of the Day, February 23, 2015

The writing of the historic past is art of making us feel like we were there when past events occurred but this is only a guise because when we live after an event we ask different kinds of questions about an event than the people who lived the event would have asked. When we read the various Gospels we are reading the layers of how the various Christ communities who were preaching about Jesus understood the significance of his life as it concerned the later comprised communities where the preaching was occurring.   So there are layers of anachronisms in the Gospels because the early Christ communities responsible for comprising the various Gospels believed that the Risen Christ was an oracle in their midst.  For the communities which were comprising the Gospels, the traditions of Jesus of Nazareth were being interpreted, edited and preached under the inspiration of the oracle of the Risen Christ in their midst.  The early churches did not see the applications of the oracles of Christ as being contradictory just different because different circumstances required different applied interpretations of the life of Jesus.

Aphorism of the Day, February 22, 2015

In a world where people of "faith" use their Holy Books to justify all manner of horrendous practices as well as really bad and incoherent and inconsistent thinking, it is interesting to note that in the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Satan tried to get Jesus to interpret Scripture wrongly.  Because the poetic Psalmist wrote about angels bearing someone up, Jesus was supposed to jump and defy gravity.  If we can be tricked into applying modern science methods of empirical verification to obvious aesthetic and artistic texts written to inspire us in the art of living, then one can use the Bible to promote all sorts of bad thinking and even harmful behaviors.  Our world suffers greatly from the harmful behaviors of people interpreting their Holy Books badly.

Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2015

Elijah's fast was for forty days.  Moses stayed on Mount Sinai for forty days.  Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days.  Rather than being literalists about chronological time, one should note that biblical writers used the number forty to denote "eventful time" or in Greek, "kairos" time.  In the function of the Gospels as spiritual manuals for initiates to the faith, each initiate returns to the temptation of Jesus to project upon it as one finds the Risen Christ as the Higher Power within to meet the current temptations in the life of the Christian initiate who is always already being initiated in the life of the Risen Christ.

Aphorism of the Day, February 20, 2015

During Lent it might be useful to think very small in terms of change and amendment of life.  The phrase "Rome was not built in a day but they were laying bricks" might be apropos. By setting fantasy goals of change one can get easily disappointed in early and often failure and the gap between the goal and the reality of actual behaviors too formidable.  Mustard seed faith is about performing the very small things which can add up to the formation of one's character and when character has become formed one has the acquired inclination to variegate performance of reforming deeds to many other areas of one's life.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 19, 2015

One can observe both a private and public season of Lent.  Join with the family of faith in the public commitments of the Lenten season, but each is invited to observe their own private Lenten season in the "closet space of one's life."  Plan actions of a different sort of discipline and tailor it to challenge one's own growth in excellence.  Someone's private Lenten goal was to do each day 10 things a day that he really did not want to do because their tedious and boring effects and when he committed to it, he found out by Easter that his procrastination had been dealt a blow.  Lent is the opportunity for each to undergo a simulated ordeal of one's own choosing and to complete this ordeal one will have faith muscles to bear the involuntary ordeals which come one's way.

Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2015

It is common for groups which share a mission to differentiate the kinds of things which they do with their communal time to provide variety and to stimulate excellence by changing routines.  Lent is something akin to "making a retreat" within one ordinary life schedule by doing some things differently as an individual and as a community.  One participates in this Lenten "retreat" as a way of solidarity with one's community and as an obligation to examine one's life practices and values to assess whether they are serving one's vision of excellence which one has for oneself and whether one is committed in sacrificial ways to one's faith community to bring excellence to the common mission.  Take time for value review during this season of Lent.


Aphorism of the Day, February 17, 2017

Shrove Tuesday is known now more for pancakes and the last day of the bacchanal Mardi Gras than it is for Shriving, a more commonly used word in the mid-1900's.  Making a confession, receiving absolution and a penance has been a religious obligation and by making it an obligation regulated by the clergy the practice was made "official" and probably became detached from the obvious anthropological soundness of the every day practice of confessing to one another, receiving forgiveness and practicing immediate amendment of life as one's penance.  It is not healthy for a community of people to "retain" the sins of each other just as it is not healthy to make the private criteria of "I'm not hurting anyone" as the significant justification for what one is doing.  Accepting that everything one does affects in some way the community of people means that confession, forgiveness and amendment of life are  the works and education in love towards a more just world.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2015

One's interior life can conjure up many moods and feelings and sometimes one wants to know the "cause" of why one feels the way in which one feels.  Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to "interpret" the cause of a feeling based upon what one has experienced with another person as a moment of slight or awkwardness.  It is important to avoid judgments about knowing precisely why one feels the way one feels at any given moment.  One can carry feelings of having been slighted from a previous situation into reacting unwittingly towards people in another situation.  Hyper-sensitivity can often lead to wrong interpretation and impute wrong motives to others who are clueless about one's interior dynamic.  The Psalmist prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O Lord."  Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."  Inside cleanliness perhaps is about learning to refrain from rushing to judgment about others and about oneself and having the ability to see "God" as the providence of all because conferring power of ultimate causation of all things being as they are is to confer too much power to others and ourselves.

Aphorism of Day, February 15, 2015

You and I may have favorite phases to observe in the life cycle of butterflies, a cycle which we call metamorphosis.  Having favorite phases should not keep us from an appreciation and acceptance and even fascination with the entire cycle.  The Gospels present us with phases of the life of Jesus Christ which correspond to the spiritual discipline, the spiritual metamorphosis of the life of risen Christ being born within us and growing within us. We may prefer the birth and resurrection of Christ over the death of Christ and his lonely temptations in the wilderness but in faith we have to integrate the full cycle of spiritual metamorphosis in our lives.  Remember this on the day when we read about the Transfiguration of Christ.  Transfiguration is the word that is used to translate the Greek word from which we get metamorphosis.  We are always already in spiritual metamorphosis. By accepting the Gospel we can aid this process of spiritual metamorphosis because it is better to integrate and accept this process rather than having the sense that we are forced into this process and not having a clue about what is happening to us.  The Gospel provides us with a program to understand and appreciate and abet the process of spiritual metamorphosis in one's life.  It is happening whether one knows it or not, so it is better to seek wisdom about the process to which we are already unconsciously pre-committed.

Aphorism of Day, February 14, 2015

On Valentine's Day one could quote the Belle of Amherst, "That love is all there is, is all we know of love..."  Or one could quote the Epistle of John, "God is love..."  or the Gospel of John, "For God so loved the world that God gave....."   Valentine's Day has become the most popular day to celebrate the human experience that is called "love."  Love is perhaps the "most natural drug" of the universe in its attractive effects.  We have such a day of love because enough people have come under the addictive effects of love to make them comport themselves in specific and intentional and committed ways toward another person for "varying" periods of duration.  Sadly, specific relationship love often ends the experience of the repetition of loving acts, even while the memory of the profound magnetism and gravitational pull towards another is never lost.  Such a memory invites consistent repetition of loving acts or people without someone to draw from them such projected desire may live in the forlornness of something akin to an edited phrase of Led Zeppelin poetry, of always "looking for the one who has never been born."   As we confess that God is love, we are confessing that there is a great magnetic force which will always keep everything together, even if we cannot always experience being together as compatible or mutually beneficial matches.  Since, God is love, we are all together whether we want to be or not and so in accepting togetherness we accept that justice is the work of love in honoring the differences which exist in the Togetherness of Love.

Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2015

We can read the Gospels wrongly as modern journalistic eye-witness accounts of the life of Jesus or we can read them as spiritual manuals for a growing movement in the Roman Empire at the end of the first century.  As spiritual manuals, and rather private to their communities, they used the re-presentation of events in the life of Jesus to correspond with the transformational events in the lives of Christian devotees who had been initiated into the process of the life and light of the risen Christ being born into one's being and growing as a metamorphosis of one's life within the church as a family of support within cultural settings where they often faced opposition.

Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2015

Alain de Botton in his analysis of news reporting claims that "artistic" presentation is important in whether people will pay attention to the news.  Apparently people don't like just plain "boring" facts.  This may disappoint the more scientific sanguine mind with the guise of "just the facts ma'am." Mcluhan told us that the "medium" is the message and that supports the irony that lots of people prefer to get their news through comedians who actually satirize the "official" news presenters.  The goal of science seems to be to squeeze the "aesthetic" presentation out of everything for "just the facts" purposes.  We pretend to buy this as the most profound truth criteria even as we reject it in the practice of how we take on most of the information of our lives.  Fundamentalists take the wonderfully aesthetic presentation of the salvation history present in the Bible and try to present it as modern "just the facts" kind of material.  It does not work for mature faith to present wonderful aesthetic matter as scientific description.  Persons who know and are honest about discursive differences found in the Bible, can have faith and read it too in the Bible, like having one's cake and eating it too.

Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2015

Elevation and light are used as metaphors for inner religious experience.  During the season of the Epiphany, Light is a metaphor for the effect of Jesus Christ in the lives of the people of the world.  The Transfiguration climax of the season of the Epiphany is an event of light whereby the inner light of the divine makes the face of Jesus to be but a filament.  Just as the Sun is the external light of the world, we look for interior light as a source of divine light within us to bring us to the benefits of this interior shining, namely, wisdom to practice love and justice in our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2015

Why do we use the phrase "mountain top" experience?  In the experience with external landscapes those who have made treks to hills and mountain tops know the exhilaration of the panorama and the details of everything which looks small get merged into the grandeur of a Macroscopic Oneness and one has the wonder of being one who gazes upon things seemingly fitting together because one is above the fray of witnessing the details of microscopic competition.  Everything seems to fit together in the grand view.  We take the external elevation of a mountain top and make it a metaphor for an interior experience because we designate peak experiences and other events of euphoria as hierarchically superior.  Great events recorded in the Bible happened on mountain tops, the giving of the law on Sinai and the Transfiguration on perhaps Mount Tabor (?).  Our lives are transformed and transfigured by the insights and inspirations of our peak experiences.  The Christian discipline involves intentional practices of putting ourselves in the place of knowing peak experiences so that we can ever surpass ourselves in excellence in a future state and learn to teach others the way to their own peak experiences.

Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2015

The modern scientific method which limited valid scientific meanings to events which could only be empirically verified or at least admitting to be open to future falsification threw religionists into a defensive tizzy.  When modern science influenced news writing and historical writing then only events which complied with empirically verifiable events were regarded to be true and meaningful.  Events which could not comply with empirical verification were called myths and myths came to mean in a pejorative sense, untrue or meaningless or childish and for weak minds.  The writer of the letter of Peter states about Jesus, "We did not follow cleverly devised myths/fables..."  This is a pejorative use of the word "myth" and is a way of saying that the experience of Jesus is not like the myths of the Greeks.  Biblical apologists need to quit being defensive about the nature of biblical literature in the face of modern science and modern news reporting, unless such apologists are trying to defend the Bible as being exactly same kind of meaningful literature as the language found in a scientific law or an eye-witnessed event which could be corroborated by thousands of viewers in the very same way.  Accepting the various kinds of writing styles and art forms present in the Bible within many different contexts does not mean that the truths of biblical meanings cannot be held at the same time as the truths of scientific meanings.  A scientist can enjoy the writings of Dr. Seuss by not confusing and conflating genres.  Why would a person of faith want to sacrifice the unique and personal ways in which a transformational literature has made an impact upon one's life?  One needs only to feel defensive about biblical literature if one's resulting lifestyle has not been productive of sound reasoning, love and justice.  People who reject the faith of religious communities mostly do so because they have been exposed to such people behaving and thinking badly.

Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2015

"I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some."  This sounds like the words of a chameleon politician willing to say and do anything to get a vote, but it is the words of the most famous apostles to the Gentiles.  To save someone means to offer the best health for someone's soul that one has to offer.  If one wants to give out the best that one has, one has to check one's ego at the door on things that are non-essential such as matters of style, habits and taste.  Sometimes Christians are offensive to others because they wear their pieties on their sleeves as the criteria for even approaching them.  Calling one's mole hills, mountains gives people nothing to climb, only something to stamp on and ignore.  Winning friends for how one wants to give them one's Gospel=Good News may mean that one does not place so many barriers of individual taste in the way as censoring guards to the gateway of one's approval.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2015

Christians articulate different nuances of salvation.  Some group emphasize the notion of "final salvation" or being saved from eternal damnation in the afterlife.  They believe that a funeral is the perfect occasion to "scare" people into the salvation of eternal life.  No one can have empirical verification of the afterlife and yet we know that imaginations of subjective immortality can influence how we live with faith now especially in accepting that the gift of hope is not just some kind of cruel hoax.  Other Christians prefer to emphasize the more holistic notion of salvation as the cradle to grave quest for ever self-surpassing excellence.  Social salvation means it is not a selfish individual quest but individual salvation involves adding excellence to the lives of as many others that we can.  Individual salvation cannot be divorced from getting the basics of healthy necessities of life to as many people as possible.  Being so focused on individual final salvation as the main event can result in a callous neglect of letting lots of people in this world go to hell in the hand basket of their impoverished life circumstances.  If final salvation does not start with holistic excellence in this life then a correction is needed to integrate the imaginations of hope in the afterlife with actual events of progressive experiences of salvation for us in this life.

Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2015

Why is the placebo effect so important in health?  Probably because the attitude of faith is an important complement to all other health treatments.  Faith arouses the native grace of one's spiritual energy so that one's interior forces provide the orientation to health.  "They may have just been sugar pills, but I still got better."   Healing within the community of faith takes into account the energies of the unseen which are not revealed on x rays.  The energies of faith counter the forces of stress which is often the "if I don't know what it is, I can blame stress" diagnosis of medical scientists.

Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2015

We have gotten used to defining ourselves by the statistical "normal" distribution often called the bell shaped curve.  Statistical approximation is highly dependent upon how one defines the coordinates.  So based upon what one is defining for identity factors one may fall in the fat or "normal" part of the curve in some areas of identity and in the "narrow" edges in other areas of identity.  As one cries out for uniqueness one finds that one is tethered to humanity by having to come to someone else's statistical approximation of self definition.  One might think that one can avoid being another statistic by avoiding people implying that if one is not seen one is not a statistic.  It could be that creativity arises in the quest for a sort of solipsistic uniqueness even though as soon as one shares the products of of uniqueness, one becomes liable to be data of statistical approximation of defining humanity.  The future of the fullness of God means that God will come to language in the endless statistical approximations of those who live out the divine image.  So God's icon-bearers help bring to language God's own becoming known by us.

Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2015

Does one have to be inspired to believe or does one believe in order to receive inspiration? Or is this a "what-comes-first-chicken-or-the-egg?" type of question?  Prepare yourself for inspiration simply by looking intently.  Native beauty in the form of a tree or the spider web. Native beauty in the brilliant ordinary of people.  Part of the deception of our virtual media is to regard their special effects exaggerations to set the hierarchy of our beauty values. One can begin to let the "special effects" do the seeing for us and we inadvertently lose the ability to see glorious native beauty until we perhaps make a pilgrimage to the ocean to be overwhelmed by its sheer grandness.  Sheer grandness is all around us if we can learn to see with the child-like wonder lenses of the kingdom of God.  Go forth and see everything for the first time, again today.

Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2015

The inner life is the realm of the principalities and powers referred to by St. Paul.  Our inner lives have to be "colonized" and we assume that one of the effects of civilization and culture is this process of colonization of the interior forces.  Chief in colonization is the creative use of language and we first need to understand how language in our unintentional and passive taking on of the definitions of everything in our lives have left us with some automatic repetitional patterns which we discover to be unhealthy controlling impulses resulting in us acting out in ways in which we wish we didn't.  Interdiction of automatic controlling scripts can only occur when we discover, acknowledge and name them and we have ourselves revealed more clearly to ourselves as we are exposed to model people who present to us new authorial potential in the re-colonization of our interior lives.  Jesus as the "interior ghostbuster" is the model of one with the charismatic effect to impact the interior lives of others.  We are to develop the charismatic effects of our baptismal ministries to help each other attain ever increasing soundness of mind, emotion, body and spirit.  Let us open the gates of our interior lives to be colonized by the charismatic effects of Jesus and learn how to be people who help people take new authorial control of their own interior lives.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2015

When conquering people take over territory they often rename the places which they conquer.  Colonists did this in America, the Romans did it as did the people of Israel when they conquered the land of the Canaanites.  Sometimes the colonists made faint efforts to transliterate indigenous name places into their own languages.  In the Bible story there is also an interior colonization which takes place; in Hebrew Scriptures the God El attains the head position in the heavenly court of the gods of the conquered peoples.  In the arising of the Christian movement, its success was first an "inside" job long before it became the preferred religion of the Roman Empire.  The ancient wise man Socrates had an inner spiritual guide called a "daimon."  In the time of Jesus this same term became synonymous with "unclean" spirits who disrupted as personal and controlling and chaotic impulses within a person.  St. Paul theology of "principalities and powers" was presented clearly in the ministry of Jesus in some Gospels when he as King of the Interior has the authority to recolonize and rename the interior life and cast out the old rulers of the interior life.   Modern science, pharmacology, and psychology have recolonized the interior life by naming the cause of interior forces as events of genetics, physiology and traumatic events in the development of a person.  Yogic traditions which have come West, re-colonize the interior in terms of energy zones or chakras which need to be "aligned" through yogic practices.  Chinese Taoists have colonized the interior life in terms of life force of "chi."  The post-Enlightenment re-invention of the "individual" as a "free agent" due to education and participatory democracies means that today an individual has access to an entire global smorgasbord of names for the interior of one's life.  Each is called to be a "manager" in how one uses models of configuring what is happening within oneself.  Probably the determining criteria is, "what works."  If pragmatic criteria is what determines, then pragmatic criteria also has to be defined.  For some, "what works" means whatever makes me wealthy or happy.  It would seem that we should define the pragmatic criteria in terms of love, justice and common good and hope that happiness and having enough attends love, justice and the common good.  Go forth and colonize your interior life today, carefully.

Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2015

One can find in the life of Jesus a study in power and authority.  Power can be understood as the ability to do and all of the gradations of the energy used in doing.  Authority can be the power which is defined based upon the quality of the relationship with the one whom one perceives to have power.  Power can be negative and coercive as expressed in the notions of suppression and oppression.  Power can be miraculous as in the experience of the grace of a higher power in being freed from addictive impulses.  Power and authority have the nuances of the nature of the trusting relationship between the one with authority and power and the one receiving the results of power and authority.  People can submit to authority through the ignorance caused by misinformation given by one who presents oneself as being a reputable person.  The authority of Jesus is what one would call charismatic authority based upon empathetic active power towards the recipient of his powerful and healing acts.  Jesus did authoritative and powerful acts to people for their own health and benefit and not to trick them to join some campaign.  The best power and authority of all is done from the motive of genuine care for the recipients of power and authority.  This kind of power is non-political and non-commercial because it involves the power of empathy of teaching people to become their own true selves.

Daily Quiz, February 1, 2015

Daily Quiz, February 28, 2015 

The Samaritans were a people who had a holy book.  What do we call it?

a. The Samaritan Torah
b. The Ugaritic Scroll
c. The Mishneh 
d. The Gerizim Scrolls


 Daily Quiz, February 27, 2015

In Anglicanism what poet, hymn-writer is known for being the quintessential parish priest or parson?

a. John Donne
b. George Herbert
c. Jeremy Taylor
d. William Law

Daily Quiz, February 26, 2015

Who was the Pharisee who was told he had to be "born again" and as a literalist wondered how he could get back into his mother's womb?

a. Joseph
b. Nicodemus
c. Levi
d. Lazarus

Daily Quiz, February 25, 2015

Why were there two sets of of "Ten Commandments?"

a. Moses, angered by the sight of the Golden Calf, destroyed the first set
b. two were needed, one in the tabernacle and one outside
c. they were written in two different languages
d. one was a "lighter" version to travel in the ark of the covenant

Daily Quiz, February 24, 2015 

According to Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, what was the criteria for choosing the person to replace Judas Iscariot?

a. he had to know the Scriptures
b. he had to be from Israel
c. he had to have walked with Jesus from his baptism to his Ascension
d. he had to know the other eleven disciples

Daily Quiz, February 23, 2015

Church traditions from Irenaeus asserts that Polycarp was a disciple of what apostle?

a. James, son of Zebedee
b. John, son of Zebedee
c. Peter
d. Thomas


Daily Quiz, February 22, 2015

Which of the following would be apt definition for Satan or the Devil?

a. the adversary
b. the accuser 
c. the liar
d. the trickster
e. all of the above


Daily Quiz, February 21, 2015

College and University Roman Catholic religious centers for students have often been named after what famous convert from Anglicanism?

a. G.K. Chesterton
b. Dorothy Day
c. John Henry Newman
d. Thomas Merton

Daily Quiz, February 20, 2015

Which of the following is not true of the famous African American abolitionist?

a. he was an escaped slave who was "redeemed" by friends later in his career
b. he criticized Abraham Lincoln for being late to support emancipation
c. he praised Abraham Lincoln as the greatest president
d. he was against African Americans serving in the Union armies
e. he was the first American American vice presidential candidate

Daily Quiz, February 19, 2015

Which of the following in the Bible does not have the number 40 associated with it?

a. temptation of Jesus
b. number of days and nights of rain in the Flood
c. number of years of wandering in the wilderness
d. age of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they got married
e. number of days that Elijah fasted on Mount Horeb

Daily Quiz, February 18. 2015

Aside from the freedom to fast from anything at anytime how many fast days can be found in the Book of Common Prayer?

a. 54
b. 2
c. 12
d. 7


Daily Quiz, February 17, 2015

Janani Luwum was an archbishop and a modern day martyr from what country?

a. Nigeria
b. The Sudan
c. Uganda
d. Chad

Daily Quiz, February 16, 2015

Why is Shrove Tuesday associated with the eating of Pancakes?

a. French Crepes became Pancakes in the U.K.
b. Pancakes was a way of using up the rich foods of milk, eggs and sugar before Lent
c. It was ordered by an Archbishop whose brother sold pancakes
d. It was the food of peasant and easy to make

Daily Quiz, February 15, 2015 

Which of the following is not a Lenten custom?

a. refraining from the use of "Alleluia"
b. using purple as the liturgical color
c. fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
d. saying the Great Litany
e. replacing "Alleluia" with "Gloria in excelsis"

Daily Quiz, February 14, 2015

What saints have "bumped" the legendary St. Valentine from his popular calendar date in the Episcopal calendar of saints, aka, "Holy Women, Holy Men?"

a. Lydia and Dorcas
b. Peter and Paul
c. Cyril and Methodius
d. Ridley and Latimer 

Daily Quiz, February 13, 2015 

Who was the first African American ordained as an Episcopal priest?

a. Absalom Jones
b. Richard Allen
c. Alexander Crummell
d. Samuel Eli Cornish

Daily Quiz, February 12, 2015

Of the four canonical Gospels, which Gospel uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" instead of "kingdom of God?"

a.Matthew
b.Mark
c. Luke
d. John


Daily Quiz, February 11, 2015

What famous American hymn writer has a day on the Episcopal calendar of saints, but who does not have a hymn included in the 1982 hymnal of the Episcopal Church?

a. Calvin Hampton
b. Charles Winfred Douglas
c. Franny Crosby
d. James Weldon Johnson

Daily Quiz, February 10, 2015

Eunice and Lois were the mother and grandmother of what young evangelist?

a. Titus
b. Timothy
c.  Onesimus
d.  John Mark

Daily Quiz, February 9, 2015

Who are the people/persons in biblical literature who are reported to have "shining faces?"

a. The Lord God
b. Jesus
c. Moses
d. Wise persons
e. all of the above


Daily Quiz, February 8, 2015

Who wrote, "I have become all things to all people.....?"

a. St. Peter
b. The Psalmist
c. St. Luke
d. St. Paul

Daily Quiz, February 7, 2015

Who was the first Gentile convert to the message of Christ?

a. Probably can't know; Gospels imply that Greeks and foreign magi came to see Jesus
b. first recorded post-resurrection convert is Cornelius the centurion
c. the Samaritan woman at the well
d. Philemon

Daily Quiz, February 6, 2015

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are listed in the letter to the Galatians as what?

a. Theological virtues
b. Cardinal virtues
c. Fruits of the Spirit
d. Christ-like behaviors


Daily Quiz, February 5, 2015

Who founded the first Baptist Church in America, later left it to be a Seeker and who  posthumously arrived to be on the Episcopal Calendar of Saints, aka, "Holy Women, Holy Men?"

a. Jonathan Edwards
b. Adoniram Judson
c. Roger Williams
d. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Daily Quiz,  February 4, 2015

Which of the following resisted the evangelizing efforts of St. Anskar?

a. Huns
b. Vandals
c. Goths
d. Vikings

Daily Quiz, February 3, 2015

Anskar was a missionary bishop to northern Europe and the Archbishop of what locale?

a. Stockholm
b. Oslo
c. Copenhagen
d. Hamburg-Bremen

Daily Quiz, February 2, 2015

Which canticle of the church derives from the event of the Presentation of Jesus?

a. Magnificat 
b. Venite
c. Nunc Dimittis
d. Dignus es

Daily Quiz, February 1, 2015 

Where would one find "Super Bowls" in the Bible?

a. Tabernacle utensils
b. The Last Supper
c. Seven Bowls of Wrath in Revelations
d. The Story of Gideon

Monday, February 23, 2015

Sunday School, March 1, 2015 The Second Sunday in Lent, Cycle B

Sunday School, March 1, 2015   2 Lent B

Sunday School Themes

Who put the “ham” in Abraham.  Abraham’s used to be Abram but God added “ham” to his name.  This has nothing to do with the pork meat we call ham.  “Ham” is a Hebrew suffix meaning many.  So Abram who did not have any children was given a promise by God to be the Father of “many.”  Abraham and Sarah went on to have a son Isaac who was the father of Jacob, whose name also was Israel, the name of the country and people.

Abraham is called by St. Paul the father of faith.  Abraham was born before the nation of Israel and so he was not a Jew.  He did not know about Moses and the Law.  St. Paul said that Abraham had faith and he obeyed God before there was the Law, and Paul said that Gentile people who accepted Christ received God’s promise even though they did not grow up in families of the Jewish faith.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus tried to tell his disciples that he was going to suffer and die.  But his disciples did not think that the Messiah would suffer and die; they thought the Messiah would be a strong king like David.  But Jesus wanted to teach his disciples that he would suffer and die.  He would be like a king when the power of God brings him back to life and he is taken away to live with God his Father as a heavenly king.


Gospel Puppet Show: What kind of Messiah Is Jesus?

Puppet dialogue between Roary the Lion and Interviewer

Roary the Lion (holding a soccer ball and sobbing): Wah…Wah….Wah….Wah….

Interviewer: What’s wrong Roary, why are you crying?  Have you been playing soccer?

Roary the Lion:  Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah…

Interviewer:  Roary, I think you need a hug… Calm down now and talk to me.  Can you tell me what’s wrong?  Did you have soccer game?

Roary the Lion: Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah……

Interviewer: Roary,  I’m here to help you.   Let try to help you.  May be I can help you get your happy roar back.  Will you let me try?

Roary the Lion:  Wah…Wah….okay but I’m not too happy.

Interviewer:  What happened to make you so sad?  I’ve never heard a lion cry so loudly?

Roary the Lion:  Well, I played soccer today and our team lost the game, 4 to zero.  And I was the leading scorer.

Interviewer: Well that’s good isn’t it?

Roary the Lion: No..no…no…I scored two goals for the other team.   Wah…Wah And I’m so embarrassed.  Why did that happen to me?  And why did my team lose?

Interviewer:  Well, let’s see if we can learn something from you and your soccer game?  All of us will be winners if we can learn from you and your soccer game?  Will you help us all?

Roary the Lion:  Okay but I don’t know how my losing a soccer game can help others.

Interviewer: Was anyone happy after your soccer game ended?

Roary the Lion:  The winning team were happy, of course.

Interviewer:  When it rains really hard the farmer is happy to get rain for his corn and his wheat.  But if the same rain comes in the middle of the baseball game, the teams are sad because they have to stop playing baseball.  You see the same rain made some people happy and made some people sad.

Roary the Lion:  So that’s like every soccer game; if one team wins the other team loses.

Interviewer:  Yes and life is like that some times there are things that make us happy and there are things that make us sad.

Roary the Lion: I don’t like to be sad.  What good is sadness?

Interviewer:  It is not fun to be sad but being sad can turn out to be good?

Roary the Lion: How can being sad turn out to be good?

Interviewer:  Well, let us remember the Gospel story today.  Peter was upset at Jesus.  Peter only wanted Jesus to be a strong King.  Peter did not want Jesus to ever suffer.  He did not want Jesus to ever feel sad.

Roary the Lion:  That’s right!  Jesus told Peter that some very sad things were going to happen to Jesus.  He told Peter that he was going to suffer and even die.

Interviewer:  And Jesus said that Peter had to understand life better.  He said that Peter needed to understand that life is made up of wins and losses.  Life is made up of sickness and health.  Life is made up of happiness and sadness.

Roary the Lion:  So to learn how to live is to learn how to live with both.  But I prefer to win.  I would rather be happy.  I don’t ever want to be sick.

Interviewer:  I know Roary,  but what good can come from sadness, loss and sickness?

Roary the Lion:  I don’t know Interviewer.  It would take a great magician to turn sickness into health, happiness into sadness and losing into winning.

Interviewer:  Well, Jesus is better than the greatest magician.  And he showed us how to do one of his greatest tricks.


Roary the Lion:  I like magic.  What is the greatest trick?

Interviewer:  Roary, the next time you play a soccer game and when you win the game, what are you going to say to the little boy who lost the game to your team?

Roary the Lion:  Well, I’m going try to make him feel better.  I’m going to tell him that I lost a game too and it was very sad.  I going to tell him that he played a good game.   And I’m going to tell him that is more important that we have fun playing the game than if we win.

Interviewer:  Why would you say those nice things to him Roary?

Roary the Lion:  Well, because I know what it is to lose and be sad.  So I want to help someone else when they are sad.

Interviewer:  And Roary, that is the magic of Jesus.  Because you were sad, you knew how to help a boy who also was sad.  And that was the message that Jesus was trying to teach Peter.


Roary the Lion:  So God can help us better because God gave his Son Jesus to suffer too.  And so we can know that God is with us when we are sad.

Interviewer:  Bingo!  Now do you see how your loss and your sadness can turn out to be winning.  You always win when you are able to help others.

Roary the Lion:  Interviewer do you think that the boys and girls can learn this too.  I’m shy, could you ask them?

Interviewer:  Boys and Girls, do you see how Jesus taught us the meaning of suffering and sadness?  We can turn our sadness into happiness and winning because what really makes us happy in life is to be able to help someone else.  Have you learned the lesson from the Gospel today.  Can you say, Amen?  Amen.  Can you say bye, bye to Roary?




St. John the Divine Episcopal Church
17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Holy Eucharist
March 1, 2015: The Second Sunday In Lent
Gathering Songs: 
Kyrie Eleison; Precious Lord, Take My Hand; Break Thou the Bread of Life; Lift High the Cross


Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.
People: God’s mercy endures 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.


Opening Song : Take My Hand Precious Lord, (LEVAS #106) 
1. Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me on.
2. When my way grows drear, precious Lord, linger near, when my life is almost gone; Hear my cry, hear my call, Hold my hand, lest I fall, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me on.

Liturgist: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise the Lord
O God, you are Great!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have made us! Praise the Lord
O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise the Lord
O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Praise the Lord
A Reading from the Book of Genesis

God said to Abram, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you."

The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Let us read together from Psalm 22

Praise the LORD, you that fear him; * stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory. 
For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty; neither does he hide his face from them; *
but when they cry to him he hears them. 
My praise is of him in the great assembly; * I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

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!

Liturgist: The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark
People: Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."  He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

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 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: He’s Got the Whole World (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 90)
1 He’s got the whole world; in his hands he’s got the whole wide world in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands; he’s got the whole world in his hands.
2 Little tiny babies.  3 Brother and the sisters   4 Mothers and the fathers
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 the celebration of our 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.

(All may gather around the altar)

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.

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 by 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 Hymn: Break Thou the Bread of Life (LEVAS # 146) 
Bread thou the bread of life, dear Lord to me, as thou didst break the loaves beside the sea; beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord; my spirit pants for thee, O living word.
(Repeat during communion)

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: Lift High the Cross, (Blue Hymnal # 473) 
Refrain: Lift High the cross, the love of Christ proclaim.  Till all the world adore, his sacred name.
Led on their way in this triumphant sign, the hosts of God in conquering ranks combine. Refrain
Each newborn servant of the Crucified- bears on the brow the seal of him who died.  Refrain
O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree, as thou hast promised, draw the world to thee.  Refrain
So shall our song of triumph ever be: praise to the crucified for victory.  Refrain

Dismissal:    
Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ. 
People: Thanks be to God!  

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