Neighboring and Neighborly in God's Neighborhood

8 Pentecost, Cp10, July 13, 2025

Amos 7:1-17 Ps.82

Col. 10:25-37  Luke 10:25-37

Lectionary Link

The parable of the Good Samaritan includes within it a parable about incomplete definitions of what a neighbor is as well as why we might often be bad neighbors and rationalize it.

Let's ponder some of the stereotypes which attended the Lucan Gospel which was written when synagogue and church had separated, when Samaritans were part of Christ-communities and the Gospel writers could not hide their disappointment that all the Jews had not become followers of Jesus.

What are we to make of a story of Jesus who presents a member of a foe of the Jews, a Samaritan, as the hero of a story, and revered religious figures of temple and synagogue, a priest and a Levite, as those who are lacking in moral character?

For our reading we need to remove ourselves from the specifics of the stereotypes of what was implied in the time of Jesus and in the time of the writing of Luke's Gospel and generalize the enduring universal messages.

What might those messages be?

The big message is that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  We are to respect the dignity of every human being, as we promise to do in our baptismal vows.

What does a bad neighbor do?  A bad neighbor creates people as being "other."  How so?  By asking the question, "Who is my neighbor, or who do I have to love?"

Rather than being over-critical of the priest and Levite who are presented as "bad neighbors," we should ponder seriously how we ourselves are often bad neighbors and how we might justify our being bad neighbors?

First, it may not always be easy to be a good neighbor.  Not every situation which we encounter the requirement for loving response is easy or even safe.  We may justify our lack of response because of our unwillingness to be a hero in a difficult situation.  We may not always be ready to "lay down" our lives, especially if it is not for a friend or family member.  We may be fearful about our abilities to respond to emergencies but our willingness and readiness to help in the ways that we are able is the main issue.

The priest and Levite who observed the injured man on the roadside and did not stop maybe represent the reality that our social identity status does not necessarily mean that we are exerting ourselves to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Perhaps we think it is adequate to offer care to those with whom we have an affinity or those who can reciprocate with care for us.  Perhaps there is the sheer inconvenience of the circumstances which interrupt our schedules: "I can't stop because I have things to do."  Perhaps there is good religious reason for the Levite and the priest not to stop.  If the man appears to be dead, then to touch a dead person would render one ritually impure which would require the hassle of going through rituals of purification before assuming normal community interaction.

And what was the purpose of the parable of Jesus within the parable of the interaction between Jesus and a lawyer?

The purpose of the story was to convict about a smugness that we can assume about our religious identity and performances.  The lawyer would certainly know about inheritance laws.  One doesn't have to do anything to inherit something.  One inherits through the accident of being the child or relative of the one who passes away.  A child of God inherits eternal life by simply accepting oneself as a child of God.  But the lawyer who encountered Jesus missed the point; he wanted to make sure that he could be affirmed by a Rabbi, Jesus, for his superior performance of the law.

And the moral of the story, is that one is never finished performing loving care and love and justice makes everyone a neighbor in any situation, and neighbor is not just the passive notion of close physical proximity or natural affinities; neighbor is being the active care giver of those who need it.

The active notion of being a neighbor is very ably stated by the Psalmist who implores us to save the weak and the orphan, and defend the humble and needy.  Also, the Psalmist gives us the mission to rescue the weak and the poor and deliver them from the power of the wicked exploiters.

The long and short of the Scripture lessons today is that the work of loving is never finished.  The question is not about how much loving I have do do, but how much is left to do in the continual work of healing that is needed in our world, God's neighborhood, where everyone is called to be neighbors and do neighboring to one another.  Amen.

Prayers for Pentecost, 2025

Friday in 4 Pentecost, July 11, 2025

God, we live in your Neighborhood with neighbors who are located far from us and close to us; let us not define neighbor by who we have to love but by who we get to love to achieve the true dignity of being a neighbor.  Amen.

Thursday in 4 Pentecost, July 10, 2025

God who encompasses all differences; inspire in us strategies for over-coming the fear of differences which separate us from each other and hinder us from being good neighbors; let the Other Friendliness of your Love inspire in us the kind of love to appreciate the fullness of what different people can bring to the quality of our lives.  Amen.

Wednesday in 4 Pentecost, July 9, 2025

God of love, give us wisdom not to equate loving and liking since our affinities are often much smaller than the hard love of justice which is the gold standard for the honoring of human dignity.  Amen.

Tuesday in 4 Pentecost, July 8, 2025

God of the world of differences, we can let differences among people provide a reason for not embracing and loving but for creating distance, shunning, harm, and war; give us the grace of building connecting bridges through empathy as we learn to let your image in me touch your image in everyone else.  Amen.

Monday in 4 Pentecost, July 7, 2025

God, we find ourselves plopped together as people who did not always choose to be together as passive neighbors; please inspire in us the art of living in neighborly care for one another in how we distribute the resources of goods and services equably for the just benefit of each person.  Amen.

 Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, July 6, 2025

Lord Jesus Christ, the witness we have been given for your life presents you as one with unique, even savant goodness, that we are drawn to confess your seeming otherworldly divineness; let your savant goodness extend to us in your afterlife witness to us as the Risen Christ who gives a connection with the image of God upon our lives.  Amen.

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 11, 2025

If AI is tasked with creating "fake presentations" as well as exposing misinformation and deep fakes the when and where of the promulgation of both remains the issue.  Who uses what where and exposure to vulnerable audiences is still the main issue.

Aphorism of the Day, July 10, 2025

AI is like any other technological innovation since the advent of science; it is inevitable.  Lest one wants to be like the Amish and "freeze technology," AI has to go ahead managed.  We have had to "manage" cloning technology and we will have to manage AI as well with all the ethical dilemmas that it will present.  Our dilemma is that technology has produced greater world ending effects.  One of the main tasks of AI is to solve the very threats which technological advances cause.  With so many variables, more intellectual resources will have to deployed for future survival, which will involve the maintenance of the very large storage capacities which are going to be needed as the data grows exponentially.

Aphorism of the Day, July 9, 2025

Cinematic thinking would have us believe that the goal of AI is create surrogate human beings even one's with feelings when it is more correct to say that AI's goal is expand human thinking ability in operative capacities exponentially beyond what could be done within the epidermis boundaries of every human body toward the manifold practical outcomes which have come to define human goals to live and survive in a changing world.

Aphorism of the Day, July 8, 2025

While AI cannot be made to have feelings like a human being but AI can be given tasks and assignments which manifest the kinds of outcomes that evokes feelings in humans, such as can happen when people are helped or harmed.

Aphorism of the Day, July 7, 2025

While Barthesian "death of the author" in post-structuralism may have been a literary observation of writerly-reader priority in determination of meanings, post-modern writers still wanted authorship rights for the production and sell of their texts.  "Death of the author" did not mean end of legal ownership of a text.  It would seem that AI large language model productions would accomplish the "death of the author" in a profound way.  AI textuality means that the products of individual writers have been amassed and used to draw from in new textual production.  All writers as individuals have been dissolved into the communal pool of texts.  AI means the death of the individual writer in favor of writing derived from the entire available data of the community of writers.

 Aphorism of the Day, July 6, 2025

AI developer are honest about AI ever being able to produce human interior feelings even though it will be able to present mimicry of appearances of humanoid feeling outer manifestations.  Humans can be good actors in pretending to have feelings on the outside which do not have corresponding interior empathy.  AI deep fakes are acting without any interior feeling.  The "feeling" resides in the creator of deep fakes who has motives for creating the deep fake.  It is kind of like an robot emotional ventriloquism. I am going to use the machine to appear to have a range of emotions.  And I may turn it on random display of the same just for a joke, cruelty, or to show off my emotional ventriloquism versatility.  Of course, I have the choice to program it to be in the love and kindness appearance mode too.

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 11, 2025

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a provocative wisdom story requiring the redefinition of the term neighbor as both a person encountered but more importantly the active person in performing deeds of love, mercy, and justice.

 Aphorism of the Day, July 10, 2025

Fear of the other with "differences" can be the motivation for people to act in unneighborly ways.  Strategies of exposure to and appreciation of differences are needed to promote mutual neighborliness.

Aphorism of the Day, July 9, 2025

The communal study of the Bible requires the use of massive reductive abbreviations, like using names for the Gospels.  There are no autographs of the Gospel with internal attributions of authorship, so for communication purposes we use traditional titles like, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when what we really mean is a title for a piece of writing of which the earliest full copy of such writing is only in the fourth century.  Sometimes we can act as though the titles actually designate a Matthew, a Mark, a Luke, and a John with stylus in hand.  We think that we can be more certain about the letters of Paul but we cannot know precisely what editing and redacting took place in communities before we have the "canonical copies."  For example, we have reconstructions of Marcion's Paul in around 140 C.E. which is quite different from the canonical Pauline letters.

Aphorism of the Day, July 8, 2025

With the growth of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, becoming like a masked secret police, we can wonder whether we are entering the banality of evil phase in the normalization of not loving our neighbor as ourselves because we allow people in power to designate certain people so "other" than us that they don't deserve to be worthy to be a neighbor to love.

Aphorism of the Day, July 7, 2025

The message of rebuke in the parable of the Good Samaritan is that we can find good religious reasons and arguments of inconvenience for not being good active neighbors.  Living, moving, and having being within God means that a priori we are all geographically passive neighbors and the moral question is are we acting with neighborly care?

Aphorism of the Day, July 6, 2025

Human being can act and present outer feelings and empathy when inside they might feel the opposite.  AI deep fakes allow such acting something like emotional ventriloquism, but with a much more verisimilitude than the proverbial ventriloquist manipulating a lever up the back side of a less than life like puppet moving the "dummy's" lips.  AI deep fake dummies has appearances so precise as to fool the beholder.

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 11, 2025

Who was Scholastica's twin?

a. Thomas Aquinas

b. Dominic

c. Benedict

d. Bernard

Quiz of the Day, July 10, 2025

How did King Saul use David?

a. to tend to his herd of sheep

b. to blow the shofar

c. to play on his harp to calm his nerves

d. to serve as an armor bearer

e. b and c

f. c and d

Quiz of the Day, July 9, 2025

Who immediately succeeded Saul as King of Israel?

a. David

b. Ish-Bosheth

c. Jonathan

d. no one for months

 Quiz of the Day, July 8, 2025

Which Apostle is Dorcas associated with?

a. Paul

b. Peter

c. Barnabas

d. Philip

Quiz of the Day, July 7, 2025

Who said, "I regret making Saul the king of Israel?"

a. God

b. Samuel

c. Samuel and God

d. Samuel's acolyte who poured the oil of anointing

Quiz of the Day, July 6, 2025

If Mary sang a "mother's song" recorded in the Gospel, who sang a "father's song?"

a. Simeon

b. David

c. Zechariah

d. Jesus

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

Sunday School, July 13, 2025, 5 Pentecost, C proper 10

 Sunday School,  July 13, 2025, 5 Pentecost, C proper 10

Exploring the Theme of the Parable of the Good Samaritan

What is a neighbor?

Sometimes we think that neighbors are people who live close to each other.

Sometimes we think that neighbors are just the people who we feel familiar and comfortable with.

When Jesus said that we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves,”  a man asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  He was really asking Jesus, “Who am I required to love in order to please God.”

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to show a different meaning for “neighbor.”

Neighbors are not just people who live close to each other and are familiar with each other.  A neighbor is one who cares for anyone who is in need.

So a neighbor is doing and not just being.  This means we have to work in our lives to practice kindness all of the time so that we are always in good practice of being a neighbor.

Sermon

  What is a neighbor?

  Sometimes we use neighbor to mean only the people who live close to us.

  But sometimes people who live close to each other are not very friendly.

  Jesus told a story to help teach a young lawyer about the meaning of being a neighbor.

  One day a man was traveling to Jericho.  And he was attacked by robbers.  They hurt him and took all of his belongings and left him in the ditch.

  Two very important people, a priest and Levite saw the poor man in the ditch and but they did not stop to help him; they walked by because they thought that the man was dead.

  Then a man, a Samaritan, came and saw the man. (The Samaritan was a man who would not be liked by the lawyer).  The Samaritan nursed and cared for the man and carried him on his donkey to a place where he could heal.

  After Jesus told the story, he asked the lawyer.  Who was the neighbor?  And the lawyer answered, “The Samaritan, the one who showed care and mercy.

  Jesus taught an important message about the meaning of being a neighbor.

  A neighbor is not just someone who lives close to us.  A neighbor is you and I, and anybody when they show love and kindness and mercy to people who are in need.

  Today, we want God to make us good neighbors, because we want to be those who respond to people in need.

Child friendly Holy Eucharist, using the rubrics on page 400 of the Book of Common Prayer with guidelines for non-principal Eucharist

C proper 10

Gathering Songs: Kum Ba Yah, This Little Light of Mine, Seek Ye First, Praise Him

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: Kum Ba Ya, (Christian Children’s Songbook  # 150)

Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.  Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah.  Kum ba yah my Lord, kum ba yah.  O Lord, kum ba yah.

Someone’s singing Lord, kum ba yah.  Someone’s singing Lord, kum ba yah. Someone’s singing Lord, kum ba yah.   O Lord, kum ba yah.

Someone’s loving Lord, kum ba yah.  Someone’s loving Lord, kum ba yah. Someone’s loving Lord, kum ba yah.  O Lord, kum ba yah.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Liturgy Leader: In our prayers we first praise God, chanting the praise word: Alleluia

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 Book of Deuteronomy

For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the LORD your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 25

Show me your ways, O LORD, * and teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me, * for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.

Remember, O LORD, your compassion and love, * for they are from everlasting.

Liturgy Leader: I invite you to let us know what you are thankful for today

   As we thank God let us chant Thanks be to God

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 Luke

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon –   

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.

Liturgy Leader: Next in our prayers, we remember people who have special needs.  As we pray let us chant:  Christ Have Mercy

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: This Little Light of Mine, (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 234)

This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.  This little light of mine, I am going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, No!  I’m going to let it shine.  Hide it under a bushel, No!  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Don’t let anyone blow it out, I’m going to let it shine.  Don’t let anyone blow it out, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Shine all over my neighborhood, I’m going to let it shine.  Shine all over my neighborhood, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

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 or said)

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.

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 a 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.

And so, Father, we gifts of bread and wine will be presented. We ask you to 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.

We remember that 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 the 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,

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: Seek Ye First, (Blue Hymnal, # 711)

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, allelu, alleluia. Refrain: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, allelu, alleluia.

Ask, and it shall be given unto you, seek, and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you; Allelu, alleluia.    Refrain

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: Praise Him, All Ye Little Children (Christian Children’s Songbook,  # 184)

Praise him, praise him, all ye little children, God is love, God is love.  Praise him, praise him all ye little children, God is love.  God is love.

Love him, love him all ye little children, God is love, God is love.  Love him, love him, all ye little children, God is love, God is love.

Thank him, thank him, all ye little children, God is love, God is love.  Thank him, thank him all ye little children, God is love, God is love.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God!