Saturday, November 30, 2019

Aphorism of the Day, November 2019

Aphorism of the Day, November 30, 2019

The "Left Behind" novels and movies derived from the interpretive apocalyptic "cults" within certain Christians group who hold that biblical writings are specifically predicative of future events, rather than appreciating that in the field of universal evente, there are repetitions of the eternal return of the same and there are discourses which engage the imagination for people who need comfort.  In the Gospel proclaiming those who would be left behind, there is the contrast with those who were left behind in the days of Noah, i.e., Noah and his family and his menagerie of animals.  So it is good to be left behind because one is not punished by death in a catastrophic event.  Ironic that the "left behind" cult, regard it to be punishment while the "taken" crowd are regarded to be the mass assumption of people in the Rapture.  Interesting how dueling interpreters can get so exorcised over things about which they have no control so it smacks with how people use religious discourse to entertain themselves for their own comfort within their very small hermeneutical circles.

Aphorism of the Day, November 29, 2019

Having the last word means that one often presumes to place a final editorial meaning on everything that has come before.  We are often those who proclaim the last word as our attempt to control what has already happened; as a way to pronounce our ego-centric or ethno-centric or temporo-centric providence on how the past really affirm us in our lives now.  It is too natural to assume that history revolves around "me" since I am the only one at the center of my perceptual universe.  Jesus warned about too many final last word prophets when he knew that the Father of all freedom and everlasting time always knows that there is always some more latest words to feebly try to sum up what has happened before.  It could be that the "Father" knows that the future always has to stay "open" in the conditions of freedom and time.

Aphorism of the Day, November 28, 2019

Sometimes we use the biblical apocalyptic term "Last Day," to refer to an end, even when it is based upon another kind of beginning.  Perhaps given our embrace of science and time, we should just use the term, "latest day," and only the "Father" knows the "Latest Day," since only Plenitude comprehends total synchronicity of all things so as to be able to understand all causal connections and the latest meaning of all things.

 Aphorism of the Day, November 27, 2019

 "No one knows the hour and the day of "that day."  "That day" refers vaguely to some sort of end of the life of the people of the world as we know it.  Jesus said that no one knows except the Father.  Yet for 2000 years, Christians have been speculating and some even presuming to tie down specific days or times.  In our scientific era, we might be able to conceive of life without humanity since we would assume the universe would continue even if humanity wasn't around to witness such continuity.  (if someone didn't witness the tree falling in the forest, did it really fall?)  Apocalyptic and catastrophic ending of all is perhaps the projection upon "social existence" what we know will happen for the personal apocalypse of each person, namely death itself.  Why do people speculate about a Future beyond the future?  We have science fiction stories of the new life of cyborgs and time travel which provide us the genres to deal with the questions about the future for which we have no experience.  We cannot experience the future so we have to make it up for ourselves now as a way to live now with the comfort of creating anthropocentric privilege, as if, we've lived so well that we deserve being propagated as the chief value of all things.  The belief in God is that there is an expanding horizon which always deconstructs "anthropocentricism" as the final value of all things.  God is the proclamation of the impossibility of escaping the anthropocentric and yet that impossibility evokes human imagination.


Aphorism of the Day, November 26, 2019

The consciousness of ourselves as worded-beings happens because we have words themselves and in the field of words which comprise us we use language in diverse discursive ways.  The Bible is full of the various discursive ways of using language and all discursive ways are not equal, and that does not discount the fact that are uses of language are meaningfully true in how each discourse is wielded for its own functional purpose.  Naïve realism or commonsense discourse found in the Bible corresponds to the discourse of modern science and modern journalistic writing.  Modern science has attain the status of a "higher truth" since in being effective for the matters of statistical approximation, its pragmatic truth feature is unparalleled.  The inferiority complex of those who use more aesthetically inclined discourses when compared with the "superior" pragmatic truth status of science, resulted in fundamentalists claiming that most of biblical discourse is like scientific truth and journalistic writing, and therefore shared in the same "truth" status as science.  Even if science can "reduce" love to dopamine and chemistry, it does not change the true meaningful status of all sorts of love discourses.

Aphorism of the Day, November 25, 2019

Word is true, in that we understand ourselves as first language users before and within the worded-creation of the world of word-mediated reality, including reality as being word-mediated.  As worded being we express the truths of wordedness in lots of different discourses and lots of literary genres.  We would criticize someone for saying that a mythopoeia writing was journalistic writing.  Why?  They would violate both the truth of the mythopoeia and journalism.  So too, lots of non-fundamentalists have left the biblical religion because fundamentalism has taken over the hegemony to define "true" religion, by implying that all biblical literature is "exact journalistic" literature, fully verifiable under journalistic standards.  And people who say that one can only read the Bible as journalistic writing cause many to discount the Bible as "crazy" and not a book of a variety of discourses and genres of writings which comport to the ways in which we are human in our language.

Aphorism of the Day, November 24, 2019

One of the misinterpretation issues of doctrine and creed is that they come to language to try to convert poetry to didactic discourse and so they attain administrative and juridical and canonical status for determining "official" belief and so people are divided into orthodox and heterodox and what is lost is the original poetry of love for Christ in the midst of people fighting about who is right.

Aphorism of the Day, November 23, 2019

The billboard on the cross of Jesus read, "The King of the Jews."  Jesus was on the cross for six hours and how literate would the crowd have been on Golgotha for those six hours?  What kind of effective messaging would that have been compared with the proclaiming of this ironic message through the Gospels for the rest of history.  The literary effect of recounting this very short "messaging event" was to propel the irony of the Messiah on the cross forever.

Aphorism of the Day, November 22, 2019

How can Christ be a king from the cross?  In the mysticism of the early church, identity with the death of Christ on the cross is seen as power to die to what is unworthy in oneself, even as identity with the resurrection of Christ is the power to manifest transformed behaviors.  So to make the death of Christ into his voluntary death is to transform it as an event of powerlessness into an event of "kingly" power.

Aphorism of the Day, November 21, 2019

The recounting of the written inscription upon the cross of Jesus is sheer literary irony on the nexus between Jesus as Suffering Servant/Conquering King.  Certainly the readers would understand the irony of the billboard of the crucifixion.  It is a billboard to proclaim the irony of views of Jesus, i.e., the views of those who had experience of the Risen Christ, the views of those who thought the Messiah to be a conquering deliverer of Israel and the Roman people of power who mocked these oppressed people even using a language of kingship about one of their own.  A king on a cross?  How absurd!

Aphorism of the Day, November 20, 2019

An early paradigm shift in the Judaeo-Christian Jesus Movement was the admission of the Gentiles to the community of faith without the requirement of significant ritual observance.  An earlier paradigm shift was the privileging of the "Suffering Servant" Messiah paradigm over the paradigm of the Messiah being limited to a Davidic kingly figure who would bring liberation for the people of Israel.

Aphorism of the Day, November 19,2019

It would be difficult for a member of the synagogue in the post-Jesus era to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah, given the specific Davidic notion of the Messiah, and given the fact that the same member did not have a post-resurrection experience of the Risen Christ and if the same member did not have what the members of the Jesus Movement called the "baptism" of the Spirit.

Aphorism of the Day, November 18, 2019

The afterlife of Jesus of Nazareth in the modes of his reappearances forced a redefinition of the Messiah.  Was the Messiah another King David or was he a suffering servant?  The Passion of Jesus forced the attention to the suffering servant model for defining the Messiah and to those in the synagogue who did not experience significant spiritual effects of the Risen Christ, Jesus could not be a Messiah in the kingly tradition of David.

Aphorism of the Day, November 17, 2019

The Bible might be regarded as the classics, a book to be displayed in an impressive leather bound cover in a book case to show people how classy one is, but the book is for display only and not to be read.  Many classics are regarded that way and it does not mean that they are not important; what it means is that what has been derived from the Bible in the endless numbers of correspondences which have inundated all subsequent literature has overwhelmed the original because the applications of the original themes in new settings often has meant that the application has become unmoored from it connection with the original.  We revere the classic even as we forget what derived from them and we elevate the contemporary as more original than the original and in temporal provincialism we proclaim the new as the only thing that can be.  As Whitehead said that Western philosophy is a footnote on Plato and Aristotle, one could say that much of modern language use is but a footnote on the Bible.

Aphorism of the Day, November 16, 2019

The utopian and the apocalyptic words of the Bible juxtapose the eutopian with the dystopian.  In a system of freedom eutopian and dystopian are extremes on a continuum of the disharmony of differences and the harmony of differences.  What transcends both dystopia or eutopia?  Freedom.  Freedom prevails no matter what conditions manifest itself affecting any particular agent which lives and moves and has being with Freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, November 15, 2019

Does a system of freedom ever permit a "eutopia" a good place for everyone and everything?  Is a free system made for the evolving of the fittest surviving at the expense of the "unfit" weak?  Are the fittest eventually the unsuspecting, e.g., cockroaches survive but not the imposing T-Rex?  Is the system of freedom one which is based upon the passing of time and the end of any temporary fit "apparent" winner who only has a "season" of apparent "success?"  The ultimate utopia or "no such place" in a free system is the words of Jesus when he said, "the meek shall inherit the earth."

Aphorism of the Day, November 14, 2019

Utopia is pronounced like Eu-topia, which would mean good place and we often think that Utopia refers to a heavenly good place, so that they might seem to be synonymous.  Utopia is not a word found in the Bible even though one might find visionary scenarios in the Bible to qualify as "utopia."  The word from the Greek is "Ou-topos" which which would be a negative, probably meaning, "no such place."  We might ponder how "no such place" functions in a system of such competitive freedom and whether any free system could actually exist without competition and conflict between entities and system is overcome by a totally free harmony of differences.

Aphorism of the Day, November 13, 2019

John Lennon's "Imagine" song was one might say "naively" utopian.  But all utopian vision are naïve since they wish the cessation of the conditions of freedom.   They express a desire for a synchronic harmony of differences among all of the infinite number of things which comprise the universe, but more specifically the differences between all people and animal life in general.  The desire for peace is contextually constituted in that those on the losing side of oppression want the oppression to cease.  The powerful ones who oppressed want a continuance of a peace that is forced through the subjugation of sectors in society.  In a system of freedom where the "fittist survive" one can desire an end of all preditor-prey relationships where harm of any is eliminated as the expression of what substantial peace would mean.  One can find the validity of the aspiration of such systemic peace even while one also would need to posit the presence of a great persuasive force which could persuade a system-wide synchronic harmony of differences without the harm of any individual.  How does one posit genuine freedom while hoping for the conditions when all individuals have angelic goodness to "choose" harmony in the conditions of difference?  It would seem impossible to posit a true meaning of freedom and the conditions where there would be a "forced" or "robotic angelic" harmony.  One might conclude that individual wish for the peace of absence of conflict for personal life is valid even while it is impossible for it to be actually realized as a categorical imperative of the same.  How does one aspire for universal peace without violating any coherent notion of freedom?

Aphorism of the Day, November 12, 2019

Utopian visions are visions of the impossible, given the conditions of freedom.  How can one have a total system of free agents, both sentient and non-sentient, and have perpetual harmony where no harm is caused by competing perfectly timed agents.  How can freedom and utopia co-exist without the system being completely robotic.  I don't think the Bible resolves the issue of freedom and the utopic.

Aphorism of the Day, November 11, 2019

The conditions of freedom means that all entities which share a degree of freedom both individually and in solidarities render a wide range of situations.  We have the possibility for harmony of differences which create the vision of "utopia" supposing that all differences could be coordinated without causing individual harm.  We also know that freedom does not allow such universal harmony because some entity is always on the receiving end of pain or deprivation.  While it might be great that the preditor's hunger is satisfied; at the same time the prey's well-being is sacrificed for the satisfaction of the more powerful.  The biblical visions of utopia are given to inform us toward the ideal harmonies towards which we should live in the never ending quest for justice, which means everyone and everything receives its appropriate due.  The conditions of freedom are always deconstructed by the future, not yet, utopia.

Aphorism of the Day, November 10, 2019

A nuance of the Redeemer referred to in the book of Job is a lawyer or advocate for one's life, especially all of the events which occur over which one does not have direct control and yet give cause for others to make one a victim of the unforeseen.  One cannot be so powerful as to make really, really bad or good things happen to oneself so as to be accorded such status by other who want to make one into such a powerful victim for causing the bad thing to happen.  At the last day, one hope for the Advocate of the 20/20 hindsight who can declare one's history as providence.

Aphorism of the Day, November 9, 2019

The afterlife, what is it like?  What kind of personal and social continuity happens after we die?  Do we retain friendships and marriage relationships?  Does it matter?  Are we a new creation then?  Are we raised as “spiritual bodies” as Paul indicated?  Will we become like angels, as Jesus indicated, and as angelic beings not need to be married or given in marriage.  The truth of resurrection thinking is that we carry pre-resurrection categories of thinking about an experience that we have not yet had.  We are troubled about a future about which we don’t have the ability to extrapolate since we can only think about a future in continuity with the norm of our current conscious life.

Aphorism of the Day, November 8, 2019

If I don't believe in the resurrection, perhaps I can tease my friend who does by posing hypothetical scenarios regarding his belief.  A levirate marriage required a brother to marry his brothers widow so that the deceased brother could be objectively immortalized in having posthumous children (really his brother's).  So a widow seven times with seven brothers dies after out-living all the brothers, to whom is the woman married when she enters the afterlife?  Remember that you only believe the afterlife for the seven brothers is to be found in the children borne by this one woman.  This would be a family with children who were siblings and first cousins at the same time.  Since Jesus regarded God as the ever-Becoming, God encompassed everyone who had become as still living since God was a creating, becoming, everliving all-inclusive Being.

 Aphorism of the Day, November 7, 2019

The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus helped to answers questions of the afterlife that were evident in the theological discussion of the era. Jesus proved timely for the times.

Aphorism of the Day, November 6, 2019

The presentation of the dialogue about the resurrection and levirate marriage was instigated by religious leaders who believed in the objective immortality of a person in their offspring.  The purpose of levirate marriage was to give children to a dead brother so he could have objective immortality (only designated immortality, not real genetic objective immortality).  Jesus suggested that personal identity in the afterlife would be like the "ungendered" angels who did not get married.  Remember the first Adam had to be split in two, into male and female because he was not supposed to be "alone."  Jesus was perhaps indicating that in the afterlife one became re-constituted in a balancing contra-sexual fullness that had marriage as the pre-afterlife program.

Aphorism of the Day, November 5, 2019

If God is ultimate Plenitude then it would be an oxymoron to say that something was missing from Plenitude.  Take away anything from Plenitude and it would cease to be Plentitude.  Jesus said that God was God of the living and the living for God included those who had experienced the past tense state of death in this life.

Aphorism of the Day, November 4, 2019

During the early first century in Palestine, resurrection was a topic which needed some specificity.  Some thought that the prophets and other writings (ketavim) of the Hebrew Scriptures presented resurrection as justice verifier.  Others thought that the Torah had no words of reference for believing it.  Resurrection enters the discussion about how immortal the past is in the present and the future.  How is the past immortal in what it contributes to the present? How is the past "identities" distinguished or identified in the present?  How will the past and present "identity entities" be retained in the future that is unseen from the present?  Using the computer analogy, can the mega-Memory of God ever delete any file that came to identity in time?  Can the file of the past be re-opened and can God's grace mean that a very "personal file" have the "edit enable" function "clicked on" to allow it to be made suitable for a new future context?

Aphorism of the Day, November 3, 2019

It is interesting that in just four Gospels, tax-collector is mentioned around twenty times.  With such a Gospel "representation" one would think that tax-collector was a significant group of people in Palestine during the time of Jesus.  We know that Jesus ate with them and called them, as in the case of perhaps Matthew/Levi and Zacchaeus.  It could be that they were non-observant Jews because of their position and they lived between Roman authorities and their countrymen and were despised by both.   Jesus gave them community status in his Movement and it could be that they helped "finance" the Jesus Movement.

Aphorism of the Day, November 2, 2019

All Souls' Day is for those who didn't make it into any official Christian "Hall of Fame."  It is human to ponder whether we retain personal identity after we are dead.  And if one believes in continuing personal identity after one dies, it is human to speculate about what sort of continuing personal identity that one might have.   One prayer for the faithful departed posits the continuing growth in faith in the afterlife based upon the assumption that personal identity is not static but still participates in dynamic growth.  We project upon the afterlife much of the dynamic conditions of the before-afterlife and the imaginative faith about the hereafter is an expression about having faith that creative, dynamic freedom will always be a life condition including the state of death in Life, Eternal Life.

Aphorism of the Day, November 1, 2019

How do people get into all of the various halls of fame of human excellence?  People get recognized because their excellence stands out to be remembered and stand as value-setting behaviors for all.  While all are "merely" human, human excellence in manifold way gets recognize.  So too, the Christian "hall of fame" of saints is a group of "merely human" people who for various reason came to be remember for excellence in faith and faithful behaviors and were remembered beyond their locale and era in time as examples to call us all to the particular paths of excellence which await all who seek to tread this path.

Quiz of the Day, November 2019

Quiz of the Day, November 30, 2019

How did Andrew become the patron saint of Scotland?

a. he appeared in a dream to Wallace
b. his knee cap relic was brought to Scotland
c. his finger bone relic was brought to Scotland
d. b and c
e. his shoulder blade relic was brought to Scotland

Quiz of the Day, November 29,2019

Whose mother petitioned Jesus to let her sons sit at his right and left hand side?

a. James and John's
b. Mary and Martha's
c. Andrew and Peter's
d. Thomas the Twin's

Quiz of the Day, November 28, 2019

In which Gospel is Jesus quoted as saying, "I am the bread of life?"

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

Quiz of the Day, November 27, 2019


In the Hebrew Scripture portion of the Christian Bible, what determined whether a prophet was minor or major?


a. their importance to Israel

b. their importance in anticipating Jesus as the Messiah
c. the length of the writings which bore their name
d. their importance to the Southern Kingdom of Judah

Quiz of the Day, November 26, 2019

Isaac Watts did not write which of the following hymns?

a. Amazing Grace
b. O God, Our Help in Ages Past
c. Joy to the World
d. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Quiz of the Day, November 25, 2019

Which religious order did James Huntington found?

a. Society of St. John the Evangelist
b. The Cowley Fathers
c. Order of the Holy Cross
d. Order of Julian of Norwich

Quiz of the Day, November 24, 2019

Who wrote an epistle to the Corinthian church and was bishop/pope of Rome?

a. Peter
b. Paul
c. Clement
d. Pius

Quiz of the Day, November 23, 2019

Who wrote about a great lion named Aslan?

a. J.R.R. Tolkien
b. G.K. Chesterton
c. T.S. Eliot
d. C. S. Lewis

Quiz of the Day, November 22, 2019

The eight day festival of Hanukkah originated to celebrate the dedication of what?

a. the menorah
b. a new altar in the Temple to replace the profaned one
c. the Temple
d. the restoration of the priests in the Temple

Quiz of the Day, November 21, 2019

Which musician was featured in the TV series, "The Tudors?"

a. John Merbecke
b. William Byrd
c. Thomas Tallis
d. Ralph Vaughn Williams

Quiz of the Day, November 20, 2019

From which person was the entire designation "Maccabees" derived?

a. Mattathias
b. Judas
c. John
d. Jonathan
e. Eleazar
d. Simon
f. John Hyrcanus

Quiz of the Day, November 19, 2019

The commemoration of Hanukkah comes from the independence of Israel events written in which portion of Scriptures?

a. Daniel
b. Esdras
c. 1 Maccabees
d. Esther

Quiz of the Day, November 18, 2019

What is true about the writings of the Maccabees?

a. they are not in the Hebrew canon of Scriptures
b. they tell the derivation of the feast of Hanukkah
c. they tell about the battles of resistance by Judas and his brothers
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, November 17, 2019

What did Mattathias, father of Judas Maccabees,  observe among his people?

a. they refused to observe Hanukah
b. they needed the Hanukah feast
c. they refused to fight on the Sabbath and so they were slaughtered
d. they refused political alliances with the Egyptians

Quiz of the Day, November 16, 2019

When Jesus said, "Get behind me Satan," to Peter, what did this mean?

a. Peter could not be the rock on which the church was built
b. Peter did not understand about the suffering servant Messiah
c. Peter was going to deny Jesus
d. Peter was in competition with John for apostolic authority

Quiz of the Day, November 15, 2019

What is the desolating sacrilege that is reported in the Books of the Maccabees?

a. Antichus Ephiphanes sacrificing a pig on the altar of the Temple
b. the destruction of the Temple
c. the erection of idols in the Temple complex
d. the stealing of the gold from the Temple

Quiz of the Day, November 14, 2019

What is not true about Bishop Samuel Seabury?

a. he was consecrated by Scottish Bishops
b. his consecration resulted in a Scottish Eucharistic prayer for the Prayer Book
c. he was the first Episcopal Bishop for the USA
d. he became the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
e. he was from Connecticut

Quiz of the Day, November 13, 2019

Who reinstated the observance of the Feast of Booths?

a. David
b. Ezra
c. Isaiah
d. Jonah

Quiz of the Day, November 12, 2019

Charles Simeon is associated with which of the following?

a. S.P.C.K.
b. C.M.S.
c. S.P.G.
d. C.M.J.

Quiz of the Day, November 11, 2019

For Veterans' Day, who is the patron saint of soldiers?

a. Saint Barbara
b. Saint Joan of Arc
c. St. Martin of Tours
d. St. George
e. St. Michael, the Archangel
f. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, November 10, 2019

What controversial topic did Paul bring up to create havoc in a tribunal?

a. Roman taxes
b. dietary rules
c. eating food sacrificed to idols
d. the resurrection of the dead

Quiz of the Day, November 9, 2019

When Ezra returned with a remnant to rebuild the wall and Temple in Jerusalem, which of the following distressed him the the most?

A. The opposition of Tobias
B. The opposition of Sanballot
C. The intermarrying of those who return with the local peoples
D. The lack of supplies to build

Quiz of the Day, November 8, 2019

Which of the following is true?

a. all Levites were priests
b. all priests of Israel were Levites
c. Melchizedek was a Levite
d. Jethro was a Levite

Quiz of the Day, November 7, 2019

What king gave Ezra a letter giving him control of province near Jerusalem?

a. Xerxes
b. Artaxerxes
c. Darius
d. Cyrus

Quiz of the Day, November 6, 2019

What did Nehemiah do?

a. restored the practice of the Sabbath
b. restored the vessel to the Temple
c. made sure the Levites and singers received their portion of food
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, November 5, 2019

In which book of the Bible is there stated provision and support for singers and musicians?

a. Proverbs
b. Psalms
c. Nehemiah
d. Exodus

Quiz of the Day, November 4, 2019

What do Jeremiah, Ezekiel and John the Divine have in common?

a. they were prophets of Israel
b. they suffered in prison
c. they were told to eat literal words on a scroll
d. they were contemporaries

Quiz of the Day, November 3, 2019

What is Eutychus known for in the Bible?

a. he was a companion of Paul
b. he fell asleep in Paul's sermon and fell out of a window on the third floor
c. he was a convert from the community of John the Baptist
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, November 2, 2019

For what is Tobiah and Sanballat known?

a. defeating the forces of Judah
b. opposing the rebuilding of the Temple
c. helping to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
d. for being agents of Darius in Samaria

Quiz of the Day, November 1, 2019

Which Druid feast did All Saints' Day replace in the British Isles?

a. Imbolc
b. Beltane
c. Lughnasadh
d. Samhain

Sunday School, December 1, 2019 1 Advent Cycle A

Sunday School, December 1, 2019     1 Advent Cycle A

Themes:

The Beginning of Christian New Year
Review the calendars in our lives.  The Gregorian Calendar that we use.  School calendars, Sports Calendars, Work Calendar, Concert Season Calendars.  The Country’s Patriotic Time and Official Holidays.

Have children list the number of calendars in their lives.  Calendars are used to measure time.  Different calendars measure time in different ways depending upon the human events which are occurring at different times.

The Church Calendar
Why do we have one?  Because we want to schedule that time that we give to God, through learning throughout the year about the meaning of God for our lives.

How does the Church Calendar work?  It works like a school curriculum.  The church takes the Christian program of learning and divides it into a yearly cycle to presentation.  The year is divided into six seasons.  These seasons give us the opportunity to review each year different teachings about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the life of the church.

What are the seasons?  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost

What does Advent mean?  It means “Coming.”  It refers to the first coming of Christ when he came as the baby Jesus at Christmas.  So the season of Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas.  It also refers to the future comings of Christ in our lives and the life of the world.  We believe that Christ will come to our future and this gives us hope that the future can be better no matter what seems to be happening in our lives or in our world.

What do we read during Advent from the Bible?  We read about John the Baptist and how he helped prepared the way for Jesus.  We also read about the future and how God will establish fairness and justice and how the promise of fairness in the future can help us survive now when we realize that our lives are not perfect and some harmful things are happening now even to good people.  During Advent, we believe that a future perfect world is still calling us as a model for how we can become better.

What is an important word during Advent?  Repent.  Repent means to Educate ourselves to keep changing our minds with better knowledge and wisdom, not just to know more, but to change our behavior as a way of preparing to greet Jesus as our friend.

A Sermon:


Happy New Year!  Did you have a big New Year Eve’s party last night?  Did you know that today is the first day of the new Christian Year.  Today is the First Sunday of Advent.  Let us renew our Seasons of the Christian Year.  Repeat after me.  Advent.  Christmas. Epiphany.  Lent East and Pentecost.  Now what is the color for the Season of Advent?  Purple.  And what kind of season is Advent?  Is it a celebrating season like Christmas and Easter?  No, it is a serious season.  A season of training and preparation.  Sometimes with all of the early Christmas parties, Advent is just seen as a speed bump in the road as people are racing to a Christmas celebration.
  Advent is a time for us to pray just a little bit more.  To give just a little bit more to those who are needy.  And to take good care of our selves.  Take good care of our bodies.  We see all of the Christmas sweets coming out early, but remember Advent is a time to prepare and take care of ourselves.  And why should we take care of our selves and our world?
  Because Advent means: Coming.  We are preparing for the coming of someone very important.  When someone special is coming to your house, what do you do?  You rush around and clean up the house.  You fix some special food because you want everything just right for the coming of the special people in your life.
  During Advent, we prepare our selves for the coming of Jesus Christ.  And Christ comes to us in many ways.  Christ came to us as the Baby Jesus in the manger, and that is what we celebrate at Christmas.  Christ comes to us each day in special way through the love and care of our family and friends.  Christ comes to us as we gather to bless the bread and the wine and receive the presence of Christ into our hearts and as we know that Christ is as near to us as the bread and wine become after we eat and drink.  We also believe that Christ will come in our future in many special ways.
  So, Advent is a season of preparation, when we make our selves always ready for the special coming of Christ in our lives.
  So before we rush to Christmas celebrations, let us remember that we are in the season of Advent.  And Advent is a special season of preparation for the coming of Christ.  Is Christ welcome in your home?  Is Christ welcome in your life?  Of course he is.  Advent is season when we practice for the welcoming of Christ into our lives.  Amen.



An Intergenerational Holy Eucharist
December 1, 2019  The First Sunday of Advent, A

Gathering Songs: We Light the Advent Candles, If You’re Happy and You Know It,  Father, I Adore You,  Soon and Very Soon

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:  We Light the Advent Candles (While lighting the first purple candle)
We light the Advent candles against the winter night, to welcome our Lord Jesus who is the world’s True Light, to welcome our Lord Jesus who is the World’s True Light.
The first one will remind us that Christ will soon return.  We light it in the darkness and watch it gleam and burn.  We light it in the darkness and watch it gleam and burn.

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

Liturgist:  Let us pray
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 122

Peace be within your walls *and quietness within your towers.
For my brethren and companions' sake, * I pray for your prosperity.
Because of the house of the LORD our God, * I will seek to do you good."


Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God!

Litanist:
For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!
For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!
For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!
For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!
For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!
For work and for play. Thanks be to God!
For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!
For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!
For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.
   Thanks be to God!

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

Jesus said to the disciples, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

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.

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
Song: If You’re Happy and You Know It (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 124)
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.  If you’re happy and you know it, then your face should surely show it.  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.
…Make a high five…. 
…shout Amen!….

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 God.”
All become members of a family by birth or adoption.
Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.
A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.
The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.

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

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 
Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(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.

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.  Sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

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

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

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

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

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

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


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:       Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

Words of Administration



Communion Song:   Father, I Adore You (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 56)
1          Father, I adore you, lay my life before you, how I love you.
2          Jesus….
3          Spirit…

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: Soon and Very Soon (Renew! # 276)
1-Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King; soon and very soon we are going to see the King.  Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.  Alleluia, alleluia, we are going to see the King.
2-No more dying there, we are going to see the King.  No more dying there, we are going to see the King.  No more dying there we are going to see the King.  Alleluia, alleluia, we are going to see the King.

3.  Repeat verse 1

Dismissal:   

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



Sunday School, November 27, 2016      1 Advent Cycle A

The Spirituality of the Passion

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