Aphorism of the Day, December 2022

Aphorism of the Day, December 31, 2022

A last calendar day; an artificial way of defining time as our futile efforts of controlling the stream of time which is continuous and has no such divisions except the story divisions which humans give it.  A calendar is a way of trying to give human meaning to the time of our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, December 30, 2022

The rationale of names in the Bible is to connect event or meaning of life within a name.  Jesus, or Jeshua, or Joshua, means the Lord is Salvation.  Salvation refers to the holistic health for the peoples of the earth and includes "afterlife" health as a complement for what doesn't quite attain full health in this life.

Aphorism of the Day, December 29, 2022

A name of a person is a most holy reduction.  All of the continuous states of becoming past, present, and future are reduced to a single name.   This abstraction from the states of becoming is indeed a reduction but it is holy in that it celebrate the continuity of identity through all the states of becoming.  But such reduction should not transgressed the rich varied differences in the states of becoming within a "unified" continuous individual.  The name Jesus was given on his eighth day even though later would confess Christ as all and in all.  This is indeed a pleroma of designated states of becoming.

Aphorism of the Day, December 28, 2022

The Feast of the Holy Innocent is a reminder that children and the vulnerable become the collateral victims of adult tyrants and very bad adult policies, like our lack of reasonable gun laws.

Aphorism of the Day, December 27, 2022

Trying to escape being a language user is impossible because any attempt already presumes the use of language or already being ordered by it.  Word made flesh means that word and material are co-extensive in human experience.

Aphorism of the Day, December 26, 2022

One of the names of Christ is Word from the Beginning who is God.  It is appropriate that God and Word are co-extensive since word is what is more humanly unavoidably valued.  The reflexive irony is that we cannot even speak about Word without the prior assumption of Word.  Try to imagine anything without first assuming prior word ability.

Aphorism of the Day, December 25, 2022

The incarnation is a particular divine immanence to announce the always already reality of divine omnipresence.

Aphorism of the Day, December 24, 2022

The Christmas Story: what is unbelievable through the lens of empirical verification is believable through the lens of literary criticism which locates the artistic purpose of the story to encode the undeniable Sublime.

Aphorism of the Day, December 23, 2022

The greatest error in religion is when people refuse to acknowledge the difference between texts of empirical verification and aesthetic and artistic and spiritual discourse.  To confuse discursive practice has led to all kinds of folly.  All language users have diverse discursive practice.  Wisdom comes knowing when and where to use a particular discursive practice.

Aphorism of the Day, December 22, 2022

Many words in art, poetry, religion, and the visionary images of cinema do not conform to the standards of empirical verification and yet we don't say that such presentations are humanly untrue.  Such words have a different truth function than the words of a scientific theorem.

Aphorism of the Day, December 21, 2022

The unbelievability of the birth of Christ is to challenge the discourse of science and empirical verification as being the only and superior truth discourse.  The discourse of wonder co-exists with empirical verification, not to deny it but to inspire beauties of the heart or inward thinking which lead to the moral beauties of love and justice and care in our practice.

Aphorism of the Day, December 20, 2022

What makes the incarnation unbelievable is actually the always already of the Sublime inhabiting human experience.  The incarnation is a signifying reminder of what has always been.

Aphorism of the Day, December 19, 2022

Incarnation and creation.  The Christian metaphor of God being completely in a baby Jesus bespeaks of God being completely with us in the Beginning.  Creation and Incarnation can be appropriated as Sameness within Diversity.  The Sameness of God happens in God omnipresence.

Aphorism of the Day, December 18, 2022

Why did the Gospel writers write the birth of Jesus as a fantasia of angels, shepherds, magi in beautiful magic realism?  It was a profound artistic way to put in story form the wonder of the birth of the Risen Christ within each soul.

Aphorism of the Day, December 17, 2022

The infancy narrative about the birth of Jesus were written as an "as if" narrative using the presentation of the an actual event to indicate the substantiality of the inward spiritual birth of Christ within the lives of the early Christ communities.

Aphorism of the Day, December 16, 2022

A main vocation in life is to know oneself as a language user among other language users and to study why one and others brings to language forms in orality, writing, and body language deeds the "language products" of our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, December 15, 2022

Religions are essentially for community identity to give transcendental legitimacy for a community's right to exist.  Such transcendental ideology provides social cohesion and is useful in uniting against other tribes with different community identities, based on different transcendental ideology.  The modern age juxtaposes various communities with hyper awareness of the "others" presence.

Aphorism of the Day, December 14, 2022

Is it a coincidence that two men named Joseph in the Bible received dream communication from God?

Aphorism of the Day, December 13, 2022

The Bible presents dreams as a way in which God directly communicated to people.  We don't seem to give such divine authority to dreams today.

Aphorism of the Day, December 12, 2022

As much as we enjoy the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke, they also are spiritual manuals for the early churches to teach about how the Risen Christ is known to be born within each person.

Aphorism of the Day, December 12, 2022

Immanuel is a name which states the ancient creation story of humanity bearing the image of the creator.  The generalized image of the divine on creation has moments of becoming more apparent, and for the Gospels, Jesus was the most apparent case.

 Aphorism of the Day, December 11, 2022

The Magnifcat remains unfulfilled and is an eternal witness against the exploiters of the poor and vulnerable, including those who don't think they are doing it because of the blindness of the banality of their class blindness.

Aphorism of the Day, December 10, 2022

The solipsistic insight is that each person presides over one's own universe, one in which as the chimerical self participates in limited freedom in having one's existence impinged upon by the contextual linguistic structures where one has been thrown.  Such individual universe ceases to exist at one's death for those who had heretofore had lifely access to.  As to continuity in other manifestations of that unique universe in the deathly future, one cannot pretend to have much specific knowledge.  Personal apocalypse is one's own death which can happen anytime within the probable human conditions.  One of the functional meaning of generalizing personal apocalyptic to corporate or social apocalypse would be to imagine an end to some intolerable conditions for a group of people who need the visualization of their corporately shared suffering ending in order to survive the harshness of horrendous life probabilities.

Aphorism of the Day, December 9, 2022

Without being temporally provincial, we living in the present as the latest time, know our time to be  superior to the past in terms of quantity of occasions of experiences and it is the ever contemporary task to add quality to the time of our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, December 8, 2022

Words of the Risen Christ channeled in the early churches state that John the Baptist was the greatest born of women, but least born into the kingdom of heaven was greater.  This is hyperbole-speak for contrasting spiritual and natural births.

Aphorism of the Day, December 7, 2022

Patience is related to self-control; it is having impulse control to wait for future timing of something to come, arrive, or happen regarding one's well being.

Aphorism of the Day, December 6, 2022

The irony of wanting universal regard means that the sense of one's special favor has to be transferable for everyone to know the same sense of favor.  The easy way out is to be merely ethnocentric and live as though only our group is God's favorite.

Aphorism of the Day, December 5, 2022

The realm of God in time means that the present is always the latest time and as such surpasses in occasions of time all preceding events.  The latest is the greatest as such in quantity of time and the human work is to make the latest qualitatively good time in re-contextualizing everything that went before and serving up remnants of memorial traces with new applied recipes of love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, December 4, 2022

A prophet is one who is aloof from the banalities of evil and neglects of goodness, to rebuke and point the way to better living.  A prophets hopes to make goodness banal in the place of unrecognized bad habits.

Aphorism of the Day, December 3, 2022

Hermeneutical laziness accounts for the break down between science and religion.  Failure to appreciate that biblical writings were omni-competent literature for ancient people which included lots of utopian images, wish fulfillment texts, and heroic final intervention stories.  After science became our predominant way of living with probabilities based upon empirical verification, such dominance became the preferred truth criteria.  So, religionists responded by starting to act as though all ancient texts recounted events which could have been empirically verified.  We've been caught in a war between aesthetic truth/story/mythic truth and scientific truth.  We can be both aesthetes and scientists.

 Aphorism of the Day, December 2, 2002

Much of biblical writing could be characterized as "wish fulfillment."  For example the Lord God intervening to care for the poor and the downcast in physical ways, and the utopian visions of how life might be better.  It is humanly true to want to know more ideal conditions; the issue of faith is how to implement in incremental ways toward the ideal conditions.

Aphorism of the Day, December 1, 2022

Freud referred to religion as the wish fulfillment and the future of illusion.  He perhaps wished to cordon off science from religion as having a different kind of superior truth value, even though it is undeniable that people live by such "illusions" as love, justice, and world peace.  These things have no complete empirically verifiable content, but apparently people know when they partake of experiences such things as love, justice, and peace.  Future illusions of love, justice, and peace continue to have functional truth relevance.

Quiz of the Day, December 2022

Quiz of the Day, December 31, 2022

Which pericope in John's Gospel was not found in early manuscripts?

a. raising of Lazarus

b. woman taken in adultery

c. doubting Thomas

d. rehabilitation of Peter

Quiz of the Day, December 30, 2022

In what book does the Son of Man have a two-edged sword in his mouth?

a. Ezekiel

b. Daniel

c. Jude

d. Revelation

Quiz of the Day, December 29, 2022

Which of the following is not true regarding Thomas Becket?

a. Henry II appointed him to help reassert Royal influence in English church

b. Thomas Becket opposed Henry II royal prerogatives in the church

c. Becket went into exile

d. Becket excommunicated the Archbishop of York

e. Becket was martyred 

f. Becket's death was arranged by Henry II

Quiz of the Day, December 28, 2022

Which Major Feast is followed by three consecutive feast days?

a. Christmas

b. Easter

c. Pentecost

d. The Epiphany

Quiz of the Day, December 27, 2022

Of the following, who has not ever been regarded to be the mysterious "beloved disciple?"

a. Mary Magdalene

b. Lazarus

c. Peter

d. John the Evangelist

Quiz of the Day, December 26, 2022

What feast day coincides with the British "Boxing Day?"

a. John the Evangelist

b. Thomas the Apostle

c. Stephen the Martyr

d. Nicholas of Myra

Quiz of the Day, December 25, 2022

Which Gospel has the account of shepherds being at the birth of Jesus?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

e. Matthew and Luke

Quiz of the Day, December 24, 2022

Zechariah, father of John the Baptist was by occupation

a. a rabbi

b. a priest

c. a scribe

d. a farmer

Quiz of the Day, December 23, 2022

What happened to Zechariah when he disbelieved the message about the conception of Elizabeth?

a. he went temporarily blind

b. he got leprosy until the birth of John

c. he went speechlessly dumb

d. he lost his hearing

Quiz of the Day, December 22, 2022

During Mary's pregnancy, how long did she stay with Elizabeth?

a. for the duration of her pregnancy

b. it was was a short visit

c. about three months

d. the texts do not give us that information

Quiz of the Day, December 21, 2022

Of the following, which is not true about Thomas the Apostle?

a. he is called the Apostle of India

b. the Mar Thoma church is named after him

c. he is the founder of Thomism

d. he is often referred to as "Doubting Thomas"

Quiz of the Day, December 20, 2022

Who was Jesse?

a. brother of Samuel

b. son of Boaz

c. father of David

d. father of King Saul

Quiz of the Day, December 19, 2022

Which Gospels do not have the infancy narratives?

a. Matthew and Mark

b. Matthew and Luke

c. Matthew and John

d. Luke and John

e. Mark and Luke

f. Mark and John

Quiz of the Day, December 18, 2022

In the Pauline spiritual armor, what does the shield represent?

a.faith

b.truth

c.salvation

d.righteousness

 Quiz of the Day, December 17, 2022

What was the southern kingdom of Israel called?

a. the house of Zion

b. the land of Jerusalem

c. Judah

d. David's realm

Quiz of the Day, December 16, 2022

Where can the "dog returns to his own vomit" metaphor be found in the Bible?

a. 1 Peter and Ecclesiastes

b. 2 Peter and Proverbs

c. Hebrews and the Psalms

d. The Wisdom of Ben Sirach

 Quiz of the Day, December 15, 2022

Which Gospel begins with the ministry of John the Baptist?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, December 14, 2022

Which of the following is not a writing of John of the Cross?

a. Ascent of Mount Carmel

b. Dark Night of the Soul

c. The Interior Castle

d. The Spiritual Canticles

e. The Living Flame of Love

Quiz of the Day, December 13, 2022

St. Lucy of Syracuse was martyred during the reign of 

a. Nero

b. Galerius

c. Diocletian

d. Aurelian

Quiz of the Day, December 12, 2022

Of the following, which is not a Vatican certified apparition?

a. Our Lady of Guadalupe

b. Our Lady of Lourdes

c. Our Lady of Lubbock

d. Our Lady of Fatima

Quiz of the Day, December 11, 2022

The third Sunday of Advent is called

a. gaudete Sunday

b. Glory Sunday

c. Stewardship Sunday

d. Feast of the Holy Coins Sunday

e. vestment Sunday

Quiz of the Day, December 10, 2022

Who did Jesus say that John the Baptist was a return of?

a. David

b. Moses

c. Elijah

d. Elisha

e. Jeremiah

Quiz of the Day, December 9, 2022

The child Immanuel is referred to in which prophet?

a. Ezekiel

b. Zechariah

c. Micah

d. Isaiah

Quiz of the Day, December 8, 2022

Which pericope was not present in early manuscripts for the Gospel of John?

a. healing of blind man

b. woman taken in adultery

c. raising of Lazarus

d. the encounter with Nicodemus

Quiz of the Day, December 7, 2022

How many days passed between the baptism of Ambrose and his consecration as bishop?

a. one

b. two

c. three

d. seven

e. eight

Quiz of the Day, December 6, 2022

Nicholas of Myra was not

a. a bishop

b. from Asia Minor

c. present at the Council of Nicaea

d. a patron of soldiers

Quiz of the Day, December 5, 2022

Which of the following in not true regarding Clement of Alexandria?

a. he wrote an Epistle to the Corinthians

b. he was versed in Plato and the Stoics

c. he was a teacher of Origen

d. he was familiar with what has come to be called Gnostic thinking

Quiz of the Day, December 4, 2022

Which Gospel does not mention the execution of John the Baptist?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, December 3, 2022

Which of the following countries was not visited by Francis Xavier?

a. Spain

b. France

c. Indonesia

d. China

e. India

f. Japan

g. Italy

h. England

i.  Portugal

Quiz of the Day, December 2, 2022

Of the following which two are associated with Little Gidding?

a. George Herbert and Nicolas Ferrar

b. T.S. Eliot and Nicolas Ferrar

c. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton

d. Nicolas Ferrar and Lady Julian of Norwich

Quiz of the Day, December 1, 2022

What ancient biblical country is famous for cedar trees?

a. Syria

b. Lebanon

c. Persia

d. Samaria

Sunday School, January 1, 2023 Feast of the Holy Name

 Sunday School, January 1, 2023 Feast of the Holy Name

Themes:

The Feast of the Holy Name

Naming and the meanings of Name

What are your names? First, Middle, Last Name?
What do your names mean? If your last name is Cook, does that mean that some ancestor in the past had the job of being a cook?
How did your parents choose your Name? Are you named after a family member or friend of your parents? Did you parents just like the name?

Cultures have naming traditions. Native Americans are often named after events in natures or animals.
The Old Testament is a book of Names. You can study the names of all of the people in the Bible and the meanings of their names will help tell the story of the people who believed in God.

Adam means man
Abraham means father of many
Abigail means “my father is joy”
David means beloved
Moses means son or deliver
Deborah means “bee”
Elisha means my God is salvation
Jesus means God is salvation

The Feast of the Holy Name is the 8th day of Christmas and in the life of Jesus Mary and Joseph took Jesus for a naming ceremony and another birth ritual of all Jewish baby boys.

Why do we have names?
To identify us and make our uniqueness stand out.

Why do we say the Holy Name of Jesus?
Holy means most special or most unique. Jesus was the most unique person who ever lived. He came as God Son to show us that God is our salvation. God is the one who can save us even when we know that we won’t live forever. We know that our bodies die and so it appears that we are not saved or preserved. Jesus came to show us that God loved us and that God will preserve us beyond our deaths. God is our salvation, the salvation which we call resurrection. Jesus had this special name because he was the one who was God’s gift to the world to show us how much God cares for us. Even when we die and all of the people who knew us die, our name will not be forgotten because God will remember us all beyond our deaths.

The Holy Name of Jesus means God is our salvation. Jesus showed us that this is true.




Family Service with Holy Eucharist
January 1, 2023 The Feast of the Holy Name

Gathering Songs: How Majestic is Your Name, Jesus Name above All Names, Praise the Name of Jesus, Majesty


Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and for ever. 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: How Majestic is Your Name, Renew! # 98
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in al the earth. O Lord, we praise your name. O Lord, we magnify your name: Prince of Peace, Mighty God, O Lord God Almighty. O Lord, we praise your name. O Lord, we magnify your name: Prince of Peace, Mighty God, O Lord God Almighty

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

Liturgist: Let us pray
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen..

Litany Phrase: Alleluia (chanted)

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 Numbers

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them. Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 8

1 O LORD our Governor, * how exalted is your Name in all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children * your majesty is praised above the heavens.


5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? * the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; * you adorn him with glory and honor;

7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; * you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen, * even the wild beasts of the field,

9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, * and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O LORD our Governor, * how exalted is your Name in all the world!

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.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Liturgist: The Gospel of the Lord.
People: Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon: Fr. Phil
Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.
Since God is so great and we are so small,
We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.
We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.
We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is
welcome.
We believe that Christ is kind and fair.
We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.
And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever. Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

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.

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: Jesus, Name Above All Names, Renew! # 26

Jesus, Name above all names, beautiful Savior, glorious Lord, Emmanuel, God is with us, blessed Redeemer, Living Word.

Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”
All become members of a family by birth or adoption.
Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.
A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.
The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: Praise the Name of Jesus, Renew! # 7
Praise the Name of Jesus, praise the name of Jesus, He’s my Rock, he’s my Fortress, he’s my Deliverer, in whom I trust. Praise the name of Jesus.

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: Majesty, (Renew # 63)
Majesty, worship His majesty. Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise.
Majesty, kingdom authority flow from His throne unto His own;
His anthem raise.
So, exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus.
Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus the King.
Majesty, worship His Majesty; Jesus who died,
now glorified, King of all kings.

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

The Christmas Story: Unbelievable, Believable, and Sublime

Christmas Eve December 24, 2022
Is. 9:2-4,6-7 Ps.96:1-4,11-12
Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14

Lectionary Link

One might say that the Christmas Story is unbelievable and believable even as it message to encode the Sublime.  

How is the Christmas Story unbelievable?  It is unbelievable to us who live our lives by empirical verification.  We live by the natural laws which empirical testable evidence provides for us.  We assume that natural laws have always been operative and from this perspective we find many elements of the Christmas story unbelievable, like angel choirs appearing in the sky,  fantastic helicopter-like stars which move like a gps tracking device to guide wise men to a specific location, and not to mention a Holy Spirit conception which became a physical birth.  Yes, to the empirical mind the Christmas story is unbelievable.

How then can the Christmas Story at the same time be believable?  It is a believable story from the perspective of literary criticism.  It is an artistic and spiritual text that arose within communities which were providing community identity and the inculcation of spiritual practice within the various communities.  As literary critics we can totally believe the communicative techniques of the Christmas Story writers.  They deftly used the models of communication which were used within their contexts.  They located their message of Jesus within the salvation history story that they received from the Hebrew Scriptures tradition including mysterious and marvelous birth tradition. The kings from the East bringing gifts tradition  The flight to Egypt and return retraces the journey of Israel.  The deaths of Holy Innocents mimics the story of Pharaoh's slaughter of male offspring. These elements present Jesus as the new Moses, and the relocation from Nazareth to Bethlehem lines up with the Davidic place of birth.  The Christmas Story writers were aware of their readers who knew the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures.

But they were also aware of their Roman Empire Gentile audience who knew the promotional messages which were published to promote the image of the Caesar.  Caesar Augustus was miraculously conceived, he had celestial phenomenon that happened at his birth, he was called prince of peace, savior of the world, and the Roman senate designated the Caesar as Augustus, as divine or a divinized human being, and the divine Caesar's offspring was called the son of a god.  

The writers of Christmas Story might even be charged with being subversive in appropriating language used exclusively for the Caesars for Jesus Christ.  As such, the churches might be regarded as a subversive underground movement within the Roman Empire.  The heavenly angels were like a higher body than the Roman Senate in declaring the divine status of Jesus.

I hope that we can appreciate from a literary critical perspective how the Christmas Stories were completely believable in how they appropriated effective contextual communication models to promote what they regarded to be their very highest value.

And this brings us to the ultimate point of the Christmas Story, the truth of the Sublime.  And what was the Sublime?  The constituting event for the early Christians was the sublime experiences of the Risen Christ, an event referred to as a New Birth, as spiritual birth, and as the realization of Christ in oneself as the hope of glory.  The point of presenting the story of the birth of Jesus was to encode the spiritual birth of the Risen Christ within the hearts of all who wanted to know this spiritual realization.

St. Paul said the mystery of the ages was "Christ in you, you hope of glory."

And this now is the continuing truth of the Christmas Story: the sublime birth of Christ in us.  To deny this truth is to deny the experience of countless millions of people for over hundreds of year.  It is empirically true that this experience has been confessed  by many people.  The empirical proof of birth of Christ within us involves the transformation of lives to live lives of peace, hope, love, kindness, and justice.

And the challenge for us today is to make the birth of Christ believable in our time?  And how can we do this?  By living lives of love, peace, joy, self-control, kindness, and justice in our life situations.  These manifestations are proof of the sublime truth of the birth of Christ.

May God help each of us to know the sublime truth of the birth of Christ today.  Amen.

Prayers for the Season of Advent 2022

Saturday of 4 Advent, December 24, 2022

God who is Sublime and who shares sublime occasions with us; we thank you for the most divinely Sublime Christ who has shared with us the path of knowing our own sublime divine parentage in being in God's image.  Give us grace to be good children of God.  Amen.

Friday of 4 Advent, December 23, 2022

God of perpetual coming to humanity and God who has alway been present to humanity; let us not your many occasions of becoming apparent in time make us forget the divine undergirding presence of life itself.  Amen.

Thursday of 4 Advent, December 22, 2022

God of Time, teach us to value our tentative lives and grant us strength to make what is tentative by being constant efforts at the practice of love and justice.  Amen.

Wednesday of 4 Advent, December 21, 2022

God who comprehends light and darkness, the longest and shortest day of the year occurs at the same time depending upon our location on earth; give light in our darkness and give us the darkness of rest for our renewal we pray.  Amen.

Tuesday of 4 Advent, December 20, 2022

O God who opposes the tyrants, hasten the end of the oppressors of this world so that those who wish for the kindly sharing of everyday life might live in peace.  Amen.

Monday of 4 Advent, December 19, 2022

God, who is same in your omnipresence, we give thanks for the Word made flesh in Jesus as a definitive message of the truth of God always being with us in Sameness of presence in all creation.  Give us humility to know that we are always walking on holy ground of divine presence and let us honor your presence everywhere with how we live with love and justice.  Amen.

Sunday, 4 Advent, December 18, 2022

Gracious God, forgive us for personalizes your universal love and forgetting that your love belongs equally to everyone else.  Amen.

Saturday of 3 Advent, December 17, 2022

God of all, forgive us when we invoke you as justification for our small hearts in excluding others from invoking you from different situations than ours.  Amen.

Friday of 3 Advent, December 16, 2022

Christ the Eternal Word, you have created us a language users to know that we use language for speaking, writing, and our body language deeds; give us grace to elevate our language by practicing what love and justice might mean in speaking, writing, and the acts of our body language.  Amen.

Thursday of 3 Advent, December 15, 2022

God of all peoples, so many name you in different ways for their particular identity in their particular locations on earth; give us grace to promote our locations as houses of prayer for all people and avoid presuming that we speak exclusively for you.  Amen.

Wednesday of 3 Advent, December 14, 2022

God whom we say has advents in human experience even though you have never left human experience.  Give us who have live so long in states of your presence being inapparent, many more advent experiences of your apparent presence.  Amen.

Tuesday of 3 Advent, December 13, 2022

God who has been born within creation from the beginning; we thank you for the specific birth of God in Christ in the person of Jesus to bring us the knowledge of the general fresh natal presence of God within us.  Amen.

Monday of 3 Advent, December 12, 2022

God who would not be known if you were not with human experience; we thank you for the occasion of knowing the greatness of what we participate in and we ask for grace to be participants of this life with love and justice.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Advent, December 11, 2022

God who is All, whose All has to get funneled into translatable bits to be processed by us; let the bits which get to us be the ones which teach us love and justice in our words and deeds today.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Advent, December 10, 2022

God of Advents and perpetual comings known in language lives of language users; some of your comings to be known are more pronounced and poignant as in the person of Jesus and his many future comings as the Risen Christ.  Gracious God, let us be prepared for the many comings of God to us.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Advent, December 9, 2022

God of time, we live in the latest times; give us wisdom to peruse what we can from the past experiences of humanity, so that we can make better decisions to effect further future latest times for better conditions of justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Advent, December 8, 2022

Gracious God who inspired the Magnificat; forgive us who sing this song when we do not lift up the lowly, or feed the hungry, or send the rich away empty.  Let us be delivered from being hypocritical singers of this glorious song.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Advent, December 7, 2022

God of patience, we often think that you wait too long for things to be resolves, corrected, ended, and redeemed.  Forgive us who do not have the same divine duration as you, to be patient in anticipating many good things for the common good of the most people in our world.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Advent, December 6, 2022

God of the most Expanding Realm, in this Realm the humble bishop of Myra has morphed into the patron giver of gifts for children.  Give us grace to keep this world aptly prepared for children to know the basic gifts of life.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Advent, December 5, 2022

Gracious and Everlasting God, your Realm includes the experience of time as the before and after moments of life; you have placed us in the latest times according to our contexts, and we ask for grace to integrate in wise ways the traces of the past that we know into a better now and future in our human craft of love and justice.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Advent, December 4, 2022

Gracious God, the banality of your presence goes unrecognized and sadly we live the banality of unexamined inferior living of injustices.  Thank you for the prophets who expose our banal evils and who invite us to new habits of the banality of goodness which we begin to do without recognition.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Advent, December 3, 2022

God of the beauty of infinite diversity, help us to appreciate the truth of beauty in its many forms; and let us not limit truth to but propositional logical phrases of science but complement the practical with aesthetics of love and justice.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Advent, December 2, 2022

God of Ideals, about whom none greater can be conceived;  we seek not to be condemned by what is best but coaxed to it in making choice and actions to be better today than yesterday.  Thank you for prophets who give us the direction of perfectibility.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Advent, December 1, 2022

Gracious God, your Plenitude is beyond our comprehending capacity in always being More than we can  perceive even in the extended durations of our experience.  In your Great More, we receive utopian visions of the harmonies of love, justice, and peace, and though such visions elude our capacity to make them actual, we receive the grace of these visions to know the direction of goodness.  Keep us this Advent on the path of Goodness.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Advent, November 30, 2022

God, who is Utopian Being, your vision of perfection provides us with the direction for human progress toward love and justice and living with the most adequate harmony in this world of true freedom with so many agents of freedom in direct competition and clashes.  Give us the wisdom of harmony on the path of the best harmonies for the most beings in your created order.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Advent, November 29, 2022

God of all possibilities, the seeming impossible visions of future perfection haunt us daily to get our act together; we asked for the utopian person, the Risen Christ to spiritually animate us toward what might be significant progress today in surpassing ourselves in love and justice.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Advent, November 28, 2022

God of our ideals, you have sent prophets and the prophetic to remind us of how we fall short of the ideals of love and justice; give us grace to bear up in our gaping failures and give us strength to take wise incremental steps toward the ideals of love and justice in our specific life situations today.  Amen.

Sunday, 1 Advent, November 27, 2022

God of Everlasting Continuity, let us not only have visualization of the end of injustice, but let us also work to make justice a reality in our world toward the model of the perfect justice of the reign of Christ.  Amen.

The Birth of Christ is Fantastic

4 Advent A, December 18, 2016
Isaiah 7:10-16 Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25

Lectionary Link

How certain were the early followers of the Risen Christ of his interior presence within them by an experience the Holy Spirit?  And how did they communicate the substantiality of this experience?

We forever use the scientific method as a metaphor of substantiality.  Believing our eyes, touch, taste, ears, and smelling is what we regard to be most empirically real.  Empirical verification becomes the practical way to say that something is really real.  As such, it then becomes used as a metaphor for declaring the realness of non-empirical events such as the experience of love, peace, hope, justice, and spirit.

Are love, peace, hope, justice, and spirit really real?  Is the experience of beauty really real?

It is like the absent lover who receives a passionate letter from his beloved and confesses that the words of the letter made it seemed as though you were actually here with me.

Those who experienced the closeness of the Risen Christ used the narratives of the birth of Jesus as narrative of substantiation of the reality of such a spiritual birth.

Spirituality is an mysterious experience and it lends itself to aesthetics and feeling expressions of the heart.  But how important are these mysterious experiences of Spirit, love, hope, and beauty?  Well, they have an equal if not more important value than what we experience with our physical senses.

The physical senses record "that things happen;" our interior processing center includes the complex art of coming to meaning about what has happened.  And when good things happen which can be shared, such things create communities, and these communities come to have group identity because of shared meanings.

The New Testament writings are writings about the shared meanings of people who have come into having an identity with the Risen Christ.  These writings employed multiple rhetorical strategies to teach and promulgate the meanings of the Risen Christ.

In the earliest writings, the letters of St. Paul, we find that he was one who never had empirical experience of the historical Jesus.  What he did have was an incredible interior event which turned his life around.  Even though he did not have an empirical experience of Jesus,  he believed that his spiritual experience was a substantial experience which had empirical and clearly noticeable effects in his new behaviors.

The spiritual events, the inner events happened within people of the early churches and they had outward and visible effects.  The events were known by their effects even when the events cannot be seen or exactly replicated like a scientific experience.

What language did Paul use about his experience of the Risen Christ?  He confessed Jesus to be the messiah, and the one who was proclaimed as Unique Son of God.  Paul's writings included teaching about what the mystical experience of identity Christ meant for him and others who shared it in community.   Such community living was not always perfect.  So Paul wrote exhortations, disciplinary words, and advice on how the Christ-communities should live together. His writings also included a construction of the Risen Christ experience in continuity with his own Jewish tradition as was recorded in the various Hebrew Scriptures.  Since the experience of the Risen Christ happened to Jews and Gentiles, there was a teaching need to give an orientation of the moorings of Christ within the Jewish traditions.  These traditions were completely unfamiliar to the Gentiles.

The New Testament writings do not come with the full knowledge of the context of the first readers for these writings and we have to do some speculating from internal evidence of the writings and from historical records to try to get of sense of the writing purposes.

In the Gospel records about the origins of the meaning of the Risen Christ and the relationship to the Jesus of history, we have four canonical varieties:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  We assume that the contexts of their writing and reception were to specific communities at specific times and that each Gospel had writing purposes with rhetorical strategies to communicate the meaning of the experience of the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I would loosely characterize the Gospels as Early, Middle, and late phases in New Testament writings.  The Early phase being represented by the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus is adopted as God beloved Son in presenting a heavenly and spiritual voice declaring it.  In the Christian practice of baptisms, each baptized spiritually hears a voice declaring one as God's beloved Child.

John is the late phase Gospel and in it the origin of Christ on earth is expressed in a very philosophical from: The Word from the beginning was made Flesh.  Word made Flesh is the Christmas story in John.  Word is made flesh again in the spiritual reality of Christ within each believer.

Matthew and Luke are the middle phase of New Testament, later than Paul's writings but earlier than John's.  They include two infancy narratives with similarities and differences.  Scholars tell us that these infancy stories were rather late in being added to the texts.  The metaphorical teaching purposes of these texts for the communities of Matthew and Luke was this:  The spiritual birth of the Risen Christ is substantial and the substantiality is artistically presented in the extra-empirical fantasia of the infancies narratives. 

The infancy narratives are a way of emphasizing that the experience of the birth of the Risen Christ is tinged with fantastic marvelous mystery and therefore the language of the fantastic is used to characterize the spiritual event of the birth of the Risen Christ into each person.

The infancy narratives are told in a fantasia mode so as to teach the mysterious substantiality of the experience of the birth of the Risen Christ.   And this is the Gospel of the Christmas story.  And for you and me, it means that spiritual birth within us has real Christly effects in our behavior and our transformations in goodness.  Amen.