Heroic Love, Forgiveness, and Practical Golden Rule Living

7 Epiphany C February 23, 2025

Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38

Lectionary Link

Holy Scriptures are multivocal in that they represent the voices of many writers over many years who opened themselves up to insights about how God was involved in their times and places and they offered recommendations, pieties, and behaviors about how the people of their time could find meaningful relevance of God in their lives.  This mode of being has continued for many years and still motivates us today.

The lectionary each Sunday represents the various voices of the multivocality of Scriptures by assigning a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures with a Psalm or Canticle, plus a non-Gospel New Testament reading, and lastly a Gospel reading based upon the conviction that the witnesses about Jesus present us with the core identity of our community life.  And even if we agree that Jesus is the core of our identity, various Christians emphasize different facets of even the witnesses that we have about Jesus.  Our traditions ends up be multivocality about God and multivocality about the multivocalities about God.  And if this seems oft confusing, the genius of this is acknowledging the uniqueness of each person's interpretative experience from their own experiential background and environments.  And if the love of God is the big answer to everything, fittingly, the "devil" is in the details of making love actual in context specific ways.

Probably one of the most heroic love ethics is found in the famous beatitude words of Jesus, which come to us in slightly different words on a mountain and on a plain in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  We've read the appointed portion of the beatitudes from Luke's Gospel today.

What are the words?  What are conditions which such words reveal?  And why do I call it a heroic love ethic?

Jesus said, "I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

From the text of the portions of the beatitude according to Luke's Gospel, what assumptions can we make about the recipients of the writings in their lives and world?

It seems as though the word imply that people had enemies.  People were hated.  People were cursed.  People were abused.  People were having acts of violence inflicted upon them.  People were stealing the clothes off their backs.  People were so needy that they had to beg.  

To the people who experienced these deprivation, they were asked to follow the golden rule.  You do not want enemies, you do not want to be hated,  you do not want to be cursed, you do not want to be abused, you do not want to have things stolen or taken from you, so imagine the very best treatment that someone can provide you and that is how you are to treat others.

When times are normal, most people are just live and let live sort of people.  Normal everyday living does not usually require having enemies, hatred, cursing, abuse, open violence, or open stealing, and perpetual begging.

The literal significance of the beatitudes only make sense in the crisis times of a people being oppressed.  The oppression is so open and common to a group of people that they have strategic decisions to be make.  Do we as powerless people try to live the law of justice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?  If powerless people try to respond in kind; they lose all their freedom or even their lives.  To survive, oppressed people adopt a winsome lifestyle.  "We have to be on our best performance for our oppressors so they will treat us better and so they do not get violent and harm us to death.  We need a survival ethic."

Champions of oppressed people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were proponents of the non-violent lifestyle of the beatitudes.  Be so good, heroically good in the face of one's oppressor such that the contrast of goodness and their own cruelty is so great that it might bring them to shame.

We need to be very honest.  The life conditions which requires the lifestyle of the beatitudes is not a situation where justice prevails.  One can honestly say that people who oppress are enemies to the people whom they oppress.

The saddest thing about the Beatitudes is that it acknowledges the conditions of oppression as what the true conditions of life that some people are forced to live.

We can sigh with relief when we have comfortable situations which do not require the heroic love ethics of the beatitudes.  At the same time, we should live heroically to prevent the situations of oppression from ever coming to be.

History has given us horrendous examples of oppression.  Many nations and conquerors have invaded and enslaved; some have become benign rulers as long as the populations accept the conditions of being ruled.  The conditions which brought about slavery, the holocaust, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and mis-treatment of marginalized persons in society have and still plague our world.  We ourselves are not blameless in being knowing or unknowing accomplices to behaviors which are not worthy of being associated with Jesus Christ.

We affirm the heroic love ethic of the beatitudes even as we try to build societies which do not need such heroic love.  We do need in our rather petty and selfish ways within our various communities to practice the practical golden rule love in regarding the dignity of each other and in our inevitable failures we need to make forgiveness the identifying love act of our communal practice.

In the oral traditions of the people of Israel, a profound act of forgiveness is cited as the act which saved them when the drought in their land sent the sons of Jacob to a foreign land for food supplies.  The proud dreamer Joseph, who was presumed dead, but sold as a slave to Egypt had risen to prominence in Egypt.  And when his unknowing brothers came to Egypt for supplies, he revealed himself to them and forgave them for his separation from his father, his home, and them.  And this act of forgiveness made providential the suffering of his life of separation from his homeland.

The Psalmist reminds us in the songs for worship that time means waiting for good things to happen so as to give providential context to contrast the less than good things which comes to anyone.  We are reminded that there is something about love which can bring us to eventually confess providence.

The writings of the New Testament happened in times when the heroic love ethic of the beatitudes was required of oppressed people who often lacked advocates within the Roman Empire.  Part of the reason of the love ethic of the beatitudes is based upon the fact that both Jesus and Paul were apocalyptic preachers.  We have to love heroically now because this age, this life, and our bodies are passing away.  To preach hope, Paul wrote that we would have a new spiritual body which would be imperishable.  We will leave our bodies which are subject of oppressive conditions to the dust of the earth.

Whether we need an apocalyptic narrative about the end of life as we know it, or just hope in preparation for good deaths, we need love, which sometimes requires the heroic, sometimes near the impossible grace of forgiveness, but mostly just practical and commonsensical regarding the dignity of each other as we live in our multivocal communities, because we're all different.

May God give us heroic love, if we need it.  May God give us practical golden rule love, because it is the art of living well.  May God give us forgiveness when we need to receive it and when we need to offer it.  And may God give us continuing visions of always having a future, in life, after life, after life, after life......Amen

Prayers for Epiphany, 2025

Friday in 6 Epiphany, February 21, 2025

God, the experience of people who have called upon you has often been in the time of oppression such that the beatitudes were generated to help people live winsomely during oppression; forgive us for guilty silence when we witness representative leaders openly commit us to cruelty or abandonment of marginalized persons and nations threatened by invaders wreaking devastation upon them.  Amen.

Thursday in 6 Epiphany, February 20, 2025

God, in Christ we understand your humility to be emptied into the particular, even the particulars of our life circumstances, but that emptiness is fullness because it is connected with everything, everywhere, all at once such that what is emptied into the particular can never be separated from the All.  Give us faith to hold onto the deep connectedness even when the particular experience seems to threaten us with lonely isolation, and more horrendously, the moral bankruptcy of a nation of people.  Amen.

Wednesday in 6 Epiphany, February 19, 2025

God, we pray for a world where the heroic lifestyle of the beatitudes were not required, a world where forgiveness was not needed, a world where persecution, oppression, and hatred did not exist.  Help us not to generate the meaning of You as the requirement of our anxious dread that if things can go wrong, they will.  Give us hope to to believe that we were made good and that goodness is the normalcy to which we are are called.  Amen.

Tuesday in 6 Epiphany, February 18, 2025

Jesus, your words ask of us the impossible to not judge and to always forgive while we possess language which is the very continuous classification and appraising phenomenon of living; give us grace to be open to bless those who once have known our condemnations, and forgive those who have hurt us badly so that reconciliation might be achieved as the healing of our world.  Amen.

Monday in 6 Epiphany, February 17, 2025

God, whose kindness can seem to be a weakness when woeful people are sustained while they wreak havoc on myriads of vulnerable people even if death eventually ends them; give us faith to believe in the arc of just correction at work in the goodness of the perpetual sustaining of all things.  Amen.

Sunday, 6 Epiphany, February 16, 2025

Eternal Word, Divine Persuader and Rhetorician, expose to us how we are living lesser values by the revelation of your higher values which pertain to loving you beyond our own desires which create mere idols, and loving our neighbors who are oft messy as we are in needing perpetual patient love.  Amen.

Saturday in 5 Epiphany, February 15, 2025

Eternal Word who is God, you have imparted within us word ability wonderful and diverse to express the sublime and the mundane; give us grace and humility to recognize in our use of language we are instantiating our linguistic identity with you the Eternal Word, who inhabits anything that can be known.  Amen.

Friday in 5 Epiphany, February 14, 2024

God, who is Love, your Valentine to us is more than chocolate or flowers and it is not fickleness of affinity or desire; it is the continuous sustaining of us and all in all of the genuine freedom which comprises the probabilities of life; help us to funnel your generous sustaining love into acts of justice love for all.  Amen.

Thursday in 5 Epiphany, February 13, 2025

God of liberation, let us call our lives blessed when we are active to overcome poverty, hunger, prejudice, and sadness in our world; and let us know that it is better for us to experience such deprivations than to be those who actually cause the same for others.  Amen.

Wednesday in 5 Epiphany, February 12, 2025

God, free the wealthy from the woes of possession being what controls and possesses them; give them the joy of selling what they have and giving to the poor to follow their Christ-like better angels.  Amen.

Tuesday in 5 Epiphany, February 11, 2025

Blessed Jesus, you left us words of the beatitudes to remind us that we forever have room to grow towards what is perfect; give us strength to work to keep people from needing to know an adjusting blessedness to the conditions of poverty, sorrow, war and conflict, persecution, hunger, thirst,  and marginalization.  Amen.

Monday in 5 Epiphany, February 10, 2025

God of all conditions, help us to know how we are blessed when we are poor or bereft of the conditions which seem to define a normal standard of living; give us grace to be strongly poor with all who are poor because of the patterns of blind greed of people who do not tend to the common good.  Amen.

Sunday, 5 Epiphany, February 9, 2025

God of Hope, hope is our calling and the accompanying analgesic for our faith which does not yet see hope's utopia; and if hope is our pain killer, let the prayers and work of love and justice be what tires us out each day.  Amen.

Saturday in 4 Epiphany, February 8, 2025

God who has made us to be people persons because we are born and constituted by and with people; help us in our peopling behaviors so as to draw out of each one the best gifts for the common good. Let this continual mutual gift exchange be our perpetual calling.  Amen.

Friday in 4 Epiphany, February 7, 2025

Give ears to hear your Call O God, eyes to see your message and a willingness to heed, especially if it asks of us something outside our heretofore comfort zone.  Amen.

Thursday in 4 Epiphany, February 6, 2025

God who beckons and calls in the Mystery of what we do not yet know; let your Mystery be made known in the manifestations of love and justice to us and through us.  Amen.

Wednesday in 4 Epiphany, February 5, 2025

God, who is Wild beyond our attempts at domesticating you in presentations done mainly for the administration of people for the convenience of an imposed social order; give us insightful orientation toward everything that is happening with the appropriate filters of doing love and justice in actual ways with each other.  Amen.

Tuesday in 4 Epiphany, February 4, 2025

God, the infinite diversity of your omnipresence is the seeming negligible hum of the universe which resides beyond our range and does not give us in our smallness the ability to comprehend such greatness; give us we pray enlightened apparent intercourse with tangible and close encounters which unveil in specific events of our lives your incognito presence.  Amen.

Monday in 4 Epiphany, February 3, 2025

When O God, when will the rich be sent away empty, and the lowly lifted up?  Give us grace O God to be the underground care-givers of those who are lowly because of the neglect of the wealthy and powerful who do not subscribe to the Christ words to whom much is given, much is required.  Amen.

Sunday, The Presentation of our Lord, February 2, 2025

God our birthing parent of the Absolute Plenitudinous Past; you emptied the witness of your presence into Jesus and he was presented to his specific community in his time and place; let us be presented too to you in our specific times and places so that our humanity might be redeemed in knowing our always already connection with the inner Divinity of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Saturday in 3 Epiphany, February 1, 2025

God who empties into weakness in the actual situations of freedom when the greedy and powerful oppress the weak because they have the freedom to do so; we fear the awesome freedom which makes morality valid and enhances the experience of justice when it is realized.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Epiphany, January 31, 2025

God who has given us language to encode our existence and knowing of it; we find ourselves often encoded with the limitations of our time and place influences when we seem to be but the unthinking pawns of known and unknown habits of bias which prevent us from successful acts of charity; give us grace to expand our cultural codes to love's standard of loving our neighbor as our themselves.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Epiphany, January 30, 2025

God, whom we are prone to forget because we are so locked into our provincial ghettos; let our rituals of remembrance be for us an invocation of your presence and blessing upon the specific rites of passage through which we transverse on our way to becoming holy humans.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Epiphany, January 29, 2025

God, the great expanding Container of All; all belong to you even though all do recognize such; help us to realize that we all belong together and we are challenged with living together in the best possible way for the common good of all.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Epiphany, January 28, 2025

God of Time and of our aging, we adopt rituals of remembering You in the times of our lives, so that among all that is lost in the process of time, we can retain community identity bearing our highest values of the love of You and our neighbors.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Epiphany, January 27, 2025

God who is the Great Expanding Container of All in Time; grant that what we add in freedom to the over-all becoming of all that is be works of love, mercy, justice, and kindness and so help to determine a better future.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Epiphany, January 26, 2025

Good God, whom we confess that you have made us good; we confess that we have not lived up to our original goodness even to descend into acts of incredible inhumanity; we thank you for allowing Jesus to arise in our history as an example and as a grace to restore toward our original goodness and toward a hard won future holy goodness.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Epiphany, January 25, 2025 (Conversion of St. Paul)

Holy Spirit, you are the dynamic presence of God in the process of history; through you we came to have the paradigm shift arising in the ministry of Paul, who wrote the Gentile people into the line of salvation history; give us grace to invite continuously those who have been deprived of the knowledge of their full inclusion in the family of God.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Epiphany, January 24, 2025

At some point we as language users came to call you God, or the one who used language to create by making word the flesh of existence; and from our experience of delight we have posited an original goodness even in the midst of the freedom for some things to be awful; give us grace to embrace the goodness of the good news which Jesus came to reinforce as what is the most appropriate representation of the original delight.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Epiphany, January 23, 2025

God, whom we have come to deem as a Language Originator; with language and faith we have come to deem our existence as good, even when we have behaved badly and when the clashes in the conflicts in nature often put us in harms way; give us grace to believe in original goodness and empower us to preach the good news which was so exemplified in the life of Jesus.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Epiphany, January 22, 2025

God, who often seems incognito in the non-apparent; when greed and evil intent seem to have become the apparent public norm such that they have overturn values of truth, keep us faithful in the oft unseen works of kindness, love, justice, and mercy.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Epiphany, January 21, 2025

God of all probabilities, the presence of so many circumstances of bad news in our world cries out for the good news of healing, sight, peace, love, and the overcoming of greed with a great Spirit of generosity; grant us good news especially to those who are devastated by the bad news of their froward circumstances.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Epiphany, January 20, 2025 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)

While violence was practiced against his people, O God, you raised up Martin Luther King, Jr., to practice non-violence in trusting that the innate naturalness of love and justice could win the hearts of those who claimed religion but practiced oppression; help us to continue in the work of Dr. King, following Jesus to bend the arc of history toward a more perfect justice for all.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Epiphany, January 19, 2025

God, you have blessed the human community with innumerable gifts and where they are exercised with wisdom and love, they promote the common good; confuse the gifts of the powerful and the greedy O God, and let the collateral gleanings of their selfish foolishness redound to the benefit of those who are in need.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Epiphany, January 18, 2025 (Confession of Peter, beginning week of Prayer for Christian Unity)

God, we acknowledge that Christians seem often to be persons divided by confessing a common Messiah; give us wisdom to seek the more significant unity in pursuing outcomes of love and justice for all people in our world.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Epiphany, January 17, 2025

Omni-present God, we often wish that omni-present sustenance of all were more discriminating in what is being sustained as we observe that everything that has happened has the proof of having been sustained, even by the divine omni-presence;  we ask for fearful respect for the genuine freedom which we have in shaping how our world is sustained and help us shape the world toward love and justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Epiphany, January 16, 2025

God of all and in all, individualize the signs of your presence to as many a possible so that our world can survive and be sustained in peace and care for one another.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Epiphany, January 15, 2025

God, how can we know your signs unless we first know the codes and translations of what a sign of you would be?  You gave us Jesus as the chief sign revealer of how to be humanly best in knowing the sign of what is divinely human and what is humanly divine.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Epiphany, January 14, 2025

God you have given us Christly presence as the power of imagination to supplement the seeming ordinary water of life and make it seem like an extraordinary feast such that others think we drink the elixir of wine, but we must confess that we are Holy Spirited people.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Epiphany, January 13, 2025

God, we like Mary, seek for the Christ to be in the mundane of our lives akin to dealing with shortage of wine at a wedding party; and even though in rebuke of our trivial priorities, we may hear a sigh of "what does that have to do with the higher priorities of the Risen Christ," we thank you for being involved in the child-like ordinary stuff of our lives.  Amen.

Sunday, 1 Epiphany, January 12, 2025 The Baptism of Our Lord

Eternal Word of God, you are coming to full solidarity with all humans in all human experience, and we commemorate your baptism as a event of the solidarity of the divine life with us, thus affirming ways of being human as valid ways to come to know what is more than human, even God as the Great Expanding Container of Life.  Amen.

Saturday after the Epiphany, January 11, 2025

God of Water, Wind, and Fire; who cleanses, quenches, breathes life, and warms and gives light; save us from floods and hurricanes, tornadoes, and devastating fires, and bring us renewing and rebuilding resilience when we know the worst effects of being caught in harms way of nature.  Amen.

 Friday after the Epiphany, January 10, 2025

God, the Container of All, into whom we have all been initiated by being born; we thank you for specific baptism and being received into particular communities of faith so as to continuously remind ourselves that you in Jesus represent the divine with us in such complete solidarity as to allow us to regard our paths as being valid ways of affirming our relationship in and through You.  Amen.

Thursday after the Epiphany, January 9, 2025

Forgive us God of all, for wanting the name of being a Christian country, or Christian community without manifesting the basics of being Christ-like in loving you and our neighbor as ourselves.  Amen.

Wednesday after the Epiphany, January 8, 2025

Eternal Word of God, giver of language which gives us ritual process within community; you became baptized by John to express solidarity with humanity in a particular moment of time and in becoming one with us you now invite us to become one with you in your Risen State in our baptismal states of becoming more Christ-like.  Amen.

Tuesday after the Epiphany, January 7, 2025

God of Omni-Manifestations, your omnipresence often obscures specificity to be known in personal ways; we thank you for the personality of Christ who is human enough to allow us to reduce you to anthropomorphic ways to perceiving your relevance to us in our specific situations.  Amen.

The Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2025 

God, who existed before our calendars to observe your manifestations to us; we recognize that the Christ nature came from the beginning and came in Jesus, and will continue to come as the Light which enlightens toward the surpassing goals of enlightenment to which we are called; give us grace to adjust our seeing behaviors to the light of Christ today.  Amen.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2025

Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2025

The multi-vocality of the writings in the collections of Scriptures which were voted to be canonical by human appraisers and assessors of their right to be the official text book for their various communities,  means that their variety changes their applicability to be in various ways and at various times depending upon the relevance of such applied meanings.  They also represent the inability of humans to attain the meaning of the love God, as in how was slavery once compatible with people who thought they were obeying God and now it isn't?

Aphorism of the Day, February 20, 2025

Some use the notion of "harmony" to say that God speaks with one voice through the Bible.  However, harmony actual implies multi-vocality.  Many voices together, different voices together.  One should honor the multi-vocality of the biblical texts of mere human being struggling to give voice to deal with the great questions of existence in their time in oft radically different ways.  The Bible is a collection of multi-vocality because it involves writers integrating the practices and cosmologies and the local knowledge of their times into their explication of their insights on how to live with the big questions of existence.  We are doing the same now in trying to integrate and synthesize insights from the "local" knowledge available to us to struggle in the art of living well.  We presume a discourse of totality not because we can speak with the authority of comprehending totality but because we assume that we are not alone because we are amidst everything else, past, present, and future.  Totality for us simply put is the EVER-MORE than us.

Aphorism of the Day, February 19, 2025

Ancient history and ancient writings leave us guessing about the specifics of the contexts when they were written.  We are often left to use common sense intuition to try to translate ancient writings to our current lives.  Are the ancients so foreign to us that translations can only hint at a significant range of meanings?  There is so many writing about writing about writing such that the texts are layered with interpretations themselves.

Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2025

The care recommended by Jesus might be the ethical equivalent of the practice of triage in medicine; assess the urgency of the care needed and treat the most urgent cases first.

Aphorism of the Day, February 17, 2025

Phrase from the Beatitudes in Luke: "God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."  Is such kindness God's weakness as the hidden sustainer of all who lets the sun shine upon the good and the bad?  God's kindness is the weakness of allowing genuine freedom.  Human strength is determined by what side of good and evil we choose to be with our freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2025

One's life can be analyzed by what one is passively and actively persuaded about.  Passively one receives the values of family and culture as the tacit persuasions of one's life.  Many of these go "unexamined" for one's entire life because one cannot "see" them.  Actively we take on new values as we are persuaded when confronted with the kinds of contrasts which require us to make value judgments which change our persuasions.  The New Testament word for faith, pistos, has the meaning in classical Greek, persuasion, which was the goal of the practice of rhetoric.  One's persuasions are perhaps forms the chief identities of one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, February 15, 2025

To appropriate the New Testament writings sensibly is to read them as explanation and teaching about the inward experiences of the writers using the genres available to them in the Roman context mixed with their appropriation of the Hebrew Scriptures as templates for expounding on the meaning of the Risen Christ.  It is silly to import scientific discourse and modern eye-witness reporting genre onto the New Testament writings.  Today we have opposing parties fighting over the wrong thing; one says it's true because the natural laws were "miraculously" violated and they have modern eye witness accuracy, and the other side is saying they are not true because they violate the rule of empirical verification and the tenets of modern historicism.  The mystagogy of the New Testament can be meaningfully true even as a discourse of the Sublime.  There is no need to pit the scientific against the aesthetic.

Aphorism of the Day, February 14, 2025

Among the different kinds of love, agape, storge, philia, and eros, one is fortunate to combine them all on Valentine's day, to have unconditional love, friendship love, familial love, and the magnet of attraction.

Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2025

The logic of the Beatitudes is counter to what people normally would call a blessed and successful life experience.  Poverty, Sadness to the point of weeping, persecution and unpopularity,  being hated, and hunger:  Are these the states of blessedness?  And how is it that we sort of romantically assume this is the normal lifestyles of people who call themselves Christian today in situations of wealth, glee, popularity, and satiation?  The conditions of the beatitudes are what people try to avoid and this is regarded as being psychologically normal.  Interpreters have to do some intellectual gymnastics to appropriate them as being relevant to what most regard to be a healthy psychological and social life.

Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2025

"Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation."  This phrase from the Lucan beatitude seems exactly counter to Marx's phrase, "religion is the opium of the people."  Wealth is the opium of the wealthy, i.e., the controlling substance which make wealth a curse.

Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2025

How do we make sense of the beatitudes from our vantage points of comfort and privilege?  Nietzsche called the beatitudes slave morality or a transvaluation of values.  Isn't poverty bad?  No, it's blessed.  American Christianity has idealized the beatitudes while requiring the blessed state of the beatitudes of the peoples whom we have oppressed while confessing ourselves as "Christians."  The slaves who were brought to America received in a trickle down way the message of Jesus, whom they came to love even when their masters did not practice the love Jesus toward them, but required of them to live the beatitude lifestyle as their "job" performance.  We should be very careful about proclaiming ourselves as "beatitude" Christians to avoid hypocrisy.  I think most American Christians understand themselves as being "reign with Christ" people who are claiming pre-heaven on earth privileges.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2025

The Bible is a book with accounts of people of faith adjusting to many different conditions and provides insights for helping us adjust with wisdom in having the courage to changes the things we can while accepting the things we can't change.

Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2025

Hope may be the positive name that we give for perpetual future and it is positive since it implies a comparative better than what has come before.  Hope is no guarantee that the future will be better but hope is what accompanies time and everything which happens to human within it.  It is the ultimate analgesic.

Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2025

Hope might be called nature's opium since the dangling carrot of a better tomorrow is a present analgesic.  Some people are just embarrassed because hope inspires invented narratives that are utopian, meaning, "no such actual places."

Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2025

Even as Marx called the religion the opiate of the people, his own writings could be characterized as hopeful utopian literature wishfully hoping that good angelic people would prevail over bad people.  His kind of hope was its own form of mental opium.  Whatever our "ism," we rely on the analgesic of hope.

Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2025

Freud's book on religion is entitled, The Future of An Illusion, and we could also write books about The Future of Art and Cinema.  Freud means illusion in a pejorative way in that in his view religion cannot be mentally healthy behavior.  We should live our religion in meaningfully true ways just as we can live artistic lives meaningfully true in how we relate to significant mystery in our lives.  Bad religion can manifest signs of pathology; good religion can be embracing ourselves as multi-discursive beings who know how to keep the practice of each kind of discourse within their proper lane.

Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2025

Religion as faith perspective is a filtered way of processing the experiential data that one experiences.  Freud called such perspective an illusion.  Marx called it an opiate.  They were only partially right, since faith perspective involves coping with what is actually happening and to do so one often needs entertaining imagination as well as mind analgesics.  Just because religion can be imaginative and a pain soother does not mean that is all it is.  Many people get their mind analgesics and entertaining imagination experiences in places other than religion.

Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2025

Living is always already responding to stimuli.  The stimuli is the call and our responses are answers to that call.  God is the overload of all stimuli all at once which can be perceived as but a droning hum of the negligible because there is so much that confronts us.  We can only respond with our reductive funneling interpretation of what becomes apparent in its closeness to us.  The purpose of enlightened community is to provide filters of love and justice so that the call of God in its close apparency might reflect the values of love and justice.  The call of God is general in its oceanic flooding of us; the call of God is apparent in how it arrives specifically close to us in our particular circumstances.

Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2025

Putting accumulating billionaires in charge of government is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2025

Interpret legal discourse as legal discourse, scientific discourse as scientific discourse, biblical discourse as biblical discourse with a community poetic of its own and be honest about its mystagogy.  Each discourse has telling meanings, or truths, according to its own internal interpretative rules.  Embrace the greater truth of humanity as multi-discursive practitioners.

Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2025

Ritual is real life theater.

Quiz of the Day, February 2025

Quiz of the Day, February 21, 2025

"The wolf and the lamb feeding together," is found where?

a. Psalms

b. Genesis

c. Isaiah

d. Revelations

Quiz of the Day, February 20, 2025

Which of the following represents Paul view of the resurrection?

a. the physical body is resurrected

b. the body is resurrected as a spiritual body

c. the resurrection of the dead happens when the Lord returns

d. b and c

e. a and c 

Quiz of the Day, February 19, 2025

The term bishop is used in the New Testament writings where?

a. In the writings of Paul that scholars regard to be his

b. In the deutero-Pauline writings

c. In the Acts of the Apostles

d. In each of the Gospels

e. a and d

f. b and c

Quiz of the Day, February 18, 2025

"As a reward the Lord gave me the gift of language..." Where is this phrase found?

a. Ecclesiastes

b. Proverbs

c. Ecclesiasticus

d. The Wisdom of Solomon

Quiz of the Day, February 17, 2025

"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored," is a line that Julia Ward Howe "borrowed" from

a. Revelations

b. Ezekiel

c. Isaiah

d. Daniel

e. a and d

f. a and c

Quiz of the Day, February 16, 2025

Blessed are you who are poor and not blessed are the poor in spirit, is found in what Gospel?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, February 15, 2025

Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, might be called

a. a homophone

b. an oxymoron

c. a synonym

d. a translated phrase

e. a metaphor

Quiz of the Day, February 14, 2025

What might be true about St. Valentine?

a. he was a martyr

b. he was beheaded

c. he was shot with arrows, thus Cupid's arrows for the popular day

d. there are three recorded St. Valentines

e. a, b, and d

f. a, b, and c

Quiz of the Day, February 13, 2025

When the canon of Scripture become mostly settled?

a. first century

b. second century

c. third century

d. fourth century

Quiz of the Day, February 12, 2025

What do biblical scholars designate as "Q?"

a. the Signs book of John's Gospel

b. A source available to the writers of Luke and Matthew

c. a competing view of Jesus to Mark's Gospel

d. the source of all the parables

Quiz of the Day, February 11, 2025

Paul's ministerial companion Timothy was related to whom?

a. John Mark

b. Barnabas

c. Lois

d. Silas

e. Eunice

f. a and e

g. c and e

Quiz of the Day, February 10, 2025

In which Gospel are the beatitudes the "sermon on the plain" and not the "sermon on the mount?"

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, February 9, 2025

From whom did Paul receive "his" Gospel?

a. from Ananias in Damascus

b. from Cephas

c. from James in Jerusalem

d. from Stephen at his stoning

e. directly from the Lord

Quiz of the Day, February 8, 2025

According to various traditions, which person of the Hebrew Scriptures was not assumed into heaven?

a. Moses

b. Elijah

c. Enoch

d. Melchizedek

e. Elisha

Quiz of the Day, February 7, 2025

Which prophet wrote that Elijah would return before the day of the Lord?

a. Isaiah

b. Jeremiah

c. Ezekiel

d. Malachi

Quiz of the Day, February 6, 2025

The hymn sanctus used in the Eucharist derives from which book of the Bible?

a. Psalms

b. Ezekiel

c. Isaiah

d. Revelations

Quiz of the Day, February 5, 2025

Isaiah was called by God during the reign of what king?

a. Solomon

b. Asa

c. Ahab

d. Uzziah

Quiz of the Day, February 4, 2025

Who used the metaphor of having "child birth pangs" on behalf of converts to the faith?

a. Peter

b. Paul

c. Jesus

d. John

Quiz of the Day, February 3, 2025

Which two letters of Paul are most alike?

a. 1 & 2 Corinthians

b. Galatians and Romans

c. Galatians and Ephesians

d. Romans and 1 Corinthians

Quiz of the Day, February 2, 2025

The Presentation of our Lord derived from what event in the life of people of Israel?

a. the Abrahamic covenant

b. the Passover

c. the giving of the Law

d. the entry into the Promised Land

Quiz of the Day, February 1, 2025

Who is the most famous saint of Kildare?

a. Patrick

b. Brigid

c. Blath

d. Aidan

e. Columba 

Sunday School, February 23, 2025, 7 Epiphany C

Sunday School, February 23, 2025,  7 Epiphany C

Themes

Our country is sometimes called the “melting pot.”   Why, because we are a country made up of people who have come here from many other places in the world, people who look different and who have spoken different languages and have different religions and belong to different Christian churches.

Why do we like our country?  Because we have this great ideal.  We want to grow toward life, liberty and happiness and justice for all. 

Jesus started this great ideal a long time ago.  He said to love our enemies.  He said we should treat other people in the same way that we want them to treat us.

The early church was a new community of people learning how to live together in love.  Jews, Gentiles from all parts of the Roman Empire, rich and poor people, all were learning how to love each other and live together.

How do we learn to live together in love?  We learn to forgive each other.  We don't practice pay back. 

When someone does something to hurt us, one of the first responses is to want to “pay them back.”

Did you ever watch a football game or hockey game and see a player get angry and hit another player?  And the player who got hit, hits back.  And the referee calls a penalty on the person who hit back.  Why?  The referee did not see the first hit.  The referee only saw the  pay back and so the second player received a penalty.  And it is not fair, but it shows that if we always want to “pay back” people who hurt us, then we usually get in more trouble than the person who hurt us.

Family members are close and share many nice things, but family members still often fight with each other.  Why?  Because we still have disagreements. 

Jesus said that we have to learn how to live with each other and learn how to be different and how to disagree without being disagreeable or hurtful.

Why should I forgive other people?  Well, I will find out that I am not perfect and that I will need to be forgiven by others too.  So, we need to obey Jesus and adopt forgiveness as the rule of our community.

Why do the rules of Jesus seem difficult?  Because it is difficult to live with people who are different from us.  But it is very important that we value our relationships with each other, because we all need other people.

The rules of Jesus seem difficult because living in a community can sometimes be very difficult.  This is why we need God and we need to ask God for forgiveness and then we need to forgive each other.

Jesus Christ came to say that God belongs to everyone.  And if God belongs to everyone, everyone needs to learn how to live together, even if people seem to be so different as to be called enemies.   We still have to share this life with other people, even those who are different from us so Jesus founded a way to live together and this way of living together became called the church or a fellowship.

The church is a group of different people learning to live together and practice forgiveness because we have been called by Jesus to live a life of forgiveness.

Sermon

The story of Joseph is a story of forgiveness.  Joseph had many brothers.  His father was named Jacob.  The brothers of Joseph were jealous of Joseph because they thought their dad Jacob favored Joseph.  Jacob gave a special rainbow-colored coat to Joseph.  Joseph was a dreamer and he used to kind of brag in front of his brothers about his dreams.  His brothers became angry and to get rid of him, they sold him into slavery and took his coat and put some animal blood on it and showed the coat to their dad and they said that a wild animal had killed Joseph.  Jacob thought Joseph was dead and he was sad.  But Joseph went to Egypt as a slave, but he was so clever he became the chief minister for the Pharaoh.  When a bad drought came, the brothers of Joseph came to Egypt to get food and supplies, and Joseph saw them but they did not recognize Joseph because he had grown up and he looked like an Egyptian.  When the brothers of Joseph discovered who Joseph was, they thought that Joseph would punish them for selling him into slavery.  But Joseph forgave them.  He said God had helped him to become successful so that he could help his brothers and his father Jacob survive a very hard time of drought.

Forgiveness is never easy.  That is why we ask God to help us forgive.  And we believe that forgiveness helps heal relationships.  Forgiveness is like a band aid on wound.  Forgiveness is what heals hurt in our families and our communities.

Amen.

  

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

February 23, 2025  The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Gathering Songs: I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, Jesus Bids Us Shine, Spirit of the Living God,

May the Lord

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: I Have Decided to Follow Jesus (All the Best Songs for Kids #130)

I have decided to follow Jesus, (3x) No turning back, no turning back.

The world behind me, the cross before me (3x) No turning back, no turning back.

Though none go with me, still I will follow (3x) No turning back, no turning back.

Will you decide now, to follow Jesus? (3x) No turning back, no turning back.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Litany of Praise: Chant: 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

Liturgist: A reading from Genesis.

Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him because they were so upset to see him. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life from famine. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there, since there are five more years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.'" And Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 37

1          Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; * do not be jealous of those who do wrong.

2          For they shall soon wither like the grass, * and like the green grass fade away.

3          Put your trust in the Lord and do good; * dwell in the land and feed on its riches.

4          Take delight in the Lord, * and he shall give you your heart's desire.

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.

Jesus said, "I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you."

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 our sins. Christ, have mercy.

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

People:                       And also with you.

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

Offertory Hymn: Jesus Bids Us Shine, (The Christian Children Songbook, #132)

Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, Like a little candle burning in the night; In this world of darkness, we must shine, You in your small corner and I in mine.

Jesus bids us shine first of all for Him, Well he sees and knows it if our light is dim; He looks down from heaven, sees us shine.  You in your small corner and I in mine.

Jesus bids us shine as we work for Him, bring those that wander from the paths of sin; He will ever help us if we shine, You in your small corner and I in mine.

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.

The Prayer continues with these words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: 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 Hymn: Spirit of the Living God, (Renew # 90)

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me. Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the living God move among us all; Spirit of the living God, make us one in love.

Humble, caring, selfless, sharing; Spirit of the living God, fill our lives with love.

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

     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: May the Lord (Sung to the tune of Edelweiss)

May the Lord, Mighty God, Bless and keep you forever,

Grant you peace, perfect peace, Courage in every endeavor. 

Lift up your eyes and seek His face, Trust His grace forever. 

May the Lord, Mighty God Bless and keep you for ever.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God!