Not for Funerals Only

5 Easter a         May 18, 2014

Acts 17:1-15       Ps. 66: 1-8  

1 Peter 2:1-10     John 14:1-14   

 Lectionary Link           

  We have read today something of a farewell discourse of Jesus from John’s Gospel.  Do you know perhaps the most common liturgical setting for this Gospel reading?

  If you’ve been to memorial services, requiems or funerals, this Gospel lesson is often the Gospel of choice for the celebration and thanksgiving of the life of a faithful departed loved one.

  The liturgical use of this Gospel reading, I fear, has fixed its meaning to death or the event of death and departure.  And the liturgical use of this Gospel has so fixed the meaning of this Gospel with the event of the death and departure of Jesus and our faithful departed, we perhaps have been given a habit of misreading this Gospel.  Or we have established a habit of  limiting the meaning of these Gospel words.

  I would suggest for today, that these words involve the Gospel writer throwing of the voice, like a ventriloquist into the narrative figure of Jesus in order to teach the community of John another one of the many metaphors of spiritual transformation which are a part of the Gospel of John.  This Gospel is chock block full of metaphors of transformations to represent the state of living in this world in a much altered state of being because of one’s relationship to God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

  How many metaphors does the writer of John use?  Born again, born from above, Living Bread, Bread of Life, Living Water, Truth, Life, Light of the World, One with the Father,  The Way, Lamb of God, Good Shepherd, the Gate, the Vine, One with the Father, The Resurrection, The Word from the Beginning and more.  To be indelicate as I often am, John’s Gospel gives us a presentation of metaphors on steroids.

  And today I mean to free our Gospel lesson from it being limited to use at funerals and burials and memorial service.  Our reading presents profound metaphors representing the experience of one who has such an enhanced relationship with the sublime God that it needs to be shared as a possible invitation for every human person to know as well.

  Being a lower middle class person with aspirations for the socio-economic higher mobility, I always preferred the King James Version of this passage.  “In my Father’s House there are many mansions.”  Those subsequent egalitarian translators have shattered my hopes by evicting me to a seeming lower rent district with a different translation:  “In my Father’s House there are many dwelling places.”  Mansions or dwelling places?  Which would you choose?

  I think that the King James Version with the word “mansions” is what caused this passage to be so associated with the afterlife.  Of course heaven for English citizenry would involve mansions to go along with the streets of gold.

  As much as we love the imaginations of mansions and streets of gold to envision the afterlife, I actually believe that “dwelling places” is truer to the themes of the writer of John.  And this reference has a credible reference to a very this worldly state of being in relationship with God rather than referring to the imaginations of the afterlife.

  In my Father house are many dwelling places.  And where is the most obvious dwelling place of the Father on earth?  In the same passage we find that Jesus and the Father are One.  So Jesus is the most obvious dwelling place of the Father on earth.  This is consistent with the “body as God’s Temple, Body as Temple of the Holy Spirit” theology of the early Christian community.  Forget about the mansions in heaven, as Disneyesque as that might be in its appeal; the Father’s dwelling place is within you and me.  The words of Jesus might be read as “I go to because I have prepared you be a dwelling place of the Father.  Your being is made ready to be a room of dwelling for God as Father and Holy Spirit.”

  And this is not other worldly, it is very much here and now in this world.  As we know our bodies to be a location and dwelling place for God, we let our lives be expressive of the state of a transformed life touched by and in touch with the sublime presence, so magnificence we only humbly confess, “O, my God.”

  You and I, as dwelling places for God; this is a meaning which I would like for us to embrace as Gospel for us today.

  The second meaning that I would like for us to share today is the continual presentation in the Gospel of John of Jesus and the Father being one.  Jesus is a totally father-ized being.  It sounds a bit too patriarchal in our age of sensitivity about something we all know, namely, that Mother too is formidable in nurturing formation as well.

  What are some possible meanings of this notion of Jesus being a radically Father-ized being?  One of the insights which we have received from the psychoanalytic tradition is that the holy family of “mommy, daddy and me” is quite formidable in one’s psycho-social formation as a person, even to the point of making us feel as though we have been over-determined by mom and dad.  For most people, in their twenties or thirties, they have to grapple with the praise-worthy or blame-worthy sense of having been over-determined by mom or dad.

  Becoming a God-Father-ized person, a God-Motherized person,  a God-Parent-ized person means that one plumbs an underneath depth of being to be open to fresh and new determinations in one’s life such that one gains a freedom from mom and dad without being too critical of one’s parents and even forgiving of all figures in one’s life who one once held personally responsible for not being perfect to one’s need.

  To know one’s deepest parent aspect of personhood dwelling in one’s holiest center of being is to know the freedom, the peace and the joy of a new kind of creative freedom in one’s life.  It is an experience and an initiation into a state of being which can only be called transformational.

  The writer of the Gospel of John indicates that  Jesus is not calling us to mansions in the sweet bye and bye; the writer of John is calling us to a transformational state of being where one can feel indwelled by a Higher Determining Power.  And this is a heavenly state that can be known before death.

  So next time you hear this Gospel read at a memorial service, remember it is not for the sweet bye and bye, rather it is for a transformational state of being in the here and now.  Why? Because our bodies can be known as God’s dwelling and as such we can access a different kind of determining power, which can rightly be called a new Parent, a divine Parent who has become the new factor in our lives.  Amen.

Jesus as the Gate

4 Easter a         May 11, 2014  

Acts 6:1-9, 7:2a 51-60   Ps. 23 

1 Peter 2:19-25    John 10:1-10               

Lectionary Link

  Today we have read another riddle of Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the Gate.”  I am the Sheep Gate.  That is quite a riddle to say, “I am the Door.”  How can Jesus be a Gate or a Door?

  Well in the time of Jesus a Shepherd was a Gate.  A shepherd would sleep in the gate opening to the sheepfold.  The shepherd would not let the sheep out during the night.  And the shepherd would not let the foxes and the wolves attack the sheep because the Shepherd slept in the doorway of the sheep fold.

  We call Jesus the Good Shepherd and one of the roles of a good shepherd was to be gatekeeper.

  Today is mother’s day and your mom is a good shepherd for you; she is a good gatekeeper for you.  And she is the best looking door or gate you have ever seen.  But please don’t say to your mom, “Mom, you are the best looking door I’ve ever seen.”

  But let me try to show you how a human door works.  I stand in this door way here.  And I won’t let you go through this door because there is something dangerous in this next room and I want to protect you from it.  It may be a snake or an alligator or it may be a busy street with lots of traffic and so I am going to block you from going into the street because I want to protect you.  Do you think that I would be a good door if I could protect you and keep you from getting harmed or injured?

  But I am also another kind of Door.  I can also be an Open Door.  Come, into this room.  In this room there is the adventure of new learning.  There is beauty and truth and books and a museum.  There is sports and exercise and dance and stories.  So I am an open door for you to learn new things that are good for you.

  But I am a closed door to protect you from going to the wrong places.  But I am also a closed door to keep the bad things outside from getting inside to hurt you.

  So now do you see why Jesus as the Good Shepherd said, I am the Sheep Gate and I am the Door.

  Jesus is the one who opens good things up for us but he is also the one who teaches to protect ourselves from the bad things which can hurt us.

  We all need to have moms and dads and teachers and gatekeepers in our lives.

  You too need to be good doors and gates.  Is that silly?  How and you be a good door?

  You can be a good door when you protect babies and animals from getting harmed or hurt.  You can be a good door when you take good care of younger babies and children and when you help them to learn new things in their lives.

  So now we understand the riddle of Jesus when he said that he was the Gate to the Sheepfold.

  We need people in our lives who are good gates and doors; people to protect us from wrong things but people who open up for us new learning.  We also need to be good gates and doors and we protect those who need protection and as we share our learning with those who need it.

  So remember these riddles about Jesus.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is a good gate-keeper.  And on this day, remember that your mom is a good gate keeper too.  But please don’t say to her, “you’re the most beautiful door I’ve ever seen.”

I Am the Gate Sunday?

4 Easter a         May 11, 2014

Acts 6:1-9, 7:2a 51-60   Ps. 23 

1 Peter 2:19-25    John 10:1-10               

 Lectionary Link

  If I were to give you a choice of metaphors for this day, which would you choose?  I am the Good Shepherd?  Or I am the Good Sheepfold Gate?

  Obviously in our aesthetic sensibilities for pastoral metaphors, Good Shepherd does sound a bit more pleasing than Good Sheepfold Gate.  I don’t think that I’ve ever heard this Sunday referred to as Good Sheepfold Gate Sunday, but as most of you know, with me, there is always a first time.  I designate this as “I am the Good Sheep Gate Sunday” with justification from the Gospel lesson for Cycle A of the lectionary.  The lesson from John’s Gospel centers upon the metaphor of gatekeeper and Jesus as being the “Gate.”

  One can note that being the gatekeeper and being the gate are but further elaborations of what it meant to be a shepherd.  The Good Shepherd Sunday metaphors highlight three states of the human condition, the state of vulnerability characterized by the metaphor of the sheep, the use of power for exploiting the vulnerable as signified by the false shepherds and the use of leadership and power for the care of the vulnerable as represented in the metaphor of the Good Shepherd.

  Since the Gospel reading for today highlights the gatekeeper and the self-designating phrase of Jesus, “I am the Gate,” I want for us to explore the metaphors of gatekeeper and gate as aspects of the role of the shepherd.  The phrase, “I am the Gate” has some literal significance for the role of the ancient shepherd.  The sheepfolds were corrals for sheep and goats constructed out of wood sticks or stones.  These sheepfolds had an open door or gate area for the entrance and exit of the sheep.  The shepherd often functioned as the “literal” gate of the sheepfold as the shepherd would sit and sleep in the door opening.  So the Shepherd as the gate of the sheepfold would keep the sheep from leaving the sheepfold, but the shepherd was strategically placed to lay his life down for the sheep in preventing wild animals from entering the sheepfold to attack the sheep.

  In the metaphors of gatekeeper and shepherd as the gate, one can find manifold meanings which provide us insights into the role of good leadership.

  Good leaders are good gatekeeper and good gates.  The gate or door is an architectural feature which fills the place of the threshold in how we articulate architecture space.  I understand the sheepfold to be the safe and comfortable space for the protection and the nurture of the vulnerable in our care.  The sheepfold is a paradigm or a constellation of ideas and teachings and knowledge which we give to people for them to abide in for their own safety and well-being.  Certainly on this day, Mother’s Day, we recognize that mother is one of the most important gatekeepers in the lives of her children.

  The gatekeeper or the person as an actual gate means that leadership has the responsibility to keep people safe within a knowledge environment.  As we know in life, access to knowledge and life experience has to be regulated.  Regulation of life experience and knowledge has to be parsed appropriate to the life stages of the people who need to be nurtured in knowledge and life experience.  An important role of leadership is the regulation of knowledge and the exposure of people to life experience at the appropriate times.

  All knowledge and life experience cannot be openly accessible to all people all of the time.  A mother or father does not want one’s preschooler to be exposed to the knowledge of a sixth grader, though in a family, such regulation is a challenge to achieve.

  Sheep owners often had sheepfold close to home but they also had sheepfolds that were built in the mountains and valleys of seasonal grazing places.  When the shepherd was leading the sheep to seasonal grazing places, they would inhabit these sheepfolds away from home.

  The shepherd or gatekeeper is a person who leads others to new experiences.  A shepherd or leader is one who provide adventures in learning and creative advance for students or those on the progressive path of leaning in life.

  Jesus as the Good Shepherd was the master teacher for his disciple students.  He provided them progressive learning experiences to lead them from native naivete and ignorance into new experience of knowledge and wisdom.  The Gospels are presented to us as manuals using the disciples as those who are on the path of progressive learning with Jesus as their wisdom teacher.

  The disciples are shown to be those who are led away from their comfortable and familiar interpretations of faith and life into new adventures in understanding how God was working in the world and in their lives. Jesus as a crucified and risen messiah was the ultimate wisdom which these disciples were being led to learn about.

  Today, in our lives we need to be sheep-like disciples and students willing to follow teachers who will give us the appropriate exposure to new knowledge, new understanding and new wisdom so that we can progressively transform our lives in wisdom which helps us in our art of living.  At the same time we also need to be gatekeepers and doorways for the people who have been given to us to regulate in the knowledge of life.  It takes great wisdom to be a gatekeeper because not everyone is ready for all presentations of world experience and knowledge at one time.  We need to be those who discern the condition of the people in our care and area of influence but we also need to be informed in our own experience to have full menu of teaching events to offer to those for whom we care.

  On this Good Shepherd and Gatekeeper Sunday, we need to be committed to learn as much as we can for ourselves, but not just for ourselves, but for those for whom God wants us to be gatekeepers and spiritual directors.

  Each of us today need to recommit ourselves to find and follow good gatekeepers who can bring us to the next phase of learning in our lives.  At the same time, each of us need to be gatekeepers who are able to share through our teaching and life example the wisdom and care for those who need to be protected and comforted by us.

  Today, we give thanks for our mothers who have been gatekeepers in our lives.  We give thanks for Jesus the Good Shepherd, who has been in the threshold between places of safety and comfort and the adventure of new learning for the continual transformation of our lives.

  Let us today continue in the role of following our gatekeepers to new knowledge, even as we take up gatekeeping for those who need us to have a role of regulation for knowledge, safety,comfort and further adventuresome learning.

  Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is the Gate.  Jesus is the gatekeeper.  We can embrace all of these roles even as we always remain the learning sheep of our Good Shepherd Jesus.  Amen.

The Serendipity of Apparent Presence

3 Easter a         May 4, 2014   

Acts 2:14a,36-47   Ps. 116:10-17

1 Peter 1:17-23    Luke 24:13-35              

Lectionary Link

Today I would like for us to consider the difference between the actual and the apparent.  I think it is important to know the difference between the actual and the apparent.  The discrepancy between the actual and the apparent is probably the first and hardest lesson that has to be learned in life.

  A baby is born and lives with the actual presence of mother with actual contact with the maternal body.  But what happens when a mother wants to get some sleep or do other things?  What happens when mom does not have actual contact with her baby?  What happens when she is not touching her baby?  Or speaking to her baby?  Or is out of the sight of vision for her baby?  Mom may continue to miss her baby and worry about her baby, but she still believes that her baby in still in her life and very important to her.  But what happens from the baby’s point of view?  A baby loses contact with the maternal body; a baby loses contact with the touch of any parent or parent surrogate person; a baby does not hear the sound of her mother’s voice or any voice; a baby does not see any moving person the field of vision.  The apparent absence of mother can perhaps mean the actual non-existence of mother.

  Apparently, mother is no more, when she is gone.  And so there is great relief when the sensorial connections are made again.  Mom has to re-appear again and again so that the patterns of re-appearance can convince her baby that the apparent absence of mom does not mean the actual absence of mom.  And to help the “separation” anxiety mom will provide for her baby many things which will help her baby deal with the times in which the lack of sensorial accessibility to her baby might tempt the baby to assume apparent absence means real absence.

   This relationship is the same in our relationship with God.  This relationship was the same for the relationship between the disciples and friends of Jesus after he no longer was accessible to them in the same way .

  Jesus died.  Apparently he was gone.  His friends could not see him or touch him or talk to him in the same way in which they had had done before.  Did his absence mean that he apparently was no more?  The absence of Jesus could not mean that he had not existed; but how did his absence affect his apparent continuing relevance and meaning in our lives?

  The literature of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus function to cover the transitional period between Jesus leaving this earth and attaining the kinds of presences in the time of his apparent absence.

  Jesus was dead and gone; the Jesus Movement should have been over and done, his followers should have been defeated and disappointed.  The Roman authorities should  have been relieved that this flash in the pan apocalyptic insurrection was so short lived.  And all of the rabbinical schools of Judaism should have felt relieved that one less Jewish sect would exist.  John the Baptist was killed; some of his followers kept meeting and many of them followed Jesus of Nazareth, but now that Jesus was gone, there was one less rabbi to compete in market of religious ideas and interpretations.

  However the friends and followers of Jesus did not quit.  The Movement did not die.  It in fact grew exponentially.  It was a Movement which consisted of people who were probably surprised that they did not suddenly just dwindle into oblivion.  The Movement was so vibrant in the cities of the Roman Empire, they had to reconstruct for themselves the reasons for their success. 

  When the presence of the actual body of Jesus was no longer around, the number of people who believed that the Risen Christ had become apparent in their lives in some way, greatly increased.  A movement which was supposed to die on the cross with its founder, did  not die.  The Cross could not kill the life of Christ out of this world.

  The Cross of Jesus became like a launching pad which suddenly released the insides of Jesus to be made available in many different ways to many different people.

  I don't think we should read the Gospel accounts of the post-resurrection appearances as history; read them as the artistic explanation of the early followers of Christ as they were trying to tell and celebrate how they continued to be comprised with such joy and fellowship. 

  I believe the New Testament were writings created by people who were surprised that they continued to be together.  They were surprised by the phenomenon of something which kept them together and kept the movement growing and spreading to more people.

  The Gospel accounts of the post-resurrection appearances helped the community try to explain their continuing existence and they gave origin answers about the practices of the church.

  This post-resurrection appearance of Christ to the disciples who were walking back home to Emmaus should only be called a “half post resurrection appearance” of Christ?  Why?  Because it was written that the resurrected Christ had the ability to turn on and turn off his recognizability.

   What were the signs and the activities within the church of how Christians expressed how they knew Christ to be still alive?  The church practiced Eucharist and the Church practiced the interpretation of Scriptures to explain how Scripture was relevant to their contemporary life.

  This is what the Emmaus Road post-resurrection appearance of Jesus is all about.

  The Emmaus Road disciples said that their hearts had burned when Jesus was explaining to them the current relevance of the Scriptures.  And so that burning excitement was there in being engaged by God’s Word because it is only through words that we make the creative advance in our lives.  The words about creative advance in our lives cause us to burn with excitement.

  When Jesus was compelled by the disciples to sit down for something to eat; when Christ took bread and blessed it, poof, Christ was suddenly recognized.  Can there be a more obvious reference to the way in which the gathered church realized the presence of Christ?

  Word and Sacraments were two of the modes of realizing the apparent presence of the risen Christ.

  We have the Emmaus Road story because the church had to account for its own success and to celebrate the origins of how the apparent absence of Jesus of Nazareth has become transformed and known as the apparent presence of the risen Christ.

  Today in our gathering, you and I are invited to know the risen Christ in Word and Sacrament but we have perhaps let the church authorities administrate Word and Sacrament so that it can seem that Word and Sacrament exhaust or limit the experiences of the presence of Christ.  Word and Sacrament are not the only modes of how the risen Christ can be known to us.  It has been my goal to show us how Word and Sacrament are connected with our entire lives so that we understand that the apparent presences of the risen Christ can be endlessly proliferated within the events of your life and mine.  We come to be engaged by Word and Sacrament so that we can be prepared for the serendipitous occasions when the risen Christ suddenly becomes recognized, almost like saying to us suddenly, “Peek a boo, I see you.  And I am with you always.”  Amen.

Emmaus Road: Peek A Boo, I See You

3 Easter a         May 4, 2014   

Acts 2:14a,36-47   Ps. 116:10-17

1 Peter 1:17-23    Luke 24:13-35              

 Lectionary Link

   How many of you have ever played the game of “Peek-a-boo?”  It is one of the first game that we probably learned to play as a baby.

  We cover our face with our hands and then we suddenly take them away.  And say “Peek-a-boo”  I see you.

  Or we cover baby’s head with a blanket, and baby pulls the blanket off and we say, “Peek-a-boo.”

  What is the meaning of this game?  I pretend to be gone away and absent.  I pretend that you cannot see me.  And then I suddenly return by saying “Peek-a-boo.”

  When you are a young baby or a child, can you see and touch your mommy and daddy all of the time?

  No, they sleep in another room; they go to work.  They go into the kitchen.  You go to preschool or school.  So sometimes we cannot see or touch or hear our mommy and daddy.  But even though we do not see, or touch or hear them we know that they still live.  We know that at anytime they can surprise us when they come to be with us.

  And that is what our Gospel story is about.  When Jesus died, they put his body in the tomb.  And suddenly his body was gone from the tomb.

  And his disciples suddenly began to have peek-a-boo games with Jesus.  Suddenly Jesus would appear to them to let them know that they were okay and he was still alive.

  And now God still plays peek-a-boo with us.   Although we don’t actual see God or Jesus.  We still know his presence.

  In the love of our parents and friends, Christ is jumping out and saying “Peek-a-boo, I love you and I care for you.”  In the fun that we have, in learning, in seeing the beautiful world that God has made for us, God also has hidden his presence.  And God is saying to us, “Peek-a-boo, I see you….I love you and I care for you.”

  And you and I, are to be God messengers for the game of Peek-a-boo.  When we are loving and kind, when we care for one another and when we help each other, Christ is saying “Peek-a-boo” to this world through us.

  So even though we don’t see or touch Christ, let us remember that Christ is still present in many, many ways and he is ready to surprise us at anytime with love and care, and he is saying, “Peek-a-boo, I see you and I love you and I care for you.”  Amen.

Daily Quiz, April 2014

Daily Quiz, April 30, 2014

After escaping from the Egyptians, the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness of 

a. Rephidim
b. Mamre
c. Sin
d. Kadesh-Barnea 

Daily Quiz, April 29, 2014

The "Song of Miriam" was composed for what event?

a. The Passover Event
b.  Miriam is another name for Mary; it is about the Annunciation
c.  The deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian in the Red Sea
d.  The entrance of Israel into the Promised Land

Daily Quiz, April 28, 2014

Church Tradition attributes the founding of the church in Africa to what evangelist?

a. Philip
b. Cyprian
c. Mark
d. Antony

Daily Quiz, April 27, 2014

During the Season of Easter which canticle is used after the invitiatory in Morning Prayer?

a. Venite
b. Nunc dimittis
c. Pascha nostra
d. Phos hilarion

Daily Quiz, April 26, 2014

Whose bones did Moses bring with him when he left Egypt for the promised land?

a. Jacob's
b. Rachel's 
c. Joseph's 
d. Sarah's 

Daily Quiz, April 25, 2014

Who wrote, "Where, O Death is your victory?  Where, O Death is your sting?"

a. Rudyard Kipling
b. Arthur Conan Doyle
c. St. Peter 
d. St. Paul

Daily Quiz, April 24, 2014 

The Paschal Candle is lit for what times in the church year?

a. 50 days of Easter 
b. for baptisms
c. for requiems 
d. all of the above

Daily Quiz, April 23, 2014

The Book of Exodus states that the Israelites were in Egypt for how many years?

a. 40
b. 665
c. 77
d. 430 

Daily Quiz, April 22, 2014

According to the Gospel of Mark who did Jesus first appear to after his resurrection?

a. his Mother Mary
b. Peter
c. John
d. Mary Magdalene

Daily Quiz, April 21, 2014

How many post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are recording in the four Gospels?

a. 9
b. 10
c. 11
d. 12

Daily Quiz, April 20, 2014

According to the account in the Gospel of Matthew, how did the stone get rolled away from the tomb of Jesus?

a. an earthquake 
b. an angel descended to open it
c. the coincidence of a and b 
d. none of the above

Daily Quiz, April 19, 2014

Which of the following Scripture lessons is not included in the readings for the Great Vigil of Easter?

a. Ezekiel's Valley of the dry bones
b. Israel's exodus from Egypt
c. The Creation Story
d. The Flood
e. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac
f.  David's slaying of Goliath

Daily Quiz, April 18, 2014

Which Mary was not reported in the Gospels to be present at the crucifixion of Jesus?

a. Mary, the mother of Jesus
b. Mary Magdalene
c. Mary, mother of James and Joseph
d. Mary wife of Clopas
e. Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha

Daily Quiz, April 17, 2014

Which Gospel does not have the institution of the Last Supper at the time of the Passover Meal?

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

Daily Quiz, April 16, 2014

Which is not a part of a Passover Meal?

a. Charoset
b. Lamb Shank bone
c.  Roast Egg
d.  Bitter Herbs  (Maror and Hazeret)
e.  Hyssop
f.   Charoset
g.  cups of wine
h.  Matzah

Daily Quiz, April 15, 2014

What is the name of the liturgy often observed in some churches on Holy Wednesday?

a. Lauds
b. Matins
c. Tenebrae
d. Vespers


Daily Quiz, April 14, 2014

"My God, why have you forsaken me" are words attributed to Jesus when he was dying on the cross.  Where do these words come from?

a. the Prophet Isaiah
b. the Prophet Jeremiah
c. the suffering man Job
d. Psalm 22

Daily Quiz, April 13, 2014

We associate with Palm Sunday the expression: "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" In what other places to we find this expression?

a. Psalm 118
b. Sanctus of the Mass
c. Holy, Holy, Holy of the Mass
d. all of the above

Daily Quiz, April 12, 2014

What was the last plague in Egypt before the Israelites left?

a. bloody water
b. darkness
c. death of firstborn sons
d. death of livestock

Daily Quiz, April 11, 2014

Why is Easter not on the same day each year like Christmas is on December 25th each year for Western Christians?

a. Easter is set to be after the Jewish Passover, which is based upon the full moon
b. Easter is the first Sunday after the paschal full moon on the Gregorian calendar
c. Easter is the first Sunday after the paschal full moon on the Julian calendar
d. all of the above

Daily Quiz, April 10, 2014

Which was not among the ten plague of Egypt before the release of the Israelites from Egypt?

a. lice
b. bloody waters
c. locusts
d. boils
e. rats
f. death of first born sons
g. frogs
h. sustained darkness

Daily Quiz, April 9, 2014

What Protestant pastor was arrested and executed for helping a group who were plotting the death of Hitler?

a. Reinhold Niebuhr
b. Richard Niebuhr
c. Paul Tillich
d. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Daily Quiz, April 8, 2014

Who was the sister of Moses and Aaron?

a. Zipporah
b. Judith
c. Miriam
d. Hannah


Daily Quiz, April 7, 2014

When Moses had the experience with God in the burning bush and was called by God to help deliver Israel from Egypt, what excuse did Moses offer to try to decline the call?

a.  he was afraid
b.  he said he lack eloquence
c.  he said he was too old
d.  he said he was from the wrong tribe of Israel

Daily Quiz, April 6, 2014

Moses was raised by Egyptian royalty but which tribe of Israel did he belong to?

a. Benjamin
b. Dan
c. Ephraim
d. Levi


Daily Quiz, April 5, 2014

The father-in-law of Moses was a Midian priest named 

a. Reuel
b. Jethro
c. Zipporah
d. a and b
e. b and c 

Daily Quiz, April 4, 2014

What is the spiritual gift known as "glossolalia" γλωσσολαλία?

a.  clairvoyance 
b. predictive abilities
c. speaking in an unknown tongue or tongue of angels
d. being slain in the spirit
e. healing

Daily Quiz, April 3, 2014

Who is credited with lyrics for "Day by Day, Three Things I Pray," a song popularized in the famous Rock Musical, "Godspell?" 

a. Martin Luther
b. Richard of Chichester
c. John Wesley
d. Augustus Toplady

Daily Quiz, April 2, 2014

Who said, "Even though you intended to harm to me, God intended it for good to save numerous people." 

a.Esther
b.Moses
c.Jacob
d. Joseph

Daily Quiz, April 1, 2014

What numerically unlucky Pope is known for initiating a new calendar named after him and thus created a group of April 1st "fools" who did not "get the memo" about the new calendar and continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April 1st instead of the new, New Year beginning on January 1st?

a. Gregory I
b. Gregory VI
c. Gregory XIII
d. Gregory IV

And the Word Was Made Written Text and Retained the Memory of Christ Among Us

2 Easter Sunday        April 27, 2014 

Acts 2:14a,22-32          Psalm 16

1 Peter 1:3-9  John 20:19-31              

Lectionary Link 

   When we read the Bible, it is quite easy for us to remain in childlike naiveté in fascination with the story.  We are so fascinated with the story because stories have an artistic magic to create the seeming literal reconstruction of an actual historical event.

  But in our naiveté, we sometimes miss the teaching purpose of the story by the writers who were writing many years after the purported events of the story.

  The Doubting Thomas story is a case in point.  We think that this all about the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus and the specific details of this appearance are not found in the other Gospels which were written earlier than the Gospel of John.  If we read carefully this passage as well as the entire Gospel of John, we find that this passage is more about the status and practice of the faith community six or seven decades after Jesus walked on this year.

  What is the issue in the doubting Thomas story?  Did the eyewitnesses to Jesus have a more valid faith experience than those who believe in Jesus but did not have an eyewitness experience?

  The Doubting Thomas story has two significant punchlines for which the story is used as a set up.   The first punchline is found in the words of Jesus: “Thomas you are blessed because you saw me and believe; but blessed are those who do not see me and still believe.”  Do you understand how the writer is using the Doubting Thomas story to affirm the validity of the belief and faith of the people in the community who did not walk and talk with Jesus?

  The second significant punchline of the Doubting Thomas story is the self-pronouncement of the writer about the writer’s own writing: “These things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ.”  The members of the community of the writer of John’s Gospel did not see Jesus, they did not walk or talk with him, but by reading words about Jesus they can arrive at the very conditions of faith and belief.  And these conditions of faith and belief are as valid as or even more valid than a person like Thomas who demanded literal empirical evidence.  Thomas in fact is presented as one who is inferior in faith when contrasted with those who believe and who did not see Jesus.

  So, we can see how the story of the Gospel is crafted to represent the conditions in the church some six or seven decades after Jesus.

  These things are written….the written word attains new status as being the vehicle for belief.  This is an incredible insight from John’s Gospel because John’s Gospel is all about the word.  John’s Gospel begins with, “In the Beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And the Word became Flesh and dwelled with us.”   You see the second person of the Trinity is called the Word but that Word became very limited in the historical person of Jesus, but in the resurrection of Jesus, the risen Christ is once again identified with the profound Word which is the very basis for all human consciousness which accounts for how human experience is created much differently from all other sentient and non-sentient life.

  John’s Gospel is essentially about the profound history of Word as an embracing general concept of our understanding of all of created differentiation of everything in life; but it is also about the limitation of Word into the person of Jesus who became a model and exemplar of how you and I should live our worded lives.

  The writer of John's Gospel states that what is humanly understood as actually having existence is created by the word. Indeed this is true.  You and I literally are steeped in words; in our naiveté we think that we are actually seeing each other here and now, but in fact we are seeing versions of each other as we are filtered by the invisible screen of language which is the mental habit of being human.  We see and know each other through the habits of language; we see and know our world through the habits of language.

  The writer of John’s Gospel wrote to educate us in the very practice of Word.  This writer does not even use the word miracle for the fantastic acts of Jesus; John’s Gospel uses the word sign.  Sign is a conglomeration of words.  Sign is a constellation of events to point to another meaning.  The healing of the blind, walking on water, multiplication of loaves and all of the seeming miraculous events are actually signs to teach us about meaning of the life of Jesus. The words are meant to teach us what it means to be born of the Spirit to be able to see our lives in a completely different way.   We, literalists, love our stories, we like to stay at the level of the story and not move on to the educational sign and purpose of the story.

  John’s Gospel is about the Word in all of its varied manifestations.  Words comprise the Jesus stories to teach the readers to know Jesus and to come to have faith in the risen Christ.  The writer of the Gospel of John uses the disciples as examples of students of faith being delivered from literalism about the words of Jesus to arrive at the profound teaching purpose, namely, knowing that one has entered an entirely new paradigm of existence in this transformational kingdom of God.  And this transformational kingdom of God is a parallel universe of faith that we can live in now.  It is heaven on earth;  it is a place where Christ went before us to prepare for us.

  The writer of John understood Jesus to say to his disciples, “My words are spirit and they are life.”  Probably spirit is most easily understood as having an equivalence with the particular way in which our words form and shape our lives and our self-understanding.  The writer of John’s Gospel understood that nothing can get closer to us than our words.  When we receive words and as they penetrate the deepest part of memory and our worded beings, we know that we are being created, formed, made, developed. We are so comprised by words that even our bodies become body language.  The movements, acts and gestures of the body are guided by the purposes of word.  Our body language at a profound level is called our morals and our ethics.

  The writer of John knew that words are spirit and they are life.  Words make up how we can live in a new paradigm, a new heaven on earth as we express what it means to be born from above.

  The writer of John did not write just to entertain us with clever stories about the doubting Thomas; the writer of John wrote to inform us that our lives are always, already being formed by the habits of word.  We cannot escape words.  When we could not fully choose our word environments, we received the scripts of our lives some of which we continue to live out even now.  We live now trying to interdict and change some of the scripts of our lives which sometimes seem to be based upon fear and anxiety and bias and smallness of mind.

  The Gospel of John wrote that the Word was made Flesh in Jesus.  In the Doubting Thomas Story, the writer is essentially saying, “The Word became text; this written text, these spirit-words of Jesus in writing.”  The writer of John wrote the Gospel so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.  And if Jesus the Christ, the Son of God in us now as the Risen Christ as the fullness of God’s Word, then we can know that we always have a future.  

  In the most practical sense of the word, the risen Christ for me now means, Phil, surpassing himself in excellence in a future state.  The risen Christ for you now is the hope of you, surpassing yourself in excellence in a future state.  And that is a very believable and accessible word about the Risen Christ for you and me.  Let us be thankful for the incredible insights about Word which the writer of John gives us to help us to believe, and let us be delivered from our literalness about the story and be born into the wealth of meaning found in the Risen Christ as the Word from the beginning of human consciousness. Let us be thankful that the Word was made flesh in Jesus in a very special way.  Let us be thankful that the word was made text in the Gospel of John to retain the memory of Christ.  Let us thank God that the Gospel of John gives us words to know that the Word of God can still become flesh in you and me.  Amen.