Sunday School, November 9, 2014 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 27

Sunday School Themes

The main theme is Wisdom

Discussion of the difference between knowledge, information and wisdom

Wisdom is knowledge which is used to live well and wisdom is knowledge which includes knowing from the heart with feeling.  Wisdom begins with respect and worship of God and from our worship of God we appreciate the people and the things of our world and we make the right decisions in how we manage our lives.

The difference between Regular School and Sunday School is the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

In Sunday School we seek wisdom as a way of knowing and learning with our hearts and this is a different kind of learning that we learn in our schools.

So you can compare how ways of knowledge and wisdom are different.

In biology you might study the names of animals and all about the body parts of people.

In Sunday School, you study how each person is more than just body parts, they are hearts and souls and spirits with feelings.  So in Sunday School we learn about how we live with other with kindness and love because we know that God loves us.

The world is made with wisdom because God made the world.  And so by looking really carefully and from our hearts at all of the wonderful things in this world we can come to appreciate our Wise Creator God.  And in our prayers we ask that we might learn to be wise too.

Jesus told a parable about some bridesmaids who were wise and prepared and some bridesmaids who were foolish and unprepared.

Discuss the difference between being wise or foolish regarding an upcoming exam at school, or a soccer game or dance performance.  Foolishness means that we do not prepare to be ready to do the things we need to do.  And if we are not prepared, we miss out on some important things in life.

Puppet Show:

 Jacob:  Joseph, why are you so sad today?

Joseph:  Because all of my sheep ran away.

Jacob: Why did they run away?

Joseph:  They got out of the sheepfold.

Jacob: How did that happen?

Joseph: I left the gate open last night.

Jacob:  Well, that was not very wise was it?

Joseph: No, it was rather foolish.  But I learned my lesson.

Jacob:  What did you learn?

Joseph:  I learned that I am don't take care to do my chore correctly then I get distracted and I forget to do some very important things.

Jacob:  Like what?

Joseph: Like shutting the gate to the sheepfold.

Jacob: What did you learn?

Joseph:  I learned that my foolishness cost us the lives of three lost sheep.  And I had to search for almost a half a day to find the other sheep.  And those three lost sheep probably got taken by the wolves.

Jacob:  So wisdom is important isn't it.

Joseph:  If I had been wise, I would have obey the instruction that you gave me about taking care of the sheep but now my foolishness has caused the loss of the lives of three sheep and it has taken me much more time to take care of the sheep.  I am really sorry.

 Jacob:  Joseph, you know one of the most important lessons in wisdom?

Joseph: No, what?

Jacob:  One of the ways that we learn to be wise is to learn from our mistakes and not make the same mistake twice because we learn to be prepared.

Joseph:  Well, I've learned my lesson.  I will never leave the sheepfold gate open.  It cause too much trouble to be foolish.

Jacob:  Good lesson Joseph.  And God is wise and as a wise God, God forgives us because God knows that we can get better and learn how to be wise too.  I forgive you Joseph.  I know that you will not make that mistake again.

Joseph:  Thank you and I want to be wise and prepared.

Jacob:  Well, you have the rest of your life to continue to learn wisdom.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

November 9, 2014: The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Give Me Oil in My Lamp, The Butterfly Song, Alleluia, Awesome God

Liturgist:      Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People:         And Blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: Give Me Oil in My Lamp (Christian Children’s Songbook,   # 53)

1.      Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning.  Give me oil in my lamp I pray.  Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, keep me burning ‘til the break of day.  

Refrain: Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, sing hosanna to the King of kings.  Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, sing hosanna to the king.

2.      Give me joy in my heart, keep me shining.  Give me joy in my heart, I pray.  Give me joy in my heart keep me shining.  Keep me shining ‘til the break of day.  Refrain

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Alleluia (chanted)

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Wisdom of Solomon

Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.  One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding, And one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care, because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 78

We will recount to generations to come the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the LORD, *
and the wonderful works he has done.

 He gave his decrees to Jacob and established a law for Israel, * which he commanded them to teach their children;

 That the generations to come might know,
and the children yet unborn; * that they in their turn might tell it to their children;

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Liturgist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, `Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, `Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, `No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, `Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, `Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

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

People:            And also with you.

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

Offertory Music:  The Butterfly Song  (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 9)

1.      If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings.  If I were a robin in the tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing.  If I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee, but I just thank you Father for making me, me. 

Refrain: For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile.  You gave me Jesus and you made me your child and I just thank you Father for making me, me.

2.      If I were an elephant, I’d thank you Lord by raising my trunk.  If I were a kangaroo, you know I’d hop right up to you.  If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my fine looks and I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

3.      If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you Lord that I could squirm.  If I were a Billy goat, I’d thank you Lord for my strong throat.  If I were a fuzzy-wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy-wuzzy hair, and I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

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 our 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 up 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.

(Children may gather around the altar)

The Celebrant now praises God for the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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 can we 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,

(Children rejoin their parents and take up their instruments)

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:        Alleluia.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Alleluia, (Renew! # 136)

1.      Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

2.      He’s my Savior, alleluia….

3.      He is worthy, alleluia….

4.      I will praise him, alleluia…

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: Awesome God, (Renew! # 245)

 Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power and love, our God is an awesome God.      (Sing three times)

Dismissal   

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

People:      Thanks be to God! 

Creedal Christians and the Communion of Saints

All Saints’ Sunday, Cycle A Proper, All Saints, November 2, 2014

Revelation 7:9-17 Psalm 34:1-10

1 John 3:1-3    Matthew 5:1-12

Lectionary Link

  I cannot help on All Saints' Sunday but to muse about my own relationship with the saints.   One of the "proverbial" babies thrown out with the bath water for many churches of the Reformation was the veneration and the intercessory efficacy of the saints.  And Anglicanism has had its own varying views, parties and pieties regarding the saints.  The hyper-Calvinists of the Oliver Cromwell time when the Rump Parliament made him Lord Protectorate during the King-less Interregnum take over took down all of the saints' statutes in wood, gold and silver.  Cromwell supposedly wanted to use the silver for currency and he is reported to have said, "Melt down the saints and put them into circulation."  And this has been the metaphor for many a reformer's sermon.  "Melt down the saints and put them into circulation.”  A way of saying get Christians out of the church buildings and work to evangelize the world.

  The strident anti-papists wanted to rid the church of everything which they regarded to be tinged with the so-called post-biblical papal developments, innovations which did not have the clear validation with a Bible verse.  Anything not specified in a certain way in the Bible had to be discarded.

  And so while living in the Bible Belt of the 1950's in America we lived in times of truly closed communions; Baptists and Roman Catholics co-existed but each thought the others were going to end up in the bad place in the afterlife but we still played football, baseball and basketball together because sports was much more unifying than our religious communities.  And isn't that the irony; folks are more unified about sports, food and commercial products than they are in how they practice their faith in Christ.  And how Christian was that?  Is that?

  As a Baptist boy I was a little intrigued that my Catholic friends had those chess figurine saints riding on the dash boards of their cars with the Blessed Virgin Mary in the center and St. Joseph or St. Christopher riding shot gun to the BVM.

  And we thought in those days it was really sissy for men and boys to wear necklace jewelry and yet my Cath'lic boy friends got to wear St. Christopher medals around their necks.  Their moms and grandmothers forced them to do so for saintly protection because if you had 6 or 8 siblings God knows that boys running wild in the neighborhood needed St. Christopher and a host of angels watching over to keep them safe.  And mom had too many babies at home to be on the lookout.

  Both sides had lots of wrong preconceived notions about each other.  We assumed the Catholic worshiped the saints and the statutes like idols because they would bow and genuflect in their church and kiss their St. Christopher medals.   And they were always praying to the Blessed Virgin and the saints and we just wondered, why don't you go straight to the big guy himself, Jesus? 

  Apparently, one had to be really holy or a priest to go directly to Jesus in prayer.  And Jesus couldn't be bothered about all of the trivial things of one's life.  It seems as though Jesus had spent two thousand years learning to delegate certain needs out to specialized saints who became like Santa's elves.  If you lose something, pray to St. Anthony to help you find it.  If you want safety in travel and protection you pray to St. Christopher, who sure enough got de-canonized when scholars proved that he did not exist.  Shock: What happened to all of those prayers to St. Christopher?  Suddenly null and void?  Good Lord deliver us!  And many just ignored the pronouncement and continued to pray to St. Christopher.

  What did many Protestants end up throwing out when they become so stridently anti-papist?  It is one thing to throw out indulgences but it is quite another thing to lose the freedom to think about a fuller meaning and application of a belief in the resurrection.

  Many Protestant churches ceased to be creedal churches and became confessional churches.  Creedal Churches continue to say, “I believe in the Communion of saints.”  And the reason that we confess this is because we actually faithfully visualize outcomes of the resurrection of Christ for the lives of the faithful departed.

  If we believe in the real and true continued existence of people who have died, then do we practice a faith to continue to give those people the courtesy of treating them as still being alive in a different and more profound way?  It is almost like many of the Protestant Reformers suddenly said, "It is just too macabre to think about dead people to adopt any communicative way of interacting with them.  You have to be a little nuts to interact with dead people, so let's just forget about them."  And any remembrance of those who had died began to be treated as though such venerations took away devotion to Christ because one was giving allegiance and prayer time to the faithful departed.  You see how such people painted themselves into a very sad corner: "I believe in the resurrection but I can't really treat my loved ones as still being actually alive in the resurrected life."

  One of the causes of the resistance to the veneration of the saints by the medieval Roman Catholic Church was due to the commercial success of the saints.  Every age and place and time has its P.T. Barnum’s who know how to do some serious fund raising.  A shrine, some relics, statutes, medals and the report of miraculous cures happening can do wonders for fund raising.  And certainly churches of every sort have done shameless promotions to help the coffers.  And the commercialization of the saints and their relics and trinkets has not always been commendable, though if money has gotten to good causes, one could consider that money redeemed through proper use.

  I think that there are other good psychological and sociological reasons for the rise of the cult of the saints and their veneration.  If masculine pronoun was used exclusively for divinity, and women were subjugated and suffering and in their suffering they prayed more and called out to God more than the men who were in control, where does the feminine aspect life get validated?  It got validated in the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary becoming elevated to be the co-redemptrix of the world and she gradually grew in such popularity and seemed to get more hits on her prayer line than Jesus.  So you can see this feminine principle become validated in high places because when women are left powerless in actual social conditions, there is a natural spiritual and psychological correction which occurs which elevates the feminine to some spiritual and heavenly compensation.  In psychological terms the Collective Unconscious will find actual behavioral ways to balance the masculine and feminine aspects, the cosmic yin and yang.  The occurrence of holy women and the spread of their sanctity meant that women saints were included in the cult of saints.  This too was a manifestation of a correcting balance for the feminine aspect in the face of societies being under patriarchal control.  One might note that as women have received education and been empowered in roles in society, there has occurred the diminished devotion to the cult of saints.  The cult of saints existed to proclaim that justice existed in heaven among the holy even though it had not been attained on earth in actual practice between men and women.

  I do believe that the cult of saints became a buffer and mediating group of people who experienced a utopian state of justice in the heavenly world because the world of ordinary people was the world of a mediated existence through pope and priests and monarchs and lords of the manor.  The peasants and the serfs lived lives through the lives of the saints who attained the will of God in heaven because the conditions on earth were so founded upon the master and slave relationship.  You can see the validity of some of the criticism of Karl Marx's notion of religion as the opiate of people.  The rich get richer and the poor get religion; they get to live vicariously in the lives of the hero saints because their own lives were so pitiful.

   There is another sociological factor in the cult of the saints.  I think it has to do with regional identity.  With the Enlightenment and the rise of the national states and the use of vernacular languages, secular regional identities have taken over.  In earlier times, a saint could be a local patron of a parish church or area.  The saint was like a totem pole; a patron saint was part of the interior identity marker that each person in the region had.  So a saint represented a very significant religious, geographical and tribal interior marking in the life of each person.  If you want to understand our modern day parallel, just think about the completely irrational loyalty we have to professional and college sports teams.  People are marked deeply inside with this regional loyalty and identity and such a team totem holds people together for common goals.  This is how the regional and local saint used to function in the lives of people.  You can see how the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation and the rise of education, literacy and the national state began to diminish the local and regional identity effect of the local saints.  When an individual person is empowered through education to read and study the Bible in one’s own language and to pray in one’s language, the clergy and the paternalistic authorities lose their powers of mediation.  And the saints lost their prominence too when individuals understood themselves to be gracefully empowered to approach and receive the grace of Christ directly and in an unmediated way.

  So you may think in my musing about the saints, I have been comical or cynical or overly rational even as I mourn the loss of the prominence of spiritual heroes.  Today we spend more time venerating sports heroes who are going into sports halls of fame; we lionize motion picture heroes, popular music heroes and political heroes and the saints get short changed even though their lives witness to things much more valorous than the other hall of famers.

  Today, on All Saints' Sunday, mourn with me the loss of social status of the saints and their wondrous deeds.  Today, let us confess that we stand on the shoulders of some wonderful well-known saints and some very local saints in our lives who have kept this world from being much worse than it could be.

  And let us continue to be Creedal Christians today who give regard to the saints; We believe in the Communion of the Saints.  Why?  Because we believe in the resurrection of the dead, and if we believe in the resurrection why should we treat the departed as though they weren't alive?  Talk to them, ask for their help and pray to them and pray for them because in the wonderful Communion of Saints, we're still in this all together.     Amen.