Sunday School, February 28, 2016 3 Lent C

Sunday School, February 28, 2016   3 Lent C

Sunday school themes

What happened to Moses after his disappointment and failure?

The Story of Moses

The life of Moses was spared as a newborn baby when an Egyptian princess adopted him and raised him in a palace.  But Moses was a Hebrew man and when he saw that the other Hebrew people were treated like slaves by the Pharaoh of Egypt, he knew that God wanted him to help to make the lives of the Hebrews better.  He tried to help but in his first attempt he was opposed by both the Egyptians and also his fellow Hebrew.  He felt like a failure so he ran for his life to a faraway place.  He became a shepherd and got married and he worked for his father-in-law.  When he was tending the flock, Moses saw a bright burning bush and he heard God call him.  God wanted him to go back to Egypt to help the Hebrew people.  Moses told God that he could not do it and that he had failed.  But God told him that God is greatest of all and that God would help him.  God said that Moses would be given another chance to go and help the Hebrew people be freed from slavery in Egypt.

We can learn from our failures.  Sometimes when we fail we want to give up and quit and run away.  We may want to say, “I can’t do that.”  But our teachers and parents come to us and say, “Keep trying and you will be successful.”  Our teachers and parents forgive us and accept us and they help us because they understand that we learn through our failures.  When we are not yet perfect, God does not forget us.  God keeps coming to us and inviting us to keep trying.  When we fail to love or be kind, God keeps inviting us to learn how to be better.  The lesson that we can learn from Moses is that God does not give up on us.  God keeps coming to us and asks us to do the good work that we know that we’re supposed to do.

The Gospel Riddle of Jesus

Jesus told a riddle about the patience of God.  When a fig tree did not have any fruit, the orchard owner wanted to cut it down.  What good is a fig tree if we can’t get figs?  The gardener of the orchard said, “Don’t cut it down; let me fertilize the soil around the tree; give the tree another chance to bear fruit.”

God is love because God always gives us more chances.  God tells us to use all of the things of our past, things that are dead and gone, but things like the memories of our failures can be used to help us grow new Christian fruit in our lives, like the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, faith, self control and gentleness.  Compost is dead plant and animal remains which are used to fertilize new plants.  God is always using the human compost of our past life experience to help us produce new and wonderful fruits in our lives, the fruits of love and kindness.

Remember God did not give up on Moses when he failed.  God does not give up on us when we fail.  So we should not give up on ourselves or on each other when we have failure and some difficult times.  Let us remember that God is patient with us.  God will allow our lives to be fertilized with all that has happened to us to make us better in the future.

Children’s Sermon: Growing Christian Fruit

  If you are a fruit grower, and you plant an apple tree, what do you want to get from the tree?

  When it is time to harvest, you want to be able to pick some fruit don’t you.  You want some nice big red apples, don’t you?

  But what if harvest time comes and you go to your apple tree and you don’t find any apples to pick?  You have a lot of questions don’t you?  If the tree looks healthy and has lots of pretty green leaves, you ask why doesn’t this tree have any apples.  It looks good and it looks healthy; why doesn’t it have good apples.  Did I make a mistake?  Did I plant the wrong seed?  Did it have some hidden plant disease?  Did the bugs get under its bark?   Did it get enough water?

  What should I do with an apple tree if it doesn’t have any apples?  It looks like a good tree but I have to sell apples to make money.  What should I do?

  I will wait until next year.  I will water it better.  I will dig around it and puts some special fertilizer around the tree, some special tree food to make it grow some good apples.

  Jesus told a story about a tree farmer who grew a fig tree, but the fig tree did not have any figs on it.  So the tree farmer decided to keep the tree and put some fertilizer, some tree food around the tree in the soil and wait until next year to see if it would grow some figs.

  The story about Jesus is a story about God.  You and I are like trees that God plants in this life.  And God does not just want us to look pretty, God also wants us to be like trees that produce lots of good fruit.

  Now you and I cannot grow apples and figs can we?  What can we produce and grow?  What kind of fruit can we grow?  We can make deeds of love, joy, faith, patience, gentleness, goodness, self-control and kindness.

  Those are the kinds of fruit that God wants us to grow.  And God is always giving us more time to produce these wonderful fruits.

  Just as the tree farmer gives fertilizer to help grow good fruit, so God gives us things to help us learn how to love.  We have the Bible, we have God’s word and God’s law to teach us how we should live.  We have parents and teachers who teach us how we should live good lives.  And sometimes we have some difficult tests that we have to pass to help us get strong and get better.  Some times we don’t know how to help others until we have had a hard time and learned to get help from God and other people.  And when we learn to help other people, then God is happy because then God says, I have planted a good tree and it is producing good fruit.  I have made a good person and that person is kind and loving, so I have been a very successful God.  We can help make God a very successful God by learning to grow good human fruit.  And the fruit that you and I are supposed to make are the fruits of love and kindness.

A Family Eucharistic Liturgy

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

February 28, 2016: The Third Sunday in Lent

Gathering Songs: Simple Gifts, The Butterfly Song, Jesus Stand Among Us, My Tribute

Song: Simple Gifts (Christian Children’s Songbook # 206)

‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to free, ‘tis a gift to come down where you ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘twill be in the valley of love and delight.  When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we won’t be ashamed.  To turn, turn will be our delight till by turning and turning we come out right.

Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all of our sins.

People: God’s mercy endures 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.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise be to God!

O God, you are Great!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have made us! Praise be to God!

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise be to God!

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Praise be to God!

Liturgist: A reading from the Book of Exodus

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 63

For your loving-kindness is better than life itself; * my lips shall give you praise.

So will I bless you as long as I live * and lift up my hands in your Name.

My soul is content, as with marrow and fatness, * and my mouth praises you with joyful lips,

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

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.

Then Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People:                        And also with you.

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

Offertory Hymn: If I Were a Butterfly (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 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 thank you Lord for my fine looks.  But 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 birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

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

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

All may gather around the altar

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

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

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Jesus, Stand Among Us (Renew! # 17)

1-Jesus, stand among us at the meeting of our lives, be our sweet agreement at the meeting of our eyes; O, Jesus, we love you, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

2-So to you we’re gathering out of each and every land, Christ the love between us at the joining of our hands; O, Jesus, we love you, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

3-Jesus, stand among us at the breaking of the break, join us as one body as we worship you our head.  O, Jesus, we love you, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

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:   To God Be the Glory (Renew!  # 68)

To God be the glory, to God be the glory, to God be the glory for the things he has done.  With his blood he has saved me; with his power he has raised me; to god be the glory for the things he has done.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

Heavenly Citizenship and Multiple Citizenship

2  Lent C        February 21, 2016             

Gen.15:1-12,17-18   Ps. 27

Phil.3:17-4:1   Luke 13:22-35 

Lectionary Link

  

  St. Paul was a Jew who lived in Tarsus and he was a Roman Citizen.  In the time of Paul there were confusion about situations of multiple citizenships.  Paul was a cultural and religious Jew, but he also was a citizen of Tarsus from Cilicia.  When Paul travelled to Jerusalem, he obviously was subject to the local laws of those who governed in Jerusalem.  His status in Tarsus carried no weight in Jerusalem.  But there was a trump card which he played when he was seized by the Roman army in Jerusalem; he told the commander that he was a Roman citizen and as such he had the right of appeal to a more supreme tribunal, one in Rome.  And because of this appeal, Paul began his escorted trip to Rome. 

  Roman citizenship carried some special privileges in the Roman Empire and St. Paul used the citizenship metaphor when he wrote to the Philippian church, "Our citizenship is in heaven."  So Paul was a Jew, he was a citizen of Tarsus under their laws, he was a Roman citizen which gave him rights and privileges throughout the empire, but he did not believe the cultural and religious citizenship as a Jew to be final, he did not believe the local citizenship status in Tarsus to be final, he did not regard citizenship in the world Empire, the Roman Empire to be final, because finally he wrote, "Our citizenship is in heaven."

  Lots of people interpret heaven as a place which will be known at the end of one's life or at the end of time.  People who conceived the world spatially thought of heaven as being located above the domed sky which was above the flat earth.  It is hard for us to spatially locate heaven today but we do understand "inner" space.  It is easy for us to understand heaven as metaphor for an interior quality of life which is accessible to us now and in our deaths.

  People who are skeptical of religion criticize the way in which religious people use the notion of heaven.  They think that heaven is used as a method of escape.  They think it is used by oppressors to keep the oppressed tolerant of their oppression because they are promised eternal life and gold on the streets of a future heavenly Jerusalem.  This is why Marx called religion the opiate of the people.

  So how does heaven function as a metaphor for you and me?  Do you and I feel like we are carrying a passport of heaven?  And what is the worth of this heavenly passport?  Are we using it as passive Christians who tolerate injustice because we feel we can wait for some future time when justice will finally be rendered?

  What is the function for you and me of this metaphor of heavenly citizenship?

  The first function has to do with knowing that we have a heavenly citizenship.  By this I mean that it is important that we recognize our primary identity and our primary nature.  This follows from our belief that we were made in God's image.  We feel like we have been made in the image of the eternal because even while our bodies are aging we feel like there is something in us or about us which will never die or pass away.  We often try to replace that native sense of eternal life with the desire for fame, glory and recognition.  Once I've written or sung a line or two, then perhaps I will be immortal and famous and remembered.  The quest for fame may be but the lack of belief in the eternal image of God upon our lives; so we seek to prove that we are everlasting and immortal in other ways.

  The entire point of the Bible is about salvation history, the history of what is truly healthy in human experience, namely the recognition of our spiritual and heavenly identity.

  The events in salvation history are presented as God's covenants with humanity.  These covenants appear in all ages and in all times and some of the details of the ancient covenants don't make much sense to us.  When is the last time God made a covenant with you and required you to bisect some animals and make a promise to be so "bisected" if you did not keep your promise with God?  The important thing about the covenant with Abram is that he accessed the eternal promise of God through his faith.  And faith is the important issue not the ancient details of animal sacrificial covenantal rites.

  How does having and knowing heavenly citizenship function for us now?  If we can believe ourselves to live and move and have our being in the most expansive realm of all, then we will have the most global identity of all to help us in the conflicts which arise in the other realms of citizenship.

  St. Paul had potentially conflicting citizenship identities, as a Jew, as a Cilician of Tarsus and as a Roman citizen.  The conflicts between these realms ultimately brought about  his death.

  In the Gospel lesson, we read about the pain and the suffering which occurred because of conflicting citizenship claims.  The prophets came to remind people that their first citizenship was in heaven.  But others denied the primacy of the kingdom of heaven.  Many people thought that being a Roman citizen was the most important identity.  Being a Roman citizen gave one rights and privileges.  Many Jews believed that the identity which they received from the Hebraic and Judaic tradition was the most important identity.  People like King Herod had identity conflicts.  He was a local ruler for the Roman Emperor who also tried claim a heritage as a Jew but when it came to prophets he believed it was most important to uphold the power of the Roman government in Palestine and so Jesus was crucified.  The books of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written as books to be read in sequence.  The book of the Acts of the Apostle records how Stephen was stoned in Jerusalem and James was killed there as well.  So the conflict between the requirements of citizenship of different group identities figured into the violence in Palestine at the time of Jesus in the early Christian eras.  In the case of prophets and Jesus it seemed as though one paid the price of being a heavenly citizen with one's life.

  I think we need to recognize our heavenly citizenship as something like climbing to the top of the mountain and looking on the landscape below.  From the highest view one can see how things can be negotiated and how things can be fit together and where resistance needs to be applied when competing citizenship requirements happen.

  You and I have many citizenship claims on our lives today, political, national, local and in our family.  We are citizens of our parish; we are citizens of all of the different civic, business and community organizations.   Since we have so many different citizen situations, we need to have the wisdom to be able to live and regulate all of the citizenship claims upon our lives.

  This is why we need our heavenly citizenship.  Like St. Paul we need to acknowledge that ultimately we live and move and have our being in God, that is, we are citizens of the widest and highest and most encompassing realm.   And if we can learn to live and think from this expanded perspective, then we can receive wisdom to make the practical decisions which we have to make in all our citizenship situations.

  Let us be honest though; there is always going to be conflicts in various citizenship requirements of the various identity groups of our lives.  Some conflicts are going to be severe.  Foxes like Herod do not protect the hens in the henhouse.  They will attack the hen, even as she tries to hide her brood under her wings to protect their lives.

  Jesus got caught in the conflicting requirement between citizenship realms  in Jerusalem.  And he became like the hen who sacrifices her life for the lives of her brood.

  But Jesus as the Son of God was the ultimate citizen of heaven.  And heaven gave Jesus back heavenly life after his death as a proof of his divine status.  But the heavenly afterlife of Jesus also means for you and me that heavenly life is greater than earthly death and pain.  Heavenly life co-exists as a parallel reality for us to know now within all of the agony and ecstasy of earthly life; and heavenly life is the life which is stronger than our own deaths.

  Today as we try to be good citizens of so many human identity groups today, let us not forget our primary citizenship, our citizenship in heaven.  And remember we have the example of the ultimate citizen of heaven, even Jesus Himself.  Amen.

Sunday School, February 21, 2016 2 Lent C

Sunday School, February 21, 2016    2 Lent C

Themes:

St. Paul wrote that our citizenship is in heaven

Discussion about what Heavenly Citizenship means

Contrast with American citizenship.

How does one become an American?  Being born here or being naturalized

  For a non-American, one has to study and take an oath of allegiance to become a citizen

  How does become recognized as a member of the church?

    By baptism.  We study for baptism and for confirmation and we make vows to God at baptism and

    confirm.  We keep making those vows over and over again to remind ourselves of what it means

    to be a “heavenly citizen.”

People who are born in America and are citizens by birth still say the pledge of allegiance over and over again to remember who they are and to remember that there are things that we have to do to be good American citizens, like following our laws and voting and public service.

Have a discussion on what it means to be a good citizen of the church because in the church we celebrate the fact that we are citizens of God’s world and this is as important as being citizens of a country.

Abraham celebrated that he was a citizen of heaven by making a covenant or promise with God and he believed God made a covenant with him to be the father who would the founder of a great family, the family of people with faith in God.

Jesus reminded us that human governments are not perfect, in fact sometimes they kill good people.  They kill prophets or the people who try to help us live better.

Jesus said that he wished that he could be like a “mother hen who protected the baby chickens under her wings.”  He was speaking about all of the people who suffered in the city of Jerusalem because they did not want to obey God’s plan for them to become better. 

Like Jesus we should want to protect those who cannot protect themselves.  Like Jesus we should always stand up for what is fair, loving and kind, even if we get punished for it.

A sermon about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  A modern prophet who was killed

  We have read today about a time when Jesus was sad.  He was sad about the city of Jerusalem because of how they treated the people who came to show them how to live better lives.  He was sad that the leaders of Jerusalem even killed the prophets.

  And you and I should be glad today about where we live.  Why?  We live in a country where we have religious freedom.  Prophets and preachers and priests of all sorts can live in our country.  They have the freedom to start their own churches and their own religions and everyone can choose to go to church or not go to church.  Everyone’s freedom of worship is protected by law.  And this is one of the greatest gifts that our country has given to us.  And it is one of the greatest gifts that we have to give to other countries in our world.

  So if we don’t kill prophets in our country, does that mean we’re perfect?  Well, no.  What is a prophet?  A prophet is someone who comes and gives us a message about how to live our lives better.  Your parents and your teacher may be prophets sometimes.

  And we do not always like to hear the voice of the prophet.  We may get used to bad habits.  We may get lazy.  We may also want to choose the easiest way.  And so when a prophet comes to us and tells us how to live better, sometimes it is not easy to change our habits.  And sometimes we don’t want to change our habits.  Sometimes we will disobey the prophets in our lives.

  In our country we have had a prophet who died because of his important message.  A person disobeyed our laws and killed this important prophet.  Do you know who that prophet was?  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet.  Did you know that in our country, if the color of your skin was black, you used to have to sit in the back of bus?  If you were black you could not go to same schools as people who were white and you could not eat at the same restaurants?

  Martin Luther King came and he told us how we could be better people.  He told how we could live together and how we could treat everyone with fairness.  And some people did not want us to live together with fairness.

  Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American who died as a prophet in our country.  And we were saddened by his death.  But we are glad for what he taught us about living together as friends.

  Let us remember a lesson.  We are never so good, that we can’t get better.  So let us pay attention to the messages of the people who want us to get better.  Those people are prophets in our lives.  And you too will be prophets if you can show and tell other people how to be better

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

February 21, 2016: The Second Sunday in Lent

Gathering Songs: O Be Careful, Peace Before Us, I Come with Joy, I’ve Got Peace Like a River

Song: O Be Careful (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 180)

O be careful little hands what you do. O be care little hands what you do.  There’s a Father up above and he’s looking down in love, so be careful little hands what you do.

O be careful little feet where you go.  O be careful little feet where you go.  There’s a Father up above and he’s looking down in love, so be careful little feet where you go.

O be careful little lips what you say.  O be careful little lips what you say.  There’s a Father up above and he’s looking down in love, so be careful little lips what you say.

Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all of our sins.

People: God’s mercy endures 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.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise be to God!

O God, you are Great!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have made us! Praise be to God!

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise be to God!

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Praise be to God!

Liturgist: A reading from the Letter to the Philippians

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 27

Therefore I will offer in his dwelling an oblation with sounds of great gladness; * I will sing and make music to the LORD.

Hearken to my voice, O LORD, when I call; * have mercy on me and answer me.

 You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face." * Your face, LORD, will I seek.

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.

Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People:                        And also with you.

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

Offertory Hymn: Peace Before Us (Wonder, Love and Praise, # 791)

1-Peace before us.  Peace behind us.  Peace under our feet.  Peace within us.  Peace over us.  Let all around us be peace.      2-Love, 3-Light, 4-Christ

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

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

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

All may gather around the altar

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

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

(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: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  

Words of Administration

Communion Music:  I Come With Joy   (Renew! # 195)

I come with joy a child of God, forgiven, loved, and free, the life of Jesus to recall, in love laid down for me.

I come with Christians, far and near to find, as all are fed, the new community of love in Christ’s communion bread.

As Christ breaks bread, and bids us share, each proud division ends.  The love that made us makes us one, and strangers now are friends.

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:   I’ve Got Peace Like a River (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 122)

I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.  I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.

I’ve got love like the ocean, I’ve got love like the ocean, I’ve got love like the ocean in my soul.  I’ve got love like the ocean, I’ve got love like the ocean, I’ve got love like the ocean in my soul.

I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.  I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

Delayed Gratification and the Satanic Voice

1 Lent C    February 14, 2016

Deut.26:1-11    Ps. 91
Rom.10:5-13     Luke 4:1-13

Lectionary Link

  Today is the First Sunday in Lent and our Gospel reading is about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days and nights.

  The season of Lent gets its numerology from the symbolic number of 40 in the Bible.  40 is the number signifying the time of ordeal or the time regarded as the providential discipline of God in bringing people to new spiritual vision and moral and spiritual excellence.

  The Gospel lesson invites us to look clearly at the event of Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness, physically alone but still knowing the voice of an adversary.

  Jesus is driven into the wilderness following his baptism after the voice of God said to him, "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased."   In this account of the forty days of fasting Jesus is presented as imitating what Moses and Elijah did as well, signifying that spiritual life can sustain one in a way in which the sustenance of food cannot.

  Did Jesus fast from food and water?  Gandhi once fasted from food for 21 days.  To go even 100 hours without water would invite death.  What kind of fast did Jesus have?   Did he go on the John the Baptist diet of locust and honey?  I think what is more crucial about the fast of Jesus is less about it being a fast from food and more about being a fast from the company of other people, other language users.

  We as language users can sometimes get overwhelmed by too much talk and too many language products.  We have developed today to be able to live in the complete inundation of language products in our lives today.

  And sometimes we may want a retreat.  A retreat from people.  A retreat from other language users.  A silent retreat.    Probably all of us at some time have had a craving for silence or alone time.   We may have dabbled with and practiced meditation.

  One of the first things that we find out when we try to meditate or to observe silence is that when we take ourselves away from other language users, we cannot escape language.  You can take the language user out of the company of other language users, but you cannot take the language out of the language user.    We crave silence and yet we seem to carry a boom box of voices around in our heads.  And sometime those voices are hard to silence.

  You and I are inundated by word and language through and through.  The environment which we see is thoroughly coded by our internal interpretive grids through which we see the world.  And we are grounded in word itself, since we have this perpetual conversation always going in within us.  Some of us are actually honest about this by apparently openly talking to ourselves.  Why are we always talking and to whom are we talking?  Are we but an internal echo producer assuming the echoing voices are really another person who has listened to our words present in our thoughts run amok, or our day dreams or our fantasies or our wishes and imaginations or visualizations?  We can't stop being language users and we cannot stop the variety of voices which sound within us even though our interior life is supposed to be silent.

  Even when we sleep, we activate our language.  Freud taught us that the unconscious had its own language.

  To be human is to have language and to be coded by our language environments and so our language in many way, has us more than we have it, though we appear at times to have some freedom in how we articulate language products in speech and writing and body language acts.

  Jesus fasted...from people, from other language users.   But the information that we have about the fast of Jesus indicates that he could not fast from the arising of the Satanic voice to a place of being heard by him.

  A deliberate fast is the way in which we can simulate a crisis.  When we are sick and deprived and when we suffer significant loss, we experience real crises.  And we often are not properly prepared for the crises of loss which can come to us.

  The fast of Jesus meant that he deprived himself of the company of other people for comfort or fellowship and he deprived himself of food to simulate the conditions of a crisis.  A crisis can open up the interior life to be vulnerable to the arising of many kinds of interior voices.  And these voices can be quite unnerving, even frightening and they can be attended by the worst kinds of moods which cloud the possibility of hopeful and optimistic viewing of our circumstances.

  Jesus alone and fasting became vulnerable to the arising of the Satanic Voice.  Satan is the accuser.  Satan is a personal voice, who attains interior personal status when he becomes the gathering of all negative word fragments from one's memory to become a unified interior agent.  And this unified agent begins to make one's thoughts and emotions work against the well-being of one's life.  The Satanic voice is a parasite that lives and thrives on the memory of all that is bad and negative.  The Satanic voice gathers in a time of crisis.  A crisis is like a magnet that can attract the formation of accusing voices and it seems to have personal presence because it has agency to control and cause us to have behaviors which are not beneficial to us.  The internal accusations of that arise within a crisis are not very trustworthy because they cause us to make poor decisions and act out on bad and faulty information.

  The accusing Satanic voice that became heard by Jesus taunted him about making stones into bread to fix his hunger during his fast.  The accusing Satanic voice said to Jesus that he was so special that he could leap from a high place and not crash to the ground because the angels would take care of God's chosen one, just as was promised by the Psalmist.  And the Satanic voice appealed to the megalomaniacal impulse in everyone which is the desire for the unlimited esteem of fame and glory of endless public adoration.

  The times of crisis make people vulnerable to the Satanic voices.  The Satanic voices invite people to act out upon delusional ideas and ideas which have no basis in commonsense empirical reality.  Satanic voices can tempt us to act in unreasonable ways.

  Jesus fasted from food and from people as a method of simulating crisis, and sure enough the accusing Satanic voice arose to challenge him to act in irrational ways and to act in ways which would be disobedient to God his Father.  The Satanic voices tried to get Jesus to change the calling and direction of his life.

  How is it that the Satanic voice can arise?  We as humans are taught that we function best by having a very short time between human need arising and human needs being fulfilled.  We do not like delay in the gratification of our needs.  Fasting is an attempt to increase the time between having human need and having the gratification of a human need.

  One of the difference between a young child and a person growing into adulthood is learning how to handle the time of delayed gratification.

  Delayed gratification can be regarded to be a loss in life which can help make us vulnerable to the voices which arise in the wake of such profound need.  And those voices can lead us astray if we have not learned to structure the delay in gratification.

  Let us take heart today from the temptations of Jesus.  Jesus experienced actual accusing voices in his life to be vulnerable to those voices gaining a significant concrescence into the person of Satan to confront his interior life.  The Gospels tell us that during his life, Jesus was accused of being mad, he was accused of being in league with Beelzebub, the devil and Satan.  He was accused of being one who loved to hang out with notorious sinners; he was said to be a drunkard.  He was accused of being suicidal, a heretic, of being disobedient to his parents, of not being friend of God, a political rebel, a breaker of the Mosaic law and a pretender to throne of Caesar.   Jesus had the opportunity to hear plenty of negative voices in his life to have them come back to him as the voice of the accusing Satan when he simulated the time of crisis through his voluntary fast. 

  Jesus is shown to us to be a hero in his battle with the Satanic voice.  The Satanic voice tempted him to be very literal and to act out upon things that would cause him harm or make him look crazy and suicidal.

   There are many fanciful things that can occur to us in dreams and day dreams and fits of anger or depression, things which we should not act out upon because they do not partake of good commonsense and reasonable choices.  What we learn from the temptation of Jesus is that he was empowered to orchestrate the interior voices of his life.  He was able to channel delayed gratification into effective resistance in refusing to act out upon unhealthy voices which could be active agents of chaos.

  At the end of his temptation Jesus found the ministry of the angelic voices.  These were the messengers of faith and hope and obedience to God.  These are the voices of affirmation which can arise to counter the negative voice of Satan.

  You and I need constant encouragement in orchestrating and taming the voices which can arise in us.  Forceful voices can arise within us in momentary events of delayed gratification and we can be made into reactionary people.  We can let the Satanic voice make us into passive aggressive people, angry people, or addicted people who are tempted not to be able to tolerate any delay in immediate gratification. 

  During Lent, we are given the opportunity to embrace some disciplines which help us deal with the ever present issue of delayed gratification.  We can delay our gratification by helping other people who have delayed gratification forced upon them by their conditions of life.  If we can be devoted to helping gratify the needs of others, we may find help in our own lives to learn to tame the negative Satanic voices which live as parasites off of the memories of the extreme times in our lives when gratification was in some way significantly delayed.

  May God grant us a holy Lent as we train ourselves further in dealing with the human issue of delayed gratification.  May we be given strength to resist the Satanic voices which arise to tempt us to leave good reason.  May be we given strength to resist acting out upon things that derive from the agency of a mood induced by the negative memories of extreme delayed gratification and the rise of a Satanic taunting voice.

  Let us be strong and bold in our resistance, particularly when the Satanic voice accuses us of not yet being perfect.  Such an accusation is only effective if we had such an illusion in the first place.  One of the most effective ways of dispelling the Satanic voice, is to say, "The question of me being perfect was never the issue; but I am perfectible, and I can get better with God’s help, so be gone Satan."

  May God bless us all and let us be inspired that Jesus has resisted the Satanic voice, and so can we through the power of God's Holy Spirit.  Amen.