Sunday School, March 6, 2016 4 Lent C

Sunday School, March 6, 2016     4 Lent C

Themes

St. Paul wrote about our lives becoming a new creation.  We need God’s help in re-creating our lives in better ways?  Why?  Because some things are very difficult.

One of the most difficult things in life is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is interesting.  We know that we are not perfect and so we want people to give us second and third chances when we make mistakes.  But sometimes it is hard for us to give other people second and third chances.  Some times it is very difficult to forgive people who do bad things, and especially when they do them to us.

Jesus told a parable to show us that it is very hard to forgive.   It is a story about unfairness which happened in a family.  It is about a brother who found it very difficult to forgive his younger brother.  Sometimes older brothers and sister think that the youngest children in the family have it the easiest because it seems to them that mom and dad have easier rules for the youngest children in the family.

Jesus told a story about a very sad father.  The father was sad because his youngest son wanted to leave him and he wanted to take with him all of the money that he would get from his father after his father would die.  The young son took all of the money and moved away and wasted it and became very poor.  And he was so poor that he just wished he could work as a slave on his father’s farm.  So he went home.  And his father did not let him work as a slave.  He was happy that he returned and gave him a party.

The older brother who never left home and always obeyed his father was angry and said it was not fair.  Why did his dad give a party for the son who had behaved so badly?

And that is riddle of the story.  It is really hard and unfair to forgive people who have broken the law and done some really bad things.  But the miracle of God is to have mercy and forgiveness and to keep giving people more chances when they learn from their mistakes and want to improve their lives.

God has mercy on all of us when we aren’t perfect and yet when we realize our mistakes and want to improve our lives.  Sometimes when a person is bad in something where we are good, it is hard to forgive them.  We have to remember that sometimes we are bad in things where other people are good and we need them to forgive us.

The lesson we learn is that forgiveness is sometimes easier to accept than to offer.  And because forgiveness is hard, that is where we need to accept the forgiveness which is the gift of God as a loving parent.

Let us pray to God to ask God to give us the gift of forgiveness even as we freely accept the forgiveness from God and from the people who love us even when we are not perfect.

A Sermon about when being good can turn into being bad

Today we have read a story of Jesus about a family: A father, a younger son and his older brother.  The stories of Jesus are called parables.  A parable is a story that has an important message for us to learn.

  And this parable has a riddle in it.  And the riddle in this:  When can being good, turn into being bad?

  One day the young son said to his father, “Dad, I am leaving.  I’m tired of living here.  I want all of the money that you will give me after you die so I can leave and live elsewhere.”  Dad was very sad to hear this, but he gave his young son lots of money and his son left.

  Well, the young son went far away from home and he did not use his money very well.  He partied, he spent it foolishly on his friends.  He gambled and he lost all of his money.  He ran out of all of his money; he didn’t have any money to buy food.  So, he had to take a job taking care of pigs.  He watched the pigs eat; and he thought:  I’m so hungry, even the pig’s food looks good.  Even the lowest paid workers on my father’s farm earn more than I do and have more food than I have.  May be if I go back to my father, he will let me work on his farm and get enough to eat.  So he went back home.  And when his father saw him coming, he decided to throw a big party for him and welcome him back.  The young son said, “Dad, I made a mistake and I lost all my money; just let me work as one of your servants.”  But his father was so happy to see him; he treated him just like his son.

  Well, the older brother was not happy about it.  He told his Dad, “I stayed with you and I have worked hard.  And you have not thrown me a party.  And how can you let my little brother back into the family after he did such a terrible thing?”  So the good brother became angry and resentful because his father welcomed and forgave his brother.  So his goodness turned to badness because he was angry at his father for forgiving his brother.

  And so here is the lesson of the parable.  God forgives anyone who tries to make their life better.  Whether we have done wrong or whether we have been good.  We can always get better.  And we are not perfect, so we always need forgiveness and we always need to get better.

  And when and where we are good; we should not get angry when someone who has done something bad is willing to say that they are sorry and willing to change their lives.

  We should remember that God is like the father in the story.  God is the one who forgives everyone who wants to be forgiven.  That is why we confess our sins, the things that we have done wrong and we make a promise to work to get better.  And we learn that God forgives us; so we should not be angry if God forgives other people too.

  Let us learn today to accept God’s forgiveness.  And let us learn to forgive each other too.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

March 6, 2016: The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Gathering Songs: This Little Light of Mine, Awesome God, Dona Nobis, He’s Got the Whole World

Song: This Little Light of Mine (Christian Children’s Songbook,  # 234)

This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.  This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, No!  I’m going to let it shine.  Hide it under a bushel, No!  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Don’t let anyone blow it out.  I’m going to let it shine.  Don’t let anyone blow it out.  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Shine all over my neighborhood, I’m going to let it shine.  Shine all over my neighborhood, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

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

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for 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 Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 32

You are my hiding-place; you preserve me from trouble; * you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go; * I will guide you with my eye.

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.

Jesus told them this parable:  "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate. "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'

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: 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)

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 Song: Dona Nobis Pacem,  (Renew!  # 240)

Dona nobis pacem, pacem, dona nobis pacem.  Dona nobis pacem, dona nobis pacem.  Dona nobis pacem, dona nobis pacem.

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: He’s Got the Whole World (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 90)

He’s got the whole world in his hands.  He’s got the whole wide world in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands.

He’s got the little tiny baby in his hands.  He’s got the little tiny baby in his hands.  He’s got the little tiny baby in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands.

He’s got the boys and the girls in his hands.  He’s got the boys and the girls in his hands.  He’s got the boys and the girls in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

C

Aphorism of the Day, February 2016

Aphorism of the Day, February 29, 2016

The parable of the Prodigal Son, Merciful Father and Just Older Brother draws from us many projected meanings.  Permissive freedom, rebellion, individualism, bad judgment, coming to the end of oneself, repentance, confession, forgiveness, restoration, angry and offended justice violated by forgiveness and restoration.  Jesus used wisdom parables to teach, not by direct didactic injunction but by the indirect method of getting people trapped within a story and not being able to avoid judgments which came to convicting "gotcha" moments.  In indirect teaching a person comes under self judgment and it is more effective to come to self conclusions than to have someone tell me directly where they think that I am offending.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 28, 2016

We need to read the Bible primarily as an artistic text with some fragments which could be regarded as having empirically verifiable meanings.  As an artistic text with the purpose of evoking the holy sublime in serendipitous readings by a wide audience, reading outcomes cannot be precisely predicted because the ways in which the sublime comes to individuals is widely varied.  People with theological, philosophical and even scientific intentions have tried to bend the narratives of the Bible into neat and tight syllogisms forcing upon the Bible a coherence and consistency not to be found in an artistic text.  Theologians, philosophers and scientists often are embarrassed by presentations which don't comport to the discursive practices of their own disciplines and so they bend the biblical narratives to fit their own disciplines.  Fundamentalism in part is a product of people who really want the biblical narratives to be empirically verifiable scientific discourse so it can be touted as have "truth meanings" consistent with the science of the modern period.  Accepting the Bible as a legacy in re-edited writings of people who struggled with having faith in God in particular communities over hundreds of years gives us a collage of universal recommendable principles which did not find perfect instantiation in the details of ancient culture and yet we can be inspired to find a better instantiation of love and justice in the details of our own times.

Aphorism of the Day, February 27, 2016

Humanity made a transition from speaking to become both speakers and writers.  Writing became a technology of memory and it became a "replacement presence" for face to face conversation.  When people are not face to face, they cannot have immediate feedback on understanding meanings.  Speaking face to face is live; writing is dead and the "dead text" can become something different in the reading of the absent reader, absent from the writer who is no longer present to clarify meanings.  In the modern and postmodern eras we have developed more virtual or cyber forms in the technologies of memory.  With rhetoricity we can appropriate the discourses of intimacy and the notions of how presence is experienced in absence.  St. Thomas wanted to see and touch the Lord to validate his faith.  The Gospel of John understood that one could have a presence of the Risen Christ by "reading the words" of the Gospel.  Sacramental understanding of life invites the poetics of experiencing the presence of Christ in bread and wine in a fellowship context.  In the degree of intimacy, which is a "closer" intimacy, video chatting with a friend or experiencing the Risen Christ in bread and the wine?  Modern people are opting for video chatting intimacy as being a closer sense of presence than the séance-like invocation of the presence of Jesus in his afterlife to reappear or become made apparent in the bread and the wine.  In a real sense the sacraments are based upon presence in absence known through the transporting of the presence of the Risen Christ in other people and objects, such as is known in the Eucharistic event.  Christianity has been sacramentally virtual long before we have come to speak of virtual presence.  We postmodern Christian are sometimes befuddled by our own proto-virtual practices because the postmodern media seems to be more intimate.

Aphorism of the Day, February 26, 2016

I can recommend actual church attendance as a way of balancing our lives as increasing being lived in the world of virtual reality.  Virtual reality is "time-lapsed" and so things are speeded up and we don't have to wait and we can avoid dealing with the long periods of what might be called drudgery.  We often forget that drudgery can be transformed to the practice of meditation and instead of running quickly to the time-lapsed artistic and cosmetically time-lapsed simulacra of virtual presentation of the news, sports, and videos, we deal with "real time."  Have you even noticed how "Reality TV" is not real, it is just another time-lapsed virtual presentation.  Being in a church with real people and with no cosmetic edited removals of the awkward or unplanned is a very good way to balance our lives so much being taken over by virtual experience as we are getting really clogged up with a high volume of time-lapsed information and entertainment.

 Aphorism of Day, February 25, 2016

After we have pondered why things happen to us and to others in the way in which they have, we cannot get obsessed by the unrealistic bargaining and denial impulse of thinking things should not have happened and could I turn back the clock and prevent it from having happened?  We can be led to the moment of when we drop the why and assess, "Now that it has happened, what do we do?"  Actuarial wisdom first begins by making the past event a statistic; it become plotted as a statistical fact as a manifestation of the probable as an actual. A gardener looks at all of remains of plants after the fruit has been picked and the green has withered and asks, "Now that this has happened what do I do the plants?"  This is time of transition to the change in the function of the plant; it becomes compost.  The deathly plants teeming with a different kind of life, are used to bring new life.  Jesus used the composting parable after the question of why bad things had happened to certain people and speculation has arisen about the causes.  Jesus went to the issues of hope and faith.  The past and all its causes cannot be changed but hope is the vision of the future and faith is the application of the composted former past to a hopeful fruitful future.

Aphorism of the Day, February 24, 2016

Compost might be an evocative metaphor for how leftovers and after states of being contribute to future fruitfulness.  In nature plants and grass wither and die and manure happens.  Compost is the celebration of the after states of once living and vital organic stuff.  Compost has the appearance of being dead and it can be the mixtures of the left over states of being of former stuff which once had the appearance of green and colorful life.  Compost teems with active life energy under the appearance of death.  Compost is applied to the plants which we want to bring to fruition.  Past experiences and the words attached to those past experiences participate in the "appearance" of death due to the fact that the past is absolute, over and finished.  But words attached to past "dead experiences" are embedded in the memory and these words can serve as something like compost does to future plant life.  Past "dead" experiences memorialized in words can  promote fruitful present and future action.  The interpretative task of life is to make all of the "dead" past serve a fruitful present and future. 

Aphorism of the Day February 23, 2016

Hegel wrote that what we learn from the writing of history is that people don't learn from reading history.  We can be cynics who believe that human beings are so proud they want to be like Adam and claim originality in sin as their own unique patented intellectual property.  Those from the Wisdom School of Jesus might admit that indeed "compost happens," but compost appearing to be dead stuff is really teeming organic stuff to fertilize future plants.  The dead past can be the passive stuff which hangs around and "stinks" up the joint or it can be "the living compost of the dead past" re-applied toward more fruitful outcomes.  The question for us is whether we are going to let the dead past stand around to stink up our lives or are we going re-possess it as "living compost" re-applied to nurture new and better outcomes.  Indeed, manure happens, so make compost.

Aphorism of the Day, February 22, 2016

Hermeneutics can either be blatantly anachronistic or subtly anachronistic.  Blatant interpretation of past events as solely serving present events occurs in the New Testament writers.  The New Testament writers "Christianized" all of the Hebrew Scriptures asserting that the events and the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures really were "anonymous" Christian writings before Jesus even was born.  This is like saying in baseball that Babe Ruth existed to reveal his eventual record breaker, Henry Aaron.  We may want to say that all of the past was simply to reveal what became significant in the future.  Using this thinking do we diminish our present by saying that we don't matter because we only exist for those in the future who will surpass us?  We only exist for those whom we do not and cannot know?  St. Paul wrote about the Rock from which Moses milked the miraculous water for the thirsty Israelites and St. Paul proclaimed: That Rock was Christ.  This is the theory of metaphorical relativity gone wild and yet in interpretation time gets bent into contortionist appearances under the freedom of artistic poetic utterance.  This is the kind of artistic utterances which one finds in the New Testament.

Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2016

In life we have to deal with competing citizenship claims.  We are members of many different groups from which we get personal identity through participation.  But each group makes requirements upon us for our allegiance and when pledges of allegiance conflict between groups loyalty competition can arise.  For St. Paul, he was a Jew, a Cilician from Tarsus, a Roman citizen and a follower of Jesus.  Often these identities came into conflict for him which is why he wrote that "our citizenship is in heaven."  This is another way of saying that we live and move and have our being in God.  So God is the outer ring of expanding concentric circles each of which represents a citizenship group which exerts allegiance requirements.  We need to live from the outer most encompassing ring of our identity relationships, viz., live and move and have our being in God as heavenly citizens.

Aphorism of the Day February 20, 2016

St. Paul wrote, "Our citizenship is in heaven."  This was also expressed in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus, "you must be born from above."  In biblical psychology, the original human being "Adam" before "Adam" was split into two complementing halves of Adam and Eve, was said to be created from spirit and clay or in the case of Eve, Spirit and Rib.  The Divine Potter takes clay and forms the physical being and then breathes Divine Breath (Spirit)  into this clay figure and "the proto-Adam before Adam and Eve" was created.  The combination of dust and deity created the Delta state of being between the physical and the spiritual called the "nephesh" or the soul.  In the biblical personal epic one attempts to be drawn towards the eternal Spiritual side even while one's physical body wastes away in a physical world where the effects of time results in the continual metamorphosis of physical states even to the apparent deathless cocoon state as the prelude to the escape of the butterfly spirit to a continuing afterlife.  This personal epic is a poetry of hope and corresponds to the sense that something of us will never cease to be since there is hope in a greater Memory who could guarantee that we will have always have been.


Aphorism of the Day  February 19, 2016

The oft crypto-poetic Paul wrote, "Our citizenship is in heaven."  This sounds other worldly.  In a spatially conceived universe it sounds like the Commonwealth of Heaven had issued passports to colonists who had never yet visited the home of the Commonwealth but in time would be able to achieve actual location in the Heaven City.  In the world of inner-space it would seem that our citizenship in heaven means that we live from within ourselves from the arising of God's Spirit as the Omni-presence of God reclaiming lost citizens to their always already status as children of God.

Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2016

The holy books include lots of writing about war and fighting and the assumption that God has been on the side of the righteous, meaning the side of whoever is doing the writing.  The ancient world integrated war and fighting as part of life and the figure of the Warrior was one of chief occupations of life.  The Christian crucible from the time of Jesus and the early church indicate that it was easier for oppressed people to be "pacifists" than when Christians came to "power" in the Roman Empire.  When Christians came to power theories for just war had to be generated to justify the change of the former status of Christians as "forced pacifists" to those who could now not only protect their own but also use the privilege of power to "colonize" the world for Christ.  In the modern era we have science and industry to account for effective warfare.  We have the moral neutrality of the scientific worldview which serves the free market as much for "sword making" as for the making of ploughshares.  The scientific worldview does not require ethics, but one needs ethics to value building agricultural products rather than war products.  We are faced with the dilemma of not being able to embrace the "forced pacifism" of our early Christian roots because we live in an Empire which protects people who can be very "forceful" about Christianity.  In theory, we want to be Gospel pacifists but in practice we tend to be more Old Testament "God is on our side" bellicose religionists.  We might be those who "wish war would go away" even while we cannot leave the Empire within whose military might we live.  In the end we might justify our Empire position by saying that it is better that we are in military control because we believe that we treat our minorities better than minorities would be treated under the realm of other competitors for world or national power, based upon our observations of how minorities fare in other countries.

Aphorism of the Day, February 17

A theophany in the life of Abram, to become Abraham, occurred when God commanded him: "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."  And this was a "private rite between God and Abram which sealed a covenant.   "He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away."  This blood covenant meant that Abram was saying, "May this bi-section happen to me if I don't obey God."   Fortunately we live in the New Covenant of being "living sacrifices" though it is often very difficult to the tame the ego toward better excellence.  For our covenants, we prefer a few drops of water on an infant and reciting the baptismal covenant.  Though if we look at the actual practice of the baptismal covenant the promises which we make require that our egos take continual alternation toward more Christly behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2016

In a Lucan saying of Jesus, there occurs two animal metaphors, Herod as the fox and Jesus as the mother hen who wants to shelter the vulnerable in Jerusalem under her wings.  The fox plunders the henhouse and "kills" the prophets in Jerusalem.  A mother hen hides her chicks from the fox to sacrifice herself to the fox.  In world history we have the record of powerful people harming the vulnerable and the record of sacrificial heroes who speak truth to power.  The actual practice of justice would be the perfect expression of power and would remove the need for sacrifice forced by the violent acts of the powerful.

Aphorism of the  Day, February 15, 2016

The lament of Jesus or Jerusalem included a reflection that it was a place where prophets are killed.  Prophets who want to reform what has become the status quo in "holy cities" or places where the people with power use religion to justify that power, get killed or silenced or diminished.  As complicit as the Jews are presented in the demise of Jesus, the political facts of the time was that Jerusalem was a "holy" city of the Emperor, holy in the sense that emperors were treated as "gods" and wherever they held sway was their holy city.  Jerusalem was a "holy Roman city" of the deified Emperors.  The Gospel accounts often do not fully represent this Roman truth because there is more of an emphasis upon the inter-sectarian strife between competing parties within Judaism which presaged the separation of the church and synagogue.

Aphorism of the Day, February 14, 2016

If one looks at the content of the temptations of Jesus by Satan, one could say that they involved the Satanic voice attempting to get Jesus to act out upon "literal and plain" meaning of words.  The Satanic voice was tempting Jesus to be a fundamentalist in his interpretation of images and voices which arose to him when we was in a state of starvation which allowed the wall between the "dream and visionary" state and the conscious mind to be taken away.  Much of art and literature is inspired from the liminal zone between conscious state of language use and the visionary state of being which is more dream-like.  When a scientist decries a fundamentalist, the scientist is not denying the artistic states on which religious experience derives, since this state has much in common with the sublime of the aesthetic mood evoked in the encounter with a work of art; the scientist is troubled when a fundamentalist pretends that dreams and visionary material are states that conform to the empirical methods of science.  Fundamentalists use the wrong method of interpretation for the wrong experience and then they "act" out in some "inappropriate" ways.  Even though fundamentalists can have salutary moral practices such practices are not complemented with sound reasoning in the use of appropriate interpretative practice to a particular discursive event.  The temptation of Jesus by Satan was to try to get Jesus to act out upon irrational suggestions arising in a dream-like state.

Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2016

The practice of fasting is an exercise in learning self control.  Self control is about dealing with the time between a perceived need and the gratification of that need.  Infants and young children do not want delayed gratification.  Like a pet that can hardly wait to gobble its food, infants demand immediate gratification.  Teaching social behavior means teaching how to delay gratification and not have it ruin one's temperament.  Fasting is a practice to help regulate delayed gratification for personal and social benefit.  One of the ironies of the success of power and wealth is that often people want to be wealthy and powerful so as to never have to delay gratification.  With wealth and power one does not have to wait; one gets what one wants when one wants it.  It is ironic that some want to be wealthy and powerful so as not to have to exercise the self control of delayed gratification.  Fasting is a method of control with social manifestations in that when one fasts one should also empower other people to be immediately gratified to have the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter satisfied.  Some people learn self control so that eventually they can take what they want when they want it; others fast and learn self control so that they can share what they have to others when others need it.  The latter is the desired purpose of the Lenten Fast.

Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2016

The arising of the Satanic voice within Jesus during his time of temptation invites some reflection toward possible meanings.  An interior voice seems to be something of an oxymoron since we may associate voice with the physical act of speaking involving the activation of the "voice box" in the throat.  The meaning of an interior Satanic voice resides within the general voice of all language and all word on which the very creative identity of humanity is founded and according to the Gospel of John, Word has a personal equivalence with God.  If Word is the most accessible way to understand both the ground of human being and divine being, then word expresses the omnipresence of being/Being as an infinitely open and borderless state of possibilities, or whatever may come to language.  The Satanic voice arose within Jesus as the word fragments which gathered to create an interior personality even to the point of being given the name Satan, expressive of the role of a nagging Accuser.  Satan as a nagging Accuser is a potential interior voice to be heard and overheard within each person, since in the collective memory of all of the words that a person has heard or witnessed there are words which have derived from imperfect human situations which are lodged and ready to arise as the return of the repressed.  From all of the bad, painful, hurtful words which a person has heard within life, crisis human situations like magnets can cause the structures of bad words to coalesce and rise to form the voice of the contrary Accuser within one's interior life.  And what is the best way to over-come the voice of the Accuser?  To acknowledge the singularity of that loud Voice within the total field of God as the Eternal Word and Ground of all human being.  One cannot let the Accusing Voice take the place of the Plenitude of the Fullness of Christ as Eternal Word.  Within Eternal Word as Possibilisms the events of singular articulations of the voice events of the internal Accuser get dissolved and when the words of the Accuser get dissolved they may serve other functions in new grammatical and syntactic events, even events expressing affirmation and kindness.  The interior trick is to deconstruct the parts of speech found in the Accuser's Voice and reuse them for articulating words of kindness, and thus within the linguistic field, evil is overcome by re-arranging bad words into expressions of goodness.


Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2016

The temptations of Jesus involved the Satanic voices.  These voices were concrescences of linguistic fragments which attained a personified substantiality within the inner life of Jesus and essentially tried to convince Jesus to do natural law defying things and act on imaginations as though they were empirical possibilities; something like acting out upon all of the subject matter of one's dream life.

Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2016

The ashes of Ash Wednesday may signify the sad shortness of our mortal lives but also the precious shortness of our mortal lives.  The mark of the  ashes is a sign to be used as motivation as "if this were the last day of our life what sort of intensity would we bring to our living?"  The Christian intensity which we are supposed to bring to every day of our lives is called repentance.  Repentance is the continual practice of the renewing of one's mind (metanoia=Greek for "after mind).  It is a word which means educating ourselves toward excellence and the defining standard of excellence would be love and justice.  The ashes of this day remind us to live in such a way that we cherish the gift of life.

Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2016

Musings on shriving on Shrove Tuesday.  One of the sacramental roles of a priest is that of being a Shriver or Confessor, one who hears private confession and pronounces absolution.  Shriving became early institutionalized using the Gospel words of Jesus granting his disciples the "power" to forgive or retain sins.  One can appreciate the Reformer suspicion of such an institutional practice and its loss of institutional status in Protestant churches.  Granting a person access to one's secret sins does give a person institutional power to control a person with such "forbidden" knowledge and part of the Reformation ethos was built upon the re-vitalization of the "individual" as an attending consequence of the Enlightenment.  Promoting the "priesthood" of all believers decreased the institutional role of the Official Shriver.  Anglicans attempted the perhaps laughable "middle way" regarding shriving with the quasi-comedic expression regarding Private Confession: All may, no one must and SOME SHOULD!   One can suspect that the institutionalization of Shriving is the indication of the demise of healthy community; in healthy community the normal practice is to confess and forgive each others' sins and faults.  Retaining the sins of each other is in fact a sign of impoverished community life.  If retaining sins is so easy, then Shriving became institutionalized as a juridical procedure to enforce something which can't be enforced, i.e., forgiveness.  Today, we live in a different climate of Shriving; there is public shriving as tabloid news attempts to publicly announce for entertainment the faults of people.  There is the Jerry Springerization of Shriving when people want to make their sins and faults public acts of exhibitionism for their "fifteen minutes of fame."  We have healthy "secular" shriving which takes place in wonderful 12 Step programs of people who are deliberate about amendment of life and reparation.  At the heart of Shriving is the understanding that we are connected with each other both in sin and in virtue.  No sin is "private sin" and the heart of Shriving is to know that one's faults can affect the community adversely.  Being Shriven is a way of acknowledging one's connectedness with community and over-coming the denial phrase, "It's okay if it doesn't hurt anyone."  Strive to make your community life one of forgiving and not retaining the sins of others, and if one's sin is a problem, go see a Shriver.  And gets some pancakes on Shrove Tuesday as a bonus.

Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2016

If our lives are continual metamorphoses of being the same person with different and changing appearances, we journey to Ash Wednesday when with extrapolative imagination we fast forward our bodies to their ashen and dusty manifestations as the pride of everlasting bodily life gives way to the realism of mortality.  In the words of the Requiem kontakion we chant, "you are dust and to dust you shall return for so did God ordain. Yet even at the grave we make our song, Alleluia!"  To disperse the lingering crowds at an Elvis concert wanting to see or touch the "King," the PA announcer would exclaim, "Elvis has left the building."  The ashes of Ash Wednesday are a proclamation to grave lingerers, "He or she has left the body."  Ashes are the final appearance of bodily metamorphosis before reintegration with other atoms of the created order.  Such an reintegration erases the trace of our bodies and in faith we look for a higher preserving force with a Memory to reconstitute our existence in other ways.

Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2016

The collect for Transfiguration Sunday invites us to continual metamorphosis.  In the life cycle of the butterfly there are changes in appearance which are so stark that each stage is given a different name for the resulting "appearance:" egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.  Human life is a longer metamorphosis than the life of a butterfly.  One could understand spiritual metamorphosis as spiritual cycles within the human lifetime in a process of transformation toward the higher values espoused by the witness of Christ and driven by the Holy Spirit.

Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2016

What is the difference between individual self surpassability and comparative statistical surpassability?  The two are related in the sense that the standards for my own self improvement are influenced by my social setting.  But in comparative statistical surpassability one has metrics of comparison; Henry Aaron hit more career homeruns than Babe Ruth.  The statistical comparison establishes surpassability in the specific categories of hitting homeruns.  How does one deal with surpassability in areas where the metrics do no lend themselves to quantifiable statistical comparison?  How does one compare Moses, Elijah and Jesus, who were different religious figures in different ages with entirely different "constituents?"  Do we count the number of loyal devotees?  The religious leader with the largest congregation is ipso facto the best and the statistical superiority is a valid proof?  Lots of statistical "winners" have turned out to be some pretty "rotten" people.  The early Christ communities were trying to establish the connection of Jesus of Nazareth with the important people of the Judaic-Hebrew tradition, men like Moses and Elijah.  Even as the Gospels provide a genealogy of Jesus through the actual bloodline, they are also concerned about the spiritual genealogy of Jesus.  Jesus is in spiritual succession with Moses and Elijah.  Moses and Elijah were not included in the messianic genealogy for Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  In the messianic line of succession Christians proclaimed Jesus as one greater than David and in the spiritual succession they believed him to be one who surpassed Moses and Elijah.  Why did the community get into comparisons in the first place?  It probably has do with the specifics of "loving the one you're with."  The focus of love upon one's favorite mentor renders the vocabulary of the superlative: "No one can compare to the one whom I love."  The New Testament is not impartial writing.  Its premise is essentially, "No one can compare to the One whom we love, Jesus."  Take the writings of the New Testament for what they really are, i.e., love testimonials for the favored one, Jesus.  One does not have to diminish or dismiss those who have other loves and who have not had the "love event with Jesus."  Love is a different kind of metrics than statistics.

Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2016

The writings in the Bible include many kinds of metaphors for the spiritual journey of faith, in faith.  Terrain, weather phenomena, elevation and light and darkness.  The Mount of Transfiguration account includes the journey up a mountain.  It includes clouds and light.  Clouds signify the "fuzzy and liminal" zone between empirical mind and unconscious mind where the uncanny sense of being touched by the luminous happens.  Light can be the result of blindness caused by being overwhelmed by the experience of plenitude and when the eyes adjust to what can be seen, one's highest insight occurs as the breakthrough encounter with person, or event or some other providential beckoning.  The mountain top experience includes a panoramic view of the journey one has taken to get to the top and so from the top one's past life is given a new providential perspective.  The significance of the past is re-invented from the mountain top.  For the early Christian community the significance of the tradition of Moses and Elijah was completely re-valued and re-providentialized in light of the new experience of Jesus Christ.

Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2016

The event on the Mount of the Transfiguration has elements that one finds in the art of necromancy when the liturgy of a séance is held to consult with the deceased.  On the Mount, the deceased Moses and Elijah appear representing the Hebraic-Judaic traditions.  Traditions and the people who constituted them are dead in the absolute past and yet the past speaks through traces which have been handed on within traditions.  That past speaks through the texts of the tradition and the  current spokespersons of the Tradition who interpret it.  Is a new event faithful to our Tradition?  Regarding this new prophet Jesus, what would Moses say?  WWMS bracelet anyone?  What would Elijah say? (WWES)  Let there be a conjuring of Moses and Elijah to get their opinions on Jesus of Nazareth.  And what happened?  The voice of God the Father spoke and trumped the tradition of Moses and Elijah: "This is my Son, the Chosen, listen to him."  The séance was over, Moses and Elijah were gone and there was Jesus alone.  The higher authority of God the Father conferred the identity of His Son.  This event is a legitimizing parable of how the authority of Jesus was established by the early churches vis a vis the chief representatives of the Hebraic-Judaic tradition.

Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2016

Who were the "no shows" or uninvited to the Mount Transfiguration events?  None of the Patriarchs; why not Enoch, Noah or Abraham?  Why not the great Judge Samuel?  Why not the idealized Messiah, King David?  Why not Ezekiel, Jeremiah or Isaiah?  Elijah and Moses were the two witnesses who were invited into the vision of the Mount of the Transfiguration.  They were known in apocalyptic literature and regarded to be "deathless" figures "Assumed" into heaven and therefore sort of escalator figures between heaven and earth, able to ascend and descend.  They were credible witnesses in Judaism who would have the authority to confer the validity of Jesus as an Innovation, but as an Ordained Innovation in Salvation History.  Moses was pre-messianic since he came before the oil anointings (from which messiah is derived)  of the kings of Israel.  The prophets were religious figures who functioned during the monarchy to guide or correct monarchs of Israel regarding their "anointing" or messiahship, namely their fidelity to the Law given by Moses.  So the list of attendees at the Mount of the Transfiguration: Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah and Jesus and the Voice of God (the Father?) makes the perfect Seven.  One can see in this the members of the early church claiming a valid transition from Judaism through Jesus to chief apostles of the church, since the New Testament is largely an apology for how and why the church separated from the synagogue.  Christianity is a continuity with the Jewish traditions but not the same continuity which has prevailed within the synagogues.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2016

If one were going to write the special effects of a theophany what would one include?  How would one write about the twilight time between leaving a dreamlike visionary state and returning to one's "ordinary" mind?  Mountain top location for the archetypal meeting place between divinity and humanity.  Clouds to signify the mystery of not being fully able to fully connect the visionary state with the ordinary state of mind.  Things get "fuzzy."  Lots of light especially highlighting the central focus of the vision within the clouds.  Reconnoiter with famous mountain top men of the past, Moses and Elijah, who are associated as apocalyptic figures who unveil the meaning of events.  Cue the voice of God as another element conveying authority.  Include some star-struck students who are not sure what to make of the "shock and awe."  Highlight what the new message is; in this case not the Law of Moses, not the Prophetic message of Elijah but the Person of Jesus Christ.  And finally, write about its secrecy; no better way to gain literary curiosity than to say something should be kept a secret.  To include the secret in the writings of the Book with the largest readership in the history of the world is an invitation for the reader to seek to know the secret in a personal way.  The report of the theophany of the Transfiguration reveals the method of mystagogy (teaching the mystery of Christ) in the early churches.

Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2016

An old preacher was asked about his favorite Bible words and he replied, "And it came to pass."  This is a King James Bible translation of a Hebrew phrase used with some ubiquity in the King James Version of the Bible.  And it came to pass means "it happened."  It is a marker of the passage of time in the sense of differentiation of events such that one stands out to be recorded by the recorder of history.  The season of the Epiphany is a season of "manifestation" of Christ to the people of this world.  We today live in the Christly Effect as we can say that "Christ Came to Pass" in being realized to a greater degree than most people in the history of the world.  The repeating biological cycles of life are called the process of metamorphoses.  There are static states in this process where appearance does not seem to change and then "it comes to pass" that a butterfly struggles to manifestation as being gloriously different from the previous appearance as a seeming lifeless cocoon.  The Last Sunday after the Epiphany highlights the event of the Transfiguration, a translation of the Greek word from which derives metamorphoses.  In the cycle of the life of Jesus it came to pass that his light shined a bit brighter in that people took note of him because of the life changing effects which he had upon them.  In his risen life, Christ becomes a part of the metamorphosis of one's life in effecting states of differentiation which give one confidence that one is progressing in the art of living.  A cocoon and a butterfly have life equally but their manifestations are different.  The events of the manifestations of differentiation are milestones of progression.  Our spiritual lives could be view as in repeatable cycles of metamorphosis and we in preparation are always looking for the slow cumulative effects that render some significant "breakthroughs."

Daily Quiz, February 2016

Daily Quiz, February 29, 2016

Which of the following is John Cassian known for?

a. being a hermit
b. emphasizing religious life in community
c. carrying the tradition of the desert Fathers to Gaul
d. helped to elect a pope

Daily Quiz, February 28, 2016

To frame his brothers for stealing, Joseph had his silver cup planted in the possession of which of his brothers?

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

Daily Quiz, February 27, 2016

Which of the following was not penned by George Herbert?

a. The Country Parson
b. The Altar
c.  Easter Wings
d. Holy Living, Holy Dying

Daily Quiz, February 26, 2016

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, "I wish that all were like myself am."  To what was St. Paul referring?

a. bearing the marks in his body of the sufferings of Christ
b. a worker apostle, as a tent maker
c. unmarried person
d. tolerant of Gentile Christians

Daily Quiz, February 25, 2016

Who were the two sons which Jacob had with his wife Rachael?

a. Reuben and Asher
b. Asher and Levi
c. Joseph and Benjamin
d. Benjamin and Dan

Daily Quiz, February 24, 2016

Which of the following best characterizes the significance of the witness of St. Matthias?

a. patron saint of alcoholics and carpenters
b. ministry in Cappadocia
c. his martyrdom, stoned and beheaded
d. the restoration of the number of disciples to twelve signifying the church as the "new" Israel

Daily Quiz, February 23, 2016

Which Apostolic Father knew John the Evangelist and received his appointed office from John?

a. Clement
b. Justin Martyr
c. Polycarp
d. Irenaeus

Daily Quiz, February 22, 2016

The Israelites became slaves in Egypt.  How did they get embedded in Egypt?

a. Joseph went to Egypt
b. Abraham went to Egypt
c. Jacob went to Egypt and settled there when famine hit Canaan
d. Isaac visited his half brother Ishmael in Egypt and stayed

Daily Quiz, February 21, 2016

In the biblical "official" bloodlines, how are the Jews and Egyptians related?

a. through Abraham and Hagar
b. the Israelites inter-married with Egyptians in the captivity
c. Joseph married Asenath, an Egyptian and mother of Manasseh and Ephraim
d. Jacob took an Egyptian wife

Daily Quiz, February 20, 2016

The phrase "seven lean years" comes from what biblical context?

a. judgment of Samuel on Saul's sins
b. an interpretation of Joseph of the Pharaoh's dream
c. Nathan's issue of the punishment for David's sin with Bathsheba
d. Elijah's proclaimed prediction for Israel under King Ahab

Daily Quiz, February 19, 2016

When the jail mate of Joseph, a baker, dreamed about birds eating from the baking goods that he carried on his head, what did this mean?

a. that the Pharaoh would release him from prison
b. that he would be hanged
c. that he would be restored to his role as the royal baker
d. that Joseph would become the Pharaoh's right hand man

Daily Quiz, February 18, 2016

Which of the following is not true regarding Martin Luther?

a. he was an Augustinian monk
b. a legend says he threw an inkwell at the devil
c. he wrote an anti-Semitic book
d. he is the patron saint of Germany

Daily Quiz, February 17, 2016

Who was Onesimus?

a. a slave who belonged to Philemon
b. a runaway slave
c. a companion of St. Paul
d. all of the above

Daily Quiz, February 16, 2016

Which brother of Joseph intervened to keep the other brothers from killing him?

a. Asher
b. Simeon
c. Benjamin
d. Reuben

Daily Quiz, February 15, 2016

Which of the following is not true of Joseph, son of Jacob?

a. his mother was Rachael
b. he was his father's favorite
c. he was given a special multi-colored garment
d. he was a dreamer
e. as son of Jacob, Joseph is the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel
f. he rose to prominence in Egypt under a Pharaoh

Daily Quiz, February 14, 2016

Love birds became associated with feast day the martyred St. Valentine in these lines from what poet?    "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."

a. Dante
b. Chaucer
c. Spenser
d. Shakespeare


Daily Quiz, February 13, 2016

Which of the following in not true regarding Absalom Jones?

a. he was the first ordained African American Episcopal priest
b. he founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia
c. Bishop White made his path to ordination easy
d. he was born in slavery

Daily Quiz, February 12, 2016

Which of the following prophets spoke in the name of God saying, "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone?"

a. Isaiah
b. Malachi
c. Ezekiel
d. Jeremiah

Daily Quiz, February 11, 2016

What is the derivation of the word "Lent?"

a. comes from the Latin meaning 40
b. comes from the Greek meaning 40
c. probably comes from the Old English word meaning "spring"
d. is past tense of lend and refers to "borrowed time"

Daily Quiz, February 10, 2016

How are the ashes of Ash Wednesday produced?

a. burning cedar wood
b. burning the dried palms of Palm Sunday
c. any burned wood
d. comes from burned dry grass


Daily Quiz, February 9, 2016

The act of shriving on Shrove Tuesday refers to what?

a. a priest hearing private confession and declaring absolution
b. using up of fat and lard for making pancakes
c. using up fat on "Fat Tuesday"
d. being shriven means the penance of self-flagellation

Daily Quiz, February 8, 2016

In theology what does the term "kenosis" refer to?

a. the kinship of God and humanity
b. the incarnation described as the self-emptying of God in appearing as Jesus
c. an alternate word for Genesis or beginning
d. the miraculous moving of things by the power of the mind

Daily Quiz, February 7, 2016

In various traditions which of the following were "assumed" into the heavenly after life?

a. The Virgin Mary
b. Moses
c. Elijah
d. Enoch
e. all of the above


Daily Quiz, February 6, 2016

For which of the following women did Laban figure as a "bridal" broker?

a. Rebekah
b. Leah
c. Rachael
d. all of the above

Daily Quiz, February 5, 2016

When Abraham's servant went looking for a bride for Isaac what was one of the first gifts he gave to the bride-to-be?

a. gold necklace
b. gold nose rings
c. golden ring
d. silken veil


Daily Quiz, February 4, 2016

Where was Sarah, wife of Abraham buried?


a. Somewhere in Egypt
b. Under the oaks of Mamre
c. In the cave at Machpelah in Hebron
d. In Jerusalem

Daily Quiz, February 3, 2016

According to religious tradition Mount Moriah where Abraham went to sacrifice his son is where?

a. Temple Mount in Jerusalem
b. Mount Gerizim in Samaria
c. Marwah near Mecca in Arabia
d. Depends upon Jewish, Samaritan or Islamic affirming sources


Daily Quiz, February 2, 2016

February 2 is

a. Candlemas
b. Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary
c. Ground Hog Day
d. Feast of the Presentation of Jesus
e. all of the above


Daily Quiz, February 1, 2016

According to biblical record and Jewish tradition what person might most literally be called "salt" of the earth?

a. Ado

b. Edith

c. Lot's wife

d. All of the above

God's Patience and Fertilized Lives

3 Lent      Cycle C       February 28, 2016

Ex.3:1-17          Ps. 103:1-11           

1 Cor. 10:1-13     Luke 13:1-9       

Lectionary Link    

  I'd like to tell you about my wife's Meyer Lemon tree.  Karen purchased this tree to be planted in our yard to provide us with the wonderful fruit.  It was planted and yet it did not take off.  It just remained sickly and scrawny.   After a couple years, I suggested that we get rid of it.  But my wife was the perpetual advocate for this failing little tree.  She suggested it needed a better location, several times.  I really didn't like to deal with moving it since the only fruit that it had was long thorns which would snag my hands.  Karen, had a way of prevailing, and we put the little tree in a new location and redid the soil around it with lots of fertilizer and lots of that stuff which makes mushroom compost smell so stinky in the Mushroom city of California, Morgan Hill.
  Well, my wife's patience paid off and we finally saw some wonderful lemons, even though many were ruined because of a very harsh freezes last year.  But this year was the year for our little Meyer Lemon tree.  This year it has given us several hundred lemons and there are still many to pick.
  The little lemon tree needed an advocate who would not give up on it, and the little lemon tree found a patient advocate in my wife.
  The punchline of the Gospel reading today is about a gardener having patience to give the fig tree another year and another chance to bear fruit.
  It is interesting to note the context for this little parable about patience.  It was the answer of Jesus Christ to the mystery of why things happen?  Why do some accidents befall to some people?  Why do some people experience unwanted cruelty in this world?  Bad things, evil things are so much a deviation from and a deprivation of the normalcy of goodness, we want to have some cosmic answers about why bad things happen.  If we can blame people and say that they must have done something bad to be repaid with badness, then we feel like the universe which has the random play of free events, somehow is part of a conscious plan of predetermination or karma.  It gives us a sense of control if we can speculate about "karma" and fate.  St. Paul noted that  in the record of the people of Israel there was presented a simple connection between peoples' sins and God immediate punishment for their sins.  We know that we cannot always be so precise about the immediate connection between bad deeds and specific punishment for bad deeds.
  Jesus showed us that such questions about causation of accidents are more often about bargaining and denial in the grief process.  Our speculation about causes can actually be victimization if we pretend to think that we know specifically about why certain bad things happened to other people.
  What does Jesus imply as the answer as to why the bad things befell some people?  He indicated that none of us is exempt from the range of probable events of freedom in this world.
  But what is the greatest thing about freedom?  Freedom implies a future.  Freedom implies the endless patience of God for some future fruit to come to the lives of people.  Freedom implies that there will always be the organic cycles of nature.  Todays flowers and plants will be tomorrow's dead looking stuff which goes into compost but the dead looking stuff of the past is used to fertilize the context of our present lives so to provide nourishment for the fruit of the future.
   Freedom is the constant creation of God and that continuous creative freedom of God means also that God is patient about what can yet be.  God is patient for what can yet be for you and me.
  But why did the gardener only mention about giving the tree only a year for bearing fruit?
Even though freedom implies an endless future, the changing states in life means that we need to have motivational milestones.  God's creative continuous freedom needs to have our specific free choices towards excellence toward, fruitful living.  We need to have deadlines for our free choices to motivate us.
  Life is about the freedom of our good choices interacting with the patience of God always to give us more time in this life and the life to come.
  The story of Moses is a story about the patience of God.  Moses believed that he had a providential calling to help save his people.  He was providentially spared from the infanticide of the Hebrew boys inflicted by the Pharaoh.  He was raised in the palaces of Egypt by an Egyptian princess.  Moses knew that he could not neglect his people from his place of privilege and he believed that he was ideally suited to lead the revolution of the Hebrew slaves against the Pharaoh.  His attempts to begin the revolution were great failures and he fled as a fugitive into exile.  He gave up his call.  "What's the use God?  It did not happened and even my Hebrew brothers did not accept me.  I am getting far away to start a totally new and unrelated life to my past."
  And it was then that the patience of God returned to speak to Moses and convince Moses that he was still called to lead the revolution of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.  Moses was so self-disappointed and self-disillusioned, he could not believe that God was calling him to return to the place of his former great failure.
  So Moses' past life became the compost formed during a dormant phase of his escape but that compost of his past life meant that his interior life was open to a new experience of God as one who was going to be the new ability of his life.  Yes, Moses had the skill and the background from his time in the palace of the Pharaoh, but he came to know that it would be God's presence which would bring fruit, success and liberation for his people.
  God's freedom in always offering us a future.  The compost of our lives is the dead past of our lives, even our failures.  This dead past is added to our present personal freedom to respond to God's continual patience to give us more chances at success and fruitful lives.
   You and I still live within the crucible of all of the features of the tests and ordeals of life.  God's permissive freedom allows all of the actual occurrences of life.  Some of those occurrences are happy and some are sad and we are given the choice to let the events of the past serve a better present and future.  The test or the ordeal always involves the continual patience of God in giving us more chances for better lives, even while this patience of God requires our free response to take the best paths before us.
  I hope that this season of Lent finds you with some hopeful excitement about being within the great test of life, including the welcoming patience of God ever to give us more chances to lure us to better choices.
  Remember it is more important to ponder what to do in the present with the past events of our lives, rather than to load our selves down with morbid introspection about why we think things have happened in the way in which they have.
  Let us salute the great patience of God to give us another year, another month, another week, another day, another hour, another minute, another second, in this world or the world to come.  And may we honor the patience of God with some fruitful outcomes. Amen.