Sunday School, October 2, 2016 C proper 22

Sunday School, October 2, 2016     20 Pentecost, C proper 22

Themes

One can use the C proper 22  or themes associate with St. Francis and The Blessing of the Animals

At St. John the Divine, we use the liturgy and the occasion as a time to promote awareness of stewardship role toward our animal friends but also highlight our responsibility to care for our beautiful creation.

The Blessing of the animals and the blessing of the beauty of creation is inspired by our thanksgiving for our animal friends and for the beauty of creation.

Our thanksgiving come enjoyment.  From thanksgiving we move to blessing.  We ask for a joyful relationship with our animal friends and with creation.

But with enjoyment, thanksgiving, blessing joyful relationship we move to our responsibility.  To show our responsibility we make vows to be those who take good care of our animals and the beautiful creation.

In our blessing of the animal liturgy we make vows; we promise to good care of our animal friends.

How do we care for our animals and our beautiful creations?

We take care of our pets.  We treat them with kindness.  We also help with the animal shelters.  We promote the humane treatment of animals.

We promise to take care of our environment.  We recycle.  We pick up trash.  We preserve our water.   We support laws which will make sure that people after us will be able to enjoy the beautiful earth.

Gospel theme

Jesus told parables about mustard seed faith.  What he meant by this is faith is not some superhero act; faith is all of the very small faithful things that we do which collect and they grow to be big and important things.

Do you graduate from college when you start kindergarten?  No.   But when you graduate from college it means that you have faithful to study and learn every day for about 22 years.  Graduating from college is a great achievement but it does not happen overnight with magic.  It happens because all of the small individual faith acts of learning.  So Jesus reminds us that if we want to accomplish big and important things, it starts with each individual “small” act of faith.  This is what Jesus meant by mustard seed faith.

Sermon for the Blessing of the Animals.

Today we celebrate the life of St. Francis.  St. Francis was a man who came from a wealthy family.  But he decided to leave the family business and try to live his life just like Jesus lived his life.

  He decided to live his life with people who were poor.  He decided to take care of people who were sick and poor.

  St. Francis became a friend of animals; the birds used to fly down and rest on his shoulders because they were not afraid of him.

  Today, we are going to honor the life of St. Francis by blessing the animals of our lives.  But we are also going to do something else.  We are going to make promises to God to take good care of our world.  We are going to promise to care for the air, water, plants and trees.  Why?  Because we want all people in the future to be able to enjoy them.  We are going to promise to take care of our pets and animals too. 

  The world of plants and animals provide so much to help us live.  So we need to be good at protecting our world so that our world will continue help people live for a long, long time.

  Today, we thank God for our wonderful world of animals, trees and plants. 

  And the way that we thank God, is to promise to take good care of the world that God has given to us.  And to take care of the pets that we enjoy as our friends.

 

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

and Blessing of the Animals

October 2, 2016 The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

Gathering Songs:

Morning Has Broken, If I Were a Butterfly, Make Me a Channel of Your Peace, All Things Bright and Beautiful

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

People: And blessed be God’s Kingdom now and forever.  Amen.

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

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

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

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: Morning Has Broken (Blue Hymnal # 8)

Morning has broken like the first morning; blackbird has spoken like the first bird.  Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!  Praise for them springing fresh from the word.

Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven, like the first dewfall on the first grass.  Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, sprung in completeness where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight!  Mine is the morning born of the one light Eden saw play!  Praise with elation, praise every morning, God’s re-creation of the new day!

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

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

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

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

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

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

Liturgist:    A reading from the Book of Lamentations

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord.

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 8

You give men and women mastery over the works of your hands; *you put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, * even the wild beasts of the field,

The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, * and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For our animal friends and pets, past and present. Thanks be to God!

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.

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Fr. Cooke:

Collect for the Feast of St. Francis

Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation with perfect joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Vow to Creation

Celebrant:  Will you cherish the beauty of the Good Earth that God has entrusted to you, and will you do all in your power to preserve its beauty for own age and for the people of the future?

Response:  I will with God’s help.

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Word of God that issued from God’s mouth and created all things and God’s Spirit moved over the deep and made creation happen; you have called creation good, and we celebrate the goodness of creation which you have given to us to enjoy and tend; Bless the Good Earth and its fruits, and us as we commit ourselves to stewardship, in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Vow to our Animal friends

Celebrant:  Will you promise to love, enjoy, and care for all God’s creatures, and especially for the pet whom you present for a blessing?

Response:  I will, with God’s help.

Blessing:

Lord Jesus Christ, your friends, have brought to you these special friends:  Bless we pray these delightful creatures, and grant that those who tend to their care will take delight in all of God’s creation, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Song sung during the blessing of each Animal: If I were a Butterfly

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

Chorus:  For you gave ma a heart and you gave me a smile.  You gave 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.  And if I were a kangaroo, you know I’d hop right up to you.  And if I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord, for my find looks, but I just thank you Father, for making me, ‘me.’  Chorus

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

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

People:                        And also with you.

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

Offertory Song:  I Sing a Song for the Cat and Dog, Tune (blue hymnal # 293)

1-I sing a song for the dogs and cats

Rabbits and donkeys too,

Their big soft hearts will love us still no matter what we do.

And one is a pony and one is a hen

And one is a pig waiting in a pen.

As I care for these saints and the earth around,

I’m learning to be one too.

2-I sing a song for our furry friends,

loyal and faithful and true,

who bark and mew and fetch and scratch for the love of me and you.

And one was a rabbit and one was a cat

And one was a Schnauzer and one was a rat.

They are all God’s creatures - - great and small

and we honor one and all!!!

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 God.”

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 up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.

Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we

   Forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(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.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

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

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

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death, 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 may rejoin their parents and take up their instruments)

Our Father (Sung): (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 by thy name.

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

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

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

Breaking of the Bread

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

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Word of Administration.

Communion Hymn: Prayer of St. Francis

Make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.  Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord, And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.  Refrain

Refrain:  Oh, Master, grant I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace.  Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.  Where there is darkness only light, and where there’s sadness ever joy.  Refrain

Make me a channel of your peace.  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving to all men that we receive and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.  Refrain.

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: All Things Bright & Beautiful (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 12)

Refrain:  All things bright & beautiful, all creatures great & small, all things wise & wonderful, the Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings, he made their glowing colors, he made their tiny wings.  Refrain

The purple-headed mountain, the river running by, the sunset, and the morning that brightens up the sky.  Refrain

He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God Almighty, who has made all things well.  Refrain

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

Aphorism of the Day, September 2016

Aphorism of the Day, September 30, 2016

As much as we wished that Jesus had not told parables about slaves since he should have been more enlightened before his time in our post-resurrection view of him as some superhero, Jesus and his words were constituted and mediated by the cultural codes and practices of his time.  Jesus as incarnation of God is the anthropomorphic principle of people exercising the right to know the more than human, suprahuman Being of God limited and emptied into human contexts.  It begs the question as to if human practices at any given time "soil/diminish" the transcendent principle of the divine perfect being.  In Pauline language, the "kenosis" or emptying of divinity into the less than the divine mode as a way for the less than divine to know the divine, is the assumption behind all encounter between God and the human experience of God.  It is true that what is perfect always get humanized through human approbation, for indeed, we are always, already, "all too human."

Aphorism of the Day, September 29, 2016

As if size matters, the disciples asked Jesus, "Increase our faith."  Jesus replied if you had the faith of a mustard seed, implying that the disciples could increase their faith by adding the quantity of individual deeds of faith.  Through the continual practice of faith, faith becomes the character of one's life and then the uncanny becomes normal.

Aphorism of the Day, September 28, 2016

Uncanny faith outcomes?  With "mustard seed" faith one can command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea.  What would be comparable in "real" life?  An obscure prophet named Jesus crucified to become out of sight, out of mind, has his teachings take over the Roman Empire. 

Aphorism of the Day, September 27, 2016

The quotable Jesus?  Uprooting mulberry trees and planting them in the sea?  Seems like a rather fantastical goal for one's faith.  Come see what I've done by faith:  I've planted a mulberry orchard in the lake.  How about something more useful like solving world hunger and world peace?  Perhaps the hyperbolic point of Jesus is that through deeds of faith the seeming uncanny can occur.

 Aphorism of the Day, September 26, 2016

When what is normal and good and healthy becomes valorized as being heroic it is an indication of how far general practice has slipped.  Charity today is regarded as doing extra heroic giving.  A generous person gives us a million dollars and we want to be congratulated for having the grace and the intelligence to take it.  The sign of a pampered generation is when people want to be perpetually congratulated for doing things which are good and healthy for their own well-being.  That might be okay for children in training but as adults we are supposed to be child-like in meekness, not childish in behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, September 25, 2016

Jesus told a rich man to sell all he had and give it to the poor.  Francis of Assisi was from a wealthy family and he left his wealth to become poor and help the poor.  Jesus said "Blessed are you if you  who are poor for the kingdom of God is yours."  It is rather ironic for wealthy Christians to sell religion to people who are already poor and bless them for being poor.  If wealthy Christians take to heart the words of Jesus they would realize that they are not in the state of blessedness because of their wealth.  Being poor is the attitude switch that we all need in that we should acknowledge our "poverty" of ownership over anything in this life.  We brought nothing, we take nothing from the world.  While we are here we borrow or administer what is given.  How do we administer what we are given?  Does our administration of what we are given include the creativity to make sure everyone has enough?  The inequality in the distribution of wealth in the world is the greatest human failure in creativity.  How is it that feeding the people of the world is never regarded to be the most creative work of humanity?

Aphorism of the Day, September 24, 2016

"There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it."  Godliness and contentment involves a  return to the traces our "birth" state.  A baby comes into the world with "nothing" in not knowing or caring what he or she is to possess.  The metaphors of being "born again" or receiving the kingdom of God as an infant or child perhaps refers to the ultimate regression therapy of Christian mystagogy, namely, reactivating the memory of the joys of gestation and birth.  This is to know the experience of being content, joyful and happy for no reason at all and certainly not because of what one has in terms of material possession.  Christian mystagogy is about the return of the "repressed" joy of birth itself with a distilling contentment which is able to regulate all of the other circumstances of life, some of which may be counter-contentment.

Aphorism of the Day, September 23, 2016

"You can't take it with you" is found in 1 Timothy: "we brought nothing into the world so we can take nothing out of the world."  This reflection is probably without telling meaning for people more concerned about what lies between the bookends of birth and death.  Pre-life and afterlife wealth does not seem a big concern for people who want to collect quantity of stuff during their lifetime.  Threats about retribution and judgment in the afterlife does not seem to affect those who elevate greed to a human virtue of quantitative superiority.  What we did bring into the world is the gift of "spirit" denoting our being in the image of God.  Nurturing the renewal of this "spirit" through the Holy Spirit is the task of seeking the quality of life, to accompany whatever quantities in life which might befall our material well-being.  What we take from this life is the permanent groove of our character.  Do we want to leave this world as the "meek" who inherited the earth because we knew that our Daddy/Mommy God had given it all to us, or do we want to leave this earth with the character of greed, the pride of having way too much bullies of richness who could mock or simply ignore the poverty of others?

Aphorism of the Day, September 22, 2016

"Neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."  A major functional purpose of the Gospel writings is a polemic against the members of the synagogue who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, viz., those who do not accept the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ.  The polemic is ambiguous since the intent is to convince and even threaten at the same time.  It is anachronistic since it is a more heated rhetoric of Pauline Christo-Judaism which is interwoven into the presentation of the life of Jesus in his own time. 

Aphorism of the Day, September 21, 2016

In reading the Gospels, one can fall into "double-literalism."  By this one can view the story situation of Jesus as actual modern historical writing and then further try to figure out a parable of Jesus by assigning literal people exposed by the "secret" meaning of the parable.  To counter this double-literalism, one needs to understand that the Gospel narratives of Jesus use "oral traditions" about Jesus to present the concerns of the post-resurrection Christ communities.  One can credit the attempts of the writers to avoid blatant "anachronisms" in their presentation but it still is obvious that concerns of the subsequent apostolic period are planted within the narrative, e.g. Jesus speaks about building a church when "church" was not even in the vocabulary of his time.  Parables are tools which allow interpreting parties to project meanings and so one can assign "good guy/bad guy" roles in literal ways.  But in a more Wisdom appropriation of the parables, one can find that the parables themselves illustrate general scenarios which provokes some wise insights about why things are the way they are without making the content of the parable a "causatively absolute" reason for why something does happen.  Behind literalism is a pride which boasts about being "particularly" more knowing about the specifics than other people not within one's hermeneutic circle.


Aphorism of the Day, September 20, 2016

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  You cannot serve God and wealth.  It is hard for a rich person to inherit the kingdom of God.  One could say that these writings about wealth in the New Testament were generated within communities which struggled with the age old problem of wealth inequality.  These would not have been written if there were not members of the Christian communities who were not wealthy so the writings themselves are evidence that there was a socio-economic diversity in the early churches such that the preachers were using rather strong words to "guilt" the wealthy to perhaps share.  The Gospel of Christ is not supposed to be the Robin Hood mentality of stealing from the rich to give to the poor; it is supposed to be the inner work of the Spirit persuading people to sharing and generosity so that all can have enough.  That there are so many stark warnings about wealth in the New Testament writings, particularly in the oracles of Jesus shared within the early churches, attests to the fact of wealth being an issue of the early churches.  In Christ, there was to be no rich, no poor but if that were true the rich would help to remove the class distinction, at least within the egalitarian community of Christ.

 Aphorism of the Day, September 19, 2106

In a parable of Jesus, the afterlife of two people is illustrated as a wealthy man being on the opposite side of a great chasm from a poor leper named Lazarus.  The wealthy man wanted to be with Lazarus but he had arrived at the opposite side because he had neglected the poor Lazarus every day of his life.  Moral of the story:  socio-economic class segregation can be the everlasting character of one's life such that it becomes the defining character of one's afterlife.

Aphorism of the Day, September 18, 2016

You cannot serve God and wealth.  Serving wealth means that we are "greedy collectors" of things because in frightful insecurity we think quantity of stuff can give us the false sense of ownership in the proverbial "possession is 9/10 of the law."  Serving God means that we are inheriting children of God of the delights of creation and the way in which we can serve God with what we have on temporary loan while we live is through enjoyment, gratitude and generosity.

Aphorism of the Day, September 17, 2016

You cannot serve God and wealth.  This is an update upon the Ten Commandments.  Primary veneration of God means that one does not have other gods, or graven images of the same, that one does not steal or covet and that one gives one's time to God (Sabbath).  Interesting to note that during New Testament times, the concern was less about idols representing gods and goddesses; the graven image had morphed into money and wealth which is the more formidable competitor with the service and worship of God.  We are less likely to venerate idols of gods and goddesses today; we still are tempted to spend the majority of our time with managerial devotion of all of the stuff that we own, which begs the question, do we own it or does it "own" us?

Aphorism of the Day, September 16, 2016

From the Pauline church as we know it from the writings, it was written, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."  In the early churches which read the Gospel of Luke, the oracle words of Christ were heard, "You can't serve God and wealth."  Genuine conversion to the Risen Christ is known through the relationship that one has with one's money and wealth.  The prescribed relationship is that all that we have belongs to God and we are God's stewards of the blessing of our wealth.  Wealth is a curse if we are not rightly related to it.

Aphorism of the Day, September 15, 2016

Jesus told a parable about a shrewd embezzler who cut deals for his financial future after his imminent dismissal from his managerial position.  And then the punchline of Jesus: He wished that the children of light were as diligent about their "eternal" well being.  A life dilemma has to do with how much easier it seems to be motivated by our physical well-being than our spiritual well-being.  And yet it is the chaos of our inner spiritual lives which often wrecks our physical and emotional lives.  To wit: Take care of your insides.

 Aphorism of the Day, September 14, 2016

We tend not to be shocked that the words of Jesus often include the metaphors of slave and master, as in being a slave to God or to wealth.  We probably don't think that the image of God as the "benign" slave owner is the most favorable image of God.  "God treats all of the divine slaves well" does not have very politically up to date sound to it.  It still sounds offensive.  Being a slave refers to a perpetual state and class identity.  Where are we not in control of our lives?  Where do we not have freedom?  If we project our desires upon ownership of things such that our own compulsion leaves us without freedom, then the condition of addiction would be the loss of personal freedom.  In the order of Plenitude, we did not have some of the greatest freedoms, like where we were born or whom we were born to.  We don't have freedoms in the face of accidents; accidents means that free choice was not determinative.  So in the face of the greater freedoms of Fate, we serve with our lesser freedoms.  As limited as our freedoms are given our actual power to control everything in the universe, we do have the freedom to acknowledge a Higher Power, not as random configuration of events happening to us, but as a divine Personality with a caring beneficence toward us.  Master/slave dialectic might have been the metaphor of choice in societies which accepted slavery as a matter of cultural economic practice; we need to translate today this metaphor into other kinds of studies in the relative freedom which we humans have to "co-determine" events of our lives.  The point is that we need to experience the freedom of an "interior" Higher Power to help us from being controlled by the addictive behaviors of letting desire's projections linger on things and people to the point of idolatry.

Aphorism of the Day, September 13, 2016

You can't serve God and wealth  UNLESS God is your WEALTH.

Aphorism of the Day, September 12, 2016

In language oxymorons are used to nuance meaning by using contradiction to actually provide the mood of intense meaning.  So one might say that someone is "awfully nice" to mean "very, very nice" even though "awfully" is a negatively tinged word.  The parables of Jesus often use the negative to reinforce a positive.  "leaven" or yeast which refers to corruption or defilement is used to illustrate how the kingdom of grows; starts from a small culture and stealthily influence the entire piece of dough.  In another parable, Jesus highlights the cheating and embezzling habits of a manager and states that the children of light should be correspondingly good with their lives.  One cannot serve God and wealth, but one should have at least as much greedy motivation to serve God as does the one who is greedy to be wealthy.

Aphorism of the Day, September 11, 2016

One can see the subtle change in the meaning of sinner in the New Testament.  Sinner seemed to at times be used to designate the person who did not properly observe the ritual purity of religion.  Sinner was a group designation.  Sinners as group designation can and has happened in every religious group to refer to the people who are "not with us."  It refers to the class of people called "infidels" or the people who don't have "our faith."  Jesus and John the Baptist are presented in the Gospels as making a sinner an individual before God who can change one's status before God through an individual act of repentance.  The former group designation of sinners, known as Gentiles, were granted individual status as individual sinners who could change their status before God by receiving the Holy Spirit.  And in this transaction the sinner was made to participate in God's purity and holiness and thereby lose their former "outsider" status.

Aphorism of the Day, September 10, 2016

In the tradition of St. Paul, he is presented as a self-confessed violent man, blasphemer, persecutor, such that he was the foremost of sinners.  (1 Timothy) His plea? He had acted in ignorance so God had mercy upon him.  And so the chief work of Jesus as confessed by the Pauline churches was to "save sinners."  One sees the ignorance attached to forgiveness in the words of Jesus from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."  Our world today is full of the ignorance of violence, blaspheming and persecution; can the mercy and forgiveness of God still be effective in converting the ignorant to cease their violence and persecution?  And what are we to do when the conversion of the ignorant has not yet happened?  Who stood up for St. Stephen when he was stoned with Saul of Tarsus standing by?  There is no glory in seeking to become a martyr to the ignorant violence of others; martyrdom is a posthumous designation of last resort.  Part of the human dilemma is the waiting period for God's mercy to convert the violent and the unjust who live in the ignorance of their activity.  What is not ignorance is the protection of the innocent and the practice of love and justice.  Waiting for God's mercy to convert the ignorant cannot absolve human diligence in strategies of protection for the common good.

Aphorism of the Day, September 9, 2016

Jesus told the parable about the "lost" to indicate the value of people to God.  Jesus was looking for people whom others had forgotten.  As we near the 15th anniversary of 9/11 we might ponder the condition of "lostness" in our world today.  In some ways, the entire populace is lost by the conditions created by the rise of "death cult" terrorist groups which were born in reaction to regional conflicts and responses of super powers.  The proliferation of "death cults" now engage the entire world in the state of lostness, living in fear itself.  Fear is the general deprivation of its opposite, Faith.  The lostness of today's world is that we have been deprived of the normalcy of Faith and we pray that God would become manifest in finding us and bring us all back into the normalcy of Faith.

Aphorism of the Day, September 8, 2016

The experience of losing something and then finding it was a parable of Jesus describing God's experience with humanity.  The image of God on humanity is like the gps device within humanity.  Like a lost child at a mall looking for a parent and the parent looking for a child, there is the drama of the experience of the lost one and the caring parent.  Jesus was angry at religious people who represented God as primarily angry at sinners.  Jesus countered by presenting God as one who was primarily the happy one when a sinner was relieved from the state of alienation and the compass of God's image brings the sinner to his or her true humanity.

Aphorism of the Day, September 7, 2016

A criticism of Jesus in the Gospel by his religious opponents was, "He eats with sinners."  In the Judaic context a sinner would have be someone who did not follow the ritual purity codes of Judaism and therefore was a "defiled" person.  In the early Church, this parable of Jesus presented in an "as if it really happened" fashion is a revelation about the practice of Holy Eucharist in the burgeoning Gentile church.  The Gentile Christians were the ritually impure people who were invited to "eat/partake" of the Presence of Jesus every time they had communion.

Aphorism of the Day, September 6, 2016

Actuarial wisdom would suggest to the shepherd if out of 100 sheep, one was lost and strayed away, then the statistically motivated shepherd should just accept the loss and tend the safe 99 in the fold.  Unless the shepherd has a unique attachment to each of the sheep and a love that will not allow the shepherd to accept the loss of even one.  Jesus said the heart of God is to know and value each and so if one has become lost and alienated from the safety and protection enjoyed by the many, when it comes to the value of each person, God does not make anyone a statistical category.  The loss of one is not acceptable.  A great issue in life is to feel lost and alienated from the acceptance of a significant community; some people live within the community and still feel lost, or undervalued.  To become a part of a caring community it may be important first to sense the loss and experience in one's interior life, being valued by God and re-established by God into the esteem of the entire universe.  This is an esteem which enables one to become one who truly values the worth of others because of God's seeking heart.

Aphorism of the Day, September 5, 2016

Among the insights of the book of Job that purports to be about "bad things happening to good people," the writer also is asking for the readers to have humility about presuming to know too much about why things happen.  We create meanings about why things happen from our human traditions as a way of preserving identity in the face of the barrage of experiential data which confronts us all of the time.  The writer of Job is perhaps arguing that in a Plenitude of all, the fact that an infinite number of particulars in various relative and causal relationship with an infinite number of mutual and co-existing particulars means that we cannot presume to have exact and precise knowledge of cause and effect relationships.  Our theology can be simplistic probabilistic theory of "if you do good, God will bless you with success."  There is lots of wisdom in that probablism because it is obvious that if one does not murder someone, then they will be blessed with the condition of not being charged with murder.  Probability theory and good theology of practice compliment each other but when it happens that a person who did not murder gets charged with murder, the exception to the theory challenges the blessing formula.  Job because of his suffering was charged as being guilty of some unconfessed or secret sin that he himself did not know about.  When it comes to the freedom involved in the human condition the "chaos" theory is applicable more than in "science" since human blips which occur as exceptions to actuarial theories are more rampant and seemingly random than the occasional blips in scientific data that cause scientists to pull their theoretical hair.  In short, the behavioral patterns of weather which sometimes evade exact prediction because of the influence of unknown "negligibles" are more exact than what can and does happen to human beings.  Theological formula really are only probability theories of statistical approximation of what "might" happen in any situation.  Job, is one who exemplified the exception to the theological formula and the writer of Job was perhaps saying, "People, theology and meaning are not yet a closed book, because God and theology still have a future."  The appropriate future of theology is to respond to need and if theology becomes the habit of responding to human need then theology will have a future because it will have escaped its previous strait jackets. The writer of Job was proclaiming that the "whirlwind" of God deconstructs easy probability theories as to why things happen.

Aphorism of the Day, September 4, 2016

One wonders if there was not a radical re-socialization that characterized the early churches expressed in Pauline terms as "in Christ, there is no Jew, no Greek, no Gentile, no male, no female, no slave, no free."  The message of the Gospel indiscriminately was embraced by people across the normal "structures" of society and encouraged an equality of "fellowship" even between people who weren't supposed to be equal.  This radical egalitarian expression of baptism among diverse people was perhaps a nascent birth of the "individual" or the individual attaining merit because of an inner spiritual change.  The church would go on to become institutionalized and "feudalized" and the individual become lost within the corporate anonymity presided over by the only legitimate Christian agents, i.e., the clergy.  The Enlightenment and the Reformation brought about again the "rebirth" of the individual in that the individual was not just to be passively assimilated into a the church as the baptismal machine of everyone in the realm.  The participation of the individual in embracing spiritual change presaged the participation of the individual in democracies which require individual freedom to participate in the collective governance.  Church polity today is still expressed on a continuum of the feudal church expression and the church of the isolated autonomous congregation.  Ironically, it is secular governments which give the individual permission as to where and how to participate in the continuum of polity of the churches.

Aphorism of the Day, September 3, 2016

Words of Jesus: "None of you can be my disciple unless you give up all your possessions."  These hard words for Christians who lived on after the early age when many in the early church believed that the world would end soon either through martyrdom or a cataclysmic "second coming," had to be dealt with when the world lingered and when Christians grew to become the majority religion.  How can successful and settled Christians who are going to be around in an enduring world, literally follow the words of Jesus?  The way to deal with this dilemma gave rise to two classes of Christians, the monastic-religious-clergy who came to take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and the ordinary class of Christians who were to follow the 10 commandments.   Many of the oracles of Jesus pertained in the era of an "apocalyptic world soon to end atmosphere."  If the world is soon to end then why raise children or have a family or build a home or collect possessions?  The "disciple" of Jesus had to be ready for this world to end and become the Spartan who would forgo earthly comforts to spread the message.  These strong strains of "apocalyptic" discipleship behaviors are found in the Gospel and other New Testament writings, such as in the letters of Paul.  The first New Testament writing, 1 Thessalonians is about the issue of the end of life as we know it, so the "family value" sayings pertain to this state of urgency about the imminent end of the world.

Aphorism of the Day, September 2, 2016

Some of the most poignant human conflicts occur in family division over religious commitment.  One could make the case that the entire New Testament is an explication of the family division between Judaism and the nascent communities that confessed Jesus as the Messiah and admitted ritually impure Gentiles to their membership.  Stark language of separation characterize the oracles of the words of Jesus in the early churches and recorded in the Gospels. Examples:  a disciple of Jesus had to hate one's family and when Jesus was presented with his mother and siblings, he said "those who do the will of the Father were his family."   The message of the oracle of Jesus was about a "new birth" into another family.  "Not born by the will of the flesh or the will of humanity but born of God."  The heroes of the words of Jesus are children and babies because they symbolize the condition of spirituality needed for this new birth that surpassed one's flesh and blood birth.  The stark "anti-natural family" words of Jesus are the ironic hyperbole which exposed the conditions of divided families over religion of the early Christian Movement and the words are strikingly harsh and strong because they express the reality of what was actually happening in families divided over religion.  Christians and Jews became people who were divided over having a "Common Yahweh." (note, out of respect for the holy name, Jews do not presume to pronounce "Yahweh;" they often read Adonai, instead.)

Aphorism of the Day, September 1, 2016

The letter of Paul to Philemon is asking Philemon to receive back his runaway slave as a "brother" in Christ.  This attest to the strong belief that the early Christians had in believing that the Holy Spirit created within them the true DNA of family relationship.  It also could account for the oracle of Christ issuing a "koan" about "hating one's family" to be His disciple.  There was a new "family value" program in the early church; flesh and blood had become replaced with Holy Spirit as the essence of true familial relationship.  Seems radical in its time and still radical today.

Quiz of the Day, September 2016

Quiz of the Day, September 30, 2016

Who of the following was not a Bible translator?

a. John Eliot
b. Jerome
c. William Tyndale
d. John Wycliffe
e. Miles Coverdale
f. Edward Sapir
g. Martin Luther
h. Miles Coverdale

Quiz of the Day, September 29, 2016

What is Michaelmas?

a. a feast for non-human beings
b. a feast for Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel
c. a feast for the Archangel Michael
d. sometime a name for the fall term at a seminary or church school
e. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, September 28, 2016

Which of the following mystics wrote "The Scale of Perfection?" (aka "The Ladder of Perfection")

a. St. Teresa of Avila
b. Walter Hilton
c. Margery Kempe
d. Thomas Traherne
e. Richard Rolle
f.  John Climacus

Quiz of the September 27, 2006

Which of the following best describes Thomas Traherne?

a. A supralapsarian
b. A Metaphysical poet
c. A Pelagian
d. A monk of Lindisfarne


Quiz of the Day, September 26, 2016

"It is more blessed to give than to receive."  These words are attributed to Jesus and in what book of the Bible are they found?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John
e. Acts of the Apostles

Quiz of the Day, September 25, 2016

The tongue is compared to the rudder of a ship, a fire and a bit of a horse in what book in the Bible?

a. Psalms
b. Proverbs
c. Ecclesiastes
d. James

Quiz of the Day, September 24, 2016

Which prophet to Judah is associated with the reign of King Uzziah?

a. Hosea
b. Amos
c. Jeremiah
d. Isaiah

Quiz of the Day, September 23, 2016

What is the Masoretic Text?

a. a very early text for the New Testament
b. a text of the Bible found among the Masoric people
c. Official Hebrew and Aramaic text of Hebrew Scriptures of Rabbinic Judaism
d. an ancient translation of Hebrew Scripture into Aramaic


Quiz of the Day, September 22, 2016

What record of "book burning/scroll burning" is found in the Bible?

a. the Torah was burned by the Chaldean armies
b. the Book of Maccabees by Antiochus Epiphanes
c. the magic books by Christian converts in Ephesus
d. the writings of Simon Magus

Quiz of the Day, September 21, 2016

In the story of Esther what is the name of the hateful antagonist of Mordecai?

a. Ahasuerus
b. Haman
c. Bigthana
d. Teresh


Quiz of the Day, September 20, 2016

Which of the following is not true of the man Apollos who is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles?

a. He was a Jew
b. He was from Alexandria
c. He had the baptism of John
d. He became a companion of Paul in his mission

Quiz of the Day, September 19, 2016

Which biblical figure said, "If I perish, I perish?"

a. Jesus
b. Paul
c. Esther
d. David

Quiz of the Day, September 18, 2016

Purim is the Jewish holiday which derives from the book of Esther, a story of the saving of the Jewish people from the plot of the wicked Haman.  What does "pur" in Purim refer to?

a. the wicked plot
b. lot or method of selecting the day on the calendar
c. a Persian word for "Queen"
d. gallows, on which the wicked Haman was hung

Quiz of the Day, September 17, 2016

The Bible is a book about the knowledge of God in the experience of humanity.  How many times is the name of God mentioned in the book of Esther?

a. once
b. twice
c. three times
d. nil

Quiz of the Day, September 16, 2016

Why was Queen Vashti replaced with the new Queen Esther?

a. the king preferred Esther's beauty
b. the king wanted to marry a Jew
c. Vashti refused to come to the king when bidden
d. Esther was married for a political alliance

Quiz of the Day, September 15, 2016

Which of the following "heretical" groups used the writings of Cyprian to bolster their position?

a. Peligians
b. Donatists
c. Docetists
d. Arians

Quiz of the Day September 14, 2016

Who built the first temple in Jerusalem?

a. David
b. Moses
c. Melchizedek
d. Solomon

Quiz of the Day, September 13, 2016

Which of the following saint had a surname meaning "golden-tongue?"

a. John of Constantinople 
b. Basil the Great
c. Gregory of Nyssa
d. Gregory Nazianzus



Quiz of the Day, September 12, 2016

What does "Behemoth" refer to in Job?

a. an alligator or crocodile
b. hippopotamus
c. Elephant
d. rhinoceros
e. dinosaur
f. a large animal living in/near water and eats grass

Quiz of the Day, September 11, 2016

Where does one find the phrase, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great?"

a. Daniel
b. Ezekiel
c. Maccabees
d. Revelation

Quiz of the Day, September 10, 2016

What does the Gospel of John record the High Priest Caiphas as predicting about Jesus?

a. he must be turned over to the Romans
b. he must die for the nation of Israel
c. he must be punished for blasphemy
d. he must by punished for misrepresenting Judaism

Quiz of the Day, September 9, 2016

At the Council of Jerusalem where the validity of the innovation of the mission to the Gentiles was confirmed, who spoke the definitive statement of confirmation?

a. Simon Peter
b. James of Jerusalem
c. Paul
d. Barnabas

Quiz of the Day, September 8, 2016

Which of the following was the "earliest" Church Council?

a. Nicaea
b. Constantinople
c. Jerusalem
d. Ephesus
e. Chalcedon

Quiz of the Day, September 7, 2016

Spirit, Bride, Alpha, Omega, Bright Morning Star are found in a canticle from what book of the Bible?

a. Daniel
b. John
c. Ezekiel
d. Revelation

Quiz of the Day, September 6, 2016

In John's Gospel, the discussion about Jesus being "Son of God," Jesus responds to his shocked interlocutors by quoting a Hebrew Scripture about humans being "gods and sons of the Most High."  What Hebrew Scripture did Jesus quote?

a. Genesis
b. Isaiah
c. Psalms
d. Job

Quiz of the Day, September 5, 2016

Albert Schweitzer, organist, physician, humanitarian and theologian wrote a book, "The Quest for the Historical Jesus."  In this book, he argues that Jesus should be primarily seen as

a. an apocalyptic prophet
b. a wisdom teacher
c. a wonder working healer
d. a rabbi founding another rabbinical school of thought

Quiz of the Day, September 4, 2016

Which of the following is not a metaphor for Jesus in the Gospel of John?

a. gate
b. shepherd
c. Good Shepherd
d. Way
e. Truth
f. Word
g. Letter

Quiz of the Day, September 3, 2106

Who is Prudence Crandall?

a. A Quaker saint on the Episcopal calendar of saints
b. A founder of a school which admitted a black child in 1831 in Connecticut
c. A person who closed her school because of fear for safety of her children
d. All of the above

Quiz of the Day, September 2, 2016

Which of the following biblical character says, "I have escaped by the skin of my teeth?"

a. David
b. The Psalmist
c. Jeremiah
d. Job

Quiz of the Day, September 1, 2016

A recent liturgical observance for the time September 1st through October 4th is called what?

a. Holy Cross Month
b. Rogation
c. Season of Creation
d. Harvest Festival

The Character We Take to the Grave

19 Pentecost, Cp21, September 25, 2016 
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6: 11-19  Luke 16:19-31

Lectionary Link

  How did the Grand Canyon form?  Millions of years of water and wind erosion formed a great gap.

  Today's Gospel includes a parable about a grand canyon in the afterlife.  On one side of the canyon is a rich man; on the other side is a poor man named Lazarus.   In the afterlife, justice is shown to be a reversal of roles for the two parties.  The rich man is in torment and the poor man is in bliss.

  This parable presents to us a major problem in life.  The Grand Canyon at a future point in everlasting life represents the great divisions in life which have formed through the gradual erosion of people living on the flat and equal ground of mutual care.  As people neglect each other and as it becomes their regular habit, it becomes the character of their lives.

  What are some of the grand canyons of our lives?  Rich, poor, white, black, Christian, non-Christian, North, South, Republican, Democrats, citizens, immigrants.  We are threatened today by the great divisions of our lives.  The divisions may have group or mob elements about them, but they also have individual elements.

  The message of Jesus Christ in the early churches was a message of liberation for the individual to gain freedom from being dominated by the great group divisions of their time.  St. Paul proclaimed that in Christ, there was no Jews, no Gentiles, no male, no female, no slave, no free, no rich, no poor.  In Christ there was a new creation.    What did that new creation mean?  Did it that there were no longer Jews and Gentiles?  Did it mean there were no longer male and females?  Did it mean that there were no longer slaves and persons who weren't slaves?   Did it mean that there were no longer rich people and poor people?

  The new creation proclaimed by Paul was what he also called being a citizen of heaven.  And each citizen of heaven had the equal presence of God's Holy Spirit.  This equality of the presence of the Holy Spirit is the new creation which St. Paul spoke about.

  What good is the presence of the Holy Spirit if the group divisions continue in life?

  I think that the program of the early churches was a pragmatic program.  It was based upon the fact that vast societal changes could not be forced overnight.  Vast changes happening over night occur with dictatorships or revolutions.

  In the Christian program there was the building of micro-communities called churches.  These micro-communities were communities where people of diversity practiced the art of fellowship.  The art of fellowship was when people celebrated the Spirit of God upon their lives and they learn to practice equality within their different life experience.  They did not let their differences hinder the practice of fellowship.  And if these micro-communities of fellowship were successful, they could be a gradual influence upon the society at large.  And what happened?  Eventually these micro-communities influenced the entire Roman Empire.

  On the social level the Christian church is suppose to be people of one equal Holy Spirit living in fellowship with people who have differences of life identities and life situations.

  I would say the one of the greatest influences of the fellowship of the church has been the aspirations expressed in the ideals of the United States of America.  In our Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution we have tried to write into law what group fellowship means in practice.  Group fellowship in society at large means the practice of justice for all.  Our American history shows us that the victory of Christian fellowship has not yet converted our entire system in the complete practice of justice.

  We can be very difficult on ourselves, and we should, even while we should be thankful for what we have achieved in the practice of justice.  We are to very self critical because we cannot be satisfied until the perfect fellowship of justice prevails among everyone.  Our society today experiences the birth pangs for further perfection in our fellowship.  The events which express the failure of love, fellowship and justice show us that our country is not yet living up to its ideals.  People cry out for equal treatment under the law.  We all cry out and pray for the perfection of human fellowship within our country.

  The parable about the rich man and Lazarus means that the practice of division and separation became the everlasting character of the life of the rich man.  The rich man in his afterlife regretted his life when he was shown the logical conclusions of how he had lived his life.

  What you and I need to learn from this involves us to contemplate the everlasting character of our lives which is being formed by our life practice.  Is our life practice evidence that we have begun to form permanent divisions in our attitudes and practice between ourselves and other people?  Do we want our life practice to become the everlasting character of our lives that we will take to our afterlives?

  The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the practice of fellowship in the church means that we are given the opportunity to overcome our divisions with the practice of the fellowship of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are gathered as a parish to practice fellowship;  we want this practice to be evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit for us to practice mutual love.   And from this practice, we want to influence the world that we live in.  We want the fellowship of the love of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit to win our lives, the life of our parish and the life of our world.  And even if others do not agree with us in our faith practices; the practice of love and justice has no religious borders, no socio-economic borders and no ethnic borders.

  Let us open our hearts today to have exposed any areas of division that are subtly becoming the character of our lives, the character that we will take to our graves.   Let us embrace the good news about Jesus Christ to bring peace, love and justice to our world and overcome the deep erosion of divisions forming the grand canyons of separation.

  May we find Christ to be the bridge over every great canyon of separation in our lives.  And may we follow the admonition of the writer of James: Be rich in good works, ready to share and generous. Amen.